‘There is a place at the very top of the town, an old woman, very thin, black dress, does bird imitations?’
Fabio rubbed his chin. ‘You’re talking about the princess. I didn’t know about the bird imitations.’
‘Princess?’ asked Blume, but Fabio ignored him. He had other objections to make. ‘She doesn’t have any authorization, so if anything happens to you there, you won’t have insurance.’
‘If anything happens?’ Blume was only half listening to the vigile. Nadia had stepped back a few metres and had cupped her hand to her ear, taking a phone call she wanted to hide from him.
‘Like a beam falling on your head or something. Not because Flavia would harm anyone. She’s mad but harmless.’ Fabio shook his head sadly, then stamped his foot in irritation at the way his natural friendliness kept breaking out and betraying him. ‘I could stop you from going there, you know,’ he said importantly. ‘But I am prepared to turn a blind eye in view of the fact that I think you should stay here to answer for the damages you have caused, and to pay Alfredo.’
‘Good,’ said Blume. ‘If you need me, that’s where I’ll be. If the driver down there has anything to say, he has my phone number, or someone in his office does. Alfredo has my car and you have my address. Can I go now?’
Fabio looked for faults in the logic and found none. He wanted to say something to or about Nadia, but his attention was being drawn down the road again to where the vigilessa had reappeared, and raised voices suggested that the driver did not like Alfredo’s plan for his tyres.
Chapter 19
‘I see no sign of the heavies,’ said Blume. ‘Mission accomplished, I suppose.’
‘I had nothing to do with that,’ said Nadia. ‘They must have followed me.’
‘And got a few photos of us together.’
‘So what? Am I so compromising for your honour, Commissioner?’
‘I can’t work out what’s the deal between you and Niki.’
‘Neither can I,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing,’ she turned away from him. Something in the phone call she had taken a few minutes earlier had changed her attitude, and as she became cooler towards him again, he found himself thinking more lucidly, though he could feel the drinks he had had working against clarity.
Both Niki and Nadia had now asked him for help, and he sensed a trap. He wanted to believe Nadia, wanted to disbelieve Niki, but they were both saying much the same thing: Alina had gone. And thanks to Nadia’s story of her arrival, bowdlerized though it may have been, he felt some attachment to Alina. She was more than just a name.
‘Let me walk you to your car,’ he said. ‘You have a car, right?’
‘Down there, yes. We have to squeeze past your truck to get to it.’
Blume did not want to walk the gauntlet of the remaining spectators gathered around the truck, which Alfredo had, by some miracle of persistence and geometry, managed to manoeuvre into a position from which escape was, if not imminent, at least conceivable. ‘Is there another way?’
‘We could walk up the street a bit, then down a different one, and around. It’s roundabout, but not too far,’ said Nadia, who had already set out with long strides even as she was describing the route.
Blume discovered that his companion was even better than he at blanking people out. She walked through several disapproving stares from the few people they met, moving at an unflagging pace through the streets to the bottom of the town where sensible people parked their cars. He turned round several times to stare back at the people watching them go, but Nadia looked straight ahead and never glanced back. Lot’s wife would have been safe with her.
Niki had sent a group of thugs to watch him, and they had been as unsubtle as possible. Was that to distract him from the more subtle spy, Nadia, if that’s what she was? Were she and Niki working some angle on him, trying to cover their tracks?
He didn’t see it. If she was trying to cover for Niki or herself for something they had done to Alina, would she have spent all that time building up his sympathy for the missing girl? But she had also managed to infiltrate the idea into his mind that Alina was running from people. Maybe it was to make him think they had caught up with her. Or that Alina herself was the sort who got into trouble. Maybe the next chapter in the story would depict Alina as a violent person, deserving of her fate. He had to be wary of taking whatever Nadia said at face value.
‘I need to see the nightclub. I also need to see where Alina lived,’ Blume told her.
