Nightingale faltered and Blume intervened to reassure him. “His forgeries, is that what you’re shy of saying?”
“No, as it happens, I am not shy at all,” said Nightingale. “You see, Commissioner, the art world’s got different rules. Different principles and behavior. Let’s just say for the sake of argument that I were to admit to placing forgeries on the market over the years. In the first place, I would be protected from prosecution for almost all of them by the statute of limitations. But even if I spoke openly of a forgery sold yesterday, almost all the other interested parties and the people involved in the transaction, especially those who invested good money in it, would be so keen to attest to its authenticity that no one would be allowed to believe me. I would have to work really hard to prove that what I sold was not authentic. Very hard indeed. It’s not easy to self-incriminate in this line of work.”
“Does Henry provide evidence of forgery in his writings?”
“In the writings you did not find?”
“Yes, in those,” said Blume.
Nightingale settled himself more comfortably in his armchair. “Back in the 1930s, Commissioner, there was an American collector called Joseph Duveen. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”
Blume shook his head.
“Well, this Duveen was a genuine expert, with both an eye and historical knowledge, which is a rare thing indeed. In an article he wrote, Duveen happened to mention that a version of a very famous painting La Belle Ferronière, supposedly by Leonardo da Vinci, was a fake. Now, bear in mind that the people who were in the process of selling the ‘discovered’ work had a quite unbelievable story to begin with. I mean, really—they hardly even tried to make it convincing. But they did insist on its authenticity, and aggressively, to boot. With barefaced . . . sfacciatezza—I don’t think English even has a word for that sort of attitude—”
“Chutzpah,” said Blume.
“If you can call that an English word,” said Nightingale. “The point is the work was purportedly a second copy made by da Vinci—the artist famous for not even finishing off his own originals, let alone making copies. So when Duveen said fake, you probably think the vendors would have hidden their faces in shame and pulled the work from sale. Au contraire. Declaring that Duveen had depreciated their profits, they sued him for damages, and won. They bankrupted the poor chap. The painting was duly sold and is still attributed, sort of, to da Vinci, even though no one believes that anymore.”
“If you are untouchable, I fail to see why you should be worried about what Treacy wrote,” said Blume.
“Reputation, Commissioner. As he got on in years, Harry became more and more open about his forging activities, till he was practically shouting it from the rooftops, though it is worth mentioning he did not start doing that until he stopped producing work that was skilled. I did not depend all that much on him. The relationship was the other way around, really. Even if he had been producing magnificent interpretations of grand masters once a month . . .”
“Interpretations, huh? I thought you weren’t shy of the word forgery.”
“Fine, then, forgeries. We could hardly be selling a discovered grand master once a month. There are limits to what the market will accept. I had quite high volumes of trade in areas that did not concern him, including sculpture. But two years ago, Harry even started sending letters to museums around the world, claiming authorship of various paintings. None of them ever purported to take him seriously, though one or two old masters subsequently vanished from display, often ‘for cleaning.’ Some of Harry’s claims were bluffs, and sometimes I thought he was becoming delusional, genuinely believing he was the artificer behind works that he had never touched. The thing is, Harry was bursting to tell the world what he had done, which is not really what one wants to hear.”
“So you would not have edited his writings, you would have destroyed them.”
Nightingale looked offended. “I would have edited them, not destroyed them. I might have made a lot of cuts. The best editors cut out more than they leave in.”
“I see,” said Blume. “And so who better to tell about the notebooks than someone who knows the business, knows you and Treacy, and has authority. You contacted Colonel Orazio Farinelli and told him about the notebooks, didn’t you? It should have been easy for the Colonel to get them, but maybe he delayed. Maybe he was doing a deal with Henry.”
“I can’t even begin to fathom what you are trying to say, Commissioner.”
“OK, fathom this: when we or the Carabinieri get called out to a scene, our job is not to gather evidence that can be used against a person, but to gather evidence that a crime has been committed in the first place. That’s phase one. The law is very clear on this point. Our evidence cannot really be used as part of the prosecution case unless the prosecutor successfully applies for an incidente probatorio—I’m afraid I can’t translate that for you. It means using the preliminary evidence retroactively if it turns out there is a perpetrator. After our preliminary phase, we report to the investigating magistrate who chooses which force to use and, from then on, it is up to the magistrate to direct inquiries. Of course, we still have the power of initiative and can make suggestions, but all this comes after we have declared the existence of a suspected crime. Are you following this?”
“Without any great interest, I’m afraid.”
“Keep listening, then. Today we did not get as far as reporting a crime, which is one of the reasons you have little to fear from this conversation we are having. No one from here filed a notification with a magistrate. Our instinct was that this might be a death by misadventure. But seeing as there is also some mad mugger operating in Trastevere, picking on foreign victims, we were going to look at that, too, and incorporate Treacy’s death into an ongoing investigation already under the direction of a magistrate. All nice and simple, so far. Yet, a few hours later, a new magistrate and the Carabinieri are investigating. Well, that’s fine, too. This sort of thing occasionally happens, especially when we stumble into something that another force is already investigating. The Carabiniere who arrives on the scene is a colonel, no less. Former director of the Art Forgery and Heritage Division. The dead man is a forger. Well, that definitely suggests the existence of a prior investigation, doesn’t it? And if there was one, you were at the center of it along with Treacy, but you did not mention it. Perhaps you did not know?”
