The Devil

by Nadia Dalbuono

  ‘Mrs Pavesi?’ he asked after a few moments. Another pause. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. You probably won’t remember, but I’m Corrado Borghese, we met at that homeopathy conference in Florence some years back — you’d mistaken me for someone else.’ A long silence. ‘Ah, I’m sorry to hear that.’ Borghese looked up and motioned Scamarcio to leave the room.

  Scamarcio felt as if he had no choice — he didn’t want to rile a witness at such a potentially important juncture. He hovered in the kitchen for a moment, but sensed Borghese knew he was still there, so he retreated back onto the patio, feeling like an idiot. But witnesses were delicate — they needed to be nurtured, you couldn’t ignore their sensibilities and hope to get somewhere. What would Garramone have done? Scamarcio sat down tentatively, then rose again and was about to re-enter, when he heard footsteps hurrying towards him across the stone floor.

  Borghese was flushed. He pulled a cotton handkerchief from his shirt pocket.

  ‘You triggered something for me, Detective,’ he said, wiping his brow.

  Scamarcio said nothing, just studied the man carefully.

  ‘A few years ago, I was at a homeopathy conference in Florence, and, after I’d been on a panel about alternative cancer treatments, this woman came up to me ranting and raving and saying how dare I call myself a homeopath. I was a disgrace to the profession, not to mention the human race. It was all quite embarrassing, but when she’d finally calmed down a bit, I bought her a coffee and tried to get to the bottom of what was eating her so badly. For some reason, she was convinced that I’d been round her house offering her a wad of cash to keep quiet about a very adverse reaction to a prostate drug her husband had taken. It had left him with serious heart trouble. They’d been desperate for money to pay the medical bills, so they took the hush money and signed something, but she claimed she bitterly regretted it, because her husband had died just six months later.’

  Scamarcio felt the rhythm of his blood change. ‘Do you remember the name of the company that made the drug?’

  ‘I’d always kept that woman’s card, as our encounter had been so strange. It was her I just called, and she confirmed to me that it was Zenox Pharmaceuticals. I know we’re twins, but it never occurred to me that it could have been Gennaro she’d met. He was in marketing, he was my brother. It just never could have crossed my mind — I mean, what was he doing being the bagman for a pharmaceutical company?’

  ‘That’s precisely the question I’m trying to answer,’ said Scamarcio.

  38

  As he was driving back to Rome, the pale winter sun already low over the darkening hills of the valley, the outlines of the case finally seemed to arrange themselves into a sequence, a pattern he could work with: Gennaro Borghese had tried to buy off the woman from Florence and her poor husband after an adverse drug reaction. Borghese’s son may have also suffered an adverse reaction to a drug. Was Borghese himself being bought off? Was he being paid huge amounts of cash in return for acting as a bagman and errand boy between Zenox and the Ministry of Health? But surely, if Borghese really believed the stimulant was to blame for his son’s condition, he would never have accepted that kind of deal? He’d want to pursue Zenox through the courts, seek justice. But, as Corrado had said, those cases were tough. Perhaps Gennaro Borghese knew he’d never win or perhaps he simply couldn’t admit the drug had played a role …

  Scamarcio’s thoughts were interrupted by his mobile ringing on the seat beside him. He was approaching a bend, and didn’t have time to check the caller display before responding. His mind jumped to Fiammetta, prone, alone in the flat, in pain. He swallowed.

  ‘Scamarcio,’ he answered, his voice a question.

  ‘I’ve just sent you a photo. There is an engraving on that priest’s ring. It reads Andrea forever.’

  ‘God.’

  ‘And because, for some reason even I don’t understand, I always end up going that extra mile for you, I called Giangrande.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To see if the ring was still on Andrea’s body, of course.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Giangrande had it in his tray — he’d had to take it off with pliers in the end because of the swelling post-mortem.’

  ‘Was there anything on it?’

  ‘We managed to piece it together. Same dedication as the other ring, but this time it read Alberto forever.’

