The Namesake (23 page)

He was far too late to escape the living tide. Hundreds of rats overtook him, fanning out in front of him as if he were the pursuer and they the pursued. As he drew near the camper, gathering pace all the time, he saw Konrad leap in and slam the driver’s door behind him and vanish.

Faster rats from behind mounted the backs of the slower ones in front, sometimes leapfrogging them, sometimes tumbling in the process, causing a pile-up, into which other rats would run until three or four of them stacked on top of each other, momentarily as high as his kneecaps.

Konrad was invisible, still deaf to his appeals, so Blume adjusted his flight and headed for the side of the camper van, which he hit at full speed. The door was unlocked, but he had to stop and pull it outwards. He jumped in and kicked it closed, but had the feeling that something else had leapt in with him. He surveyed the floor, the walls, and thought he saw a movement near Konrad’s suitcases. Well, one or two rodents wasn’t a problem. He shoved his head through the curtain separating him from the cab, where Konrad lay across the two seats, as white as if he were dead. When Blume appeared, Konrad let out a low moan of abject terror, before making a slight recovery, edging himself out of his prostrate position into one that was merely slumped.

‘Keys,’ demanded Blume, climbing with difficulty through the gap and into the front.

Konrad started fumbling around in his pockets. The soft thuds against the side of the camper and the dancing and trembling sensation from the ground beneath were like heavy rain. Blume manoeuvred himself into the driver’s seat. Konrad was now waving the keys in front of him, but Blume was staring transfixed out the window. The rats had gone already, and the sea wind had snatched the toxic smoke and whipped it away into the clouds to poison the raindrops.

Blume, still pumping adrenalin and overcome with a desire to laugh and whoop, found it difficult to keep his hands steady as he inserted the key in the ignition, and started the engine. He turned the steering wheel slowly, to give any lurking rodents a chance to escape. He did not want to spare them, but he did not quite relish the idea of driving over their hunched grey backs like they were furry cobblestones. As he reversed he felt a suspicious bump under a wheel, then another.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Blume. ‘That is something else.’

Konrad was sitting up almost straight now, and was in the process of composing himself when, out of nowhere, a rat skidded across the bonnet so fast it seemed to Blume that the animal had cleared the front of the van with a single leap. Konrad screamed. Instinctively, Blume slammed on the brakes, sending himself and Konrad lurching forward against the window. The vehicle shuddered to a halt, the engine cut out, and they sat in the unexpected silence, looking at each other.

Konrad had frozen up so much that when he spoke it was almost without his lips moving. ‘Please, take me away from this place.’

Blume pulled the key from the ignition and swung the key ring on his finger, looking thoughtful.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Waiting for you to tell me what
you’re
doing in Italy, Konrad.’

25

Milan

The inspector turned on the light, which shed a blue-tinged glow  and bathed the young policeman beside him in a deathly pallor. The room contained a plastic bucket-seat chair with rusting legs, and the floor was made of unlevelled cement.

The building they stood in had belonged to the Mancuso clan, one of the principal Ndrangheta ’
ndrine
in Milan. The seizure of the property by the police was supposed to have a symbolic effect, which it did – but not the intended one. Private investors turned out to be too afraid to use the building and the City failed to do anything with it. The final message was that the Ndrangheta was stronger than the state.

‘Give the walls a kick, see if they sound hollow.’

The young policeman was more conscientious than that, and methodically worked his way across the narrow space tapping the wall every inch from bottom to top and back again. His older colleague, shamed, did the same. After ten minutes, they were pretty sure nothing was hidden behind the walls.

‘There’s some staining here,’ said the young policeman.

‘That’s just damp.’

‘Maybe, but then it has to be recent because there is no mould and I can’t smell much damp in here. Some, but not a lot. Also, there’s a patch on the floor. It’s like they hosed down the place not too long ago, which would be strange. Who’d want to clean up in here?’

The inspector hunkered down and touched the floor with the back of his hand. ‘It seems fairly dry.’ A dull sheen near the corner of the room caught his eye, then disappeared. He went over to investigate and found himself marvelling at the fact they had not seen it immediately.

‘Look here,’ he said.

‘What? I can’t see anything.’

‘It’s a gold ring. It looks like a wedding ring.’

Magistrate Francesco Fossati held the clear plastic bag up to the light and examined the ring.

He handed it to a white-suited technician. ‘Can you use luminol spray in here, and examine those stains?’

‘This place is overrun with rats and stray animals who have been shitting all over the place,’ said the technician. ‘The whole place will light up blue. The important thing is to get a fleck of blood from the wall or floor, if that’s what you’re looking for.’

‘You’re the experts,’ said the magistrate. ‘Get scraping, or whatever you need to do.’

The technician handed the magistrate back the evidence bag. ‘There’s something written on the inside of the ring. A name . . . date. See?’

Fossati pulled out his reading glasses and perched them on the end of his nose. ‘Letizia,’ he read. ‘And then there is a date. “23 July 1985.” ’

‘Some wife is going to be pissed off with her husband for losing that,’ said the inspector.

But Fossati knew what they had found. ‘Was it covered in dirt?’ he asked the young policeman, who immediately reddened.

‘I don’t think so, but I didn’t touch it.’ Then he brightened up. ‘But they took photos. You can ask the technical team . . .’

‘Asking you was supposed to be a shortcut. Did it look like it had been there for long?’

The policeman decided to risk an opinion. ‘No. It looked newly lost.’

‘Yes,’ said Fossati, mainly to himself. ‘From a few days ago.’

