Conor Fitzgerald - Fatal Touch

“Without any great interest, I’m afraid.”

“Keep listening, then. Today we did not get as far as reporting a crime, which is one of the reasons you have little to fear from this conversation we are having. No one from here filed a notification with a magistrate. Our instinct was that this might be a death by misadventure. But seeing as there is also some mad mugger operating in Trastevere, picking on foreign victims, we were going to look at that, too, and incorporate Treacy’s death into an ongoing investigation already under the direction of a magistrate. All nice and simple, so far. Yet, a few hours later, a new magistrate and the Carabinieri are investigating. Well, that’s fine, too. This sort of thing occasionally happens, especially when we stumble into something that another force is already investigating. The Carabiniere who arrives on the scene is a colonel, no less. Former director of the Art Forgery and Heritage Division. The dead man is a forger. Well, that definitely suggests the existence of a prior investigation, doesn’t it? And if there was one, you were at the center of it along with Treacy, but you did not mention it. Perhaps you did not know?”

“If there was an investigation into us, I did not know,” said Nightingale.

“By law, you must receive an official notification that you are under investigation. You never got one?”

“No.”

“So it seems there is no investigation, or was none until this morning. But the magistrate, a very flexible man who is susceptible to persuasion from powerful people, says there is an investigation. And then I have the pleasure of a chat with the Colonel himself, and it turns out he, Treacy, and you go way back.”

“I am still not sure what you are implying,” said Nightingale. “Perhaps you might be a little clearer?”

“I find the sudden investigation into a suspicious death that has not yet been declared suspicious to be suspicious.”

“Ah, much clearer now. Who says the art of explication-”

Blume cut across him. “Don’t test my patience, Mr. Nightingale. The obvious conclusion to this is that you warned the Colonel about the notebooks.”

“That’s not the only obvious conclusion.”

“It’s the one I choose to draw,” said Blume. “Refute me.”

Nightingale spelled out his words with great deliberation: “I did not tell the Colonel about the notebooks.”

“That’s not a refutation, it’s just a denial.”

“It’s also the truth.”

He was lying. Blume was sure. But he was pleased, too. It was as much and more than he had hoped to get out of the interview.

“And now you tell me, Commissioner, how do you know these writings that you say you have not seen are contained in notebooks?”

Blume and Nightingale sat there looking at each other, neither embarrassed at his own discovered lies, both annoyed at the other’s. After a while, Blume said, “If I have Treacy’s writings, I will soon read them and discover whatever it is you wanted kept quiet. You might as well tell me what it is.”

“I just did. His claims and revelations regarding paintings I sold…”

“I see,” said Blume. “You’re hoping that whatever it is, Treacy did not include it. Perhaps someone killed him beforehand?”

Nightingale stood up. “I think next time we speak, I shall have my lawyer with me.”

Blume had enough to form three interesting hypotheses. The first, almost a certainty, was that Treacy had written something neither the Colonel nor Nightingale wanted revealed, which logically implied it was something the Colonel and Nightingale had done together. The second, probable but not certain, was that the Colonel learned of the existence of the notebooks only recently, or he would have moved to seize them earlier. The third hypothesis, possible and far from certain, was that the Colonel had had Treacy killed to keep him quiet. If that was the case, Nightingale should not be feeling too safe either.

Blume pulled the first notebook out of his drawer, but before he had a chance to open it, his desk phone rang.

“The Questore wishes to speak to you,” said a secretary at the other end of the line.

This formality, designed to heighten the dignity of office, infuriated Blume beyond what was reasonable. If he wants to speak to me, said Blume’s mind in a well-rehearsed and unspoken rant, then all he has to do is phone and start talking, not instruct his unctuous secretary to inform me about his interest in eventually…

“Commissioner. You have a serious disciplinary problem in your squad, and your detection and closed case statistics are a disaster.”

The bastard could get straight to the point when he wanted. There followed a detailed account of a complaint received from the secundo secretario of the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See. In his reply, Blume tried to insinuate a note of surprise into his voice regarding the unaccountable complaint from the Spanish diplomat. But the Questore was having none of it.

“ Nun ci prova’, Commissa’. If you try to make out like you don’t know what’s happening, it’s going to look like incompetence on your part.”

“OK,” said Blume. “Point taken.”

“Give him up, whoever he is, or you’ll take the full brunt of this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, who is it?”

“Can’t we get some time to work this out, see whether my man needs some backup witnesses or is willing to accept full responsibility?”

“I want to be able to talk about the one bad apple in a squad otherwise made up of upstanding heroes, Blume. I don’t want a show of solidarity that implicates the whole fucking force in the thumping of a diplomat. You have until tomorrow morning. You’re not too busy to deal with this, I hope?”

Blume made the beginnings of a response, but the Questore said, “No, listen. I don’t want to hear that you’re busy.”

“OK. You won’t hear that.”

“You are particularly not busy with the dead foreign forger. Leave that to the Carabinieri, please, before you manage to offend another league of nations.”

“Just a few loose ends to clear up, then it’s straight over to them,” promised Blume. “Though it is to be wondered what the basis of the sudden investigation…”

“No, it isn’t. Nothing is to be wondered at. Hand it over now. You know why I want you to do that? Let me tell you why: It’s so you can concentrate your efforts on improving international relations down there. The American visitor your local mugger robbed last month? Turns out his brother-in-law or cousin or someone owns GM Italia and carries clout. Another victim was a NATO negotiator-that makes two assaulted diplomats by the way.”

Now was definitely not the time to mention Rospo’s failure to file a report on the mugging of a Chinese couple.

“It’s not much to ask, is it? I mean, catch a mugger. Skim all the scum off the streets, hold them in five adjacent cells. Eventually they’ll pick out or kill off whoever got them arrested. Come on, Blume. And let me repeat this: Keep away from the dead forger before you offend the British Embassy, too.”

“I think he was Irish,” said Blume.

“Are you trying to be funny?”

“No, sir. It’s just he was Irish.”

“Great. Well, that means your mugger has probably done all the EU by now, including the minor states. So, head on plate of the policeman who beats up diplomats-I am appointing an external investigator today-and catch your mugger. Clear?”

“Very clear.”

Blume had only just hung up and was still making obscene gestures at the phone when Panebianco knocked and, without waiting for an invitation, entered. He always did this: it was part of his efficiency, so Blume had decided not to tell him to stop. Still, it was annoying.