The Memory Key: A Commissario Alec Blume Novel Page 23

  No technique for remembering this demented system, invented by academics, not nature, can be considered ‘cheating’. The original arrangements of plants, dates, nouns, words – everything – is arbitrary and made up by brains just like yours. There is nothing intrinsically male about, say, a cup or the floor or a tree, but if we are learning German we find that they are masculine, and so we are supposed to think of them as having some of the qualities of a ‘male’. It’s like the old joke about whether a computer is male or female. It’s female because it stores all your mistakes in permanent memory for later retrieval and it uses a language all of its own to communicate. On the other hand, it’s male because you have to turn it on before it will work for you and it holds a lot of information but is still very stupid.

  In short, there is no ‘cheating’. If instead of trying to associate a word with an arbitrary gender, you decide instead to ‘put’ it in an arbitrary place of your own deciding, that will help you remember.

  Personally, I put all masculine nouns from all languages in a huge big field with a copper beech tree that I remember from my childhood, I leave female ones floating on the open ocean, which is not very chivalrous of me, and I throw neutral nouns into the darkness of space. You need big places if you want to learn a lot of words. Smaller places will do if you want to learn a shorter list.

  All pretty weird, right? It seems like too much effort, but the brain reorganizes things pretty quickly. If you can type, play an instrument, ride a bicycle, knit, or drive a car, you’ll know the truth of this. For a while it was a HUGE effort, slow, complicated, impossible to learn, frustrating, and, above all, so mechanical and laborious – not to say dangerous in the case of the bike and the car. Then it became natural, so natural that you can sing while playing guitar, chat while knitting, compose while typing, and text while driving (that’s a joke, by the way).

  Let’s go back to the Chinese character for war:. . .

  Blume’s phone rang. It was Panebianco.

  ‘Commissioner?’

  ‘Hi, Rosario. Listen, thanks for coming in to see Caterina today. I am at the hospital now. What’s up?’

  Panebianco did not answer.

  ‘What is this about, Rosario?’

  ‘I think you need to come in now.’

  ‘But I haven’t seen Caterina yet.’

  ‘You’ll have plenty of time later, I promise.’

  Chapter 33

  What did Panebianco mean by telling him he would have plenty of time later? As he walked up the steps into the Collegio Romano station, a policeman, whose tight uniform bore the sheen of age and many overheated ironings, made some comment. Blume missed the content, but the tone had been friendly enough.

  ‘Thanks, Roberto,’ he called without turning round, delighted with himself at remembering the name in time.

  He walked quickly through the staff room on his way to his office, throwing greetings left and right, but they were not returned.

  ‘What, did you all come in to stare at me today?’ Blume made his way over to Panebianco, who obviously had something to say.

  ‘This is scandalous!’ said Panebianco with some venom. ‘Come on, into your office. This is fucking unbelievable!’

  Panebianco closed the door behind them, and leaned against it. ‘Alec, you have been suspended from service.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘They can’t do that. I got no notice.’

  ‘They can. You have been served with an interlocutory order for immediate suspension, pending the commencement of disciplinary hearings within 40 days.’

  ‘But I haven’t been informed.’ Blume squared his voice against hitting a plaintive note. ‘My phone has been on. Apart from you, no one called.’

  ‘This is totally unacceptable. You need to talk to your Siulp representative about this,’ said Panebianco. He shook his head in disgust. ‘I am sorry. I don’t know why they are doing this. For all I know they have every reason to suspend you. I can think of a few reasons myself, but that is not the point. It’s the way they have done it. They let everyone know before you. That is deliberate humiliation. It is an offence to the dignity of your office. You can get the union on your side on this. I am willing to be a witness.’

  Blume felt like a spectator in a theatre watching himself and Panebianco act out a scene on a stage far below. He recited another line: ‘Witness to what?’

  ‘The fact that news of your suspension was leaked to your colleagues before it was officially communicated to you as the directly interested party. What else have you done, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘What else? I’m not sure I like the way you framed the question.’