  Scamarcio punched the steering wheel. ‘Fucking fantastic, Manetti. You’re a diamond.’

  ‘I do what I can.’ The line went dead.

  Scamarcio’s brain hadn’t had time to process all the implications when the phone rang again.

  ‘Oh, thank God.’ Katia Borghese was breathing fast.

  ‘What is it, Katia?’

  ‘I’ve just found a letter from Gennaro — in the mailbox. It reads like a suicide note. I think he went to Frascati to kill himself.’

  ‘Now, Katia, try to stay calm.’

  Scamarcio was struggling to negotiate the tight bends of the valley without dropping his phone.

  ‘Don’t tell me to fucking stay calm. You’ve been looking for hours and you still haven’t found him. I refuse to lose my husband, too. What the fuck are you all doing anyway? Why aren’t you getting anywhere?’ Her voice was thick with drink now.

  ‘Listen, Katia. You need to tell me what’s in the letter. There might be something that could help us locate him. People contemplating suicide often want to be found.’

  There were a few seconds of silence before she said, ‘Of course, yes.’ He heard paper being uncrumpled, smoothed out.

  ‘OK, right,’ she said, trying to steady herself. ‘Oh … my glasses?’

  Scamarcio raised his eyes to the darkening sky.

  ‘Ah, got them. They were on my head.’ She sounded as if she was running a sprint. ‘Here you go. He says,

  Dear Katia,

  I know I have been very angry at you for bringing the church into all this, for letting the devil into our lives. But, the truth is, it’s me who first allowed him in — me who set this whole nightmare in motion. Many years ago, I made a pact that has now come back to haunt me. It was a mistake, something I should never have contemplated, but I was young, naïve, and worried about our boy.

  Finally, after all that has happened, after our unspeakable loss, I must break that pact if others aren’t to suffer like Andrea. I’ve hesitated for too long. Our son’s death was a warning: a threat to keep quiet and not go public with what I know.

  Strange strategy, thought Scamarcio. Why not just kill the father, rather than the son?

  As if reading his thoughts, the letter continued:

  But they should have killed me first. Now, I must finish what they started.

  Katia Borghese’s voice was lost to one long sob, before the line crackled and died in the curves of the valley. Scamarcio swore and pulled into a potholed layby.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, after he’d called her back. ‘That might not be a suicide note. He may mean something else. I’m going to send someone round to stay with you while I organise my colleagues in Frascati. We’ll find him, don’t worry.’

  There was no time to wait for her reply. He dialled Sartori. ‘You still in Frascati?’

  ‘Yeah, nothing’s cooking,’ he said casually, as if he were looking for a stolen bike.

  ‘Well, you need to get a grip on this. He left a note — sounds like he might have suicide in mind.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Sartori sounded more weary than worried.

  ‘You got anywhere left to look?’

  ‘Frascati’s full of people — we don’t have the resources for a house-to-house.’

  ‘Hotels, B&Bs …’

  ‘You don’t think we’ve been trying those?’

  ‘Well, fucking find him, Sartori. I need him alive. Do your job.’

  Scamarcio cut the call
and slammed the dashboard. He thought of the letter. If others aren’t to suffer like Andrea.

  He needed to find out which Zenox drugs had recently been licensed. They’d been looking at licences that corresponded to Borghese’s calls to the pharmaceutical service, as Garramone had instructed, but they hadn’t yet brought it all up to date — they hadn’t been thinking much about the present. But now it seemed that Borghese was hinting at something imminent, some new medicine, as yet unknown. Scamarcio opened the browser on his phone. The Zenox website had a list of medicines in Italy, but it was long and alphabetical, and offered no further information other than the trademark and generic name, which told him nothing. There was no news about upcoming products. He wasn’t going to find the information this way.

  He called the offices of Zenox Pharmaceuticals in Rome and asked for the MD, praying to the God he still didn’t believe in that Burrone hadn’t left for the day. Scamarcio cursed himself that he didn’t have his mobile number with him.

