The Few

by Nadia Dalbuono

  That seemed to shut Ymeri up for a few days, until he wrote. ‘When this is all over you should come to Trastevere for a drink. Stand by for delivery instructions.’

  Trastevere! Scamarcio felt vindicated. They had a location for Mr Y and, better still, it tied him to Arthur. He could be sure now that he had not been mistaken in his initial hunch. All he needed was information on where they were planning to send the child whom Ella found. But when he scanned the remaining emails, he could find no mention of this — the talk was just of money transfers and whether they had been received or not, and then a final note wishing Ella luck in his ‘endeavour’. The use of the word brought bile to Scamarcio’s throat.

  He slammed shut the laptop in frustration. Why was there no talk of the delivery? Was Ella supposed to hand the child to Dacian, who would then pass it on — was that how it was going to work? He couldn’t understand why there was no email explaining this, and then he wondered whether this part had been organised by telephone. They were taking a huge risk even using email in the first place.

  He dialled Garramone in Rome, and brought him up to speed.

  ‘Good work, Scamarcio,’ he said when he’d finished. ‘I can tell that cock in Florence where to stuff it now.’

  ‘Which cock in Florence?’

  ‘The one you infuriated today. I’ve had him bending my ear for the last forty minutes.’

  ‘We need to find Ymeri in Trastevere. I doubt he’s in the book. Maybe the station down there has heard of him, or maybe we could get a PI onto it? When we find him, we need to put a tap on him.’

  ‘You think he’d be stupid enough to use a landline to run this kind of thing?’

  ‘I doubt it. We’d need to organise a break-in, and put a bug on his mobile.’

  ‘I’m onto it,’ said Garramone. ‘We’ll find him.’ Then he sighed and said: ‘I still don’t know how this takes us back to Ganza and Arthur.’

  ‘I’m not clear on it either yet, but if that guy who accosted me in the alleyway is to be believed, they are linked, and now we have Ymeri living in Trastevere, along with the photos on Arthur’s camera. These elements are connected somehow.’ Scamarcio paused a moment. ‘What are you going to tell your friend?’

  ‘Nothing, for the moment. He’s busy. I haven’t heard from him in a while, and I’d prefer to leave it like that.’

  ‘What about Trastevere? How much are they sniffing around now?’

  ‘Minimal — they’ve got their hands full with their upcoming drugs bust.’

  ‘Right.’ Scamarcio couldn’t help thinking that this all felt rather convenient. What strings had Garramone pulled? Or the PM, for that matter?

  ‘And, Scamarcio, it seems to me that you could get off Elba for the time being, and bring this back to Rome. It will keep some of the stuffed shirts happy, too.’

  ‘I was thinking the same thing.’

  49

  SCAMARCIO FELT LIKE one of those country yokels in American films who find themselves overwhelmed by their first sight of Times Square. After the lazy cicada rhythms and mellow Mediterranean scents of Elba, the car horns and fumes of Rome felt like another country. He had decided to take the metro to Trastevere, unable to face the prospect of another hour in traffic.

  Garramone had tracked down Mr Ymeri, thanks to the unwitting help of the Trastevere squad, who knew of a pusher who claimed to know an Albanian living above one of Rome’s most famous restaurants in Via del Vascello. Albanian, because Garramone had quickly established from Google that Ymeri was an Albanian name. The lead from the Trastevere squad was one of ten on various ‘high-profile’ Albanians living in the quarter that had slowly been whittled down. In passing, Scamarcio had asked about the health of Filippi, and had been told he was off the critical list. He felt both guilty and relieved at the news — guilty because, if truth be told, he had barely given Filippi a thought in the last few days.

  He headed to the address that Garramone had given him, where they had set up shop above a bakery opposite the restaurant. After a successful break-in, which at one point had threatened to be anything but, they had spent almost a day listening to Ymeri’s phone conversations: these ranged from him placating various offended girlfriends to calling his sick mother in Tirana, but didn’t include anything of interest until he mentioned a name that set someone’s bells ringing. The team assembled by Garramone had scrambled to call the chief, who had decided to attend himself and was now waiting for Scamarcio to show.

