The Namesake cab-3

by Conor Fitzgerald

  Blume cleared his throat, and spoke. ‘It’s symbolic… it’s.. They are showing us what they’re made of.’

  ‘Who? The Calabrian Mafia? That’s the case you were working on with the magistrate. Is this to do with the doctor and the Cuzzocrea brothers?’

  ‘It’s too early to say,’ said Blume. His rage had subsided almost as suddenly as it had welled up, and was now a simmering and manageable anger, the sort that gave him energy. And deep inside, in a hardly acknowledged part of his soul, there was a feeling of reluctant admiration for the sort of person who could kill for no other reason than that the name of the victim fitted. Murder for a play on words.

  ‘It’s effective,’ he told Panebianco. ‘This is quite a well-structured act…’ He looked at the splayed-out body, one arm pointing up, the other down as if to say, Here is where I came from, there is where they went.

  As they moved around the body, a forensic technician cocooned in white watched fearfully without daring to intrude, like a possessive child who had made the mistake of lending his favourite toy to the two school bullies.

  Blume tapped Panebianco on the elbow. ‘Rosario, don’t start from the Ndrangheta angle. If it’s them, the case will be taken over by the DIA; if it’s not, you’re going to have to build up a different working hypothesis, so you may as well start now. Treat it as an ordinary murder.’

  ‘You’re talking as if you’re bowing out.’

  ‘I am,’ said Blume. ‘You deal with whoever is the magistrate in charge. Try to keep Caterina out of it, would you?’

  Panebianco stood up from where he was crouched examining the black-caked exit wound in the victim’s head, and waved at the forensic technician who rushed back towards the body with an air of gratitude and relief. His three colleagues followed.

  Panebianco and Blume moved several yards away while the technicians continued their work with paper bags, tweezers and swabs.

  ‘I disagree, Commissioner. This would be a good case for Caterina. Like you said, it’s bound to be taken out of our hands once it’s clear it is organized crime, so it would be a perfect chance for her to get some practice, and then feel the pain of losing a case.’

  ‘I’d prefer she wasn’t involved. She has a son, you know.’

  Panebianco looked at him. ‘She’s the only one on the force with children?’

  ‘That came out wrong.’

  Panebianco did not look pleased. ‘You’ve got no children. Why don’t you handle it?’

  ‘Magistrate Matteo Arconti won’t be able to investigate this. It’s too clearly a conflict of interest, and I think the same might apply to me. I’m going to retreat into the shadows, so to speak.’

  Blume beckoned to Caterina who was still talking to the two street cleaners who had found the body. She flicked her hand at him, with exactly the same gesture she used to shoo away her son when he tried to interrupt her talking on the phone. Blume enjoyed the domestic intimacy of the gesture, but disliked the casual disregard of his authority. Even so, he let her finish her interview.

  He took a walk around the area. The place was well chosen, a wide waste ground used as an overflow car park with no buildings overlooking it, and flanked by a road with fast-moving traffic and no footpath. The body had probably been lying there for hours. From what he had seen, it was unlikely that the victim had been killed where he was found. From a distance, the corpse looked like a lump of tar, a heap of clothes or a bag of rubbish.

  The road, Via Falcone e Borsellino, was named after two magistrates murdered by Cosa Nostra in 1992.

  He checked his phone again. If Arconti knew of the death of his namesake, he would surely call.

  Taking his time, he returned to the crime scene, now populated with more vehicles and a mortuary van. He stood at the edge and watched his colleagues go about their business. He observed Caterina whose movements were a little too quick. She changed direction often and twice had to retrace her steps. She spoke to colleagues, then five minutes later had to speak to them again. Lots of micromanagement errors so far, but she was maintaining authority and control, and being taken seriously — that was the main thing. He was pleased for her sake, then remembered he didn’t want her on the case.

  When she finally seemed to have a moment, he caught her eye and nodded at her to come over.

  ‘The most obvious line of…’ she began.

  Blume put up a restraining hand. ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I think,’ said Blume, ‘the best way to approach this is to put a Chinese wall between us.’

