He went to knock, but before he did so the door moved back to reveal a tall, black man bending down, trying to shift a box of some kind out into the hallway. He spotted Scamarcio standing there, and looked up.
‘What do you want?’ The accent was thick and French.
‘I’m looking for Billy.’
Scamarcio saw the brilliant whites of his eyes, saw fear — maybe smelt it, too. The man did not respond.
‘I guess that would be you.’
The man straightened to his full height. He was well over 6ft 4, taller than Scamarcio. His skin was pure ebony, almost polished. His features were strong, with deep lines beneath the eyes and circling a full mouth. He was wearing a long blue-and-black robe with a matching kufi hat, and Scamarcio noticed tight rings of clear beads wound around his left wrist.
‘Were you on the beach at Fetovaia yesterday?’
The man scratched his forehead and scanned the corridor in both directions, maybe looking for somewhere to run. He looked back at Scamarcio as if he was hoping he would just disappear.
‘Is this about my permit?’
It was a clever response, but exactly what Scamarcio had expected. ‘No, it’s not.’
‘You’re a policeman though?’
He said nothing, hoping to draw him out with the silence. Eventually, the man said: ‘I was there. Why does it matter?’
Scamarcio leaned back against the wall again, and yawned. It had been too early a start. ‘A little girl went missing from Fetovaia yesterday afternoon: blonde, American, seven years old.’
The man seemed genuinely surprised, a dark cloud passing across his features, and then he just shook his head slowly, sadly. It was a solid performance, decently convincing, but Scamarcio had seen some great amateur dramatics in his time: he had observed widows hammering on the chests of their murdered husbands, crying and wailing in outpourings of grief so intense and protracted that they took your breath away, only to then watch the same widows give the finger to the judges when they were later sent down for poisoning. He’d also seen sons shaking, speechless and destroyed beside the battered corpses of their avenged fathers, only to find said sons’ prints all over the murder weapon.
‘You know the girl I’m talking about?’
The man waited a few moments before replying: ‘I sold her an ice-cream. Then I saw her later, swimming on her own. Her parents were both asleep.’
‘What time was this?’
‘I don’t know. I think around 3.30, or maybe 4.00pm.’
‘Where was she swimming?’
‘Near her parents, by the rocks.’
‘And what were you doing?’
‘I was swimming, too. It was hot and I hadn’t had a break, so I just got in the water. I left my stuff on the beach for a second, and then I jumped in.’
‘Is that what you normally do? Get in the water when you’re working?’
The man was unperturbed. ‘I don’t usually, but yesterday was real hot — over 34 degrees. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I needed to cool down if I was going to get through the rest of the afternoon.’
Fair enough, thought Scamarcio. ‘But you chose to go in the water at the very moment the little girl was having a swim …’
The man frowned, and shook his head at Scamarcio. ‘But that little girl was in the water all afternoon. She was never out of the water — only when they came to buy an ice-cream.’ Fair enough again.
The man sank down suddenly, his back sliding against the wall, his robes fanning out across the filthy floor. He rested his head in his hands.
‘Am I going to be arrested? Are you going to send me to jail? I know what you Italians think of men like me: you hate us, suspect us, want us gone. Is that what’s going to happen — you’re going to send me to jail?’ The man was breathing deeply now, breathing faster, altogether too fast.
Scamarcio felt a spike of compassion; he needed to calm him down.
‘No one is sending you to jail. I’m just asking you if you saw anything that day — anything at all that could help us find this little girl?’
He didn’t seem to have heard. ‘I was a doctor in the Congo, studied hard for all my qualifications, tried my best to make it. But you know there are some places you will never make it. I had to leave my son and daughter behind, had to come here with nothing, had to live in this hole — just to sell ice-cream. Imagine if your best chance of making it in life was to sell ice-cream, Detective?’
That explained the flawless Italian. Scamarcio wasn’t used to hearing word-perfect Italian spoken by immigrants from Africa. It wasn’t common to hear them master the tenses, let alone the subjunctive — hell, there were millions of Italians who still hadn’t managed that one.
