Bitter Remedy: An Alec Blume Case

by Conor Fitzgerald

  Silvana took a wicker chair, carried it over, and sat down close to him so he was looming over her as he stood there. He felt like a bully.

  ‘Do you want to know why I told that little white lie?’

  ‘I am interested,’ said Blume.

  ‘It’s funny, but with you I don’t feel so embarrassed; but in front of those people, you know, the others who didn’t get their emails, I felt humiliated and stupid. The truth is that Niki, who was never enthusiastic about this whole herbal enterprise of mine, suddenly decided to tell. He told me it was either the course or him.’

  ‘And you chose him?’ Blume asked incredulously.

  A tear ran down the side of her nose. She flicked it away with her little finger and smiled at him. ‘I know you don’t understand. You made that perfectly clear in the car park.’ She gave a resigned laugh. ‘I realize Niki might not seem much, but . . . he is so much part of my life now. He always has been. I don’t want him to go away. It would break my father’s heart, too. They have known each other for years – but you knew that, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I found out.’

  ‘Look . . . The thing is I couldn’t bring myself to marry him, even though he wanted me to. I was waiting for Mr Right, except how am I supposed to find Mr Right in this place?’

  ‘Maybe by starting a Bach Flowers course and seeing who’d turn up,’ said Blume.

  ‘Exactly! Which is why he put his foot down at the last moment.’

  ‘Is he as faithful to you as you are to him?’

  ‘I know, I know.’ She looked at him as if pleading for his understanding, but once again, of Niki, not herself. ‘He has that nightclub. He calls it Niki’s Nightclub. I mean that’s its name.’

  ‘A narcissistic name,’ said Blume.

  ‘Is that how you see it? I see it as sort of innocent, the sort of name a child would choose. I think it’s sweet, really. Look, I know temptation lies in his way, and I know he gives into it now and then, but I believe him when he says the only person he really wants is me. He even offered to close the nightclub down once, as a sign of good faith.’

  ‘And you didn’t accept?’

  She looked at him uncomprehendingly for a second. ‘No! What would Niki do here? It’s what he does, and he’s good at it.’

  ‘I’ve seen the nightclub. It’s a bit squalid.’

  ‘Exactly. He spends no more on it than he needs to. He takes out of it what he can. He knows it won’t last forever, and does not want to invest in it.’

  ‘What does he want to invest in instead?’

  ‘More beautiful things. Perhaps the villa some day. In me. When the time is ripe. But first I want to teach him some tenderness and respect.’

  ‘Is the time almost ripe, do you think?’ said Blume. ‘I only ask because Niki has fled.’

  His comment hit home. She sat back in her chair, mouth slightly open, then recovered her poise. ‘Niki, fled? He’ll be back.’

  ‘I am not sure that he will, unless he’s caught. And if you want us to catch him, then maybe you should consider telling us everything you know.’

  ‘Who is this “us”?’

  ‘The authorities. The police.’

  ‘I thought you and I were getting on better than that.’ She stood up, and turned so that the sun streaming in the window lit up her hair with auburn highlights and bathed her in golden light. He still felt an ache of loss in himself and a shudder of regret at images of her and Niki together, her father looking on, nodding his walnut face in satisfied agreement.

  ‘I don’t understand why you say Niki has fled,’ she said, with rather more scorn than he had imagined possible from her. ‘All you mean is you cannot find him at this moment.’

  ‘The corpse of a woman has been found in town, at the bottom of a gully.’

  ‘Really?’

  He interrupted, ‘Do you know Nadia?’

  ‘A Romanian girl, friend of that one who ran off.’

  ‘Nadia has gone missing, too.’

  Even in shock, she was elegant. The weakness in her knees caused her to sway sideways, like a dancer executing a flexing exercise. She reached out for the back of the chair, but by the time her hand had arrived, she had already collected herself enough merely to touch it, as if for luck. But her face was still drained of colour. A part of him that he did not like that much felt vindicated and satisfied.

