Free The Namesake by Conor Fitzgerald Page B

blow their fucking heads off in an enclosed space like that, and yet here was Teo, not well, but definitely alive, his eyes not only open, but also slowly turning towards Tony as he stood there by the door. The driver, half kneeling in his seat, seemed to be whispering, like he was making a confession. Again, not dead. Megale wrinkled his nose against a stink of sewage and burnt oil that seemed to be coming from the driver.
    Teo seemed to be smiling, but his eyes were becoming glassy. Tony pulled out his pistol, and put it into Teo’s eye, and pulled the trigger. He had to clamber halfway into the van to lift up Teo’s head to shoot him through the second eye. Then he went around to the other side, and pulled the driver off the seat. The man fell back, dead now, his intestines visible, slick and shining. So that’s where the stink was from. Tony shot out his eyes and, for added meaningless symbolism, shot him in the mouth, too. Now they would waste time wondering who this slob had been talking to.
    He went back to his car and drove up to the van. All told, it had been a bit disappointing. He had seen car crashes that produced worse damage than that. The entire back section was intact. He lifted the jerrycan out of the boot of his car, and doused the two bodies, then sprinkled the petrol around the cab, and soaked the seats. He loved the aromatics of petrol. He’d always loved it. Shoe polish, too. He had once set fire to a bowling alley, pouring the petrol down the lanes and setting them alight, watching the river of fire.
    He retreated, pulled out a cigarette, lit it and took a few drags before flicking it into the van. It bounced off the seat, dropped into a shining pool of petrol on the floor, and fizzled out. He moved his car out of the way, then returned and, walking backwards away from the van, poured the remaining petrol on the ground. Then he lit it with his lighter. The flame was slower and feebler than he thought it would be, and there was no explosion as the fire in the cab took hold. As the flames caught, the van rocked, as if being buffeted by wind.
    Here I am, he thought to himself, twenty years on, burning money again.

10
    Rome
     
     
    The young policeman pointed to the screen with a triumphant air not yet diminished by the grinding repetition of tasks that his career had in store for him. ‘There!’ he said. ‘That vehicle there.’
    Blume leaned forward, allowing the side of his face to brush against Caterina’s hair. Businesslike, she moved away from him and pointed to a blurred blob on the screen.
    ‘Not very clear, is it?’ said Blume.
    ‘No. It’s an old traffic camera,’ said Caterina. ‘Over here, we have RAI offices, which are definitely going to have a surveillance camera, but we’ve got nothing from them yet. And there is the court of the Giudice di Pace, where most of this footage comes from. Show him, Claudio.’
    The young policeman smiled at Caterina. He was probably good-looking, if you were into white smiles and muscles obviously toned through excessive workouts in a gym. As he brought up images on the screen, he strained Blume’s forbearance further by explaining what Blume already knew.
    ‘This is a bar, which closes at 12:30, and this is a restaurant that closes half an hour later. The cooks and the owner usually leave at around 2:30 in the morning. They all cross the open piazza to where their cars are parked. Inspector Panebianco interviewed them all and none of them reports seeing anything, so we know it was after 2:30 . . .’
    ‘Look, just show me what you got,’ said Blume.
    Claudio pressed a button on his fancy control panel, and another grainy image in washed-out colour appeared on-screen. Blume recognized the crime scene. In the background, practically the only vehicle in sight, was a van, stopped by the kerb.
    ‘Three-twenty in the morning, we can see the van at the crime scene. This is taken from the offices of the Giudice di Pace. It is too far for us to make