On the seat next to him, his phone was ringing. He brought it up to his ear.
“We have been informed of Paoloni’s death.” It took Blume a moment to realize it was Lieutenant Colonel Faedda who was speaking. Faedda paused, and his voice took on a less official tone. “I am sorry. I understand you two were close. I have already sent two patrol cars to the Colonel’s house, but he is not there.”
“What about the Maresciallo who is always with him? Maresciallo.. ” Blume could not remember the name. Had he ever heard it?
“Maresciallo Farinelli,” said Faedda. “His house is under observation, too. We have put out a call to all units. We’re watching the airport, too.”
“And the hospitals?”
“Yes. I see you ordered the Polizia to do the same. We’ve divided the task up between us. I think it’s most likely that’s where we’ll pick them up.”
“It’s where you’ll pick up the Maresciallo,” said Blume. “He’s the shooter… Wait, what did you say the Maresciallo’s name was?”
“Farinelli. I thought you knew that.”
Blume could not believe he was learning this only now. “He’s the Colonel’s son?”
“Not his son. His nephew. Not even that. Great-nephew. The Colonel’s older brother’s son’s son.”
“Let me know when you find him,” said Blume. His phone was beeping to indicate another incoming call. He switched to it.
“Alec, I’m so sorry.” It was Caterina. He said nothing and she continued, “The Colonel lives on Via Boccea, or nearby, his address is…”
“That’s OK. I don’t need that now. He’s not there.”
“Do you… ” But Blume hung up on her, and, putting both hands on the wheel, drove hard and fast on the wrong side of the road past San Giovanni in Laterano, the car rumbling and sliding over the cobblestones. Above, the sky was blue, but in the background it was black. Outside the gates of the Irish College, a silver rain seemed to be falling sideways without reaching the ground.
As he descended toward the Colosseum, it almost became night as the clouds billowed and darkened. The background sky grew inkier. When the rain came, it would flood the streets in seconds, grease the cobbles, hollow out potholes in the asphalt, and cause three hundred or so accidents, of which five or six would be fatal. Romans can’t drive in the rain. He did not turn off the siren until he had arrived in Trastevere. He parked his car on the corner of Via Corsini and Via Lungara and started walking. Twenty meters on, sitting there in broad daylight, was the Colonel’s auto blu. Blume tried the door, but it was locked. He pulled out his pistol and rapped the side window hard. On the fourth blow, it disintegrated into thousands of glass squares. Without bothering to open the door, Blume poked his head in. There was blood still visible on the dashboard and seat fabric.
His cell phone rang.
“We got him.”
“Great. Who is this?”
“Sovrintendente Branca.” When Blume failed to acknowledge him, he added, “I’m the Sovrintendente from the crime scene. You told us to check hospitals, and you were right. A Maresciallo of the Carabiniere was transferred to Sant’Andrea for an emergency operation. He had lost a lot of blood. They radioed in the news just now. He can’t be questioned yet, the doctors say.”
“Good,” he said. But nothing felt good. He hung up and switched off his cell phone. Why wasn’t the driver’s seat pushed as far back as possible to accommodate the Colonel’s bulk? Who had driven him here?
The green door set into the high wall appeared shut, but almost collapsed as he touched it. He made a grab for it, catching it before it fell in and made too much noise. He moved slowly and quietly down the passage between the high walls on either side. The damp in the air and the heavy green of the creepers and ivy made his lungs feel waterlogged. He reached the door to the greenhouse, and eased down the handle, pausing each time it made a small click. When he had it all the way down, he pushed softly at the door, which opened with a slight creak of its hinges and scrape of its baseboard against the tiles of Treacy’s greenhouse. He stepped inside, and gently closed the door behind him.
The room was filled with a heady reek of solvents, turps, paints, paraffin, and gasoline. They were smells that always elated him, though the gasoline sounded a nostalgic note, too. He could hear voices. A woman’s voice and that of a man, not the Colonel. He drew his weapon, feeling the dry polymer grip slide a little before it found the ridges of his palm; he walked past the old-fashioned stove, and gently parted the bead curtain that led into the kitchen. The hollow beads clacked very slightly as he edged his way through the parting he had scooped out. He swept silently across the kitchen to the door leading into the living room, ready to pause and take stock. Framed there, looking straight at him, face flushed, blouse unbuttoned down to her breast, and hair askew stood a middle-aged woman he had never seen before, but who was somehow familiar. Behind her, beside the large portrait of Henry Treacy that he had last seen in the gallery, was John Nightingale, shaking his head at Blume as if…
The scene vibrated and faded as something seemed to cleave his head in two. The pain, too intense to remain in the one spot, rushed down his body, first as a boiling, then as a freezing sensation, as if the blood in his neck, spine, coccyx had turned to ice slush. He noticed his feet planted firmly on the ground, and felt pleased, especially as the ground seemed to be swinging upwards.
Another catastrophic and savage blow came racing out of nowhere, and this one frightened him, because it was the penultimate. He would not survive a third like this. He moved his hands, just for the sake of it, and felt millions of tiny spheres that tickled and jabbed his palms, like pins and needles, only more pleasant, like lying on a white sand beach, and he realized he must be on the floor already.
After what might have been several months, and certainly a good many hours, Blume was reluctant and tearful at the idea of returning. As he left the warm darkness and was dragged back into the present where unwanted light pressed hard against his eyeballs, he began to shiver. He kept his eyes shut and groaned. Distant voices gave commands, but he refused to hear them. A less distant foot gave him a kick, and he could smell the leather, the sock below. It was touch and go about weeping.
“Don’t do anything. Anything at all. I will shoot this woman straight through the forehead. Did you call any backup?”
Blume opened his mouth to reply, not sure what he intended to say. It made no difference since the words that came out were incomprehensible even to him.
“Speak in Italian,” ordered the Colonel. “But I’ve got your phone. Last call you made was almost an hour ago. Last one you received was twenty minutes ago. It looks like no one else is coming.”
Blume said something else, and lay there wondering what it was. Water, perhaps. He may have asked for water.
The Colonel ordered him into an armchair. For a while he failed to understand the idea, since he could not see any armchair, then the Colonel’s foot showed it to him. When he finally located it, cracked, leathery, and inviting, he was moved to great gratitude and crawled over, and heaved himself into a sitting position.
Reality continued to impinge upon his senses. A deep pain began not where he had been hit, but in a fold in the center of his brain, and pulsed outwards.
This is going to be some motherfucking headache.
“If you don’t stop bleeding soon, you won’t feel it for long,” said a voice with an accent.
“Speak in Italian you two,” ordered the Colonel.
Blume frowned. He was speaking his thoughts. He peered across the room. Nightingale was still there, so was the woman. They were still framed in the same taut, expectant pose they had had when he came into the room all that time ago. He put his hand to the back of his head and dabbed it in his soaking wet hair. If he had been bald like the Colonel, maybe all the blood would have flowed away and he would be dead.