with my job.”
“To trust is good; not to trust is better,” said Blume.
“A smashing Italian expression,” said Nightingale. “One of my favorites.”
“You’ll just have to believe me,” said Blume.
“I’d love to do that, but I’m afraid the thing is… I would take your word as a gentleman, of course, but as an Italian public official…”
“As an Italian public official, what?”
“Well, you know how it works here.”
“No,” said Blume. “Tell me.”
Nightingale uncrossed his legs and straightened in his seat. “All I am saying is that as a public official, you have certain duties and responsibilities that would prevail over any assurances you give me, as is only natural and right.”
“This is an interview, not an interrogation. There is no magistrate present, nor any officer taking notes,” said Blume.
“I’m afraid I was born diffident.”
“I see.” Blume got up, and walked over to the narrow bookcase behind his desk. He pulled out a fat purple- and-blue volume, opened it, then presented the volume face down to Nightingale. “ Code of Criminal Procedure, 17th edition, which is the latest. Here, read Article 350, paragraph 7.”
Nightingale looked surprised for a moment, but soon pulled out a collapsible pair of reading glasses from the breast pocket of his jacket. He balanced them on the end of his nose, and turned the book over. Blume watched him mouth some of the words, close his eyes, and reread.
“You are quite right, Commissioner. Mind if I read the entire article?”
“By all means,” said Blume.
Nightingale bent down over the book and read again. Then, holding the page with his thumb, he turned back several hundred pages.
“Sorry about this, but you know how it is: this law is pursuant to that one, which refers back to another and so on and so forth. It’s all a terrible bore.” He continued reading.
Finally Nightingale closed the book, put it on Blume’s desk, and said, “Very well. I was in Florence last night and this morning. I think I just said that. I had an appointment with an art dealer there.” He put his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a ticket stub. “This is my train ticket. As you can see, it is time stamped at 8:03 p.m. for the outbound journey last night and at 9:35 for the return trip this morning. I reached Termini at half-past eleven, my home at midday, and Manuela phoned me there shortly afterwards. When I got to the gallery, the Carabinieri had already been through the place, but she advised me to come to you people instead.”
“Who were you in Florence with?”
“The art dealer’s name is Ricasoli. Same as the wine maker. Same family. He was interested in acquiring a Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione that had come into our possession.”
“You kept the ticket stub?” said Blume, reaching out and taking it. “Do you always do that?”
“Only when I remember. Travel expenses can be deducted from the gallery’s imponibile. If you can be bothered to fill out the tax forms afterwards, of course.”
“The gallery belongs to you?”
“The business activity and movables. Not the building, sadly. We founded the Galleria Orpiment in 1974, you know. That’s a long time ago. I don’t know what I am going to do without Harry. I’ll have to close. We were thinking of closing it down anyhow.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re getting old, Commissioner. Some nights I get up just to lean on a sink and count my heartbeats and wait for them to stop. You’ll find yourself doing that, too, someday. Or maybe you will be different.”
“I want to be straight with you, Mr. Nightingale,” said Blume. “For the moment, the squadra mobile is on standby while we wait for an autopsy report and definite instructions from the investigating magistrate. In the meantime, a rather important dinosaur from the Carabinieri has come onto the scene. Colonel Orazio Farinelli, former director of the Art Forgery and Heritage Division and, I hear, a former operative with the domestic secret service, back in the days when SISDE went off the rails. He speaks with such familiarity of you and Treacy that I think you must know him.”
Nightingale seemed to sink into his chair. He brought his hand up to his brow and seemed to study his fine shoes. By the time he spoke, it was obvious his reply could go only in one direction.
“Yes, I do know Farinelli. I wish I didn’t, but I do. We go a long way back. He was a lieutenant when I first encountered him. We’re really off the record?”
“Up to a point,” said Blume.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure. Let’s hope I can answer,” said Blume.
“Are you working with the Colonel on the investigation?”
“We are both public servants,” said Blume.
“Oh.”
Blume waited patiently as Nightingale picked his next words carefully. Like so many other suspects, Nightingale was about to fall victim to the delusion that words pronounced slowly somehow gave less away.
“You may hear that Harry and I were not getting on. I just want you to know we never did. Not really. We needed each other and there were many shared experiences, but we were too different. If anything I felt a greater cultural affinity with Farinelli.”
“You consider the Colonel a friend?”
“A friend, good God, no!” said Nightingale, immediately forgetting to pick his words with forethought. “Anything but. The Colonel is never a friend. Look, would you mind terribly if I asked you another question.”
“Shoot,” said Blume.
“Did you and the Colonel find any writings?”
Blume made a show of not understanding.
“Such as manuscripts, papers, typescripts, something along those lines, so to speak?”
“That’s an interesting question,” said Blume. “Tell me why you asked it.”
“Did you find anything? Tell me that first.”
“No,” said Blume. He saw a slight release of tension around Nightingale’s eyes, so out of interest for the effect it would have, he added, “But I can’t speak for the Colonel.”
Nightingale had relaxed a little when he said he had found nothing, and seemed to relax even more when he suggested the Colonel might have.
Blume said, “I told you that I found nothing. Now it’s your turn to tell me why you are asking.”
“Yes, well, about a month ago, Harry told me he had been writing his memoirs, but was beginning to be afraid he might not live to see them turned into a book. He also told me he was working on a second book, which had separated itself from his memoirs and was turning into a manual for what he liked to call ‘practitioners.’ He meant painters, restorers, forgers, some dealers, even canvas and brush manufacturers. Not the galleries or the art historians. I said I could edit them for him if he died and make sure they got published, but he laughed and said he couldn’t let me do that because I’d destroy them and he intended to outlive me anyhow… ha! Sorry if I sound a little callous here.
“I took this as a sort of threat, especially after the kindness of my gesture to edit his work, and we argued. It was a bad argument, too. One of our worst and, as it turns out, our last. I asked him why I would want to destroy his work, and he said because there were parts in it that concerned me. I told him he had a duty to show me what was in his notes. He taunted me, said there was plenty of stuff in there and that people would soon enough find out what sort of a person I am. That was bad enough, because no one likes to have their personal affairs published for all the world to see, but there was another question about which Harry was not even aware, and it had to do with his… well, our, line of business.”
Nightingale faltered and Blume intervened to reassure him. “His forgeries, is that what you’re shy of saying?”
“No, as it happens, I am not shy at all,” said Nightingale. “You see, Commissioner, the art world’s got
