The Memory Key (24 page)

Marcelli, who had missed Stefania’s aside and wink, grabbed his arm and propelled him across the room hard enough to make Blume consider retaliating with his fist. ‘There is no point in engaging in any conversation with her. I mean, none that will lead you anywhere. Are you trying to find out who shot her?’

‘Are you trying to stop me?’ asked Blume.

‘It was probably a family member of one of the victims, wasn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Blume. ‘It almost certainly was not.’

‘If it wasn’t a revenge attack, then it is likely she was shot by a former
camerata
,’ said the doctor. ‘Or some neo-Fascist organization. Perhaps it was some organ of the secret state, someone connected with the police or the secret services, am I right?’

The doctor stood back looking pleased with himself, as if he had just proved that for someone like him, investigation was child’s play.

Blume knew he should just ignore it, but the moral contradiction in the doctor’s reasoning annoyed him too much. ‘Let’s admit the possibility that a former right-wing terrorist – no, scratch that – a still active right-wing terrorist, or a person with such sympathies, got wind that Stefania was planning to confess and took action to stop her. But what if Stefania has repented? Perhaps she was finally persuaded by the plight of the families and wanted to tell what she knew. You need to allow for these possibilities, too.’

‘Unlikely though they are.’

‘Unlikely though they are,’ Blume conceded.

‘Look, Commissioner, first of all, remember what she did. Secondly, I am not treating her harshly. At least she serves as a lesson for my students. A lab rat, basically, which is a fitting end for her.’

‘
Ammazza
, you have got a lot of hate, Professor.’

‘No, she’s the one who hates. Or hated.’

‘What sort of tricks do you get her to perform for your students?’

‘We show her a complicated diagram and ask her to draw it. Every time the diagram seems new to her, and yet her ability to copy it is improving. Her semantic memory is blown, but her procedural memory works just fine.’

‘There is absolutely no point in my trying to jog her memory to find out who shot her?’

‘No.’

‘Will she live?’

‘Hospital will kill you pretty quickly, and seeing as no one even visits her, it’s hard to imagine someone being prepared to take her home. And now, I think I have been helpful enough. I try to avoid talking to policemen.’

As the doctor reached the door, Blume said, ‘You must be frightened?’

Marcelli paused. ‘Of what?’

‘Of ending up like that,’ said Blume, pointing to Stefania, who wore a mildly puzzled but friendly expression as she watched them from her bed, ‘and then of meeting someone like you.’

Chapter 25

‘Not a very nice man,’ observed Stefania, as Blume approached her bed.

‘You know him?’

‘Oh no, we’ve never met, but you can tell, even from a distance. And you are?’

‘Commissioner Blume.’

‘Pleased to meet you. I am Stefania Manfellotto.’ The name gave her pause as she said it, but then, having consulted with some functioning part of her mind, she nodded confidently to find herself confirmed in herself.

The hand she proffered seemed whiter, thinner, and softer than only a few days ago. Blume took it and shook it as formally and firmly as he could, then, asking permission first, sat down on the chair at her bedside. The door was open and people passed in the corridor, but no one looked in.

‘I am not a doctor.’

‘Oh, I know that!’

‘How?’

‘You can tell, even from a distance.’

‘Can you guess what I am?’ asked Blume, suddenly interested.

‘You are not a family man. That is obvious. Also, you have no ring. You are taller than most Italians of your age, so I think your parents may have been from northern Europe or America. You have pale skin and eyes that change from blue to green, depending on the sky. Not many professional foreigners settle in Italy, so they may have been artists or scholars, and you may have followed in their footsteps. You dress slightly differently, too. I notice you don’t care for your shoes, which is a sign of a non-Italian, and you speak with a very precise manner, though without an accent, so if you were not born here, you have been here for a long time. I think you have problems in your family. Maybe your mother has died recently? You close your eyelids slowly, which means you are sad, but I don’t know if that is always or just now. When you sat down you were angry with someone, but you are not now. But when you were sitting down I saw a holster, but I don’t think you enjoy . . . you need to . . . What
you
need to do, before it is too late.’

Blume leaned in to the bed. ‘What do I need to do before it is too late?’

Stefania pushed her head back into the pillow, and he pulled back again, apologizing. She blinked, and smiled at him.

‘You were saying, what I needed to do?’ prompted Blume.

‘What do you need to do?’

‘I wanted you to tell me that,’ he said. He looked at her face, which was gazing at him with patient indulgence.

‘You have the look of a man who has forgotten what he was going to say,’ said Stefania. ‘That happens to me sometimes.’

‘Not all the time?’

‘Oh, no. Not all the time. I’m Stefania, by the way.’

Blume sat back in his chair, and pushed his feet out and realized the room had grown dark.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Stefania. ‘You seem a bit down.’

‘I’m fine,’ said Blume. ‘Look, you know we are in a hospital?’

She looked around her, a slight look of disapproval clouding her face. ‘Yes. I suppose I knew that.’

Blume decided to give one more shot at an idea he no longer believed in. ‘Someone put you here. Someone tried to hurt you. They tried to kill you.’

As soon as he said it, he regretted it. Stefania’s face was contorted in fear and she jerked her arm out of the bed, seeking to grab hold of him. Even as he took her hand and reassured her she was safe now, he could feel the fear beginning to subside.

‘It’s OK. That’s not really what happened. It was an accident, probably.’

Stefania looked relieved. But he had to continue, just to make sure Zezza was not right. It would be hard to take that, Zezza being right and him wrong.

When he reckoned she was calm enough again, he said, ‘If I ask you the name of a friend or enemy, who comes immediately to mind?’

