The Memory Key: A Commissario Alec Blume Novel Read online

  She was still sitting there when the ambulance man in the huge orange jacket came over to her. Could the ambulance man not see that she was perfectly fine? He sent over his smaller female colleague, and Sofia became even angrier at the blatancy of the ploy. Carabinieri were on the scene as if teletransported there. A plastic tape had already been unwound and the chaotic milling crowd had been reconstituted into a neat circle of spectators. The blonde woman was being carted away on a stretcher. The paramedic insisted Sofia had to go, and Sofia shouted no. Screamed, as a matter of fact. She did not want to get into the same ambulance as that woman.

  ‘We have another ambulance here just for you,’ said the paramedic.

  ‘I don’t need it.’

  ‘You have blood down on the back of your jacket and some in your hair. It’s almost certainly not yours, but wouldn’t you like us at least to check?’

  It was then that she began to cry.

  And now, praying that the magistrate would not try to comfort her by putting his arm around her or something, she began to cry again.

  Chapter 3

  Commissioner Alec Blume was sitting with Chief Inspector Caterina Mattiola under a duvet on the sofa, as good as gold because Caterina’s son Elia was in the room with them, watching TV. There had been an attack on a Catholic church in Baghdad, and the Italian reporter seemed to think that the atrocity was aggravated by the fact that today was All Souls’ Day. Scores injured.

  ‘I didn’t know they had Catholic churches in Iraq,’ said Caterina, drawing Elia towards her and snuggling her feet under Blume’s legs.

  ‘Well,’ began Blume, who had not known either but was perfectly prepared to explain why her assumption had been so foolish.

  ‘Oh look!’ Caterina’s voice rose to a squeal of delight as she pointed at an American army officer in fatigues fielding questions with a face that, though it wore a grave expression, had something of a George Bush smirk about it.

  ‘What?’ said Blume, annoyed at being interrupted. ‘Oh . . . I see.’ The caption below showed that the American army officer was called Lieutenant Colonel Eric Bloom. ‘But it’s a different spelling.’

  ‘Still, Eric Bloom, Alec Blume, you’ve got to say . . .’

  Blume shrugged. ‘I suppose.’

  ‘That’s not a coincidence; it’s not even close,’ said Elia.

  The kid had reached the age where he thought opinions were best delivered in scathing tones.

  ‘Did you not see the name, love?’ asked his mother.

  Meanwhile, dead Iraqi Christians had been replaced on screen by a man floating and waving in the space station.

  ‘When a game of football is played,’ announced Elia, ‘it is more likely than unlikely that two people on the pitch have the same birthday. That’s mathematics, not coincidence. People get them confused all the time.’

  His mother beamed at him, and nudged Blume’s backside with her foot to get him to join in the admiration.

  ‘You sure about that?’ said Blume. ‘We’re talking about 22 people.’

  ‘Twenty-three. You forgot the ref.’

  ‘Yeah well, 25 if there are linesmen,’ said Blume.

  ‘They are not on the pitch,’ said Elia in weary tones. ‘They are behind the touch line. That’s why they are called linesmen. All you need is 23 people.’

  ‘Really?’ said Blume. ‘That’s really interesting. It’s bullshit, but it’s interesting you should believe it.’

  ‘It’s true!’ Elia’s voice was quite high-pitched for a boy. ‘I’ll show you.’

  ‘You do that. Tell you what, if you prove it, I’ll give you €50.’

  ‘You’re on,’ said Elia, ‘but you had better pay me this time.’

  ‘No!’ said Caterina. ‘No gambling, and €50 is too much.’

  ‘It’s not as if he’s going to get it.’

  It was then that the phone rang to draw him out into the cold.

  Half an hour later, he switched off the stereo and climbed reluctantly out of his warm car into the drizzle of the November night, and went in search of his old friend, investigating Magistrate Filippo Principe.

