The Memory Key: A Commissario Alec Blume Novel Page 13

  While stuck in traffic outside a school, he pressed his Kindle again and, after the irritating business of pressing the side button several times just to get to the start of the book, discovered that it did not handle illustrations well. To make a start on expanding his mind 128 times, Aaron Fisher was suggesting he remembered the number 1 as resembling a magic wand, and had included a Harry Potter lookalike to help him. The 2 was a swan – notice it is black! emphasized Fisher, as if this should excite him. On the Kindle, the black swan was grey. Things improved with the number 3, which he was instructed to remember as a pair of breasts nestling beneath a lacy bra. Here the ink-line drawing seemed to work just fine, with all the laciness in evidence. The 4 was the sails of a sailing boat, or a sailing boat drawn by a 4-year-old. The 5 was a fish hook and the author, with a lot of exclamation marks, drew attention to this and his own name, Fisher. The 6 was a hangman’s noose. He edged forward 10 metres in the line. The car moved when he released the clutch and before he touched the accelerator: something he needed to get seen to . . . Here was a pistol, shaped like a Walther PPQ, in representation of the number 7. Eight was a snowman. The number 9 was a tadpole. Very unsatisfactory, thought Blume. Tadpoles were tiny, and sailing boats were large, and 9 was greater than 4. So far, Aaron Fisher was making his brain feel smaller.

  Someone beeped at him and he felt his hand shoot up in the air in an automatic gesture of defiance before he noticed the road ahead was clear and he was holding everyone up. He turned his gesture into an unconvincingly apologetic wave at the last second, and got another blast on the horn for his trouble, so he turned the wave into a cornuto gesture. Cars were now pulling out and roaring pointedly past him through the junction. The light turned red again, and looking in his mirror, he watched with interest as the man in the car behind him jerked about in a seated dance of spasmodic rage. Why hadn’t he just pulled out and gone around like the others? Probably so much up his arse he didn’t have space to pull out. Fat bastard, he was, car registration DF 145 LE. Domodossola-Firenze-145-Livorno-Empoli or Delta-Foxtrot-145-Lima-Echo. No need for mnemonics for number plates. He wondered what the book had to say about memorizing letters. The 145 would be a magic wand, a sailing boat, and a fish hook. Wand, boat, fish hook. It would be 128 times easier just to remember 145, he figured. There used to be an Alfa Romeo 145, Article 145 of the Highway Code. That was the one about stopping at stop signs. Speaking of which . . .

  DF 145 LE behind him was ready with the horn within nanoseconds of the light changing colour. Blume proceeded at a snail’s pace through the junction. DF 145 LE overtook, shaking his fist as he sped by, then came to a halt 30 metres further on at the next traffic lights. A Skoda saloon behind him allowed two cars to steal into the lane. The Skoda had also sat still at the traffic lights. A patient driver driving a wise car, basically a Volkswagen with a different label, which meant it cost a few thousand less. It, or another Skoda, had been on Viale delle Province when he pulled out.

  To the right was the road leading down to the university and the site of the shooting. He was going to be early, far earlier than any of his colleagues, to the Campidoglio. Without quite coming to a decision, he found himself turning down Via del Policlinico. Within a few minutes, he had returned to the site of the shooting, and he pulled up on to the curb beside a group at a bus stop and got out. Casually glancing back, he saw the Skoda saloon arrive, pass him, the driver, a man with curly black hair, almost an Afro, staring straight ahead.

  The wall was pockmarked by pollution and rain, but Blume had little difficulty in individuating the small clean chip mark left by the bullet. He placed his thumb in the hollow and stared up at the research institute opposite.

  He glanced at his phone, and decided he had time. When he got to the other side of the street in front of the institute, he was more amused than intimidated to see, 50 or so metres distant, the back end of the Skoda sticking out where the driver had unsuccessfully tried to insert it into a small parking place. He pushed open the doors to the CNR building, gave the faintest of nods to a porter who was busy sucking a pencil and studying the Settimana Enigmistica, and walked down the hall.

