“No,” said Blume. “Which is why I need to follow it up.”
“Don’t follow it too far-unless you think it might help us stop the muggings, will it?”
“You never know, sir,” said Blume.
“No, I never do know with you,” said the Questore and, finally, hung up.
Panebianco stuck his head around the door. “A Mr. Nightingale, accompanied by Avvocato Feltri, is downstairs. They want to see you.”
“Have them sent up.”
“Right.” Panebianco remained where he was.
“What?” asked Blume in irritation.
“How did your meeting with Faedda go?”
“I don’t see…” began Blume, but then he remembered Faedda explaining how Panebianco had vouchsafed for him, and he softened his tone. “It went well, thank you. Enlightening.”
“Good. I am pleased. I’ll have the two men below sent up.”
Five minutes later, Nightingale’s lawyer, a sleek man whose black hair was so shiny it looked wet, slipped into the seat in front of him. Nightingale, dressed in a rumpled linen suit and looking tired, hot, and lordly, sat down next to his lawyer, who turned to him and, speaking mainly for Blume’s benefit, said, “Remember, you are free to stand up and leave the interview at any point. You do not have to answer any questions that you do not want to, and no matter what you say, it cannot be used in evidence against you. A witness may not self-incriminate.”
The lawyer then turned to face Blume. “Since some of his voluntary statements will now become inadmissible as evidence, you will not want to ask him too much to do with whatever you are investigating. We are happy to cooperate inasmuch as we are assured that you have not been appointed to investigate the case, and I have it on good authority that scientific evidence will point overwhelmingly to accidental causes, a fact that you acknowledge in this statement that I have prepared and I’d like you to sign.”
Blume ignored the proffered document, picked up his desk phone, and called in Caterina from her desk. A few seconds later, she came in, crossed the room without looking at him, and took a plastic chair to his left, near the wall. She had gone back into sulk mode, evidently.
“Please explain in what capacity this Inspector is present,” said the lawyer.
“I need to keep an eye on her,” said Blume.
“No, we have no time for humor, Commissioner. This is a serious imposition on my client’s goodwill and time.”
“Inspector Mattiola,” said Blume. “Why do you think I invited you in here?”
“So I could see Nightingale for myself.”
“If the policewoman is here to satisfy an idle curiosity…” began the lawyer.
But Caterina, who was indeed looking very closely at Nightingale, continued, “And to tell Mr. Nightingale in person that we know he is Emma Solazzi’s father.”
In the silence that followed the whirr of a laser printer in the room outside became audible, and the four of them sat still until it, too, stopped. Now they seemed to be listening to broken strands of conversations deeper in the office. A sudden burst of noise from a passing motorino below presented itself as a possible topic of discussion.
Finally, Nightingale said, “Avvocato, I think you should leave now.”
The lawyer looked affronted. “On the contrary. You need me more than ever. If I have understood this correctly, this implies errors in public records, alimony issues, inheritance…”
“Yes, there is a lot to it,” said Nightingale. “But I really would prefer if this sort of thing were not known or spoken about, even to my trusted lawyer. We can talk about it later. For now I want to speak with the Commissioner and the Inspector alone.”
“I advise most strongly against it,” said the lawyer, but he had tightened his lips and was already standing in preparation to leave. The experience of being the one person in the room not to be in the know about something had been a humiliation. Blume almost expected him to announce he was no longer representing his client.
Another silence ensued as they waited for the lawyer to gather his papers and wounded dignity and leave the room.
“He didn’t know that,” said Nightingale, switching into English as soon as the door closed. “I should have told him, but he was Henry’s lawyer, too. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of client privilege. Priests, doctors, lawyers all claim it for themselves, but they’re not particularly likable people, now, are they?”
Blume said, “How did Treacy not get suspicious? Wasn’t there-I don’t know-some way you and Emma interacted, touched, or didn’t touch? Treacy picked none of that up? Emma is your child. It must have been hard, not to plant a kiss on the crown of her head now and then. Something like that. I’m not a parent, but,” he pointed at Caterina, “she is.”
Blume looked over at Caterina. Again, he saw only the side of her face, the rigid outline of her body, her legs out straight, like she was a two-dimensional figure in a three-dimensional space.
She did not answer him or look at him, so he continued alone. “Another thing, you went to great lengths to hide her identity and to keep up the pretence, yet at the same time you didn’t.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Nightingale.
“It took Inspector Mattiola less than half a working day to ascertain Emma’s identity as your daughter. She became suspicious immediately, thought about it for a while, then ran a basic background check beginning with the tax code. We’re talking about a few hours’ work to discover your daughter’s identity. It’s the strange mix of thoroughness and carelessness that has me wondering.”
Nightingale seemed to be studying the swirls on his fingertips. Finally, he said, “Let me address your outrage at my lack of paternal feelings first.” Nightingale turned toward Caterina as he said this, then getting little response, focused on Blume again. “Before Emma came to the gallery to work with us, I had met her exactly five times.”
He held up a fist and splayed his fingers. “I held her in my arms just once, and it was on the day I first saw her. She was three. She was showing me how she could jump higher than anyone, and she landed on a book she had been reading, slipped, and banged her head hard on the side of a low table. I scooped her up and tried to stop her from crying, but she had this huge bruise and Angela, who hadn’t seen the incident, seemed to think it was my fault, and maybe it was. So, you see, Commissioner, we really were strangers. And if I hid her identity carelessly, it’s because it was well enough hidden already. We did not risk a spontaneous outburst of affection. Emma herself only learned my identity a few weeks before she came to work in the gallery.”
“You and Emma’s mother had a difficult relationship?”
“You can’t call my later contacts with Angela a relationship, really. Our story ended before Emma was born. It’s completely my fault. I’m the one who walked away.”
Finally Caterina spoke up, using English. “She didn’t say anything to you about a daughter until Emma was three?”
“You’re English?” asked Nightingale, surprised.
“No. Just answer my question,” said Caterina.
“Emma’s mother was trying to be sometimes an artist and sometimes a critic, as if they could ever go together, and if they ever could, she was not the person to do it. She became desperate for money, and that was when she swallowed her pride and called me.”
Blume eliminated a smirk he felt growing at the side of his mouth by the expedient of rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “So she presented you with this little girl and you…”
“Look, Commissioner, I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering what made me so sure she was mine.”
Blume raised his palms in denial of such a thought.
“Well, to start with,” said Nightingale, “have you looked at her?”
“Me, looked at Emma? Well, yes… she’s very beautiful.”
“Thank you. She is. Can’t you see the resemblance?”
Blume looked at the man in front of him. Nightingale had the pale blue eyes of many northern Europeans. Emma’s eyes were also blue, he remembered, though hers were almond shaped and had green tints. Her eyes soaked in the light and darkened it, his just reflected it straight back. He had high cheekbones and a triangular face. She had high cheekbones, too, but her face was oval. He remembered it well. There was a difference of sex and forty-something years between them.