had not said where he was going.
Home, she supposed. She could not believe she would never see him again.
Her chin wobbled.
Blume gave her some weep time. He watched her shoulders judder and her head shake, and decided to ask, “Did you ever sleep with him?”
She stopped crying and flashed him a look of disgust.
“Lousy question. It’s my job,” said Blume. “But seeing as we’re on the subject, what about other women? Do you think he might have had other women, or another woman?”
She looked at him as if not understanding.
“Other than his wife,” he added, just to be clear. He watched her lips tighten, her arms fold over her chest.
“You’re not betraying him if you talk, only helping us catch whoever killed him.”
She shook her head, but it was a gesture of defiance rather than negation. Blume now felt she might have an idea, after all. He thought of the bed sheets in the dead man’s apartment, and ran a small risk.
“We already know there was a woman. What I need from you now is a bit of confirmation. Can you give me her name?”
This time she stooped a little as if to hide behind her computer.
“OK. Not her name. But you need to help me here. Did she visit this office frequently?”
Federica crumpled a perfectly good blank sheet of paper on the desk, turned away from him as she dropped it into the wastepaper basket, then shifted the basket with her foot to a slightly different location. Blume gave her time to complete the operation. As she looked back up at him, he caught a hint of a nod.
“Great.” He still needed a name, but he wanted to give her space. “Tell me, who’s the record-keeper here? You?”
“Yes.”
“Names of members, subscriptions, mailing lists, that kind of thing?”
“Yes.”
“What else do you do?”
“Campaign news, press relations, arrangements with printers for publication of posters and flyers.”
“Are you responsible for the money side of things?”
“No, that was Arturo. And Chiara.”
“Chiara’s your colleague. Right? I’m betting she’s been here longer than you. Bet she’s older than you, too. Am I right?”
Old enough to know better than to come running into the office first thing in the morning to get questioned aggressively by police, he thought.
“Yes. She and Arturo handled the money. She’s in London now, at a conference for the RSPCA. She left on Wednesday.”
“What’s the RSPCA?”
Federica scrunched up her face as if she had difficulty remembering, but it turned out she was trying to get her English pronunciation right: “The Real Society for the Preventing of Animals Cruelty,” she said.
“Got you,” said Blume. “You’ve no complaints about the way you’re treated?”
“We believe in what we do here. They were completely honest with me about everything. At least, everything to do with money.”
“Where do you keep the files?”
She pointed to her computer.
“All of them in there?”
“We upload to the computer in Milan. Some stuff gets printed out, but we never use the printed-out stuff.”
“Where is it?”
She got up, walked over to a wall, and pulled open a white sliding door to reveal yet more fat green Oxford binders, neatly arranged alphabetically.
“Member lists, invoices, utilities, campaigns, press cuttings,” she explained. “But it’s better organized on the computer.”
“What did Clemente use his office for?”
“Working.”
“Working means different things to different people. Did he file, type on the computer, write with a pen, make calls, meet people, drink coffee, play Internet games?”
“Arturo was hopeless with computers. He never used his. He didn’t even have a mobile phone.”
“So what did he do all day?”
“He wasn’t here all that much. Especially since he started that documentary thing. He’d write out campaign projects, get me to put them into flow-charts, PowerPoint, that sort of thing. He made phone calls, received visitors.”
“What documentary?”
“On TV. Against dog fights.”
“OK,” said Blume. “What sort of visitors?”
“Usually people who wanted to donate, become members, offer voluntary work.”
“Including the woman we were talking about?”
She looked at him almost with a pout, as if he had no right to return to the same uncomfortable theme of a few minutes ago.
“Well?”
“Yes.”
“I know this is hard for you, but you won’t have to talk about this to anyone other than me,” said Blume.
It was a lie. If her evidence turned out to be important, she’d find herself telling it several times to the investigating magistrate, the preliminary judge, about ten more policemen, a court judge, and finally the press. “How do you know they were having an affair?”
“I never said they were.”
“But we already know it. Don’t worry about what you said, just tell me how you knew.”
She stared at the desk.
“This is nothing to do with you,” said Blume. “I just need to know how you could tell, just so…” He searched for a convincing bluff, but came up empty-handed. “Just so we can be sure,” he said briskly.
She stared at her desk, and spoke to it accusingly, “The way they moved, looked at each other. Also, she was pretty open about it.”
“Did you like her?”
“No.” This time she made no silent head movements.
“Is her name on the records here?” Blume leaned forward and patted the computer monitor.
“Yes. She was a big donor.”
“Find the name in there, will you?” Blume stood up and went behind her to look at the screen. It showed a spreadsheet scrolled down to the last few names. The cursor was blinking beside a name. Manuela Innocenzi, she had joined LAV six months previously.
“That her?”
A sad nod.
Blume found a piece of paper and pen and took down the address and telephone number.
“Great. You’ve been a lot of help. I think you should just close up and go home now.”
“The office opens in about three hours. I may as well stay.”
“I don’t think you’ll be opening it today, will you?”
“Animals continue to suffer,” she said. “Our office will stay open.”
“Humans suffer more,” said Blume. “And this is a secondary scene, so the investigating magistrate will probably have it sealed off.”
He saw he was beginning to antagonize her, which he did not want. Not yet.
“These files on the dog fighting,” he tapped the folder in his hand. “Did you prepare them, collate them,