  She closed one eye and examined the side of his face as she often did when trying to assess whether he was being serious or not. ‘A Chinese wall, no less,’ she said eventually. ‘A great one?’

  ‘A Chinese wall is when you deliberately don’t share knowledge or information so as not to help someone else inadvertently.’

  ‘Sounds like an ordinary Blume wall to me,’ said Caterina.

  ‘I think you should maybe opt out of this one. You could tell the investigating magistrate your opinions are contaminated because of what I have already told you. You won’t get sufficient clarity. So Panebianco’s doing this until it’s passed on to the DIA.’

  ‘Or to Milan,’ said Caterina. ‘That’s where the victim is from. He works in insurance and has no record of any sort. He never arrived at work yesterday morning, and his wife reported him missing. So maybe we should look into the wife.’

  ‘The wife?’ said Blume, intrigued. ‘You mean an ordinary murder?’

  ‘I know this is almost certainly to do with the Ndrangheta, but, like you said, I won’t be influenced by you. See, your Chinese wall’s working already.’

  ‘You don’t want to have anything to do with this,’ said Blume. ‘People who find an innocent namesake, kill him for… fun. Because this is a form of fun for them. Like shooting up a shop or firebombing a factory is fun for the young recruits. It is evil joy.’

  ‘Evil or not, it does not follow that there is a particular risk for investigators. If they strike at us directly, it could spark off a war with the state, like Cosa Nostra was stupid enough to do in the 1990s. I’m in no more danger from this inquiry than any other. And you’re not my protector.’

  ‘I’m your commissioner.’

  Caterina smiled and beckoned him closer, leaned into his ear, and whispered, ‘Commissioner Blume?’

  ‘What?’ Blume found he was whispering, too, and grinning like a schoolboy.

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Blume stood back and scowled at her. ‘There was no need for that. OK, have it your way. I don’t think Curmaci or the Ndrangheta is involved in this.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, Alec. There is no need to exaggerate. How stupid do you think I am?’

  ‘No, seriously,’ said Blume. ‘The Ndrangheta is the “quiet” Mafia. This draws a lot of attention to them, and for what? It is not as if Arconti’s investigation was going to the heart of the organization. Maybe Arconti, the magistrate, had other enemies. Maybe this other Arconti from Milan did.’

  ‘Alec, I’m not listening to this.’

  ‘Well, you should.’

  Caterina lowered her voice. ‘You spoke to me about a guy called Agazio Curmaci. Do you think…?’

  ‘I hear the wife is on her way down from Milan to identify the body,’ said Blume, glancing at his watch and realizing it was not there.

  ‘Yes, she should get to the morgue in about three hours, more or less at the same time as her husband’s body. But unless we bring up the Curmaci and Ndrangheta angle at once, the wife risks undergoing heavy-handed questioning from the investigating magistrate.’

  ‘How do you know he’ll do that?’

  ‘Experience of magistrates. Unless it’s a she, which would be better.’

  Panebianco came over and pointed at a man strolling towards them, hands behind his back, his Venetian-blond hair visible from this distance.

  ‘Here comes the investigating magistrate. That’s Nardone.’
He exchanged a look with Blume.

  Caterina followed his glance. ‘I don’t know him. What’s he like?’

  Blume seesawed his hand back and forth to indicate that Nardone was less than perfect. ‘There are worse. He’s fifteen years younger than you.’

  ‘No way!’ said Caterina.

  ‘Really.’

  Caterina folded her arms across her breasts. ‘How old do you think I am?’

  ‘I don’t know, about fifty?’

  ‘You’re not funny. Now, if I am not to think about the Ndrangheta, what line of approach should I take to the fact this body was dumped in Rome in front of the courthouse?’

  ‘Maybe the victim came down here to Rome by himself.’

  ‘No,’ said Caterina. ‘The body was moved after death, you can see that from the lividity, the way the clothes are rumpled and soiled. He’s been dragged around, left lying on the ground for some time. Also, there should be more blood. If he was moved directly after death, there would be more bloodstains on his shirt and jacket. So he lay where he was shot long enough for the blood to coagulate and stop moving. Rigor mortis has completely gone, the skin has a greenish hue. The medical examiner, who seems to have a problem with women, won’t say how long…’

  ‘No, no. That’s just Dorfmann,’ said Blume. ‘He doesn’t hate you because you’re a woman, he hates you because you’re a breathing human. In his loathing of all living beings, he’s a paradigm of sexual equality. He’ll do a thorough report.’

