bothered to imagine, because they were foreign and illegal.”
“Exactly,” said Blume. “So don’t waste your sympathy.”
“He didn’t mean to kill his father, I’m sure of it. I was there.”
“Sometimes I think we should just get rid of this whole business of distinguishing between what people meant to do and what they actually did,” said Blume. “Think how many lawyers we could get rid of. The ancient Romans didn’t allow for intentionality, you know. They just looked at the result of an action. I think it is a sensible approach. Their punishment for parricide, by the way, was to whip the culprit raw, sew him into a leather bag with a dog, a viper, a cock, and, where available, a chimpanzee, then throw the bag into the Tiber. The poena cullei. That’s the name of the punishment. It’s not on the statute books any more, unfortunately.”
“That’s horrific… a chimpanzee?”
“Apparently,” said Blume.
Caterina repressed a giggle.
“I’m not making this shit up,” said Blume.
She straightened her shoulders and looked directly at him. “You have a weird way of cheering people up.”
“You did great work, you know,” said Blume. “And I heard what you did for Grattapaglia. That’s great. A fantastic move. It will put us all in the clear.”
Caterina nodded. “Thanks.”
“You’ve also cleared the decks of work, and given us a bit of breathing space. Even if now you’ve got to write up the reports on this morning. Then I’m going to have to sign off on the paperwork.”
“There’s something else,” said Caterina. “Angela and Emma came in this morning, after you had gone. And then Grattapaglia and I established that Emma’s not telling the truth about her movements on the night Treacy died. Where were you this morning, by the way?”
“I was going to tell you that.” He glanced around the room, saw Rospo sitting at his computer massaging his shoulder, his forehead a map of angry creases.
“Come into my office.”
Chapter 37
After having caterina set forth the details of her conversations with Emma and her mother, Blume was very complimentary. “And I know you’re protecting Rospo by playing down the fact of his absence.”
Caterina ignored all this and looked at him expectantly.
“Your turn,” she said. “You answered the phone while I was talking, and left directly afterwards, what was that about?”
“I asked you for a report in my capacity as your commanding officer. It doesn’t necessarily work the other way round.”
“What are you talking about? You have no right to reticence. None. I’m directly involved in all this and so is my son. Jesus, you are an irritating bastard sometimes.”
“You can’t talk to me like that. Not when we’re inside these walls. That’s why there are rules to stop this sort of thing from developing.”
“What sort of thing?”
“You know… the personal entering the workplace.”
“No. Spell it out.”
“You know exactly what I mean,” said Blume.
Caterina laughed. “You should see the color of your face now. Tell you what, just tell me about what you’ve been doing. It’ll be a cinch in comparison with this conversation.”
“It’s really better you don’t know. For your sake.”
“If it’s for my sake, I give you permission to disturb my peace of mind,” said Caterina.
“No. Not in this building,” said Blume. “We can’t speak like this in here.”
“Where then?”
Blume stood up quickly from his desk. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“Have you ever seen a Velazquez?”
“No, I haven’t. Treacy spoke of the portrait of the pope, I can’t remember his name.”
“Innocent the tenth. Giambattista Pamphili, if you prefer.” Blume went over to his window and pointed. “It’s about twenty paces from where I am standing now.”
They left the police station and turned right. A few steps past heavily grated ground-floor windows brought an impressive entrance with a green flag announcing Galleria Doria Pamphili over it.
“In here?” asked Caterina.
“No. That’s the old entrance,” said Blume. “We need to walk around to the Via del Corso.”
“You’ve been in there recently? I don’t think I’ve been in a gallery since I was on a school trip,” said Caterina. “Do you visit them a lot?”
“A bit,” said Blume.
“Did you study art or something?”
“I was brought up in it. My parents were art historians.”
They turned on to Via del Corso, and Caterina got caught behind a group of tourists in bermuda and cargo shorts who had aggregated into a tortoise formation and were proceeding along with defensive care, determined not to be forced by the natives off the sidewalk and into the path of the deadly buses. By the time she had managed to navigate around them, Blume had disappeared. She was walking blithely past a massive arched entrance to what she had always assumed to be a bank, when he stepped out and gently pulled her into a peaceful courtyard. He flashed his police badge at a man in a glass box selling tickets, who shrugged and scowled, and led Caterina down a long quiet hall toward a flight of curving steps.
“My father is dying,” said Caterina into the silence. “I don’t know why I said that. Nor why it should feel like a confession.”
“It feels like a confession because you’re telling me you don’t know how you’ll manage without him,” said Blume. “But you will. When they are alive, your parents are like two fires: the focus of comfort, warmth, and light but also of anger, rage, and heated battles. When they die, they leave a sort of after-smoke which keeps expanding until it seems to be everywhere and in everything you do and drains the color from it. So you accept that for the rest of your life you’ll be walking around in that smoke. Then one day you notice the smoke is thinning out, which is good, but you feel bad about it, too.”
They entered the gallery and found themselves standing in front of a bronze centaur, and Caterina almost pointed like a little kid to say: “Oh, look!”
“We’re the only ones here,” said Blume. “Not even a tourist. Wonderful.”
A tall blond couple entered the room speaking Dutch.
Caterina stood feeling suddenly self-conscious in the middle of the room between lines of white statues with muscular bodies. The bright ceiling frescos showed scenes from stories she did not know. The walls were not just hung with paintings, but stacked with them. Lines of paintings one on top of the other, most of them too high to see. Those that were at eye level shone back the light as a black varnished sheen beneath which she could see almost nothing.
She followed Blume down to the end of a long corridor.
“Wait! Have you seen this!” Caterina pointed at a picture of six naked cherubims grappling and wrestling each other. “That’s so sweet! I mean it’s funny, too. Mainly it’s funny. I can see you’re giving me a look-I don’t have any taste for these things. Don’t make me feel ignorant.”
“ Putti in battle,” said Blume. He peered at the nameplate next to the frame. “It says it’s by someone called Andrea Podesta. Never heard of him. Funny, I thought… never mind. I’ve seen it before. Not here.” He touched her on the arm and ushered her into a small square room just big enough for the two of them, and said, “There!”
Staring sideways daggers at them was a large portrait of Pope Innocent X.
