The Namesake cab-3

by Conor Fitzgerald

  ‘That’s very interesting.’

  ‘You don’t have to be sarcastic.’

  ‘I wasn’t being sarcastic. That’s interesting: the Tree of Wisdom.’

  ‘I think the missing page is a buried reference. Ripped out by the killer in a symbolic gesture. The Ndrangheta sees itself as a tree. The main trunk, the capo bastone, is the boss, the leaves are the latest recruits, the least important, the branches are their commanders, and so on. The roots feed on the blood of traitors and the soil of the land. I’m still reading up on it. If you want, we…’

  The captain slapped out a fast rhythm on his knee, and stood up briskly and started touring the room.

  ‘Another time, Caterina. I need to go.’

  ‘Wait. He did have a wedding ring. His wife told me. For some reason he threw his ring away or they stole it from him.’

  ‘Probably the latter,’ said Blume.

  ‘No, I don’t think that fits the…’

  ‘Later. Tell me later.’ He hung up. Massimiliani was now strolling around the room, picking out books at random, looking at them, putting them back.

  ‘A lot of art books. History, too.’

  ‘My parents’.’

  ‘They were art historians. I read your file. But three of the books I just looked at were published after their death, so you must have bought them.’

  ‘It’s a hobby.’

  ‘No novels.’

  ‘Stories are a waste of time unless they’re true,’ said Blume.

  ‘Or unless they serve a purpose. We all tell stories to ourselves that we know aren’t true. The Ndrangheta, for example, has a lot of stories that are useful. That Tree of Wisdom you were just talking about with…?’

  ‘They make stories up as it serves their purpose,’ said Blume, ignoring Massimiliani’s cue.

  ‘That’s just what you did with that confession, isn’t it?’

  Blume tried to keep his gaze steady, but he felt disoriented. He had reckoned it might take two or three days for his falsified transcript to leak through the system. Instead, it had been a few hours. Even by the lousy standards of secrecy in the force and among the magistrates, that was far too fast.

  ‘Look, Blume, I admire your enterprise here. It tilted the scales in your favour. But let’s not waste time in denials. If there had been a confession from Curmaci’s wife, I’d have heard about it from Arconti. He mentioned that he had called her, fishing for information, but there was no talk of a confession. It had to be you. I think it was a good idea, and I like the way you both buried it in your office and in the Palaces of Justice. You made us look for it so that when we found it the thrill of discovery would make us reluctant to consider that we were led to it. I think you might be a natural.’

  ‘You keep saying “we”. Who else was with you?’

  ‘Your direct superior, the Vice-questore. Well, he accompanied one of my men. So he sort of knows, but he is not aware it was a forged document. Let’s hope he never finds out.’

  ‘Great. So my office was searched. Was Arconti relaying everything back to you? I trusted him.’

  ‘And you were right to, and you should continue. Casual chats. Of course, he’s not in a fit state to talk at length, but if we were to phone him now and ask whether he had received a confessional phone call from Curmaci’s wife, what would he say?’

  Blume stayed silent.

  ‘We soon found out you were planting the story in the press, too, along with hints of a break-in and a cover-up. If we try to deny or kill the story, it will only gain more credibility. So it’s out there, now, with a life of its own doing whatever you wanted it to do. So, tell me, what did you want it to do?’

  ‘Disorient Curmaci, maybe force him back into Italy to defend his family before he’s ready. Get him in trouble with his associates. Just get back at him some way. Drag him into the open, discomfit the bastard.’

  ‘I like that. We can let it run its course,’ said Massimiliani. ‘Curmaci was probably planning to attend the Polsi summit anyhow. But for all your cleverness, Blume, you made a mistake that, to my mind at least, makes it incontrovertibly a forged confession.’

  The nagging doubt Blume had had from the start in the back of his mind seemed to step forward and take an ironic bow. ‘I got the tone wrong,’ he said.

  ‘I was really hoping you’d recognize your own mistake — another good sign. You kept to the same tone of the original denial. But that was a prepared statement full of insinuation and warning. If she really had been confessing and seeking help, the tone would have been less coherent.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ said Blume. ‘She’s still in the shit, though, isn’t she, once this gets known?’

  ‘Probably,’ agreed Massimiliani. ‘Her name’s Maria Itria.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She’s got two children.’

  ‘So had the unfortunate insurance salesman, Arconti.’

  ‘He was an actuary.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘You seem convinced it was Curmaci. Any particular reason?’

  ‘Well, Magistrate Arconti is the main reason. He told me a bit about Curmaci, and this seems like the sort of thing he might do. But I am not assuming it is Curmaci.’

  ‘So why did you go to all that trouble of falsifying his wife’s statement?’

  ‘If it wasn’t Curmaci, it was one of them. Getting Curmaci will do fine, since they’re all the same.’

  ‘Interesting attitude. You don’t care whether this really was Curmaci or not?’

  ‘Like I said, it may as well have been him,’ said Blume. ‘Curmaci or someone else in the organization. All the same. Only the name changes.’

