When he reached his car, he delivered several hard kicks to the body and dented the door so badly that it was hard to open, which gave him an excuse to pummel it with his fists.
Blume phoned Caterina to get her to look up the Colonel’s home address. She answered with what sounded to him like the epitome of irrelevance.
“Have you seen Emma? She was supposed to get back to me, tell me about how her talk with her mother went.”
“Get me the Colonel’s address and phone straight back,” said Blume and hung up. He started driving back toward the city center, heading in the direction of his station until someone told him where to find the Colonel.
Then, clear as if a voice had spoken from the backseat, so clear that Blume checked his mirror, half expecting to see Paoloni there, grinning, whispering secrets, he realized where he was going. With a jerk of the clutch and a sharp pull on the steering wheel, he pushed the car into the left lane and accelerated hard, switching on his siren as he came racing up to within a centimeter of the car in front. He gunned the motor, wobbled the steering wheel side-to-side looking for a way around, and hit the whoop function on the siren. Reluctantly it moved away, and he went roaring up behind the next car.
On the seat next to him, his phone was ringing. He brought it up to his ear.
“We have been informed of Paoloni’s death.” It took Blume a moment to realize it was Lieutenant Colonel Faedda who was speaking. Faedda paused, and his voice took on a less official tone. “I am sorry. I understand you two were close. I have already sent two patrol cars to the Colonel’s house, but he is not there.”
“What about the Maresciallo who is always with him? Maresciallo.. ” Blume could not remember the name. Had he ever heard it?
“Maresciallo Farinelli,” said Faedda. “His house is under observation, too. We have put out a call to all units. We’re watching the airport, too.”
“And the hospitals?”
“Yes. I see you ordered the Polizia to do the same. We’ve divided the task up between us. I think it’s most likely that’s where we’ll pick them up.”
“It’s where you’ll pick up the Maresciallo,” said Blume. “He’s the shooter… Wait, what did you say the Maresciallo’s name was?”
“Farinelli. I thought you knew that.”
Blume could not believe he was learning this only now. “He’s the Colonel’s son?”
“Not his son. His nephew. Not even that. Great-nephew. The Colonel’s older brother’s son’s son.”
“Let me know when you find him,” said Blume. His phone was beeping to indicate another incoming call. He switched to it.
“Alec, I’m so sorry.” It was Caterina. He said nothing and she continued, “The Colonel lives on Via Boccea, or nearby, his address is…”
“That’s OK. I don’t need that now. He’s not there.”
“Do you… ” But Blume hung up on her, and, putting both hands on the wheel, drove hard and fast on the wrong side of the road past San Giovanni in Laterano, the car rumbling and sliding over the cobblestones. Above, the sky was blue, but in the background it was black. Outside the gates of the Irish College, a silver rain seemed to be falling sideways without reaching the ground.
As he descended toward the Colosseum, it almost became night as the clouds billowed and darkened. The background sky grew inkier. When the rain came, it would flood the streets in seconds, grease the cobbles, hollow out potholes in the asphalt, and cause three hundred or so accidents, of which five or six would be fatal. Romans can’t drive in the rain. He did not turn off the siren until he had arrived in Trastevere. He parked his car on the corner of Via Corsini and Via Lungara and started walking. Twenty meters on, sitting there in broad daylight, was the Colonel’s auto blu. Blume tried the door, but it was locked. He pulled out his pistol and rapped the side window hard. On the fourth blow, it disintegrated into thousands of glass squares. Without bothering to open the door, Blume poked his head in. There was blood still visible on the dashboard and seat fabric.
His cell phone rang.
“We got him.”
“Great. Who is this?”
“Sovrintendente Branca.” When Blume failed to acknowledge him, he added, “I’m the Sovrintendente from the crime scene. You told us to check hospitals, and you were right. A Maresciallo of the Carabiniere was transferred to Sant’Andrea for an emergency operation. He had lost a lot of blood. They radioed in the news just now. He can’t be questioned yet, the doctors say.”
“Good,” he said. But nothing felt good. He hung up and switched off his cell phone. Why wasn’t the driver’s seat pushed as far back as possible to accommodate the Colonel’s bulk? Who had driven him here?
The green door set into the high wall appeared shut, but almost collapsed as he touched it. He made a grab for it, catching it before it fell in and made too much noise. He moved slowly and quietly down the passage between the high walls on either side. The damp in the air and the heavy green of the creepers and ivy made his lungs feel waterlogged. He reached the door to the greenhouse, and eased down the handle, pausing each time it made a small click. When he had it all the way down, he pushed softly at the door, which opened with a slight creak of its hinges and scrape of its baseboard against the tiles of Treacy’s greenhouse. He stepped inside, and gently closed the door behind him.