  Panebianco gave him a look that stopped him dead. There was genuine contempt in his eyes.

  ‘I annoyed a Carabiniere,’ said Blume with a touch of humility. ‘I came in late to the questore’s speech. With the questore, I think it’s sort of cumulative hatred.’

  ‘I just want you to know that I am opposed to the way they did this, not necessarily the fact of the suspension.’

  ‘Well fuck you, too.’

  ‘And if the image of the squadra mobile has been deliberately insulted by the questore, I think people need to remember that you gave him and his office plenty of opportunity.’

  ‘Spoken like a real friend.’

  ‘Like a colleague whose dignity of office is threatened by the antics of his commanding officer.’

  ‘Did I say “fuck you” a second ago? Because just in case I didn’t –’

  His desk phone rang.

  ‘That thing never rings any more.’

  ‘That will be them now,’ said Rosario. He glanced at his watch. ‘It is now 16:03 p.m. Make sure you don’t delete the incoming call on your phone. Date, time, details. Log everything. Record them if you can.’

  ‘I don’t know how to.’

  ‘But you had better answer the phone, Commissioner.’

  Blume looked at the display. It was a short number, the Rome prefix plus 46861, the switchboard of a public office. He glanced at Panebianco, who flashed him a heartless smile and left the room. Blume went over, lifted the receiver, and put it down on his desk.

  Two minutes later, as he was on his way downstairs, his mobile rang.

  The appointment with the questore was set for an hour later at the offices off Via San Vitale. If he went to the hospital, he might not make it back in time, even if he used his siren and the public service lanes. And even if it were possible, how long would he have with Caterina? Five minutes? Ten? Fifteen tops, but then the anxiety of the appointment would distract his attention. He descended the steep flight of steps leading straight out to the piazza outside and walked away from the station. He did not want to be within the earshot or even the line of sight of his colleagues until he had this all worked out. He called Caterina on the off chance, and was shocked into silence when she actually answered.

  ‘Alec?’

  ‘Hi. I didn’t expect you to answer . . . so quickly.’

  ‘Well, here I am.’

  ‘You’re fine, then?’ This was met with silence, so he added, ‘I was in earlier and you were having tests, so how did they go?’

  ‘You’re talking like they were multiple choice or something. It was a CT scan. Presumably they’ll tell me.’

  ‘Your mother is coming in soon.’

  One beat, two beats, three, four, five. It was time enough for her to remove all inflections of outrage from her voice. ‘I see. You’re not coming.’

  ‘Something important has come up. I wasn’t cancelling.’

  He waited for her to ask him what had come up, but it seemed she wasn’t interested, and he was damned if he was going to volunteer information. The silence stretched a few more seconds, then he said, ‘OK, like you said, I’ll call later. You sound fine. I hope you are.’

  ‘Wait.’

  Here it comes, he thought. She had to realize he must have a compelling reason not to visi
t. She had to know something serious was happening. But her next question was too female for him to have anticipated.

  ‘When’s the last time you saw Elia?’

  ‘Elia?’

  ‘Yeah, you know, that kid who lives with us. My son, the child you refer to as your nephew. How I ever let you get away with that.’

  Blume felt his temples throb, a reminder his headache was just biding its time.

  ‘Your mother started that uncle thing.’

  ‘Where did he spend the night? No, don’t answer that. It was at his grandmother’s.’

  Thoughts too deep in him to get out caused him to sound prim and defensive. ‘I would have been perfectly happy for him to stay with me.’

  ‘With you. In my house? That’s very kind of you.’

  ‘Caterina, you said we had to talk. I think I know what about. Can we save all this until later?’

  ‘Sure. It’s not as if I am going anywhere.’

  She was refusing to tell him she was pregnant. As long as she withheld that from him, what was the point in trying to do the best by her?

