The Fatal Touch

by Conor Fitzgerald

  Grattapaglia did not move.

  “It wasn’t really a suggestion,” said Blume with a jerk of his thumb in the direction of the door. “Take a hike, Sovrintendente. Come back when you’re calm.”

  Grattapaglia marched straight through them, sending Rospo dancing away behind a desk, and stormed out of the room.

  Blume went over to Caterina.

  “I’m mapping out the muggings,” she told him. She pointed to Rospo. “The Assistente Capo here has been offering constructive criticism.”

  “I already told her we did all that shit,” said Rospo. “All they show is that the muggings took place in Trastevere, and that the convergence is in Trastevere, and there is nothing we can do with that data. For some reason she took all the pins out and then stuck them all back in, exactly where they were to begin with.”

  “It’s a good way of getting a feel for the pattern,” said Caterina, sticking another pin in the map. “There. That’s more or less it.”

  Blume looked at the pins, which seemed to form the beginning of a spiral.

  “How many are there?”

  “Thirty-seven muggings. Today’s makes thirty-eight,” said Caterina. “These date back to twenty months ago.” She pointed to a group of seven pins near Trastevere train station. “Those occurred within the time frame, but we have the perpetrator for two of them and we’re pretty sure they are unconnected.”

  “We’re totally sure,” interrupted Rospo.

  “OK,” said Caterina with a nod at Rospo. “Those are not connected. Inside this spiral we may have two, three copy-cat, opportunist, or run-of-the mill muggings, but if we factor in that the victims were almost all foreigners, then the pattern . . .”

  “We know that,” said Blume.

  “Wait,” said Caterina, picking up a printout from the desk beside her. “The victims were, let’s see: Japanese, Spanish, Greek, German, Japanese again, French, another Japanese, Chinese, French again, Swiss, Austrian, Slovenian, Irish, Belgian, Japanese, Japanese . . . and so on. But at number 23 we have an Italian, a businessman from Milan.

  “It interrupted the pattern, but pointed to another one. Apart from being in that area at that time of night, the Milanese businessman, a certain Natale Rosa, was staying at the Hotel Noantri.”

  “We checked that, too,” said Blume. “About two in three of the victims were in that hotel, which is by far the largest in the area, so it was not very surprising.”

  “Right,” said Caterina. “And we looked into the possibility that someone in the hotel was involved.”

  “That was never discounted as a possibility,” said Blume. “But the attacks seemed pretty random. The other main thing is that they were carried out by a single person, which is rare, and that a lot of the witnesses said he threatened them with a huge knife. If I remember, one or two even spoke of a sword or cutlass.”

  “I found another anomaly,” said Caterina. “There is something not right in the balance of nationalities.”

  “Thirty-eight is a hell of a lot of muggings,” said Blume. “But statistically it’s negligible. You can’t deduce too much from such a small number.”

  “I know . . . but . . .”

  “But?”

  “Where are all the Germans, Dutch, and English? I looked up the Rome Chamber of Commerce tourism figures. The Germans, Dutch, French, and English are the main visitors to the city; the Americans come a bit down the list, but they are still ahead of the Spanish and the Japanese. But we have no Dutch victims, no Americans, just one English but a preponderance of Japanese and a few Spaniards. Why?”

  “Maybe because Japs are midgets,” said Rospo and cackled.

  “You’re right,” said Caterina. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

  Rospo stopped laughing, sat up straight for a moment, and looked pleased with himself.

  “Not anymore,” said Blume. “The older generation is small, and so we think of them like that, but the young Japanese are as tall as anyone.”

  “The Dutch are the tallest people in the world,” said Caterina. “When I saw there were no American victims, I looked it up, but it turns out the Dutch are taller. That’s more telling, since there are more Dutch than American tourists, but not one among the mugger’s victims.”

  “Are you seriously building a theory out of this?” asked Blume.

  “No, not really,” said Caterina. “But it got me thinking about the size of the victims, and that got me thinking about their age. I checked out the age profiles. The average was over fifty-five. Which, for the Japanese, makes them small again.”

