Conor Fitzgerald - Fatal Touch

“Just what I think,” said Blume. “He already has a beard in the photo on his ID card which dates from eight years ago. You can just make out the scar there. See?” He showed her the disintegrating ID card.

She read: “Eye color: blue; height: 182 cms.” So far it was a description that suited Blume better than the sad shadow lying at her feet. Surely he wasn’t that tall? She took the card out of Blume’s hand and read the rest of the details: “Nationality: Italian; civil status: single; profession: artist; distinguishing marks: left-handed.”

“That’s strange,” she said.

“What him being Italian but born abroad?” said Blume. “No, that’s perfectly normal. Lots of people are born abroad.”

“No, the bit about left-handedness. Usually that’s for things like a mole, a missing finger, or in his case, scar on left side of face. Visible stuff.”

“So he must have felt being left-handed was important to others instead of just to himself,” said Blume. “If you ask me, that is just the sort of self-centered bullshit you would expect from an artist. Artists need to be knocked down the social scale again, maybe to about the level of barbers. Same goes for dentists and surgeons and musicians. All hands, no brains. Overpaid for being a bit dexterous. Like soccer players, if you think about it.”

“Not a tramp, though,” said Caterina, daring to interrupt. She was pleased. She did not want her first body to be a nobody.

Blume said, “He had three euros in coins in his wallet. Not a single banknote.”

He paused, and Caterina realized she was meant to contribute. She said, “So he must have spent it.”

“You think so? Why not assume someone stole it? If we are hypothesizing that someone hit him over the back of the head, then it is logical to assume a theft-if assuming on the basis of a hypothesis is a logical way to proceed, which it isn’t by the way.”

Caterina stayed silent for a moment pretending to understand, then spoke cautiously, watching Blume’s face for signs of irritation. “They’d have taken the wallet itself, not just the money inside. And if it was in his pocket, they would have had to remove his wallet, take the money, then put it back, leaving fingerprints. It doesn’t work.”

“Good. I agree,” said Blume. “But of course, the wallet was bagged and taken off by the technical team who will look for fingerprints anyhow. Now, that dimple mark on the back of his skull, what weapon could have caused that?”

Caterina didn’t know where to begin.

“I don’t know either, but it’s more consistent with falling and hitting your head on a protruding cobble while drunk than being hit over the head with a heavy weapon like a bat. Maybe I’m wrong. We’ll see from the autopsy. Two receipts were found in his pocket. They give us the name of two bars, one he visited last night, one from a few nights ago. I have two men on that already. Both bars are closed at this time. So we’re tracking down the owners, find out who was serving last night. The main thing is to identify who Treacy was with, if anyone. We need to find out who was the last person to see him alive.”

Caterina heard the sound of a two-stroke motor ricocheting up the walls of the houses. She waited and a few moments later, a black-and-blue three-wheeled Piaggio Ape van carrying nets of carrots and a thin man appeared, got into animated conversation with a policeman at the closed-off entrance on Via della Pelliccia, then retreated, motor snarling.

“That guy just breached my security cordon,” said Blume.

“Maybe he lived in one of the three houses between Via del Moro and here,” said Caterina.

“Which is why your idea to close off only this piazza was better than my idea to block off the connecting streets,” said Blume. “When you see I’m being stupid, let me know, will you? We need to close off the piazza now.”

Caterina realized the city was coming to life. She could hear vehicles moving down Lungotevere Farnesina, rushing while they still could. Shutters had opened, and coffee smells had percolated down to the piazza. Radios were playing and front doors were opening, and people were trying to step out into the piazza from the surrounding buildings, then stopping as a uniformed policeman yelled at them. Hardly any of them stepped back inside, but their not moving forward and intruding on the crime scene was accepted as a fair compromise.

“It’s morning, Inspector,” said Blume.

“Good morning, Commissioner,” she said. She should phone her son who woke up early, even on Saturdays. Especially on Saturdays.

“This is the beginning of chaos,” said Blume. “And I want you to do your best to manage it, Inspector. You have eight uniformed policemen plus yourself. Not me, not Panebianco, nor any of the technicians. We can’t help. Sovrintendente Grattapaglia will be here soon. Let him show you the ropes. He’s got years of experience at crowd control, setting up the house-to-house interviews, picking out likely witnesses, all that sort of stuff. He’s known to be grumpy in the mornings, mind, so don’t annoy him. Every civilian you talk to is going to have an unassailable reason for having to traverse the area, so don’t talk to them. There are going to be doctors on call, surgeons on their way to save a child’s life, politicians with connections on their way to an important vote, a surprising amount of people working for essential services, engineers on their way to rescue old women locked in elevators, teachers giving exams, lawyers with cases, judges with sentences, criminals and rebels who want to compromise the scene on principle. You’ve got your work cut out for you here. Think you can do it?”

“Yes.”

“I bet you the price of breakfast you can’t stem the flow for more than twenty-five minutes. But that’s all we need, or, better, that’s all we can expect to get. You can’t close down a place like this for long.”

Caterina would have preferred to be invited to do the walk-through with Blume and Panebianco than to be sent off to do sentry duty, but she did as ordered. First she walked in a circle staying close to the fronts of the buildings around the piazza, telling people to step back inside the doorways, but it was like a game of Whac-a-mole. As soon as she passed, they reappeared. She went over to a group of three policemen standing at the corner of Via della Pelliccia, where they had stretched a piece of crime scene tape across the lane, tying it to a no-entry road sign on one side, and a leg of one of the bar chairs on the other. The bartender, who had put out his chairs and tables, was now inserting a patio umbrella pole into a metal base.

She called out to the nearest policeman, the younger of the two she had seen in the dark, and instructed him to walk counterclockwise around the piazza, making sure people stayed indoors. “Don’t talk to any of them, just order them in,” she told him. He lingered for some time, on the verge of refusing, but eventually set off at a very leisurely pace. She turned to the barman who had unfolded the vinyl beer umbrella with Tuborg written on it. “That can wait.”

The bartender looked skywards, then fitted the umbrella pole into its base. “I know. The sun doesn’t reach here until two. But customers like these umbrellas to be up. Makes the place more visible.”

“You’re setting up your bar in the middle of a crime scene. I said it can wait. Step inside your bar, please, and keep it closed until we say you can open. Is that clear?”

“You want me to send out the two policemen having a cappuccino, then?” said the bartender, and opened the umbrella.

“Yes, I do.”

The bartender put his hand against the door jamb and called out, “Agenti, you’re wanted.”