Ten minutes later, the door to his office smashed open, banged against the wall and ricocheted halfway closed again. The threads of wire in the rippled glass stopped the pane from shattering.
“Sorry, it was a bit stiff,” said Paoloni. “I signed back on duty like you asked. What do you want from me?”
“This is simple enough,” said Blume. “You’re going after the two who killed Ferrucci. Only this time, I don’t want you to go there in secret with a death squad. Oh-and this time, I don’t think Innocenzi will be filming you, either. He’s got more footage than he knows what to do with. He even gave me a copy, though I haven’t seen it yet. I’m not sure I want to.”
Paoloni hit the side of the door with the heel of his hand.
“Yes, caught on film, Beppe. When I told you to come back in, I didn’t know about this yet,” said Blume. “All I knew was you were not being straight with me. OK, I can take that because I have learned over the years to trust you only so much. I thought you would help me keep tabs on Pernazzo, then when I realized you weren’t, I found I wasn’t so shocked after all. But I didn’t take you for a murderer.”
“They killed our colleague. We were going to teach them a lesson.”
“No, Beppe. You were going to kill them. Off duty, at night, with untraceable weapons. Alleva knew too much. You tipped him off, but more than that, you were on his payroll, and I’m pretty sure now there was other stuff. How much was he paying you?”
“Not just me. Everyone. People like that pay off everyone. I was not acting just to save myself. And they killed a cop. Most of what I got from him I recycled to pay for more information. It’s how it works.”
“You will have plenty of time to explain all that. Maybe Alleva himself will do the explaining for you if this address turns out to be accurate, and if he’s still there.”
“You’re sending me to pick him up now? That doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re not going there alone, Beppe,” said Blume.
“I get it. You’re coming with me.”
“Not me. A small team of officers is being picked right now.”
Paoloni’s face was still a strange mixture of yellows from the bruising.
He looked battered, defeated. “Who’s doing the picking?” he said.
“The Holy Ghost himself. By the way, I said you got the tip-off. I prefer it that way. I don’t think you’re in a position to challenge me.”
“You want me to accompany Gallone to Alleva’s hideout?”
“Gallone and his team. I think he’s called in the press and the forensics, in that order. It should be quite a scampagnata.”
Gallone appeared at the doorway. He was in full uniform and smelled of aftershave.
“Questore, sir,” said Blume. “Chief Inspector Paoloni is ready as soon as you are.”
“I have been ready from the moment I received your phone call,” said Gallone. “I have already settled jurisdiction complications with the local prefect and questura in Civitavecchia. But I need to know where this information comes from.”
“Paoloni can explain all that on route,” said Blume. “As for me, I’ve got to get back to the case you assigned me.”
Paoloni shot Blume a questioning look and Blume understood his dilemma. He needed to know if he had any leeway left, if he could try to spin more lies, find his way out of the trap. Blume could have simply informed on him, or ordered him to confess, but he did not want to use evidence from Innocenzi against a colleague, no matter how rotten. And he sort of knew about Paoloni anyhow, if only he had admitted it to himself. So Blume returned his glance with a blank stare. He had not decided yet what he wanted to happen to his second-in-command.
After they left, Blume went to pick up his desk phone and call in for the files on the road rage incident when he noticed that the voice mail light was flashing. He picked up, keyed in the voice mail number and listened to the message. A voice belonging to an unknown youth told him to call Chief Technical Director Dottor Alessandro Cantore at the crime labs on the Via Tuscolana. Blume noted down the number, called and waited patiently as his call was answered and he was passed from one person to the next.
He had seen how the scientific unit handled their calls. A few cordless phones lay around on the Formica tabletops, and whenever a call came through, whoever was not busy and happened to have a cordless lying near at hand would pick it up and then wander around the lab looking for the right person.
After five infuriating minutes, someone handed the chief technical director the phone.
“Yes?” The important dottore made no attempt to hide his annoyance at being interrupted.
“Blume,” said Blume matching the unfriendly peremptory tone.
“No, wrong number,” declared Cantore, and hung up.
Blume replaced the receiver with exaggerated care. He placed his left palm flat on the table, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply.
Blume was beginning to calm down when his phone rang.
“Yes?”
The same youthful voice explained that Chief Technical Director Cantore had just remembered that Blume was returning a call. He wanted to know if they could meet in half an hour. Blume said they could not, since it would take him at least forty minutes to get to the labs. He was not going to put a flashing light on his car and drive fast with one functioning arm, and he was not sure he wanted to request a patrol car. If this was about Clemente, he preferred not to draw attention to himself. The youth sounded worried, went away, came back and asked if Blume could meet Cantore in an hour.
“Talking on the phone is beneath the great man, eh? Is this helpful to the Clemente or the Enrico Brocca case?”
The youth did not understand.
“Get him on the line.”
The phone went thunk as it was put down on a table again. Eventually the voice was back to tell him that Cantore did not want to talk on the phone, because it was a confidential matter.
What the hell. He had promised Giulia he would find her father’s killer.
This was part of the price to be paid.
37
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 7:30 P.M.
Alessandro Cantore was in the farthest, most inaccessible, and darkest part of the lab, as if he was trying to avoid Blume. He was powerfully built, his bulk exaggerated by his proximity to a very young and wispy girl who was looking into a microscope. Heavy hands clasped behind his back, he was slightly bent over her and seemed to be peering into the waves of her thin hair with the same intensity of interest with which she was gazing at whatever was wriggling under the lens. He straightened up slightly as Blume entered. Although Cantore’s big face and square spectacles, which resembled a pair of old TV sets, were fixed on him, Blume was not entirely sure that he had been noticed. The Scientifics all had a haunted white and slightly absent look as they stared intently at their samples of blood, dust, semen, skin, hair, soil, spit, and poison.
Blume leaned against a table scattered with chemicals, litmus paper, and a Gordian knot of electric wires leading to various blue and infrared lights, and waited to be acknowledged.
The director had a booming Venetian accent. “Are you Bellun?”
“Blume,” he corrected in a neutral tone. They had met three times before.
“Ah, that’s right.” Cantore tottered on the edge of an apology, but held back. “Come into my office, we can’t talk here.” He nodded significantly at the slip of a child looking down the microscope. She did not seem to have heard a word. She had not, in fact, moved at all.
Cantore barged past Blume and led the way through the middle lab, ignoring the startled looks of two whey- faced interns sloshing a liquid around in a reagent tray.
“In here,” he instructed, pointing at a pale green door that looked like a utility cupboard. He opened the door
