Blume was not sure what to make of the woman he was talking to, and he had a feeling he would not have been too keen on Arturo, either. She cared for politics and the environment, he for animals, neither of them for the other. That left the child as their common moral center: the child with the books in alphabetical order and the image of his stabbed father in the middle of his home.
“So you wouldn’t notice if he, say, had been coming in later than usual?”
“Not immediately, but I would probably have heard about it from Angelica or Tommaso.”
“Who’s Angelica?”
“Our babysitter-nanny, I suppose. She’s there most days.” Sveva Romagnolo allowed a note of bitterness to creep into her tone. “Or was. She seems to have been scared off. At any rate, she’s vanished.”
Blume glanced quickly at D’Amico. This could be significant.
“Vanished? The babysitter has vanished?”
“Well, no. Not vanished exactly. She phoned this morning, as a matter of fact,” said Romagnolo. “She said she needed time off to recover from the shock. As if I don’t-oh, never mind.” She brushed invisible dust from her arm, and thus dismissed the useless Nanny Angelica from the conversation.
“And what age is Angelica?” Blume wasn’t so sure he wanted the subject dropped so quickly.
“Oh, let me see… sixty-five, seventy. It’s rather hard to tell with those fat southerners.”
Nando broke his silence. “I am a southerner,” he announced.
“Indeed?” said Romagnolo. Blume had rarely heard a word that conveyed less interest.
D’Amico crossed his arms and relapsed into silence.
Blume continued to ask her about new friends, changes to schedule, strange phone calls, and she continued to tell him that she had nothing to report.
“You were in Padua with your son.”
“Yes.”
“And the idea was to spend the weekend there?”
“Yes, but I got called back for an emergency vote to be held on Monday. Berlusconi is threatening to use a confidence motion- you read the papers.”
Blume did not. He hated politics. “So you came back on Friday afternoon. Why not Saturday?”
“My son was getting bored. He’s still too young.”
“Arturo was not expecting you?”
“I made sure to phone ahead, tell him I was on my way back.”
“At what time did you phone?”
“Half past ten from Padua station.”
“OK,” said Blume. “Now, this nanny person who looks after the house. When does she come?”
“Every other day.”
“And she does all the cooking, cleaning…”
“Sometimes she cooks, but Arturo did his own cooking, too. She cleaned, looked after Tommaso.”
“She did the washing? Made the beds, changed sheets, that sort of thing?”
“Yes. She did that sort of thing.”
“Always?”
“Always.”
Blume looked back over his notes, and started asking the same questions again. When he asked her again about Arturo’s enemies, she said, “What? Weren’t you listening before? I’ve already told you all I remember.”
“Just in case you forgot someone.”
“I’m not going to repeat myself. If you weren’t listening, maybe your colleague was.” She nodded at D’Amico, who bowed his head slightly lower.
Blume stood up. D’Amico did the same and, a moment later, so did Romagnolo.
“Frankly, the political aspects are outside my competence,” said Blume.
“All I can say is that I shall be vigilant and keep you completely informed.”
Blume stuck out his hand, which she took very lightly and briefly. “I am sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
She accompanied them back in silence through the spacious living room, empty of grieving relatives and friends.
16
SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 6 P.M.
When they got downstairs, D’Amico opened the door and they walked out into a blare of cicadas. The shadows had lengthened and the light had faded, but it was still hot.
Blume looked at the cars parked on the road outside and asked D’Amico, “The Holy Ghost was not transported here by an official car, was he?”
“I hope not, because if he was, we’re not the most observant policemen in the world. He can’t have used a car from the pool, either, or you’d have recognized it.”
“You’d have recognized it, too,” said Blume, pulling out his cell phone. “I think they’ve replaced maybe two vehicles since you left.. Ferrucci?” he said into the phone. “Yes, it’s me. I need you to get me the address of Di Tivoli, Taddeo-yes that’s the one, the guy on TV
… Hold on, I’ve got D’Amico here, he can write it down for me. Via Alcamo, six. Yeah, I know the street. Thanks.”
D’Amico was looking at the address he had just written down. “Can’t say I know this street.”
“I only know it because it’s near where I live,” said Blume. “It’s a short street. A dead end, if I remember right.”
It occurred to Blume that in the three years D’Amico had been his junior partner, not once had he invited him back to the house. D’Amico was married, had two kids of indeterminate age.
They climbed into the car.
“So now we go to Di Tivoli?” asked D’Amico.
“He’s the one who made the documentary with Clemente about the dog fighting,” said Blume. “He seems like an obvious person to talk to. Unless you can think of something better.”
“Maybe we should report back to the vicequestore first,” said D’Amico.
“Sure. You do that. But first drop me off at Di Tivoli’s.”
“If I bring you there, I may as well stay.”
“So stay,” said Blume, without much enthusiasm.
D’Amico drove all the way down Via Cristoforo Colombo with his brow furrowed as if he was trying to remember something. As they passed Via Appia Antica, his countenance cleared and he said, “I know who Di Tivoli is.”
“I just said, he’s the guy made the documentary-”
“No. Before that. I remember Di Tivoli got kicked off the air around 2001 because… I don’t know, he was annoying or something.”
Blume said, “Yeah. It’s good the way there are no annoying people left on TV anymore. You sure he didn’t get kicked off air because Berlusconi and his minions came to power?”
“No, he slapped a guest or something. It’s probably on YouTube.”
“I think I might remember,” said Blume, who never watched television. “He was gay or something, wasn’t he?”
“Who? The guest? I can’t remember. Good reason for hitting him, though.”
“I meant Di Tivoli,” said Blume. “Maybe not gay, but a bit camp. Used to march around the studio trying to be outrageous.”
“No,” said D’Amico. “You’re thinking of that curly-haired queen on Canale 5. The one who’s an expert on everything. Di Tivoli is the one with the sexy girl co-host.”
“That hardly narrows it down.”
“Sexy girls with glasses,” amended D’Amico. “Leftists.”
“By leftist you mean they have brains?”
“Just glasses. Myopia, money, and attitude. But there was something else… This is it.” D’Amico parked in front of a No Parking sign attached to automatic gates.
“He’s got a garage,” said Blume. “Jesus, I’d give my right arm to have one of those.”
The main door to the building was open, and they went straight in, nodding curtly to a porter who almost challenged them. The man who answered the apartment door had ginger hair fading to gray, but a lot of it.
An unkempt tuft fell over his forehead, and he kept pushing at it with the palm of his hand, as if checking it was still there. He was wearing a blue corduroy suit, such as only a slim person should ever wear, and it looked good on him. The frames of his glasses were white. He wore suede desert boots. He was not the host Blume had been thinking of, but he was camp enough, thought Blume. It was probably a job requirement.
He did not invite them in, merely walked away leaving the door open.