The Few (41 page)

She raised her eyebrows at him: ‘Whatever you say, Scamarcio.'

He wasn't certain if that was a yes or a no, or whether she'd forgiven him for last time, but he smiled anyway. ‘I'll give you a call.'

‘Sure.'

He didn't know what to do next, so he just pushed back the chair, turned, and left the room.

As he headed home, the exhaustion felt bone deep. Now, nearly forty-eight hours after they'd first left for Gela, the sun was low in the sky once more, and he resolved to turn in as soon as he got home, to try to get some sleep and recover from this, the strangest of days.

As he reflected on it now, he saw that Arthur had probably intended those photos to be seen immediately in the hope that an inquiry would start from there. Although he hadn't considered stabbing as a suicide method, ultimately it had served his purpose in rendering his death more dramatic and triggering a police investigation. Ironically, Mrs Ganza had simply aided him in his final aim and made it more likely that her husband would face trial for his involvement with this depraved club. If she had in some ways been attempting to protect his professional reputation and financial security while dealing him a huge personal blow, she had only succeeded in the latter.

His mobile buzzed in his jacket. Garramone was on the line: the tone was flat, neutral now, from exhaustion perhaps: ‘The lawyer claims that there's a clear case for diminished responsibility with Mrs Ganza. Doctors' records show that she's been in and out of private mental facilities for years. And, of course, they're not best pleased we talked to her without a brief being present. They're saying that, given her illness, they'll strike her statement before it gets to court.'

‘Could they?'

‘Possibly, but we'll just get her to say it all again with the lawyer there. She doesn't seem to have any problem talking right now.'

‘They'll sedate her and shut her up.'

‘No, Scamarcio, they won't. Don't worry, it will come good.'

‘Any news on your friend? Anyone grilling him yet about his involvement in a Mafia …'

The empty line echoed back at him.

64

SCAMARCIO OPENED THE DOOR
to his apartment, half-expecting to find it turned over — for what precise reason he didn't know, but there were surely several stacking up by now. But everything was as it should be. He went into the kitchen, opened the cupboard where he kept the spirits, and poured himself a large measure of Glenfiddich.

He took a seat at the small table and took several gulps. Then he picked up his mobile and dialled Pinnetta.

‘Long time no hear,' said his trusty dealer.

‘Been trying the straight and narrow.'

‘I'm impressed.'

‘You shouldn't be. It's bad for business.'

Pinnetta snorted like the fattened pig he was. ‘So what will it be? You calling to offer me a severance package?'

‘Maybe next time. For now, I'd like the usual, and as soon as you can manage it.'

‘Sounds like it's been tough going, the straight and narrow.'

‘You could say that.'

He slumped back into the sofa, surveying the darkening sky outside. He had a fresh glass of Glenfiddich in one hand and a joint of Pinnetta's best in the other. Finally, the world around him seemed to level out, find its balance. It had been too long. He thought about Aurelia and where he'd take her for that drink. There was a fun place in Trastevere he liked — laid-back atmosphere, not too pushy.

He took another toke. Pinnetta had excelled himself. He was the master. Maybe if he'd had a crappier dealer it would have been easier to give up. He needed to find a crappier dealer.

He pushed himself up from the sofa and eased himself into the window seat so he could get a better view of the street below and the ebbs and flows of a Friday night. In the distance, beads of car lights wound their way across the seven hills, along the river, through the parks. Behind the tiny slats of light of the apartments he imagined children watching TV, spinsters cooking their brodo, couples fighting. This beautiful hodgepodge of a city: could he really live anywhere else?

He returned his gaze to the street. A group of teenagers, all dressed in black, were heading out for the night, smoking and shouting. They used to call them Goths, but now they were known as Emos, he believed. Their faces were so pale, as though the blood had been drained out of them, and they walked as if they had the weight of the world on their shoulders. Across from them on the other side of the street, the old lady from the apartment upstairs was pushing her shopping along in a little red cart, her tiny Chihuahua by her side, fretting at her heels. But something was bothering him now; he couldn't quite identify the source of it, but just felt that something in the picture wasn't right. Then he realised what it was: a short man in a baseball cap was on the corner, looking up, apparently directly at him, from the end of his street where it joined Via Piave. The man just kept on looking, bold as brass — he was still staring now. Scamarcio felt a surge of paranoia course through him. He sprang from the window seat and ran to the cupboard in his bedroom where he kept the Beretta 92 FS Inox his father had given him for his 16th birthday. He loaded it quickly and returned to the window. The man was still watching him, gazing in, undaunted. Scamarcio gripped the gun tighter, and brought it closer to him so he could feel the cold steel on his skin. But then, as if in response, the figure just doffed his cap, waved, and headed back into the darkness of Via Piave.

Scamarcio ran from the window, grabbing his keys from the apartment door before slamming it shut behind him. He sprinted down the two flights to the lobby, pushing open the heavy glass doors onto the street. He headed right, and ran across the road in the direction of Via Piave, dodging a braking car. He kept running, the drugs making his heart beat faster and his head pound. Cars and Vespas were everywhere on the street, taxis sounding their horns, bikers flipping the finger, and then he caught a glimpse of him between some parked bicycles at the end of the road, about to make the turn. He pushed himself on, could taste blood in his chest, faster, faster, faster until he could almost reach out and touch the man's back and his heaving shoulders. He stretched out his right arm, grabbed him, and brought him crashing to the ground, hard.

‘Who the hell are you? What do you want?' he gasped.

The man was fighting and kicking in the dirt beneath him. ‘Get off me. Get off me.' The voice was younger than he'd expected, scared.

