The Fatal Touch Read online

  THE FATAL TOUCH

  AN ALEC BLUME NOVEL

  CONOR FITZGERALD

  For my father, Seamus F. Deane

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Acknowledgments

  A Note on the Author

  By the Same Author

  Chapter 1

  In the photo on his desk, Antonio was smiling straight at the camera and holding up a gold medal with a blue plaque on which was written Manager of the Year.

  He was struggling to replicate the smile now as he looked across his desk at a Chinese couple and two cops—one bored, the other hostile. The bored one, sitting farthest away, blended in with the gray wall. He looked like a spoiled priest and barely spoke. The hostile one seemed at first glance like he might be a great thinker or poet, thanks to his high forehead and early onset baldness.

  “Tell those two fucking Jap monkeys that if they can’t be bothered to come down to the police station to report a mugging, we’re hardly going to give the loss of a Nikon camera top investigative priority. They’re lucky we bothered turning up at all. No reported crime, no investigation,” said the poet.

  Antonio held up his hand. “Please, Agente . . .”

  The policeman slapped the insignia on his shoulder angrily.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what rank those three Vs make you.”

  “Assistente Capo.”

  “Please, you’re upsetting my guests.”

  “What, they understand me all of a sudden?”

  “Your tone. Also, they are not Japanese. They are Chinese.”

  “That makes some sort of difference?”

  Antonio smiled his whitest smile at the Chinese couple, who shrank back in their seats. He handed two neatly typed sheets of paper to the policeman with the big forehead, and said, “This is a statement declaring the time and place of the mugging, and detailing the items stolen. The description of the assailant isn’t up to much, but they do mention he had a pointy knife.”

  “Oh, a pointy one?” The policeman tossed the papers back onto the desk. “If they want these to be valid, they need to go down to the station and report it.”

  It had taken Antonio two hours of cajoling and smiling and bowing and persuading, followed by an hour of painstaking translation of Sino-English into Italian. In the end, he had simply written up most of the report for them, as he had done before for others. He suspected the Chinese couple, or the husband at least, of exaggerating their losses. It was now eleven o’clock at night. It would be nice, he thought, if a hole opened in the floor and the policemen and the Chinese guests dropped with a scream into a fiery pit. Then he could insert himself between sharply folded hotel sheets and sleep.

  The first mugging of a guest had occurred a year and a half ago. Tonight’s made twenty-three, which meant the rate was more than one a month. He had even prepared a template for mugging reports and insurance claims on his office computer. The hotel was gaining a reputation as being in a bad area, which it wasn’t. HQ had sent round a memo warning all employees to refrain from using the word “unlucky” in connection with the establishment. Bookings were down, and he had had to lay off three members of staff. His name was being associated with misfortune. Guests that get mugged go away unhappy, tell their friends, write letters, and, in one case, put all the details up on a very popular blog. Embassies had been informed. He was not manager of the year at the last award ceremony.

  “My job is on the line,” he said.

  “Not our problem,” said the cop.

  “I thought muggings were a problem for the police,” said Antonio. “By the way, what’s your name?”

  The great expanse of head turned red, and the cop stood up. “What sort of an asshole question is that?” he roared.

  Antonio beamed at the Chinese couple and made a reassuring gesture with his left hand to indicate that all was dandy, and this is precisely what he wanted to happen.

  “Just a friendly inquiry. I can’t call you Assistente Capo all the time.”

  “So call me Capo. And don’t bother us with this sort of shit.” He picked up the report and flung it back across the table, but the pages wafted gently down in front of the Chinese man who said some word several times over, then reached for a pen, and scored out two of the items from the list of stolen goods.

  Antonio breathed through his nose, and tried to enjoy his pearl gray suit and white shirt. Lone women in the hotel liked him. He had not made a million by age thirty, but expected to by the time he was forty. At least he was not a cop. When this streak of bad luck ran out, he would be snatched into the upper echelons of the hotel chain. Within two years he would have an MBA. He spoke fluent English, a language he loathed, Spanish, a language he loved, French, some German, a smattering of Japanese, and some Chinese, which had turned out to be far easier than he had dared to hope.

  He turned to the Chinese couple, and spoke to them in English, throwing in a few Chinese honorifics that seemed to leave them cold. He promised them that everything was under control. The police were this very minute trawling the streets of Trastevere looking for the man who robbed them. They would not be billed the full amount for their room. The hotel would do all it could to make the rest of their stay as pleasant as possible.

  As they left the room, the Chinese tourists gave him a look of disbelief that he had seen on the faces of the Korean, Japanese, Spanish, English, French, German, and American guests. It seemed humans had a universal expression to denote disgust with hotel managers.

