The Few (6 page)

‘Please.'

It was like he couldn't leave the room quickly enough.

Scamarcio's eyes remained fixed on the first picture in front of him — the last image that Gunbach had been working on. His brain moved fast to decipher the meaning, to grasp the bigger picture, as Gunbach had predicted. The image was blurry and low res, but slowly it came together and, as it did so, a sickly feeling started forming in his stomach. He clicked on another fragment file at the bottom of the screen, and once again his brain rapidly processed the contours, supplied the missing information. The image now filled the frame, and the sickness began to spread through his abdomen, taking hold of him, making him sweat. He steeled himself for the remaining two images and clicked rapidly, trying not to give himself too much time with them. The last was the worst, because it was the clearest and left the least room for doubt. He could see the fear in the child's eyes.

He got up from the computer and stepped outside Gunbach's office, rooting for a cigarette in his pocket that he knew wasn't there. He'd have to buy a packet tonight — these were extraordinary circumstances. He'd never had to see that kind of stuff before. He knew guys that dealt with it daily, but had never understood how they managed, how they didn't let it ruin them. Someone had told him once that they didn't deal with it — that they were all head-cases under regular care from psych — but he wasn't sure if that was just exaggerated gossip. Now he wished he'd never seen it, and knew it would stay with him forever and would colour other experiences in a way he didn't want. He felt sorry for Gunbach. The poor guy had been asked to fix a camera, and he'd had to look at this. He was coming towards him with the coffees now, anxiety clouding his pale face.

‘You okay, Detective?'

‘Should be asking you the same. I'm sorry you had to see that— it wasn't what I'd been expecting. I thought I'd be looking at something rather different.'

Gunbach handed him the coffee and leant against the wall across from him.

‘No sweat. I know how it is.'

‘You tell Manetti about these?'

Gunbach shook his head. ‘No. When he called me yesterday, I hadn't seen them. I put it all together before I went home last night.'

‘Could you keep this to yourself?'

He looked confused, and seemed to want an explanation. ‘Sure, if you need it that way …'

Scamarcio put out a hand, and leant against the wall. He felt like he needed to catch his breath.

‘The thing is, this relates to something else I'm looking into, and I need to keep the two investigations separate for now. Could you just bear with me for a while?' He looked into his eyes, trying to find the real Gunbach.

‘Sure, I understand.'

‘I'll remember you for this.' The words were both a promise and a threat — an ambiguity not lost on the boy.

Scamarcio returned to the tiny office, and retrieved his jacket from the chair. ‘Can you do me print-outs?' Gunbach, who had followed him in, was sweating under the fluorescence.

‘No problem.'

He leaned over and clicked the mouse a few times, and the printer whirred into life. They waited in silence, neither sure what to say, the images on the screen killing any conversation. Scamarcio glanced over his shoulder, checking whether there was anyone in the corridor who might pass by and see what they had been looking at. The place was silent, but he swung the door shut nevertheless.

Gunbach handed him the prints. ‘You still want me to see if I can retrieve any more fragments?'

‘Yes, but be discreet. If Manetti or Filippi come asking, you have nothing.' He knew that there was next to no chance that Filippi would trouble the boy. Manetti was his point of contact for the CSIs — if, that is, he took the trouble to pursue the murder, which so far seemed unlikely.

Scamarcio thanked him and left, avoiding the other offices along the corridor for fear of running into Manetti. He took the fire escape rather than the elevator, and exited onto a side street. His caution paid off: as he joined the main road, he saw the chief CSI and some colleagues returning from lunch, laughing — over some sick joke, no doubt. He waited until they had entered the building before he stepped out of the shadows. This didn't feel right, all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, hiding from his colleagues. Once again, he had the sense that it could not end well.

9

Luca Moltisanti opens the cabinet, takes out the trophy, handles it in the light, and puts it back. He picks up another and does the same. ‘You did good,' he says.

‘And so did you.'

‘Not like you, Pino. No-one's done good like you.'

His brother is at the window, looking out at the rain-soaked pitch, the scar beneath his left eye livid in the light.

‘It's been a long time.'

‘Thirteen years.'

‘Thirteen years.' He savours the words, as though it's a crowning achievement.

‘We've missed you, Pino.'

He laughs tightly, looks away, wants to ring for Security, but knows he can't.

‘That why you're here?'

‘In a way.' He takes a seat, and straightens a trouser leg. The suit is Armani; the shoes are brogues.

‘We think it's time.'

‘YOU FOUND WHAT
?'

‘Child porn, sir.'

The chief fell silent for a moment, and then the tension of the last few days finally broke surface: ‘What sick-pig bastards are we dealing with? Why the hell did he bring me into this?

Scamarcio let him run with it for a while, figured he needed to vent. He had two young boys, after all. ‘I don't get it, what is he doing with child porn on his camera? You think he was into that? You think he took the photos?'

Scamarcio still knew so little about Arthur, but what he did know had led him to believe that it was unlikely. It didn't feel right; it didn't square with the picture that Ms Santa had painted. He had a sense that the photos served a secondary purpose — possibly financial, but probably not dealing. He didn't like him for a dealer.

‘So what's your take on this? Help me out here.'

He watched the thoughts forming, saw them take shape as he spoke. ‘He had all this money, right, from this so-called patron he never talked about …'

‘Yes …'

‘Well, what if that money wasn't given over so freely?'

The chief fell silent for a moment, thinking it through. ‘Blackmail, you mean?'

