‘I’ve …’ Scamarcio stopped. His mind skipped over the useless iPhone, then, for some reason, settled on Father Meinero’s body hanging in the hotel bathroom: the muscular torso, the arm, the hand. There was something about the hand — what was it? It was bare, no jewellery. Why? Why hadn’t Meinero been wearing the watch and the ring that were in the CSI pouch? Surely, the CSIs would have known not to remove the jewellery, that they should leave it in place. But Scamarcio now realised that he had to double-check this, and probably should have done so earlier. He thought back to the ring in the bag — a simple gold band … a bit like a wedding ring.
‘Oh …’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I think I might have something else. I’ll need to make some calls and let you know.’
‘OK, whatever,’ said Garramone, raising a tired hand to his temple, ‘but we need to clarify our angle. Does the fact that Andrea and Meinero might have been in a relationship have any bearing on your theory that the drug company may have killed them?’
‘No, not really — only in the sense that it could explain why Meinero might have gone back after the session to see Andrea.’
‘Do we know for sure that Meinero went back?’
‘No, it’s still just a theory at this stage.’
‘Did you check CCTV on the street?’
‘Yes, the camera was down that afternoon.’
‘Another faulty camera? Wasn’t the one at Meinero’s hotel down, too?’
‘Yes. The chances of this being a professional job seem high.’
‘I’m inclined to agree, Scamarcio.’
‘But I’ve still got two orphan elements: one is the stack of childhood photos of Andrea that Cardinal Amato had in his rooms.’
‘He could have been preparing to write a book, like the mother claimed.’
‘Yeah, but aren’t photos the last stage of the process, rather than the beginning?’
‘Maybe he was using them for inspiration.’
Scamarcio shrugged. ‘The second is Chief Inspector Cafaro of the Vatican gendarmerie.’
‘What the fuck does Cafaro have to do with anything?’
‘When I was looking into Cardinal Amato, I found out that he had spoken to the press about the Cherubini case. He expressed his belief that she may have been seized by someone from the gendarmerie who was organising sex parties for the Vatican diplomatic corps.’
Garramone whistled softly. ‘Amato said that?’
‘He did.’
‘But what does that have to do with Cafaro?’
‘Cafaro was in the corps at the time, twenty-four years old and a favourite of the boss, Battaglia. It’s Battaglia who Amato implicated in his comments.’
‘But just because Cafaro knew Battaglia doesn’t have to mean he was involved.’
‘I know.’
‘And why is this relevant anyway?’
‘If Cardinal Amato has dirt on Cafaro — has some kind of hold over him — then Cafaro might have felt the need to help him cover up a crime all these years later.’
‘Bullshit. Anyway, there is no crime. You’ve just told me your theory lies with Zenox Pharmaceuticals.’
‘It does, for now. But in my experience, it pays to keep conflicting theories alive until the final stages.’
‘Your experience is still relatively short, Leo. I didn’t want to say this before, but I think there’s been way too much fuzziness. You need to start working one specific angle, otherwise we won’t cross the finish line. Forget Cafaro and Cherubini. It’s a minefield.’
Scamarcio’s felt his heart begin to pound and a small pulse fire in his head. ‘Forget it because it’s a minefield or forget it because it doesn’t hold?’
‘Both!’ shouted Garramone, exasperated. ‘You’ve finally come up with a working hypothesis, so run with it. It’s one fucking huge headache of a hypothesis, anyway, and we really haven’t got time to be wetting our pants about anything else.’
Scamarcio tried to keep his voice from trembling with anger. ‘Oh, so sorry to have brought you such an inconvenient discovery.’
Garramone sighed. ‘No, you’re not. You love rooting out this country’s moral decay.’ He sounded properly on edge now.
‘Actually, I don’t. I’m fucking sick of it.’ Scamarcio rose, stuffing his crumpled stack of papers under his arm. His heart was hammering now, and his fist was about to take on a dangerous life of its own. He headed for the door.
‘Leo!’ shouted Garramone, but Scamarcio didn’t turn. He was fed up with the rough and tumble, the politics. What was the fucking point of the job? What was the fucking point of him?
He’d never change a thing.
Aurelia had agreed to meet at her flat. She still had the old place with the pink stucco walls and flower boxes. Scamarcio felt sad memories stir as he took the stairs. How many times had he come here after the Cappadona attack, trying to reach her, trying to get her to talk? How many times had he failed?
He knew that he was probably about to make the biggest mistake of his life, but he didn’t care. There was a mad anarchy running amok inside him; he felt like an arsonist about to set his world ablaze. He wanted to cast everything to the wind and just live. The rest of it was farce, a stilted comedy of manners, and he couldn’t be bothered playing his role anymore. It bored him. Deeply.
Aurelia was standing in the doorway when he reached her floor. She read his expression and looked startled. ‘Everything OK, Leo?’
He didn’t answer. He just strode towards her and kissed her like he’d been wanting to kiss her ever since he’d seen her that first day. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, he hadn’t even thought about it, and when she kissed him back and drew him into the flat, he felt no surprise. It was primordial, this thing between them. It had to be.