  ‘First Alina, now Nadia. Surely you see some sort of pattern?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Not that he necessarily . . .’

  ‘When did Nadia vanish?’

  ‘Last night or early this morning. I have not established exactly when.’

  ‘You have not been asking around town yet? In case someone has seen her. Or Niki, for that matter.’

  ‘I’ll be dealing with that later. What I want you to do now is come with me.’

  Silvana took his hand. ‘Thank you for being so good to me.’

  Gently he disengaged his hand from hers. ‘I don’t think I am being good to you, and I have not finished yet.’

  She went back to the shelf and distractedly pulled down a bottle. ‘This, is helianthemum, or rock rose. It stops panic attacks.’ She took a glass from the shelf below and half filled it. ‘You don’t mind?’ She drank.

  She moved on to the next jar. ‘This is autumn gentian. It’s for people who have lost all hope and feel depressed. And this one here, is an infusion of mimulus, which is also for panic and fear. I am going to mix them.’

  ‘I thought that the other one you just showed me was for panic and fear.’

  ‘Rock rose cures fear of the unknown. Mimulus cures fear of the known. The first is an Alpine flower, but my father manages to cultivate it in the cold garden, the part under the black cliff. The second is not a native to Italy, and so my father grows that, too. I mean, he grows them all, but those two are especially hard for him. Down towards the end of the row there is another tincture of beech. I think maybe you should try some.’

  ‘I try not to drink spirits, and if I start, I don’t think it’ll be with beech brandy,’ said Blume.

  ‘Well, you should. It’s a remedy against hypercriticism, arrogance, bullying, and rigidity.’ She took another glass and put about two fingers of what looked like ordinary water into it. ‘I am adding some mimulus against fear of the unknown, and mustard. It acts against melancholy. Here.’

  He sniffed it and wrinkled his nose at the faint stench of water left in a vase full of dying flowers. ‘I’ve just had that green juice.’

  ‘That was to refresh you. This is to cure you.’

  ‘I don’t need curing.’

  She held out another jar: ‘Honeysuckle for nostalgia. Do you want some of this, too?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Blume drank his concoction. It was not as bad as he thought. Slightly sweet, flowery, the water a tiny bit brackish. He gulped it down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘Silvana, I have also been filling a notebook with a story you need to read. But I don’t want us to do it here.’

  ‘Wait. Have some more of this.’

  ‘I don’t need any more, thanks,’ said Blume.

  ‘You don’t need to drink it.’ She took another bottle, uncorked it, and inhaled, then held it out to him. ‘Just smell that.’

  Blume inhaled. The scent was slightly medicinal, sharp, earthy, and filled him with an unexpected longing for something he could not even identify.

  ‘Like it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s heather. There is a tiny patch of it in the cold garden. It cures loneliness.’ She inhaled it, too. ‘We both need it.’

  ‘Silvana? We need to go. You can help me find Niki.’

  ‘Wait, this concoction here . . .’

  ‘I am not interested in . . .’ A slight clink came from the shelf as a light tremor caused two bottles to touch and the wooden floorboards behind him creaked.

  He turned round at the same time as Silvana cried out, ‘Papà!’ />
  Silvana’s father was standing behind them.

  Chapter 29

  Domenico Greco held only a trowel in his hand, but he was doing his best to make it look as threatening as a pistol.

  ‘There you are, Greco,’ said Blume, surprising even himself at how calm sounded.

  Greco turned to his daughter. ‘Go up to the town. Fetch the chicken wire I ordered from the hardware store. Stay for lunch. Go up to where the fire brigade are trying to retrieve a body. Talk to people. Be seen.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Silvana!’

  For a moment she seemed to stand her ground, and he tried a more conciliatory approach. ‘It will be all right. Mr Blume and I can go into the orchard, and pick some nice salad ingredients, and maybe some fruit. He looks like a man who could do with some sunshine and good food. Silvana, dolcezza mia,’ repeated her father, ‘ora?’

  Before leaving, she touched him on the arm. ‘Thanks for everything you have tried to do, Alec.’

