‘That, too,’ agreed Blume, crouching down and drying his hands on his socks.
Caterina gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘Listen, that confession from Curmaci’s wife…’
‘What about it? You realize you are speaking on an open line.’
‘I know what I am doing, but are you doing what I asked?’
‘You mean helping the much put-upon wife? It’s hardly my main priority, Caterina. It’s not as if a person like that…’
But she was gone.
Blume climbed into the front of the police car, crossed his arms and sat back in his seat, resolutely refusing to join in the driver’s one or two attempts at light banter as they sped down the autostrada towards Cosenza. He wished he had a wide-brimmed cowboy hat that he could tilt down over his brow. But by dint of half closing his eyes and squinting truculently at the handbrake, he managed to impose silence in the car. Settling back in his seat and wondering why Massimiliani had stopped phoning, he almost fell asleep. Not until they pulled in under the shadow of the modern grey police headquarters in Cosenza did he bestir himself.
The driver stopped the vehicle and addressed his companion in the back. ‘Giuseppe, come round to the front seat. The commissioner gets out here.’
The policeman came round as instructed and pulled open the passenger door. Blume stepped out. The door behind him slammed and the car sped off. In front of him, standing with folded arms beside an outsized blue-and-white Range Rover with cages over its side windows and headlights, stood Captain Massimiliano Massimiliani.
43
Cosenza, Calabria
‘You have a lot of explaining to do,’ said Massimiliani. ‘But first of all, where is Konrad Hoffmann?’
‘ I have a lot of explaining to do?’ said Blume. ‘How did you get here ahead of me?’
‘Flew.’
‘Cosenza has an airport?’
‘No.’
‘A helicopter all this way just for me?’
‘Shut up, Blume. I took a chartered plane from Ciampino to Lamezia Terme, came up north by car. You’ve lost our German friend?’
‘If I hadn’t already, I would have when those two clowns picked me up at the service station.’
‘That was not my decision. They couldn’t very well leave you with that car. Come on, get in. We can talk as we get out of this horrible town.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ said Blume, looking around for the first time. ‘A bit like a seaside town without any sea. But it’s quiet and there’s plenty of parking. And it’s nice and cool because we’re actually pretty high up. So there is that.’
Massimiliani looked at him and shook his head. ‘I thought I had the measure of you, but I don’t know when you are being serious. Please don’t tell me you took this whole Konrad Hoffmann thing as some sort of elaborate joke.’
‘I didn’t take it entirely seriously, not at first. I knew you were testing me…’
‘Wait,’ Massimiliani held up his hand, ‘which direction?’
‘For what?’
‘Konrad. That’s still your mission. It’s rather embarrassing that we’ve lost him.’
‘You don’t seem that embarrassed,’ said Blume.
‘I learned about Konrad and Dagmar just before you,’ said Massimiliani. ‘If the BKA doesn’t see fit to explain what’s happening, then there is no reason we should care what happens to their agent. As long as he does not upset any equilibrium here in Italy. Wouldn’t you agree?’
‘That it serves the Germans right if Konrad gets himself killed? Maybe. But then I would have to believe you when you say you only just found out.’
‘I am telling you the truth, but whether you believe me or not is of no consequence to anyone, Blume,’ said Massimiliani.
‘I’m glad to hear you say that out loud. From the beginning you have had a restrained contempt for me, for the mission, for the Germans. For Arconti, too.’
‘Arconti’s a friend. He recommended you. Friends make mistakes.’
‘Recommended me for what, Massimiliani?’
‘For being unattached, dissatisfied with your prospects, pigheaded, occasionally unscrupulous…’
‘I was not referring to my many qualities. What was the nature of the mission?’
‘Where’s Hoffmann?’
‘Like you said, I lost him. What was the mission?’
‘To keep an eye on Konrad. So well done, there.’
They continued in silence for a few minutes until Massimiliani arrived at an intersection. ‘So, now what?’
‘Go south, back to Lamezia Terme airport,’ said Blume. ‘Then we can cut across to the east coast.’
‘You’re sure that’s where he’s headed? I mean you believe this thing about him looking for Curmaci because of a dead girlfriend from decades ago?’
‘Are you still pretending that the Germans so fooled you that you still don’t know what story to believe in?’
‘The BKA asked me to find someone to keep an eye on an agent whose business in Italy was unclear. I don’t know why they didn’t share the full story from the beginning,’ said Massimiliani.
‘Maybe they didn’t know either, which is what they are claiming after all. I mean, it must happen occasionally in your world that someone accidentally tells you the truth.’
‘Hmm. You could be right. Speaking of which… tell me how you managed to lose Konrad on the autostrada.’
‘I was never behind him.’
‘Thought not. You were carrying his phone.’
‘Yes. He left it behind. I picked it up.’
‘You were deliberately misleading me?’
‘I was,’ said Blume. He explained about Konrad’s disappearance in the early hours of the morning, the phone, his destruction of it.
Massimiliani smiled. ‘I was right about you from the get-go, Blume. You are a devious bastard: the false confession by Maria Itria, the way you walked away from an investigation you knew was going nowhere — or nowhere that would redound to your credit — the way you let Arconti misread you, the way you control what you say on the phone, your air of the innocent abroad in the Tuscolana HQ. What else have you been holding back? Last night you said something about a Madonna.’
‘A torn Madonna,’ said Blume. ‘I was going to tell you, but… you seemed uninterested.’
‘I am interested now.’
Blume told him about his search of Hoffmann’s suitcase and his discovery. He enjoyed seeing that Massimiliani, despite his job, had a lousy poker face. First his expression registered outrage at Blume’s reticence, but it was soon replaced by a hungry look as he sought more details.
Massimiliani drove on in silence for some time, then said, ‘Well, at least we know something the Germans don’t. Even if it’s not important… And presuming it’s true and you’re not making it up for some reason I cannot fathom.’
‘Now that makes me wonder how good you can really be at your job, Massimiliani. There can be no efficiency without at least a little bit of trust. If you never believe anything anyone tells you, then there’s not much point in sending people out to discover things, is there?’
‘We had no previous trust between us.’
‘And we have less now, I think,’ said Blume.
‘Not true. I still say we could work well together. Maybe I can give you some more background next time, clarify your position.’
‘Next time,’ said Blume.
Massimiliani pulled out a Smartphone, tapped it expertly and exchanged a few words with someone, organizing a meeting point and something to do with a car, and hung up.
Blume remembered the Samsung in his pocket. He took it out and set it on the seat. ‘Keep that. I’ve discovered I don’t like Smartphones. I suppose you have been listening in to my conversations with Caterina.’
‘And Caterina would be…?’
Blume laughed.
‘Oh, you mean Inspector Caterina Mattiola? No, no.’
‘Of course not,’ said Blume. It was getting hotter and clammier as they neared the coast, and the tyres rumbled and thudded unpleasantly over the pocked surface of the autostrada. He imagined Konrad in his camper, probably coming down the other side of the mountain range now, the ageing engine finally able to pick up some speed as it rolled down towards the Ionian sea, the land getting harder and rockier and dustier on the descent. That was part of the upside-down world of the Italian south. In the north, where he liked to holiday, the green was below and the land got harder as you went up, not down.