A long time later, when it was finally over and she was standing by the window, looking out at the pale wintry dusk, he said, ‘I love you.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘Don’t tell me how I feel.’
She stood quite still, her eyes fixed on the darkening rooftops, as if she was determined to catch the very moment it all turned to night. Eventually she said, ‘Why do I already know that you loving me will count for fuck-all?’
‘You can’t know that.’
She sighed. ‘Scamarcio, even you don’t sound convinced.’
‘Aurelia, I want to work this out.’
‘You won’t work it out. Or not in any way that benefits me. I know you, Scamarcio. Perhaps even better than you know yourself.’
He couldn’t think of a reply.
She turned from the window, her eyes blank and cold. ‘I’d like you to leave now, and then I never want to hear from you again.’
35
TO SCAMARCIO, IT FELT as if someone had kicked him in the stomach then ripped his heart out from between his ribs. He was winded by grief and a searing longing that he thought would never leave him. He reflected bitterly that none of this left much room for remorse about the terrible betrayal he had just committed towards his pregnant girlfriend. Truth be told, he could no longer like himself — he was a selfish arsehole, a philanderer, a liar. What he really deserved was to be left by both of them. But just the thought of splitting from Fiammetta made him nauseous. He couldn’t lose his kid, he had to have his kid. He wondered for a moment if he should confess, tell Fiammetta what had happened. But that crazy idea filled him with a different kind of panic — a panic that the stress of it all would harm her and hurt their unborn child.
No, he’d fucked up, and now he needed to swallow the misery he’d created all on his own. It would be a lonely meal for one.
The wind was starting up, and he thought he felt the first spots of rain against his skin. Or were they tears? He tried to hail a passing cab, but the driver ignored him, even though
he wasn’t carrying any passengers. Scamarcio rooted around inside his jacket for his smokes, but when he pulled out the pack, it was empty. Why hadn’t he just thrown it away? What was wrong with him?
He spotted a newspaper kiosk up ahead, but when he reached it, the guy was already winding down the shutter. Scamarcio peered through the gap into a thin chink of light, but couldn’t see the man’s face in the darkness. ‘You got any Marlboros back there?’
‘Till’s closed.’
‘Come on, give a guy a break. I’ll pay you double.’
The man hesitated for a minute, then threw a pack through the hole. ‘On the house. Anyone that desperate deserves my sympathy.’
Scamarcio laughed. It felt strange hearing his own laughter echoing out across the cobblestones, and he realised it was something he hadn’t heard in a long time. But the sound didn’t reach his heart; that had become a very distant place.
‘Something funny, Scamarcio?’
He swung around. The Calabrian accent was as familiar as the howl of an ambulance or the blast from a gun. Scamarcio’s hand froze in midair, the cigarette unlit.
‘Can I help you with that?’
A gold lighter materialised in the darkness and glistened under the glow of the streetlamps. A small flame hissed up into the blackness, a serpent’s kiss.
‘It’s been a while,’ said Scamarcio, drawing the nicotine down as deep as he could, willing it to reach his gut and restore calm there.
‘Congratulations on your medal.’
‘It was a surprise.’
‘I’ll bet. For a while there, I thought they wanted to kill you,’ said Dante Greco quietly.
Scamarcio didn’t much like the emphasis he placed on the word. ‘So, I’m thinking this isn’t just coincidence, Catanzaro being some six hundred kilometres away and all.’
‘I like to come to Rome from time to time — it’s helpful to have a reminder of one’s limitations.’
‘You talking about your politician friends?’
‘I’m talking about the monuments, Scamarcio. The history.’ Greco swept an open palm around him and seized it to his chest, as if he wanted to scoop up the entire ancient city and keep it for himself. ‘What are we, in all this magnificence? Pitiful nothings, that’s what we are.’
Scamarcio took another long drag and closed his eyes. ‘Funny, I’d been thinking much the same lately.’
‘Perhaps we’re both having a midlife crisis.’
‘I’ve had them throughout my life.’
Greco snorted. ‘You know, Scamarcio, there’s a part of me that has always liked you.’
‘Good to hear.’
‘That’s why I wanted to warn you.’
‘Warn me of what, Greco?’
‘You’re about to tread on a few people’s toes. Don’t. You’re at an important juncture in your life and have way too much to lose.’
‘Ah.’
‘Now is not the time to be ruffling feathers. You have the chance to lead a happy life, Scamarcio. Take it.’
With that, Greco melted into the darkness, like the flame from his gold lighter.
The rain started falling in earnest now, but Scamarcio didn’t move. He let the water cascade down his face and soak his collar. It didn’t seem important.
Fiammetta was already in bed when he got in. ‘It was the only place I could get comfortable,’ she said, trying to rearrange the pillows behind her shoulders.
‘Let me help you with that.’ He kissed her cheek. She looked radiant; he’d never seen her eyes so bright. He sorted the cushions, then carefully removed his jacket and placed it on the chair, worried that something incriminating — he didn’t know what — might fall out. He wondered if the gesture might seem strange; normally, he just tossed his clothes wherever, and if they landed somewhere other than the floor, it was a bonus. He needed to take a shower, but that was also something he never normally did when he came home.