  Undisturbed, Blume wandered around the corridors of the building, peering into wards, a lab, several utility cupboards. The only challenge he got was when he tried to enter the radiology department. He showed his badge, received a shrug, and was warned the dangers were mainly to himself.

  At the far end of the hall, through a door that gave every appearance of being locked but was not, he found a stairwell that smelled of lift grease and dust. He climbed up to the top floor, pausing at each level as he did so. Every communicating door was open, and the corridors were mostly empty. Finally, as he rounded the last flight of stairs, he was surprised to see a group of six people in white coats, smoking and holding small plastic cups. One of them, a young man with sideburns, stepped forward as if to say something, but Blume stared pointedly at the cigarette in the man’s hand, and shook his head like one disgusted to see smoking in a public building. He half hid the cigarette by cupping his hand, and stepped back. The little crowd then parted to let him through and he saw they were all standing in front of a coffee machine.

  ‘This is the top floor?’ he asked.

  ‘The stairs stop here, so what do you think?’ The speaker was a woman, and she had no cigarette in her hand. ‘Who are you looking for?’

  ‘No one. A place rather than a person.’

  ‘Which office?’

  ‘You’re very nosy,’ said Blume.

  ‘No, that’s you. You’re the one walking about the premises. I work here.’

  He imagined asking her out to dinner, and felt the stirrings of being turned on by the contempt that would drip from her voice.

  She was still looking at him, with an expression that, if he didn’t have Caterina . . .

  ‘I suppose you want the room with the police tape stretched across it, and the lonely Carabiniere standing outside it?’

  ‘That sounds like it might be the place,’ said Blume.

  ‘So you’re a policeman?’

  Blume showed her his badge, then, for good measure, flashed it at the rest of them. The young man with sideburns dropped his cigarette into his plastic cup and crumpled it up.

  ‘That way, then,’ said the woman pointing at the door into the corridor. ‘The lift works, you know.’

  ‘Yes. Just . . .’ Blume patted his stomach. ‘I thought I’d lose some weight.’

  He did not expect her to say something like ‘What would you want to lose weight for?’, though that would have been nice, but he was hoping she would at least lower her glance and take in his presence. Instead, still gazing straight through him and speaking to him as if he were on the end of a phone line, she simply said, ‘Second door on the left.’

  The Carabiniere started smiling nervously when Blume was still a few metres away. The red flash of his police badge had been enough to convince the poor kid, who already thought he had done something wrong.

  ‘Did you let someone in there?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Captain Zezza is convinced you did. He’s in a fucking rage downstairs. They’re holding a reporter who says he went in, took some pictures, and is claiming you let him in. Zezza wants you down there.’

  ‘I never . . .’

  ‘You’d better go. I’ll stand guard here till you’re back. Hey . . .’ He gave the kid a light punch on the shoulder. ‘Good luck.’

  The kid broke into a run before he reached the end of the corridor.

  The seal on the door was intact, and Blume was not happy at breaking it. He pulled out his phone and called Principe, who did not pick up until about the tenth ring. He sounded exhausted.

  ‘Did I wake you or something?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sorry. I thought you’d be in the office by now.’ Blume took the phone from his ear to glance at the clock display. ‘Well, maybe in half an hour.’

  ‘I’m taking the day off,’ sa
id Principe.

  ‘I am sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Don’t be. Also because I’d prefer not to talk about it on the phone. So . . .’ The magistrate tried unsuccessfully to inject lightness into his tone, ‘What are you breaking my balls about at this early hour?’

  ‘Two things. There is a Carabinieri seal on a door here . . .’

  ‘You’re in the CNR building in front of the crime scene?’

  ‘Exactly. I wanted to break the seal, have a look around inside. Can you OK that?’

