D’Amico made a gesture with his hands as if releasing an invisible bird into the air. “It comes down to the same thing. I don’t know. Really, I don’t. I don’t even think they were cops. Trainee domestic spies, probably. SISDE operatives sent in by the uncle. The orange-faced minister in Forza Italia. Looks like a squirrel monkey. Same surname.”
“I know who you mean. But somehow the SISDE guys reported to you.”
“No. This is just stuff I heard. I did have some doubts about the story or your meeting her. Now I don’t. This investigation is doing your career no good, Alec. Leave it alone. You used to know when to leave things alone.”
“I just need to get this one person, then I’ll back out. You can handle it however you want, give the credit to whomever you want,” said Blume.
“Why do you care so much, Alec? You had pretty cynical ideas about justice when we were partners. It’s one of the reasons I quit the flying squad.”
“The suspect I have in mind… I think this guy will kill again,” said Blume. “I should have hauled him in the moment I clapped eyes on him.”
“Why didn’t you? It would have been easier then than now.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t have enough evidence. I was alone. I had been told to go after Alleva instead.” And, he thought to himself, I had my first date with a woman in eighteen months, and I was not thinking straight.
“Ah,” said D’Amico. “That’s not good. Well, I suppose we’ll have to find a way of getting this guy. Have you got good evidence now?”
“Not as such. But fingerprints, DNA, it’ll match.”
D’Amico frowned. “We need to go through the magistrates for that.”
“I know. In the meantime I sent Paoloni after the guy.”
“Paoloni is on leave of absence. That’s what the Holy Ghost told me. When did you send Paoloni in?”
Blume paused as if to think. He had suddenly noticed that D’Amico had not even bothered to ask for Pernazzo’s name. “A short while ago.”
“Has Paoloni reported back to you?”
“Yes,” said Blume. He could play the disinformation game, too.
“Really? That’s good, because Paoloni seemed to have disappeared from sight. The Holy Ghost has been invoking his safe return to the fold. He took leave, then vanished. I’m glad you’re in contact. Where is he?”
“No idea,” said Blume.
“Well, did he find your guy-what’s his name by the way?”
“Vercetti.”
“Did Paoloni find him?”
“Yes,” said Blume. For all he knew, maybe he had.
“Again, no arrest? It seems to me like getting the suspect might be harder than you have allowed for. You need a magistrate to direct inquiries, here, Alec.”
“I know.”
“And you’re not going to get one if it’s connected with the Clemente case. So you had better leave it completely, or leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do. Pass the evidence to me, I’ll make sure it goes to the right people. Get Paoloni to contact me, too, would you? We’ll organize something.”
“Right. I’ll send the evidence over this evening.”
“Great.” D’Amico stood up. “You should rest, Alec. Not come in looking for work.”
“What the hell is the sense in staying at home?” said Blume.
“You need family, Alec. Everyone has some family. You never visited mine when we were partners. Even Paoloni’s got a son.”
The door opened, and Vicequestore Gallone appeared, holding a yellow file folder.
Gallone did not welcome Blume back. He simply closed his eyes and nodded gently as if receiving a confession, and said, “Yes, yes,” in response to a question no one had asked. Then, with the air of a man anxious not to wet his shoes in a dirty puddle, he stepped into the room, reached over and placed the folder on Blume’s desk, and announced: “Road rage incident. A family man by the name of Enrico Brocca, shot dead outside a pizzeria after an argument over a minor car accident. Seeing as you’re so anxious not to let your excellent police skills rust, I can assign the two men I put on the case to other duties, leave it to you. When you require manpower to move the investigation forward, you will come to me, with the paperwork filled out.” He turned to D’Amico. “Good morning, Commissioner.”
D’Amico smoothed an eyebrow with his thumb. “Good morning, Vicequestore,” he said.
Looking at the two of them side by side, Blume was reminded of an old tailor fussing over a model. To Gallone he said, “This road rage case. Who’s the magistrate in charge?”
“Your friend Principe,” said Gallone. “You’ll spend the rest of the day reading the reports. There are no witnesses in this case. We are still looking. Maybe you could find us some witnesses. Contact the magistrate, inform him that you are on this case, and await instructions. I expect he’ll want you to go out tomorrow and interview the widow of the murdered man.”
Blume opened the file, not wanting to look at any of them. “Fine,” he said.
Gallone glanced at his watch. “So I’ll phone up the Office of Public Prosecution, tell them the case has been assigned to a detective, shall I?”
He left without waiting for a reply. D’Amico lingered.
“What?” asked Blume. “What do you want?”
“Nothing. I no longer have any reason to be in this commissariato. I’m going back to my office in the Ministry.”
“Goodbye then,” said Blume, opening the folder and beginning to read. He did not glance up when he heard the door shut.
The report was an exercise in minimalism. The bare essentials of time and place, a ballistics conjecture, the name of one witness. There had been a pizzeria full of people, groups of people on the street, and yet just one witness, a young woman. Crowds are made up exclusively of cowards.
There had been no real follow-up. Blume looked at the police sketch of the gunman. It looked like it had been done by an abstract artist. The image was as unhelpful as it could get. It was possible to project almost any face into the almost blank outline. The chin tapered a little, maybe indicating a thin face. The eyes were small, and the nose, too, as if the artist did not want to commit himself to grand statements. The mouth was small and seemed to have been made to look slightly puckered, or else to indicate incipient hair on the upper lip. It was by no means clear. The accompanying notes explained that the children and the widowed wife had not been able to describe the killer in any detail. They had averted their eyes. But the report also said that they had had two occasions to see the killer. Surely a better job could have been made of it than this?
His mobile rang and Paoloni’s name appeared on the display.
“Beppe. Where the hell have you been?” said Blume. He went over to his office door, checked no one was around, then returned as Paoloni gave one of his typically laconic answers.
“Unfinished business. Then I had to fade a bit into the background. I’ll tell you about it when we meet.”
“What about Pernazzo?”
The one second of silence that followed this question was all it took for Blume to realize that Paoloni had not followed up.
“I got a more important lead. I was following it up. But it came to nothing.”
“I told you to go get this Pernazzo,” said Blume. “You said you would.
Are you still the same person that was beating his breast and blaming himself for the death of a colleague, or are you back to your normal truculent self?”
“I’m definitely the person who cares about his colleague’s death more than anything,” said Paoloni. “Which is why I didn’t make Pernazzo a big priority.”
“You came to me and asked for help, I gave you something to do, and you didn’t do it. And what’s with the leave of absence?”
“I got injured, remember? Same as you.”
“Are you still on leave now?”
“Prognosis was fifteen days. I had my first day yesterday. You want, I can go get your suspect now.”
“You are on leave. I’m not sending an off-duty cop to a suspect’s home.”
