Bitter Remedy: An Alec Blume Case Read online

  ‘Too bad. C’est-à-dire a tragedy. What about your wife, girlfriend?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Don’t you want her here by your bedside? Who do you want me to call?’

  ‘I am not married.’

  ‘No one then?’

  Blume closed his eyes, and fell immediately into a world of swirling colours, prismic, intense, and dark, like the gleaming rainbow on an oil slick. A two-hour drive would take him back to Caterina, still on maternity leave. She was probably holding Alessia right now, breastfeeding her. They had induced the birth a month early, because the pregnancy had caused hepatosis in the mother. Caterina scratched herself till she bled as her liver failed and her blood filled with bile. At one point, she phoned Blume, who had not seen her in two months, and screamed down the phone at him, as if the poison coursing through her were all his fault, which it was. That meant that he somehow gained the right to accompany her the following morning to Fratebenefratelli hospital on the Tiber island, where they broke her waters. The Tiber was swollen and lapping against the hospital walls just below the window. Blume saw two rats swimming upstream, against the current. The cure for foetal hepatosis, a nurse explained, was childbirth. As soon as the baby was out, the disease vanished as if it had never been.

  Alessia came out weighing 3.8 kilos, and everyone joked that it was a good job they called her out early. Perhaps the dates had been slightly miscalculated. She did not look like a child ripped untimely from the womb, though she was very red and in the middle of her head was a huge area of softness like bread taken out too early that seemed to pulse and he was afraid to touch. Even the nurses said they had rarely seen a fontanelle so open, and the doctor came and took a look at it and handed Alessia back to her mother with the assurance that all was perfectly as it should be.

  ‘You had a stroke, didn’t you?’ Dr Bernardini interrupted his thoughts.

  ‘A panic attack, according to you.’

  ‘No, I meant before now. I have been watching you. We need to get you into a larger hospital. A real one. You are now in Casa di Cura Madonna della Misericordia. We’re too small to have a hospital.’

  Blume folded his arms, and scowled at the doctor. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been seeing, Doctor, but I did not have a stroke.’

  ‘Lift up both arms.’

  ‘Fuck off. You lift up both arms.’

  To his surprise, the doctor did. ‘Et voila! Look, Blume, may I ask an awkward question? Have you consumed certain illegal drugs?’

  Blume looked suitably disgusted at the suggestion.

  ‘All right, so I return to this question of prescribed drugs, perhaps improperly renewed?’

  ‘I hardly even drink any more,’ said Blume.

  ‘No? That was going to be my next conjecture.’

  Blume looked around at the flaking green paint on the walls, at the wheeled table with a piece of equipment that looked like it might have had a purpose in the mid-1950s, then glanced back quickly at the friendly red face.

  ‘Nystagmus,’ said the doctor. ‘No one noticed that?’

  ‘First I have heard of it,’ said Blume, glancing over to the corner of the room where a minor commotion seemed to be unfolding between two colourful – no, nothing. It was just a mop and the way the sunlight gleamed on the steel table leg. The mop seemed to sway a little as he watched it. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Your left eye tends to wander. Do you experience dizziness?’

  ‘Not as a rule, no. Wander where?’

  ‘To the side and back again, slowly, like it’s scanning for something. Nice and smooth, with the occasional saccadic jerk. It’s quite noticeable. It’s as if you’re looking for something to the side, then you snap out of it and focus your attention on whatever is before you.’

  ‘This is a bad thing?’

  ‘Well, I see it as a medical issue,’ said Bernardini. ‘For others, it might give the impression that you’re not quite paying attention, or don’t quite trust them or the people around them. For all I know you have always had it. But, looking at you now, seeing this, and considering the way your bottom lip curves down a little strangely on your left – I would say you are recovering from a stroke.’

  ‘A transient ischaemic attack,’ said Blume quietly, as if afraid someone might overhear. ‘It’s not the same as a stroke.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Five weeks.’

  ‘How long were you in hospital?’

  ‘Two days,’ said Blume, his voice low with shame.

  ‘What brought you in?’