  Blume pulled back the tape, broke the seal, and pushed his way into the room, which was full of grey filing cabinets and stacks of red and blue hardcover books. The air was filled with the smell of must and rotting bookbinder glue. The window the shooter must have used was covered in dust, but thick flakes of cream paint lay on the sill and on the ground where it had been opened. The area directly in front of it had been disturbed, no doubt by the forensic team, but also by the shooter himself.

  ‘You’re in there already, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Blume softly, unable to raise his voice to a normal pitch in a room that smelled so strongly of books.

  ‘Just don’t . . . don’t trample all over it. Zezza will tell you all you need to know,’ said Principe, the tiredness taking over his voice again.

  ‘Can’t you tell me now? Anything particularly interesting?’

  ‘That’s definitely the room the shots came from. Or shot. The shooter was very careful to leave no traces, and may even have been wearing a plastic suit from one of the labs. No DNA, no prints but the shooter made one very bad mistake.’ Despite his evident exhaustion, Principe could not resist playing the magistrate game, hiding his hand, making Blume wait.

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Blume. He pushed up the window and leaned out. The sill was thin and the shot angled. Whoever fired was not doing it for the first time.

  ‘If you go to the window – I am assuming you’re there already, you can see that it’s not a perfectly clear line to where Sofia was shot. So the shooter had to balance the rifle on the outside sill. It looks like he took more than one shot at Sofia, but we found no trace of the second bullet. Anyhow, the shooter lost a cartridge. It fell on to the street below. It was recovered and is still under examination.’

  ‘You’re still holding back.’

  ‘I was hoping Captain Zezza would tell you all this, so he could build up a rapport with you.’

  ‘I am sure we’ll get on just fine no matter what,’ said Blume. ‘What about the cartridge?’

  ‘It’s a 7.35 × 51 mm calibre. Issued to the Italian army in 1938.’

  ‘You mean a 7.62 × 51 mm,’ said Blume.

  ‘Nope. A 7.35 × 51 mm, apparently. Except it wasn’t.’

  ‘Because they don’t exist,’ said Blume.

  ‘Not any more. But they did, once. They were used for the Carcano M38, which no one in the world used except for the Italian army. And Lee Harvey Oswald, of course. So the cartridge alone identifies the rifle, which is quite a break. I wanted Zezza to tell you all this.’

  ‘So you said. The shooter used a round from the end of the War? He’s lucky it didn’t blow up in his face. Presuming it’s a he.’

  ‘Lucky for him, unlucky for poor Sofia. Or he adapted his own ammunition. They need to examine the bullet that came out of the girl, but I’m told the wound was consistent with the type of bullet.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Horrible. A vile thing. The Carcano bullet was designed to be reasonably steady in flight, but the low velocity gave it some yaw as it travelled so that it became unstable as it hit flesh.’

  ‘There is no such thing as a nice bullet,’ said Blume. He looked out the window again. ‘We’re talking about 45 to 60 metres from here.’

  ‘Fifty-two metres.’

  ‘So it would take a good shot, but not have to be a marksman. As for the Carcano, doesn’t every family in Italy have one in its attic?’

  ‘I am sure there are plenty about, but not in working order. We’re talking about someone who knows how to adapt ammunition.’

  ‘Conclusion?’ asked Blume.

  ‘A collector. Ex-military, military, police. Or maybe someone with access to tooling equipment.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You said you wanted to ask me two things, Alec. What was the other?’

  Blume held on to the window frame and turned away from the crime scene to look in the opposite direction. ‘Yes, there was something. Are you having me followed?’

  ‘What would I do that for?’

  ‘That’s a no?’

  ‘Of course it is. Who’s following you?’

  ‘Someone who’s not very good at it. No handover, no backup, no safety space, just a lone guy following me. He did manage to do a half-decent drive-by furiously ignoring me, but then ruined it all by picking a bad parking spot 50 metres farther on.’

  ‘What street?’

  ‘I don’t know its name. Just off Piazza Aldo Moro.’

  ‘You mean where you are now? You can see him?’

  ‘The vehicle, not the occupant,’ said Blume.