“If there was an investigation into us, I did not know,” said Nightingale.
“By law, you must receive an official notification that you are under investigation. You never got one?”
“No.”
“So it seems there is no investigation, or was none until this morning. But the magistrate, a very flexible man who is susceptible to persuasion from powerful people, says there is an investigation. And then I have the pleasure of a chat with the Colonel himself, and it turns out he, Treacy, and you go way back.”
“I am still not sure what you are implying,” said Nightingale. “Perhaps you might be a little clearer?”
“I find the sudden investigation into a suspicious death that has not yet been declared suspicious to be suspicious.”
“Ah, much clearer now. Who says the art of explication—”
Blume cut across him. “Don’t test my patience, Mr. Nightingale. The obvious conclusion to this is that you warned the Colonel about the notebooks.”
“That’s not the only obvious conclusion.”
“It’s the one I choose to draw,” said Blume. “Refute me.”
Nightingale spelled out his words with great deliberation: “I did not tell the Colonel about the notebooks.”
“That’s not a refutation, it’s just a denial.”
“It’s also the truth.”
He was lying. Blume was sure. But he was pleased, too. It was as much and more than he had hoped to get out of the interview.
“And now you tell me, Commissioner, how do you know these writings that you say you have not seen are contained in not
ebooks?”
Blume and Nightingale sat there looking at each other, neither embarrassed at his own discovered lies, both annoyed at the other’s. After a while, Blume said, “If I have Treacy’s writings, I will soon read them and discover whatever it is you wanted kept quiet. You might as well tell me what it is.”
“I just did. His claims and revelations regarding paintings I sold . . .”
“I see,” said Blume. “You’re hoping that whatever it is, Treacy did not include it. Perhaps someone killed him beforehand?”
Nightingale stood up. “I think next time we speak, I shall have my lawyer with me.”
Chapter 13
Blume had enough to form three interesting hypotheses. The first, almost a certainty, was that Treacy had written something neither the Colonel nor Nightingale wanted revealed, which logically implied it was something the Colonel and Nightingale had done together. The second, probable but not certain, was that the Colonel learned of the existence of the notebooks only recently, or he would have moved to seize them earlier. The third hypothesis, possible and far from certain, was that the Colonel had had Treacy killed to keep him quiet. If that was the case, Nightingale should not be feeling too safe either.
Blume pulled the first notebook out of his drawer, but before he had a chance to open it, his desk phone rang.
“The Questore wishes to speak to you,” said a secretary at the other end of the line.
This formality, designed to heighten the dignity of office, infuriated Blume beyond what was reasonable. If he wants to speak to me, said Blume’s mind in a well-rehearsed and unspoken rant, then all he has to do is phone and start talking, not instruct his unctuous secretary to inform me about his interest in eventually . . .
“Commissioner. You have a serious disciplinary problem in your squad, and your detection and closed case statistics are a disaster.”
The bastard could get straight to the point when he wanted. There followed a detailed account of a complaint received from the secundo secretario of the Spanish Embassy to the Holy See. In his reply, Blume tried to insinuate a note of surprise into his voice regarding the unaccountable complaint from the Spanish diplomat. But the Questore was having none of it.
“Nun ci prova’, Commissa’. If you try to make out like you don’t know what’s happening, it’s going to look like incompetence on your part.”
“OK,” said Blume. “Point taken.”
“Give him up, whoever he is, or you’ll take the full brunt of this.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So, who is it?”
“Can’t we get some time to work this out, see whether my man needs some backup witnesses or is willing to accept full responsibility?”
“I want to be able to talk about the one bad apple in a squad otherwise made up of upstanding heroes, Blume. I don’t want a show of solidarity that implicates the whole fucking force in the thumping of a diplomat. You have until tomorrow morning. You’re not too busy to deal with this, I hope?”
Blume made the beginnings of a response, but the Questore said, “No, listen. I don’t want to hear that you’re busy.”
“OK. You won’t hear that.”
“You are particularly not busy with the dead foreign forger. Leave that to the Carabinieri, please, before you manage to offend another league of nations.”
“Just a few loose ends to clear up, then it’s straight over to them,” promised Blume. “Though it is to be wondered what the basis of the sudden investigation . . .”
“No, it isn’t. Nothing is to be wondered at. Hand it over now. You know why I want you to do that? Let me tell you why: It’s so you can concentrate your efforts on improving international relations down there. The American visitor your local mugger robbed last month? Turns out his brother-in-law or cousin or someone owns GM Italia and carries clout. Another victim was a NATO negotiator—that makes two assaulted diplomats by the way.”
