Bitter Remedy (30 page)

‘I try not to drink spirits, and if I start, I don’t think it’ll be with beech brandy,’ said Blume.

‘Well, you should. It’s a remedy against hypercriticism, arrogance, bullying, and rigidity.’ She took another glass and put about two fingers of what looked like ordinary water into it. ‘I am adding some mimulus against fear of the unknown, and mustard. It acts against melancholy. Here.’

He sniffed it and wrinkled his nose at the faint stench of water left in a vase full of dying flowers. ‘I’ve just had that green juice.’

‘That was to refresh you. This is to cure you.’

‘I don’t need curing.’

She held out another jar: ‘Honeysuckle for nostalgia. Do you want some of this, too?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Blume drank his concoction. It was not as bad as he thought. Slightly sweet, flowery, the water a tiny bit brackish. He gulped it down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Silvana, I have also been filling a notebook with a story you need to read. But I don’t want us to do it here.’

‘Wait. Have some more of this.’

‘I don’t need any more, thanks,’ said Blume.

‘You don’t need to drink it.’ She took another bottle, uncorked it, and inhaled, then held it out to him. ‘Just smell that.’

Blume inhaled. The scent was slightly medicinal, sharp, earthy, and filled him with an unexpected longing for something he could not even identify.

‘Like it?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s heather. There is a tiny patch of it in the cold garden. It cures loneliness.’ She inhaled it, too. ‘We both need it.’

‘Silvana? We need to go. You can help me find Niki.’

‘Wait, this concoction here . . .’

‘I am not interested in . . .’ A slight clink came from the shelf as a light tremor caused two bottles to touch and the wooden floorboards behind him creaked.

He turned round at the same time as Silvana cried out, ‘Papà!’

Silvana’s father was standing behind them.

Chapter 29

Domenico Greco held only a trowel in his hand, but he was doing his best to make it look as threatening as a pistol.

‘There you are, Greco,’ said Blume, surprising even himself at how calm sounded.

Greco turned to his daughter. ‘Go up to the town. Fetch the chicken wire I ordered from the hardware store. Stay for lunch. Go up to where the fire brigade are trying to retrieve a body. Talk to people. Be seen.’

‘But . . .’

‘
Silvana!
’

For a moment she seemed to stand her ground, and he tried a more conciliatory approach. ‘It will be all right. Mr Blume and I can go into the orchard, and pick some nice salad ingredients, and maybe some fruit. He looks like a man who could do with some sunshine and good food. Silvana,
dolcezza mia
,’ repeated her father, ‘
ora
?’

Before leaving, she touched him on the arm. ‘Thanks for everything you have tried to do, Alec.’

‘That’s all right. I haven’t quite finished yet, I’m afraid.’

‘Well, you should. You have done too much already.’ She grabbed a straw bag with a red flower from the back of a chair and slung it over her shoulder. ‘My shopping bag,’ she said, apologetically. ‘Natural fibre, reusable, and completely impractical. Bye, Alec.’ She gave him a sad smile and left.

Greco laid down the trowel on a bench. ‘Let’s wait till she’s gone, all right?’

‘Fine by me,’ said Blume. Minutes later, a car engine started up, the gravel crackled, there was a slight swish as the tires found purchase, and then the engine faded. Something about her going was final, and something in her reactions had been wrong. He needed to think about it, but he had Greco to deal with again, and, truth be told, he was feeling very weak. Half his medicine was still in his room. He took out a blister packet from his inside pocket and, without quite checking what it was, popped out a pill.

‘Shall we step outside?’ said Greco.

‘Fine,’ said Blume. ‘Let me just get some water. I’m suddenly very thirsty.’

‘Always thirsty,’ said Greco. ‘Same as last time.’

Blume walked out of the long room into the antechamber, full of its baskets of dried petals, the sewing machine, the potter’s wheel, the potpourris, and its dark corners. He glanced at the old keys hanging on a nail in the wall. Instinctively, he grabbed them.

‘What do you want those for?’ said Greco. ‘Those are Silvana’s keys for the villa. We’re not going there.’

Blume kept his back to Greco, listening to the rhythm of the footsteps behind him, giving the man plenty of time to make his move. The rhythm changed just before he reached the door. Blume, strangely calm, as if he were controlling the entire scene from above and was almost neutral to the fate of the two characters below, swung round quickly, or as quickly as he could manage, and rushed Greco from the side, just as the old man was pulling a break-action double-barrelled shotgun from below an old wooden barrow laden with sachets of lavender. Blume tossed the keys, grabbed the two barrels, jerked the weapon out of the old man’s grasp, and then reversed his movement so that the butt went in hard against Greco’s jaw. Greco sat down suddenly on the floor. Blume spun the weapon round, slapping the stock with his hand as he did so. Quickly he shouldered it, then, finger on the trigger, crouched down so that the muzzle was inches from Greco’s eye socket. The old man hardly flinched. Blume retrieved the ring of keys.

‘Stand up,’ ordered Blume.

Greco sat there in defiant silence.

‘What were you thinking?’ asked Blume.

‘I forget how old I am. You’re not so snappy either, Commissioner. It’s not loaded. I just did it for effect.’

Blume stepped back a few paces and broke open the action. Empty. He threw the gun aside. His finger had started to bleed again.

‘Come here.’ He patted Greco down. No weapons, no shotgun cartridges even. Blume sucked his finger. ‘What was the point of that?’

‘People reveal their true natures under the barrel of a gun. I wanted to see what you really want, and I didn’t want to waste time. Things are moving fast now. You have already destroyed this world.’

‘That was a dangerous way of finding out. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for you to have come in with the shotgun already pointing at me?’

