‘A-Team?’
But Garramone was already walking off.
Garramone had it about right. The guys from the financial police certainly were not what Scamarcio had expected. Rather than a bunch of pale-faced accountants, they looked like they’d been hand-picked from the marines — all three were tall, broad, and ski-tanned, with impressive biceps straining beneath their smart-casual attire. Scamarcio wondered why they’d dispensed with uniform. Perhaps they wanted to stay under the radar.
After introductions had been made, Garramone asked, ‘You’ve all had a chance to look at the documents I sent?’
The three of them nodded. The oldest-looking of the group, who had introduced himself as Chief Inspector Puglisi, smiled thinly. ‘It’s not watertight by any means, but there’s enough to stir one’s interest. Our legal team didn’t have much trouble getting the judge on board, at any rate.’
‘I figured they might want more, some telephone intercepts first, before you went in all-guns?’
‘No,’ said Puglisi, offering nothing else.
‘So how do you want to play it?’ asked Garramone, folding his arms and looking slightly worried.
‘We’ll coordinate three raids in the next twenty-four hours — one at the director-general’s office at the pharmaceutical service, one at his home, and the other at the house of the health secretary,’ said Puglisi, looking to his colleagues for confirmation.
‘You won’t search his offices?’ asked Garramone.
‘It’s a bit of a logistical and legal hornet’s nest, that one. We think it best avoided.’
‘Right you are,’ said Garramone, looking absently at something on his desk and scratching his hairline.
‘How will they work these raids?’ asked Scamarcio. ‘In practical terms, I mean.’
‘We’re going to send a helicopter over the director-general’s residence, as it’s pretty extensive and there’s a risk he could leave by car or foot and take any evidence with him. For his office and the home of the health secretary, we’ll go in by car. We’ll probably be deploying three separate units.’
‘That’s six men a unit?’ asked Garramone.
Puglisi nodded. ‘Affirmative.’
Scamarcio rubbed at a cheekbone. ‘Is there any chance they could have got wise to this — been tipped off?’
The trio exchanged glances. ‘Not by us,’ said Puglisi defensively. ‘Have you heard anything along those lines?’
Scamarcio thought of Greco and felt a wave of nausea move up from his gut. ‘No, nothing. I was just wondering, that’s all.’
Puglisi nodded his head sharply, keen to push on. ‘When will you search Borghese’s place?’
Scamarcio looked at Garramone. ‘We were planning on doing it before you guys went in.’
‘What do you think, Chief Puglisi?’ asked Garramone politely.
Puglisi scowled. ‘I don’t really see a need. Especially if the guy has gone AWOL. It would probably make most sense for you to start at the same time we’re doing our raids.’
‘Understood,’ said Garramone.
Scamarcio felt a twinge of disappointment. He would have liked to have seen the A-Team in action. ‘Scamarcio, let’s exchange numbers so we can communicate from the scenes. What we find might have a bearing on what you need to look for, and vice versa,’ said Puglisi, pulling out a smartphone.
‘Sure,’ said Scamarcio, reaching for his mobile.
When contacts had been shared, Puglisi said, ‘We don’t want to leave it too long. We’re going to head back to base, and then we’ll kick off the raids within the next two hours.’
‘That quick?’ asked Garramone.
‘They’ve been in the planning all night. Your detective was right to ask the question — the longer we wait, the greater the risk of a leak and evidence being scrubbed.’
‘Very efficient,’ said Garramone quietly.
Puglisi rose to his feet, and his colleagues followed. ‘You’ve got to stay one step ahead or they’ll eat you for breakfast.’
‘That they will,’ murmured Garramone.
‘You want one?’ asked Katia Borghese, waving a pristine pack of Gitanes right under Scamarcio’s nose.
‘I didn’t know you smoked.’
‘I didn’t, until last night.’
‘Gitanes is quite a heavy brand to start off with.’
Mrs Borghese swatted the comment away as if it was an irritating bug. Scamarcio wondered if she’d been at the bottle already.
