Bitter Remedy (14 page)

Silvana, whose exercise book he had dropped on the ground and dirtied – he would apologize to her for this when he returned it – had no business being with Niki. The K in his name because of an Austrian Formula One pilot, the baptismal name from San Nicola of Bari, who had something to do with the original Santa Claus. A gift-giver. He thought of Alessia, who would know nothing of Santa Claus for three years or so. What would that be like, being too young to understand Santa Claus? So young she had not started to believe in what she would then have to learn to disbelieve. He felt a sudden and unexpected physical longing for his child. His muscles ached slightly at the idea of holding her tightly; his brain came up with a memory of the smell of her head, but kept it tantalizingly undefined.

Maybe he would just turn up at the door and surprise them – well, Caterina at any rate. Alessia lived in a state of perpetual wonderment anyhow at all the things she saw every day. The appearance of an occasionally present father would have to compete with the thousand other marvels she was taking in from her pushchair, a sort of mobile throne in front of which the world passed and was inspected.

He swerved hard into a bend he had not quite seen coming. He also took the next curve faster than intended. The road had no hard shoulder, just a sharp drop down a rocky embankment interrupted by a ribbon of asphalt where the road doubled back on itself below and then plunged again even more precipitously. His arms felt stiff and tired, and he wished he was at the bottom of the hill already. He glanced in his rear-view mirror. No one. He could go as slow as he wished. He pressed the brake pedal, which yielded easily, and softly sunk all the way to the floor, as if the brake pads had turned into marshmallows. The engine quietened but the car gained speed.

His first instinct was to reassert control by slamming his foot against the accelerator, and it was only with an enormous effort he managed not to do so. He pumped the brake to restore some hydraulic pressure to the callipers, but all he got was a shuddering sensation and the sound of the pads scraping against the rotor. He planted his feet on the floor and negotiated a curve by swinging all the way into the other lane. It seemed easy enough but as he was coming out of it, another curve immediately presented itself while the car did its best to keep going straight. He jerked the steering wheel and felt the back wheels slide. To his right was a drop that would kill him. To the left was the opposite lane where he might meet an oncoming vehicle at any time, but it was the only option. He allowed the car to drift sideways, aiming to hit the side of the rock bluff. Too late he realized he was travelling too fast and any impact would simply bounce him across the narrow road and down the sides of the gorge, now deeper than ever to his right.

He stood on the clutch, momentarily placing the vehicle into a terrifying freewheel descent, then slammed from fourth into third gear. He heard his father’s voice admonishing him, ‘Go down a hill in the same gear you use for going up it.’ Overcautious and fatuous advice, he had always thought, until this moment. He took another corner, with the transmission clamouring in protest. This time he did meet another car which, perhaps alerted by the roar of his engine, had almost stopped. He shot past, millimetres away, leaving the other driver honking his horn in rage at the near miss. The gradient steeper now, and the next corner swept out rightwards. He released the clutch, freewheeled into it, then crunched the gear into second. The lurch of deceleration threw him forward against the steering wheel and the back wheels spun and lost their grip. The edge of the precipice appeared below the nose of the car.

‘
Porca Madonna!
’

Some cool, dispassionate part of his mind noted with wry amusement what his final oath was likely to be. Meanwhile his hand, seemingly unguided by thought, pulled at the handbrake as if he wanted to rip it from the floor, while his other hand sent the steering wheel into a spin towards the arriving edge, a counterintuitive move that he had learned many years ago at the advanced driving course. He felt the car spin away from the edge, and slide sideways into the opposite lane, and just as he was relishing the idea of stopping, something hit the passenger door, which crumpled inwards.

The car he had hit bore the words
Polizia Provinciale
on the side along with the insignia of the province. He had bounced off the car of the local traffic police. Unexpectedly, he found himself wheezing with laughter. After reasserting some control over himself, he got out of his car and started walking up the hill. He touched his face, neck, the back of his head. Nothing, he was perfectly fine. The driver’s door of the car opened, and a
vigile
in his early forties, quite dashing in his pale blue uniform and very white shirt, got out. He was now performing the ‘I can’t-believe-this-has-happened-to-me-through-no-fault-of-my-own’ mime common to all drivers in Italy, with his dented car as his audience.

