The Fatal Touch

by Conor Fitzgerald

  Even before it hit the Colonel, the oil ignited. With a strangely dry-sounding thud that shook the floor, the smoky orange flames enveloping him flashed yellow and then white. The Colonel vanished behind a hot sheet of flame, leaving a scream behind.

  Angela ran directly through the greenhouse to the door communicating with the outside, and yanked it open, then vanished into safety. The freshly opened door sent a blast of delicious wet and cool air into the room, which reversed the direction of the swirls of smoke coming out of the burning room, and now seemed to be sucking back in all that it had belched out a moment before. Blume’s vision suddenly cleared. It looked as if the fire had decided to spare Treacy’s greenhouse.

  Calmly, feeling sorrowful at all that was happening, Blume went over to the granite sink and slowly filled a terra-cotta pitcher with fresh water. He picked it up, stepped through the smoking gap where the beads had been, traversed the blasted kitchen, noting with regret that it, too, was burning on high, and reached the white blaze that marked the doorway into the living room. A massive dark shape was rolling on the ground, and Blume, full of pity, cast the contents of his pitcher at it. But the water droplets turned to steam and the steam exploded with almost as much force as the oil had, sending the Colonel crawling madly away from his new tormentor, back towards the living room where the fine shoes of a smaller, silent body were also beginning to burn.

  Blume gagged as an overwhelmingly sweet and burnt fast-food smell rushed out of the room. He ran back through the kitchen and into the cool greenhouse. From above his head came a cracking and squeaking sound like thousands of ice cubes being thrown into hot water. He looked up and then down again quickly, as a shower of glass exploded overhead and came crashing down, with the rain following. The fire was sparing nothing.

  The flames had insinuated themselves across the lattice of wooden frames holding the sloping glass roof, and were crisscrossing the timber beam holding up the glazing. The glass was blackening and shimmering and breaking everywhere, some shattering as it dropped in full panes to the floor. The Colonel made a final bellow like a distant bull, and from the other side Blume heard Angela calling. He ran toward her and the coolness of the night air, glass, sparks, and burning wood falling about him.

  Chapter 46

  The fire crew parked their engines on a bed of cream narcissus flowers in the garden and attacked the fire from there, leaving the street outside free. It soon filled with Carabinieri from the neighboring barracks, some of them under umbrellas, and a crowd of American students from John Cabot. The crowd was becoming quite festive as the fire raged on and the rumors of what had happened started circulating. In the middle, unnoticed and unexamined, sat the Colonel’s car.

  One of the first to arrive on the scene was Rosario Panebianco, solicitous, gentle, and persuasive. He had Angela in an ambulance and under escort within minutes. When Blume told him to fuck off, he nodded with understanding and was soon back with a blue waterproof jacket with “Polizia” written on the back in reflective letters, and a colorful golf umbrella. He ordered an Agente to stand close to Blume and hold it.

  “Commissioner,” she said, “you are shivering and there is blood on your collar and back. Put on the jacket.”

  Blume decided to comply.

  Caterina arrived as the medics were on the point of asking his colleagues to force him into the ambulance. Blume called her over, told the Agente with the umbrella to get lost, and nodded in the direction of the Colonel’s car.

  “Treacy’s manuscript is on the backseat. Get it. Then hold it or destroy it. It’s just a copy.”

  “I know,” said Caterina. “I was there when he made the copy, remember?”

  Blume looked at her in confusion. “We need to get rid of them all, originals, copies, the lot.”

  “I’ll see to it.” She pointed at the flames and smoke shooting up from behind the wall. “Is it true what they’re saying about the Colonel being in there?”

  “Yes. Nightingale, too.”

  “Oh no,” said Caterina. “Any chance he made it out?”

  “None,” said Blume.

  She stepped over a puddle on the cobbles, and turned around. “When I left the house this morning, Rospo was asleep in a car opposite. He wasn’t in a great mood, says you were supposed to relieve him. I began to worry about you then. Then you called and immediately after I heard about Paoloni, and then you disappeared again. I should have guessed it would be here. Sorry.”

  Blume tried to wave a forgiving hand, but he couldn’t feel his arm or quite remember which muscles to tense.

  “Alec, will you please stop sitting out here shivering and bleeding in the rain. You look so bad people are frightened to come over and tell you to get into the ambulance.”

  Blume allowed himself to be taken to San Camillo Hospital. He was left languishing for an indeterminate amount of time in a small white-and-green room, which smelled of tuna, then a doctor came in, examined him, shone a light in his pupils, and went jogging out, returning five minutes later in the company of three male nurses and a trolley. Half an hour later, Blume was undergoing emergency surgery to relieve a build-up of pressure in his skull.

  Then he slept.

  When he awoke, the nausea and headaches has decreased to a manageable level, and Blume announced himself fit and ready to leave. He made the announcement several times without drawing any response. They had shaved the back of his head and placed an oversized white bandage on it, but it did not hurt in the slightest. Not even to the touch. He thought he might make it home, clear up his apartment, and have some supper. He left the room and outlined his plans to a nurse in the corridor, who led him back to bed.