  The magistrate, frailer and more stooped than Blume remembered him, was standing shivering on the perimeter of an area cordoned off by the forensic team, which was working quietly under arc lamps. They had set up a canopy above the slumped body of a young woman who lay with her back propped against the wall, in the attitude of an insolent pupil. The canopy, lights, the quiet team of forensic workers, the spectators outside, and the pillars clad in white marble at the university entrance gave the whole scene a theatrical effect.

  The magistrate, who had not noticed his arrival, stood with bowed head in bleak silence. Blume reached out and tapped him on the shoulder blade.

  ‘Ah, Alec.’ Principe’s smile was slow in arriving and did not last long. ‘Thanks for coming.’

  Principe’s shivering was infectious. Near him, a young woman had her face buried in the shoulder of a man in his twenties, who held her in a tight embrace, trying to stop her shaking sobs and at the same time shield her with an umbrella. Her voice, muffled against the fabric of his fleece jacket, kept repeating the name ‘Sofia’. Steam rose from the young man’s shoulder every time the woman, a girl with fine features, lifted her face to say the name.

  ‘Suit up and go in and have a look at her as soon as they let you,’ said Principe. He nodded at the weeping girl. ‘That’s Sofia’s cousin.’

  ‘Sofia?’

  ‘Sofia Fontana,’ said Principe. ‘That’s the name of the deceased. A lovely girl.’

  ‘You are shivering.’

  ‘It’s freezing, Alec. What do you expect? The one who is weeping is the cousin. Her name’s Olivia. She had arranged to pick Sofia up here.’

  ‘Right,’ said Blume. He wanted Principe to go and sit somewhere warm.

  ‘The victim’s mother is on her way,’ said Principe with stiff emphasis on the word ‘victim’. ‘She had no father.’ He turned away and resumed his contemplation of the scene in front of him.

  Blume was happy enough to get into a white suit, since he had forgotten to bring a coat and was getting wet. He fitted plastic covers over his shoes and crisscrossed a pair of elastic bands beneath, so any footprints he left would be recognizable. He pulled up his hood, and listened to the rain ticking noisily on the plastic, and waited to get the nod from the head of the Carabinieri SIS team, which was not a given, since Blume was from the wrong enforcement agency. If the Carabinieri decided not to cooperate, he could shrug and go back to Caterina, and tell Principe he had done his best.

  But the magistrate must have primed them, because the SIS chief eventually gave a curt nod in his direction and Blume walked into the scene, at the centre of which lay the dead woman. She was young, but had crossed the fateful threshold that separated children, whose deaths no one ever got used to, from adults whose deaths people could even make jokes about.

  The wound, a tiny hole, smaller even than the bullet thanks to the contraction of the skin, showed no signs of stippling, so the shooter had been some distance away. The abrasion ring was symmetrical and concentric. It could have been a long-distance shot. Blume turned round and looked at the two buildings opposite, flinching a little as he imagined himself to be still in the theoretical trajectory. As he did so, he saw two Carabinieri come out of the National Research building opposite followed by a technician in a white suit. Another technician was already preparing a set of bullet trajectory rods.

  Blume looked at the girl, Sofia, slumped there, her coat shining with rain, her knee-high boots looking brand new, the cheap bead bracelet, pearl earrings, a small neck tattoo, small white teeth, perfect but now disturbing to see in the mouth which was open, in what was almost certainly a cry of pain. It looked as if a giant beast had picked her up and swung the back of her head against the wall, then dumped her on the ground like a pile of dirty laundry. Yet this was the work of a single bullet no bigger than half a thumb.

  Blume d
id not really want to look at the devastation at the back of the skull. The explosive nature of exit wounds aggrieved him. He went over to the head of the crime scene team, who regarded him levelly. Blume was aware of his undefined status as an unaccompanied member of the Polizia di Stato in the middle of a crime scene being run by the Carabinieri.

  ‘A high-velocity bullet?’

  ‘Possibly. Fired from that building over there.’

  Blume was gratified to find the SIS officer so helpful.

  ‘One shot only?’

  ‘Yes . . . Well, you can never be completely sure. Maybe they’ll cut off her clothes for the autopsy and find a tiny entrance wound that we missed. But it looks like one shot.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Blume.

