The Memory Key: A Commissario Alec Blume Novel

by Conor Fitzgerald

  ‘This is far greater than Freemasonry. The purpose of Freemasonry is to promote Freemasonry: there is nothing there. Just a bunch of English bricklayers with a dim understanding of the art of the mind – I deal with them in Chapters 6 and 7 of the book you are holding. Do you believe in God, Commissioner?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And yet you do. I can tell. The problem is the name. Either we shall not name him, or we must name him with all the things, visible and invisible, of the universe. But they are infinite, and cannot be named. As you believe in the universe, Commissioner, so you believe in God.’

  ‘Well, that’s that settled, then,’ said Blume. ‘Let’s get back to Stefania Manfellotto. You say she and you met regularly. Why?’

  ‘I just said. Reciprocal control. Her job was to report to me on new currents, moods, shifts, and ideologies among the hidden right to which she belonged. Then, without betraying any specific confidences, I would convey the information to some old friends whose job is to monitor these things and make sure the sham of democracy continues to convince.’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘Do you want names?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought you were less lazy than that. Find out for yourself.’

  ‘Should I be looking into the secret services, branches of government, magistrates? The shadow state?’

  ‘They are not all that hidden, Commissioner. Everyone knows they are there and many know who they are. Maybe you’ll miss a few, and I am sure there are younger operatives I don’t know about. But I am referring to my generation – that’s the group that people associate with Cossiga, Andreotti, Gladio, the Americans from the OSS, the monarchists, Almirante, Pope Pacelli . . .’

  ‘Do you still believe in all that – the excommunication of Commies, the recruitment of the Mafia to the cause of Fascism, Fascism itself, and the restoration of the monarchy?’

  ‘I still think it would have been better than what we have now, an invasion of scum from East Europe, the gypsies, abortion, graffiti, and degradation, Italian kids bastardizing their natural expressiveness with New York nigger gestures, the rise of the EU.’

  ‘Anything good happen in the last 65 years or so or has it all been downhill?’

  ‘Israel. The cleansing of the misplaced hatred between Zionism and Fascism. They are natural allies. As are environmentalism and spiritualism. We need to create a synthesis, and some young people understand this. But you Jews have really shown the way.’

  ‘I am not rising to that bait,’ said Blume.

  ‘You should be proud to be a Jew. If we accept that the word of God created the heavens and the earth, then we must remember that word was spoken in Hebrew. Keter, Hokhmah, Binah – that’s you – Hesed, Gevurah, Rahaimin . . .’

  Pitagora’s eyes were shining as he spoke.

  ‘And what does Manfellotto get from you?’

  ‘Freedom. Yesod, Malkuth . . . aren’t you interested in these names?’

  ‘How can you give her freedom?’

  ‘Not me. The people I report to, or the people they report to. It’s all part of the peace deal that ended the political violence of the ’70s and ’80s. But when we met, it wasn’t like a spy reporting to her handler or anything like that. We reminisced about the past and worried about the future. I’d ask her if there was any news to pass on, she’d mention something, or tell me there wasn’t. That’s all there was to it, though it’s fair to say she was particularly good at what she did.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘No one was better at reading people than Stefania. Occasionally a spy would turn up in among the activists – someone sent there by the Ministry, the Internal Security Agency, you people, or the Carabinieri – and she always, always, identified them immediately. She noticed things. She was very quick.’

  ‘And she’d tell you she had spotted them, even though you were reporting what she was telling you back to more or less the same authorities who were sending in the spies?’

  ‘She would not tell me until after she had rooted them out. She never worked against the interests of the various groups to which she was affiliated. She was extremely faithful. Whenever an internal feud broke out, she could play the role of arbitrator.’

  ‘I thought that was your role, and that she was the woman of action.’

  ‘She spent a long time in prison. People change. We were both mediators in the end.’

  ‘She was faithful, yet she betrayed some people. How does that work?’