‘Not in front of my daughter.’

‘We can have a frank discussion without either of us pointing a weapon at the other,’ said Blume.

‘We are already pointing virtual weapons at each other. I can have you killed. I can have your girlfriend killed, estranged or not. I know her name. I can have your baby daughter killed. You were so intent on finding out what sort of man I used to be that it did not occur to you that I might become that sort of man again. I have been speaking to people I would rather not have spoken to again. You made me do that.’

Blume took three quick steps across the floorboards and slapped Greco across the face. He grabbed the old man by the ear and slammed his head against the floor, but his strength was fading, or else his heart was not in it.

‘You don’t care, do you Blume? I really do not want any of this to happen. Why not just let it all go?’

A wave of light-headedness washed over Blume. It was as if part of his mind had moved to a position somewhere behind him and was now observing the person called Blume with ironic detachment. ‘Let’s continue the conversation outside,’ said Greco. ‘I have something to show you.’

‘Don’t get any ideas,’ Blume warned him.

The sun reflected harshly off the white pebble paths. He pulled out his sunglasses, which darkened the green around him to a shade of purple. The air hummed with insects and heat. Things moved in the bushes, and a thin plant of some sort was nodding and twisting all by itself, although there was no wind. The bushes creaked and the grass seemed to sigh. The birdsong from the top of the trees came from what he felt was a cooler and freer place than the one he was trapped in now.

‘Sacra Corona Unita,’ said Greco. ‘It’s not much of a mafia compared with the others. I think it’s because the ordinary citizens of Apulia have bigger balls than those of Calabria or Sicily, certainly bigger than the people of Campania who allow themselves to be ruled by the Camorra.’

‘You’re a member?’

‘No, and I never was. But I know people who are. And so does Niki.’

‘And these are the people who would kill me and Caterina and my child?’

‘They might, if I asked. They would if I could present you as a direct threat.’

‘Did you murder your wife and her lover, Domenico?’

‘I like that, you go back to the intimate first name when you ask me the question. Yes, I did.’

‘And did Niki help you?’

‘Yes. But he never knew what I had planned. He thought it would be a beating, or a warning. He had no idea.’

‘I am not sure I believe that.’

‘He didn’t know. He has been traumatized since.’

‘Poor guy. Did he help you dispose of the bodies?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘In a deep underground cave, as I think you had guessed.’

‘And why the sudden confession?’

‘Because it is all coming to an end anyhow, and because I want to ask you a favour.’

‘I am not going to give you any favours. You threatened Caterina and our child.’

‘Yes, I did, but you did not back down. So you win. You are willing to sacrifice anyone. Me, I can’t do that any more.’

‘You just threatened . . .’

‘Your Caterina and Alessia are not in any danger. I used my contacts to get their names and addresses, just to intimidate you. Like with the empty shotgun. I would never order a hit on a woman and her daughter. Do you know the story of Cincinnatus, who got total military power, then gave it all up and returned to his farm? I like that story. Cincinnatus fought his last battle against the Aequi not far from where we are standing now.’

‘You see yourself as a Roman hero?’

‘No. I only said I liked the story. For more than 20 years, I have been trying to make things right. Then along you come. Nemesis in the form of a self-righteous, washed-up . . .’

‘What’s the deal you want to make?’

‘Don’t use the past against Niki. Leave something for my daughter. Niki’s a good man. He lived with this for my sake, and he has done his best ever since, even if that does mean running coke up from Bari and feeding it to politicians. What else can he do? He has no other skills. If I go, who will look after Silvana? You are ruining her life.’

‘No, you did that.’

‘Yes, but you are finishing the job.’

They had walked deeper into the garden towards the cliff face.

‘Why would I want to do that?’

‘Human decency? Maybe if you talk to the people who have known us since that period you have been obsessing about? Look into our lives after the murder. You might see two people trying to do the best . . .’

‘Like killing Alina, and now Nadia?’

Greco stopped at a stone bench and sat down. Blume stood in front of him.

‘I don’t know what’s going on there. I asked him. It’s complicated.’

‘What is?’

‘Niki fell for Alina. That much is clear. And I was very angry with him, because his job is to look after Silvana. We discussed it. I tried to work something out, but Niki was beginning to crumble.’

‘And so you killed Alina?’

Greco reclined on a stone bench, as if to sleep. Blume reached down and shook him, then drew his hand away. The old man was bathed in sweat.

‘Yes, I killed Alina.’

‘How?’

‘Strangulation.’

‘Is that how you killed your wife?’

‘Yes,’ he let out a long soft groan.

‘Where’s the body?’

‘Deep underground in Puglia. I put her lover in a cave far away, so they couldn’t be together even in death.’

‘I meant Alina’s body,’ said Blume.

‘Does it matter?’

‘Of course it does. I don’t believe you killed Alina. Why are you lying to me?’

‘Promise me you’ll . . .’

‘I promise nothing.’

‘At least look at Niki without a filter of hate. Then decide. I wanted to show you something, Blume.’ Greco stood up, staggered, and almost fell over.

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘A righteous bully hit me over the face with the stock of a shotgun, remember? Just hold my arm, and I’ll take you to her.’

In the garden. He should have guessed. Alina’s body was probably fertilizing the lettuces that Silvana was happily eating as part of her vegan . . . it was hard work holding Greco up. It was as if the trembling in the old man was transferring itself into him, as if the weakness was spreading.

‘You don’t seem that strong either, Blume. Here she is.’

‘Alina?’ Blume looked around for disturbed ground.

‘No. Look at that statue.’

‘That piece of grey rock?’

‘Come over here, and have a closer look.’