The Few

by Nadia Dalbuono

  The Priest gestured to the rickety chair again, exactly as he had done the day before. For a moment, Scamarcio felt as if he were stuck in some kind of feverish dream or recurring nightmare.

  ‘Again, Detective, thank you for coming. I realise you are busy.’ The Priest sounded tired. Scamarcio saw dark, purplish rings beneath his eyes and a thin sheen of perspiration on his forehead. His hands were shaking slightly, and his knees seemed bony beneath the pyjama bottoms. They sat in silence for several moments, surveying each other; Scamarcio felt uncomfortable, and wanted to look away, but knew he couldn’t. Then, in a sudden fluid movement that belied his age, The Priest was off the bed and kneeling at his feet. Scamarcio realised that he must have cried out in shock, because Erranti and the other officer were already running in from outside. ‘Pugno, I told you, no funny business. Get back on the bed.’ The little man did not respond; his eyes were shut as he rocked back and forth slowly on his heels, and his palms were drawn together, seemingly poised in prayer.

  ‘Get back on the bed, I tell you!’ But the man just kept rocking himself — forward, back, forward, back. The two officers looked at Scamarcio now, unsure what to do.

  Scamarcio realised he’d actually stopped breathing for several seconds. He tried to pull himself together, steady his heart rate, and assess the situation. After a beat, he said: ‘It’s OK, I can handle it. I’ll call you if there are any problems.’

  The officers exchanged glances and seemed unconvinced, but left them to it, returning to their chairs by the door.

  The Priest continued to rock back and forth silently. Scamarcio noticed that his hands were coarse and dry — the hands of a labourer.

  ‘So, tell me what this is all about, Mr Pugno. You don’t need to be on the floor to talk to me. Why don’t you get back on the bed?’ His voice came out shaky, slightly higher than normal.

  The Priest started mumbling something to himself, but Scamarcio couldn’t make out the words. Was the man having some kind of breakdown? It almost sounded as though he was speaking in tongues. Scamarcio felt a growing well of unease in his stomach. He just wanted to run from the cell, and get away from Longone as fast as the speedboat would take him.

  Slowly, The Priest raised his head, and Scamarcio saw that his eyes were red-rimmed. The old man was crying: fat, bulbous tears running down his haggard jowls. Scamarcio was reminded of the one time he had seen his father cry, and of how uncomfortable it had made him feel, how he had just wanted to run away then, too — which, in the end, was what he’d done.

  ‘I need forgiveness.’ The words came out as a sigh, like the last breath of a dying man.

  Scamarcio felt his body go rigid. ‘What?’

  ‘Forgiveness.’

  ‘Forgiveness for what?’

  ‘You know what.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘For the innocents, those innocents.’ The words were spoken so softly that Scamarcio could barely make them out. He felt nauseous, and forced himself to swallow down.

  ‘For the children you killed?’

  ‘Yes, the children,’ whispered The Priest. ‘The lost souls.’

  Instinctively, Scamarcio shifted his chair away from the stricken figure on the floor.

  ‘I can’t be the one to give you that.’

  ‘Yes. You’re the only one who can.’

  ‘What makes you think that? Perhaps you’re confused? I’m a policeman, not a priest.’ Scamarcio realised that he was speaking very fast now, the words running into each other. The Priest was shaking in front of him, sweating profusely.

  ‘You’re the only one — you know that. The only one.’

  ‘Why do you say that? It makes no sense.’

  ‘Don’t deny it!’ There was no anger in the words; just a tired insistence.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes!’ He was shouting now, trying to get up from the floor.

  ‘Listen, Pugno, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think you’re very mistaken about something.’

  ‘It’s you who’s mistaken.’

  Scamarcio shook his head, and took a breath. ‘I have work to do. I will not allow you to waste any more of my time with your stupid games.’

  ‘Games? You think this is just a game?’ He looked up at him, incredulous, pleading.

  ‘I’m a policeman, not a priest,’ Scamarcio repeated, the words barely a whisper now.