  ‘No problem,’ said the man. ‘Now that I’ve answered your questions, do you mind leaving the area again? You’re standing where I’d like to set up my Leica.’

  ‘Sure. In a minute.’ Blume went back to have another look at Sofia. He had no information on her, nothing at all, but he felt confident that she was a student or recent graduate. Generally speaking, students are not victims of sniper fire. Not only was there a mismatch between the victim and the mode of her murder, but the very idea of a sniper was unlikely. The shooter, probably a jilted lover, could have been standing a few metres away. He could have called her name, pointed a pistol, then fired. Maybe it was another case of femicide: around 150 women a year, many of whom saw it coming and had asked for help. One thing about femicide, it made the case-resolved statistics look good.

  A SIS agent came over and, glancing resentfully at Blume, inserted a trajectory rod into the chipped brick at the centre of the mess of blood and matter on the wall. After a few tweaks he had it attached and pointing upwards at an angle of around 30 degrees in the direction of the building opposite. Blume looked up and saw two men in white plastic overalls leaning out of the fifth-floor window.

  He was just ducking under the crime scene tape on his way back to the magistrate when the girl’s mother arrived. Unmistakable in her grief, she was calling her daughter’s name, howling like an injured dog and, typically enough for this sort of situation, was pushing and shoving at two Carabinieri trying to keep her out of the crime scene. She had to see, or thought she did. They had to persuade her that her actions threatened to help the perpetrator. She would have time enough to see her daughter in the morgue, after which she would spend her life trying to erase from her mind the image that she now so badly wanted to impress upon it.

  Chapter 4

  It was past midnight and Blume and Principe were sitting in an Irish pub not far from the crime scene.

  Principe drained his glass of Kilkenny ale and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘A few years ago, you wouldn’t have been able to hear yourself think in here,’ he said, ‘but then they opened too many of these places all over the city, and it lost its cachet.’

  Blume looked with disfavour at a sodden beer mat.

  ‘I thought you’d like it here.’

  ‘I don’t drink,’ said Blume.

  ‘I am pretty sure we shared a drink in the past.’

  ‘If we did I’ve stopped since then. It’s not a big deal. I could probably have a beer.’

  ‘Great. Want me to order you one?’

  ‘No.’

  Principe ordered himself a second drink, and Blume asked for a can of Chinotto. The barman told them he would be closing in half an hour.

  ‘It’s a role reversal: me the southern Italian enjoying beer in a pub, you the American giving me disapproving looks.’

  ‘I am not disapproving.’ He changed the subject. ‘There is something familiar in the name, Sofia Fontana. Why is that?’

  ‘She was a witness,’ said Principe taking a long draught of beer. He put the glass down, his eyes watery, and suppressed some upsurge in this chest before continuing. ‘She was a witness to a shooting. That’s the direction your investigation should take.’

  Blume clicked his fingers as the name slotted into place. ‘She’s the one who witnessed the assassination attempt on the terrorist Stefania Manfellotto.’

  ‘Yes, that’s her. I have been interviewing her off and on for months now. I found out almost nothing new about the Manfellotto case, but I got to know Sofia well. She was a beautiful, sweet, and generous girl.’

  Blume deliberately ignored Principe’s sentimental cue. ‘It looks like someone was afraid you were making progress. That bitch Manfellotto isn’t dead yet, is she?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Principe took another gulp of his drink. He looked terrible. ‘We know where the shot was fired from inside the university – I am talking about Manfellotto now.’

  ‘I get that, Filippo. I have just seen Sofia lying dead outside the university.’

  ‘Yes, Alec. I am just sorting out my thoughts aloud.’ Principe bent his head forward and massaged his forehead with finger and thumb. When he looked up again, there was less water in his eyes. ‘Whoever shot Manfellotto almost certainly shot this poor girl. I called you in because I am afraid . . .’

  Blume waited, but the magistrate seemed to have finished. Eventually he said, ‘Afraid of what?’

  The magistrate waved a hand at an annoying idea that seemed to be hovering in front of him. ‘Nothing. It’s just the absence of progress in the first case makes me fear an absence also in this one, which I would like to resolve. But we do have a lead, of a sort: Professor Pitagora.’