  ‘I was shaving . . .’

  ‘And your arm grew heavy?’

  ‘No. My arm is and was perfectly fine.’

  ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have interrupted.’

  ‘Interrupted what? There is no story. I looked into the mirror, and there was this sort of tragic-comic mask looking back at me. I checked in, but it was all over already. I came here . . .’

  ‘To hide from someone?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Blume.

  ‘Sorry, there I go leaping to conclusions again. You came here to get quite better. Relax, get some exercise done, go back to Rome, looking perfectly normal, and perhaps a little fitter, apart from the nystagmus, which you may have always had. Admirable. What about your clients?’

  ‘What clients?’

  ‘You’re a tax accountant, remember?’

  ‘Oh, them. That’s all taken care of. I have a junior partner . . . Alessia. Yes, quite right. I was trying to relax. Herbal remedies, flowers. And look what it did to me.’

  ‘You ate a poisonous plant.’

  ‘So it was poisonous.’

  ‘Perhaps it was not. If I ask you to go to the hospital, you won’t, will you?’

  Blume avoided the doctor’s eyes.

  ‘This is a clinic. We specialize in urology, really. That is to say, a urologist whose brother’s a bishop has managed to persuade some nuns to run what is essentially a private practice . . .’

  ‘A friend of yours, I gather.’

  ‘A cousin, actually. The point is, here is no good. Will you allow me to make a few guesses and then a suggestion?’

  Blume propped himself up on his pillows. ‘Sure.’

  ‘You are reluctant to go to hospital,’ Bernardini paused to see if Blume would object. ‘I see. J’ai raison. About that. Well, that’s good inasmuch as it suggests you are feeling strong enough to resist good advice. But I will say at this point that you might simply drop down dead.’

  ‘As might you,’ said Blume.

  ‘As might I,’ agreed Bernardini, rubbing his hands in what seemed like eager anticipation of the moment. ‘I am also guessing that there is someone back in Rome you would prefer not to see, or be seen by. So my suggestion is that if you are planning to stay here in town for a few days, let me check up on you.’

  ‘No need. I can leave immediately. This very moment, in fact.’

  ‘No, Commissioner, that is not what I meant.’

  Blume sat back and regarded Bernardini levelly, allowing the silence between them to lengthen.

  ‘Putain! I just called you Commissioner, didn’t I? Blume is not a common name. I looked up your medical records.’

  ‘As any conscientious doctor would do.’

  ‘So not a tax accountant after all.’

  ‘No. I am on leave.’

  ‘You work in the murder squad?’

  ‘Squadra mobile, yes.’

  ‘It must be stressful. That would explain your poor health and cagey manner.’

  ‘Also explains the Nisi . . . that thing that makes my eyes watch out what’s going on nearby.’

  ‘Nystagmus. Except you better hope your enemies come at you from the left. Are you here about the missing girl?’

  ‘What missing girl?’

  ‘Ah!’ He winked and ran his thumb down his cheek. ‘I understand.’

  ‘No ah! No, you don’t. I know nothing of any missing girl, Dottore.’

  �
��Call me Bruno.’

  ‘OK, Bruno. One thing, I’d prefer it if you didn’t mention to anyone . . .’

  ‘About the girl?’

  ‘No, I just said . . .’

  ‘About your mini-stroke?’

  ‘Not that either. Just that I am a cop. It raises some expectations, lowers many more.’

  ‘Oh, of course!’

  ‘You already have, haven’t you?’

  ‘No! I have said nothing. Rien.’

  Blume could see he had, but it made no difference. His five days of relaxation, during which time he had planned not to let anyone know what he did for a living, were not going to happen.

  Chapter 5

  Niki Solito, up and about earlier than he liked, blew his nose long and hard into a snow-white cotton handkerchief. He folded it and its contents and placed them carefully in his left pocket. From his right pocket, he drew out a second handkerchief, this one a pale green, and dabbed his damp forehead. He folded and put away this handkerchief, too, double-checking it had gone into the correct pocket. He sat down, breathing heavily, on a rickety chair outside the gate lodge where he had expected to find Silvana, on what would have been the second morning of her Bach Flowers lessons. She would take it out on him, of course. She always did. She would blame him for the cancellation, say he had always been dead set against the idea, whereas in fact he had just never seen the point. Money was not a problem.