  The conversation had filled his muscles with immanent ticklish energy. He had to walk. Cutting through Piazza Collegio Romano and past the Trinity pub, he emerged on to Via del Corso, which had become less busy over the past few years as the tourists vanished and the shops moved to out-of-town malls. It was easier to walk down, but there was little to look at. Moving quickly to keep his blood warm against the wind, he headed straight up Via dell’Umiltà as far as the Foreign Press Centre, then stopped, realizing that at this rate he would arrive too early at the Questura with a raging and ungovernable headache.

  He doubled back, and stood for a moment underneath the entrance to the Forza Italia headquarters. Far less movement around here in recent years as the party sank back into the murky oblivion from which it had emerged. Just two policemen stood guard outside, whereas half a division was still posted around Berlusconi’s pleasure palace down the road.

  One of the guards came out, took a look at him, and nodded. Blume nodded back, unable to place the man, who had either recognized him in person or, as often happened, simply recognized him as a colleague. A squad car was parked where the road opened to become a small piazzetta. A uniformed officer leaned casually against it, watching the world go by, but straightened up defensively as Blume approached. His colleague was nowhere to be seen, which gave Blume an idea.

  ‘Where’s a good place near here to get something to eat?’ He was five minutes from his station, but Via del Corso acted as a sort of line of jurisdiction for him and his colleagues, including for the bars and cafés. Anywhere around the Pantheon and Campo Marzio was home territory, but this was foreign ground as far as eating was concerned.

  The policeman relaxed again, as he realized the unwarranted absence of his colleague was not going to be an issue.

  ‘Sitting or standing?’

  Blume checked the time on his phone. ‘Sitting, I suppose. But a panino or something. Not a hot meal.’

  The policeman crooked his finger and pointed down the lane to Blume’s left. ‘There on Via di San Marcello. The old Peroni brewery. Nice and warm, and not so many tourists now. It’s a bit pricey, but if you just want a roll or something. There’s no police discount.’

  Blume thanked him, and walked a few paces down the narrow street, which was slick from the rain that had stopped falling an hour earlier but continued to drip from the dark buildings on either side of him. The lights of the Antica Birreria Peroni cast a golden glow on to the cobbles in front of him, whether from the ochre of the building itself or from the brass fittings inside he could not tell. He stopped just short of the entrance door, and considered. The door opened sending a gust of warm air laden with the scent of fried food and hops towards him, and a uniformed policeman came out, paused, nodded to Blume, and went on his way.

  Blume rubbed his hands, which were perfectly warm but he wanted to remind himself of the cold, stamped his feet for the same reason, and walked quickly into the bar. When he had been a student, this place had been too expensive to frequent, but he had spent some evenings here, before the city filled up with its horrible Irish pubs. He remembered they used to serve fat-fried potatoes and German sausages, and wondered if they still did.

  Half an hour later, walking quickly now, his stomach feeling very pleasantly bloated, his head still light but no longer threatening migraine, Blume was considering, with detached wonderment, at the mechanism by which he had ended up drinking a half litre of beer without having had the slightest intention of doing so. To cure his headache, he supposed, and it had worked. He felt pretty good, all things considered. Pretty damned good.

  There was no reason for him not to drink; it was simply that he chose not to, or had chosen not to, after an attractive American woman was scathing to his face about his ‘dependence’ as she called it. He could smell the fried food coming off his own coat now.

  He took the flight of steps that led up to Via 24 Maggio. To clear the hoppy smell from his breath, he took the steps three at a time, as fast as possible. He reached the top and tried to maintain his speed, but had to bend down and place his hands on his knees. He felt like he might faint. A doorman in livery watched him impassively from the Hotel Bolivar. He sucked in deep breaths, to get rid of the expanding pain in his chest. It was not a heart attack. A friend of his had had a heart attack, and said it was unmistakable. ‘If you feel like there is an elephant sitting on your chest, it’s a heart attack. Anything else is just wasted panic.’