  The woman on the switchboard was predictably officious, prompting Scamarcio to say, ‘I met Mr Burrone yesterday. If you don’t put me through immediately, I’ll be forced to send round a police team with a warrant, which might make its way to the news, given the high-profile nature of this inquiry. Believe me, it will be your head on the block for not putting me through in the first place, as I so politely requested.’

  ‘One moment, please.’

  ‘Burrone,’ barked the MD.

  ‘It’s Detective Scamarcio.’

  ‘Ah, Scamarcio, what a pleasant surprise. I’m actually in the middle of my daily routine.’

  ‘The one with the sixty-euro Scotch?’

  ‘No, the one with the hooker.’

  Scamarcio said nothing. Burrone laughed tightly. ‘My superiors in the US have instructed me not to speak to you,’ he said, not sounding particularly apologetic or worried.

  ‘Then I’ll have no choice but to issue you with a warrant and a subpoena. Believe me, it makes far more sense for you to piss off some arseholes across the pond than face the might of the Italian justice system.’

  ‘Does it have any might?’ asked Burrone tiredly.

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  ‘I would.’

  Scamarcio sneered at his own reflection in the glass. ‘I need to know which of your new drugs have been licensed in Italy recently.’

  ‘Can’t you just go and find that out some other way?’

  ‘I could, but it’ll take too long. If you help me now, we’ll look on you kindly when the shit hits the fan.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not concerned. My hands are clean.’

  ‘Others may try to shift the blame onto you.’

  ‘They might, but I’m sure a good detective like yourself would see straight through it.’

  ‘Come on, Burrone, I haven’t got all day.’

  Burrone yawned down the line. ‘Do I need to call my lawyers?’

  Scamarcio had never known anyone caught up in an inquiry of this scale to sound so relaxed. Maybe the MD simply had no idea of what had been going on under his nose. But somehow, Scamarcio doubted it. That sharp mind, those hawkish eyes — Burrone was too smart. Maybe he just felt supremely confident that the police wouldn’t be able to build a case.

  ‘In the last few months, we’ve brought a vaccine for influenza and a new drug to treat childhood depression onto the Italian market.’

  Just like that, no further protest. Without revealing his surprise, Scamarcio asked, ‘The names?’

  ‘They trade as EffeVax and Sequilex.’

  Scamarcio pulled out his notebook and jotted down the information. He asked Burrone for the generic names, too, which Burrone helpfully supplied.

  ‘You may want to call the Centre for Disease Control in the US about one of those, Detective.’

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘You just might.’

  Scamarcio paused. ‘Burrone — why the sudden change in tune?’

  ‘Well, I suppose I felt contractually obliged to put up a fight, but at the end of the day, really, what would be the point?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I’m riddled with cancer, you see. I’m what they term “inoperable”.’

  Scamarcio breathed out slowly and watched as a small mist formed on the windscreen. The rain was starting to fall again, and he observed his own reflection twist and distort.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Mr Burrone.’ He paused, tried to refocus. ‘But may I respectfully ask why you’re still at your desk? Why aren’t you sailing around the world, checking off your bucket list?’

  ‘I had a little job to do before I left.’ Burrone sighed. ‘You’re my resignation letter, Detective. My swansong. Check the CDC.’

  With that, he hung up, and Scamarcio suddenly felt sure that the anonymous call to Police HQ had come from Burrone — the MD had been the one to lead him to Zenox in the first place.

  Scamarcio guessed that the drug of interest would be the one for childhood depression — why else would Borghese mention others suffering like his son otherwise? But what was the question he needed to ask the CDC? Burrone had neglected to mention that.

  Scamarcio stared at the rivulets of rain running down the glass and watched as they thickened and spread. If the drug had been licensed in Italy illegally, through bribes, was it possible it would have been licensed in the US, too? Or would it be a different story there? Was that in fact the point?

