Conor Fitzgerald - Fatal Touch

“I used to do that as a kid,” said Blume. “In fact, I still do. I draw circles around faces and add in the crosshairs.”

“Lots of Celtic crosses and anarchist ‘A’ symbols,” said Caterina, waving her flashlight about, and looking up at the ceiling. “We can’t reach the top of the wall without something to stand on.”

Blume was running his left hand along the walls, stopping now and then to rub his fingertips clean on his jacket.

“Let’s start by looking in areas that are easy to reach,” he said. “Let’s start at eye level. Now this entire back wall is very slightly dusty, so there is some damp coming from the embankment behind. I wouldn’t put it there. But the wall between this chamber and the one in front is perfectly dry.”

“It could be in the first chamber, too,” said Caterina.

“It could,” said Blume. “But if I were hiding something, I’d choose this room where there is no chance of being seen from outside rather than the first room. If it was daytime, the sunlight reaches into the first room, so that would have been a risk, and if it was night, then he definitely would not want to be in the first room because any light he used would be very visible from outside. Also, I think we need to remember that at this point, he’s just concealing it in a safe place, not hiding it from anyone who is in here specifically looking for it. He wanted Angela to find it.”

“The walls are smooth plaster. Could he have plastered over that well?”

“Sure. He made his own frames, paints, ink, boards, paper, solvents, I’m sure he had a go at fresco painting. He’d be an excellent plasterer.”

“That meant he had to carry a bag of plaster in here.”

“Yes,” said Blume. “Maybe he left it in here the day before… what are you doing?”

“This.” Caterina had taken the crowbar from the bag and slammed it against a crude image of an ejaculating penis.

“Ouch,” said Blume as he saw the shock travel up her wrists and arms. “Try stabbing it at the wall instead.”

Caterina did so, but only left pockmarks and scrapes.

“We could try the battering ram,” said Blume.

“Let me try your side first,” she said.

Blume moved out of the way. “I was thinking,” he said, “that knocking a hole into a solid wall and then refilling it is a lot of work. You would choose a place that already had an alcove or shelf, then cover it over. So we should tap the wall and listen for where it might be hollow.”

Caterina shone the flashlight at the wall against which Blume had been leaning. “There’s another of your telescopic sight things,” she said.

“No,” said Blume. “That’s supposed to be the peace symbol.”

“Right,” said Caterina. “Someone’s even put a peace dove next to it, and some wag has painted a rifle sight over it. All this clever irony going to waste in here.”

But Blume did not reply. He took the flashlight from her. Then he turned it on the graffiti showing the dove caught in the crosshairs of the rifle sight.

“Do you know what the Pamphili symbol is?” he said.

“I would have said bees, but from the way you’re staring at that dove… If that’s what it is. A bird with backward wings like that could never fly.”

“The Barberini family were the ones with the bees, the Pamphili are doves. But there is something you don’t know, because I never thought of mentioning it until now. The third of Treacy’s notebooks had a fore-edge drawing. You know, a picture drawn on the edges of the pages.”

“I used to do that with school textbooks, while you were drawing sharpshooter sights and crosshairs,” said Caterina.

“Right. Well, the image Treacy drew on the edge of the paper was a dove. It just seemed like a doodle, which is what it was. You would never have seen it because you only had a photocopy, and the Colonel, too, would never have seen it.”

Caterina was standing beside him, crowbar in hand. “Shall I?” she said.

“Go for it.”

She jabbed the sharp point of the crowbar at the eye of the dove, and drove a hole straight through the plaster.

Moving the crowbar back and forth she easily levered away pieces of plaster. The aperture she had opened was arched, more or less the same shape and size as the flap of a mailbox. The wall on either side was made of tufa and every time she hit it, crumbles of orange and yellow grit poured out at their feet, but she was not making much progress.

“Try striking downwards,” said Blume.

“Shut up. And keep the light steady.”

She raked away at the wall with the gooseneck. The plaster and loose cement gave way easily, causing her to sneeze. Within a few minutes she had hollowed out a keyhole-shaped aperture in the wall.

“It’s a narrow niche, a bit like the ones on the outside. There is probably one next to the other side of the door as well,” said Blume. “But this has to be the one we want.”

Caterina hunkered down and clicked her fingers impatiently over her shoulder until Blume handed her the flashlight, which she shone into the narrow space. Then she stood up and made an attempt at dusting herself down.

“It’s there,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“There is a package wrapped in yellow cellophane and some sort of masking tape.”

“Can you reach it?”

“Sure.”

“Why didn’t you pull it out?”

“I thought you might want to do it,” said Caterina.

“You do it,” said Blume.

He held the light as she put both hands in and pulled out the heavily wrapped package, small enough to fit under one arm.

Caterina propped it against the wall and they stood there in the semi-darkness. She allowed herself to lean against his shoulder a little, and felt him lean back into her.

“We can hardly see anything in here,” said Caterina.

Without saying a word, Blume stooped down, picked up the package, and put it under his arm. “I am going to take this back to my house. I will wait for you. Go back to the station, sign in the squad car, collect your own, and come back out to my place,” he said. “But off duty.”

She drove him back in perfect silence. He sat there clutching the package, looking straight ahead.

“See you here in an hour,” was all he said as he got out of the car.

She was back in thirty-five minutes. The package was intact, propped up against the slashed sofa cushions.

Blume sat on the floor of his living room, box-cutter in hand.

“It’s in a carrying box, from the feel of it.” He slashed the blue plastic, and started pulling away reams of bubble wrap, a silicon sheet, white cotton strips, and finally a backing board. Then he turned it around for her to see.

“It’s brown,” was all that came to her. The small work, no bigger than a folded newspaper, seemed to consist of three shades: coffee, tea, and piss. Her disappointment was as enormous as the picture was small.

But he was looking at it with reverence.

“I know you don’t get it, yet, but wait… ” He left the room and returned so quickly with a large art book, that it must have already been ready and open in the next room. “Look. The woman to the left pushing back the red curtain and looking down at the spinning wheel. Now look at the painting. No curtain, no spinning wheel, no color, but look at that pose. It’s a study for the same thing. Look at the canvas, look at the line… I don’t know. I’m not an art expert but I believe this. I believe Treacy. This is genuine.”

“You trust the word of a dead forger?” She did not want to deflate him, but nor did she want to get carried away on a wave of misguided belief.

“I trust his story.”

“Why?” asked Caterina.