The man was in full flow now. ‘I feel sorry for those parents. I understand their pain. But I promise you I didn’t touch their little girl, and I didn’t see anything.’ He paused a moment. ‘All I saw was those two parents asleep — the whole time.’
‘How long asleep?’
‘All the time she was in the water after eating the ice-cream.’
Scamarcio crouched down so they were at eye level. ‘So you just got out of the water and left the little girl swimming?’
‘She wasn’t my responsibility.’ The man sighed. ‘Yes, I got out of the water, got my stuff, and left. I’d done Fetovaia. I wanted to move to the next beach along.’
Scamarcio pulled out a card from his jacket pocket. ‘If you remember anything, anything at all, could you give me a call?’
The man took the card, and turned it over. He seemed ashamed for a moment. ‘I don’t have a phone.’
‘Find a pay phone and reverse the charges. We can run to that in the police department — just.’
The man finally looked up and met his eyes. He seemed to have aged since the beginning of their encounter. Quietly, he said: ‘I’ll tell you one thing. I wouldn’t have left my little girl alone like that. I wouldn’t have fallen asleep while she was in the water. It was as if they didn’t care.’
29
SCAMARCIO STEPPED OUT BLINKING into the harsh sunlight. The children had gone from the strip of grass, and now he spied a couple of cats lounging by the bushes, lazily licking their paws. The air was less than fresh, but it was still a relief to be out of the apartment block.
The new mobile that Garramone had given him buzzed, and he pulled it reluctantly from his pocket. The caller ID was blocked. He sighed, held it to his ear, pressed ‘answer’, but said nothing.
‘He’s dead.’
‘What?’
‘He’s dead.’ It was Garramone.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The other guy in the photo with Arthur, the one we traced to Florence. He’s dead. He’s been found hanging in an apartment.’
Scamarcio felt his insides flip over. ‘Fuck.’ Then: ‘How did you find out?’
‘A photo posted on the national system by Florence police. I was scanning the day’s stiffs. I don’t know why — call it a bad feeling. I rang them, and they said they weren’t quite convinced it was suicide, but they didn’t have an ID for him yet — they couldn’t find any documents with the body or in the flat where he was found.’
‘And they didn’t make the connection with the pictures in the papers?’
‘It seems not.’
They both fell silent for several moments. Eventually, Scamarcio said: ‘What does your friend say?’
‘He’s not taking my calls. I can’t reach him.’
‘Jesus.’
‘This Elba thing — maybe it’s some wild goose chase. Maybe someone sent you up there to get you out of the way, to stop us from going to Florence.’
‘That thought just crossed my mind.’
‘And?’
�
�I’m not convinced. I want to run with this a while. Give me a few more days.’
Garramone sighed. ‘What can I do anyway? The Florence police will investigate now. It’s out of our hands.’
There was a gap in the conversation, but Scamarcio didn’t try to fill it. His mind was too busy processing all the possibilities.
‘Anyway, stay in touch. Let me know if anything turns up.’
Garramone sounded like a man who had just been handed a huge problem but denied the means to solve it. Scamarcio sensed anew that they were both on a one-way track to trouble. He took a seat on a dilapidated bench and closed his eyes for a moment. Just why had Garramone decided to sabotage his prospects like this? He had always felt that there was a reluctant empathy there, a quiet understanding. Now he wasn’t so sure. He checked himself. Garramone probably had no idea where it would all end when he agreed to this ‘favour for a friend’. They had both been duped. But somehow, now Scamarcio was inside this thing, whatever it was, he felt a growing need to get to the nub of it, to root out its rotten core.
He got up from the bench, his limbs heavy. He decided to head to the hotel where the English couple was staying, but when he got there he was informed that they’d left early that morning for a cruise around the islands. Had no one told them to stay put? He left his card at the desk for them so they might call him on their return. The Scandinavian family, it transpired, were at the end of their holiday and had flown home to Stockholm the evening before. The fact that neither Genovesi, nor his men, seemed to have been aware of their impending departure was yet another source of frustration for Scamarcio.