‘Why were you looking at me? How do you know where I live?'

The figure kicked again beneath him. ‘Get off me. Get off.' He sounded petrified.

He pulled the stranger to his feet. The cap was on the ground now, and when he spun him around he saw that the man was probably no more than 25 years old. He had blue eyes, blond hair, a good-looking face. He was shaking under his grip. Scamarcio no longer felt afraid.

‘Listen, calm down, OK? Calm down. Just tell me what you're up to, that's all. I've had a difficult week. I'm tense, and I don't like strangers staring up at me when I'm trying to relax at home in my flat.'

The young man nodded, took a gulp of air, and bent over his knees to get his breath back. After ten seconds or so, he straightened himself up and met Scamarcio's eye. ‘I'm sorry,' he said, still panting. ‘I didn't mean to scare you. I just came to say, “Thank you.” '

‘ “Thank you”?' Scamarcio's head was spinning. ‘Why? Who are you?'

The boy had bent down again, still gasping for air. ‘I can't tell you that.'

‘What are you thanking me for then?'

‘For your hard work,' he panted. ‘I had hoped to lead you in the right direction, and I did.'

65

SCAMARCIO BROUGHT TWO GLASSES
of Nero d'Avola over to the table. The young man had regained his composure and was leaning back against the wall, surveying the other drinkers. They were in a place that Scamarcio liked to come to when he needed to get out of the flat but didn't want to go far. It was done up like a wine cellar with oak barrels as tables, low stone walls, and rustic lighting. The reds were good and the prices acceptable.

Scamarcio set the wine down in front of the stranger, who nodded his thanks. Scamarcio drew out a chair and sat, feeling crushed with exhaustion now that Pinnetta's special blend was wearing off. ‘So was it you who sent me to Elba?'

The young man took a sip of his wine and nodded again.

‘Why?'

He sank back against the wall, ran a hand through his hair, and watched a group of girls who had just come in. ‘I thought it would help — help you to understand what was going on.'

‘But how did you know what was going on? Where do you fit in?' Scamarcio took several large gulps of his wine.

‘It's not that easy to explain,' said the young man. He shifted in his seat and studied the floor awhile, seeming to be searching for some kind of strength. Finally, he returned his gaze to Scamarcio: ‘I was brought there, as a young boy. What I mean is, I was brought to the kind of place where they were taking that girl — brought for the same people.'

Scamarcio froze, unable to find any words. The man in front of him looked to be in his mid-twenties. How long had these parties been going on? ‘How old are you?' he asked finally.

‘Twenty-one.'

He seemed older than his years, and had no doubt seen the worst of life already. ‘What age were you when you were brought there?'

‘Eight. It was a month before my ninth birthday, the first time they took me.'

‘So these parties have been going on for well over ten years?'

The young man took another sip of his wine. ‘They've become something of a tradition, a time-honoured club, you might say.' Then, seemingly as an afterthought: ‘A bit like the Freemasons.'

It seemed a strange comment. Scamarcio sensed he was being thrown a hint. ‘I'd been wondering about that — wondering whether they were involved.'

‘There's a crossover, but only with some members.'

‘How many times were you taken there?'

‘Five. After that, I was left alone.'

‘Why was that, do you think?'

‘No idea. Maybe I'd served a purpose.'

Scamarcio shifted his attention to his drink, unsure where to look. ‘How did they find you in the first place? Were you kidnapped, taken from your parents?'

‘No. I was in care. When I was fostered out, I was sent to live with a family outside Rome, near Monterotondo. The men from the parties collected me from there, and returned me at the end of the evening.' He exhaled, and paused a moment. ‘The foster family must have been in on it — they just handed me over at the door, like I was going on an outing.'

‘The name of that family?'

‘The foster parents are both dead; the last one, the mother, died five years ago.'

Scamarcio wanted to press him on what happened at the villas, but it seemed too soon. Right now, he didn't want to cause him any more stress than was necessary. ‘So after the fifth time, they just stopped showing up?'

‘Yeah, I never saw them again. I was moved from the foster family, and adopted by a wealthy surgeon and his wife with an apartment on Via Licia. After that, life got a whole lot better, and it's not been bad since.'

‘So how come you knew about Elba and the girl?'

The boy sighed, and shifted his weight back against the wall. ‘Do you have a cigarette?'

Scamarcio reached for the fags in his pocket and opened the packet for the boy. He took one, and Scamarcio lit up for him. The young man drew the nicotine deep into his lungs, blowing the smoke away to his left, clear of the table. ‘I never told my adopted parents what had happened to me. It seemed shameful, and I didn't want them to see me as … as in some way tainted.' He took another drag. ‘So I kept it to myself. But there was a part of me that felt guilty about not speaking out. I worried that other children were suffering and that I'd had the power to do something about it, but hadn't.'

‘So what
did
you do?' Scamarcio realised that his voice had dropped to almost a whisper.

‘I set about finding out all I could about them, these people, if you can call them that: where the parties were held and when, who organised them …'

‘How did you manage it?'

‘There were certain things I remembered about being brought there — things that my mind hadn't managed to block out. One was that I was always collected by a man with a Tuscan accent, and that we took the motorway north to Siena, after which point he put a sack over my head and made me lie down on the floor of the back seat. When we arrived, I heard other Tuscan accents.'

He paused for a moment, exhaled deeply, and downed the rest of his wine.

‘You want another?' asked Scamarcio.

‘Yes.'

He went to the bar, and was back within a minute. He'd brought a second glass for himself as well. ‘Take all the time you need.'