  Scamarcio looked up and down Via del Vascello, and then rang the bell. The door buzzed open immediately, and he headed up to the first floor. In what looked like somebody’s living room were Garramone and two men he had never seen before, both seated before a blacked-out window, wearing headphones. One was fiddling with some recording equipment on a desk in front of him. To their right, Garramone sat on a rickety directors’ chair that was threatening not to support his weight for much longer. He was sipping coffee from a foam cup, and next to him was a man of medium height, muscular, and olive-skinned, with a head shaved smooth like a bullet. He was leaning against the wall, sucking hungrily on a cigarette.

  Garramone and cigarette man looked up as he came in, but the other two remained absorbed in their work. Garramone rose carefully from the chair.

  ‘Scamarcio, I want you to meet Davide Nepi — Antimafia Squad.’ Scamarcio felt his internal trip wires activated.

  Nepi clenched his cigarette between his teeth and took Scamarcio’s hand with both of his. ‘Very pleased to meet you — heard a lot about you.’

  ‘Likewise,’ said Scamarcio.

  ‘I’ve brought Davide in,’ said Garramone, ‘because we could do with some advice. A name has come up that is definitely of interest to his team.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Scamarcio.

  ‘First, I want you to listen to this.’ Garramone clicked on an audio file on his laptop, handing a small pair of headphones to Scamarcio and pushing out his chair so he could sit.

  There was some interference on the line, and then he heard a man say: ‘I can’t move without the brothers’ say-so. They’re waiting on instructions their end.’ The Italian was heavily accented. He wasn’t sure whether this was Ymeri or someone else speaking.

  ‘So what do we do in the meantime? We can’t just leave the goods unattended.’ The Italian was flawless, the accent Milanese. The other man had to be Ymeri.

  ‘No, I’ve sent someone down there to keep an eye on things until we get moving.’

  ‘Can you trust them? Is it going to be another fuck-up?’

  ‘Just stay calm. There’s nothing to worry about.’

  The other man sighed. ‘You know what it is, it’s the Moltisanti — they’re loose cannons. I’m not sure we chose well. I’m not sure we’ll see the cash.’

  ‘We’ll see our money,’ said the man who Scamarcio presumed was Ymeri. ‘I’ll make sure of that.’

  Then the line went dead.

  Scamarcio removed the headphones. ‘I’m not clear on what I was listening to.’

  ‘The guy with the accent was Ymeri,’ said Garramone.

  Nepi stubbed out his fag in an already-overburdened ashtray. ‘There are two points of interest in that conversation. One is the mention of the “brothers”; the other is the name “Moltisanti”. The Moltisanti brothers are long-time Cosa Nostra who have recently fallen foul of the main leadership — they’ve put too many noses out of joint. They’re now perceived as lone wolves, and the dons have been watching out for their next move. We’d been anticipating turf wars over drug and contraband, but now Garramone tells me you’re possibly looking into child trafficking with this guy Mr Ymeri. So that’s obviously of great interest to us.’

  ‘We did find coke on Elba,’ said Scamarcio.

  ‘Yes — Garramone filled me in.’

  ‘Obviously, we don’t
know here whether they are talking about drugs or the snatched girl. If it’s the snatched girl, that makes me think she’s still on Elba. They’re keeping her there until they know what to do with her,’ said Garramone.

  ‘That would be my assessment, too,’ said Scamarcio. ‘What do we do? Advise the reinforcements on the island to keep searching in the vicinity of the camp, near where the drugs were found?’

  ‘I’d say so,’ said Garramone. ‘The other question now is whether we put the thumbscrews on Ymeri.’

  Nepi was shaking his head violently. ‘No. He has to lead us to the brothers, and for him to do that he needs to be a free man — free of any suspicion he’s being watched.’

  ‘You have no idea where they’re based?’