  He placed the failed mugging report in his drawer, and turned to the two policemen, giving them his best boyish grin and a what-can-you-do-with-these-people shrug.

  “I am sorry about that. Can I get you anything to drink?”

  The forehead creased and two gimlet eyes fixed themselves on him. “We don’t drink on duty.”

  “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Well, if you ever want, you know, refreshments, and by that I mean snacks, sandwiches, whatever, don’t hesitate to pop in. Just mention my name, uh—Capo.”

  “Assistente Capo Rospo, and this here is Agente Davide Di Ricci.”

  Antonio longed to denounce the two troglodytes for dereliction of duty. But he would bide his time. He’d begin with security video footage of them eating and drinking for free. Then he’d gather more evidence and turn his staff into a stream of witnesses. Someday, he promised himse
lf, when he was in charge of the entire Hudson & Martinetti Hotel chain in Italy, this fucker with the unfeasible head would receive a career-ending summons out of the blue. He smiled at him again, and said, “I really appreciate your being here.”

  The door to his office burst open. Rospo was on his feet, pistol half drawn.

  Two young German tourists, a woman and a younger man, almost a boy, heads lolling, staggered in, and collapsed into the chairs just vacated by the Chinese couple. The woman seemed helpless with laughter. A smell of smoke and beer now joined the smell of policeman sweat and Chinese garlic that had already polluted his pristine office.

  “Wir haben eine Leiche gefunden! Einen Landstreicher,” said the woman, then theatrically shushed the man who had not spoken yet, pointed to the policemen, and said, “Schon? Italienische Gründlichkeit,” and giggled.

  The man, who had drunk enough to make his eyes shine rather than dull, pulled out one of the free tourist maps from the lobby, and showed it to Antonio and, speaking English, said, “I have circled the place. I think it is right. The police have been very fast to arrive here.”

  “I hate drunken northerners. What are these two fucking clowns saying?” demanded Assistente Capo Rospo.

  “They seem to be saying they have found a dead body,” said Antonio.

  Chapter 2

  It was not easy to explain the difference between wanting somebody dead and wanting a dead somebody. Homicide cops understood at once, but to people in the outside world, it came across as the sort of nice distinction a psychopath might make.

  On balance, Inspector Caterina Mattiola was pleased to be woken in her warm bed in the early hours of the morning to be told that a man had been found dead on the streets of Trastevere, and that her presence was requested.

  Since transferring from Section Two, Immigration Affairs to Section Three, Homicide, of the Squadra Mobile, she had done only administrative work. She was good at it, better than any of the men, but she knew what happened to women who became indispensable at a single thankless task.

  She had taken a big risk several days ago and gone to her boss, Commissioner Blume, and asked to be detailed to investigative work. Visiting her parents later that same week, she made an effort to tell her father about what she had done. At no point had her boss promised anything, but she still felt as if she had made some sort of breakthrough. She wondered whether her father agreed. Or was she being too optimistic?

  Sitting there across the table watching him chew on the last of his food, his head tilted back, and knife and fork grasped tightly in his fist like they were two ends of a handlebar on an invisible bicycle that he was having difficulty steering, she suddenly wondered if he had understood her at all.

  “When was this?” he said eventually.

  “When was what?” said her mother, swooping in from the kitchen bearing an aluminum coffeepot and two small white cups with fat lips. “What are you saying, Arnaldo?”

  She circled around the table and placed a cup in front of both of them. “The sugar’s in the kitchen, but I left it there because I know neither of you takes it. Be careful, Arnaldo, or you’ll burn your hand again. I’d leave it for a moment till it stops hissing. Don’t pour it yet. None for me, of course. I don’t drink coffee since my op.”

  Her husband waited for her to complete the circuit of the table, gathering speed as she came onto the straight stretch leading back toward the kitchen. When she had gone, he unclasped his fists and put his silverware down on the table. “When was this?”

  “Three days ago,” said Caterina. “On Tuesday. Since then, nothing. But there haven’t been any cases.”

  “No murders in Rome?”

  “Some muggings, probably the work of one person. No murders in our district, though. The weekend begins now. That’s always a good time for killing,” she said.

  “We can only hope,” said her father. He drank his coffee, then eyed the bottom of the cup to make sure it was all gone. “If you do get assigned to a murder investigation,” he said, “you won’t say anything to your mother, will you? She still thinks you process passports.”

  “Right,” said Caterina. She kissed him on his forehead, the least wrinkled and tragic part of his face, and stood up. At the front door, she hitched her shoulder bag across her chest, lifted a heavy plastic bag full of fruit that her mother had left for her despite her pleas that she had more fruit than she knew what to do with, and left.

  She rubbed her eyes and refocused on the present. She was to report directly to the scene. She tried to remember what address the dispatcher had given, but although it had been less than a minute ago, it had merged into the dream she had been having about colored fountains and fighting babies. Elia was beside her. He was nine, now. Too old to sleep with his mother.