  The Priest just kept staring up at him, his eyes searching him out, trying to locate something deeper. Scamarcio fought the urge to look away. ‘So just tell me: how else can you help this inquiry? What further information do you have?’

  The Priest began shaking his head, frantic, as if he was having a seizure. ‘No, no, no. That’s not how it works. That’s not how it works!’ he hissed. The tiny cell was suddenly rank with sweat — the stench of fear. The Priest was rocking again now, his whole body quivering.

  Scamarcio finally looked away. ‘I decide how it works, Pugno. Not you.’

  ‘You fool!’ screeched The Priest. ‘You stupid, deluded fool! You’re in denial!’ He stabbed a thin, bony finger at him; then, exhausted, his mouth fell open and a dribble of saliva ran to his chin.

  Scamarcio could take it no more. He pushed his chair back, scratching hard against the stone, and fled the cell, ignoring the waiting officers outside.

  He tried to light a second cigarette, but the wind was high and the air damp, and he needed several attempts. When he’d managed it, he shifted his weight against the wall of the prison and looked up at the moths circling the sodium lights above the gate. They were battering their tiny bodies against the plastic casing, seemingly on some kind of suicide mission.

  He could still feel his heart in his chest and taste the bile in his mouth — the first cigarette did not seem to have had any effect. This would be the last he’d see of Longone. He wasn’t coming back; wasn’t going to waste his time pandering to the delusions of some sick freak.

  ‘Detective Scamarcio.’ The voice startled him. It was Officer Erranti, peering out into the darkness.

  ‘I just came to check that you’re all right.’

  Scamarcio took a drag on the fag and then tossed it to the ground, grinding it in firmly with his shoe.

  ‘Yeah, no worries. He just got to me a bit with the weird mind games in there.’

  ‘We heard him confess,’ said Erranti. ‘After all these years, it’s incredible. You must have some kind of power over him, Detective. I know it’s none of my business, but I have to ask: why did he say what he did, about you being the only one?’

  Scamarcio sighed, and felt the bile rising again. ‘I have absolutely no idea, officer. No idea at all.’

  35

  SCAMARCIO WAS TRYING to drift into sleep. Now safely installed in the same four-star hotel as the Bakers, he could hear the waves lapping against the rocks below, and the new, comfortable surroundings brought a calm that had eluded him earlier. He wondered if he shouldn’t have run. Maybe if he had stayed he could have learned more — perhaps given The Priest the opportunity to deliver information as a trade-off for forgiveness. Why had he reacted the way he had? He wasn’t sure; but, reflecting on it now, it didn’t seem wholly professional.

  What game was Pugno playing with him? Was it a distraction maybe? Could he be involved somehow in the girl’s disappearance, and have been tasked to keep him off the scent and occupy his thoughts? That seemed unlikely. He had wanted to meet at midnight, when the day’s work was over, and the desire to confess had seemed genuine. What was it about Scamarcio that made The Priest think that only he could help him? What was it about his connection to Scamarcio’s father? He turned once more in the bed, and knew that sleep would not come tonight. The remote control lay on his bedside table, and he reached for it, turning on the TV and searching for Sky News 24. The presenter was
the same plastic blonde from the other night, along with her plastic Ken partner. Again, Spezzi was up in a picture in the top right-hand corner: odd, it was like travelling back in time watching this; again, he felt like he was stuck in some feverish dream. He turned up the sound: ‘It is believed he threw himself from the window of his hospital room onto the concrete below. There were no witnesses. The Spezzi family is planning a small funeral at the chapel on their Piedmont estate next week. They have asked the media to respect their privacy at this very difficult time.’

  Scamarcio sank back into the pillows. ‘No way,’ he whispered to himself. ‘No way.’ Instinct told him that the young man hadn’t jumped — it couldn’t have been that simple. The thought brought a heat to his skin, making him feel as though he really was getting a fever. Someone was at work here, someone with more power than he and Garramone — maybe with more power than Garramone’s friend.