  ‘Well, no doubt they’re in Sicily, but they’re in hiding like the rest of them, changing locations every twenty-four hours. They’re not stupid enough to go on Facebook with their dongles, like some of the younger generation, so we’re up against it there.’ He pulled a fag packet from his shirt pocket and offered them around. Scamarcio took one gratefully. Nepi lit up for the both of them. ‘But the priority is not their location right now. We first need them to incriminate themselves on the telephone to Ymeri, and incriminate themselves to a level sufficient for conviction.’ Nepi spoke fast, his words coming like machine-gun fire. ‘It’s great we now have this new conduit to them. But, for the moment, we just need to sit tight and listen, and hope that they’ll come on the line and say something they shouldn’t. Only then do we go in.’

  ‘I probably don’t need to remind you that there’s a girl’s life at stake here,’ said Scamarcio, trying to keep his tone even.

  ‘I know, but you’ve got to keep your eye on the endgame, the bigger picture. If they’re involved in a child-trafficking ring, and it’s not just drugs, we’re talking about many more children — not just the one — and to put a stop to that we have to put them away, and that takes time and patience.’ He took a furtive suck on the cigarette. ‘Anyway, it sounds like the Moltisanti may not know where she is for now; it seems that that’s more in the hands of your Mr Ymeri. And like your chief says, all you can do is keep searching that island and hoping you come up trumps. Although if you don’t, it’s better for the investigation. Obviously.’

  ‘What?’

  Nepi gave a tired smile. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m not for a minute saying I don’t want you to find the girl. It’s just that, obviously, the calmer they are, the more confident they are, the more likely they are to incriminate themselves.’

  Scamarcio wasn’t quite sure he bought the justification. ‘When you say incriminate themselves, just what are you looking for? It’s probably all going to stay cryptic.’

  ‘Not necessarily, and it depends on whether we can tie their words into any developments on the ground. It’s all a matter of interpretation, contingent on the evidence that comes along.’

  ‘OK,’ said Scamarcio, taking a deep breath. ‘So where now?’

  Garramone turned to Nepi: ‘Would you mind if my detective and I just stepped outside for a second?’

  ‘No problem,’ said Nepi, sucking on his cigarette as if his life depended on it. Scamarcio wondered if the man was on coke.

  Once they were in the corridor, Garramone said: ‘I’m going to leave these guys to listen here, and then I’ll alert our friends back on Elba. You’ll have the time now to tie up some of your loose ends, Scamarcio. And I’ve got a good place for you to start.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Ganza’s wife is back in Rome. She’ll see you this afternoon — at Café Milano on Via dei Gracchi, at 2.00pm.’

  ‘Why is she talking?’

  ‘Pressure from on high, would be my guess. God knows if she’ll give us anything, but a woman scorned and all that … After you’re done with her, any thoughts on your next move?’

  Scamarcio fell silent for several moments before answering. ‘I’m thinking that I’d like to go back down to Naples and nail that second officer, Rossi, who was present when the photos of Ganza were first handed over. As I told you, his colleague seemed to think he knew the man who gave them the pictures. I want to talk to him, and hear what he has to say.’

  ‘Yes, track him down. He needs to give me an explanation for why he’s gone AWOL,’ said Garramone. ‘But if that family’s Camorra, like the neighbour suggested, you need to tread carefully — very carefully.’

  50

  VIA DEI GRACCHI was quiet. Everyone, it seemed, had scuttled back to their offices for the afternoon, and the tourists were headed elsewhere. Café Milano was the typical high-end affair: buffed gold and polished mahogany, wide mirrors and elaborate icing, pretty young waitresses gliding up and down in starched white. He spotted her in the far corner on the right, recognising her immediately from the society pages and her recent photos in the press. It was the usual perfect package for a woman such as this: her posture was ram-rod straight; her hair, a long, lustrous brown; her features, delicately sculpted — the nose gently upturned, the cheekbones high and strong, framing deep-brown eyes with thick lashes and brows. She was dressed in a buttoned-over grey cashmere cardigan with long sleeves that almost covered her hands entirely. He wondered momentarily at the choice, given the weather, and then realised that the air inside the café was much cooler. She was no doubt a regular, and knew to come prepared. She was looking out onto the street, absent-mindedly tracking the passers-by.

