on a deal.”
“But he did, right?”
Blume was not sure what to make of the young man’s mixture of candidness and presumption. “Let’s say for argument’s sake that he did,” he said.
“Like I said, Panebianco vouchsafed for you. That will do for me. But I was wondering, do you have something else the Colonel wants?”
Blume shrugged. “Obviously I do.”
“What?”
“I have no idea.”
“That’s fine. I accept that response,” said Faedda. “But if you really have no idea, let me suggest money. Or something that is worth a lot of money.”
“What about something that gives him power, leverage, or exonerates him. Or something that he wants hidden?”
“Those are all very plausible reasons,” said Faedda. “And it could be any one of them, or all of them. But I still think it’s money.”
Blume, thinking of an interesting section of the memoirs he had read the night before, said, “If it wasn’t money to start with, it soon will be.”
Chapter 24
Before returning to his office, Blume passed by his apartment, showered, changed, and picked up the three notebooks. The idea of their remaining unguarded in there made him uneasy. The damned things were becoming a burden to him. There was a safe in the office, but he was not the only one with keys to it. His best bet was to give them to Paoloni to look after.
The phone on the desk was ringing as he entered his office. The Questore or, rather, his smarmy secretary again. It seemed to Blume the Questore had no one else to talk to apart from him. And he always phoned Blume in his office, as if to check he was there.
“I’ve been having complaints about you,” he announced when they were connected. “A magistrate, Buoncompagno, claims that you have been making unauthorized interventions in his investigation into the art forger. I thought I told you to leave that alone.”
Blume gestured to the gods of the ceiling with the phone, then brought it back to his ear. “Buoncompagno has been told to say that, sir,” said Blume. “It’s just a minor jurisdictional dispute with a Carabiniere. Meanwhile, I have been working with Magistrate Antonello Gestri on a double murder.”
“You mean the hit-and-run on the Indians?”
“The vehicle was the murder weapon.”
“Don’t change the subject,” said the Questore. “I told you to leave the Treacy case alone.”
Blume slid the notebooks into his drawer. “I just had to make sure there was no connection with the muggings, which you said are our priority right now,” he said.
“Are you saying there is a connection between Treacy and the muggings?”
“Oh, just that Treacy was a foreigner like the rest of them.”
“It seems rather flimsy,” said the Questore. “Have you any proof?”
“No,” said Blume. “Which is why I need to follow it up.”
“Don’t follow it too far-unless you think it might help us stop the muggings, will it?”
“You never know, sir,” said Blume.
“No, I never do know with you,” said the Questore and, finally, hung up.
Panebianco stuck his head around the door. “A Mr. Nightingale, accompanied by Avvocato Feltri, is downstairs. They want to see you.”
“Have them sent up.”
“Right.” Panebianco remained where he was.
“What?” asked Blume in irritation.
“How did your meeting with Faedda go?”
“I don’t see…” began Blume, but then he remembered Faedda explaining how Panebianco had vouchsafed for him, and he softened his tone. “It went well, thank you. Enlightening.”
“Good. I am pleased. I’ll have the two men below sent up.”
Five minutes later, Nightingale’s lawyer, a sleek man whose black hair was so shiny it looked wet, slipped into the seat in front of him. Nightingale, dressed in a rumpled linen suit and looking tired, hot, and lordly, sat down next to his lawyer, who turned to him and, speaking mainly for Blume’s benefit, said, “Remember, you are free to stand up and leave the interview at any point. You do not have to answer any questions that you do not want to, and no matter what you say, it cannot be used in evidence against you. A witness may not self-incriminate.”
The lawyer then turned to face Blume. “Since some of his voluntary statements will now become inadmissible as evidence, you will not want to ask him too much to do with whatever you are investigating. We are happy to cooperate inasmuch as we are assured that you have not been appointed to investigate the case, and I have it on good authority that scientific evidence will point overwhelmingly to accidental causes, a fact that you acknowledge in this statement that I have prepared and I’d like you to sign.”
Blume ignored the proffered document, picked up his desk phone, and called in Caterina from her desk. A few seconds later, she came in, crossed the room without looking at him, and took a plastic chair to his left, near the wall. She had gone back into sulk mode, evidently.
“Please explain in what capacity this Inspector is present,” said the lawyer.
“I need to keep an eye on her,” said Blume.
“No, we have no time for humor, Commissioner. This is a serious imposition on my client’s goodwill and time.”
“Inspector Mattiola,” said Blume. “Why do you think I invited you in here?”
“So I could see Nightingale for myself.”
“If the policewoman is here to satisfy an idle curiosity…” began the lawyer.
But Caterina, who was indeed looking very closely at Nightingale, continued, “And to tell Mr. Nightingale in person that we know he is Emma Solazzi’s father.”
In the silence that followed the whirr of a laser printer in the room outside became audible, and the four of them sat still until it, too, stopped. Now they seemed to be listening to broken strands of conversations deeper in the office. A sudden burst of noise from a passing motorino below presented itself as a possible topic of discussion.
Finally, Nightingale said, “Avvocato, I think you should leave now.”
The lawyer looked affronted. “On the contrary. You need me more than ever. If I have understood this correctly, this implies errors in public records, alimony issues, inheritance…”
“Yes, there is a lot to it,” said Nightingale. “But I really would prefer if this sort of thing were not known or spoken about, even to my trusted lawyer. We can talk about it later. For now I want to speak with the Commissioner and the Inspector alone.”
“I advise most strongly against it,” said the lawyer, but he had tightened his lips and was already standing in preparation to leave. The experience of being the one person in the room not to be in the know about something had been a humiliation. Blume almost expected him to announce he was no longer representing his client.
Another silence ensued as they waited for the lawyer to gather his papers and wounded dignity and leave the room.
“He didn’t know that,” said Nightingale, switching into English as soon as the door closed. “I should have told him, but he was Henry’s lawyer, too. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of client privilege. Priests, doctors, lawyers all claim it for themselves, but they’re not particularly likable people, now, are they?”
Blume said, “How did Treacy not get suspicious? Wasn’t there-I don’t know-some way you and Emma interacted, touched, or didn’t touch? Treacy picked none of that up? Emma is your child. It must have been hard, not to plant a kiss on the crown of her head now and then. Something like that. I’m not a parent, but,” he pointed at