  He dialled the number for the CDC he had found online and explained that he was calling about Sequilex. His heart sank when the girl on the switchboard put him through to what she termed the ‘legal department’ — he feared that, at best, they wouldn’t have the answers he needed and, at worst, they’d be obstructive.

  He carefully explained the nature of his inquiry, as loosely as he could for now, and asked about the drug for childhood depression, supplying both trade and generic names. ‘Do you happen to know if it’s licensed in the US?’ he asked the mildly friendly guy who had picked up his call.

  ‘One moment, please.’

  After half a minute or so, Scamarcio heard the receiver being lifted again. ‘According to our computer records, that drug was not given a licence. A licence was applied for in May of last year, but it was rejected.’

  Scamarcio felt a heat in his chest. ‘Do you know why?’

  The guy coughed, as if he was perhaps revealing something he shouldn’t. ‘Studies indicated that it was causing dramatic mood swings, aggression, delusions, and even epilepsy in several cases. In some subjects, the depression worsened. We decided that deeper research needed to be done before the drug could be brought to market.’

  Scamarcio scribbled it all down, cursing the fading light in the car.

  ‘Thank you. That’s all very helpful.’

  ‘The drug’s been licensed in Italy, you say?’

  ‘Yes, it has.’

  There was a pause on the line before the guy said quietly, ‘If you ask me, that’s criminal, given these studies.’

  ‘Yes, criminal is the word I’d choose, too.’

  39

  SCAMARCIO ARRIVED BACK IN Rome as darkness fell. He was heading for his flat and feeling newly guilty about Fiammetta when Sartori called.

  ‘We’ve got him,’ was his opener.

  ‘Is he alive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where was he?’

  ‘In a B&B in the hills above Frascati — it was new and hadn’t been on our original list,’ Sartori added cagily.

  ‘How does he seem?’

  ‘Like he wants to talk.’ Sartori sniffed. ‘Listen, I don’t think we should bring him to the station. I reckon you’ll get more out of him if you speak to him here, first.’

  Scamarcio knew what Sartori meant — drag a fragile witness into an intimidating l
egal environment, and, more often than not, they clammed up.

  ‘OK, I’ll head over now. It’ll take me about forty minutes — you think you can keep him sweet until then?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  The B&B stood atop a hill surrounded by dense olive groves that seemed charred and deformed in the grey winter half-light. Scamarcio spotted a woman in her late fifties or early sixties hovering anxiously on the patio. She didn’t look too pleased about the uniformed officer Sartori had placed on her front-door.

  ‘You the owner?’ Scamarcio asked, extending a hand while pulling out his ID. She studied his ID, but ignored the hand.

  ‘I must say, all this creates a very bad impression. I have six other guests staying.’

  ‘I know it’s not ideal, but we’re in the middle of a major inquiry — we’ll be out of your hair shortly.’

  She nodded, clearly unconvinced. Scamarcio stepped inside and took a steep flight of stone steps to the first floor, which had been converted into a breakfast room. It was all achingly tasteful — exposed wooden beams, white paint and white furniture, a few bronze sculptures dotted here and there. Scamarcio often had a problem with such contrived aesthetics — he felt as if he was being forced to take someone else’s acid trip. Sartori’s voice boomed down a flight of steps. ‘I needed it done yesterday.’

  Scamarcio followed the shouting to the next floor.

  ‘You think all that is good for the mood of our star witness?’ Scamarcio asked as Sartori came out onto the landing.

  ‘I wasn’t talking to him,’ said Sartori angrily, shoving his phone back in his pocket. ‘Anyway, he’s taking a nap.’

  ‘I doubt he is now.’

  Sartori shook his head, irritated, and pushed the door open. Gennaro Borghese was sitting up in bed, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘This is a no-smoking establishment,’ Sartori observed helpfully.

  ‘Like I give a fuck,’ murmured Borghese.

  ‘We’ve been pretty worried about you,’ said Scamarcio, trying to perch on a corner of the bed. Sartori stood behind him.