The room was filled with a heady reek of solvents, turps, paints, paraffin, and gasoline. They were smells that always elated him, though the gasoline sounded a nostalgic note, too. He could hear voices. A woman’s voice and that of a man, not the Colonel. He drew his weapon, feeling the dry polymer grip slide a little before it found the ridges of his palm; he walked past the old-fashioned stove, and gently parted the bead curtain that led into the kitchen. The hollow beads clacked very slightly as he edged his way through the parting he had scooped out. He swept silently across the kitchen to the door leading into the living room, ready to pause and take stock. Framed there, looking straight at him, face flushed, blouse unbuttoned down to her breast, and hair askew stood a middle-aged woman he had never seen before, but who was somehow familiar. Behind her, beside the large portrait of Henry Treacy that he had last seen in the gallery, was John Nightingale, shaking his head at Blume as if…
The scene vibrated and faded as something seemed to cleave his head in two. The pain, too intense to remain in the one spot, rushed down his body, first as a boiling, then as a freezing sensation, as if the blood in his neck, spine, coccyx had turned to ice slush. He noticed his feet planted firmly on the ground, and felt pleased, especially as the ground seemed to be swinging upwards.
Another catastrophic and savage blow came racing out of nowhere, and this one frightened him, because it was the penultimate. He would not survive a third like this. He moved his hands, just for the sake of it, and felt millions of tiny spheres that tickled and jabbed his palms, like pins and needles, only more pleasant, like lying on a white sand beach, and he realized he must be on the floor already.
After what might have been several months, and certainly a good many hours, Blume was reluctant and tearful at the idea of returning. As he left the warm darkness and was dragged back into the present where unwanted light pressed hard against his eyeballs, he began to shiver. He kept his eyes shut and groaned. Distant voices gave commands, but he refused to hear them. A less distant foot gave him a kick, and he could smell the leather, the sock below. It was touch and go about weeping.
“Don’t do anything. Anything at all. I will shoot this woman straight through the forehead. Did you call any backup?”
Blume opened his mouth to reply, not sure what he intended to say. It made no difference since the words that came out were incomprehensible even to him.
“Speak in Italian,” ordered the Colonel. “But I’ve got your phone. Last call you made was almost an hour ago. Last one you received was twenty minutes ago. It looks like no one else is coming.”
Blume said something else, and lay there wondering what it was. Water, perhaps. He may have asked for water.
The Colonel ordered him into an armchair. For a while he failed to understand the idea, since he could not see any armchair, then the Colonel’s foot showed it to him. When he finally located it, cracked, leathery, and inviting, he was moved to great gratitude and crawled over, and heaved himself into a sitting position.
Reality continued to impinge upon his senses. A deep pain began not where he had been hit, but in a fold in the center of his brain, and pulsed outwards.
This is going to be some motherfucking headache.
“If you don’t stop bleeding soon, you won’t feel it for long,” said a voice with an accent.
“Speak in Italian you two,” ordered the Colonel.
Blume frowned. He was speaking his thoughts. He peered across the room. Nightingale was still there, so was the woman. They were still framed in the same taut, expectant pose they had had when he came into the room all that time ago. He put his hand to the back of his head and dabbed it in his soaking wet hair. If he had been bald like the Colonel, maybe all the blood would have flowed away and he would be dead.
Thank God for hair. He felt tears of joy.
“I seem to have knocked you stupid, Commissioner,” said the Colonel, who was holding his pistol upwards, almost as if he intended to put it into his own mouth. “Try to talk sense. Why are you here alone? You always need at least one other person to help you. I’m without my Maresciallo, and it’s almost impossible. Luckily, these two were together when I found them at Nightingale’s apartment. Then we traveled over to the gallery to pick up Treacy’s flattering portrait of himself. Nightingale was kind enough to do all the driving.”
Blume looked at the portrait again. The face had been scrubbed and dissolved away, the blond hair remained. He looked at another painting, lying discarded on the floor, a colorless smudge running diagonally across its surface. There was another and another. Paintings from the gallery, from Angela’s house, from here. Beside them, in an ignored pile, were the charcoal cartoons, pen and wash sketches, and drawings. Simple, direct, to the point and without layers. They were incapable of hiding anything beneath, and Blume felt a rush of affection for them. In the end, they were better than all the paintings. These preparatory sketches showed hope, potential, freedom.