  ‘That’s all right. I haven’t quite finished yet, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Well, you should. You have done too much already.’ She grabbed a straw bag with a red flower from the back of a chair and slung it over her shoulder. ‘My shopping bag,’ she said, apologetically. ‘Natural fibre, reusable, and completely impractical. Bye, Alec.’ She gave him a sad smile and left.

  Greco laid down the trowel on a bench. ‘Let’s wait till she’s gone, all right?’

  ‘Fine by me,’ said Blume. Minutes later, a car engine started up, the gravel crackled, there was a slight swish as the tires found purchase, and then the engine faded. Something about her going was final, and something in her reactions had been wrong. He needed to think about it, but he had Greco to deal with again, and, truth be told, he was feeling very weak. Half his medicine was still in his room. He took out a blister packet from his inside pocket and, without quite checking what it was, popped out a pill.

  ‘Shall we step outside?’ said Greco.

  ‘Fine,’ said Blume. ‘Let me just get some water. I’m suddenly very thirsty.’

  ‘Always thirsty,’ said Greco. ‘Same as last time.’

  Blume walked out of the long room into the antechamber, full of its baskets of dried petals, the sewing machine, the potter’s wheel, the potpourris, and its dark corners. He glanced at the old keys hanging on a nail in the wall. Instinctively, he grabbed them.

  ‘What do you want those for?’ said Greco. ‘Those are Silvana’s keys for the villa. We’re not going there.’

  Blume kept his back to Greco, listening to the rhythm of the footsteps behind him, giving the man plenty of time to make his move. The rhythm changed just before he reached the door. Blume, strangely calm, as if he were controlling the entire scene from above and was almost neutral to the fate of the two characters below, swung round quickly, or as quickly as he could manage, and rushed Greco from the side, just as the old man was pulling a break-action double-barrelled shotgun from below an old wooden barrow laden with sachets of lavender. Blume tossed the keys, grabbed the two barrels, jerked the weapon out of the old man’s grasp, and then reversed his movement so that the butt went in hard against Greco’s jaw. Greco sat down suddenly on the floor. Blume spun the weapon round, slapping the stock with his hand as he did so. Quickly he shouldered it, then, finger on the trigger, crouched down so that the muzzle was inches from Greco’s eye socket. The old man hardly flinched. Blume retrieved the ring of keys.

  ‘Stand up,’ ordered Blume.

  Greco sat there in defiant silence.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ asked Blume.

  ‘I forget how old I am. You’re not so snappy either, Commissioner. It’s not loaded. I just did it for effect.’

  Blume stepped back a few paces and broke open the action. Empty. He threw the gun aside. His finger had started to bleed again.

  ‘Come here.’ He patted Greco down. No weapons, no shotgun cartridges even. Blume sucked his finger. ‘What was the point of that?’

  ‘People reveal their true natures under the barrel of a gun. I wanted to see what you really want, and I didn’t want to waste time. Things are moving fast now. You have already destroyed this world.’

  ‘That was a dangerous way of finding out. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for you to have come in with the shotgun already pointing at me?’

  ‘Not in front of my daughter.’

  ‘We can have a frank discussion without either of us pointing a weapon at the other,’ said Blume.

  ‘We are already pointing virtual weapons at each other. I can have you killed. I can have your girlfriend killed, estranged or not. I know her name. I can have your baby daughter killed. You were so intent on finding out what sort of man I used to be that it did not occur to you that I might become that sort of man again. I have been speaking to people I would rather not have spoken to again. You made me do that.’

  Blume took three quick steps across the floorboards and slapped Greco across the face. He grabbed the old man by the ear and slammed his head against the floor, but his strength was fading, or else his heart was not in it.

  ‘You don’t care, do you Blume? I really do not want any of this to happen. Why not just let it all go?’

  A wave of light-headedness washed over Blume. It was as if part of his mind had moved to a position somewhere behind him and was now observing the person called Blume with ironic detachment. ‘Let’s continue the conversation outside,’ said Greco. ‘I have something to show you.’

