25
FIAMMETTA WAS LYING ON the sofa, her eyes closed, when Scamarcio walked in. Her long blonde hair had spilled across her cheek, and she was breathing in and out slowly, drawing long controlled breaths. Scamarcio’s stomach flipped.
‘Has it started?’
‘It may have.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means I’m not sure.’
‘How can you not be sure?’
‘It hasn’t been going on for long enough for me to know, but they feel like labour pains.’
‘What should we do?’
‘I don’t think it’s time to go to hospital. Let’s just see how it pans out.’
Scamarcio hovered by her side. He didn’t know whether to sit or stand. He had never been a big fan of waiting to see how things panned out. ‘But it might all kick off — and we’re not prepared.’
‘It doesn’t just kick off with first babies. It’s a long process. If you’d come to the classes, you’d know that.’
Scamarcio let it ride. Those classes were more than he could have managed: work always got in the way.
‘Don’t bother to blame it on work,’ said Fiammetta, breathing more quickly now, her eyes still closed.
‘Can I get you anything? A drink?’
‘No.’
‘Something to eat?’
‘I’m not sure that would be a good idea.’
‘Shit,’ said Scamarcio running a hand through his hair and starting to pace.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I just feel a bit useless. Do you want me to hold your hand?’
‘No, not right now.’
He scratched his forehead. ‘I think I might try to get some work done, then — get it out of the way while I still can.’
‘OK.’
‘You want me to stay in the flat or is it OK if I go out?’
She opened her eyes. ‘Leo, I think it might be best if you stay.’
‘Right. I’ll just be in the kitchen making calls, then. Let me know if you need anything.’
She nodded and closed her eyes again.
He padded into the kitchen and took a bottle of Nero D’Avola from the rack. He tore off the foil, but was having trouble getting the screw into the cork: he couldn’t make it grip. Then, when he’d finally pushed it deep enough, he couldn’t pull the cork up. He swore softly and started again, trying to get his hands to stop shaking. When the cork was finally clear, he poured himself a large glass and sat at the kitchen table, which, as if for the first time, he noticed was greasy and pocked with stains of different colours.
He took a long drink. The lights of a thousand apartment blocks blinked back at him in the darkness, a thousand little lives in the eternal city, a thousand souls who had never asked to be born, but who were trying to make the best of it. Would his child be happy? Would it be grateful for the life it had been given? Scamarcio felt as if he was setting sail across an unknown sea without a compass; he didn’t know if he could bring them all safely to the other side.
He picked up his mobile and dialled Sartori. He wanted to ask if the bank had finally given him access to the Borgheses’ accounts. But the question was also an excuse. Sartori knew the ropes; he had four kids. It might be comforting to talk to someone who had been through this.
‘Scamarcio,’ Sartori was gruffer than normal, as if he wasn’t too happy to have been disturbed. ‘I’m still at the bloody bank. We’re going through it all now.’
‘Anything?’
Sartori exhaled, and it made a loud rattle down the line. ‘It’s looking pretty normal so far — for both husband and wife. Gennaro has around 30k in his account, and she has fifteen. The mistress is with another bank, Intesa, and she’s sitting on around 70K — seems legit.’
‘And none of them have other accounts?’
‘Not with this bank, but I’m running a trawl on the others.’
‘And the money in and out of Mr Borghese’s is regular?’
‘Yep, just his salary payments from Arrow, around the same time every month.’
‘And the wife doesn’t have anything coming in?’
‘Nope, nada. The mistress does freelance work — translation. You see a thousand arriving every month or so.’
‘She seems to have a good lifestyle. And 70K is a healthy little nest egg.’
‘Inherited money — dad was rich. She put most of it in that property apparently.’
‘You didn’t spot any sign of shares, trading, anything like that?’
‘Negative.’
‘Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree.’
‘No, let’s stay with it, Scamarcio. The Borgheses’ apartment must be worth going on two million. It doesn’t add up.’
‘Thanks, Sartori. I’m glad you see it that way, too.’
Sartori fell silent for a moment. ‘Everything OK? You don’t sound like your usual self.’
‘Oh.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Fiammetta’s in labour.’
‘What?!’ It was almost a shriek. ‘And you’re calling me?’
‘I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘You should be with her, making sure she’s OK, for fuck’s sake.’
‘But these first babies take a long time; it’ll be hours until anything happens.’
‘Not necessarily. First babies can take you by surprise, believe me.’
‘Oh.’
‘Scamarcio, don’t take this wrong, but you need to forget about work tonight. Your family needs you. I’ll hold the fort and let you know if anything breaks.’
‘Right, then.’
‘Keep it together, mate. It’ll be OK.’
Scamarcio hoped he was right.
By 2.00 am, Fiammetta had decided that it probably wasn’t contractions she was experiencing. By 4.00 am, she was quite certain it was indigestion. By 6.00 am, Scamarcio gave up on sleep and stood under the shower like a corpse trying to rise from the dead.
He was at his desk by 7.30, a fact not unnoticed by Garramone, who said he’d come in early for a meeting with the chief of police.
‘To what do I owe this honour, Scamarcio?’
‘Insomnia.’