  Blume protested in authoritative tones, but was hushed.

  “You’ll wake the other patients up.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Half past four in the morning.”

  He slept fifteen more hours and found himself groggily agreeing to spend one more night in hospital. The following morning, he thanked them all for the excellent treatment. Even the doctor. If he had one complaint, he said, it was the excessive hygiene and the constant smell of bleach from the lime-colored wall.

  The doctor actually went over to the wall and smelled it, then came back and announced Blume would have to stay for another battery of tests.

  “What for?”

  “Phantosmia.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Olfactory hallucinations. Could be serious.”

  The following morning, he learned that the results of the test would be ready in two more days. He announced he was discharging himself anyhow.

  “You shouldn’t drive. Can someone pick you up?”

  Blume called Caterina.

  “I’m on duty.”

  “Is that a no?”

  “Just that I need to let the others know where I’m going.”

  “As long as you’re not ashamed,” said Blume.

  As she drove him back to his house, she filled him in on some of the developments. “Angela Solazzi was discharged from the hospital immediately. She’s staying with Emma now. She’s been in contact twice, says she’ll cooperate as much as we want.”

  “Good.” Blume pictured her as she lifted the copper pot, looked into it, and threw the contents into the blazing doorway. He could see her face as she lifted the pot, the look in her eyes, the same as the look she had when she started the fire.

  “I don’t think she has much to answer for,” he said.

  “Some good news, too,” said Caterina. “The Maresciallo has developed septicemia from the dog bites.”

  “Fatal?”

  “No. But he seems to have slipped into a state of stupor. But we’re not getting that many details. The Carabinieri are dealing with him.”

  “He’s probably putting it on,” said Blume. “It’s the beginning of his defense.”

  Caterina’s phone rang. She answered and Blume noticed the slight tremor of subordination in her voice, and knew who she was
talking to . . . She handed him the phone. “The Questore. He wants to speak to you.”

  That was quick, thought Blume. The Questore had probably asked to be informed as soon as Blume was out of hospital. Someone in the office had wasted no time in telling him.

  He took it, and, with an extra layer of gruffness for her benefit, said, “Blume here.”

  “What the fuck was that, Blume?”

  “It’s a long story, sir.”

  “A long story can be told in a long report, and with four weeks’ sick leave, to be reviewed at the end of the period and probably converted into a three-month suspension, you will have plenty of time to give me all the details.”

  “No need for the suspension, sir,” said Blume.

  “This morning I got news that the dead British national, John Nightingale, was shot point-blank with your pistol, also found at the scene. That has rather overshadowed our little propaganda success at capturing the tourist mugger. A Carabiniere colonel with an impossibly dense web of important contacts was burned to death while an internal investigation into his activities was being conducted. A former policeman, recently removed from duty under highly suspicious circumstances, was killed hours before that, and, in a minor development, I hear a search warrant was issued by a magistrate for your apartment which, it turns out, was also the scene of a burglary that was not properly reported. Did I say three months: how about thirty-three years?”

  “One investigation fused into another, and things . . . I lost control for a while.”

  “And another thing. Where was the investigating magistrate overseeing all this? Did we even have one?”

  “Not as such. Buoncompagno and the Colonel . . .”

  “Buoncompagno has been hauled before the disciplinary section of the Magistrates’ Council for his handling of this and other cases. Basically, his immunity disappeared along with the Colonel and a garden villa owned, it turns out, by a branch of the Pamphili family.”

  “I could come up with a summary version. One in which any unregulated actions are seen to be natural developments of a rolling, highly complex investigation in which, perhaps, there was insufficient liaison with the judicial authorities, but, in compensation, in which the police and Carabinieri worked closely together,” said Blume.

  “I see the knock on the head left you pretty much the same devious bastard as before, Blume. If you write that report, I want you to write a longer version, too. Just in case, God forbid, your version is viewed as not fully credible.”

  “I also think the American Embassy might put in a word on our behalf with the Ministry,” said Blume.

  “You think so? Well, that would be unaccountably nice of them.”

  “I have a favor I can do them. All I shall ask in return is that the Ministry recognizes the skill with which the Questore of Rome has handled a very difficult and complex case. I think what’s-his-name the ugly little Minister from the Northern League would be chuffed to receive a pat on the head and a tickle under the chin from the Americans.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Blume.”

  He handed the phone back to Caterina.

  “I think it was probably Rospo who told the Questore to use my number to contact you,” said Caterina. “In case you were wondering.”

  When they arrived outside his building, she opened her bag, took out a set of keys, and handed them to him.

  “These are yours,” she said. “Your apartment has a new door, remember? I picked them up for you.”

  “Right. Thanks.” He fingered the three long new keys. “I don’t suppose . . .”

  “I need to get back to Elia,” said Caterina.

  “Right.”

  “But call me.”

  When he reached his apartment, he was shocked, then overcome with emotion, to see it pristine clean. She had picked everything up. The slashed cushions sat in a corner waiting to be stitched back up. The sink gleamed. On the kitchen table sat the three notebooks, looking a little dusty and tired now. He took them into the study, filed them away.