‘I’ve got a funny feeling,’ she said, resting her head back down and running her hands along her stomach.
‘That the baby’s about to come?’
‘No, that something bad is about to happen.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘I can’t help it. I’ve had it all afternoon. It’s been eating away at me.’
Scamarcio swallowed and started unbuttoning his shirt. ‘We all have feelings of anxiety. It doesn’t mean you should take them seriously.’
‘I’ve had this before in my life — my instincts were always right. Something bad did happen.’
‘Like what?’
‘I had the same feeling in my early twenties before I ended up in hospital with a severe kidney infection. They had to remove the kidney, as you know.’
‘Yeah, but that bad feeling was probably just you feeling unwell.’
‘No, I felt fine at the time. It’s like a sixth sense.’ She paused. ‘You know, I watched a documentary about 9/11 and many of the relatives of the people who died that day claimed that their loved ones had an awful inkling something was going to happen. Some even said they knew they were about to die.’
‘That’s bullshit.’
‘It was in the documentary.’
Scamarcio sighed and sat down on the bed. ‘Fiammetta, you’re about to have your first child. That would cause anxiety in anyone. I’ve been away a lot, which I’m sure hasn’t helped. You and I haven’t known each other that long, which is another question mark to add to the mix.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing, I’m just saying that perhaps it causes some degree of insecurity.’
Her eyes flashed with indignation. ‘It certainly doesn’t in me. I know how I feel.’
He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘Are you happy in this relationship?’
He opened his eyes and saw her staring at him. She was biting her bottom lip; the skin was turning white there.
He opened his hands. ‘Why are you asking?’
‘Don’t deflect the question.’
‘I’m not deflecting anything.’
She was still staring; there was no way out. ‘Of course, I am.’ He leaned over and kissed her on the lips this time. He took her hand. It felt hot and clammy.
Fiammetta took a long breath and turned away. After a while she said, ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s just a load of different anxieties mounting.’
He stroked her arm. ‘Everything’s going to be OK, Fiammetta. Don’t worry.’
She turned back to him, and he read a question in her eyes. It was like she already knew. But how could she? It was impossible.
He kissed her again, then left the bedroom and walked to the kitchen. The fact that there was half a bottle of Nero D’Avola on the counter felt like nothing short of a miracle.
He pulled out a glass from the cupboard and filled it to the brim. The threat from Greco was rattling around his head like a crazed phantom. It was being chased by memories of sex with Aurelia, which left his mouth dry and his legs weak. Aurelia was a problem he had to walk away from, however hard that was. But Greco? Walking away from the head of ’Ndrangheta wasn’t exactly an option.
Scamarcio thought of his unborn child and the world they would be entering. The dangers were everywhere, and they were mounting. But what kind of country would he be leaving his kid if he was cowed into inaction by the likes of Greco? He took a long drink and closed his eyes. He couldn’t just throw in the towel. He had to try to make a difference, however tiny. Even if it often felt futile, he owed it to the next generation to at least try.
He finished the glass, then poured another.
36
‘YOU LOOK LIKE SHIT again,’ said Garramone, tipping back an espresso from the machine. For some reason, the smell of it turned Scamarcio’s stomach.
/>
‘Nice to see you, too.’
‘What the fuck got into you yesterday?’
‘I don’t like being told what to think.’
‘I’m your boss.’
Scamarcio shrugged, as if this were an irrelevance. ‘Am I still entitled to my own opinions or are we all supposed to become automatons? Is it part of another new efficiency drive?’
‘Is this about Cherubini?’
Scamarcio shook his head. ‘I just don’t get why you want to dismiss it out of hand. It might have a bearing on the case.’
‘Like I said, I’ve already got one political shitstorm brewing. Why the hell would I want another?’
‘That shouldn’t be my problem.’
‘Well, unfortunately for you, it is.’ Garramone paused. ‘You’ll never make management with your attitude.’
‘Why the fuck would I want to?’
Garramone rolled his eyes, then cracked the plastic cup in his palm.
Scamarcio ripped a piece of paper from the pad on his blotter, then couldn’t remember why he’d done it. ‘Look, let’s just leave it. There’s enough going down without any extra hassle.’
Garramone held his hands aloft, the crumpled cup squeezed inside a tight fist now. ‘Honestly, Leo, the way you talk to me takes my breath away.’
‘“No respect for authority.” That’s what they wrote on my school reports. My dad was pleased; he thought it was healthy.’
‘I hardly think your dad was in a position to judge.’
Scamarcio shrugged. ‘Depends.’
‘If you want to make it in the real world, you need to acknowledge there’s a hierarchy. No doubt your dad thought you wouldn’t need to get on. He imagined you’d jump straight into control, the prince anointed …’ Garramone seemed lost in thought for a moment and studied the scuffed floor. When he looked up, he asked, ‘Do you ever regret it — your choice?’
‘Not for one second,’ Scamarcio lied, rising quickly to his feet and gathering his notes. ‘Is this meeting about to start? Or did I haul my arse out of bed at 6.00 am for nothing?’
The boss pointed to his office. ‘They’re a bit “A-Team”. Just take it in your stride.’
The Devil Page 22