  ‘No, Commissioner. She betrayed nothing and no one. That is perhaps the essence of her being. Always faithful to her own ideals. Everyone knew she met me and everyone knows I have connections in politics. She was like a statutory auditor in a company.’

  ‘They say you run a cult, you think you’re some sort of messiah.’

  ‘Of course they do. I am not the messiah and I am not mad.’

  ‘And that you exploit young people.’

  ‘I exploit no one and no one has made a complaint against me.’

  ‘Of both sexes.’

  Pitagora made an expansive gesture with his arms. ‘I embrace all experience. All forms of eros. The work of magic is to draw things together. The parts of this divided world are united and made whole again by what Saint Dionysius calls Eros, which is like a perpetual circle, from good through evil back to good.’

  ‘This perpetual circle allows you to fuck your students?’

  ‘If you’re interested in joining, and you seem to be, bear in mind that most of the intercourse takes place among themselves. My physical participation has been decreasing with my growing age and wisdom.’

  ‘There is a kid called Marco Aquilone. Do you know him?’

  ‘Yes, he’s one of my students. Not much hope for him. Bello ma non balla, if you know what I mean. Fine body, but dull of mind.’

  ‘Is he part of your fuck-circle?’

  ‘Are you trying to shock me with crudity? That’s hardly going to work. All it does is reveal your own prurience.’

  ‘Please answer my question.’ Blume was beginning to doubt his own theory. The professor made such a good suspect.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about, back in the day – or hell, even now – Stefania Manfellotto?’

  ‘Definitely not. Stefania was not into any of that. She was very highly sexualized as a young woman, but then she changed, and became almost monastic.’

  ‘Did she lose her sex drive before or after she killed 80 innocent people?’

  ‘More shock tactics?’

  ‘Why would someone try to kill her, do you think?’

  ‘I really don’t know. The thought has been torturing me ever since. She hinted at nothing that would make her suddenly a target. I can’t think why.’

  ‘Thank you for the book, Professor Pitagora. Or Pasqualino Pinto as Stefania remembers you.’

  Pitagora loosened his golden tie and leaned forward so that his face was half in shadow, and he lowered his voice either to convey a confessional tone or a subtle threat. ‘If I were you, Commissioner, I would consider the possibility that whoever shot Stefania and murdered that young woman is the same person or persons who have just put your wife in hospital as a warning.’

  Blume interpreted his words as a threat, and his reaction was not good.

  Chapter 28

  On the shimmering horizon, just beyond the range of her understanding was a crowd of thousands of places and people. If she could reach out and touch them, then things would be clearer, which would mean better. With clarity restored, she would know whether the man now coming towards her was a friend or not.

  He did not feel like a friend. The grin on his face was cocky and full of malice. She shrank back for a moment. She could feel his controlled cruelty, the absence behind his eyes. He was looking without seeing. Not all that bad-looking. Was that lust she saw around his throat? No, but it was anticipation of some sort. She raised her hands to pull back her cascading hair and was shocked to find it all g
one. Part of her head felt like the nap of a billiard table, and the man in front of her was looking at her now. She had just seen him come in, damn this all to hell, it was frustrating. And now her head filled with that music again. Sail away, away, ripples never come back . . . She could even hear the scratch in the LP. Gone to the . . . click, click. Other side . . . Pinto gave it to her as a present. Little Pinto, getting his little prick and his hopes up!

  There was a book beside her about Garibaldi. She couldn’t remember reading it, but she knew all about Garibaldi. She glanced out the window. Winter, no sound of anything. Withered brown leaves were clinging to the tree as it danced in a silent wind. What did that mean? Oak leaves did not fall until the spring, until the new generation took over. Out of a dark of which she had not been fully conscious, this man in the silky suit was suddenly there, a smooth political face, a Christian Democrat fixer down to the tips of his pointed bright shoes, a negotiator without qualms. She knew the type and braced herself to resist his blandishments and threats.