She gave him a grateful smile. It looked absolutely genuine. If Nadia was a liar, she was a good one. Or was he an easy target? He realized he had just committed himself to helping her find her missing friend.
‘The club’s next to our apartments. She lived in the one next door to mine. I’ll take you there.’ She looked at her watch, an elegant gold timepiece, with a tiny dial that he would have needed a magnifying glass to read. ‘It’s half past six now. Niki usually spends the evenings with his fiancée and doesn’t get to the club until around 11.’
‘It’s probably better I don’t meet Niki anyhow,’ he said. ‘Was that him on the phone earlier?’
‘No.’
The car turned out to be a bulky and ugly SUV. ‘It’s a bit of a drive,’ said Nadia.
‘How far?’
‘Half an hour, 40 minutes, I never counted the kilometres.’
‘I am taking it that this is Niki’s car. One of several.’
‘Yes,’ said Nadia. ‘Get in.’
‘Just one thing,’ said Blume. ‘May I see your driver’s licence?’
‘What?’
‘You heard. Because I was wondering when you might have got it. In Romania? Hardly in Istanbul. So you must have got it here, and yet you arrived without a passport or an identity card. But now you have a licence to drive this beast around.’
‘It’s not so hard. There are no gears. I have been driving for almost 1 year.’
‘Licence?’
Her lips became tighter and more defiant, but her face reddened. ‘Not yet.’
‘In that case,’ said Blume, ‘with the powers vested in me by the state, I am sequestering this vehicle. Move over. I’ll drive you home.’
‘Niki will kill me.’
‘I thought Niki was a sweetheart.’
‘Anyone would kill you if you lost their car. People get attached to their cars.’
‘Tell him you got stopped by the police. Go on, move over.’
She did, crossing her arms across her chest and scowling at him.
‘If you’re worried, I’ll drive you somewhere else. All the way to Rome if you want, and save you from your saviour.’
‘Just take me home.’ She drew the seatbelt across her body and stared out the window, not looking at him.
‘I am glad to see you wear a seatbelt, Nadia.’
‘That’s because I am in a car about to be driven by a drunk,’ she said.
‘Show me your ID card.’
‘Just because I said you’re a drunk.’
He snapped his fingers and she opened her bag and from an inside pocket pulled out a brown ID card. It looked legitimate, though nothing was easier to forge.
‘And your passport?’
‘I don’t carry that around.’
‘That’s not what I meant. Olga and then the Russians took it from you. Or so you said. Do you have one now or not?’
‘Niki knows lawyers and people. I filled in a form and got a new one sent.’
‘Did Alina get a new passport, too?’
‘Yes.’
‘And did it disappear when she did?’
‘No. She left it behind. That’s another reason I don’t think she went of her own accord.’
‘You didn’t think to mention this to me?’
‘I didn’t want . . . You’re still a public official. I didn’t want to talk too much about passports and that sort of thing.’
‘You think your passport is
forged then?’
Nadia shrugged. ‘It might be.’
‘Where did Alina leave hers?’
‘In her apartment. In the top drawer of her bedside table.’
‘So you looked? You have a key to her place?’
‘Yes. I have a key and yes, I looked through her apartment. I told you, I found her jewels.’
He turned on the engine and the car was filled with a doleful music.
‘You like Fabrizio De Andre?’ He looked at her in astonishment.
‘No. Niki listens to that CD. It comes on by itself like that when you turn on the ignition.’
‘That’s the 1990 concert. A great album,’ said Blume. Niki had unexpectedly risen in his estimation.
‘There,’ said Nadia, pressing a button. ‘I prefer Radio DJ. Oh! I love this! Do you?’
But Blume had never heard of Rihanna.
A neon sign, still off, announced to the passing world that the pink-painted, flat-roofed warehouse at the side of the road was ‘Nikis Niteclub’. The curving ‘NN’ initials were repeated in pink above the door. A piece of Astroturf grass had been laid over the broken concrete forecourt and a filthy red carpet led up to the door. Blume had not expected luxury, but thought a club frequented by professionals and local politicians might be a bit fancier than this excrescence sitting practically on the hard shoulder of the highway.