Now was definitely not the time to mention Rospo’s failure to file a report on the mugging of a Chinese couple.
“It’s not much to ask, is it? I mean, catch a mugger. Skim all the scum off the streets, hold them in five adjacent cells. Eventually they’ll pick out or kill off whoever got them arrested. Come on, Blume. And let me repeat this: Keep away from the dead forger before you offend the British Embassy, too.”
“I think he was Irish,” said Blume.
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“No, sir. It’s just he was Irish.”
“Great. Well, that means your mugger has probably done all the EU by now, including the minor states. So, head on plate of the policeman who beats up diplomats—I am appointing an external investigator today—and catch your mugger. Clear?”
“Very clear.”
Blume had only just hung up and was still making obscene gestures at the phone when Panebianco knocked and, without waiting for an invitation, entered. He always did this: it was part of his efficiency, so Blume had decided not to tell him to stop. Still, it was annoying.
Blume slammed the notebook shut. “What?” He picked up a sheet of paper and dropped it on top of the notebook, thus insuring that Panebianco’s eye was drawn to it.
“We’ve got a hit-and-run,” said Panebianco.
“You mean the Municipal Police have a hit-and-run,” said Blume. “We, on the other hand, have a mugger.”
“Yes, except the vehicle was reported missing a few days ago. The owner is abroad, apparently. He’s also a small-time crook with a previous for assault. There are two victims and a third in critical condition. It looks like they are non-EU immigrants.”
“Oh well, that’s all right then,” said Blume, regretting it as he said it, because Panebianco never detected irony.
Panebianco said, “One victim is a child, the person in critical condition is also a child.”
“Oh,” said Blume. Maybe Panebianco was right to have no sense of humor. “Who did you send?”
“There’s a patrol car now.” I was thinking of going there myself. With Sovrintendente Grattapaglia.”
“No. Choose someone else,” said Blume. “Grattapaglia can’t go. Keep me posted on it.”
When Panebianco left, Blume retrieved the other notebooks from his drawer, and glanced through them. He estimated it would take him eight hours to read through them, perhaps a little less. It was hard to tell with handwritten notes. The following day was a Sunday, and provided the hit-and-run did not balloon into a major case and the mugger did not strike again, he might find the time to go through them. Then he could decide what to do. He wondered if the Colonel knew English well; perhaps he would read them with Nightingale by his side. He pictured them, reading the pages, ripping them out, feeding them into the flames.
He would take them home now, get a start on them. He put them into his father’s old leather bag, large enough to accommodate art books, and thought of how they had peeped out of Caterina’s bag, making her look like a student. A mature student. He wondered what she had studied in college. Probably jurisprudence like him.
Most people who went to British-American schools abroad ended up in highly paid jobs, but not her. She had lived outside Italy, lived in a different language, which gave her a second soul. Who had said that? And then she had ended up a poorly paid servant of the state. Not just a servant of the state but a cop. Part of society’s clean-up crew. She must have come home when her father retired. Possibly another colonel.
He made a sudden decision. He left the office, crossed the road to a bookstore with a photocopying machine. Zalib was the name of the place. It was tucked into the bowels of the huge Pamphili gallery. Paoloni, who had never seen the inside of a bookstore, used to refer to it dismissively as the Arab store, convinced Zalib was some sort of Arab surname. The place smelled of cigarettes, photocopy ozone, and damp paper.
It took Mr. Zalib, who turned out to be a laconic Italian called Marco, half an hour to photocopy all the pages, and another twenty minutes to get spiral binding around them. He charge
d far too little for his work, apologized for the delay, and sent Blume on his way, bag bulging. Treacy had written on both sides of the sheet, and the single-sided photocopied version was more than twice as thick as the originals.
Blume called Caterina, not sure where she would be. It turned out she was at a swimming pool where Elia was just finishing his lesson. Blume got her to give him directions and asked her to wait.
Twenty minutes later, he was sitting in his car on a road so full of waiting vehicles it had turned into a parking lot. He failed to make out Caterina in the midst of all the other mothers, babysitters, and children milling around the gates of the sports center and swarming across the road, but Caterina and her child found him.
She knocked on the glass at the passenger side, but the kid opened the back door and bundled himself and his sports bag into the backseat and tapped Blume on the shoulder.
“Are you a policeman?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Blume.
“Not a boyfriend, then?”
Caterina climbed into the passenger seat. “Sorry about this,” she said. “Commissioner, this is my son. Elia. Say hello.”
“Hello,” said Blume.
“No, not you, Commissioner. I meant Elia. Elia, say hello.”
“Hello,” said Elia.
“Where’s your car?” asked Blume.
“I take the bus here. It’s quicker than finding parking here and then back home. It’s only ten minutes. Elia, darling, we’re getting a lift. Put on your seatbelt.”
“Seatbelt? In the back?”
“It’s the law.”
“I can’t find any seatbelt,” said the boy.
“Well, look for it. I’m sure it’s there.”
The Fatal Touch Page 12