There was nothing for it but to head to the police station. Genovesi would no doubt find some broom cupboard for him to work out of. The headquarters of the Elba squad were next to the town hall, opposite the park in Portoferraio. It was an unprepossessing building made of cinderblock, with three floors of plain windows. Like so much recent Italian architecture, no attempt had been made to blend in with the older buildings circling the park; like so many Italian towns, the result was a faded hodgepodge of elaborate facades and soulless concrete.
He flashed his badge at the desk sergeant, who nodded and gestured to his right. ‘In there,’ he said.
Scamarcio was relieved to see no sign of Genovesi — only Zanini, hunched in a corner, thumbing through the telephone directory. The phone rang and he reached for it, spotting Scamarcio as he did so. He nodded a greeting.
It was a brief, one-sided phone conversation. Zanini just said ‘yes’ several times and scribbled in a notepad before replacing the receiver. Scamarcio drew up a chair opposite his desk.
‘How’s it going?’
‘OK. I spoke to Claudio, the owner of, well … Da Claudio, and he tells me those locals the Bakers mentioned were from the estate agents down the road, just out for a working lunch. They come twice a week, apparently.’
‘We should have a word with them.’
‘I’m on it. I’ve arranged to go round there in an hour or so.’
‘Good.’
He glanced at his notepad, and flicked through a few pages. ‘As for the other places the family visited, I’ve contacted a few: they tell me that they don’t remember anything unusual. They’d had a mixture of tourists and locals in, mainly families and couples. They don’t remember seeing any strange loners, or anyone like that.’ He looked up quickly. ‘Not that that means anything, of course — we know that these kidnappings are often carried out by couples.’
‘Quite.’
‘One problem I’ve got is that the Bakers are really sketchy about their dates. They’re having trouble remembering which days they went where. It makes it hard to pin things down.’
‘That’s often the way when you’re on holiday — one day blends into the next. I guess it’s worse when you’re out of it on prescription drugs.’ Scamarcio glanced around the office. It was small and, apart from a narrow window facing the square, there was only one other window at the back, which looked straight onto a concrete wall. It was not exactly an inspiring working environment. ‘Where’s Genovesi?’
‘They went to Lacona. A German woman rang in, saying she’d seen a blonde girl who fits Stacey’s description being dragged from a supermarket by a “foreign-looking” man.’
‘ “Foreign-looking”?’
‘She thought he was maybe from the East. Albania or Romania — one of those countries.’
‘When was this?’
‘She called it in half an hour ago, and they headed straight out.’
Scamarcio raised his eyebrows and frowned. They both knew this could mean everything or nothing. Zanini gave him a strange look, and then got up from his desk and headed towards the hallway. He poked his head into the corridor for a moment, glanced left and right, and then closed the door and returned to his seat.
‘What you were saying earlier about securing the scene …’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, it wasn’t secured. Not until several hours after they reported her gone. The world and his wife trampled around there until Genovesi finally gave the word.’
Scamarcio shook his head and gritted his teeth. He wasn’t even surprised. Why was it always the same story? Why could no one on this godforsaken peninsula ever do things right?
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the steer.’
Zanini looked down, flicking through the notepad again. ‘You didn’t hear it from me.’
The phone trilled, puncturing the awkward silence. Zanini picked up, said nothing for several moments, and just rolled his eyes. Then: ‘We’re not talking to the press. No. No comment. You’d need to ask Chief Genovesi — he’s the one running this inquiry, but he’s out and, like I say, we’re not talking to the press.’ The caller was evidently refusing to take no for an answer, so after a while Zanini sighed and put the phone down.
‘It’s started,’ said Scamarcio.
‘It was only a matter of time.’
‘They’re quick, though. I’ll give them that.’
‘Yeah, and it wasn’t even the local guy — that was Rai Tuscany.’
