“Lieutenant Colonel Faedda,” said the voice. Blume placed the accent as Sardinian. He pictured a thin and swarthy young man in full dress uniform sitting at his desk carefully arranging pencils.
“Inspector Panebianco didn’t introduce us properly,” said Blume.
“He’s useless, isn’t he?” said the Carabiniere. “You should see him on the pitch. Hopeless. What can I do for you, Commissioner?”
Blume was taken aback by the easy familiarity of the man’s tone. He erased the image of the uniform and the pencils, pictured feet on a desk. “I wanted to talk about John Nightingale and Henry Treacy,” he said.
“Yes, I’ve been looking at files all morning,” said the Carabiniere. “Not just on Rosario’s behalf, of course, since the case has been assigned to us. I’d definitely appreciate any help you could give me.”
This conversation was flowing in the wrong direction. “I don’t have anything I can give you,” said Blume.
“I realize it’s early days,” said Faedda. “We can wait for the autopsy. Then maybe we can meet, compare notes?”
“That’s really for the magistrate to decide,” said Blume rather stiffly.
“I hear the magistrate is Buoncompagno.”
“Yes,” said Blume.
“Buoncompagno is a man who prefers to have his decisions taken for him.”
Blume was suspicious of the casual frankness of the statement.
Faedda continued, “Look, a former colleague of mine—from before my time, really—is involved in the case. Colonel Farinelli. Have you met him?”
“I have,” said Blume, on his guard.
“Already? Well, then you’ll know who’s calling the shots, Commissioner. And the Colonel’s influence outreaches his rank. Have you spoken to John Nightingale yet?”
“No.” Blume felt judged.
“Me neither, and I don’t think I will get the chance. But you might. Now, I don’t know what you’ve found out there, but from our records here I can tell you Nightingale’s specialization is provenance. He appears to be exceptionally good at it.”
“Go on,” said Blume, reaching for a pen and a blank sheet of paper, and wrote down the name Faedda.
“Nightingale knows every branch of every minor aristocratic or rich bourgeois family in England, America, Germany, France. When generating a story, he never begins with a purely fictional character. Let’s put all this in the past tense since he seems to have been pretty inactive over the past few years. When he purported to be reselling on a painting, he always used the name of someone who really existed as having been a previous owner.”
Blume wrote the word “provenance” beneath the picture of the sad dog he had been drawing. “In what way did he use their name?” He started sketching a tree.
“He’d say the person had sat for the painting, commissioned it, ordered it, bought it, sold it, lost it. It didn’t matter. The important thing is to establish a connection with someone with reputation, money, or title who died some time ago.”
Blume tapped the tip of the pen on the branches of the tree, but the dots looked more like rain than leaves. He’d make it a stormy scene. “Don’t the families deny it?”
“I have never seen that happen. A family will go to great lengths to confirm that their ancestors were perspicacious people, ahead of the curve, gifted with good taste, or on friendly terms with famous artists. It’s the celebrity culture, Commissioner, and no one is immune.”
“I am,” thought Blume to himself. He scribbled in some curly storm clouds and wrote “family.”
“Another trick that Nightingale used to do was to attribute paintings to great houses, castles, and mansions that were destroyed in one of the wars. If the place no longer exists because the Americans bombed it, who’s to say what once hung on its walls?”
Blume put down his pen. “It’s more likely that the Germans would have bombed it, no?” he said.
“No, no. The Germans occupied but the Americans did most of the bombing. They still do.”
“Yeah, well . . . Did you find all this stuff about Treacy and Nightingale just now?”
Silence.
“Because it doesn’t sound like it to me,” continued Blume. “It’s almost as if you were following this case before it even happened, and that’s a bit strange . . . what’s your first name, Colonel?”
“Nicu. It’s Sardinian.”
“Well, Nicu. How come you sound like you’ve been following the case before it even happened?”
“I am just well informed of the facts. You know, we really should meet soon.”