  He dropped his satchel onto the ground before him, opened it, and lifted out a small pile of freshly laundered handkerchiefs, which he placed on his lap. He then dug his hand back in and pulled out the black leather insulin kitbag. Inside there, he knew, everything was in place. He did not need that. Pulling it out had been an act of confusion, and he calmed himself by checking that everything was in its place. His hand moved over the Exo grip on his DB380m, a pistol small enough to fit in the palm of a hand and remain invisible. He had small hands, and elegant fingers, and the weapon suited him just fine, though it gave him no comfort. It was part of his repertoire. It was expected of him.

  Silvana was not in her herbal store, but, typically, had left it open. No one was around to steal anyhow, which was part of the problem with Silvana’s business plan. Besides, nothing in the store was worth stealing. Certainly there would be no money. But it was the principle of the thing that annoyed him. The world was full of thieves and criminals and an unattended store should be locked. He had just seen an unknown car, a green Alfa Romeo driving away from the parking area next to the gate. Albanians and gypsies drove Alfa Romeos. He did not really object to his future wife working. Hadn’t he and her father allowed her to do that economics and commerce course in Rome at the Luiss Guido Carli? And when she came back, they could see she was different. She learned little enough about economics or running a business, but she came back filled with knowledge of a different type. The knowledge of a woman who had explored . . . well. And still he did not object. That was her right, just as it was his with the occasional dancer, but her attitude towards him had hardened, too. Her father, of course, pretended that everything was as before. It was not even possible to allude to the fact that maybe his daughter had enjoyed some other men.

  She had returned with a degree a year ago, then set about using his money to prove that she was perfectly capable of running her own business. A business that failed before it opened. But that was fine. He would subsidize her all her life, if needs be.

  ‘Domenico!’ he called, not hiding the irritation in his voice. He was always formal with Silvana’s father, paying the old man more respect than was his due. Domenico Greco was his name, Signor Greco, when he first knew him. Qualsiasi cosa che volete voi, Signor Greco. Proprio qualsiasi. That was then. Now he liked to undermine it by also using the old man’s diminutive, Mimmo.

  ‘Mimmo!’ It was like calling a dog. Only one that did not come. He waited, his temper rising, as all he heard was the sound of hundreds of birds chattering and insects humming. He called again, and got no answer. The old man had a mobile phone but only answered it if his daughter called. If Niki needed to speak to him, he had to call Silvana who would call him, or come down to the garden and shout.

  He set off across the garden, forced to double the actual distance by the playful path that wended in and out around bushes too thick or thorny to push through, even when they only came up to his waist. Besides, he didn’t want to mess up his trousers, which had a thin chalk-stripe motif so subtle as to be invisible, yet emphasized, he felt, the length and slimness of his legs.

  He found the old man bent over some scrabbly soil, scraping with a hoe around some weird plant with blue leaves. He glanced up as Niki arrived, then continued with his work, clearly finding the vegetable more interesting than his potential son-in-law.

  ‘You’re sweating, Niki. Another attack?’

  As always when he was close to the old man, Niki felt slightly impeded. He could be contemptuous at a distance, but up close it became harder. ‘They are not “attacks”.’

  Domenico put aside his hoe. ‘Whatever you want to call them, you are very white.’

  Niki stared back. Anyone would look white compared with the old man, shrunken and brown as a chestnut, constantly caked in soil. ‘Where’s Silvana?’

  ‘She went to Madonna della Misericordia,’ said Domenico. ‘You just missed her.’

  ‘The clinic? Why? What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘Nothing wrong with her. She’s visiting a person.’

  ‘Who’s this person?’

  ‘Someone from her course who fell ill.’

  ‘Her delusional flower course? I thought she had cancelled it.’