‘Try a glass of red before bed.’
‘I tried several.’
‘They do this magnesium stuff — mag-something — I found it helpful.’
Scamarcio nodded listlessly.
‘You look like shit.’
‘Fiammetta thought she was having contractions, then it turned out she wasn’t.’
‘God.’
‘I just want it to come now. I can’t take any more false alarms.’
‘I bet.’ Garramone tried to make himself comfortable on the corner of Scamarcio’s desk, but looked awkward. ‘Other news?’
Scamarcio filled him in on the bank accounts.
‘And you’re looking into other banks?’
‘Sartori is on it.’
‘Good.’ Garramone paused. ‘Trust your instincts, Scamarcio. They’re sound — usually.’
With that, he rose with difficulty from his perched position and headed for his office.
‘What if I’ve got two murderers?’
Garramone stopped and turned. ‘What?’
‘I’ve come across some intelligence that the politician’s son, Castelnuovo, may have been involved in Andrea Borghese’s death. But there is no link between Castelnuovo and Meinero — well, no link I’m yet aware of. It’s possible I’m looking at two crimes.’
‘But you can’t think they’re unrelated?’
‘They might be.’
‘No, Scamarcio. That’s impossible — they have to be connected. They occurred just twenty-four hours apart.’
‘That might not mean an
ything.’
Garramone scratched beneath a baggy eye. ‘But Meinero was at the exorcism. And he had concerns about Andrea and the cardinal. You sure you’re right about Castelnuovo?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Then work it hard, and then ditch it as soon as you can. There’s no time left for you to take another false path.’
What did he mean ‘another false path’? Scamarcio’s jaw clenched. He’d been running this right.
As Garramone shuffled off, Scamarcio’s desk phone trilled. He prayed that it wasn’t another contraction — for real, this time. He realised that, for all his talk of being sick of false alarms, he still wasn’t ready, and could do with a few more days to get his head together.
‘Scamarcio.’ It was an effort just uttering his own name.
‘Detective.’ It was a man’s voice, middle-aged, educated, smoothed out by privilege.
‘Who’s calling?’
‘That’s of no importance. I just wanted to tell you to look at Zenox Pharmaceuticals.’
‘What?’
‘Maryland, USA.’
There was a click on the line, and Scamarcio realised that the guy had already hung up. He quickly punched the button for the switchboard. ‘That call you just put through to me, can you trace it?’
‘One second.’
Scamarcio waited. The one second was starting to feel like one hour.
Eventually the controller came back on. ‘Dead end.’
‘No.’ He’d almost shouted it.
‘Untraceable. Probably a burner. Was it a nark?’
‘Of sorts.’
‘Sorry, Scamarcio.’
‘Don’t sweat it.’
Scamarcio sank back in his chair. As far as he could remember, the name Zenox had not come up in his previous searches. He googled ‘Zenox Pharmaceuticals, Maryland’. The company’s website was at the top of the results list. Scamarcio checked their Italian site and discovered that they were a medium-to-large-sized US multinational, who had been doing business in Italy for over twenty years. They specialised in drugs for prostate disorders, heart conditions, epilepsy, and cancer. They also made an influenza vaccine.
Scamarcio checked out some of their top brand names in Italy, but could find no smoke around them, no court cases or negative press.
He looked away from the screen and ran his hands across his eyes. Was there a link to Arrow Communications? Did Zenox use their services in Italy? Maybe he’d overlooked the name on his first search.
He repeated his previous steps, but there was indeed no mention of Zenox on the Arrow website.
He called Sartori. ‘Can you get down to Arrow Communications and see if they’ve ever had any dealings with a US company called Zenox Pharmaceuticals?’
‘Why?’
‘I just got an anonymous tip-off.’
‘Hmm.’
‘When you’ve done that, can you see if any of Borghese’s previous employers had any links or dealings with Zenox?’
‘Affirmative. When do you need it by?’
‘Yesterday.’
26
SCAMARCIO HEADED OVER TO Parioli, feeling discouraged by the online brick wall he’d hit trying to find a link between Borghese’s previous companies and Zenox Pharmaceuticals. He wondered whether the person who’d made the tip-off was really trying to throw him off track. He hoped Sartori might make more progress in his house-to-house visits to the companies themselves. Not everything appeared online, and if the relationship was old, it might have been consigned to the paper files. Wishful thinking, but he needed hope.
Pombeni had named two people Jacobini could have been talking to on the phone when he’d boasted that he ‘owned’ Castelnuovo — Maura Valentini or Stefano Rosati. A quick scan through Jacobini’s phone records around the time Frog-boy had overheard the incriminating call revealed that he’d been talking to Rosati. Rosati lived on Via Carlo Allioni in western Parioli: a street lined with elegant baroque buildings. To Scamarcio, it still felt as if he was being distracted by a high-school melodrama when more serious clouds were gathering at the fringes of his investigation, but he knew he had to ‘work it hard’, as Garramone had advised.
When Scamarcio reached Rosati’s house, his mother explained that her son could be found at the skate-park five minutes away on Via Dorando Pietri.