“Yes, I think that would be a good idea,” said Blume.
After he hung up, he added some roots to the tree, then balled up the piece of paper, threw it across the room, and, in the absence of spectators, it traveled straight into the trashcan.
First the Colonel sitting in Treacy’s living room looking for notebooks he had no reason to know about, and now another Carabiniere who seemed very well informed about Nightingale. Blume took the small key from his pocket and opened the drawer with the notebooks.
Someone tapped lightly on his door. Blume pushed the drawer closed again, locked it, slid the key beneath the green leather writing-pad on his desk, and called, “Avanti! ”
The door edged open about wide enough for a cat, then an Agente put his head around and seemed to sniff the air before opening the door fully and coming in.
“What?”
“A Mr. John Nightingale is downstairs. I just thought you’d like to know,” he said.
Chapter 12
Certain englishmen seem to expend so much energy on being English that it empties them of natural vigor. If he had not just heard about John Nightingale’s skill at faking provenance, Blume would have dismissed the lethargic man in the downstairs waiting area as being slow-witted. Blume put him in his mid-sixties. His hair was gray and tightly curled like a scouring pad used for saucepans. He looked the kind who might be comfortable in corduroy, maybe with patches on the elbows of his jacket, but in fact his clothes, though wrinkled, were sober, silver-gray, and expensive. Blume introduced himself. Nightingale stood up, shook Blume’s hand, and smiled by curving the left side of his mouth upwards and the right side downwards. Then he sat down again and said, “E’ tutto vero?”
“Is what true?” asked Blume, switching straight into English as soon as he heard Nightingale’s accent.
“That they found Harry murdered on the street.”
“Hahwy?” said Blume, momentarily confused.
“Yes. Harry.”
“Harry as in Henry?” said Blume, resisting the temptation to say “Henwy.”
Nightingale said, “Yes. Harry. I never called him Henry.”
“Henry Treacy. How did you find out?” asked Blume.
“Dear God!” Nightingale widened his eyes. “It is true, then.”
“How did you find that out?” repeated Blume.
“Emanuela told me. Manuela, rather. My receptionist. Manuela told me, well, let me see, half an hour ago. She told me to come down here and find you or an Inspector Mazzola or some such name. It’s good to find someone who speaks English like this. I can’t quite place your accent . . . God, you’re not Irish are you?”
“No.”
“No, you’re American. How stupid of me. Harry was Irish, you see.”
“I see,” said Blume. “I take it you’re here to make a voluntary statement?”
“What?”
“A statement to the police. Since no lawyer is present and I am not a magistrate, nothing you say can be used as evidence in court.”
“I came to get information, not the other way round. Am I under arrest?”
“No. Absolutely not. A voluntary statement cannot be used as evidence for or against anyone, period. Whatever you tell us now is of no judicial use, but it can certainly help us. You’ll want a lawyer if the magistrate calls you in for questioning, but not now. Also, as long as we keep talking English and remain one-to-one, we ar
e speaking off the record, more or less.”
“More or less?” Nightingale’s eyes suddenly narrowed and seemed to sharpen as his bewildered and exhausted aspect vanished for a second. But then he ran his hands through his hair again and declared, “Actually, I don’t care. I just want to help.”
He stood up and began to shuffle around the small room, rubbing his hand up his temple to his receding hairline.
Nightingale was wearing sturdy handmade shoes. Blume had often thought that if he had wealth, he would invest in really good handmade shoes. Strong shoes should give a man direction. A person with shoes like that had no right to shuffle about lengthening his A’s and turning his R’s into W’s.
“Stop wandering uselessly about and come up to my office,” said Blume, and led the way out of the antechamber. With a mixture of obedience and watchfulness, Nightingale followed him down the hallway toward the two elevators next to the stairs.
The elevator arrived, and Nightingale insisted on ushering Blume in ahead of him.
“Please, just get in, Mr. Nightingale,” said Blume.