  His BlackBerry buzzed beside him. It was an email from Cepparo, up in Milan: ‘At Ella’s office premises in the south of the city. Found something you might be interested in, will call you in five.’

  Scamarcio decided to get dressed. It would be pointless lying here all night, trying to sleep. He was pulling on his jumper when the phone rang, but he was sure five minutes hadn’t yet passed.

  ‘Scamarcio?’

  ‘Yeah, Cepparo. Your email sounded promising — what have you got?’

  ‘We turned over the house. Nothing interesting there, and then the wife gave us permission to do his office, which is just two streets down. He repaired computers — he was born in Albania, by the way. So we search his PC and, after a while, find a hell of a lot of not-very-appetising stuff. It’s got the officer I brought along with me pretty shaken up. He’s young, wet behind the ears. He was the one who found it.’

  ‘Found what?’

  ‘Kiddie stuff, deeply unpleasant kiddie pics — you know the score.’

  Scamarcio watched the building blocks of the case scatter and then slowly reassemble in his brain. He thought for a moment: ‘The wife know?’

  ‘Well, if she did, she certainly didn’t let on. When we searched the office, she waited outside in the street, smoking. She doesn’t know what we found yet.’

  ‘OK, don’t tell her.’ He paused for a moment: ‘Have you been through his emails?’

  ‘We tried, but it looks as if they’ve all been wiped. I need to get a techie in to see if there’s anything more we can do with that.’

  ‘Sure.’

  He fell silent again. After a while, Cepparo said: ‘So what do you want me to do with this? Obviously, I got a case here myself now — can’t let someone with a whole stack of kiddie porn on their computer go un-investigated.’

  ‘No, of course not. Look, thanks for this. If in the course of your case you turn up anything else, let me know.’

  ‘I should be thanking you, Scamarcio — these bastards need to be locked up for life, although, as we all know in this sorry excuse for a country, that currently means two-and-a-half years.’

  ‘Albanian national, you say?’

  ‘Yeah, born in Tirana, but moved to Italy 20 years ago, settled in Milan, and married the missus seven years back.’

  ‘And you think she’s clean?’

  ‘Would seem so to me. That, or she’s an excellent actress. She let us go through his office, no probs, and didn’t seem to be hiding anything.’

  ‘OK.’ Scamarcio pushed the air out from his cheeks. ‘So I guess this is your case now, Cepparo, I wish you luck and, like I say, if there’s anything more, let me know.’

  ‘Can you send me the missing person’s report in full? Seems like I need that now.’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  ‘And, Scamarcio, what’s your angle on this? Why are you interested in him?’

  ‘If I told you, you’d never believe me, and anyway it won’t help you with where you’re at right now. But when it’s all done and dusted, we’ll go for a few more drinks and I’ll talk you through it.’

  ‘Sounds good. I shall hold you to that.’

  They said their goodbyes, and he hung up. Scamarcio sank back on the bed. Now there was an obvious connection between Ella and the Baker girl, not to mention the images on Arthur’s camera. Why had Ella gone missing, and where had he gone? Was he with the girl now? The thought was disquieting, to say the least, and he suddenly felt a strange kind of guilt, knowing that he possessed this new knowledge, but that her parents lay oblivious and possibly sleepless just a couple of floors above him.

  He put on his coat and hurried out of the room, descending the stairs to the reception without waiting for the elevator. The lobby was cold, echoey, and quiet. There seemed to be no one manning reception. He headed out the front door towards the carpark. There were still no stars in the sky, and the air hung chill and heavy.

  He didn’t know where he wanted to go; he just knew he didn’t want to be in the hotel anymore. He decided to head for the police station. He could make his calls from there.

  It was deserted when he walked in, apart from the desk sergeant, a battered-looking old-timer he’d seen the day before, who was now nodding off over a crumpled copy of La Nazione. He startled into life again when the front doors slammed shut behind Scamarcio.

  ‘Detective? Everything OK?’ His voice was raspy from sleep.

  ‘Yeah. Couldn’t sleep, so I decided to catch up on some paperwork.’

