Sveva looked at him with revulsion. “I don’t want to eat.”
“Yes, you do,” said Blume.
“No, I do not.”
“Look, I come here three or four times a week. I stay on good terms with them. Choose something.”
“You choose,” said Sveva.
“She’ll have the panino con la coltellata,” said Blume.
“Scusi?” said the barman.
Blume repeated himself. “Panino con la cotoletta. Cotoletta alla Milanese.” The barman nodded, then moved off. Blume noticed that Sveva was looking at him strangely.
“I’m not going to order just for appearances,” he said. “When it comes, I’ll eat it. A nice bit of fried meat will do me nicely.”
“That’s not what-I just thought you said-never mind. Tell me about the investigation.”
“I can’t. I mean, I wouldn’t anyway, even if it was still my case, but seeing as it’s not, I can’t.”
“Why do you think they took the investigating magistrate off the case?” she said.
“I have no idea,” said Blume. “You’re the politician.”
“I don’t consider ‘politician’ as much of an insult as your tone implies, Commissioner.”
“My phrasing was neutral,” said Blume.
Sveva’s grapefruit juice came, and she pushed it as far away from her as she could till it sat balanced on the edge of the table.
“Sometimes everything is wrong,” she began. Blume waited for her to continue, but she seemed to switch her line of thought. “Did you watch that documentary?”
“Yes,” said Blume. “What was that all about?”
“That’s what I want to ask you.”
The cotoletta arrived and Blume motioned the barman to put it in the middle of the table.
Sveva looked horrified as he cut into the meat. Maybe she didn’t eat meat, either, like her dead husband. He realized he was not being polite, but he was hungry.
“Di Tivoli made that documentary out of spite,” she said. “He is attracted to me. He’s attracted to many other things besides me, but he’s always had something special for me. Or so he says. Ever since university. But I am not in the slightest bit interested in him, also because he is, well, sexually ambiguous. He used to court me, then turn up with some boy he’d picked up on the Oppio Hill. That was not bad, back then, because back then Di Tivoli was a boy, too. Now he’s older. He told me about Arturo’s infidelities years ago. In fact, he even told me about them before they could be counted as proper infidelities. Di Tivoli seemed to think ratting on friends attracts women.”
“You didn’t mind your husband having affairs?”
“Yes and no. That’s not really what I want to talk about.”
“Fine,” said Blume. “But tell me this, did you know about Manuela Innocenzi?”
“No.” She was emphatic. “That I did not know. I knew he was seeing a woman, and I knew she was not so young, but I had no idea she was like that.”
“Like what?”
“Well, ugly, to begin with. But the criminal connection. I mean, come on.”
The last sounded like an appeal to her dead husband.
“So, like I said, Di Tivoli’s trying to embarrass me, and he’s doing a good job. First he drags our name into the dirt, then he makes me look like a fool for not knowing, and to end it all, he seems somehow to imply that I want a cover-up, or that I’m not interested in the truth.”
“It’s a good thing you did not try to stop the show from airing,” said Blume. “That would have given him credence.”
“I know.” She paused to allow Blume time to finish his meal. “So what about this Innocenzi woman?”
Blume shook his head. “I know that communications in the force are like a game of Chinese whispers, and the farther a message has to travel down from on high to someone as low as me, the more garbled it becomes. And I know that nobody ever really knows what’s going on.. ” Blume decided to cut short the rest of the diplomatic preface and went straight to his main point, “But I thought you were happy with the idea that your husband was killed by or as a result of Alleva.”
“Happy? You thought I was happy?”
“You know-satisfied. Convinced. Point is, I got a pretty clear message-go get Alleva-because that’s the word that’s come down from on high.”
“Convinced is the right word. They convinced me. Gallone, the people at the Ministry, some of my party colleagues. My uncle, too. He’s the undersecretary for internal affairs. As for me, I never said that or anything of the sort.”
“You never expressed any wish to see the case shut with Alleva as the guilty party?”
“I want whoever did this put away. I don’t care who it was.”
“What about your political career?”
Sveva paused, not to think, but to make sure he was watching her face closely as she spoke.
“That’s important. I won’t say it isn’t. But I don’t want a cover-up of any sort. If this Manuela Innocenzi is behind it, then have her arrested. I can deal with the embarrassment. Sooner or later everyone gets connected to a criminal family in this country. Everyone in Parliament, anyhow.”
“The message I got was clear,” said Blume. “Pick up Alleva. And because we rushed things, a young policeman got killed.”
“So did my husband!”
She raised her voice enough to cause a slight click of silence in the hubbub around them. One of the bank tellers was still looking at them.
“But you sort of led separate lives, didn’t you?”
Sveva pushed herself back from the table, causing the glass of juice to totter. Blume caught it just in time with a quick diagonal jerk of his good arm.
“I can see that I don’t engage your sympathy. Maybe it’s my politics, my background, I don’t know. It’s true Arturo and I led separate lives most of the time. He started it with his dumb betrayals, and I let him. Perhaps you think I should have spent more energy trying to keep hold of him? Made him feel better about himself? Is that my sin, here?”