Damned Brits. His father had not liked them, and Blume, who had never properly considered the matter, seemed to have received prejudice like a fully wrapped gift which he was only now getting around to opening.
As they passed through the operations room, a few heads bobbed up to see who was accompanying Blume. Blume waved Nightingale into his office, closed the door, and went behind his desk. He sat down and leaned back, and nodded at the space midway between the two chairs on the other side of his desk. One was a cheap red molded plastic chair, the other a comfortable low-slung black armchair. Nightingale chose the second with hardly a moment’s hesitation, then crossed his legs at the ankles, and waited for Blume to speak.
“So,” began Blume. “We were just about to go looking for you. Can you tell me where you’ve been today?”
“You say Harry has been killed.”
“Did I say that?”
“Then Manuela did. Someone must have told me. I can hardly remember. Clearly I am in a state of deep shock. I feel calm now, and lucid, but I daresay it will hit me later on.” He tilted his head and repeated his crooked smile. “Inspector . . .”
“Commissioner,” corrected Blume. “Where were you this morning, Mr. Nightingale?”
“Florence, but, um, I’m afraid . . . look, I’m sorry about this. It’s the nature of my job. Always read the small print, caveat emptor, all that sort of thing, but I’m not sure I quite believe what you just told me downstairs.”
“I can’t remember,” said Blume. “Besides definitely not mentioning that Treacy was killed, what did I say downstairs?”
“You know, about what I say not being used as evidence. I’m awfully sorry if I doubt your word. It comes with my job.”
“To trust is good; not to trust is better,” said Blume.
“A smashing Italian expression,” said Nightingale. “One of my favorites.”
“You’ll just have to believe me,” said Blume.
“I’d love to do that, but I’m afraid the thing is . . . I would take your word as a gentleman, of course, but as an Italian public official . . .”
“As an Italian public official, what?”
“Well, you know how it works here.”
“No,” said Blume. “Tell me.”
Nightingale uncrossed his legs and straightened in his seat. “All I am saying is that as a public official, you have certain duties and responsibilities that would prevail over any assurances you give me, as is only natural and right.”
“This is an interview, not an interrogation. There is no magistrate present, nor any officer taking notes,” said Blume.
“I’m afraid I was born diffident.”
“I see.” Blume got up, and walked over to the narrow bookcase behind his desk. He pulled out a fat purple-and-blue volume, opened it, then presented the volume face down to Nightingale. “Code of Criminal Procedure, 17th edition, which is the latest. Here, read Article 350, paragraph 7.”
Nightingale looked surprised for a moment, but soon pulled out a collapsible pair of reading glasses from the breast pocket of his jacket. He balanced them on the end of his nose, and turned the book over. Blume watched him mouth some of the words, close his eyes, and reread.
“You are quite right, Commissioner. Mind if I read the entire article?”
“By all means,” said Blume.
Nightingale bent down over the book and read again. Then, holding the page with his thumb, he turned back several hundred pages.
“Sorry about this, but you know how it is: this law is pursuant to that one, which refers back to another and so on and so forth. It’s all a terrible bore.” He continued reading.
Finally Nightingale closed the book, put it on Blume’s desk, and said, “Very well. I was in Florence last night and this morning. I think I just said that. I had an appointment with an art dealer there.” He put his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a ticket stub. “This is my train ticket. As you can see, it is time stamped at 8:03 p.m. for the outbound journey last night and at 9:35 for the return trip this morning. I reached Termini at half-past eleven, my home at midday, and Manuela phoned me there shortly afterwards. When I got to the gallery, the Carabinieri had already been through the place, but she advised me to come to you people instead.”
“Who were you in Florence with?”
“The art dealer’s name is Ricasoli. Same as the wine maker. Same family. He was interested in acquiring a Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione that had come into our possession.”
“You kept the ticket stub?” said Blume, reaching out and taking it. “Do you always do that?”