  ‘. . . as long as you agree to be bound by the terms of the agreement and not engage in any hostile actions again.’

  She apologized, but she had not been listening properly.

  ‘It means you are free.’

  ‘Free.’

  ‘You can leave this place. I’d say the sooner the better. You can get dressed right now. Shall I leave you to prepare your things?’

  She did not trust his smooth face and told him so. Escaping prisoners are often shot, or are sent out as agents of confusion to sow tares among the wheat, erect barriers between those who still trusted and those who feared betrayal. Some camerati had been turned by the authorities. And then someone came and you were given the chance to prove your absolute mettle. A conviction beyond all appeal, so that she would never be doubted. The lonely intro of ‘Down to the Waterline’ was playing as he came up to her, and his reasoning spilled out as eloquently and melodically as Knopfler’s guitar work, music that was acceptable to the Right, but not to the Left. Like Massimo Morsello’s ballads, except she really liked Dire Straits, and no one really liked Morsello, not even his mother. And then, when he had persuaded her, what had she done? She could not quite remember. Little Pinto, the treacherous envoy, his grandfather probably a Jew from the Castelli Romani, was all for it, then all against it.

  Shoot the women first. Always shoot the women first. Men hesitated, and men seeing dead women gave up easily. Nothing killed a man like a woman being killed. Didn’t she agree? The woman – where had she been? – smiled conspiratorially. We are of the same cut, she said. Put something on your feet before we go, the floor is cold. There had been a man there a moment ago, surely?

  She wasn’t authorized to say, and she might not even be attending the interview. You know how these things go. The woman by her side was dressed up like a Sunday visitor, and wore make-up, which she had put on inexpertly. Her bag was too practical and her shoes were flat and made for running. The shining black slacks she was wearing did not suit her, and were too wide at the hips, and the glasses were not to be trusted. Clear glass, possibly. The woman never wrinkled her nose or peered or pushed her head forwards like the short-sighted person she was meant to be. She touched them too often, because she was not used to them. Finally she found the words she was looking for to describe her.

  ‘You are undercover.’

  The woman smiled and complimented her, then lowering her voice, said, ‘Only you and I know this. We can’t just walk down the corridor, you understand that? You can see why that is not an option?’

  She looked around. Everything was unfamiliar, and she did not trust the woman beside her, but now she had no choice. The stairwell was cold enough, but when the woman pushed open the door the wind cut right through her. She looked down.

  ‘I am not even dressed!’ She laughed to hide her embarrassment at finding herself in a nightdress, belonging to someone else, it seemed, standing outside in the cold in front of everyone, but the woman who had been at her side was gone. A smooth-faced man in a shining suit stepped forth from behind the door. It was strange he should be there, and she felt dizzy, and moved quickly back towards the door, but he had his back against it.

  ‘Remember me?’ he said. The music was in a loop in her head now. It was impeding her thinking.

  She looked at him. He was not police. He was the type that chose bodyguards and organized security details, calmly set aside political and moral scruples, and engaged in straightforward and brutal negotiations. She knew the family and genus, but not this particular species.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve ever met,’ she said.

  ‘You know something, if you’re faking this, you’re doing one hell of a good job. Except it’s just too weird. You really don’t remember me?’

  The music stopped dead, and her mind went silent. She felt cold and frightened, and was sorry she couldn’t remember. She shook her head and smiled apologetically.

  ‘Allow me to present myself.’ He stretched out his hand, and she took it, mistrusting but shy. His hand was so warm she felt like putting her other hand into it.

  ‘You didn’t give me your name,’ he said.

  ‘Stefania Manfellotto,’ she said, looking into his calm grey eyes.

  ‘Thank you for the confirmation, Stefania, I’d hate to go to all this trouble just for some random mad old bitch.’

  He grabbed her other hand and pulled her towards him, allowing her to feel his warmth, then, with an almost casual nod he smashed her nasal septum with the side of his forehead and as she gasped and fell deeper into his embrace, he spun her around, placed his hand on the back of her neck while effortlessly locking her arms behind her back with his other free hand. With two steps he brought her to the edge and flung her into cold space.