“I’m not thinking of sin.”
“Yes, you are. You’ve got the same angry, frustrated look as he had. Men like you…”
“What about us?”
“You never find the woman you’re looking for, and you hate the rest of us for not measuring up.”
“This may apply to your husband, but as for me…”
“You live alone, don’t you?”
Blume said, “You looked that up. You’ve got access to files. It’s not hard to find out things like that.”
“ ‘Yes’ was all you needed to say, Commissioner. And I didn’t look it up.”
Blume drank her juice and grimaced. He didn’t like grapefruit.
“The crime scene,” she said, her tone more conciliatory. “It was messed up. Mainly the fault of Gallone and D’Amico, wasn’t it? I called the investigating magistrate, Principe, and he told me the first phase had been mishandled. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians, was how he put it.”
“Good way of putting it.”
“I admit it’s mainly my fault for calling Gallone instead of making a normal emergency call. I hardly even know Gallone. I mistook length for depth. Just because we used to hang out a bit at university a long time ago. Even then he was always a bit removed, always calm, priestly.”
“We call him the Holy Ghost.”
“I heard that. It suits him. He and the people in the Ministry-they never cared about forensic evidence. They just wanted to show their masters they were in direct control, and could steer the investigations. And you think I’m one of those puppeteers, but I’m not. My uncle may be, but I am not. My party does not want a scandal, the so-called Center-Left does not want a scandal, the government does not want a scandal. So they sent in D’Amico and Gallone to micro-manage. I’m just caught in the middle.”
“So now you want the truth,” said Blume.
“You still don’t believe me.”
“You phoned Gallone straigh
t away. You wanted the micromanagers in first, experts in second. You got your wish. Including a half-ruined crime scene.”
“I made a mistake. I was in a panic. You think if I was really panicked I would have called in the police on the emergency number, but I did what a politician does: I tried to regain control. I called Gallone, a friend on the Justice Commission, my party leader, my uncle. I wanted to be back in command. But not at the cost of the truth.”
Blume shook his head, then suddenly stopped as a searing pain shot through his neck and upper spine. He exhaled heavily.
“You still don’t believe me? My son was with me. You remember that? You remember it was he who found his father’s body?”
“Yes,” said Blume. “I remember. I am sorry he had to see that.”
“Are you? Have you any idea how he must feel?”
“Perhaps a little,” said Blume, fingering the back of his neck.
“You know how he feels?”
Blume tried to find some purchase for his aching arm on the table.
“Well, he must miss his father terribly…”
“No. That’s not really how it is with him. Not yet. You know what form his trauma is taking? Do you know how he’s living this?”
“No,” said Blume. “I don’t.”
“He thinks his father is still hurting. He can’t stop seeing the slashes and the cuts. He keeps telling me that the wounds are hurting his father. I tell him bluntly and brutally that his father is dead, and can’t feel anything anymore, but Tommaso is convinced Arturo is somehow still feeling the cuts of the knife. He’s so insistent and certain that I sometimes begin to think he may be right. He’s woken up every night and he says to me, ‘Daddy’s still bleeding,’ like he was a reporter coming back from somewhere with the undeniable facts. I tell him it’s just a dream. Then the other day-when was it? Monday. On Monday afternoon, Tommaso went into my mother’s kitchen-that’s where we are staying now, in the house in EUR that you saw-and he took a steak knife from the drawer and ran it across the inside of his palm. He pushed it in deep, too. I was out, and my parents had to bring him to Bambin Gesu. They say he narrowly missed a tendon. Tommaso said he wanted to know what just one cut would feel like. He told the doctors that his father had lots of cuts like that, almost as if he was boasting. But he wants to know the precise number. He keeps asking how many times they cut his father.”
Seventeen, thought Blume.
Her lower lip trembled. She stopped to regain control of her facial muscles.
“The best thing I can tell my child is that his father is turning to dust and no longer bleeds. My mother’s religious, but she’s no fucking help with her dripping sacred hearts and bleeding Jesuses. I can’t think of anything else to tell Tommaso. Where’s the comfort? Where is it to be found?”
“There is no comfort,” said Blume.
“Well, where’s the justice, then?”
“It’s in our minds,” said Blume. “That’s the only place you’ll find it.”
She nodded. “All I want you to know is that if that woman Innocenzi is behind this, I want her punished. Maybe I will end up doing some politics to keep my name out of it as much as I can, but I want her to be got. Is that clear? If it was Alleva, fine. Better, at least for my image, but don’t let her get away with it.”
“I doubt she had anything to do with it,” said Blume.
“So it was Alleva or his henchman after all?”
Blume stayed silent.
“Well, tell me. I need some sort of closure. I have to be able to tell my child something definitive someday, stop his father from bleeding.”
“I will tell you this,” said Blume. “There is no such thing as closure. In the end, it doesn’t matter if the person is caught. I have yet to meet anyone who really felt better for seeing so-called justice done. Not even revenge works.”
“That is palpably untrue,” said Sveva.