“Only when I remember. Travel expenses can be deducted from the gallery’s imponibile. If you can be bothered to fill out the tax forms afterwards, of course.”
“The gallery belongs to you?”
“The business activity and movables. Not the building, sadly. We founded the Galleria Orpiment in 1974, you know. That’s a long time ago. I don’t know what I am going to do without Harry. I’ll have to close. We were thinking of closing it down anyhow.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re getting old, Commissioner. Some nights I get up just to lean on a sink and count my heartbeats and wait for them to stop. You’ll find yourself doing that, too, someday. Or maybe you will be different.”
“I want to be straight with you, Mr. Nightingale,” said Blume. “For the moment, the squadra mobile is on standby while we wait for an autopsy report and definite instructions from the investigating magistrate. In the meantime, a rather important dinosaur from the Carabinieri has come onto the scene. Colonel Orazio Farinelli, former director of the Art Forgery and Heritage Division and, I hear, a former operative with the domestic secret service, back in the days when SISDE went off the rails. He speaks with such familiarity of you and Treacy that I think you must know him.”
Nightingale seemed to sink into his chair. He brought his hand up to his brow and seemed to study his fine shoes. By the time he spoke, it was obvious his reply could go only in one direction.
“Yes, I do know Farinelli. I wish I didn’t, but I do. We go a long way back. He was a lieutenant when I first encountered him. We’re really off the record?”
“Up to a point,” said Blume.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure. Let’s hope I can answer,” said Blume.
“Are you working with the Colonel on the investigation?”
“We are both public servants,” said Blume.
“Oh.”
Blume waited patiently as Nightingale picked his next words carefully. Like so many other suspects, Nightingale was about to fall victim to the delusion that words pronounced slowly somehow gave less away.
“You may hear that Harry and I were not getting on. I just want you to know we never did. Not really. We needed each other and there were many shared experiences, but we were too different. If anything I felt a greater cultu
ral affinity with Farinelli.”
“You consider the Colonel a friend?”
“A friend, good God, no!” said Nightingale, immediately forgetting to pick his words with forethought. “Anything but. The Colonel is never a friend. Look, would you mind terribly if I asked you another question.”
“Shoot,” said Blume.
“Did you and the Colonel find any writings?”
Blume made a show of not understanding.
“Such as manuscripts, papers, typescripts, something along those lines, so to speak?”
“That’s an interesting question,” said Blume. “Tell me why you asked it.”
“Did you find anything? Tell me that first.”
“No,” said Blume. He saw a slight release of tension around Nightingale’s eyes, so out of interest for the effect it would have, he added, “But I can’t speak for the Colonel.”
Nightingale had relaxed a little when he said he had found nothing, and seemed to relax even more when he suggested the Colonel might have.
Blume said, “I told you that I found nothing. Now it’s your turn to tell me why you are asking.”
“Yes, well, about a month ago, Harry told me he had been writing his memoirs, but was beginning to be afraid he might not live to see them turned into a book. He also told me he was working on a second book, which had separated itself from his memoirs and was turning into a manual for what he liked to call ‘practitioners.’ He meant painters, restorers, forgers, some dealers, even canvas and brush manufacturers. Not the galleries or the art historians. I said I could edit them for him if he died and make sure they got published, but he laughed and said he couldn’t let me do that because I’d destroy them and he intended to outlive me anyhow . . . ha! Sorry if I sound a little callous here.
“I took this as a sort of threat, especially after the kindness of my gesture to edit his work, and we argued. It was a bad argument, too. One of our worst and, as it turns out, our last. I asked him why I would want to destroy his work, and he said because there were parts in it that concerned me. I told him he had a duty to show me what was in his notes. He taunted me, said there was plenty of stuff in there and that people would soon enough find out what sort of a person I am. That was bad enough, because no one likes to have their personal affairs published for all the world to see, but there was another question about which Harry was not even aware, and it had to do with his . . . well, our, line of business.”
The Fatal Touch Page 11