  ‘Now I’m on your side in this, Commissioner, be assured of that, but can’t you see a slight similarity between your approach and Curmaci’s carelessness about killing an innocent man just because his name happened to match the magistrate’s?’

  ‘No, I see no similarity at all,’ said Blume. ‘But I did notice you attributed the killing to Curmaci.’

  ‘Suppose the murder was not even related to the Ndrangheta?’

  ‘It is,’ said Blume. ‘It’s too symbolic. It fits with how Curmaci operates. Killing a namesake, putting the body next to Via Falcone e Borsellino in remembrance of martyred magistrates, the torn page.’

  ‘What torn page?’

  Blume hesitated, then told Massimiliani about Caterina’s discovery.

  ‘You think that was some sort of calling card left by Curmaci?’

  ‘I looked up the name Curmaci a while ago. It means “tree trunk”, so the symbolic gesture fits. Then there were the victim’s dirty stained fingers.’

  ‘What does that signify?’

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ said Blume. ‘But it’s bound to have some sort of symbolic meaning.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. But it is not nearly enough for an international arrest warrant.’

  ‘Nothing ever is,’ said Blume. ‘Which is why forcing him down to Calabria gives us a chance to pick him up.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘You. Someone.’

  ‘Curmaci would be worth getting. The Ndrangheta reproduces like a cell. First, they make a copy of the rules for building another cell; then, they send someone like Curmaci with the rules abroad. Once the rules are laid down, other members of the original cell start moving abroad, too. You could compare Curmaci to a string of DNA.’

  ‘A string of RNA would make a more accurate metaphor,’ said Blume. ‘And Arconti compared him to a Catholic missionary. Anyhow, priest or protein, it still seems to me getting rid of him would be a good thing. When I say get rid of…’

  ‘No need to reassure me, Commissioner. I know you’re not in favour of assassinations, even of the worst. That emerges from your files. But wouldn’t you say Curmaci is too important to be carrying out assassinations in person?’

  ‘Like I said, do we care if it was him? He killed in the past, at least that’s what Arconti told me.’

  �
�Oh, he did that,’ said Massimiliani. ‘Definitely. He was an executioner for Old Megale in the 1990s. Then he stopped. It would be unusual for him to start again now.’

  Blume shrugged. ‘So he ordered it.’

  ‘Possibly. Every Ndranghetista who goes abroad, Curmaci included, has to leave family members at home. That way they can operate more freely in the new territory. Their family members gain respect and wealth, but basically, they are hostages. The local Calabrian Ndrangheta can get to them at any time.’

  ‘That sounds like a weakness waiting to be exploited,’ said Blume.

  ‘Which is what you are trying to do with your forged confession.’ Massimiliani walked over and tapped Blume lightly on the shoulder. ‘I like that attitude, too. You have convinced me we can work together, now can I convince you?’

  ‘That depends. What would I be doing?’

  ‘I can’t say yet.’ Massimiliani pointed at the portfolio he had tossed on the table. ‘Read what’s in there. It will take you about an hour to read, two hours to learn.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘An old DIA report on the Camorra in Naples and environs. It gives descriptions of their activities, the names of the main families. It’s pretty basic stuff. Actually, I pulled most of it off the internet.’

  ‘I thought we were talking about the Ndrangheta. What’s the Neapolitan Camorra got to do with anything?’

  ‘Ah, what indeed? If only we knew.’

  ‘I’m sure you do know.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I don’t. I am not going to talk about it until I know you’re on board. The situation is still developing. I can arrange for the Questore to give you time off, or, if we go down the official route, I can get the Prosecutor General to sign off on your temporary transfer of jurisdiction. If I were you, I’d take the time off. You get paid, and that can be topped up with some travel expenses.’

  ‘Where would I be travelling to, Naples, Calabria?’

  ‘I can’t say until we’re agreed. I can say, however, this could open a whole new career for you.’ Massimiliani strode over to the door and looked again at the suitcase. ‘Looks to me like you are already packed and ready to go.’

  Massimiliani opened the door. ‘Monday morning, nine o’clock, Polo Tuscolano Operations Centre. Go in the north gate. Use my name. If you’re there at seven, you’re there. If not, no problem. You decide.’

  13

  Saturday, 29 August

  Milan

  It was after watching the girl waiting for the number 45 bus climb into the car for the fiftieth time that Magistrate Francesco Fossati suddenly realized why he had been doing this. With a knot in his stomach in case he was too late, he called up the police at the Monforte-Vittoria station immediately and ordered them to sequester all the video recordings from the office building for the previous weeks, only to be told, with a certain tone of disdain, that this had already been done. An hour later, he and an inspector were sitting in his office watching grainy images of the girl as she left the sports centre every other weekday at the same time.

  Teresa Resca had been going to the swimming baths on Via Piranesi on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays ever since she finished school in June. She took the 45 bus from her house in San Donato at around two and took it back again at around four. It was almost a door-to-door service, but, to be safe, her father sometimes liked to meet her as she got off and walked back to the house through a narrow, isolated orchard path leading to the apartment block. She always phoned as the bus was drawing close to home. If he could not make it, then she took the long way round, increasing her walk by five minutes. When she failed to call or show up, they called the police immediately.