  She sat up quickly before sleep could catch her again.

  She phoned her parents, to tell them to come to look after Elia. Her mother said she would be over immediately and expected Caterina to wait.

  Caterina was already dressed in yesterday’s clothes. If this was going to become a habit, she’d shower in the evenings and set out fresh clothes every night.

  “I can’t wait. I have to go now. It’s an emergency call.”

  “What if he wakes up alone in an empty house?”

  “I told him it might happen. I’ll phone him. He knows you’ll be here.”

  “I’ll be there right now. I want you to wait. You have to. What sort of mother . . .”

  “I need to hang up, mamma. I’ll probably see you at the gate on my way out.”

  “I don’t see what could possibly be so urgent . . .”

  Caterina hung up, finished dressing quickly, kissed Elia, snug in the bed and smelling like a warm loaf of bread. She slung a leather satchel across her body, pulled the front door of the apartment closed, but did not lock it from the outside. Her mother always complained about this, saying gypsies could easily kick down the door, get in, and steal her only grandchild away.

  Caterina had tried to address this particular phobia, but it was just one of many. “Gypsies don’t steal children, mother. That’s an urban myth. They have more than enough of their own.”

  “And you a policewoman.”

  “Which is why I am not locking my child in for any reason.”

  She made it all the way to her car without meeting her mother. She did her best to suppress a faint buzzing of anxiety like a trapped black insect bouncing lightly against the inside of her breast. She hated it, the feeling of her mother’s fretfulness and fear insinuating its way into her own personality.

  She got in the car and phoned the dispatcher to get the address again. Piazza de’ Renzi in Trastevere. Near work and far from home.

  Caterina drove through the center and crossed the Tiber at Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, wondering if she had chosen the fastest route. She followed the curve of the river, building up speed on the empty road. Then she turned right, and parked her car in the middle of Piazza Trilussa, to the annoyance or amusement, it was hard to tell, of a group of down-and-outs surrounded by beer bottles, and walked through two dark lanes to Piazza de’ Renzi. Out of the shadows stepped an Agente so young he seemed like a child who had dressed up as a policeman. He examined her ID card and wrote down her name. A few more steps brought her into the little piazza where she found four uniformed policemen, the coroner’s wagon, a five-strong team of technicians in a pool of halogen at the far side of the piazza, and the medical examiner already at the scene. Even from this distance, she recognized Rospo’s oddly shaped head. The other one was what’s-his-name—Di Ricci.

  She saw no sign of Blume or any other detectives, and was not sure what her next move should be. Between a little magnolia tree and a clutter of small cars, she could just make out something dark on the ground, its presence revealed mainly through the contrast it made with the legs of the technicians as they moved back and forth in their white jumpsuits, and she realized she had been called in late.

  She took out h
er notebook from her shoulder bag and began taking basic notes. The piazza was a trapezoid, shorter at the far end where the body lay. She had come up Vicolo de’ Renzi, to her left and fronting the murder scene was a restaurant, Cassetta Trastevere. To her right, turning neatly out of the piazza almost before it had begun, was another lane, its name a mystery. The corner of the piazza opposite her was closed, a tall pink building meeting a lower orange one. Two policemen from another district stood in the shadows talking quietly. One was heavy-set, jowly, and bald, and seemed to be giving instructions to the other, who was average build but with an oversized chin and a protruding lower lip, a mouth made for catching raindrops.

  Caterina needed to know something before she dealt with Rospo, so she asked, “Who found the body?”

  The bald policeman paused slightly, looking her up and down before nodding in the direction of Rospo and Di Ricci.

  “Those two geniuses over there,” he said. “Talk to the guy with the big shiny head.”

  Caterina went over to Rospo, who let his eyes travel up and down her while he adjusted his scrotum in his gray pants. “Well, well. Look who’s here.”

  “Did you find the body?” asked Caterina.

  Rospo raised his hands. “Guilty.”

  Caterina could not think of what to say next. She had a feeling Di Ricci was clowning behind her back. Probably masturbatory movements, thrusting his pelvis, cupping his hands to indicate breasts. Rospo was definitely amused by something.

  She spun round in time to catch Di Ricci in mid mime. The man was almost forty. “You,” she said, “go over to those two in the shadows, then take up positions at the entrances to this piazza. You can stand guard behind us, where the two lanes almost converge.” She pointed to the left. “Don’t let anyone through, except for the detectives when they arrive.”

  Di Ricci did not move. He said, “We’re dealing with a dead tramp. A tramp fell down, banged his head, and died.”

  Rospo said, “Sovrintendente Grattapaglia gives the deployment orders.”