  He approached the table. ‘Mrs Ganza? Leone Scamarcio. Thanks for seeing me.’

  She seemed surprised, as if she hadn’t been expecting him, and then quickly composed herself and held out a hand. They shook, and he took a seat. There were fine lines around her eyes and mouth, but the rest of her skin was smooth and even: for a woman in her mid-forties, she was in impressive shape. He guessed she’d had help with that.

  ‘Would you like a coffee, Detective?’ Before he’d answered, she’d waved over the waitress in that way that people who had always had money felt comfortable doing. She was the daughter of an oilman, he seemed to remember; she was much richer than Ganza himself.

  ‘Caffè latte, thanks.’

  She placed their orders and then looked down at the table, delaying the moment when they would have to make eye contact.

  After a few seconds, she lifted her gaze to him and said: ‘I’m sorry, but I fear I’m not going to be of much help to you, Detective.’

  There was a deadness behind her eyes, and he wondered if it was exhaustion, both emotional and physical.

  ‘I just need to ask you a few basic questions — we’re crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s, really.’

  She nodded, seeming to steel herself.

  ‘How long did you know about your husband’s relationship with Arthur?’

  She shook her head gently, and cast her eyes down again. Her voice was low and tired. The words came slowly. ‘It was a complete surprise. I had no idea.’

  ‘So he never said anything?’

  ‘Well, would you?’

  The comment threw him slightly, and he was momentarily lost for words. Thankfully, the waitress was back with their coffees. He pulled the caffè latte towards him and took a sip, and then asked: ‘So all seemed well in the marriage?’

  ‘We had been married for 17 years, Detective. A marriage like that takes a lot of work. There were the usual ups and downs.’

  ‘But nothing that led you to suspect he could be having an affair?’

  She carefully replaced her cup on the saucer, turned it around so the handle was pointing to her right, and then looked up, fixing him squarely in the eye. ‘Detective, it was not an affair. He was a whore. He used him for sex.’

  Scamarcio decided not to push it for now. ‘So when those photos appeared in the press, it was the first you had heard of it?’

  She sighed, exasperated. ‘No, my
husband had warned me the night before that they were about to come out. He’d told me we all needed to get out of Rome for a while.’

  ‘Did he explain what had gone on between him and Arthur?’

  She laughed — a defeated, bitter little laugh. ‘It’s funny how you keep calling him that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I’m sure that’s not his name.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘What Argentine calls their child Arthur?’

  He smiled, playing along. ‘So did your husband explain the nature of their relationship?’

  ‘He just told me what I’ve told you. He was a whore, and he paid him for sex.’ She paused a moment. ‘Why the gay stuff? Well, he didn’t go into that and, frankly, I wasn’t in the mood for asking.’

  ‘Did he have any idea who had killed him?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, none at all.’

  ‘Do you have any ideas?’

  She exhaled, leaning back against the wall. ‘Why would I know? I didn’t even know of this … this person’s existence until a few days ago.’

  Scamarcio nodded and then said: ‘How did your husband seem? When he heard about Arthur’s death, I mean?’

  She fell silent for a moment and then said: ‘He’s scared.’ She paused. ‘He’s not saying, but I can tell.’ There was something strangely triumphant in her tone.

  ‘Why do you think he’s scared?’

  ‘I guess because he’s worried that you lot will think he’s responsible.’

  ‘Do you think he’s responsible?’

  She went to bar her arms across her chest, and then seemingly thought better of it and placed her hands on her lap under the table.

  ‘My husband is a selfish, deluded fool, Detective, but he’s not a murderer. Seventeen years with someone, and there are certain things you know about them.’