  ‘Do you want me to send someone over?’

  ‘No. I’d have done that myself,’ said Blume. ‘I think the best thing is to go down and talk to him.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like a great idea.’

  ‘Have you got a better one, Filippo?’

  By way of reply, Principe made a sort of gurgling noise, followed by a long exhalation of breath.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘No. No, I am not. Christ! I need to go, Alec.’

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘Nothing. The pain comes in waves.’

  ‘You could have told me. I wouldn’t have bothered you.’

  Blume left the room and followed the corridor to the far end, crossed another stairwell, went through an emergency door, and continued until he had reached the opposite end of the building to that he had entered.

  Taking the lift down, he took a hard left and walked throughout a side door. As the door swung open in front of him into the rain, he caught sight of the shimmering outline of the man with the curly hair standing under an umbrella on the opposite side of the road. Blume would just walk behind him and –

  ‘Hey!’ The young Carabiniere was running towards him, his face no longer quite so innocent as it had been. ‘Hey, you!’ he repeated, all traces of deference gone from his voice.

  Blume stepped outside into the rain and quickened his pace. The Carabiniere ran after him shouting, then caught up with him, and started to place his hand on his shoulder. Blume swung round. ‘Don’t even think of it.’

  The commotion had attracted attention and as he watched, the umbrella closed and the man seemed to vanish with it.

  ‘Porco giuda! Deficiente!’ Blume cursed at the Carabiniere who stood back, suddenly uncertain again. Blume stepped into the road, almost under a bus. He jumped back and the bus passed him. He tried again, standing in a channel of water that soaked him up to the knee. The Skoda was nowhere to be seen. He spotted a high-backed vehicle moving faster than the others. One of the few not to have switched on its lights. Pushing at the skin on the side of his temple, he tried to bring the area around the number plate briefly back into focus. He might have seen a B as the first letter, and that was it, but then he realized that could not be right. The B registrations were from years ago, and the car was newer than that. Maybe an E, then.

  The Carabiniere was standing beside him. The two of them were soaked through.

  ‘You just lost me a lead.’

  ‘You just lost me my job.’

  ‘No, they won’t fire you.’

  They two of them walked back in silence to the building, passing empty conference rooms, labs with wooden tables, and orange hosepipes. Everything belonged to the 1940s and 1950s, when Italy was youthful and growing and even provided training for its scientists. No one stopped him, no one looked at him. He opened a door to where a meeti
ng was going on, and they all turned to look at him, then continued talking.

  ‘Now what are you doing?’ said the Carabinieri. ‘And how do you know Captain Zezza?’

  ‘Maybe you should get back to your post?’

  ‘I will in a minute. I need your name.’

  ‘Commissioner Alec Blume,’ he said opening another door, this one leading into a utility room. Two wheeled laundry carts were gathering dust. A pile of wrinkled plastic lab suits were piled like used condoms, on a black shelf containing detergents and plastic basins. Blume took one, and held it up. It was pretty much the same sort of CSI suit the police wore.

  He balled it up and stuck it in his pocket. It bulged a little, but not very noticeably. He pulled it out again and unfolded it. The killer could have taken one beforehand, or improvised as he came in. A suit like this was perfect. It made you look like a lab technician who belonged in the building, it disguised you, and it made sure you left almost no DNA traces at the scene. He was convinced the killer had been wearing one of these suits. Almost certainly, he would have got rid of it thereafter, and these discarded suits should have been taken away by the Carabinieri for tests. He liked to think the Polizia would not have committed such an egregious oversight.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘If I told you that Zezza may have missed something important here, what would you think?’

  ‘You need to explain yourself better.’

  Blume did. The young man nodded, taking it in. He seemed intelligent after all. He had been closely following the case in which they had assigned him such an unimportant role.

  ‘Word of advice on how to cover your ass. Make your report about me,’ said Blume. ‘But don’t file it. Have it ready if you find I destroyed evidence or something. Otherwise, who needs to know?’