‘Do I care? No. What have I got to lose? Nothing.’
The cigarette was leaving a long trail of ash all over the parquet, so Scamarcio relieved her of it and placed it carefully in an ashtray. She seemed to have a problem with the sudden physical proximity and a slight shiver rolled across her.
‘Why are you here, Detective?’ she asked. ‘Have you found him?’
Scamarcio moved over to the sofa to put a more comfortable distance between them. ‘No, not yet. I need to look through Gennaro’s stuff.’
‘What are you hoping to find?’
‘You know anything about a company called Zenox Pharmaceuticals?’
Her face was a blank. A believable blank.
‘What about Mr Borghese, did he ever mention them?’
‘No.’
‘Quite sure?’
‘I’ve never heard my husband mention them.’
She didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. He wondered for a moment if drink made you a better or a worse liar. Maybe it depended on your personality.
‘Does your husband keep a computer here?’
‘He has a laptop in his study for when he needs to work at the weekends.’
‘Anything else?’
‘A tablet, but he may have taken that with him.’
‘Can you show me?’
He followed her down the long beige corridor, past a bedroom, then past the kitchen. He glanced quickly through the doorway and noticed a bottle of Smirnoff on the counter. The top was off.
She came to a stop outside the study. ‘I hate this room,’ she said, with what seemed like unnecessary passion. ‘Gennaro never lets me clean it. It’s a pigsty.’
Scamarcio cast his eyes around the small office. There were lots of piles of papers on the desk, and some of the books on the shelves were spines out, others spines in, but he would never have called it messy. He spotted the black laptop in the centre of the desk, but instead of getting his hopes up, he reasoned to himself that if it held anything important, Gennaro would have taken it with him.
‘OK, thanks, you can leave me to it.’
‘I hope that whatever it is you’re looking for helps you find him.’
Scamarcio turned. ‘You still care?’
‘Of course. He’s my husband. He’s …’ She stopped. ‘He was the father of my child.’ Her voice started to crack. Scamarcio willed her not to cry. It was shit of him, but he simply didn’t have the energy and needed to press on.
‘If he left his mistress and tried to improve things between you, would you still hang around? You wouldn’t want to divorce?’ he heard himself ask.
She stared at him as if he’d said something in another language. ‘That, Detective, is exactly what I’m praying for: that he dumps that manipulative bitch and comes back to me. It’s the only way I can handle the grief. I’ll fold, otherwise. I’ll crumble. I can’t do this alone.’
Scamarcio frowned. Unfortunately, it seemed more that Gennaro Borghese’s overwhelming grief, not to mention his conviction that his wife was somehow responsible, was just driving him further away.
‘You need to quit the drinking, Katia. And I’m not saying that in any sanctimonious or judgemental way — I come from a rough family and have seen terrible things, so I’m the last one to get on my high horse. But I’m a man, and I know that no man wants a
drunk for a wife. I also know that alcohol only intensifies whatever feelings you already have, it doesn’t help you handle the pain. Quit, and you’ll see that things will improve for you. Believe me.’
Suddenly he realised, with a pang, that this was the conversation that he’d always tried to have with his own mother. Tried and failed. For much of his teenage years, he hadn’t had the guts. Then, when he was old enough to finally face it, she was too far gone to listen.
‘It’s in the blood,’ she said quietly. ‘My father was a boozer.’
‘My father was a mafioso, but it doesn’t mean I’ve decided to go around killing people.’
‘Your analogy doesn’t hold. I’m talking about a genetic predisposition, you’re talking about a life choice.’
‘They say violence is a genetic predisposition. Babies who hear violence in the womb, feel it, will grow up to be violent. And believe me, I have the impulse.’
‘That’s nurture not nature.’
Scamarcio sighed. ‘Whatever. Just listen to me on this — I know what I’m talking about.’ He headed over to the desk. ‘It’s going to be a bit dull for you to watch me looking through your husband’s things, so I don’t mind if you want to go and rest.’