  ‘I admire your dedication. You’ll go far,’ he said, as if Scamarcio was a young recruit in training, and he an older, wiser chief of police.

  Scamarcio headed through to the squad room and flicked the switch for the lights. The fluorescent beams stuttered slowly into action, clicking and humming a while before the light came through.

  He walked over to his desk and switched on his computer. He could trigger a national alert for Fabio Ella from here by accessing the national police computer. It took him several minutes to get in, and then another few minutes to enter the relevant data. When it was done he left his contact details so he could be reached in the event of a sighting. He should probably have told Cepparo he was going to do this — he would call him later to explain. Suddenly, he felt a fog of tiredness overwhelm him, and he let his head rest on the desk.

  After what seemed like only minutes, he awoke with a start, aware of a painful stiffness in his neck that was spreading up to his temples. Outside the window, he could see the first weaves of pink in the sky, and guessed it had been more than minutes he’d been asleep. A few birds were chirping lazily in monotone in the trees of the piazza. He walked to the coffee machine, pulled himself an espresso, drank it down with a swift turn of the wrist, and began to feed in the coins for another. But then he heard feet pounding along the corridor, and the desk officer came running in from outside. He seemed both stressed and excited, and there was fresh colour in his cheeks. He panted to a stop on the threshold, holding the swing doors with one hand.

  ‘A call has just come in saying a body has been found on Barbarossa beach.’

  Scamarcio’s stomach flipped over. ‘A little girl’s body?’

  ‘No — adult male. Found by a Dutch tourist out for an early-morning run.’

  ‘Barbarossa — where’s that?’

  ‘To the south. You can get to it on the main road, turning left as you leave Portoferraio, heading for Azzurro. It will take you about fifteen minutes.’

  ‘OK.’ Scamarcio reached for his jacket and collected his phone before making for the door.

  ‘Shall I tell the others to join you?’

  ‘Yeah. And where’s the kit? And who’s the pathologist on the island?’

  ‘Dr Barrabino, GP from down the road; I’ll call him in one second.’ The desk sergeant was reaching into a cupboard, pulling out several clear packs of overalls, shoe coverings, and gloves. Then he leaned in again
and came out with two plastic cases: ‘Crime-scene kit.’ They looked like they had never been opened.

  Scamarcio grabbed them and hurried down the corridor towards the car-park.

  As he took the road to Porto Azzurro, the pink in the sky was becoming blue against the sea. The sea was calm and glassy, and the beaches were deserted. There was very little traffic on the road, save for a noisy truck behind him, which he presumed had just come in from the port with supplies. He left a message for Garramone as he drove, filling him in about Fabio Ella and the child porn on his computer. He decided not to mention the body for now. There was no point until he understood how it fitted in — if it fitted in.

  When he reached the bay marked Barbarossa, he was surprised to see an Alfa Romeo Spider parked up by the gate to the beach. A tall man in his late forties with classic Mediterranean looks was fiddling with something in the boot. He was already dressed in the requirement overalls.

  Scamarcio drew up alongside him, and the man turned. Scamarcio stepped out of the little Fiat and walked towards him, extending a hand. ‘Dr Barrabino, I presume. How did you get here so quickly?’

  Barrabino’s mouth formed the outline of a smile. ‘I probably had a head start on you — I live at the eastern edge of Azzurro.’ Then he surveyed the boxy Cinquecento for a moment. ‘And, not meaning to be rude, I imagine this goes slightly faster than your ride.’

  He snapped shut a case, lifted it out, and then gently closed the boot as if not wanting to expose his precious car to any extra stress.

  ‘The sergeant told me you’re up here from Rome. Sounds like a lot has been happening since your arrival.’ Something about the way he said this made it sound as though it was Scamarcio’s fault.

  ‘You could say that. A tourist called this one in, apparently.’

  Scamarcio finished putting on his protective suit, and they headed towards the gate, which opened onto the beach.

  ‘It’s the first murder I can ever remember on the island.’ Again, something about the way he said it made it sound as though Scamarcio bore some responsibility.