“You think you can tell me who this friend was?”
“He works in TV. He used to be on first-name terms with Craxi, De Michelis, Martelli, all those types. Arturo was doing a documentary with him.”
“Taddeo Di Tivoli,” said Blume, remembering the name Ferrucci had given him.
“That’s him. I never trusted him. I think he wanted to exploit the fact that I am, you know, my father’s daughter, get a scoop or something. Anyhow, he has a farm house in Amatrice. He told Arturo to use the place whenever he wanted. Arturo had instructions on how to get there in his wallet. The key was under a laurel bush in the front garden. He wasn’t with us, of course. I wouldn’t have gone if he was. Neither would Arturo.”
“Nice villa, is it?”
“It’s OK. A bit musty. Full of reminders of Di Tivoli as a spoiled kid.”
“How long had you been in a relationship with Arturo Clemente?”
“Since I met him, basically. That’s six months ago.”
“And why did you… what’s the connection between someone like him-” Blume stopped, thought about Alleva and dog fights, worked out what he was trying to say, then came up with his question: “Are you an animal lover?”
She caressed the dog with a bare foot. “Ask Enya here.”
“Is your father?”
“No.”
“He doesn’t like animals?”
“That’s not what I said. He has other worries.”
“Do you feel different from him?”
“Of course I do. I am his daughter, not his clone. But I am close to him, too. Remember that.”
“So you are your father’s daughter?”
“I am not involved in his business affairs, if that’s what you mean.” She gave him a half smile with the left part of her face. “Whoever phoned you a minute ago can look it up.”
Blume pulled out a bent pocketbook from his breast pocket and flicked it open. It was completely blank. “You’re talking to me now. Already that’s something your father wouldn’t do.”
“Don’t start taking notes,” said Manuela. “I’ll get nervous. And you’re wrong. My father talks to plenty of police, always has. He’s very open, too. Also, I have a simple reason for talking to you.”
Blume put away his useless pocketbook. “What’s that?”
“I need you to find out who killed Arturo. Forget about Alleva, though. It’s a nonstarter. If it had been him, that would already be known.”
“How do you know he is even a suspect? Perhaps we haven’t even questioned him.”
“I know you haven’t,” said Manuela. “You are all moving far too slowly.”
“Are you telling me that someone has questioned Alleva? Someone like your father?”
“I am saying nothing in particular,” said Manuela.
“OK, let’s move away from Alleva.”
“Yeah. It’s a dead end,” agreed Manuela.
“Now, without being too explicit about the sort of man I think your father is, let me say I somehow don’t see him supporting animal rights like you. How about that?”
“That’s fair.”
Blume said, “He’d despise an animal rights sort of person, wouldn’t he?”
“Animals are not his first priority.”
“Maybe he disapproved of a man who went running to the authorities to report illegal dog fights?”
Manuela gave a short, hard smoker’s laugh. “He didn’t have Arturo killed, especially like that. That is what you’re working your way around to insinuating.”
“I wasn’t going to insinuate it, I was going to say it straight out. Suppose he felt that Clemente, a married man, was, you know, dishonoring you and, by extension, him?”
She shook her head, “We’re not in Sicily here. Even in Sicily they don’t behave like that anymore.”
“Some of them do, and your father is from a different generation. Maybe he found it embarrassing. Maybe he was worried about your reputation. Fathers can be funny about their daughters.”
Manuela shrugged. “That’s not the case here. If anyone was embarrassed, it was his politician wife, but not me. I’ve had other men besides him. Arturo was married and had his faults, but I thought
…”
Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She blinked and they rolled down her face, catching Blume off guard. He had not heard any wavering or cracking in her voice. He wondered if they were genuine. D’Amico had never believed in anyone’s tears. He used to say it was the one thing Blume had to learn from him. But Blume believed they were always at least a bit true. Sadness was the one thing you could depend on.
Her voice still steady, Manuela said, “Sorry. It’s such a waste. I was not expecting to break down in front of you.” She flicked the tears off her cheeks with her thumbs. “You asked a moment ago if I was like my father.”
Blume nodded.
“Let me tell you about something that happened when I was a child. Then you can judge for yourself,” said Manuela. “I always liked dogs. I got my first one, a border collie, or mostly collie with a bit of something else thrown in, on my ninth birthday. I was fond of it, but never got round to naming it, and my parents never suggested I gave it a name. When I was ten and a half-maybe you’ve checked up on all this already? — my mother was killed.”
“No,” said Blume. “I haven’t read-I only just found out who you are.”
“In a house invasion,” she said. “It wasn’t in Rome. They’d gone to Foggia. Why the fuck anyone would willingly go to Foggia is a mystery. Business, I suppose. Anyhow, the house belonged to a great uncle or something of my father’s. Look, none of that matters. She got shot dead during a robbery.”
“That’s what happened?”
“It was an anomalous event.”
“Anomalous. That’s a strange choice of word.”
“It’s the one my father used at the time. I remember I didn’t know what it meant. Sometimes I still don’t,” said Manuela. “My father never found out who did it.”
“Did the police?”
She looked at him like he was a simpleton.
“I’ll take that as a no,” said Blume.
“After the funeral, a few weeks after the funeral, I think it was, I asked my father if I could name the dog Eleonora, which was my mother’s name. I was a kid. Anyhow, my father freaked. Like I have never seen him do since. Said he was going to kill the beast, how could I dishonor my own mother in that way. He screamed at me. Then he didn’t talk to me for weeks. Finally, one day he comes up to me and tells me it’s time the dog had a name, a Russian name: Laika.”
“That was the first dog in space,” Blume said.
Manuela paused and peered at him in search of irony. “Yes, Commissioner. Anyhow, my point is that became her official name only.”
She bent down and stroked the dog on the floor with her hand as she continued in a lower voice. “Sometimes, when I was walking her in an open field or on a dark street, and could be sure no one was around to hear, I’d call the dog by my mother’s name, Eleonora.”
Blume looked at the silky creature flopped on the parquet.
“It’s not her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No. I suppose not. Laika would be a few hundred dog years old by now, I suppose.”
“Thanks. I must look great today.”
“Came out wrong. I’m not very good with dogs and their years. So Laika-Eleonora died.”
“She got run over by a car. It was a hit and run. The guy braked after he smashed into Laika, then thought better of it and sped on.”
“Too bad.”
“I was twelve when it happened. It was slightly more than a year after my mother had died.”
“Children shouldn’t have to suffer such losses.”