  ‘If you say so. But the time of death is at least eighteen hours earlier. And the place of death was not here. He’d have been discovered before today, and anyway there’s no blood at the scene. So I’m going to assume he was killed closer to where he went missing, which probably means Milan. Which means even if this investigation is not appropriated by the DIA, it will probably be transferred there on the grounds of a “positive contrast” between the magistrates.’

  ‘Technically, it’s more likely to be a “negative contrast,” ’ said Blume. ‘Milan won’t have opened a murder inquiry, so it will be up to Nardone to declare the case as outside the scope of his competence. He will: most things in life are outside Nardone’s scope of competence.’

  ‘So you may as well let me stay on it for the day or two we have it.’

  ‘Fine, then. But if I were you, I’d give Panebianco a coordinating role, get him to liaise with the forensic team, and help build a timeline. He has an organized mind. He’s also very observant.’

  ‘More than me, you mean?’

  ‘Don’t be so touchy.’

  ‘Why aren’t you wearing your watch?’

  ‘I am wearing it in my pocket.’

  ‘In your pocket?’

  ‘It’s too hot to wear a watch. It was giving me a rash.’

  ‘So you don’t like it? I can change it for something else.’

  ‘Another watch, or an antique ring or a necklace, you mean? Don’t bother. I mean, it’s great and I like it very much, so there is no need to change it.’

  Blume put it back on his wrist and stared at it like it was a canker. ‘There.’

  ‘Give me that watch. I’ll just get the money back.’

  ‘No. I really like this watch. And it’s been fifteen years since anyone bought me a birthday present, so I’m keeping it. What’s your next step here, Caterina? Concentrate on this. Never mind my beautiful watch.’

  ‘I’m trying to collect CCTV footage from the shops and a few banks. I’m hoping they’ll volunteer the videos without the magistrate having to intervene.’

  ‘Some will, some won’t,’ said Blume. ‘But that’ll take time and as far as I can see, all the cameras are too far away from here. What else will you be doing?’

  ‘Talking to the wife. Did you notice the victim had no wedding ring? I’ll ask her about that.’

  ‘When she gets here, yes, and beforehand?’

  ‘Talking to the street cleaners who found the body, which I have already done.’

  ‘Right. I suppose Panebianco can check with the victim’s employers, bank, work colleagues, friends, trying to reconstruct his movements. But if we put Panebianco on that, he’s not going to be able to help you here.’

  Caterina stretched out her hand. ‘Come on, give me back my despised gift. The watch on your wrist.’

  Blume considered a little more resistance, but he relished the idea of getting rid of it. Maybe next time she would ask him what he liked rather than trying to second-guess him. He made a show of reluctance as he pulled it off. She took it and dropped it into her bag, making a point of getting the fastener to click loudly as she closed it.

  ‘Where are you going now?’ she asked.

  ‘I need to talk to Matteo Arconti. The living one. The magistrate. And it’s not going to be an easy conversation.’

  7

  Rome

  Matteo Arconti extricated himself awkwardly from his chair as Blume walked in. He stretched out a stiff arm as if he intended to ward off Blume rather than greet him.

  ‘They have killed me.’

  ‘Not you. Your namesake, Magistrate.’

  The window beside Arconti was open, and a breeze was ruffling the stacks of papers on the desk. He wavered on his feet for a few seconds before collapsing back into his chair, all elbows, knees and anxiety.

  Blume moved a heap of books and files to the floor to make room on an armchair.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Arconti. ‘I can’t say anything useful. I feel numb. Not just inside, but outside, too. It’s probably a protective mechanism. I’m not sure this is real. I have even pinched myself but I can’t feel it. That could mean I am in a dream, couldn’t it?’ There was real hope in his voice.

  ‘This is not a dream,’ said Blume.