  Blume straightened up. More a heavy dog than an elephant. He recomposed himself, and walked with aplomb across the road.

  Chapter 34

  Blume handed over his badge, pistol, and handcuffs to a young man in a well-ironed uniform, who gave him three separate receipts and made him sign several papers, then asked him to take a seat, as if this were a job interview rather than its opposite.

  They did not keep him waiting long. He was expected to sit and listen, which he did, as Questore De Rossi, his voice aching with regret, told him that there was simply no choice but to issue an interlocutory order. The vice-questore sitting beside his boss, nodded his head in rhythm to the beat of his boss’s careful emphasis on certain words such as ‘honourable’ and ‘shock’ and ‘unfortunate’ and ‘service’ and ‘embarrassment’ and ‘standards’.

  Blume stayed silent as he was upbraided for unauthorized interference in an ongoing investigation, with actions verging on perversion of the course of justice. Failure to obey a direct order, failure to file a report, prejudicing interforce harmony, breaking a seal to gain unlawful access to the scene of a crime, neglect of duty, interference with and possible destruction of evidence, interference with witnesses, unlawful interrogation of suspect, unwarranted interviews with a terrorist, who then died in mysterious circumstances.

  He kept his face set to impassive, but flinched a little when the questore moved on to an exaggerated version of the attempted arrest of the professor. He had not been expecting that. Zezza had not just filed a complaint, he had filled in all the details giving a running commentary.

  Modulating his regret into a convincing imitation of concern, the questore wondered whether Blume had really been ‘brandishing a pistol’.

  ‘Balle,’ said Blume dismissively.

  The questore smiled as said he was pleased to hear it was bullshit. He had not believed it for a moment. A note of concern crept into his voice, and he wondered if Blume had considered the possibility of counselling.

  Blume said the only counselling he intended to take was with the union and solicitors, whereupon the questore dropped the pretense of concern, which was a relief for all of them. Questore De Rossi told Blume to consider the prospect of life outside the police force; Blume counter-attacked, accusing the questore of caving in to political pressure. At this point, the vice-questore, a hunched creature with freckles way past the age in which it was normal to have them, intervened to say, ‘Do I smell alcohol on
your breath, Commissioner?’

  ‘Absolutely not. I don’t even drink.’

  ‘I must be mistaken.’

  ‘Maybe you should have that checked out,’ said Blume.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Olfactory hallucinations can be the sign of a temporal lobe stroke.’

  A bit of to-and-fro came quickly to an end when Blume, whose mind was now focused exclusively on his bladder, stood up.

  ‘Are you walking out of this hearing?’ asked the vice-questore in a high-pitched voice that he might have intended to sound indignant but came out as a squeal of undisguised delight at Blume’s self-destruction.

  It wasn’t a hearing, but Blume hadn’t time to insist on the point. ‘I need to go to the toilet. I’ll be back in a second.’

  As he reached the door, the questore called to him. ‘Commissioner?’

  He turned round impatiently. ‘What?’

  ‘Turn right, second to last door on your right, just before the stairs. And, Commissioner?’

  Blume waited, knowing what was coming.

  ‘Don’t bother coming back. We’ve finished here.’

  Standing in the toilet, leaning with folded arm against the wall, Blume marvelled at a fun fact about beer that he had forgotten. As much as you drank was as much as you pissed. This rule did not seem to apply so inflexibly to other drinks.

  Unlike in his station, the taps here gave forth a steady stream of warm water, and both the soap and towel dispensers were full. The mirror was remarkably clean and well illuminated by the overhead lights, and therefore unforgiving of his face. Blume tried out some grins and smiles, then some sneers as he dried his hands, and then suddenly thought of the two-way mirrors in interrogation rooms and stopped. Soberly, he straightened his hair, his collar and breathed on to the palm of his hand and brought it to his nose. It smelled of pink bubble-gum from the soap he had just been using.