  ‘Don’t get any ideas,’ Blume warned him.

  The sun reflected harshly off the white pebble paths. He pulled out his sunglasses, which darkened the green around him to a shade of purple. The air hummed with insects and heat. Things moved in the bushes, and a thin plant of some sort was nodding and twisting all by itself, although there was no wind. The bushes creaked and the grass seemed to sigh. The birdsong from the top of the trees came from what he felt was a cooler and freer place than the one he was trapped in now.

  ‘Sacra Corona Unita,’ said Greco. ‘It’s not much of a mafia compared with the others. I think it’s because the ordinary citizens of Apulia have bigger balls than those of Calabria or Sicily, certainly bigger than the people of Campania who allow themselves to be ruled by the Camorra.’

  ‘You’re a member?’

  ‘No, and I never was. But I know people who are. And so does Niki.’

  ‘And these are the people who would kill me and Caterina and my child?’

  ‘They might, if I asked. They would if I could present you as a direct threat.’

  ‘Did you murder your wife and her lover, Domenico?’

  ‘I like that, you go back to the intimate first name when you ask me the question. Yes, I did.’

  ‘And did Niki help you?’

  ‘Yes. But he never knew what I had planned. He thought it would be a beating, or a warning. He had no idea.’

  ‘I am not sure I believe that.’

  ‘He didn’t know. He has been traumatized since.’

  ‘Poor guy. Did he help you dispose of the bodies?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In a deep underground cave, as I think you had guessed.’

  ‘And why the sudden confession?’

  ‘Because it is all coming to an end anyhow, and because I want to ask you a favour.’

  ‘I am not going to give you any favours. You threatened Caterina and our child.’

  ‘Yes, I did, but you did not back down. So you win. You are willing to sacrifice anyone. Me, I can’t do that any more.’

  ‘You just threatened . . .’

  ‘Your Caterina and Alessia are not in any danger. I used my contacts to get their names and addresses, just to intimidate you. Like with the empty shotgun. I would never order a hit on a woman and her daughter. Do you know the story of Cincinnatus, who got total military power, then gave it all up and returned to his farm? I like that story. Cincinnatus fought his last battle against the A
equi not far from where we are standing now.’

  ‘You see yourself as a Roman hero?’

  ‘No. I only said I liked the story. For more than 20 years, I have been trying to make things right. Then along you come. Nemesis in the form of a self-righteous, washed-up . . .’

  ‘What’s the deal you want to make?’

  ‘Don’t use the past against Niki. Leave something for my daughter. Niki’s a good man. He lived with this for my sake, and he has done his best ever since, even if that does mean running coke up from Bari and feeding it to politicians. What else can he do? He has no other skills. If I go, who will look after Silvana? You are ruining her life.’

  ‘No, you did that.’

  ‘Yes, but you are finishing the job.’

  They had walked deeper into the garden towards the cliff face.

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘Human decency? Maybe if you talk to the people who have known us since that period you have been obsessing about? Look into our lives after the murder. You might see two people trying to do the best . . .’

  ‘Like killing Alina, and now Nadia?’

  Greco stopped at a stone bench and sat down. Blume stood in front of him.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on there. I asked him. It’s complicated.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Niki fell for Alina. That much is clear. And I was very angry with him, because his job is to look after Silvana. We discussed it. I tried to work something out, but Niki was beginning to crumble.’

  ‘And so you killed Alina?’

  Greco reclined on a stone bench, as if to sleep. Blume reached down and shook him, then drew his hand away. The old man was bathed in sweat.

  ‘Yes, I killed Alina.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Strangulation.’

  ‘Is that how you killed your wife?’

  ‘Yes,’ he let out a long soft groan.

  ‘Where’s the body?’

  ‘Deep underground in Puglia. I put her lover in a cave far away, so they couldn’t be together even in death.’

  ‘I meant Alina’s body,’ said Blume.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Of course it does. I don’t believe you killed Alina. Why are you lying to me?’