  ‘That’s what the dream version of you would say. Prove it.’

  ‘Our conversation is too logical.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Arconti, unconvinced.

  ‘Look at your left hand. Can you see it properly?’ said Blume.

  The magistrate stared at the back of his hand. ‘I can see it fine. But I can’t feel it properly.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about not feeling it, but if you can see your hands properly, it’s not a dream.’

  Arconti studied his hands, then Blume’s face with the same quizzical expression. ‘How do you know that thing about the hands?’

  ‘An old trick my father taught me when I was little, so I could tell the difference between nightmares and real life, as if there was one.’

  Arconti turned his barn-owl gaze back on Blume. ‘Do you remember a while ago I was saying we were less vulnerable to attacks from the Ndrangheta?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘That’s why you should have told me about your girlfriend. I thought you were unattached.’

  ‘I’m still getting used to having someone. I sort of forgot.’

  But Arconti was not listening. ‘… remember me saying that no one innocent will suffer as a result of my investigation? Do you? Do you remember that? And then they do this. They make an innocent man die as a result of me.’

  Arconti pressed his chest and grimaced. ‘The murder of an innocent man who was unlucky enough to have my name is more than an ironic twist of fate.’ He jerked his elbow into a pile of files and sent them crashing to the floor, startling Blume who leaned forward to pick them up. ‘Leave the files, Commissioner.’

  Blume straightened up in his seat, put his hands on the armrests, and waited for Arconti to have his say. The magistrate was now entering into a rhetorical mode as if arguing his case in court.

  ‘It’s one thing being isolated by colleagues, derided by corrupt politicians, ignored by the public and threatened by criminals,’ Arconti declaimed, his face, so white a minute ago, suddenly flushed with colour, ‘it’s quite another to know that your actions are the immediate cause of the death of an innocent person. Don’t take this wrong, Commissioner, but if they had killed you, I could have accepted that more easily.’


  ‘I might have found it more difficult,’ said Blume.

  ‘I can’t do this. It’s like investigating my own death. No one can work alone against that level of organized malice surrounded by colleagues and politicians who are complicit in it. I sometimes feel like quitting, leaving my job, leaving the country, too.’

  ‘Could you do that?’

  ‘Of course I could. Pursuant to Article 52 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Abstention of a Public Minister…’

  ‘Not what the law says. I meant, could you just walk away from it all?’

  ‘Yes, I could,’ said Arconti. The idea had a calming effect on him. Speaking in a softer and more confidential tone, he added, ‘And so could you, Commissioner. Maybe someday you will. Do you have somewhere to go when that day comes?’

  ‘I couldn’t quit.’

  ‘You could. It’s one of the advantages of being on this side of the law. It’s the criminals who have pledged lifelong allegiance. If I sold my house in Rome, I could live out the rest of my days up north, walking in the mountains, looking after myself. I might even write a book, like that magistrate from Bari, Carofiglio. He’s done well for himself. Somehow managed to eke out his magistrate’s salary by writing books for a country full of people who don’t read. Are you happy, Commissioner?’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Life. You don’t want to answer, I can see that. You probably can’t. I was wrong just now about your partner. Make this woman your wife if she’ll have you. Marriage is important.’

  ‘Marriage?’

  ‘Do you know how the Ndrangheta lets it be known you are about to be killed? They don’t invite you to a wedding. So you see, a wedding is life, absence from one is death.’

  ‘I see,’ said Blume.

  ‘You lied to me about being alone. I found out by chance about Chief Inspector Mattiola only this morning. Imagine, I thought that that was going to be the biggest shock of the day.’

  ‘I’m not married to her. I don’t even live with her.’

  ‘That hardly matters now. Besides, I was wrong. No matter what you do, no matter where you go, no matter how alone you are, they can hurt you and they will come looking. At least you’ll have someone to stand by you. You know at the start of the inquiry I called Curmaci’s wife — did I mention that? The judge in charge of preliminary inquiries wouldn’t grant me a wiretap, so I called her myself, recorded and transcribed the conversation. Do you want to know what I learned, but am only now realizing?’