  ‘Pitagora?’ said Blume. ‘Cool name. Like the actress . . .’

  ‘Paola Pitagora? You’re too young for her. She’s more my generation.’

  ‘I don’t mean to intrude on the sexual fantasies of an old man.’

  ‘Very funny. In both cases, it’s a made-up name. A nome d’arte. I think the professor had it first.’

  ‘Oh, that makes it a bit less interesting,’ said Blume. ‘So what’s his real name?’

  ‘Pinto. Pasquale Pinto.’

  ‘Pasquale Pinto. Professor Pitagora. So he stuck with the letter P. Pitagora is better. Pasquale Pitagora?’

  ‘Nope,’ Principe shook his head. ‘Just Pitagora. No first name unless you count Professor.’

  ‘I have heard of him,’ said Blume. ‘He is one of those old-school Fascists. Monarchists, coup-plotters, mates with Cossiga, Gelli . . .’

  ‘The Professor and Manfellotto were heard shouting at each other,’ said the magistrate with another grimace. He stretched his hand out to his glass, then slumped back in an attitude of disappointment to find it empty. ‘At the time Manfellotto was shot, he was giving a lecture on Ariosto to a class of over 50 students. The idea that he had taken a sniper’s rifle and run up to the top floor and shot at her was never taken seriously. Cast-iron alibi and, above all, cast-iron friends. He put a lot of pressure on me for merely daring to question him.’

  ‘But you didn’t yield an inch.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Principe. ‘Of course I did. I backed off at once. I know how it works. Except in this case, my conscience was clear.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Blume. ‘Given who the first victim was, you didn’t care all that much, but now you do because they have just murdered an innocent young woman.’

  ‘Almost right, except I had already changed my mind.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Manfellotto. Not caring enough about her may have made me careless in my investigation. And maybe that is why Sofia was killed. My conscience no longer feels so clear.’

  ‘Manfellotto deserved it,’ said Blume. ‘It was natural . . .’

  ‘No, you’re wrong,’ interrupted Principe. ‘You should meet her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ said Principe. ‘So, back to that day. About two hours after Manfellotto was shot, a group calling itself the “Justice and Order” party called up the offices of La Repubblica and claimed responsibility with the words “Justice is done. Order restored.” There were a few other calls of that sort, but this was the one we took seriousl
y.’

  ‘Sounds cranky to me.’

  ‘The caller, a man, was using Pitagora’s phone.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Which he says was stolen from his office.’

  ‘If he was behind it, using his own phone seems pretty dumb.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Principe. ‘He has a good case. He was still giving his lecture when news of the shooting came through. The lecture was interrupted and Pitagora went back to his office with a few students. He said he did not notice his phone was missing until later. The call from his number was made about two hours later, from a point just outside the university walls on Viale Margherita. So our reading is that some student took it. It could just have been a prank in bad taste. Or someone trying to stir up trouble. I am assuming the phone was taken to embarrass him, but I am also convinced Pitagora knows which particular neo-Nazi splinter group is most likely to be behind the hoax, if that is what it was. And behind the shooting, too. He knows. That’s his job, as you’ll see when you meet him. But I can’t keep calling him in for questioning, not with the clout he has. I say professor. He’s a professor emeritus now, well past retirement age, but somehow still sitting there in his office.’

  ‘An old man in power refusing to give up his seat? I think I may have seen that happen before in this country,’ said Blume. ‘What did Sofia do for a living?’

  ‘She was not a student. If she had been, it would be easier. Public outrage would give me a freer hand, including with Pitagora. But poor Sofia was just a lab assistant at the Health Institute on Viale Margherita. She explained to me once that she used the university as a short cut.’ Principe shook his head. ‘This case has sapped the last of my energy. I might get the office to assign it to a different magistrate.’

  ‘I see,’ said Blume, annoyed at the self-pitying tone. ‘Remind me why you called me out on a freezing cold November night for a case you say you can’t be bothered investigating?’