  “Basically, all you’re saying is that the mugger picked on old people,” said Rospo.

  “Yes,” said Caterina. “That’s all I am saying. Small, old, frail people. It’s not much, but it’s a sort of pattern, and it hadn’t been included in any of the reports.”

  “That’s about as fucking useless a . . . ” Rospo fell silent as he caught the look Blume was giving him.

  “OK, now a mugger is usually a bully,” said Blume. “And this one is no exception. He selects older and smaller people. Being tourists they are less sure of their surroundings and more likely to have valuables. I think we had got that far in our reasoning, Inspector, even if the pattern wasn’t specifically mentioned.”

  “So you choose old people because they are easier to rob. Also, old people tend to have more stuff. So then I looked over the list of things stolen,” said Caterina. “Mostly it’s money but there was also three silver bracelets, pendants, a valuable necklace, an incredibly valuable watch, diamond earrings, a gold pen, cameras, video equipment, a silver cross, and so on. I want to get back to that last one in a minute, because there is something interesting about it. Once the pressure to catch the mugger became intense, we put a lot of effort into trying to trace where these things were going. Grattapaglia, you Rospo, patrolmen, the Vigili Urbani, Finance Police, and even the Carabinieri were keeping an eye open, yet not one of these items was spotted. Now we also know, almost for certain, that no one on the street even knows who this person is, right Davide?”

  “It looks like—yeah, this person is a newcomer or an outsider of some sort,” said Rospo, unhappy at having to agree. “And the Finance Police kept an eye on eBay small ads, Craigslist, and places like that and none of the merchandise came up for sale.”

  “So how is he getting rid of the stuff ?” said Caterina. “He hasn’t been fencing it to anyone. We could assume that he is fiendishly clever, but if he was, he would not be mugging for a living.”

  “So he’s keeping the valuables,” said Blume. “As trophies or something.”

  “Which means he’s got some other reason for mugging tourists.”

  “Someone who just hates tourists?” said Rospo. “Like me.” This time he missed the look from Blume and allowed himself a long laugh.

  “Hates tourists,” said Caterina. “Has no previous, is unknown, has no need of money, works alone, and is possibly small himself. Atypical.”

  “The investigating magistrate should have figured this shit out,” said Rospo.

  “It’s not a priority for him,” said Blume. “It is for us. Go on, Inspector.”

  “OK. Now I checked the police statements of the victims. Let’s just say that a better job might have been done in asking them for details, getting basics like full names, time of robbery, home address—and we do have interpreters in the police, you know.”

  “You’re confusing us with your previous job in immigration control, Inspector. I have never managed to find translators or interpreters. But go on.”

  “We’ve still got seventeen decent descriptions of the attacks. None of them mentions anything about the mugger seeming older or smaller than usual, but they all say his face was hard to see behind the hooded tracksuit and in the dark. Four mention that he was small, the rest say nothing at all,” said Caterina. “Those who were asked the question say he was working alone, though one woman, a Swiss, wasn’t sure.”

  “Not much he
lp there,” said Rospo.

  “What were you saying about the silver cross stolen from one of the victims?” asked Blume.

  “Yes. That is interesting. Around a year ago, a Spaniard called José Maria Carvalho was mugged and reported losing a highly valuable silver cross ‘of extremely profound religious and symbolic value.’ Carvalho had been visiting the hotel for a conference, but actually lives in Trastevere. He works as a diplomat to the Holy See.”

  “That Carvalho? The guy Grattapaglia thumped?” said Blume.

  Caterina nodded. “So he was already poorly disposed to the police, seeing as we didn’t find his silver cross. Now this,” Caterina picked up a poorly-printed newsletter, “is the Pigna, a local newsletter that comes out now and again.”

  Blume nodded. He always read it, too. Local news was always interesting, the more local the better.

  “If you read the letters page, there are three more contributions to the debate about the new hotel, the one at the center of the spiral on the board there, the place where twenty-two of our thirty-eight victims were staying. The debate has something to do with ruining historic quayside buildings, disrespecting the architecture of the area.”

