The Few (13 page)

As she entered the courtyard, her skin prickled against the sudden cool. The cluster of tourists had already moved on. She breathed in the earthy dampness of the stone, and imagined that this was her villa, her summer retreat far away from everything and everyone. A shard of laughter splintered out across the stonework, and she followed. The group had gathered around a statue, a young guide explaining its history in faltering English. Fabio caught her gaze and rolled his eyes. She turned away, unwilling to share the joke, tired of his arrogance. ‘17th century, present from a Tuscan duke, marble from Abruzzo', the guide stumbled on. Her mind was so full; everything was painful, circular, exhausting. She looked up, searching for an image to divert her. One of the Germans was staring at her, and she turned, instinctively seeking out her husband for protection. But she could no longer see him in the room. No doubt he'd wandered off, bored, believing he knew it all already. She scanned the far corners of the hallway to the chambers beyond, but she couldn't find him there. Perhaps he had stepped outside, needing some air. She headed back to the courtyard, her heels tapping on stone, shattering the sleepy silence of the afternoon. The wall of heat hit her as she stepped into the sunlight, almost forcing her back. She closed her eyes against the brightness. When she opened them, she expected to find him leaning against the wall, enjoying a cigarette, perhaps keen and exciting again like his twenty-something self. But the gardens were empty. What was he playing at? Now what was he trying to prove? She kicked several small stones, sending them scattering across the cracked earth, and headed back inside.

O
FFICER PARODI THREW
down his sandwich. He had been attempting to finish it for the last ten minutes, but the phone had been ringing nonstop. First it had been the xenophobic mayor of Porto Azzurro complaining about a gypsy festival that had run into the early hours, then it was a tourist from Bologna claiming that a ‘tiny' boy had snatched her camera, and finally it was the Milanese woman for the fifth time asking if there was any news of her husband. It was obvious to anyone with half a brain that the guy had done a runner, although no one had the balls to break it to her. Needless to say, they wouldn't be wasting their precious resources trying to track him down. Like so many poor fellows these days, the man did not want to be found.

For the fourth time, Parodi edged the sandwich aside and attempted to swallow the remaining bites. ‘Police,' he said.

He heard a ghost of a voice at the other end, fragile and scared.
Not the Milanese again
, he prayed.

‘Can you help?' He could barely make out the words. ‘Something awful …' She was speaking English, and he was struggling to understand. They had been given courses last year to help them deal with the summer tourists, but he had never taken to it and had found the weekly homework irksome.

‘What problem?' His brain ached.

‘
O
ur daughter — she's, she's disappeared.'

‘Where?'

‘The beach at Fetovaia. She was playing in the sand and then …' The woman stopped. The words were getting harder to make out. ‘I don't know — she, she vanished, she disappeared.' Sobs overcame her, and the last words were whispers: ‘We've looked everywhere — we don't know what to do.'

Parodi struggled to remember the vocabulary they'd been taught. Now he wished he'd paid more attention instead of flirting with Rita from customs.

‘How old?'

‘Seven, seven years old.' The woman broke down again.

The sergeant sighed and pushed away the sandwich, defeated. This call spelt trouble. And God help them if Ignazio Calo had already sniffed out the story.

22

SCAMARCIO OPENED HIS EYES
one at a time and assessed the level of sunlight in the room. He could barely make out the Fattori above the chest. He had no idea what time it was. He'd fallen asleep when he'd returned to his flat — maybe because of the stress of the encounter in the alleyway, or maybe the small shard of resin he'd found at the back of the kitchen cupboard. The low buzz of the telephone persisted, and he reached for it slowly, like an astronaut in a state of weightlessness, the dull cannabis ache deadening his temples.

‘Scamarcio.'

‘Sorry to wake you.' It was Garramone. He didn't sound sorry at all.

‘I wasn't asleep.'

‘Whatever. Listen, I've got a lead on the other guy in the photo. I need you to go to Florence.'

Scamarcio pulled himself up against the pillows. Now he was straight, he realised that it was a powerful headache starting at the base of his neck and reaching around both temples. He rubbed the thinning skin under his eyes.

‘Florence?'

‘Perfect opportunity to get you out of Rome for a bit. And the lead is solid — he'll be there.'

‘What? Now?'

‘He may not hang around. The lead just came in.'

Scamarcio sighed, and sank back into the pillows. ‘Listen, boss, I've got a lead myself. I went down to Via Nizza to check out this Geppo the bookie character, and some guy practically knifes me in an alleyway and tells me the answer to all this can be found on Elba — there's something going down on the island that's apparently connected.'

‘On Elba? Nothing ever happens on Elba.'

‘My thoughts exactly.'

Garramone fell silent a moment. ‘Let me see what I can find out. I'll call you back.'

The phone rang again five minutes later. Scamarcio hadn't moved from his position on the pillow. He couldn't ever remember feeling more exhausted.

‘An American child has gone missing from one of the beaches. The local cops are running around like headless chickens, and a media circus is on its way.'

Scamarcio felt a tightness in his chest. This investigation was getting too big for them, crossing boundaries it was better to avoid.

He knew the answer before he asked. ‘So I check it out?'

Garramone sighed. ‘Yeah, you check it out.'

Although it was just a little past 10.00am, the June heat already had the day in its stranglehold. Through the haze he could make out the island police waiting for him on the tarmac, their orange siren morphing lazily. Scamarcio braced himself for the usual friction, and watched as the door of the battered Fiat opened and a young lad stepped out, all arms and legs, a spider unfolding. As he made his way towards them, the young guy turned and spotted him.

‘Welcome.'