  Chapter 29

  By rough-handling Pitagora and pushing him down his own painted corridor, Blume released a lot of the anger that had welled up in him, which enabled him to think a little more clearly. The problem with the clear thinking, however, was that he realized he was making a career-ending mistake, so as his rage subsided, his tension rose. An unexpected movement at the end of the hall caused him to push Pitagora against a wall showing a grinning winged lion standing on its hind legs with a sewing needle piercing its knee, and Blume found himself pointing his pistol towards the startled face of a young woman, and he realized the vastness of his error. He put away his weapon as quickly as he could, but even this sudden movement caused her to whiten and he saw her knees beginning to give way. She steadied herself, and he tried to make as many reassuring gestures as he could. He was afraid she might lose control of her bladder, and the last thing he wanted was for her to lose her dignity simply because he had lost his temper. Finally, without a word, she ran silently down the corridor and disappeared.

  He turned to the professor, who was leaning against the wall in an attitude of studied indifference that was belied by the whiteness of his face.

  ‘This is assault, you realize that? I am still prepared to forgive you for this,’ said Pitagora. ‘I heard about your wife through perfectly legitimate channels, and no threat was intended. All I was saying is that some equilibrium has been upset. No one ever knows what’s going on, but I used to know a bit more than most. Now I realize I am out of the loop. I have no idea who wanted to harm Manfellotto. No, that’s not right. I had no idea that they would do this. Now that they have, I think I know who it is.’

  Pitagora brushed himself down, and waited for Blume to show some more interest.

  ‘Lousy wall painting,’ said Blume. ‘Looks like it was done by a 5-year-old.’

  ‘It’s an allegory. It doesn’t have to be well done,’ said Pitagora. ‘Gospel of St Mark, in case you’re interested.’ He nodded at the phone in Blume’s hand, ‘Good, you’re holding a phone instead of your service pistol, but it won’t work in here.’

  Blume looked at the display and saw flashing empty bars.

  ‘I have a mobile phone jammer operating h
ere. It’s in the hallway and covers the entire house. Silence is golden, Commissioner.’

  ‘That’s illegal,’ said Blume.

  ‘Well, you can add that to my charge sheet. Remind me again what the other charges are.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Blume. ‘Let me think.’

  ‘I did not threaten your wife.’

  ‘We’re not married.’

  ‘That’s what we philosophers call an ignoratio elenchi. The point is I did not threaten her, and I am not responsible for what happened her. I was simply suggesting that it might not have been an accident, and so you need to be careful. It was meant as a goodwill gesture. A friendly warning.’

  Blume had had threats couched in careful language in the past. It was all a question of the tone in which they were delivered. He realized, too late, that Pitagora was not threatening him. He was already over the hurtling sensation of fear that the mention of Caterina by the professor had caused, though he could not quite shake the sensation that something awful had happened. He needed to talk to Caterina now.

  ‘How did you know about Caterina’s accident?’

  ‘Zezza told me. Apparently, someone in your office told him when he phoned looking for you.’

  Blume felt a soft thud on the inside of his forehead, followed by a fuzzy sensation that was not entirely unpleasant, but was the harbinger of a migraine. He reckoned he had about half an hour before he would be almost incapable of thought or speech.

  ‘Are you all right, Commissioner?’ Pitagora’s voice seemed to come from too far away for him to be able to tell if the tone was solicitous or mocking.

  ‘I am fine. If my phone doesn’t work in the front garden, I’m going to shoot you in the head,’ said Blume.

  ‘You are in a state of rage, Commissioner. You are about to do yourself enormous harm.’

  But he was not in a rage now. He felt strangely at ease in his pre-migraine world.

  ‘It’s raining,’ said Pitagora as they emerged from the villa.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I can’t go out in the rain just like that.’