  Rospo looked blank, but Blume had been following the matter. The hotel chain was accused of failing to respect the architectural exceptionalism of a series of eighteenth-century buildings, knocking down old walls, and, worst of all, creating a new upper floor that blocked the light of neighboring buildings. The letter writers seemed to know a lot about planning permission laws, and municipal directives, and nothing about concision.

  “If you read these letters or follow the debate in the local news section of Il Messaggero, you’ll soon come across the name of the chief campaigner: Alfonso Corsi. He’s a bitter man. A nobleman in decline, whose family has been selling off property in the area since after the war.”

  “You think he’s the mugger?” asked Rospo, the skepticism in his voice giving way to scorn.

  “He’s eighty-two years old,” said Caterina, “but I still think he might be worth talking to.”

  “It’s a long shot,” said Blume.

  “There is another thing,” said Caterina. “Leporelli and Scariglia.”

  “Those two fuckers handed themselves in this morning,” said Rospo. “Let’s hope they get what’s coming to them in Rebibbia.”

  “They will,” said Blume. “Inspector, what’s their connection to the mugger?”

  “None that I can see,” said Caterina. “But their file contains a list, sadly a short one, of the names of people who came forward to protest at their racketeering efforts. There was one case in particular that merits attention. Three years ago, a certain Corsi Hotel opened in Trastevere. It was a private aristocratic villa, and the occupants decided to open a guest house. They didn’t get the necessary permits, or not all of them, but they went into business anyhow, and soon after those two vultures arrived demanding protection money. The Corsis, father and son, came straight to us and denounced the would-be racketeers. Nothing was done.”

  “Yeah, well . . . ” said Rospo.

  “Then two months after that, there was a mysterious fire at the Corsi Hotel. It was a minor thing—basically a perimeter wall was blackened—but the Vigili Urbani and the Fire Department inspected the premises, found around eighty health and safety violations, and closed down the hotel directly afterwards. It never reopened. I followed this up, and Agnolo Corsi . . .”

  “Agnolo? ” said Rospo. “That’s the gayest name I’ve ever heard.”

  Caterina smiled. “Apparently that’s the poor man’s name. Agnolo filed a complaint in which he alleges that Leporelli and Scariglia were working for the Hudson & Martinetti Hotel chain, owners of the Noantri Hotel, which is where most of the mugging victims were resident. The Hudson & Martinetti Hotel chain sued for defamation, and the case is pending. The investigating magistrate appointed to look into the accusation wrote off Corsi’s claim as ‘highly improbable’ and ‘delusional,’ which it is. A few months later, the first mugging, perpetrated against a guest from the Noantri Hotel, occurred.”

  “It’s bullshit that Leporelli and Scariglia were working for the Hudson & Martinetti Hotel,” said Rospo.

  “Of course it is,” said Caterina. “But it’s interesting Corsi should make this claim.”

  “That’s a strange . . . ” began Blume. He stopped as his cell phone rang. He excused himself and answered, walking away from Caterina and Rospo toward his office. The caller was Paoloni, who sounded very pleased with himself.

  “I thought you’d like to know,” he said. “Two men have just broken into your apartment.”

  Chapter 32

  When blume clapped a phone to his ear and wandered off to his office while she was in mid-sentence, and Rospo, already annoyed at being upstaged by her that morning, returned to his desk with a shrug, Caterina had to work hard to keep the disappointment and anger from her face.

  She decided to wait for Blume to emerge from his office and advise on her next step. But when he did reappear it was only for the time it took him to walk quickly out of his office, through the operations room, and down the corridor.

  She started mapping out an investigative approach, trying to find something for Rospo that he would not find demeaning and might possibly do well, when she got a call from downstairs to say that a certain Emma and Angela Solazzi were looking for her.

  Blume had specifically removed her from the case, yet the arrival of these two was something she knew he would be interested in. Her hand hovered over her phone, but she made no call. Seeing as he saw fit to leave without saying where, and they had asked for her, not him, Caterina had them sent to the interview room.

