Conor Fitzgerald - Fatal Touch

The fire crew parked their engines on a bed of cream narcissus flowers in the garden and attacked the fire from there, leaving the street outside free. It soon filled with Carabinieri from the neighboring barracks, some of them under umbrellas, and a crowd of American students from John Cabot. The crowd was becoming quite festive as the fire raged on and the rumors of what had happened started circulating. In the middle, unnoticed and unexamined, sat the Colonel’s car.

One of the first to arrive on the scene was Rosario Panebianco, solicitous, gentle, and persuasive. He had Angela in an ambulance and under escort within minutes. When Blume told him to fuck off, he nodded with understanding and was soon back with a blue waterproof jacket with “Polizia” written on the back in reflective letters, and a colorful golf umbrella. He ordered an Agente to stand close to Blume and hold it.

“Commissioner,” she said, “you are shivering and there is blood on your collar and back. Put on the jacket.”

Blume decided to comply.

Caterina arrived as the medics were on the point of asking his colleagues to force him into the ambulance. Blume called her over, told the Agente with the umbrella to get lost, and nodded in the direction of the Colonel’s car.

“Treacy’s manuscript is on the backseat. Get it. Then hold it or destroy it. It’s just a copy.”

“I know,” said Caterina. “I was there when he made the copy, remember?”

Blume looked at her in confusion. “We need to get rid of them all, originals, copies, the lot.”

“I’ll see to it.” She pointed at the flames and smoke shooting up from behind the wall. “Is it true what they’re saying about the Colonel being in there?”

“Yes. Nightingale, too.”

“Oh no,” said Caterina. “Any chance he made it out?”

“None,” said Blume.

She stepped over a puddle on the cobbles, and turned around. “When I left the house this morning, Rospo was asleep in a car opposite. He wasn’t in a great mood, says you were supposed to relieve him. I began to worry about you then. Then you called and immediately after I heard about Paoloni, and then you disappeared again. I should have guessed it would be here. Sorry.”

Blume tried to wave a forgiving hand, but he couldn’t feel his arm or quite remember which muscles to tense.

“Alec, will you please stop sitting out here shivering and bleeding in the rain. You look so bad people are frightened to come over and tell you to get into the ambulance.”

Blume allowed himself to be taken to San Camillo Hospital. He was left languishing for an indeterminate amount of time in a small white-and-green room, which smelled of tuna, then a doctor came in, examined him, shone a light in his pupils, and went jogging out, returning five minutes later in the company of three male nurses and a trolley. Half an hour later, Blume was undergoing emergency surgery to relieve a build-up of pressure in his skull.

Then he slept.

When he awoke, the nausea and headaches has decreased to a manageable level, and Blume announced himself fit and ready to leave. He made the announcement several times without drawing any response. They had shaved the back of his head and placed an oversized white bandage on it, but it did not hurt in the slightest. Not even to the touch. He thought he might make it home, clear up his apartment, and have some supper. He left the room and outlined his plans to a nurse in the corridor, who led him back to bed.

Blume protested in authoritative tones, but was hushed.

“You’ll wake the other patients up.”

“What time is it?”

“Half past four in the morning.”

He slept fifteen more hours and found himself groggily agreeing to spend one more night in hospital. The following morning, he thanked them all for the excellent treatment. Even the doctor. If he had one complaint, he said, it was the excessive hygiene and the constant smell of bleach from the lime-colored wall.

The doctor actually went over to the wall and smelled it, then came back and announced Blume would have to stay for another battery of tests.

“What for?”

“Phantosmia.”

“What’s that?”

“Olfactory hallucinations. Could be serious.”

The following morning, he learned that the results of the test would be ready in two more days. He announced he was discharging himself anyhow.

“You shouldn’t drive. Can someone pick you up?”

Blume called Caterina.

“I’m on duty.”

“Is that a no?”

“Just that I need to let the others know where I’m going.”

“As long as you’re not ashamed,” said Blume.

As she drove him back to his house, she filled him in on some of the developments. “Angela Solazzi was discharged from the hospital immediately. She’s staying with Emma now. She’s been in contact twice, says she’ll cooperate as much as we want.”

“Good.” Blume pictured her as she lifted the copper pot, looked into it, and threw the contents into the blazing doorway. He could see her face as she lifted the pot, the look in her eyes, the same as the look she had when she started the fire.

“I don’t think she has much to answer for,” he said.

“Some good news, too,” said Caterina. “The Maresciallo has developed septicemia from the dog bites.”

“Fatal?”

“No. But he seems to have slipped into a state of stupor. But we’re not getting that many details. The Carabinieri are dealing with him.”

“He’s probably putting it on,” said Blume. “It’s the beginning of his defense.”

Caterina’s phone rang. She answered and Blume noticed the slight tremor of subordination in her voice, and knew who she was talking to

… She handed him the phone. “The Questore. He wants to speak to you.”

That was quick, thought Blume. The Questore had probably asked to be informed as soon as Blume was out of hospital. Someone in the office had wasted no time in telling him.

He took it, and, with an extra layer of gruffness for her benefit, said, “Blume here.”

“What the fuck was that, Blume?”

“It’s a long story, sir.”

“A long story can be told in a long report, and with four weeks’ sick leave, to be reviewed at the end of the period and probably converted into a three-month suspension, you will have plenty of time to give me all the details.”

“No need for the suspension, sir,” said Blume.

“This morning I got news that the dead British national, John Nightingale, was shot point-blank with your pistol, also found at the scene. That has rather overshadowed our little propaganda success at capturing the tourist mugger. A Carabiniere colonel with an impossibly dense web of important contacts was burned to death while an internal investigation into his activities was being conducted. A former policeman, recently removed from duty under highly suspicious circumstances, was killed hours before that, and, in a minor development, I hear a search warrant was issued by a magistrate for your apartment which, it turns out, was also the scene of a burglary that was not properly reported. Did I say three months: how about thirty-three years?”

“One investigation fused into another, and things… I lost control for a while.”

“And another thing. Where was the investigating magistrate overseeing all this? Did we even have one?”

“Not as such. Buoncompagno and the Colonel…”

“Buoncompagno has been hauled before the disciplinary section of the Magistrates’ Council for his handling of this and other cases. Basically, his immunity disappeared along with the Colonel and a garden villa owned, it turns out, by a branch of the Pamphili family.”

“I could come up with a summary version. One in which any unregulated actions are seen to be natural developments of a rolling, highly complex investigation in which, perhaps, there was insufficient liaison with the judicial authorities, but, in compensation, in which the police and Carabinieri worked closely together,” said Blume.