  He passed across the hallway into his bedroom. The bed was freshly made, his clothes were folded in a pile on the polished dresser.

  Chapter 47

  The following morning he called the American Embassy and asked to be connected to Kristin Holmquist.

  “Alec! Lovely to hear you. I’ll phone you back.”

  She kept her word, but leisurely. Three hours passed before she finally rang his cell phone.

  “I hear you were in the hospital again.”

  “Just a checkup, really. Home now.”

  “Great, I was beginning to feel really bad about not visiting.”

  “I picked up the anguish in your voice right away,” said Blume.

  “Yeah, well, you sound fine to me,” said Kristin. “Were you making a personal call or is this business?”

  “Business. I can talk on this line, right?”

  “Sure. Not that I would vouch for your phone but shoot. Maybe be a bit oblique if you’re going to supply me with more of that vital intelligence info you’ve been feeding us.”

  “Actually, I do have something you might be interested in.” He paused, waiting for her response. “Kristin? Are you still there?”

  “Don’t you know the sound of bated breath when you hear it? Give me what you got, Alec. I’m busy.”

  “It’s old stuff, not current or all that sensitive any more, but of some diplomatic value. The relationship between the US Embassy and the Christian Democrats back in the day. The hostage negotiator flown in—the guy who writes the books? We spoke about it after a pleasant Mexican chili in my house?”

  “Got you,” said Kristin.

  “I’m pretty sure the manuscript won’t go into the public domain unless I allow it.”

  “It would be nice if you didn’t allow it. Can you do that?”

  “Well,” said Blume, “getting rid of it would be one way, giving it to you would be another.”

  “I prefer the second option,” said Kristin. “Mainly because I am curious. You’ll really hand it over this time?”

  “Yes. The thing is, I have a very complicated police report to prepare, and I am going to find it hard not to refer to Treacy’s memoirs to explain certain actions. That could kick-start an inquiry, get a magistrate interested, and then it gets all messy and public. See the problem?”

  “You can’t keep Treacy’s memoirs out of your report?”

  “I could write a report with minimal references, but to do that I would need the Questore to be backing me.”

  “I know your Questore,” said Kristin. “He’s a good guy.”

  “Adorable though he is,” said Blume, “he answers to other people.”

  “I see,” said Kristin. “Well, it is possible that at the next scheduled meeting—that’s in about three weeks—one of my colleagues might be able to bring his sterling efforts to the direct attention of the Minister. Would that help, do you think?”

  “Almost certainly,” said Blume.

  “It would be nice if we could meet,” said Kristin. “Rather than you coming to the embassy or me sending someone over to pick up a copy of the manuscript. Are you planning on keeping a copy, by the way?”

  “No,” said Blume.

  “How about we meet in the next few days? I’ll call you.”

  “Great,” said Blume.

  He watched daytime TV incredulously. He had not done so in twenty years. He was scandalized. Nobody seemed to want to have any personal secrets any more. He switched over to a station called K2 and watched cartoons instead. He watched one called The Fairly Odd Parents, and thought it was great.

  His landline rang, and he answered to a woman whose voice was very slightly familiar.

  “Alec, it’s Filomena,” she said.

  Such a horrible name, he had heard it recently . . .

  “Remember? Beppe’s wife. Widow.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Blume.

  “I am cremating him.”

&nb
sp; “He’d have liked that,” said Blume.

  “He’d have enjoyed being cremated?”

  “As long as he was dead first, obviously.”

  “Jesus. I can see why he considered you his friend.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Blume. “It’s how we used to talk to each other.”

  “Will you be there? It’s tomorrow morning. In Viterbo.”

  “Of course I’ll be there,” said Blume.

  “Some people think I’m wrong to cremate him,” she said. “It’s not popular.”

  “People,” said Blume.

  “Yeah. Listen . . . the thing that got him killed—it was his own fault as usual, wasn’t it?”

  “It was the fault of the person who killed him,” said Blume.

  “But he put himself in harm’s way, didn’t he?”

  She seemed to want to think this, but he did not want to exonerate himself.

  “No. I put him in harm’s way.”

  “If you think that, then I bet you want to make things right, don’t you?”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “No, you can’t. You were his best friend. He always said that. He was a violent man, too. It’s what lost him his job.”

  “He was a good man.”

  She continued as if she had not heard him. “Our son, Fabio, is going the same way. He has the same vengeful mindset as his father. Now I have to pick up the pieces, all over again.”

  “If I can help . . . ” said Blume.

  “You can,” she said. “You know who killed Beppe, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want you to leave him alone. I do not want you or anyone else to do him physical harm.”

  “But . . . ”

  “You said you would help. Promise me.”

  Blume stayed silent.

  “Promise me. I know you don’t know me that well, but I knew Beppe and underneath it all . . . to save his son he would have renounced all vengeance. He wanted Fabio to be better than him. He always said so.”

  “OK.”

  “And promise no one else under your orders will harm the bastard?”