  Mother and daughter, alike in the shape of their noses and in their posture, but little else, sat side by side at the far end of the table when Caterina entered.

  Emma Solazzi said, “I thought it would be like killing two birds with one stone, interviewing us together.”

  “Are we allowed to smoke in here?” asked Angela. “I’m nervous.”

  “No one asked you to come here,” said Caterina. “And, no, you’re not allowed to smoke.”

  “Smoking gave me these crow’s feet around my eyes. I probably have cancer of the something, too. But I like my husky voice.” And continuing in her husky voice, she said, “I wanted to clear up a few things about John Nightingale. And about Henry Treacy, too.”

  Caterina shifted her gaze to Emma. “And you?”

  “I’m here to hear what she has to say.”

  Caterina glanced at her watch to make a point. “OK, but let’s make this quick. I have other business. What sort of person is John Nightingale, Emma?”

  Her asking Emma the question caught both visitors by surprise for a moment. Emma shrugged and said, “He is decent enough, I guess. Gentlemanly. Generous. Kind of . . . boring? I hardly know him. Ask her: she’s the one who slept with him.”

  “She’s right,” her mother said, nodding at Caterina. “John is very dull. Mostly in a good way. I have come to appreciate dullness in people. They are safer, more dependable, less violent. That’s essentially why I am here. I want you to know that John Nightingale is not violent. It is not possible that he had anything to do with Henry Treacy’s death.”

  “Who told you that he did?”

  “No one,” said Angela. “But I know that if you’re investigating, this is certain to come up as a possible line of inquiry. John would not hurt a fly. If there was a dangerous one, it was Henry.”

  “Did you have a relationship with Henry, too?”

  “Oh, yes. I thought that was clear.” Angela looked taken aback and her daughter looked embarrassed. “Haven’t you been investigating? I worked for them, just as Emma does now. Henry was my . . . Emma, if you lean any further away from me, you risk falling off the chair.”

  “I am not very comfortable with this sort of thing. It’s only natural,” said Emma.

  “Of course, darling. But Henry was my lover. Th
ere, it’s not so bad a word now that I have said it. Henry came long before Nightingale, and was, well, he was Henry and John is just John. But I had to leave Henry.”

  “Was he violent?” asked Caterina.

  “He was a raging fire who burned people up. Literally. Look.”

  Angela rolled up the left sleeve of her black cashmere cardigan, revealing a long white scar that curved up her forearm, branching as it went. “It reaches up to my clavicle, down to my breast. It doesn’t look too bad now. But for years when I tanned, it would remain stubbornly pale, like a white snake.”

  “Treacy did that?”

  “Accidentally. A splash of boiling linseed oil. He whipped it out of a pot with a ladle when I was standing behind him. I held my arm up to protect my face. He was drunk.”

  “Please, mother,” said Emma.

  “What? He was.”

  “It’s obvious you were naked at the time, which is why it burned your breast. I can do without that picture in my head.”

  “That was accidental,” said Caterina. “He seems to have managed to burn himself as well. Did he ever hurt you deliberately?”

  “Oh, yes. Henry hit me in the mouth twice. Once he punched my shoulder so hard I couldn’t lift my arm for weeks. He apologized for hitting me in the mouth, but he never took that shoulder punch seriously . . . He threw a bottle at me once, aiming to miss, I like to think.”

  “How much of that did you go through before leaving him?”

  “I had already left him for Nightingale when he threw the bottle. It’s why he threw it.”

  “When did you meet Henry Treacy for the first time?”

  “In 1974,” said Angela.

  “No, sorry. I was talking to Emma here,” said Caterina.

  “Me? When I went to Galleria Orpiment. Three years ago.”

  “And you knew these stories?”

  “Well, more or less.”

  “I warned her,” said Angela. “I warned her not to put up with anything, and I mean anything, from Henry. I told her some of the stories, though not in full detail. I didn’t want to be too prejudicial. Even so, I told her to keep her identity secret and her wits about her, and never, never to go drinking with him.”