The Few (2 page)

The chief waved a hand away. ‘No, that's an internal disciplinary matter — I will deal with it.'

Something wasn't adding up. ‘Why are you trying to keep this secret if it's about to break in the media?'

The chief rubbed tiredly under his right eye. His skin held an early tan from several May weekends at the beach at Sperlonga, but right now it looked liverish and sickly in the ebbing light.

‘It's not that part of the story I'm worried about. It's the second part I want you to deal with.' He pulled a photo towards him, scanned it, and then turned it to face Scamarcio. His index finger was resting on the man to the right of the foreign secretary.

‘His name is Arthur.'

He was striking — with dark brows and burnt-amber eyes — but there was something about him that wasn't quite right, that remained perhaps just the wrong side of legal.

‘Arthur … as a name, I'm not sure it suits him.'

The chief sighed. ‘Doesn't matter now. He was murdered this morning — stabbed to death in his flat in Trastevere.'

2

It saddened him that it had come to this. It was not how he liked to run things. He looked down to the gardens and saw the smashed blossom like blood, cast around in the new eddies of the fountain. He had sensed that these would be cleansing rains, but now he knew that they were just the opposite: With them they would bring a tide of filth, all the sewage of the city pushing up to drown them all.

Trastevere was quiet for a Friday night. The weather must have been keeping people away. He saw a man pushing a trolley full of empty bottles up ahead, the clink of glass echoing down the street as the bottles rattled across the paving stones. A group of young people were huddled in a doorway, a raincoat stretched out above their heads, waiting for the deluge to subside. A girl was struggling to light up under the coat, and Scamarcio decided to trouble her for a cigarette — not because he particularly felt like a smoke, but mainly because she had an interesting face.

He stood with them for a few minutes, trading small talk about the rain, and then he raised his jacket collar against the elements and continued his journey towards Via Cosimato. This was a part of town he liked: cobbled alleyways finishing at nothing; darkened windows with tiny diamond panes pushing out through webs of ivy; wooden shutters barred above mysterious workshops. It was the sense of the medieval that he enjoyed — the chance to escape from that other century outside.

There was a single officer on the doorway of Number 20, just as Garramone had told him there would be. It was still quiet for now, because no one realised the connection. As far as the police were concerned, Arthur was just another rentboy who had met an untimely end.

Scamarcio murmured a greeting to the officer, who turned to push open a huge oak door. He stood back to let him through. ‘Upstairs, first on your right.'

Scamarcio thanked him and climbed the stairs. There were patches of damp on the walls where the paint was peeling. The place needed work. They'd have to sort it all out anyway after the murder — if they wanted to entice new tenants, that is.

A light was coming from the entrance to the flat. As he drew closer, he saw that the door was ajar. It had been kicked in, leaving small craters in the wood to the right and tiny shards of paint across the carpet. He eased through the gap, and the first thing he saw was Filippi, on his hands and knees, his gloved hands searching for something on the floor. Scamarcio hadn't seen him for a while, but wasn't altogether surprised to see him here; Trastevere was his beat, after all. Scamarcio surveyed the flat, or what was left of it. Nearly every painting had been smashed and knocked off-balance, photos had been ripped from their frames, and rugs cut to shreds. A plush-looking sofa bore a thick gash through its middle, which had caused foam to spill out in all directions. Oily black paint had been strewn everywhere — on the floors, across the ceiling, coating walls and partitions. He guessed he was standing in the living room, but the general chaos left some room for doubt.

Filippi grimaced as he tried to straighten from his crawling position. A slight man, no more than five foot seven, whose suits always hung badly, he was in his mid-forties, with thinning blond hair and quiet blue eyes. Scamarcio remembered that he was originally from the north, transferred down from Brescia. He held out a hand to help him up and Filippi accepted it, although irritated by the gesture. Once on his feet, he stretched slowly, hands behind his hips. ‘I don't suppose you have this problem.'

Scamarcio was a good ten years younger, and known for keeping in good shape. He didn't push it to extremes, though; he didn't want that freakish look.

‘What are you doing here? Last time I looked, this was my neck of the woods.' Filippi had to raise his head when he spoke, because of the height difference. Scamarcio could tell that this also troubled him.

‘Just taking a look — wondered if it might tie into something else I've got going on.'

‘What's that, then?'

Scamarcio smiled and said nothing.

Filippi shook his head, bored, as though he'd seen it all. ‘You're welcome to it. I've had more than my fair share of road-kill this week.' He brushed some dirt from the knees of his trousers and gestured through what remained of the living room to a doorway at the back. ‘He's still in the bedroom, and it's not a pretty sight. Forensics are on their way, so don't touch anything. I'm going round the corner for a bite — back in five.'

As Scamarcio approached the doorway, the air seemed to thicken. He stopped where the door should have been and looked through, heeding Filippi's warning, not wanting to contaminate the scene. On what remained of the bed he could just about make out a human form. There were two legs, two arms, and a head, but that was as far as it went. The corpse was so deeply bloodied that it was practically a hunk of meat — it was impossible to see whether it was male or female.

The smell was overwhelming. Scamarcio pulled a paper tissue from his pocket and spread it over his mouth. He'd seen shootings, beatings, and knife fights, but never a stabbing like this. He was about to go and find Filippi, share the experience, and laugh it off, when he became aware of a dim light coming from somewhere deep in the room — an alien glow that didn't quite belong. He stepped forward, careful not to cross the threshold. To the left was a bunch of shattered fragments of something wooden — maybe a chest of drawers — and then to its right, in the middle of what remained of a tall cabinet, was a small shelf with a mirror, its glass strangely white in all the blackness. A high-end camera lay open in front of it, its lens and body smashed, but the green light still pulsing.