The
vigile
brought his recital of outrage to an end by crossing his arms and staring at Blume.

‘I am a colleague,’ said Blume. He did not like saying this for various reasons, one of which was that he felt superior to this man, whose job was to control the parking in a tiny town and occasionally hassle shopkeepers for permits and health certificates. Another reason was that it sounded ingratiating.

‘My brakes failed,’ he paused, noting the three yellow bars on the
vigile
’s sleeve, and added, ‘
Sovrintendente
.’

The
vigile
acknowledged the recognition of his rank with a curt nod. ‘That’s very rare.’

‘Well, it happened.’

‘Have you been drinking?’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Blume.

The
vigile
took out a pen, stuck it in his mouth, and sucked thoughtfully as he regarded Blume. ‘Since it is too early for you to have been drinking, Commissioner Blume, it must be the medication. Didn’t Dr Bernardini tell you not to drive?’

‘How do you know about Bernardini? And my name?’

‘And why should I not?’

‘Could you just check the brake cables?’ said Blume.

‘You think they were cut? That would be attempted murder. Who is trying to kill you?’ The
vigile
took the pen out of his mouth and wrote a note on a pad.

‘I misspoke, sorry. It must be the shock.’ Even so, an image of Niki sliding under his car and cutting the brake line had come into his mind.

‘If it was brake failure, rare though it is,’ said the
vigile
, ‘the fluid will have drained out from one of the bolts at the master cylinder. That’s what happens.’

‘You think?’ He was not quite ready to drop his mental charges against Niki.

The
vigile
smoked his pen and nodded. ‘Definitely. So, you ignored the warning light?’

‘There was no warning light,’ said Blume, trying to remember.

‘No warning light? So the vehicle has faulty electronics, too? Or maybe you weren’t paying attention? Let’s have a look.’

The two of them walked down to Blume’s car. Not one more vehicle had passed them in all this time, Blume reflected bitterly. Just his luck to find the one car and for that one car . . .

‘Brakes seem faulty,’ said the
vigile
who had sat inside the car and pumped the pedal for a while. ‘But I am not excluding reckless driving. Where were you going in such a hurry?’

‘Back home to Rome, only I wasn’t in such a hurry.’

From behind his back the
sovrintendente
produced Silvana’s exercise book. ‘I found this on the floor of the car.’ He opened up the first page. ‘See there? It’s written Silvana Greco. What were you doing with her exercise book?’

‘I was going to drop it off.’

‘How did it come into your possession in the first place? It’s hardly proper for a man of your age.’

‘I was just going to return it. I was enrolled in that course she was doing.’

‘What course?’ asked the
vigile
.

‘A course on Bach Flowers, herbal medicines, relaxation techniques, all that . . .’ His upper arms started itching again, and he took off his jacket to scratch, revealing hoops of sweat beneath his armpits.

The
vigile
was looking at him sceptically.

‘It’s hot. I have a rash . . .’ He took a tube of pills from his jacket and waved it at the man. ‘This helps with the rash.’ He dropped a pill into his mouth, and chewed. It tasted vile. ‘Any water?’

‘No.’

‘Never mind,’ said Blume, swallowing the bitter grains in his mouth. ‘Anyhow, as you know, the course had to be cancelled.’

‘So I heard. Come on, let’s get back for some form filling. You can have some water there.’

‘I see,’ said Blume. ‘So we’re reporting this accident in full? Wait a second. You
heard
the course was cancelled?’

‘Heard, yes. Why, am I supposed to be, deaf?’