‘Rest? That’s the very last thing I want to do. I must keep busy, stay occupied, or the grief breaks the dam.’ There was a quiet but terrified urgency in her voice.
Scamarcio just needed space and some time to think.
‘Excuse my rudeness, Katia, but if you want to stay occupied … I haven’t had breakfast and I’m starving. I was going to pop out to a café, but, by the looks of your husband’s desk, I may be here a while.’
‘No, don’t go out,’ she said quickly. ‘It will be nice to have somebody to cook for.’ She hurried out the door, and Scamarcio thought again of the solitary Mars bar in Andrea’s stomach.
He turned and started pulling out the desk drawers. There was a lot of stuff inside: papers, files, expired driver’s licenses and ID cards, USB drives, even some old floppy disks. He pushed the stacks of papers to one side and tipped it all out onto the desk, then repeated the process with the next drawer. He started flipping through the papers from the drawers, but couldn’t find anything of note. It all seemed to be related to household admin: utility bills, insurance, wage slips — which, at a quick glance, seemed to match up with the figures Scamarcio already knew. The thin piles of papers on the desk told a similar story. The documents in the next drawer seemed to concern health matters regarding Gennaro Borghese himself. A diagnosis from a private hospital detailed a protruding disc on the spine, another listed the results of a heart check, which appeared to be in order. And there was a smaller piece of notepaper bearing a prescription for a new pair of glasses. It was all just dull, everyday life.
Scamarcio pushed the floppy disks and USB sticks out of the way, and then pulled out the third drawer.
‘I’ve made scrambled eggs,’ said Mrs Borghese, coming back in with a tray.
‘That’s very kind of you.’
She left the tray on a side table, then, to Scamarcio’s relief, said, ‘I’ll be in the sitting room if you need me.’
Scamarcio walked over to inspect the tray. The eggs looked a bit runny, but they would do. He ate quickly, then returned to his task. The third drawer seemed to hold a collection of memorabilia from various periods of Borghese’s life: a small leather rugby ball; an old school picture in which Scamarcio struggled to identify Gennaro; a plastic entry pass; a polaroid of a young Gennaro with a girl Scamarcio didn’t recognise; a few packs of photos of the old kind you sent away to develop; two expired passports; and three old pairs of spectacles, one broken. He pulled the laptop towards him and pressed the on button, but nothing happened. He looked around for a power cable, but couldn’t find one. He’d ask Mrs Borghese in a moment.
He sat down in Borghese’s desk chair and tried to think. There was something wrong about this scene. Where were the photos of Andrea and Katia? Where were the documents relating to their lives? It was as if Gennaro Borghese had no family. Sure, Scamarcio could understand that Mrs Borghese might take care of her own affairs, but he’d at least expect Gennaro to keep some paperwork relating to his son’s health or schooling. Scamarcio cast a glance at the shelves, but there were no files there, just novels. And the occasional nonfiction book — it looked like history mainly — stuff on the Roman empire, a few books on the Second World War. Interestingly, there didn’t seem to be anything relating to medicine, which Scamarcio found odd.
There were a few pictures on the wall — all Tuscan landscapes — and Scamarcio took a quick peek behind them, running his fingers across the backs. There were no surprises: no hidden keys or safes.
He was about to trouble Mrs Borghese for the power cable, when his phone rang.
‘Scamarcio.’ He tried to sound as put out as possible, so whoever it was would quickly leave him in peace.
‘Detective, this is Chief Inspector Puglisi.’
‘Puglisi. How’s it going down there?’
‘Our time at the director-general’s home has proved productive. More so than his office.’
Scamarcio’s pulse quickened. ‘What did you find?’
‘So far, we’ve got half a million euros in five hundreds, five twenty-four-carat gold bars, weight 12.4 kilograms — which would net you around 2.5 million dollars on today’s market — and diamond jewellery, which I’d say, at a rough estimate, would probably fetch about three hundred grand.’
Scamarcio wanted to ask if he was joking, but he could already tell Puglisi wasn’t one for humour. ‘God,’ was all he could come up with.
