Conor Fitzgerald - Fatal Touch

“You’ll do fine. And I want you to explain why you decided not to revenge his father’s murder with violence, and why he should not either.”

“He won’t listen. If I was him, I wouldn’t listen.”

“He might. He might not. Maybe he’ll get it in a few years. But you can try. It’s your duty.”

“I haven’t a clue what to tell him. The justice system in this country… it doesn’t work. Nothing fucking works. That Carabiniere will walk. Maybe he’ll lose his job, if they decide to be harsh. There’s no comfort for your son.”

“I didn’t ask you to comfort him. That’s my job. Talk, stay honest. Can you do that?”

“I don’t know,” said Blume.

“Good. Like that,” she said. “You don’t know, but you’ll try. The crematorium is at Via dei Monti Cimini, number 36. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning. There won’t be many of us there.”

Shortly before dinner, he phoned Caterina.

“Who paid for my door?”

“I did. You owe me € 2,600.”

“Can I come around to pay? I’ve got a checkbook.”

“There’s no rush.”

“Not to pay, maybe. But can I come around?”

“It’s just pesto from a jar, I’m afraid,” said Caterina.

“Pesto’s fine,” said Blume. He meant to be more gracious, but he was feeling uncomfortable at the kitchen table, Elia’s big brown eyes on him, then off him every time he turned around to smile.

After dinner, Blume sat in the living room watching TV while Caterina did whatever it was mothers did to get children to bed. It took a long time, and Blume was beginning to get into a Bruce Willis film when Caterina finally came in. To the side of the television was a pile of bedcovers and a sheet.

Caterina sat down near him and watched a few minutes of explosions, then said, “I need to explain about those bed clothes. I had a visitor the other night.”

“No, no. Nothing to do with me,” said Blume. “You don’t need to tell me anything, really.”

“The visitor was Emma Solazzi,” said Caterina.

“Ah,” said Blume. He switched off Bruce Willis in mid-leap. “I think maybe I do want to hear about it.”

When she came to tell him about Emma’s confession, Caterina was both relieved and disappointed that he seemed to take the news in his stride. He seemed far keener on seeing the painting she had brought.

She thought he might have something to say about her harboring a suspect, but he hadn’t. Instead, he began to tell her about the mistakes he had made from when he allowed Paoloni to talk him into staging a burglary in his own apartment.

“That was the point I stopped being a proper policeman and began playing a game that led to my friend’s death. That was the point when I should have called up Faedda, and tried to set the Colonel up. That was when I should have called in an investigating magistrate, drawn up a report, put the facts in order. Everything I did from then on was illegal. A fatal game. And if you ended up with a suspect sleeping on your sofa and a rogue Carabiniere threatening your child, I’m responsible for that, too.”

“It’s a thin line between self-accusation and self-pity, Alec,” said Caterina. “So shut up now before you cross it.”

He looked at her in amazement.

“Seriously,” she said. “Shut up. What’s done is done. I’m sorry about Paoloni, and I’m sorry about Nightingale. But you didn’t kill them. As for what Emma did and what you think her mother may have done

… it’s not for us to say. Now do you want to see that painting?”

Blume nodded.

“Good. I’ll get it then. Meanwhile, there’s a letter over there, on the desk next to my laptop. It’s what Treacy wrote to Angela, if you’re interested.”

Blume went over and read the letter.

“He wrote better in English,” he said as she returned. “All these yew berries and kisses, fruits and pentimenti. Awful stuff. He wrote mush in Italian.”

“Maybe it’s not because of the language but because of the person and his feelings of regret,” said Caterina.

Blume was looking at the painting. “Jesus, this is one lousy piece of work.”

“I like it now,” said Caterina. “I didn’t at first, but I do now. I like that he did it in the style of the woman he loved.”

“The woman he bullied, you mean. And this is hardly a flattering homage to her art. It’s a parody of bad painting. Or a parody of de Chirico. That’s what he was on about in the letter.”

“Is it?” said Caterina. “I don’t know anything about painting. I can see that maybe this isn’t great, but I don’t see parody in it.”

Blume propped the picture on the sofa and stood back. “Maybe not. It looks… it looks like a lot of correction effort went into it, which I suppose is not consistent with parody.”

“Also, you can tell from his letter that he meant this sincerely. He wanted to be forgiven.”

“You mean all that stuff about pentimenti?” said Blume. “It’s not just another way of saying sorry. It’s a technical term in painting. It means correction or second thoughts. When a painter starts drawing an open hand, then decides to turn it into a fist, or gets rid of a dog in the background, something like that, you can often see the traces of where the original was. That’s a pentimento. Come here.”

He led her closer to the painting and pointed to the center of the frame. “See, here? This, what is it, an empty grotto? It’s the focal point of the picture, and it is set at the center of the curving walls, only he made a real mess of the proportions here. The pentimenti are crowded around the focal point of the picture. It’s part of what makes it look so bad.”

“Do you suppose the Velazquez went up in flames in that house or is it hidden somewhere else?”

“I was wondering the same thing myself,” said Blume. “I think it was hidden somewhere, and he tells us where in his notebooks. And if that’s the case, then I think some American is going to find it in the end, since I have promised to give the notebooks to the embassy.”

“You’re an American. You find it,” said Caterina.

“Here,” said Blume. “This is made out for € 2,600. I didn’t put your name or the date or anything. Just signed it.” He handed her the check.

Caterina took it, went into the kitchen, and put it in a drawer, then returned to Blume in the living room.

“Tomorrow afternoon Elia is going on a school trip to Venice and Padua, then down to Rimini. I am a bit worried about all that water.”

“He’ll be fine. How many days?”

“Four days. Three nights.”

The crematorium in Viterbo was not signposted, and Blume had to ask a local traffic cop for directions. He was told to follow the signs for McDonald’s, then for the Coop supermarket, and finally for the sports center.

He arrived with minutes to spare, and found he was one of a tiny group of mourners. There was Fabio, shuddering as much with rage as grief, his arm in the tight grip of his mother. She now had a Botox face, yellow hair, and strange leggings under her too-short skirt. She had aged, and without any grace. He raised his hand in greeting, but she did not seem to recognize him. Perhaps he, too, had aged without grace.

A very old couple-Paoloni’s parents? his ex-wife’s? — three middle-aged couples, and about eight others, three of whom Blume recognized as being former policemen.

Blume did not fancy himself a religious man, but the civic cremation of his friend was the most dismal and meaningless event he had ever witnessed. Within five minutes of the coffin being sent on a conveyer belt out of sight, everyone had left except for Fabio and his mother, but they were nowhere to be seen. Presumably they were waiting for the ashes. When he got into his car, the upholstery smelled of nickel and asphalt and made his head swim.