‘It’s bigger than it looks,’ said Nadia, as he stopped the car and looked out. Was there a hint of defensiveness in her tone? ‘There’s parking out the back and a beer garden, and an artificial pond with lights in it and big goldfish, and a fountain with lights that make the water come out in different colours.’
She was definitely bigging it up for his sake. Maybe she had suddenly seen it through his eyes for the squalid little drug-dealing hole it was. A trap for young people, too. It drew them in like moths, filled them with drugs, and sent them out into the night to kill and be killed in their cars.
‘My place is down there.’ She seemed anxious for him to move on.
Her box-shaped low-ceilinged apartment block dated from the 1950s, a period during which many Italian architects decided that their concrete creations would look better for being painted pea-green. The road passed so close to the front door that you could hitch a lift from the foyer.
She unlocked the front door of the building and led him up a narrow flight of steps. The red plastic on the banister had mostly broken off. A soapy smell came from below. ‘The lift’s out of order, but it’s only the first floor.’
She opened the door. The furnishings were not many but they had a lugubrious effect. A dining table, shiny and dark, looking like it was made from hard plastic and wood, took up most of the immediate space. An L-shaped sofa, tan brown, hemmed in an oversized dresser in the centre of which was a large TV. Red tassels hung from the gold-coloured keys slotted into the drawers of the dresser. Cheap china miniatures filled the spaces where books should have been. Fresh yellow and red flowers in a green vase on a white doily in the centre of the dustless table told him she was proud of her home.
‘This is a . . . it’s a lovely apartment.’
‘Isn’t it!’ All her world-weariness and her distress and hardness had gone for a fleeting second. She was immensely proud of what she had done, of where she had made it to.
‘You have done it up beautifully,’ he specified, remembering that the apartment was rented out by Niki.
‘Thank you!’ she beamed at him. ‘I’ll get the key to Alina’s apartment next door.’
She vanished for a moment into her bedroom, and Blume half followed her. She kept her room neat, pink and full of trinkets. In the middle of the bed, on which the duvet had been smoothed down and the pillows plumped up, sat a pair of soft toys. A furry blue gorilla he might have seen in some ad once, and a panda bear.
She got what she needed and led the way out into the hallway, unlocked the next door down.
‘How many people live here?’ asked Blume.
‘About six apartments are used. There are three on each floor. The one upstairs belongs to the Montenegrins.’
‘The Montenegrins?’
‘The heavies who followed me to the bar.’
‘Except they were there before you,’ said Blume.
‘I . . . were they? I don’t remember.’ She flashed him a smile. ‘See? You’re observant.’
‘So which was it?’
‘I was looking for you. They found you first at that bar and called me.’
‘They called you?’
‘Yes, I know them. What difference does it make?’
‘It makes all the difference,’ he replied. ‘You were working with them. It means Niki is behind all this.’
‘OK! Let’s say he is. Let’s say he knows I wanted to talk to you. But Alina really is missing.’
‘Be straight with me.’
‘I am. I asked Niki about you. He said you have decided he’s your enemy, so any requests were better coming from me.’
‘He’s a criminal, so he is my enemy.’
‘Are all criminals your enemy?’
‘Yes.’ If Caterina were here she would laugh at his pomposity or, if in one of her less predictable moods, grow angry at his fanaticism.
‘If all criminals are really your enemy, then all crime victims must be your responsibility, Commissioner. Including Alina,’ said Nadia.
Blume opened his mouth to object to the syllogism, but her reasoning was unassailable.
She opened the door and they walked into an apartment so similar, it was like leaving one motel room for another. She led him into the bedroom, which consisted of a large bed and a small bedside table with a cheap lamp perched on top. The blinds on the window were drawn down, and she switched on the light. To the right was a large white wardrobe with full-length mirrors on the sliding doors but not enough floor space between it and the bed. She pulled open the top drawer of the bedside table, and stood absolutely still, as the colour drained from her face.
