“The apartment paid for by the gallery? In other words, by my dead father and my ex-father or whatever I am supposed to call them. I’m not going there.”
“Sooner or later you are going to have to talk to them about it.”
“Why should I? My mother didn’t tell Nightingale, Nightingale thought he was fooling Treacy. I kill Treacy, and now it’s up to me to stage some sort of family reconciliation? Nightingale, Treacy. I don’t even use their first names.”
“Emma, if you say once more that you killed him, if you indicate to me that what you did was deliberate, I will arrest you now and have you taken to the station to be charged.”
Emma looked at Caterina in shock.
“So, tell me, did you deliberately kill Treacy?”
Emma shook her head. “No. I… no. I was just clearing space between us… no.”
“Did you think he was badly hurt when you ran away?”
“I didn’t care.”
“I repeat: Did it occur to you that he might be badly hurt?”
Emma closed her eyes and let out a long breath. “No. It did not. I have never hurt anyone physically in my life. I had no idea it could be so easy.”
“People are frail,” said Caterina. “Even so, you withheld vital information from us when we arrived the following day, and that is an offense with which you will be charged. But we can do that tomorrow some time.”
“Can I stay here?” said Emma.
“What? No. Of course not.”
“Just for tonight?”
“There are two bedrooms. My son is in one. I’m in the other.”
“I could sleep on the sofa you’re sitting on.”
“Out of the question,” said Caterina. “Apart from everything else, there’s the legal aspect. I am a police inspector. You have just admitted to what could be construed as involuntary manslaughter…”
“Oh. You just said…”
“Forget what I just said. I’m sure there is a hotel you could check into. I don’t think money is much of a problem for you, is it?”
“No. That’s not my problem. It’s just I get this feeling I’m being followed. The Colonel frightens me. You can’t send me out there.”
“I am expecting Commissioner Blume to arrive soon. He can accompany you somewhere. You’ll be safe with him.”
“Will he arrest me?”
“I don’t know, Emma. He might have to.”
Caterina’s cell, set to silent, began to vibrate against the glass coffee table between them, and rotated around till it faced Emma who leaned over to look at the name on the display. “That’s your Commissioner now.”
Caterina wondered how Blume would react to her proposed change of plans for the evening, and was anxious about what he would say to her having Emma in her apartment like this. But she need not have worried. As soon as she answered, he announced, “Can’t make it. Something else has come up.”
Then he hung up without waiting for a response, without asking her whether she and Elia were OK.
Bastard.
Half an hour later, as she applied cold cream to her face and massaged the tense area around her eyes with her fingers, she thought of the almost elegant movement with which old Corsi had knelt down before stretching out on the floor of his dilapidated palace, stabbed in the back by his clumsy, unhappy child. She wiped the sink shiny with the towel she had just used and set out a fresh towel over the edge of the bathtub.
Passing the living room on her way to her bedroom, whispering so as not to wake Elia, she said, “The bathroom’s free now, Emma.”
Chapter 42
Would it be by phone or face-to-face? Blume opened his car door, threw in the accursed notebooks, and pulled out his phone and looked at it in case it had rung on silent. Nothing. He walked back toward Paoloni’s house, back down the sidewalk covered in dogshit and trash. A dark car came the wrong way up the one-way street.
Face-to-face, then, thought Blume.
The car stopped beside him. The Colonel rolled down his window and spoke out of the dark. “Where’s your friend going?”
“Aren’t you people following him?”
“My resources are a little stretched,” said the Colonel. “Where is he going?”
“To look for his son,” said Blume.
The Colonel considered this. “His son is fine,” he said after a while.
“He’d better be,” said Blume.
“I didn’t want to worry the poor man,” said the Colonel. “The idea was that you would see what was at stake.”
“I see what is at stake,” said Blume. “Where is Fabio?”
“The son? Torvaianica, I believe. We used your name to pick him up. Now he thinks he’s being recruited for something exciting, and has been sworn to secrecy. Apparently the hardest thing was to keep a straight face as they told the kid to check for people following and to search out a certain face in a bar. It’s been an evening of entertainment for everyone.”
“When is he coming home?”
“When are you going to get my paintings back?”
“Tomorrow afternoon,” said Blume. “That’s the earliest I can do it.”
“Then that’s when your friend’s son is coming home,” said the Colonel. “Simple enough.”
The Colonel’s words disappeared into the blackness of the car, and then reappeared inside Blume’s head. It would not do, but he had to keep calm.
A blue flare turning yellow lit up the Colonel’s cheeks and nose. Blume watched and waited as the Colonel set his cigar aglow, and took comfort that the ritual suggested the Colonel was prepared to negotiate. He moved closer, picking up a scent of sweet wood and orange peel from inside the vehicle. The Maresciallo was in the driver’s seat.
“Beppe Paoloni is my dear friend. The first thing he will do if he thinks his son is missing is enlist my help and demand my constant presence,” said Blume. “As long as he does that, I cannot move to get the paintings, and as long as he is looking for his child, he cannot help me.”
“Do you need his help?”
“The people who took the canvases don’t want to deal with law enforcement. They’ll do a deal with Paoloni, though. As long as the son is missing, everyone is wasting time.”
A puff of smoke came out the window, and the Colonel said, “That sounds like a valid argument. And I really don’t want to waste time. Here.” His plump hand emerged and offered Blume a chunky Nokia with too many buttons.
“I don’t know how to use that.”
“It’s already ringing. Connected by now, I should say,” said the Colonel.
Blume brought the phone up to his ear, and noticed that the Colonel had a second phone and was talking into it.
“Yes?” A young man on the other end of the line. Blume realized he didn’t even know Fabio’s voice.
“Fabio?”
“Commissioner Blume?” The kid’s voice wavered between disappointment and relief.
“The test is over. Can you call your parents? Call your father. He’s looking for you.” This was going to take some explaining to Paoloni afterwards.
“Yes. I was going to.”
“Where are you now?”
“On the Via del Mare. On our way back in. They said I did well.”
Blume heard a man in the background say something and Fabio’s voice, uncertain, nervous, saying thank you.
“They’re going to drop me off at the Line B underground. I’m not to mention this test to anyone except you. I’ll just say I was with friends and my phone was dead.”
“No,” said Blume. “Say it was off, not dead. You need to use it now to call your parents.”
“I’ll just tell them I recharged it at a friend’s house.”
Maybe the kid would make a good agent after all. The lie came easily to him.
“Good,” said Blume.
“Satisfied?” asked the Colonel as Blume handed back the phone. But now his own was ringing, and he answered.
It was Paoloni wondering if he had heard anything.
“No, Beppe. I called in. No accidents or anything. I’m sure Fabio will be OK. Maybe his phone is out of credit or something.”
“Definitely something like that,” said Paoloni. “It’s his mother. She’s very anxious. She’s phoned me twice. Listen, things are moving faster than I thought here, which is good. It turns out these two guys…”