‘You men will need to set something up now. I take it you don’t have a regular press guy down here?’
‘No call for it.’
‘If you like, I can try and get somebody sent up from Rome.’
‘Sounds good, but obviously you’d have to clear it with Genovesi.’
The phone rang again, and they exchanged glances as Zanini picked up. It would probably go on like this all afternoon now. Scamarcio felt for the young officer. But instead of anger, Zanini was registering surprise at whatever the caller was telling him. After a moment, he said: ‘Well, actually, he’s right here, sitting opposite me. Would you like to speak to him?’ He waited an instant, and then handed the phone across. Scamarcio mouthed ‘Genovesi?’, but Zanini shook his head.
He picked up. ‘Scamarcio — can I help you?’
It was a man’s voice, slow and deliberate. ‘Detective Scamarcio, I’m glad to have found you. I work as a guard at Longone Prison here on the island. I have an inmate who is demanding to speak with you. He claims that he can help you with an inquiry.’
Scamarcio felt an iciness somewhere in his chest. ‘What inquiry?’
‘He didn’t say, just that it was the inquiry you’re working on right now — the inquiry here on Elba. I’m sorry to bother you with this. I was going to leave it, but then we wondered whether he might actually have something for you, and whether it would be best to call, after all.’
‘Thank you. You did the right thing. Who is your inmate?’
The guard fell silent a moment, and then uttered two words that made Scamarcio’s blood run cold: ‘The Priest.’
30
THE PORTO AZZURRO PRISON was actually an old fortress carved into the cliff face
on the island’s eastern shore. The sun was dipping below the horizon when Scamarcio drove up, its eerie glow sculpting the rocks, defining them harsh and cold against the ebbing light of the sea. Seagulls screeched overhead, fighting for scraps in the crevices of the rock-face — their dusty wings pounding the air, their red claws livid against the stone.
Scamarcio pulled the car to a halt, and took a moment to compose himself and steady his climbing pulse. The entrance to the prison was barely visible; it could have passed as a break in the rock if you were far enough away. The walls were sheer and oily black, planed down by centuries of salt spray. There was no escape from here, no boulders to stagger your descent to the water, no path towards the shore: beyond the edge of the fortress lay nothing but the blackness of the sea and whatever treacherous rocks lay beneath. If you were foolish enough to try running past the entranceway, you’d still be left clinging to the cliff face, probably dodging fire, until your getaway craft showed.
Scamarcio felt a jitter in his right leg, and looked down so he could watch it move. But he saw nothing — it seemed still. Slowly, with detachment, he observed both knuckles turn white, and realised that he’d been repeatedly clenching and unclenching his fists, as if this was a tried-and-tested relaxation technique of his. But, as far as he could remember, it was something he had never done before. Like, as far as he could remember, he had never met a child killer before.
And those two words, ‘child killer’, as awful as they were, didn’t adequately describe The Priest. Yes, he was a child killer — Italy’s worst — but it was the manner in which he had sexually assaulted and tortured his 18 victims that had embedded itself forever in the memories of those unfortunate colleagues of Scamarcio’s who had been set the task of capturing him. For the public it was a little easier, because the full nature of his crimes had never made it onto the news: these details would have haunted too many clean minds, would have proved impossible to rub out, unlike an earthquake in Haiti or an oil spill off Mexico. But the gist was bad enough, and when The Priest — Mario Pugno, 45, from Lecce, who, with his Catholic robes and rosary beads, had once fooled so many — was finally brought in, thousands lined the streets of Rome, thousands wept and spat and screamed as his blacked-out penitentiary van passed by, crushing their makeshift wreaths and sending smashed roses and lily stems scattering. Scamarcio had been 25 at the time, and had worries of his own, but even he had been touched by the anger that gripped the nation — the unbridled fury and disgust, the clamour for blood. Even Cosa Nostra, so they said, were revolted by The Priest. Even they had tried to seize him and bring him in as a gesture to the people, a gesture to the police. But even they had failed.
The Few Page 13