The Colonel walked into the middle of the room and raised his pistol and pointed it directly at the woman. “I gather you two have never met. Alec, this is Angela, Emma’s mother, the failed artist and woman of easy virtue. I found her with John cuckold Nightingale here at his house. It’s funny that we know more about Treacy and Angela fucking than anyone else, except for Angela, of course. John here, his eyes have been opened to the ways of the world. We have just a few more of these to get through. Though I am not hopeful.”
It had turned dark. Angela was working in a pool of light cast by two standing lamps. She took a wad of cotton balls from the table. From the floor in front of her she picked up a bottle of solvent and drenched the cotton and her hands in it, filling the room with a sharp scent, then made a swipe at the picture on the easel. On the first pass, the canvas merely glistened as if another coat of varnish was being applied, on the second it dulled, and on the third she left a messy streak. She concentrated on the lightest part, rubbing at it. Outside the thunder rumbled, and Blume remembered why it should be so dark.
“See, she’s as keen as I am,” said the Colonel. “OK. Switch to kerosene now, sweetie.”
Blume planned ahead, making sure what he was going to say would come out right. “You really think you’ll find a Velazquez under one of those paintings?” he asked.
“I said my hopes were fading on that front,” said the Colonel. “But if not, I am going to talk to you about it after we’re done here.” He gestured at Angela. “Look at that woman. She used to look like she stepped out of Filippo Lippi’s Annunciation. Her daughter does not resemble her. Her daughter was the spitting image of Treacy, whose youthful face I just allowed Nightingale here to cancel. Very symbolic that.” He looked over at Angela. “Or do you object to being objectified?”
“You’re the one with the gun,” said Angela.
“Well observed. Dear God, these fumes are going to my head. Commissioner, aren’t you going to try to rush me or something heroic? You need to make up for that pathetic entrance. Nightingale, John, throw that piece of shit aside, we can see nothing lies below. Try that one there, the over-darkened portrait of a woman. It looks suspicious. It also looks highly glossed and hardened. Start with sandpaper, then the solvent.”
“Why are you here, Colonel?” said Blume. “Why didn’t you take the paintings and flee to somewhere safe, check them at your leisure?”
“I cannot abandon my Maresciallo. What do you take me for? Also, you seem to be laboring under the illusion that I need to flee, Commissioner.”
“Oh, trust me on this. You need to,” said Blume. He was thinking straight and remembering now. The dribbling at the back of his head had stopped, the throbbing was waiting for another time, and the image of Paoloni was pin sharp.
“Remember Craxi?”
“I remember Craxi,” said Blume.
“What was his big mistake?”
“It’s hard to know where to begin,” said Blume.
“Cowardice,” said the Colonel. “He fled the country to hide in Tunisia and spent the next few pathetic years of his life threatening his former political allies. He died with a whimper. The politicians he was threatening, people like Andreotti, Cossiga, Berlusconi, Forlani, Amato, they stayed behind. Within a few years they were all back in power, and he was dead. He did carry out his threat to tell all, by the way, but we simply made sure no one was listening.”
“What’s your point, Colonel?” Blume figured he could reach the pistol in three moves. If he saw a way of reducing it to two moves, he’d try. Then, with a shock, he recognized the pistol the Colonel held was his own. That decided him.
“My point is as long as I stay here, I’ll triumph. If I flee, I fail. Once I leave the country, I lose leverage and power. I am not even sure any painting is so valuable as to compensate for that loss.”
“You killed a former policeman.”
“Paoloni. An ex-bank guard, a criminal facilitator, a shady character. Not nearly as good at throwing off a tail as he thought he was. He brought the paintings back to his own house, which shows he had no imagination. I was there, waiting outside in the car. I didn’t kill him. That was my dear, loyal, and, for once, careless Maresciallo, who met with surprising and uncalled-for violence when all he was doing was trying to prepare the ground for negotiations.”
“If you want something done well, you’d best do it yourself,” said Blume.
“I’m still not sure of that. My Maresciallo has always served me perfectly. But you may have a point.” The Colonel looked over to the painting and moved closer to it. “Angela, use a light touch, there’s a good girl. I have a good feeling about this portrait. John, make yourself useful and stop standing there like a pointless cuckold. Give her some kerosene.”
Blume shifted his weight in his chair. If the Colonel took another step to the right, he could push himself over the arm of the chair.
He tried to move, but the Colonel leaned in toward him at the same moment and slapped him in the forehead with the side of the pistol.
The Colonel stood back, still pointing the pistol at him, his hand steady, and saying something, his voice booming but muffled and far away. Blume braced himself to receive a bullet, but the Colonel was now sitting down and wiping his forehead with the back of the hand that held the weapon. There was no question of rushing him now. No question of standing up out of this chair. The fumes in the room were choking him.
