Gallone was gone.
“Nando, I need your cell number, if it’s changed,” said Blume.
“No, same as it always was.”
“So is mine. Then you’ll need to get Paoloni’s and Zambotto’s, give them yours.”
“Will do.”
“And then you should leave so we don’t compromise the scene with too many people.”
Gallone was amongst them again. “I forgot to mention an important detail, Commissioner. It’s about a cell phone. Sveva Romagnolo, the poor widow, left her cell phone behind, and wants it back. It has important government and Political contacts and names on it. I was wondering had you seen it.”
Only Gallone could not know a cell phone at a murder scene was one of the first things to be taken by the technicians.
“The UACV will have removed it.”
Gallone clicked his tongue in irritation. “I know that they would have if they found one, but they say they never found one. It’s not on the list of items removed from the scene.”
“Well if they didn’t find one, why should I?”
Gallone nodded slowly as if accepting a doubtful proposition. “It’s hardly that important. What is important is that I personally shall be interviewing the widow. In this case, I shall report to you. You are not to importune the widow. Understood?”
Gallone was gone. D’Amico stood for a whole minute, sulking but splendid in his golden suit. Then he too left.
4
FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 5:45 P.M.
After Gallone and D’Amico had left, Blume and Paoloni went over to examine the grocery box. The masking tape that had held the flaps closed was slit neatly down the middle. Blume looked through the contents. Weetabix, organic apples, fair trade cocoa, bananas (one of them becoming spotted), jam, basmati rice, toothpaste. At the bottom, he found the receipt. It showed a total of a113.23, and thirty-seven items, each listed by name. The time and date stamp showed Thursday, August 26: 17.23.
Blume started removing the contents and setting them out on the floor. He counted thirty-four items in all.
“How many did you get?” he asked Paoloni.
“Thirty-five.”
Blume went into Clemente’s study and found a Staedtler felt tip, and came back with it. As he returned the groceries back to the box, he marked them off against the receipt. Paoloni had been right: thirty-five items. When everything was back in, he discovered that two listed items seemed to be missing: one jar of Nutella (400 g) and one of “Crema arach” (250 g). Peanut butter! So they sold peanut butter in the shops up here. Maybe he’d buy some. His father had been a great believer in the goodness of peanut butter. Sometimes the three of them would make a special shopping trip to Castroni on Via Cola di Rienzo and stock up on peanut butter, Hershey bars, melting marshmallows, Jell-O, rice pudding, maple syrup, Paul Newman salad dressings, Mexican tortilla chips and taco shells, shortening, root beer, sweet mince. His mother used to be outraged at the prices, but in those days it was the only store in Rome that sold what his father always called “luxury western items,” making the same joke each time they went.
Zambotto appeared and announced he was leaving to question the residents. Blume told him to get five uniformed officers to help him and work in three teams of two. As Zambotto was leaving, the investigating magistrate, Filippo Principe, entered. Principe paused to salute the departing policeman, who gave a half grunt of acknowledgement.
The magistrate, fifteen years Blume’s senior, had a tanned, healthy look.
He was dressed in a lightweight beige suit and a sky blue shirt open at the collar. Behind round glasses, his eyes were wrinkled as if he was looking into the sun.
He came over, and he and Blume shook hands, something they only ever did at the opening or the closing of a new case. Principe nodded courteously to Paoloni who appeared behind Blume. Blume told Principe what he had found out so far, which did not amount to much.
“You’re looking well,” said Blume. “For an old man.”
“I managed to get away,” said Principe. “Two weeks in Terracina. Three days on the beach in the company of my daughter’s son. What do you say, is it wrong not to like your grandson?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“I never thought excessive coddling could produce such monsters. He pretended to drown, you know. Just to get attention. Screamed from the sea. I stayed under the umbrella, and now his mother thinks I’m.. Well, never mind.”
“For some reason, Vicequestore Franco Gallone and my old partner Nando D’Amico, now Commissioner D’Amico, if you please, were here before you,” said Blume.
“It’s a political case,” said Principe. “Gallone is taking direct orders from the questura, which is responding to the Ministry of the Interior, which has already sent your former partner D’Amico. I may have control of the investigation, but the Holy Ghost responds only to the prayers of the hierarchy, you know that. Relax.”
“This Political thing…” said Blume. “This mess here is the work of an amateur.”
“The victim’s wife is an elected MP. It’s automatically political because of the wife.”
The investigating magistrate walked down the corridor and paused above the sprawled body. He stood there in silence for a few moments, then, with a rapid hand movement that almost looked as if he was brushing away a fly or parrying a smell, made the sign of the cross. “You and Paoloni carry on,” he said. “I’ll get more details from the technicians.”
The bathroom was a mess of damp towels, talc on the floor, footprints, a bar of soap with a hair on it that the technicians had decided to leave. An embarrassment of forensic riches. A small teak cabinet was attached to the wall. Blume opened it and examined the toothpaste, mouthwashes, bandages with pictures of crocodiles, junior vitamin pills, a jar of aspirin tablets from the USA, Vic’s menthol rub, handing some of the items to Paoloni, who squinted carefully at their labels then handed them back, like an old woman checking prices in a supermarket.
A wickerwork laundry basket stood in the corner. Blume pulled up the lid. A set of sheets lay on top. He pulled them out and wrinkled his nose slightly against the light gust of urine and sock sweat. He rifled through the clothes, picking out a tiny pair of light blue mud-caked children’s socks. It seemed impossible that feet could be so small. He went into the bedroom.
The umbrella pine outside the bedroom window filtered the sun. The white walls were cool to the touch and left a chalky dust on his gloves as if slightly damp. He looked at the split mattress, the clothes scattered on the floor.
“Women’s underwear,” said Paoloni, still following him.
“Call the investigating magistrate in here,” ordered Blume.
“What do you think of that?” asked Blume when Principe and Paoloni appeared at the bedroom door. He pointed to the bed sheets on the floor.
“The doer was looking for something, messing with women’s underwear. We’ll probably get samples off them,” said Principe.
“I was referring to the sheets.”
“What about them?”
“They’re still folded, or almost. Look.” Blume went over, picked up a sheet, smelled it. “Fresh.” He unfolded it. The fabric was ironed flat, the creases sharp. “Someone was changing the bed.”
Blume continued to search. All four folding eaves of the ceiling-high pine cabinet were opened, clothes scattered here and there.
Blume pulled out the Staedtler pen and used it to lift a pair of silk underpants. He lifted them up to his face. They smelled very faintly of woman, but they also smelled of conditioner, dry-cleaning fluids, and soaps.
None of the items had been discarded there by a woman undressing. Everything else about her side of the wardrobe suggested order, cleanliness. She would not be the person responsible for strewing her clothes on the floor.
Blume put the underpants down again and ducked his head under the bed. Nothing. Not even a dust bunny.