Conor Fitzgerald - Fatal Touch

Panebianco sat down and nodded at Investigating Magistrate Gestri.

Gestri wore the tense grimace of a man who was traveling fast on a motorbike toward some important fate. His hair was swept back, his chin pointed forward, his cheekbones high, the tendons on his neck stretched forward. He remained seated, one hand gripping the edge of the table.

“We have the files here,” he said. He pointed to a short stack of file folders held together by red tape on the table. He clenched a yellow pencil in his teeth, took it out, and examined the bite marks. “Get them. That’s essentially my only instruction here. This is a crystal clear, linear exercise. It requires almost no investigative work. I shall concentrate my energy on shattering the understanding between the culprits and those who allowed them to operate.”

Gestri released the edge of the table, cracked his knuckles, glared at the papers like he wanted to set them on fire with his eyes, and said, “The extortionists are a repeat offender called Leo Leporelli and his monkey, Giacomo Scariglia. They went back to Krishnamachari, and kept going back, and Krishnamachari kept reporting them to us.”

Panebianco stood up again. “Here we have the usual stuff,” he said. “They superglued his locks, spray-painted the front, exploded three or four carton bombs at night, smashed the windows, followed Krishnamachari home, followed his wife. This wife has to go to a factory in Pomezia and uses the buses from EUR to get there. So Krishnamachari accompanies his two children on foot to school every morning, picks them up again in the afternoon. Sarjan is eight and Sabina five. This afternoon after school, they’re crossing the road at the traffic lights just outside the school, daughter on one side, son on the other, a Pathfinder doing about 55 runs the light, plows into the three of them, continues on its way without slowing. Hundreds of people about, nobody got its registration. But we know who it was. We know this because one of Leporelli’s friends reported his Pathfinder stolen a few days before.”

“Like they wanted to taunt us,” said Rospo from behind Blume.

Blume felt he had been among his men for long enough, and left his seat. He walked over to the table beside Panebianco, and addressed the room. “I don’t think it is because they wanted to taunt us, I think it’s because, like most criminals, they are morons. They probably think reporting a vehicle stolen covers them.”

Panebianco slipped a report over the desk and Blume glanced at it. “Inspector Panebianco and Deputy Inspector La Magra arrived on the scene around thirty-five minutes after the incident.” He looked at Panebianco. “Anything to add, Rosario?”

“Well, the son died on the road, twenty meters away from his father. He was still alive on the street when we got there. This is because the ambulance took a long time coming, then the crew spent some time trying to immobilize him, and then, in the end, trying to resuscitate him. He was alive and speaking. Usually the shock stops that, but not this time.”

“What about the girl?”

“The daughter’s critical. The hospital says she could suffer brain damage, but it’s too early to say. They operated last night to relieve the pressure on the skull, but I don’t know how it went.”

Blume asked, “Is that it?”

“Yes,” said Panebianco. “I can’t think of anything else-regarding the scene.”

“La Magra?”

The Deputy Inspector stood up. The year before La Magra had got married, and invited the whole department to the wedding. Blume happily contributed to the gift. Unsure about what the invitation was supposed to mean, he asked around the office. There was a lot of eye-rolling and shrugging, and muttering about not even knowing the guy. It seemed clear that no one was going, so Blume made a weak excuse and opted out. It was not until about a month later that he realized he was the only person in the department who had not been there. Since then, La Magra had started referring everything through others so as not to deal directly with Blume. He was doing it again now, his gaze fixed steadily on the magistrate who was squinting intensely ahead. But as he listened to the young man, Blume felt the words were intended for him.

“Yeah, well… I saw nothing… Nothing useful for the investigation. There weren’t even skid marks to measure. The bastards didn’t brake, they accelerated.” He paused, and his gaze flickered toward Blume, who nodded encouragingly. He liked the young man, and kept meaning to congratulate him on getting married.

“A bit later,” continued La Magra, “when the medics had given up and put sheets over the two bodies, the mortuary men went in with the body bags.” He stopped as if to check that Blume was following the description in his mind’s eye. “So, one of the medics goes over to retrieve the sheets from the bodies. He takes the sheet off the father, whose arms are stretched out so wide, one hand had been visible all the time. He pulls at the sheet, takes two corners, and one of the mortuary men comes over to help. He takes the opposite two corners of the sheet and, together, they fold it up. Then the medic goes over to the child, and he picks up the sheet covering him, gives it a quick shake, and snaps it likes this”: La Magra mimed the action. “Then he folds it, tucks it under his arm.”

La Magra attended to an itching above his eyebrow and shifted his gaze to a space behind Blume’s right shoulder. “You see? That second sheet covering him, all it needed was one single fold.”

Blume took out a pen and opened his notebook. He did not need to write anything, but La Magra needed a space in which to recompose himself without Blume scrutinizing his face.

“We know it was these guys?” said Blume, pen poised over the page. He glanced up to see Panebianco nod. “Right. Then we’ll get the bastards. Like the magistrate said, we don’t need too many detectives. You, me, Grattapaglia until… well, when Grattapaglia takes some leave of absence, maybe Inspector Mattiola can take his place.”

When the meeting was over, Gestri reached over and tapped Blume on the arm.

“Can I have a word? In private?”

“Sure,” said Blume. He clapped his hands loudly. “Come on, clear the room. I need to talk to Magistrate Gestri alone in here. Come on, come on!”

When the room was empty, he nodded to the magistrate. “OK, so what is it?”

“That wasn’t exactly subtle.”

“You mean you don’t want anyone to know you’re having a private word with me? You should have said.”

“No, no. I suppose it’s fine like this. I wanted to talk about tactics and explore the possibility of a shortcut. These two extortionists operated with the express consent of a Camorra gang in Ostia. They paid a fee. The gang won’t be happy with what’s happened, and to make it even less happy, I’m going after their commercial interests, or I’m going to make a big show of it. Can we put out the word that as soon as we have these two the pressure stops? Speed things up a bit. I’ve been asked to deal with this as fast as possible.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” said Blume. “But they could turn up dead.”

“I don’t prosecute corpses, so alive is best.”

“OK. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Do you know someone who can get a message through to the Ostia gang? Preferably through unofficial channels.”

“Yes,” said Blume. “I do know somebody who’s rather good at that sort of thing.”

Blume headed back to his office, telling Panebianco to send Rospo in.

Ten minutes later, Rospo arrived, a fug of cigarette smoke coming off him.

“Have you finished your report on the mugging of the Chinese couple?”

“No.”

“Why not?”