‘He was on a motorbike, got hit by a car. His body was broken all over, his face pulped, and so there was no recognizable expression on it, but I can guess it would have been shock and anger. He would have been so angry to die at that age. I knew him, knew what he was like. I see the same look of stunned anger on my son’s face, sometimes. You knew your husband. How you imagine he faced his death is probably how he died. They didn’t torture him, you know.’
‘The hours before they killed him would have been torture.’
‘As long as people are alive they don’t really believe they’re going to die. If the realization came to him, it will have been in the last moment, maybe with a sense of resignation.’
‘Thank you, Caterina.’ Letizia clasped her hand. ‘You’ve restored my faith in the system of justice in this country. You people can never get paid too much for what you do.’
Caterina freed her hand as gently as she could.
‘Sorry,’ said Letizia. ‘I have no right to throw myself at you like this. Where are you going now, back to Rome?’
‘Yes,’ said Caterina. ‘There’s a train… The Eurostar.’
‘Matteo used to fly. I always told him he should take the train, but he preferred flying. Come into the kitchen, the children are there.’
‘No, really…’
‘Please? It’ll only take a moment.’
She led Caterina down the hallway. It was a beautiful apartment. The hallway was broad enough to be a room in its own right. Arconti must have been doing well for himself.
‘Children, this is Inspector Mattiola. Caterina. She has a train to catch, so she’s just saying hello.’
An adolescent girl and a boy who probably thought he was an adolescent but was only a baby, sat at the table, a jar of Nutella between them. Caterina lifted her hand in awkward greeting. The boy slowly scanned her face and sought out her eyes; the girl examined her face and then her body.
‘I am a policewoman. I was assigned to investigate your father’s murder.’
‘The killers got killed, didn’t they?’ said the girl.
‘Yes.’
‘So it’s all over?’
‘Yes,’ she said without any hesitation in her voice.
The boy put down the knife with Nutella on it, came over to her, put his arms around her waist, and hugged her. Instinctively she found herself caressing his hair, while his mother stood at the kitchen door.
A phone rang.
‘Wait!’ said Caterina, pushing the boy from her, then, seeing his face, pulling him back and kissing him quickly on the forehead before running into the living room. ‘That’s my phone. I absolutely need to get that. I’ve been waiting for news from a friend.’
She fumbled around in her bag hunting for the phone, mentally imploring the caller not to hang up. The phone was still going. Twelve or so was the maximum number of rings before an automatic disconnect. She looked at the number, and frowned. In a voice that startled even herself, she shouted at Letizia to get a pen and a piece of paper, ‘Now!’ The phone would record the number, but she wanted physical backup.
‘Hello?’ She listened. Letizia handed her a piece of paper and she scribbled down the number. ‘Hello?’
Silence, or almost. The connection was live, and she could hear rustling and a crackle. She had her notebook out now, and with her phone pressed to her ear had gone across the room and picked up Letizia’s house phone without even glancing at her for permission.
She dialled Massimiliano Massimiliani’s personal number. Come on, come on. The sounds from the mysterious mobile phone sounded like the background to one of those new-age relaxation pieces, all rushing air, faraway birdsong. Blume hated that music. Said it was bad enough when Pink Floyd started doing it forty years or so ago.
‘Alec? Is that you? Maybe you can’t speak, but can you hear me? Alec? Answer.’
The mobile phone said nothing, but Massimiliani answered on the other line.
‘At last, Blume’s calling me. You need to track the number, now.’
‘Inspector Mattiola?’
She collected herself, also because she was being watched by the startled widow she had come to comfort. ‘Yes, Inspector Mattiola. Commissioner Blume is calling me at this moment from this number.’ She read out the digits on the piece of paper, and then gave him her own mobile number.
‘Where did you say he’s calling from?’
‘Shit! The line just went down. He’s not calling now.’
‘I’m taking it he said nothing and you need a location?’
‘Yes,’ she said, thankful Massimiliani was quick on the uptake. ‘But what I gave you wasn’t his number.’
‘Right. I’ll get back to you.’ He hung up, without asking any pointless questions.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Letizia.
‘Yes. Can I have a glass of water?’
‘Sofia! Bring a glass of water in here.’
Sofia arrived followed by Lorenzo. Caterina accepted the glass, and gulped it down gratefully.
‘Thank you, Sofia.’ The girl blushed self-consciously. Laden with hurt and fear, yet still able to suffer social embarrassment as if it counted.
Lorenzo stepped forward and relieved her of the glass, and offered to get her another.
‘No thanks, tesoro.’
She turned to Letizia. ‘As you may have gathered that was something of an emergency. What’s a good taxi number for me to call? I need to get to Linate airport.’
Letizia picked up the phone and dialled a number. ‘I thought you were going by train.’
‘Change of plan. I need to get a flight to Calabria. Are there many flights from Linate, do you know?’
Cinquefrondi, Calabria
It seemed the traffic policeman wanted to expend as little energy as possible on waving the oncoming traffic to a stop, no doubt trusting that the presence of a small aluminium sign with ‘Deviazione’ written on it and the two cars marked ‘Polizia Municipale’ sitting on the central reservation with their flashers on would make his intentions plain.
Curmaci rolled down his window.
‘What’s going on?’
The cop’s face was glistening in the heat. He wiped his brow with the back of the dark blue sleeve of his jacket. ‘The viaduct is out. A subsidence of the central section this morning.’
‘I need to get to the A3,’ said Curmaci.
‘No problem. You just go straight through the town and rejoin the highway on the other side. It’ll add an extra five minutes to the journey. Take the ramp there, where my colleagues are.’
To Curmaci’s left stood two more traffic cops, one of them beckoning with a red lollipop-shaped wand, the other making sweeping gestures at the side road, as if directing a thick flow of vehicles.
A car came up behind, and the driver rolled down his window as Curmaci had done. The traffic cop let out an exaggerated sigh of exasperation, then winked at Curmaci and went to deal with his next customer. As Curmaci turned his steering wheel, he could hear the same exchange starting up with the driver behind.
Lousy job, he thought to himself as he drove down the ramp onto a pock-marked country lane below the highway. Imagine standing there in the middle of the road waiting to get knocked down by a speeding car, explaining the same thing over and over, sweltering in those jackets.
Except — the thought hit him like a sucker punch — the policemen should not have been wearing jackets. The standard issue in summer is pale blue short-sleeved shirts. Was it possible…?
He looked into the rear-view mirror.
The car that had come up behind was following him down the narrow lane, which would have been all right, except he now also saw the two Municipal Police cars behind it, occupying the full breadth of the road as they drove side-by-side in slow pursuit.
The road curved rightwards leading to a square-mouthed cement underpass that went below the highway he