  ‘Some fools turned up nevertheless,’ said Mimmo. ‘And this particular one seems to have eaten some conium seeds. That’s my guess.’

  ‘When was all this?’

  ‘Yesterday, around this time.’

  ‘Why am I only hearing about this now? Why didn’t you say anything last night?’

  Mimmo resumed his hoeing. ‘Last night we were talking about your Romanian. I didn’t see the relevance. But now I am beginning to wonder.’

  ‘Wait, Silvana is visiting this stronzo? Is that his car I saw leaving?’

  ‘Yes . . .’ Mimmo gave a vicious neat twist to the handle and the blade of the hoe bit into the roots of a delicate-looking plant. ‘Ground ivy. And yes, that’s his car.’

  Niki pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose, though it was dry. In fact, he was suddenly very thirsty. ‘So who the fuck does this guy think he is? And why is Silvana not answering my calls?’

  Mimmo spread his grimy hands. ‘You know how it is. She thinks mobile phones damage the brain. She leaves it at home or in the store.’

  ‘Runs in the family.’

  Mimmo stopped gardening and pushed his hands into the small of his back. ‘Here’s the thing. The man lying in the hospital bed is a cop.’

  Niki searched the hard brown face for meaning, but got none.

  ‘And here’s another thing, he was pretending not to be.’

  ‘Undercover?’

  Mimmo shrugged. ‘Not very deep undercover. Dr Bernardini found out simply by checking his medical records.’

  ‘And how do you know?’

  ‘Were you listening, Niki? I just said Dr Bernardini. Bruno Bernardini. You know the individual to whom I am referring. By now the whole town will know all about it.’ ‘So,’ continued Domenico, ‘my assumption is that the man was simply looking for a break from his identity. After all, it must be quite a burden waking up every morning and knowing you’re a cop. And that is all I know, really. Unless you have something to add?’

  ‘Why would I have anything to add? I am only finding out about this now, for God’s sake,’ said Niki. ‘It’s just a coincidence.’

  Domenico forked a leaf between two fingers and examined its underside, and shook his head at what he saw there. ‘A coincidence requires the occurrence of two events. So what is the other?’

  ‘There is no other even
t. It was just an expression.’

  ‘But there is another event, Niki, isn’t there?’ Domenico ripped the leaf from its stem and massaged it into his palms. ‘That girl that’s vanished from your club. I was thinking of that. The Romanian girl.’

  A look of pain passed across Niki’s face. ‘You think I’d call in a policeman from Rome for that?’

  ‘You reported it to the Carabinieri here.’

  ‘I had to. I was covering my ass in case she turns up dead somewhere.’

  ‘Will she?’

  ‘Jesus, I hope not.’

  ‘You liked this girl, Alina.’ It was a statement or a challenge, rather than a question.

  ‘Maybe you’ve been standing in the sun too long, Mimmo.’

  ‘Mind how you talk to me, Niki.’

  ‘Think about it. When did this cop book his course? Months ago? Alina went missing three weeks ago as of Friday. And “missing” is probably not the term. She upped and went.’

  ‘What about her friend, Nadia: could she have called in the police?’

  The sun was behind the old man’s head, putting Niki at a disadvantage. He could not see the expression on the face in front of him, but he knew his own registered stupid surprise. ‘You think because I’m in this garden all day I don’t know about the goings-on in your club? Remember who got you started. You’re my business, Niki. Your business is my business.’

  ‘All I am saying is that this policeman must have booked before Alina went missing.’

  ‘Alina. Listen to yourself. Alina. Little Romanian whore, fucks off somewhere, and you’re still sweating and slithering around my daughter. Alina. Of course I checked. This cop booked on 17 April. The same day, as it happens, that you reported Alina missing. That was the coincidence you could have been referring to, if you were so stupid as not to check.’

  ‘Why would I have called up a policeman in Rome – me?’

  ‘What about that other bitch, Nadia? Maybe she got worried about her little friend.’

  ‘How would Nadia know about a policeman in Rome, Mimmo?’ Niki tipped light cologne into a handkerchief, and dabbed at his throat and neck.