  The father said he knew who it was, what they were doing, why they had done it, and as the investigation moved forwards, it looked like he was right. Giovanni Resca published essays, wrote a blog, gave talks and even put on earnest theatre performances, all for the sake of alerting the Milanese to the fact that the Ndrangheta was very much among them. He had received so many threats from the very start that over a period of five years of campaigning journalism, he had made the fatal mistake of becoming almost blase. He thought they might kill him, because this is what they had threatened, but they had never threatened his wife or their one child. Then the threats stopped, along with Giovanni Resca’s embryonic career in journalism. Branded an agitator, his shows of political satire drew shrinking audiences to ever-smaller venues and newspapers stopped publishing his articles. The upside was that the threats dried up along with his work.

  The magistrate had been true to his word and conducted a ruthless and invasive but quick and efficient line of inquiry that day by day rapidly extinguished theories of kidnapping for ransom, incest, fraud, substance abuse and voluntary flight and elopement until they were left with two options: what the father had been saying all along, which many of the police thought improbable and a symptom of his deluded tendency to see the Ndrangheta everywhere, or a random snatch of a young girl by sex traffickers or a killer. None of the endings was going to be good, and yet the parents still seemed so hopeful it was almost irresponsible of them. Despair was better than hope, he knew; but his job was to bring home a body.

  ‘Watch the woman,’ the magistrate told the inspector. ‘You never see her properly because the camera’s too high and far away, but from the dyed-yellowish shade of the hair, the shape of the body and the way she moves, I could tell it was the same person. The technicians agree with me.’

  The woman had turned up four times in a row and stood waiting at the bus stop with Teresa. They could be seen chatting a little. She was always there at the same time as Teresa. Possibly they chatted in the bus together. Together, they watched new video footage from the San Donato metro station, the terminus of the number 45 bus. Teresa got off several stops before the end of the line, but the woman, along with other passengers on their way to the metro station, stayed on to the end.

  The police had put in the hours and expertise to filter down the video to one telling moment. Helped by the absence of commuters and traffic in August, they had captured a video feed of the woman getting off the bus at the metro station, then, instead of taking the metro or another bus, she got into a car, which resembled the one Teresa was to climb into a few days later. The car could be clearly seen turning and heading back in the direction the woman had just come from. Again, the number plate proved elusive.

  ‘She did not need to make that bus journey,’ said the magistrate. ‘She got on that bus specially to be with Teresa.’

  The inspector nodded in agreement. ‘We’re checking other cameras for that car. Eventually we’ll find it.’

  ‘What were Resca’s articles about?’

  ‘Money laundering, construction companies and the financial crisis.’

  ‘And he loses his child for that?’

  ‘Giovanni Resca wanted his voice to be heard. He wanted people to read his articles and hear his truth. Now, with politics on vacation, every national newspaper and even the foreign press are following this story, and linking it to Resca’s articles, talking about his shows and his leftist politics. He got the fame he wanted and lost his child.’

  ‘We can’t find any connection to the woman. No one has any idea of who she might be,’ said the inspector.

  ‘That’s because she is no one. Let’s say you want to abduct an innocent but not stupid girl in broad daylight, how do you do it? First, you send a woman. This woman casually stands at the bus stop and strikes up conversation, almost certainly about how slow the bus is in coming. They get on, Teresa gets off, and the woman stays on board. A few stops later, the woman gets off and is picked up by her accomplices. Next time Teresa’s at the bus stop, there’s the woman again: more friendly conversation. Now Teresa knows the woman gets off at a later stop. One more meeting, more friendly conversation, by now they may be on first-name terms. Then, in for the kill. The woman is there chatting away, a car pulls up, and, why, a stroke of luck, it’s a friend who has
spotted her there at the bus stop, offers her a lift home. The woman accepts and is halfway into the car when — where are her manners? — she extends the offer of a lift to Teresa. The driver, a friendly type, could even be another woman, has no problems with this: they’re going past Teresa’s house anyhow, as Teresa knows. In she gets. Fourteen years old, never harmed anyone, still full of trust and hope.’

  14

  Resca, G. (2009, July 30).

  How the Ndrangheta saved the banks: an analysis by Giovanni Resca, Il Manifesto, pp. A1, A6

  OSINT stands for Open Source Intelligence. It refers to the sort of information you can pick up in the public domain just from reading government papers, chamber of commerce records, company balance sheets, newspaper articles, planning permission applications, land rezoning agreements and local news. It is what we journalists used to do all the time, but now we prefer to be spoon-fed, and like fat, coddled toddlers, we accept digestible pap from the corporations and government. But who makes the pap? Someone has to produce it, and make it easily digestible and even tasty for a gullible public. The pap-makers may deserve censure for what they do, but they are today’s true journalists. Often venal, calculating and dishonest, always inventive, they are the great storytellers of our time. First, they plant their memes, their exposes, distractions, half-truths or downright lies, then they build a narrative around them. They are the world’s secret artists.