‘I have to admit, I’m surprised. If there was anything, I didn’t think it would be hidden in plain sight, so to speak.’
‘And the health secretary?’
‘Well, we did find something, but it won’t help a court case.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was hanging from the ceiling when we went in. Offed himself.
‘You sure?’
‘Well, that’s for you guys to establish, but it certainly looked like it to me.’
‘And no money there? No evidence?’
‘Nothing. He’s taken his secrets to the grave.’
‘Jesus,’ sighed Scamarcio.
‘The devil is certainly on the march in Rome,’ muttered Puglisi.
37
SCAMARCIO MADE A SMALL pile of the laptop, USB sticks, and floppy disks.
‘It’s weird there’s no cable,’ said Mrs Borghese. ‘He usually keeps it attached.’
‘No worries,’ said Scamarcio, almost glad that he’d be able to examine the contents of the computer in peace. As much as she’d tried to stay away, Mrs Borghese had spent the last ten minutes hovering in the doorway on one pretext or another, and Scamarcio knew it was time to leave.
‘Do you think Gennaro might have killed himself?’ she said out of nowhere, quite matter of fact. ‘I mean, grief can do that to people. Maybe he can’t handle it?’ Her voice was unusually steady.
Scamarcio took a breath. ‘We’re doing all we can to find him, believe me. I don’t know your husband well, but he didn’t strike me as a quitter. It’s more like you were saying: he was looking for some kind of solution.’
‘This Zenox Pharmaceuticals thing …?’
Scamarcio frowned. ‘You’ve remembered something?’
‘No. As I said, I’ve never heard of them. But what if they want to hurt Gennaro for some reason?’
‘What reason would that be?’ he asked, unable to keep the suspicion from his voice.
‘I don’t know!’ she shouted, frustrated. She opened her arms, her hands shaky. ‘I know nothing about them. I just have this bad feeling.’
Scamarcio sighed. ‘I get it, Katia.’
‘You’d tell me if Gennaro was at risk … or in troubl
e?’
Scamarcio’s mind flashed on the health secretary, hanging. ‘Yes, I would.’
She smiled tiredly. ‘OK, thanks. Sorry.’ She paused. ‘I can’t think for the life of me what he’s doing in Frascati. He has no family there. No friends. His brother’s in Calcata.’
‘I thought he was still in Nepal.’
‘He just got back this morning.’
‘He hasn’t returned my calls.’
‘I’m sure he means to, but he’s just learned about Andrea and he’s heartbroken. And now he’s busy trying to track down his crazy brother.’
Scamarcio thought for a moment. ‘Are he and Gennaro similar, being twins and all?’
‘They’re close, but completely different. Corrado is a homeopath and has no truck with modern medicine. He thinks Gennaro sold his soul to the devil.’
‘What’s he doing up in Calcata? That’s a strange place to live.’
She smiled. ‘All those artist types love homeopathic remedies — he’s kind of established himself as the village witchdoctor.’
‘Can you give me his address?’ said Scamarcio, his mind moving onto next steps.
While she was looking for her address book, he wondered if it might be better to turn up in Calcata unannounced. Gennaro’s brother hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to make contact.
She returned and handed Scamarcio a small sheet of pink notepaper, which he glanced at and then pocketed. He tried to negotiate his way out the door, his arms full with the haul he had to take to Negruzzo. A memory drifted into his head, and he turned. ‘Mrs Borghese, there’s something I should have asked you a while back, but it escaped my mind.’
He noticed her spine stiffen. ‘Go on.’
Scamarcio coughed, hoping that he wouldn’t lose his grip. ‘The autopsy on your son — it revealed a problem with his bowel. It seemed inflamed, and the pathologist believed it was a chronic condition — something Andrea would have had for a long time.’
She nodded quickly. ‘Yes, he was right. It came on about the same time as Andrea’s behaviour started to worsen. It has plagued him his whole life.’
The Devil Page 23