‘He had photos of someone important doing something appalling, and he made him pay for his silence. When he knew that his time was up, that he had come to find him, he couldn't let him have the last word. That's why he tried to save the camera, and put it back on the shelf. He wanted us to find the photos.'

‘These photo fragments — do you see the face of the adult?'

‘No, just the kid. Anyway, I think it could be more than one adult. But they're men — definitely men.'

‘Ganza?'

‘Impossible to tell.'

Garramone drew breath, and swore some more. ‘This sick shit … Who are these people? Do you think we're dealing with politicos, VIPs?' He stopped to let the possibility sink in, to absorb it. ‘The connection to Ganza, it's all too close. Chances are that we're talking about government — if that was Arthur's clientele, if he knew people like Ganza. Now I'm really wondering why Pino brought me in.'

It was the first time he had referred to the PM by his first name.

‘What's the deal with you two anyway?' Scamarcio knew the question would be unwelcome. But he felt he deserved some kind of explanation, given the turn of events.

Garramone seemed untroubled, his mind elsewhere, turning on all the implications. ‘We grew up together in Gela. Schoolfriends from way back when — that's as far it goes.'

Scamarcio had thought the PM was from Como in the north. He knew Gela and what it stood for — knew what it meant if you grew up in Gela and then made it to prime minister.

‘But they say he was from Lombardy. No one ever mentions Sicily.'

‘He was there for a few years for his father's business. They came down from Lombardy and then went back. Anyway, that's not common knowledge, and I don't want it spread.'

Scamarcio had been too lost in the phone call to realise that, yet again, he was stuck in traffic. The orchestra of horns tuning up for a fight broke his concentration. How could there be traffic on a Sunday afternoon? The Coliseum — the scene of so much suffering, such inhumanity — was on his right now, battered and ominous in the rain. Once, when he'd been inside, he felt sure the smell of fear still lingered there. Two thousand years on, and what had really changed? Maybe the location had just shifted half a mile up the road.

‘I think you need to talk to the friend again,' said the chief. ‘See if she knows more. And we need to ID that second guy in the photo. Someone must know who he is. Call me when you have something.'

Scamarcio shut the mobile and eased back against the headrest. The rain was running in small rivulets down the window, morphing the world outside into a strange secondary reality, far removed from his own. He reflected on the circularity of it all: two of his colleagues blackmailed Ganza, then Arthur blackmailed him or someone else. Everyone was out for what they could get. Garramone had said the two police officers had been handed the photos by a man they had never seen before. Who was he, and who stood to gain from his actions? Scamarcio had wanted to speak to the officers; but, according to Garramone, they had fled Rome on news of their suspension, and gone back to their folks. He would need to pay them a visit, see if they'd tell him more than they'd told the chief. His thoughts flipped to Garramone and his position in it all. It seemed so odd that he had selected him, Scamarcio, with all his baggage, for this. There were countless other people he could have called on — people with lower profiles, people who kept their heads down. But again he reminded himself that he was probably the easiest option. He could be sucked up and spat out by this investigation, explained away by his conveniently inconvenient past, comfortably consigned to history as another failed social experiment. And who was to say it wasn't actually better that way?

Scamarcio saw a cluster of Japanese tourists lining up like anxious starlings ready to have their photos taken in front of the Coliseum. This was the arbitrariness of history — these unlikely fragments the past left behind, and how we then chose to interpret them. And it was in this moment of watching that he sensed that he had perhaps misunderstood, that maybe there was a subtler explanation: the chief had chosen him because he was accustomed to the grey areas. He'd grown up with them. He'd never been able to see cases as being just black or white. He hadn't had the luxury of that kind of upbringing, and that was why Garramone knew he was right for this. Scamarcio cursed him again.

10

He stands up from the desk, goes to the cabinet and pours a scotch, then asks them if they want one. ‘Of course,' they say. ‘Let's drink a toast.'

‘There will be no toast.'

‘No toast? Why ever not?'

Funny how Luca does all the talking now: he was always so silent as a boy, always in his brother's shadow. He'd heard that Marco had been administered a beating, that it had made him soft in the head. Luca has stepped in, taken the reins, and is running his lieutenants hard.

‘I am satisfied with my life. I prefer to keep things as they are.'

‘You prefer?' Luca drains his scotch, rocks back in the chair, and laughs. ‘Hear that, Marco? He prefers!'

The older brother grunts, and keeps his eyes on the pitch.

‘Pino, I think we need to teach you one of our life lessons: there are certain things that you can't avoid, certain things that will always come back to find you, whether you want them to or not.'

SCAMARCIO HAD THOUGHT
about calling Aurelia and inviting her over to make up for Saturday night; but when it came down to it, he was way too tired. By nine he was asleep, but that turned out to be a good thing because he woke on Monday ready to face the day, ready to pay her a professional visit.

The mortuary lay just three streets back from Flying Squad Headquarters, shaded by a wall of orange trees. It must have been one of the most attractive locations for such an establishment in the world, although the illusion ended as soon as you stepped inside: the paint was peeling from the walls, and the stained floor tiles probably hadn't been washed since Mussolini addressed Rome from his balcony.

‘Aurelia in?'

The guy on the desk looked exhausted. He seemed to have lost even more hair since Scamarcio had last seen him, a month before.

‘She's always in. It hasn't stopped for a fortnight. Is there a serial killer on the loose that no one has told us about?'

‘Not as far as I'm aware.' The joke made him anxious — a fleeting, paranoid notion that events were escalating silently, unbeknownst to him or the chief, running away from them to a place beyond their control.