‘Detective Scamarcio, pleased to meet you.'

‘Likewise.' The young guy led him back to the car, silent.

In the driver's seat was another officer, maybe a few years older. He nodded, also saying nothing. Scamarcio climbed in the back and they pulled away. A blur of dense palm trees and pastel cottages sped by, and in the distance he could make out the first traces of blue. He felt glad to be out of the city, away from the smog for a while.

‘Talk me through it. It was the beach at Fetovaia, right?'

The younger officer was the first to respond: ‘Yes. It's a popular spot, but it was pretty deserted on Tuesday; there were only three other families, and none of them seems to have seen anything.'

‘What about the parents? What did they tell you?'

‘The mother is hysterical, cries all the time — it's hard to get anything out of her. The father is very silent, doesn't say much, just broods. They have no idea how it happened, seem completely in the dark.'

‘What do they do for a living?'

‘The father's an engineer in Maine. The mother stays home, cares for the kid, used to be a lawyer, apparently.'

They were descending a steep hill, and the blinding azure of the sea came into view, framed by tumbling red-and-white bougainvillea. Scamarcio had been to Elba once before, many years ago with an old girlfriend. The fragments of a song came up to his mind — a song by an English band he used to listen to when he was a teenager, something about not loving someone as much as you used to.

He didn't remember a great deal about the trip, except that they had argued almost constantly and had split on their return. But it wasn't a split that he remembered feeling particularly cut up about.

‘Here we are,' said the younger officer. ‘The boss is waiting.'

As he got out of the car, Scamarcio spied a squat man, florid in the face, kneeling at the water's edge. He looked up, their eyes locked, and in that instant Scamarcio knew there would be trouble between them.

‘Morning.' Chief Genovesi, head of the Elba squad, assessed him dispassionately for several moments before returning his gaze to the sea. ‘I don't know why they sent you,' he said. ‘We might be a small force, but we can handle this ourselves.'

Scamarcio tried a smile, but Genovesi didn't notice. ‘They have every faith in you and your men. Perhaps it wasn't explained properly, but I'm here because it might tie in to another case I'm following down in Rome. Besides, you know what it's like when the press takes an interest. It's useful for us to be seen as pulling out all the stops.'

The chief tossed a broken shell into the water. ‘You're all the stops, are you?'

‘No. But you know what I mean.'

‘No, Scamarcio, I don't. But I know you and your reputation, and I could have done without it. I don't want a circus.'

The detective shrugged. ‘These days, it's hard to avoid. You know the press would have come whether I was here or not.'

Genovesi snorted. ‘Whatever. I'm not running this for the media. It's the chief of police in Florence I work for. Anyway, what's your case in Rome? Another missing kid?'

‘No. Right now, it looks like a child-porn inquiry.'

‘Well, it is or it isn't, surely.'

‘It's complicated.'

Scamarcio scanned the beach, his eyes settling on the line of blue police tape as it danced in the breeze. ‘Was the scene secured straightaway?'

‘What do you take us for — yokels?'

It was not unheard of for hours to pass before a scene was sealed off, particularly with the less-experienced rural forces. Many a murderer had escaped jail thanks to their shortcomings. Scamarcio said nothing, letting Genovesi defend himself.

‘It was secured as soon as we arrived.'

‘And you found nothing?'

‘Nothing — as empty as a nun's you-know-what.'

Scamarcio felt a sudden desire to be back in Rome. ‘Show me where they were sitting.'

Genovesi started towards the rocks at the far right of the bay, his portly frame wobbling across the sand. It was a smallish stretch of beach, no more than 250 metres long, flanked by wooded hills at either end. The sand was pristine, and he decided that the aquamarine waters were on a par with Cala Capreria — maybe better. As they approached the tape, Genovesi waved the two officers over. ‘Zanini and Borghetti were the first on the scene,' he announced, panting slightly.

He gestured to a spot by the rocks where the sand was flat and smooth. ‘The American family was sitting here. They had their towels spread out on the rocks to dry; the little girl was playing in the water with her bucket and spade, and had started to build a castle. The mother decided to sunbathe on her front for a few minutes. When she looked up, the girl was gone.'

‘A few minutes?'

‘Well, that's what she says. She could have lost track of time.'

‘
O
r fallen asleep and been too ashamed to admit it. And what was the father doing?'

‘He at least admits that he was sleeping. He'd been reading a book and had nodded off under the umbrella.'

‘So that's possibly both parents out. They could have been asleep for ten, twenty minutes — who knows? And no cry from the little girl?'

‘They say they heard nothing.'

‘Whoever took her may have drugged her,' said Scamarcio. ‘Any other families on the beach?'

‘Just three. We've spoken to them all, and none of them saw anything useful.' Genovesi's tone implied that he was quite capable of assessing the intrinsic value — or lack of it — of any potential evidence.

‘I'd like to talk to them after we're done with the parents.'

‘You'd just be wasting your time.'

Scamarcio kicked some sand from his shoe. ‘I'll be the judge of that,' he said.

23

THE AMERICANS WERE STAYING
in a four-star hotel carved into the cliffs above the bay. It sprawled across the rock face, all pine and glass, its vast decked terrace looking out to the sea. The lobby was busy with the arrival of a party of Germans, tanned and athletic, all in their sixties or older. Scamarcio wondered if his police pension would stretch to such a comfortable retirement.

Genovesi opened his badge for the receptionist. ‘We're here for the Bakers. Remind me what room.'

The receptionist darted a look at the Germans, and lowered his eyes. ‘We've moved them. All the crying and screaming was upsetting the other guests.'