3

He remembers the day they were on the hill, the whole city spread out beneath them, the glassy expanse of the sea giving back the light of the sun. The Moltisanti were crushing ants beneath their fingers, holding their broken bodies to the light, sucking the residue from their palms. He turned away, disgusted. The older brother saw and said, ‘I'm bored with this, let's find a dog.' The younger brother was silent, and turned to follow, dragging a stick through the dust. He wanted to go home, to spare himself what was to come, but he couldn't. He knew that if he stayed he might be able to stop this thing — maybe save the poor animal, and take it home.

Scamarcio decided to stick around for Forensics, hoping to hear if they'd be able to read anything off the camera. He stepped over to the window that overlooked the street. There were a few more people around now, braving the rain for a respectable meal in one of the tavernas. He cast his thoughts out into the darkness. Who was this Arthur, and what had he got himself involved in? Marital infidelity was not uncommon among middle-aged politicians, and Italians didn't get their knickers in a twist about it like they did in some of those northern countries. Usually, it wasn't even worth resigning for. But the gay element racked the whole thing up a notch, and the underage question pushed it into another league, especially as Ganza was seen to be such a family man. Scamarcio remembered the photo spreads: Ganza on his yacht with his beautiful wife, three blonde kids in tow; Ganza in the garden with his dog; Ganza at church with the family at Christmas. It was possible, of course, that Arthur's involvement with the foreign secretary was not connected to his death — possible, but unlikely. Scamarcio had never believed in coincidences. And if his death wasn't a coincidence, it meant that Scamarcio was dealing with a political case; and if this was a political case, it would spell trouble. He didn't need a political thing — he, of all people. He wondered anew just why the chief had chosen him. After all, it made little sense if you were looking at it in PR terms. He was damaged goods; his hands weren't clean, some might say. Under his breath he cursed Garramone, but his violent thoughts were interrupted by a flurry of footfalls moving up the stairs from below. Although he knew who was coming, he felt oddly anxious.

A trio of CSIs bustled into the room. Two, he knew; the third looked like a new guy.

‘Didn't know this was your beat,' said Antonio Manetti, the most senior of the team. He extended a hand, and his two colleagues surveyed the blackened walls, the new guy whistling softly.

‘Technically it isn't, but it might have a bearing on something else.'

‘Right you are.' Manetti gestured to the bedroom, seemingly uninterested. ‘The body is in there, I take it.'

‘Yes, not pretty.'

‘Thanks for the warning.' Although his tone was cold, Manetti was known for being quite sensitive at times. He made no attempt to hide his emotions when cases got to him, although most of the time he saw his way through by using the biting black humour they all employed.

He picked up his silver cases and headed for the bedroom, his team trailing behind. They all crowded on the threshold for a moment, and the new guy whistled again. He would have to stop that, thought Scamarcio. He couldn't be whistling forever.

‘I'm going to leave you guys to do your thing, but before I go, I need to draw your attention to that camera on the shelf over there.'

All three heads turned. There was a moment of silence.

‘That's a strange one,' said Peletti, the second of the CSIs. ‘Just left there like that.'

‘Do you think all the pictures would have been lost? Could there be anything left on an internal memory?'

‘I'm presuming the card has been removed,' said Manetti. ‘We'll take it to the IT guys — see what they make of it. If there's an internal drive, they'll probably try data recovery — it sometimes works miracles on real wrecks; sometimes not. I don't know whether this one is too far-gone. Judging from the general state of the place, it doesn't look good.'

‘When do you think they could give me an answer?'

‘What am I, a fortune-teller?'

Scamarcio smiled, playing along. ‘What if I call you tomorrow to see how it looks?'

‘Sure.' Manetti turned his gaze from the room to the detective. ‘What's the deal then? What are you working on?'

‘Can't say.'

Manetti rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever …' He looked back to the camera.

‘Why leave that thing? It looks like it's been picked up and put back. Why not just take it with you?'

‘My thoughts, exactly,' said Scamarcio. He gave Manetti a gentle back slap and waved to his team. ‘Filippi's already here. He'll be back through in a minute.'

They were already putting on their protective suits, and didn't seem to hear.

The chief had called him back to the apartment on Via Nazionale. It was 11.00 pm, and Scamarcio wondered at the late hour. Garramone's old friend must be putting the pressure on.

He told him about the camera.

‘But that makes no sense. Why not just take it with you?'

‘I guess it depends on which way you look at it.'

Garramone scowled, and scratched at an unruly eyebrow.

‘We're thinking about it in terms of someone other than Arthur putting it there. But what if his killer didn't know about the camera? What if he just stabbed him and left? It was Arthur, knowing he was going to die, who placed it there — left it as some kind of sign that it contained material pertinent to his death, material he wanted to preserve.'

The chief nodded slowly. ‘Maybe, but if he had the strength to do that, didn't he have the strength to escape or call for help?'

‘Perhaps he already knew it was over, that he wouldn't make it.'

They both fell silent, imaging the horror of his final minutes.

‘And what are the chances that we'll be able to lift anything off the memory — off one of those card things?'

‘I don't know. We're presuming the card's been lifted, and we're not sure it has a drive. I have to talk to Forensics tomorrow.'

The chief looked down for a moment, his gaze losing focus. After a little while, he rubbed his fingers across his forehead and raised his eyes to Scamarcio. There was something almost apologetic in the way he looked at him. ‘This thing is sensitive.'

Scamarcio said nothing. He didn't need a sensitive case, not after the media frenzy of the last 12 months. At the back of his mind was the suspicion that he was here because he was expendable, because if it all went to the wall he could leave without a fuss — it would be a departure that everyone understood. Now he wanted that doubt assuaged, but he held himself together, kept it down. After everything, he needed the chief to believe in him; still needed to prove himself.