“I can read thoughts, Commissioner,” the Colonel was saying. “Your intent was in your eyes. I expected you to be more phlegmatic, even a little disinterested in the justice or the injustice of all this, instead you get whipped with your own pistol. More worrying now, isn’t it? If I’m waving yours about, maybe it’s because I am planning on using it, then ducking the blame.”
“The painting you are looking for is not there,” said Blume.
“Well now, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” said the Colonel. “Buy time. Always buy time. In this case, I believe you.”
“It’s not there.” Blume wanted to save his breath and not speak, but he needed to speak to save his life. He closed his eyes and focused on getting the right words out. “We can sit here and watch. I can’t do much else. When she has wiped the last canvas down, you’ll see I’m right. I may have bled to death by then.”
“Lean forward,” ordered the Colonel. “And a little to your left. Do it.”
Blume did.
“Not that much blood behind you. Where is the hidden painting?”
“Hidden.”
“Yes, yes. Predictable to the end, Commissioner. Hey, cuckold, where’s the Velazquez?”
“What Velazquez?” said Nightingale. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“John,” said the Colonel. “You and I go way back. Mid-seventies. You know I am capable of killing this woman. Perhaps that would please you, now that you’re finding out what sort of person she is. She came around to your place this morning to confess, didn’t she?”
Nightingale nodded.
“Do you want me to shoot her dead now?”
“No!”
“Weak. You always were weak. You’re not a father. You’re not a husband or a lover or an artist. You’re not a man. Treacy was strong, honest. No, I exaggerate, no point in sentimentalizing his memory. He was not in the slightest bit honest, but if he was here now, he would be lying there dead, or I would be lying there dead. One of us, because he would not have allowed me to talk to him or his woman in this way. I forgot that there is no reason you would know of the Velazquez, but Henry found one. He didn’t tell you that either. Work out where it is. I give you three minutes.”
“A Velazquez, Harry? Look, Harry and I, we used to come across a lot of really stupid stuff. There is so much bad art, you know? Old and black and cracked with a whitish face of some unknown, bourgeois non-entity painted by a talentless hack, and people think it’s an heirloom worth millions. Just because it’s old, doesn’t mean-Trees are older. Rocks are older. No, sorry, I must organize my thoughts.”
“I’ll point the pistol at the dazed Commissioner, if that calms you a little,” said the Colonel.
“Colonel, you remember how we did the double-bluff stings? Harry would do a fine forgery using original paper, careful signatures. Then, when it was quite done, he would paint over it. To make sure we were caught, he had to allow the new paint to be too soft, or he’d use an anachronistic color. But the forgery underneath would be of a relatively important painter only. Or a scuola. We never stretched credibility. It is unthinkable he would hide a Velazquez in this way.”
“John, John, you’re not following. This time he would be hiding it to hide it, not to have it discovered.”
“No, I’m not following. Harry would never have painted over a work by Velazquez.”
“So where would one be, if he had it?”
“Here?” said Nightingale. “Or in a bank vault. I really have no idea.”
With a soft sigh, the Colonel stood up, glancing down affectionately at Blume as he passed by. “Come here, John,” he said, making a coaxing motion with his left hand, keeping the pistol trained loosely on Blume.
Nightingale came over, an uncertain smile on his lips as he continued to explain. “So the dealer thinks he’s discovered an authentic painting, you see, and accepts my suspiciously low asking price for the alleged Bronzino or-?”
“Yes, yes. I know all this stuff. It has nothing to do with this. Now I want you to think about three things I know. Put your hands down by your side, and close your eyes while I tell them to you.”
Nightingale closed his eyes, but they flickered open immediately.
“No, relax and listen. Henry Treacy continued to fuck Angela and neither of them told you until Angela decided to confess this morning, when she had no choice. No, no. Keep your eyes closed. The daughter you thought was yours is his, and he knew who she was from the moment she arrived in the gallery. Now please, don’t open your eyes in surprise when I say she is in some way responsible for his death. Good. And the last thing is that Treacy discovered an original painting by Velazquez, and had you buy it, then hid it from you for years. Can you remember the time he asked you to bid for a painting?”
Nightingale nodded.
“Can you remember how big it was?”
Nightingale stretched out his arms, drew a rectangle in the air. “Not so big. About 170 by 90 centimeters.” He widened his arms, “Maybe a bit more. 200 by 100.”
“Excellent.” The Colonel took a step closer. “Now are you still thinking about what I have just told you?”
“Yes.”
“Including the cuckolding and the deception?”
Nightingale nodded.
“Good. Keep thinking of that.”
The Colonel, standing about half a meter away now, raised his pistol, and shot Nightingale through the ear.