‘The passport’s gone. It was right there. I saw it.’
‘And it’s not there now?’ said Blume. ‘Are you absolutely sure you saw it in that drawer?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And who has the keys to this apartment besides you?’
‘Niki, obviously. He owns them.’
‘What about the men upstairs?’
‘The Montenegrins,’ she shuddered. ‘I hope not.’
‘All right, Nadia,’ he said, ‘you’re pretty good at logical thinking, aren’t you?’
‘If you say so.’
‘Who is most likely to have taken the passport from the drawer if not the person with keys to this apartment? Niki, in other words. Does that make sense?’
Nadia bit her lip, and Blume, implacable, continued his reasoning. ‘It is reasonable to assume that Niki has taken the passport you saw in that drawer. He may not have, but it is very possible he did. What would make him do that?’
‘So it would look like Alina went away of her own accord.’
‘Exactly. And why would he do that?’
‘To hide the fact that she did not.’
‘And how would he know she did not?’
Nadia made two fists and pushed them against her head as if trying to rub out the logical deduction.
‘Come on, Nadia,’ said Blume. ‘Why would he hide her passport?’
‘Because he knows she didn’t . . .’
‘We’ve moved beyond that part, Nadia. Why?’
‘Because he killed her!’ she shouted, pointing at Blume as if he were the killer in the room. ‘That’s what you want to hear me say, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t want to make you say anything, Nadia,’ said Blume, gentle now that he had won.
‘You’re right. I was wrong. She’s dead.’
Although he was not inclined to exonerate Niki, it felt cruel to insist. She had just lost Alina; no point in emphasizing her lack of judgement in regard to the man she had thought of as a friend. T
he saviour who was a killer. In an attempt to be kind, he said, ‘Maybe Niki did not kill her. But I’d say that at the very least he knows she is dead.’ He paused to allow all his logic to sink into her mind.
She sat down on the bed. Tears ran freely down her cheeks, but her head was upright and looking forward, and she made no sound.
‘Now, do you want to come with me, Nadia?’ said Blume. ‘Shall we get away from here?’
To his utter exasperation, she shook her head. ‘No. I am going to stay here until I find out. And if they kill me, it won’t matter.’
‘Of course it will matter,’ said Blume, beginning to lose patience.
‘You could be wrong,’ she told him.
‘Yeah? And how might that work?’ said Blume.
‘You weren’t there. You have no way of knowing. You see, Alina and Niki – they really meant it. I thought at first she was just trying to get ahead by fucking the boss and that he was exploiting her. We had a row about it. A big row. Before that, we both lived in my apartment. I think I was right – at first – but something changed. I don’t know why he would have killed her after helping her so much. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Maybe she learned things about Niki and his business life that he did not want known? Maybe it was some sort of erotic game gone wrong. Maybe she tried to blackmail him. He likes them young, does Niki.’
He had had too much of hypothesizing, he was overtired with thinking. ‘What about Silvana’s father?’ he added, more for the sake of completeness of argument than because he believed it. ‘That quiet gardener has quite a bit of history.’
Nadia continued to watch the wall, but the tears were subsiding.
‘One more thing, Nadia,’ said Blume, beginning to regret the ascendancy of his logic over her hopes, ‘That was Niki who phoned you when I was talking to the vigile, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘Thanks for telling the truth. Now tell me what he said.’
‘He wanted to make sure you don’t get involved in looking for Alina.’
‘Not involved,’ said Blume. ‘Until now you – and he – have been saying the opposite.’
He led her gently back to her apartment, asked her again if she intended to stay. She moved in a trance and barely nodded in response to his questions. She began to shiver and he guided her to the sofa, stepped into the bedroom, whipped the duvet off the bed, and covered her with it.
Bitter Remedy: An Alec Blume Case Page 14