The first thing Scamarcio noticed was a group of youths in ridiculously wide shorts with flat black piercings through their ears hanging about by the skate ramp. They didn’t look like goths — they seemed one branch up on the evolutionary tree.
‘Stefano Rosati?’
A boy with a mop of blond hair hanging across one eye looked up. The other side of his head was completely shaved. ‘Who’s asking?’
Scamarcio flipped open his badge, and a murmur rippled through the group.
The boy took a long drag on his fag, squinting at Scamarcio through the smoke, then said, ‘Follow me,’ in a manner which seemed to impress his friends.
They walked twenty metres away to a bench pocked by dried bird dung. The boy took a seat and pulled out a dented pack of Camels from an enormous pocket. He offered one to Scamarcio, who took it. Anything to make his own pack of Marlboros last longer.
‘So, you’re here about Castelnuovo,’ said the boy, drawing the smoke down deep and blinking into the sunlight. The first promise of spring was finally in the air, and Scamarcio removed his jacket.
‘I just wondered what Jacobini had told you on the phone. I believe he was bragging that he had some kind of hold over Castelnuovo.’
‘This is deep shit,’ said the boy, letting the smoke escape through the gap in his yellow teeth. ‘Deep, deep shit.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘No, I don’t think you are.’
‘Enlighten me, then.’
‘Castelnuovo killed Andrea Borghese.’ Just like that, no preamble, no notes of hesitancy.
‘You sure?’
‘He told Jacobini, and I’m not going to get myself in trouble with you guys by holding anything back.’ He took another long drag and stared into the middle distance while he seemed to organise the facts, as he knew them, in his head. ‘Castelnuovo had been to Andrea’s flat to talk to him about Graziella. Castelnuovo knew that she had a thing for Andrea, and he wanted Andrea to call it off. Castelnuovo was used to getting what he wanted. When Andrea told him to forget it, he saw red and killed him. Castelnuovo has a fierce temper, always has done.’
‘Killed him how?’
The boy waved a hand through the smoke as if the question were irrelevant. ‘I don’t know the details.’
‘And this is what he told Jacobini?’
‘Yes, he’d been drinking and confessed the whole thing. Jacobini now thinks he owns Castelnuovo and his famous family. Says he’s going to use it.’
‘What a nice friend.’
Rosati shrugged.
‘Is Castelnuovo scared?’
Rosati took a long suck on the fag while he followed the progress of a female jogger in skin-tight lycra. ‘Shit-scared. That’s a first.’ He smirked, as if the thought gave him pleasure.
Scamarcio wondered at the lack of remorse. Did these rich city kids not have souls? He’d encountered more morality down south.
‘Did you know Andrea?’ he asked, trying to make the Camel last a few drags longer.
‘I made small talk with him once or twice, but no, we didn’t hang out. He was too weird. You never knew if he was going to lose it.’
‘What, lose it like Castelnuovo?’ Scamarcio felt his anger rising.
The boy frowned through his smoke. ‘I guess.’ He stubbed out his cigarette on the ground, grinding it in hard with his pristine Converse boot. ‘What now, then?’
‘Well, if what you say is true, it looks like Castelnuovo will be heading up the ro
ad to Rebibbia.’
The boy shook his head sadly, as if some great injustice was about to be done. ‘Fuck,’ he whispered.
Scamarcio fixed him with a steely stare. ‘In the meantime, I don’t want you breathing a word of this conversation. I won’t have you fucking up my timing. If I find out you’ve spoken to anyone about our meeting, I will charge you with obstruction, that clear?’
The boy frowned again, then nodded lamely.
‘Give me that.’ Scamarcio pointed to his mobile phone.
‘What?’
‘Your phone, give it to me.’
The boy held it to his chest as if it were part of him — a limb he couldn’t lose. ‘No way.’
Scamarcio reached across and ripped it away. ‘I will be keeping this for twenty-four hours so you can’t set the grapevine alight. Show up at the station on Via San Vitale tomorrow, and you can have it back.’
‘I don’t know where that is.’
‘Buy a bloody map.’
Scamarcio rose quickly and stormed off. A cauldron of fury was seething in him. He wanted to punch the boy, teach him some respect for the dead.
27
JACOBINI WAS STRUGGLING FOR breath, his head hanging over the fence at the edge of the rugby field. He didn’t look in shape for sport: there was a tyre of fat visible beneath his white t-shirt, and his pale legs were large and flabby. The coach was eyeing him with dismay.
‘It’s the smokes,’ panted Jacobini as he removed his mouth guard. Scamarcio noticed a thin dribble of saliva running down his chin.
‘What are you on?’
‘About twenty a day.’
‘I didn’t mean the fags. What drugs?’
The boy said nothing.
‘Sad to see a lad of your age reduced to this,’ muttered Scamarcio.
Jacobini narrowed his eyes and turned so his back was now resting against the fence. He rubbed his sweaty forehead and looked at Scamarcio. It was a look that said, You’ve caught me unawares, and now I have no cards left to play. ‘This Castelnuovo business is giving me sleepless nights,’ he murmured.
Scamarcio was not surprised by the sudden candour. A visit from the police spelt trouble; events had quickly turned serious for fat boy.
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