A sly expression stole fleetingly across her face. ‘I have friends and enemies in abundance.’

‘All right, how about Professor Pitagora?’

‘Who is Pitagora? Apart from the triangle guy and music philosopher.’

‘You have always known him. You knew him in 1978.’

‘No.’

Blume realized his mistake. ‘He was not known as Pitagora then, was he?’

‘Who?’

Blume recalled the name Principe had told him. ‘Pinto.’

‘Pasquale Pinto?’

‘Yes. That’s him.’

Stefania frowned as if trying to conjure up something, but all she came out with was, ‘Pasquale is a sort of friend. Pasqualino. We called him that even though he was older than us. He has quite a high-pitched voice.’ Her voice took on a confiding tone, and she winked at him again. ‘He has a lot of money, you know. All from his father.’

‘Pasqualino’s my friend, too,’ said Blume. ‘But can we trust him?’

Stefania narrowed her eyes as she looked at Blume, then, apparently finding him to her liking, said, ‘Pasqualino is an envoy.’

‘An envoy?’

‘He passes from one side to the other. He is guaranteed safe passage. It’s how we keep in contact with the authorities. Of course, no one likes him!’ She added this last remark as if Blume had just suggested the preposterous opposite.

‘Can we trust him?’ asked Blume

‘He believes only in himself.’

‘Is he dangerous?’

‘Who are we talking about here?’

‘Why, Pasqualino, of course,’ said Blume.

Stefania thought about this for a while, then said, ‘When I talk about him, I want to be scrupulously fair.’

‘Absolutely,’ agreed Blume, wondering if what he was doing had any practical value whatsoever.

He waited.

And waited.

‘You were saying about Pasqualino Pinto?’

‘Ah, Pasqualino! You know his father left him a lot of money?’

When the woman before him murdered a waiting room full of people, her accomplice was Adriano Pazienza. Like her, he was tried three times before receiving a conviction that was surrounded by controversy and obfuscation. Reporters, especially on the left, liked their conspiracy theories. They were less interested in the facts, which were set out quite plainly in the trial papers. Like most investigative work, court proceedings were dull. It was more fun to invent theories.

‘What do we think of Adriano?’

‘Adriano?’

‘Pazienza.’

‘I know who you mean, but I don’t understand why you’re asking.’

‘You think it’s pretty clear-cut?’ suggested Blume.

Stefania looked at him so sharply that he was convinced for a moment that she was faking everything. Then she said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t quite place you.’

‘My name is Alec Blume.’

‘Pleased to meet you. My name is Stefania.’ She offered him her soft hand, this time looking in dismay at her own frail wrist. She looked around in confusion as an electronic trill spiked the air between them. ‘What’s that noise?’

‘It’s for me,’ said Blume, and to Stefania’s utter astonishment, he pulled something out of his pocket, opened it, and spoke into it as if this were a perfectly normal thing to do.

But he was having difficulties with the machine in his hand, or he could not hear properly, because he was asking the person on the other end of the line to repeat what he was saying, and still he seemed to have difficulty following. He folded away the phone and turned his face briefly towards her. The roll-down shutters at the window shuddered in the wind, and suddenly it was raining loudly. The room was too dark to see his features clearly but she could feel the aura of fear and anger around him. She knew it was not directed at her, and she felt sorry for the man who was now turning away from her and rushing out of her presence, his face a mask of anxiety.

Chapter 26

Blume headed across town from one hospital to another, and when he reached his destination, he found he had no memory of the trip he had just made. Panebianco was waiting for him in the main lobby. Blume appreciated the gesture. It saved him the necessity of seeking out someone to ask where to go, and someone else to tell him what was happening. In fact, from the second he saw Panebianco’s face, Blume knew he could relax a little. Panebianco looked grave, but not stricken.

‘This way.’ He led Blume upstairs and down corridors. The walk had a surreal quality to it. The air in the hospital, passed through the mouths of patients and their visitors, lost most of its oxygen content and grew heavier and warmer as they went deeper into the building. The panic in his soul was becoming swamped with a sense of lethargy.

After what seemed like an hour, Panebianco stopped and said, ‘There.’

The door in front of him was definitely closed to casual visitors. It even looked as if it might be locked.

Blume made to push it open, then stopped. ‘How … ?’

‘She is going to be OK. Don’t worry. You can’t talk to her, though. They have administered a general anesthetic, but she’ll wake up soon. Those are the doctor’s words.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘I got here about twenty minutes after she was admitted.’

‘I mean how do you know she is going to be all right?’

‘The doctors told me.’

‘And you believe them?’

Panebianco nodded firmly. ‘Absolutely. I trust doctors when they are being optimistic. Pessimism is the default mode, you see. If they say things could go wrong and they do, then they were right all along. If they are wrong and everything goes fine, you are so thankful you forgive their miscalculation.’

Panebianco was still talking and Blume tried to tune in, but found a single large thought sat sideways across the front of his brain blocking his ability to take in information. He had to dislodge it first before he could hope to be of any use.

‘Where was she?’

Panebianco said something unconnected with the question, so Blume repeated it. Finally, Panebianco stopped talking and peered at Blume as if only now realizing that he had not been listening. But suddenly the words were devastatingly clear.

‘She was talking to a witness who had decided to retract his testimony in the road rage case,’ said Panebianco. ‘The witness who said he saw Adelgardo Lambertini run over the scumbag.’

Blume gave a tight nod. The back of his neck hurt and his brain felt as if it had shrivelled and hardened inside his skull.