“Don’t talk to me like we were on a televised debate,” said Blume. “I know what I’m talking about. I know you’ve seen them and heard them on TV, in books, on the news, all these people who rejoice that the person who murdered their child has been caught or even killed, but after a few months, it all comes back again, every bit as bad as at the beginning. They are no better off. What’s lost forever is lost forever, no matter what you do afterwards. If the perpetrator is dead, it’s often worse. The survivors have no one left to hate, so they turn to hating themselves.”
“You’re a policeman, and you say it makes no difference who’s caught. Great.”
“Nobody likes hearing it,” said Blume. “A lot of cops know it, but they can’t say it out loud, because it means almost all we do is too little too late. Unless we catch a perpetrator beforehand. That feels good. It only makes a difference if it prevents another victim.”
Blume glanced at his phone on the table. Still no call from Paoloni.
“Are you expecting a call?” asked Sveva.
“I was. Now I’m beginning to wonder.”
“Has it to do with my case?”
Blume hesitated.
“It has, hasn’t it? Even though you’ve been taken off the investigation, there’s still something you’re waiting for. What is it?”
“I can’t say,” said Blume.
“Why not?”
“Do you know how many levels of hierarchy I am skipping by talking to you like this? Suppose I had an idea, and gave it to you, then you tried to impose it from above-have you any idea what sort of a mess that would make of my already static career? You’re sort of outside the hierarchy, but you’re above it, too.”
“Do you have an idea who killed Arturo?”
“Yes,” said Blume. “I do, but I could be wrong.”
“And you can’t give me a name?”
“No.”
“And you’ve been taken off the case.”
“Right.”
“And there is no way I can get you put back on the case without everyone thinking you went behind their backs, which would screw your good reputation and career.”
“Good reputation and career are inversely related. Let’s just say my reputation.”
“And you maintain it won’t make any difference to me who killed my husband.”
“Not in the long-term, no. The pain will be the same.”
“I’m still not sure about that last part. Maybe you’re talking about someone specific. Someone who doesn’t feel any better for knowing.”
Blume shrugged, and discovered that that hurt, too.
“And yet, despite all you have said and all that you profess to believe, you’re still going to try to get the real culprit, aren’t you?”
“Yes. And there’s nothing I need you to do to help me,” he said. “Except maybe stay clear of me, just so there are no misunderstandings.”
Sveva Romagnolo stood up, and held out her hand. Blume half stood up, too, and took it.
“Thank you, Commissioner,” she said. “Good luck with your unofficial investigation.”
“Thank you, Senatrice,” said Blume.
She left him sitting at the table, wondering if he had just made a promise. Ten minutes later he went to settle the bill, and Bettino handed him fifty-four euros.
“What’s this?” asked Blume.
“Your change. The lady you were with left a hundred-euro bill to pay for lunch. Have I seen her on TV?” When Blume didn’t answer, he said, “You don’t want the change? I’ll put it in the book as credit, if you want.”
“I don’t have a tab, Bettino.”
“I can make you one now, Commissioner. Let’s make it fifty-five euros credit, a better number. OK, now you’re in credit with me, and in debt to her.”
29
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 5 P.M.
Blume called and waited all day, but got no word from Paoloni.
Principe was in court and unavailable for calls.
Back in his kitchen, Blume started calling around the police stations of Rome, seeing if anyone ca
lled Pernazzo had been brought in. He began with the station nearest Pernazzo’s house and worked his way out in a spiral.
Staying inside the city limits. He kept his tone casual. None of them had heard anything.
After wasting several hours in this way, Blume figured his casual inquiries would have been noted by now, so he phoned the Office of Questura. After repeating his number and qualifications to diffident desk superintendenti, Blume was finally connected with a commissioner-in-chief willing to share a little information. None of the stations in the entire Province of Rome had reported an arrest with that name, he was told. Not that that necessarily meant anything. The updates were not always updated, as Blume no doubt knew.
Blume did. He waited expectantly. The commissioner-in-chief had given him the quid, now he would be expected to return with the quo.
“So what’s the investigation you’re working on, Commissioner Blume?”
Blume had a choice here. He could tell the truth. It would make it harder for Gallone and the Ministry to ignore the Pernazzo angle. But throwing suspect names around like that, phoning in an unofficial capacity. It was stuff that could come back and bite you.
“It’s a secret investigation,” he said. He felt like a twelve-year-old making things up.
His interlocutor was unruffled. “All investigations are secret, Commissioner. Has this anything to do with that politician’s wife? That was in your district originally, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” said Blume.
“Not the wife, the husband. It was the husband who was murdered. And you didn’t correct me. Is this Pernazzo somehow involved? Has he anything to do with the people who shot the policeman?”
“No, no. It’s a completely different case,” said Blume.
“Indeed?”
“Yes. Check the reports from our office. My name’s not even on them anymore.”
“So this Pernazzo has nothing to do with any of that. They’ve put you on a new case, then?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were on leave. You were injured.”
Did this bastard know him personally? Blume wondered.
“A minor thing. We’re completely understaffed here. I’m just doing a bit of light work, making myself useful.”
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