Blume tried to recall his conversation with Silvana. The past 24 hours had been confusing. ‘It’s just that she said you or one of your colleagues closed her down. She said the ASL declared the accommodation not fit for purpose, and the Provincial Police arrived to enforce the order. That’s why she had to close the whole thing down.’

‘No. We never did that. Maybe you dreamed it, Commissioner. Come back to the office. Maybe you need to rest a little before you leave us? Also, you now have no car.’

Chapter 14

Blume spent the next hour filling in forms in the company of the
vigile
, whose name was Fabio, and a thin woman with jet-black hair, black-framed glasses, and small dark eyes who regarded him severely with schoolmarmish disapproval, though she was probably 10 years his junior, and never spoke a friendly word. He could see that Fabio was embarrassed by her hostility, but not yet ready to share a complicit rolling of the eyes with him.

It was agreed that Alfredo the mechanic would rescue his car. Fabio, if not his colleague, had turned a bit friendlier now that Blume was, in theory, accepting responsibility. It was felt his insurance should cover everything. Even poor maintenance might be forgiven, Fabio tentatively suggested, which earned him a look of contempt from the woman who, however, held a lower rank.

Blume glanced at a wall clock behind the desk. It was now past two, as if time were stretching out to make up for the smallness of the place.

Fabio followed his glance. ‘Yes, these things take time.’

‘Is there a taxi service of some sort?’

‘Paolo runs a service.’

His colleague looked up from her paperwork, and said ‘Paolo’s not available today. He is picking people up at Rome airport. The Commissioner will have to make do without a taxi.’

Fabio slapped his thigh, remembering.

‘What about a bus?’ asked Blume.

‘There is one at 10:20 every day, goes to Rome. So it’s gone. And one at 11:00 to Naples. And every weekday, but not today, because it’s Saturday, a third one goes to Pescara, though I’ve never seen anyone use it.’

‘Hotels in town?’

Fabio sucked his teeth as if witness to a near miss. ‘There
used
to be a hotel. But it closed down before I was born.’

‘You’ll just have to get someone to collect you, Commissioner,’ said the woman.

At half past two, Blume put on his orange sunglasses, left the Provincial Police office, and went to explore the town of Monterozzo.

The town was built on what was essentially a single massive boulder with a flattish top, which looked like it had been cast down from the heavens, splintering and fracturing in its lower regions when it landed. The streets, steps, alleyways, and paths followed the lines of the clefts in the rock. As the upper section of the rock was less fissured, so the number of streets and available land for building decreased. He imagined that as he moved towards the top the various streets and alleys would begin to converge. The most complex maze-like part of the town was in the middle section, where a large slab of the mountain had broken off leaving room for the town to develop a little. He decided to reach the summit to get a clear idea of the layout. On his way up, he passed by a mechanic’s shop, consisting of a garage door set in front of a natural cave.
Autoriparazioni Alfredo De Santis. Fiat e Plurimarche
. It was closed.

Blume felt an uncharacteristic longing for people, filth, and life as he passed empty house after empty house, some of them freshly plastered and clean, others in a state of decorous collapse. He continued walking upwards. This street was inhabited, just. He could tell by the potted plants, the occasional piece of furniture, or even shoes left on the porches and steps. It was like walking through people’s private homes.

The few cars around were sitting on cement platforms built to neutralize the steep gradient. Getting a car up here would be hard. The streets widened a little as the rock formed a ledge, leaving space for a few shops, including a greengrocer whose three-wheeled Ape sat outside. Although it was now 3 o’clock, the shop appeared to be open. On an impulse of pity mixed with sudden hunger, Blume went in and bought himself a bag of apples. The old man inside served him without a word, and Blume left feeling disapproved of. When he bit into his apple, it tasted of wax and flour. He bit into a second one. Same story. There were no litter bins to throw them away, though the idea of tipping the bag and watching them roll them down the street was very appealing. No one was around, no one would see. He imagined the apples bouncing up onto the porches, knocking on doors, thumping against the bodywork of the cars, rolling all the way down to the bottom of the –