Fossati had listened to his old friend Bazza and had not been concentrating on the Ndrangheta as likely perpetrators of the kidnapping. But Mafia-owned or not, this was an abandoned building that lay close to the place where the girl was last seen. And now he had a piece of vital evidence for Bazza, who would be grateful but would forever remain convinced that Fossati had ignored his advice and focused on a Mafia connection.

Fossati realized he had probably found the place where Arconti had been murdered. Letizia was the name of the wife of the murder victim. It was a good find, but he felt no triumph. Teresa was still missing, Arconti was still dead.

The technician appeared at the doorway. ‘Someone or something was shot in there.’

Fossati nodded. ‘Yes, that makes sense.’

The technician looked at him in surprise. ‘There is even a small pockmark on the wall. We can look at the RNA ratios to see how old the bloodstains are. We need arc lights and more manpower in there.’

Fossati called in the inspector and the policeman.

‘Well done on finding the ring, but you two seem not to have noticed a wall covered in blood.’

The young policeman looked mortified, but the inspector stood his ground and returned the magistrate’s gaze. ‘That’s because you told us to look for something else: the body of a girl, a hiding place.’

‘So it’s my fault?’ said Fossati. ‘Maybe you’re right. You found something I wasn’t looking for, but I know someone who was.’

26

On the Road to Naples–Amalfi

‘I am investigating a possible new connection between the Camorra and the Ndrangheta for the dumping of toxic waste,’ said Konrad, glancing nervously out the window as if the rats might still be following them.

‘In your own time?’

‘I am dedicated, and I work best alone.’

The Camorra, the ‘system’ as they called it locally, was seeking to expand its drug operations into Lazio and was organizing a deal with the Ndrangheta for better wholesale prices and services in kind, namely the illegal dumping of toxic waste into the aquifers of Naples. Crime bosses drank only mineral water these days, observed Konrad.

His story was perfectly plausible. In fact, it was probably true that the Camorra and Ndrangheta were colluding, but Blume didn’t believe for a moment that it had anything to do with Konrad’s trip. No, the man, who now sat hunched and defensive in the passenger seat, was still not telling the truth. Blume could understand the anxiety of Konrad’s superiors. For all his academic precision and pretention, there was something reckless and irrational driving him, as if once untethered from a lifetime of desk-based investigation, he no longer cared for consequences.

Blume figured the best tactic was to nod and look as if he accepted the explanation. He knew from experience that suspects who had unconvincing alibis that they thought no intelligent person could accept were often more annoyed than relieved if their unlikely stories seemed to be taken at face value. Disappointed by the stupidity of their questioners, and unable to overcome the human need to be understood, they often started hinting at the truth. That was not how it always worked of course, but Blume figured Konrad would not be able to bear it for long, and he was right.

‘I am glad you told me that,’ he told Konrad. ‘Now I have something to put in my report. I guess you were worried about your investigation being leaked?’

‘No. I mean, yes. That’s it.’

‘Great. I don’t see why you couldn’t have told us that earlier. And told your bosses. I’m guessing you’re working on a hunch, and you don’t want to make a big deal of it until you’re ready.’

Konrad was growing increasingly uncomfortable with every rationalization Blume gave to his story, and merely nodded unhappily.

Blume drove on for another ten minutes, whistling as if a great load had been taken off his mind.

Suddenly, Konrad could bear it no more. ‘I know who you are,’ he said.

‘Well, we were introduced.’

‘Not like that. Your name appears as a lead investigator appointed by the prosecuting magistrate Matteo Arconti into a case that involved a relation of a person called Agazio Curmaci, who is Megale’s right-hand man. I know about the murder of a man to intimidate Arconti. I don’t believe you were appointed by chance to stay by me. I think you are also conducting an investigation into Megale or his son or Curmaci.’

‘What an inventive mind you have,’ said Blume. ‘When you say “you also”, do you mean you are doing the same thing?’

‘I do not understand.’

‘Or do you mean “I, among other things, am also conducting an investigation”?’

‘Are you attacking my grammar?’ asked Konrad.

‘Never mind,’ said Blume. He took the Tangenziale, and they were soon cruising along in a long loop around Naples on their way to the Amalfi coast.

‘Are you intending to go down to Calabria?’

Konrad shrugged his thin shoulders.

‘Are you working for Megale?’

‘I am offended by your suggestion.’

‘You visited him.’

Konrad shrugged again.

‘Follow my reasoning, here, Konrad. Megale is not a BKA asset, not your asset, not your paymaster, and yet this visit. There are only two explanations left.’

Konrad perked up, as if he, too, was interested in hearing his own reasons.

‘You went to him for help or information,’ said Blume, ‘or both.’

‘I needed to find out some things, and I need to find out one or two things here, then I will go home. It is a personal matter that has nothing to do with anyone else.’

‘How did you get Megale to talk to you? Bosses are not naturally helpful to federal agents.’

‘I am very good at database mining,’ said Konrad. ‘If I get the numbers, I can see patterns. I have built up a good picture of the shell companies and money-laundering methods that Megale and his men use. I explained to him some of what I knew about how his German
locale
was operating, and he was interested in me and listened.’

‘So he thinks you’re suppressing information that could be used against him? Are you?’

‘I will be reporting everything I know when I get back,’ said Konrad. ‘I am proud to say criminal bosses have no reason to trust me.’

‘But first, you got him to tell you something in exchange for your silence? Or temporary silence as you say it will be.’

‘I am not answering that,’ said Konrad. ‘I just showed him I know about his shell companies, though I don’t know as much as I pretended, and I proved I knew some details about his money laundering.’

‘What details?’

‘Money laundering comes in three stages.’