The Few Read online

  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.

  He could see that Garramone was watching him carefully, observing how he was responding to whatever experiment he still had in play. ‘The good news is that it looks like the media have been persuaded to keep a lid on it for now.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘They’ve been told that if they go with it, they will be denied access to certain people, certain stories further down the line. They took a long-term view about whether the story was worth the risk.’

  ‘And they decided it wasn’t?’

  ‘Seems that way. It’s good for us — means things stay calmer for longer.’

  ‘So now …’

  The chief rose from his seat and walked to the window. Passing brake lights etched a ghostly course through his tired skin.

  ‘Now you need to find out all you can about this Arthur, his relationship with the foreign secretary, other people in his circle. We need to know who killed him and why.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And t
hen we think about the implications.’

  ‘But what about Filippi and the Trastevere squad? Won’t they make the connection for themselves, start digging?’

  ‘I’ve been assured that, as far as they are concerned, he’s just another dead hooker.’

  ‘Who’s assured you? How does that work?’

  Garramone raised a hand to silence him. ‘Scamarcio, stop asking the wrong questions and start asking the right ones.’ He paused. ‘I don’t want you in the office — you can work from home. Call me if you need access to any files; I’ll get you what you need.’

  A knot of anxiety tightened in Scamarcio’s chest. Something felt wrong here, and yet again he’d been placed right in the middle of it.

  4

  There was no trace of Arthur anywhere on the internet. From the information the chief had been able to gather, it seemed that, surprisingly, he was possibly already 20, but unlikely much older, and had gone by the name of José Maraquez during an early life spent in La Quiaca in the north of Argentina where it bordered Bolivia. Google images showed La Quiaca to be a depressed slum town — its muddy alleyways straddled with drooping electric cable, barefoot children, chickens, and rangy dogs playing together in the filth. It seemed that as soon as they were old enough, many of these children would leave for Cordoba or Buenos Aires, where there was at least some small chance of finding work.

  According to Garramone, their two blackmailing colleagues had been handed the photos by a man unknown to them. So if Scamarcio was to get any real background on Arthur, he would need to talk to his friends and acquaintances. The problem was that Forensics had found no trace of a mobile. Any address books or letters had been impossible to come by, and the jury was still out on the camera. That meant that, right now, they only had two people who knew the victim: One was the foreign secretary, now safely ensconced in his retreat; the other was the second young man in the photo, whose identity remained a mystery. He would need to call someone in Vice — probably Carleone. Their paths had crossed once or twice, but he would need to tread carefully.

  ‘Carleone.’ It was the voice of an unhappy man, clearly put out to be troubled on a Saturday.

  ‘It’s Leone Scamarcio. Sorry to disturb you at the weekend.’

  ‘Weekend? I haven’t seen a weekend in a long time.’

  ‘You got a case on?’

  ‘Got a bust coming — hours of overtime. Seems like we’ll never see the back of it.’

  ‘Been there, got the T-shirt. Listen, I was wondering if you could help me out.’

  ‘As long as it’s quick.’

  ‘It’s a hookers’ thing: I was wondering about the gay scene. The rentboys. If you were looking for one — good looking, youngish, not the rough trade at Termini — where would you try? Do they have a street where they hang out?’

  Carleone laughed: a dirty, dry little laugh. ‘It’s come to that, has it? Want me to draw you a map?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever. I just need a way in.’

  Carleone’s tone grew marginally more serious. ‘This for work?’

  ‘Yeah, but I can’t go into it.’

  He yawned down the line, registering his lack of interest. ‘I know a couple of people who’ll see you right. Hang on.’

  Scamarcio heard typing, the whirr of a fan, some distant laughter in the background.

  Carleone came back on. ‘The first is quite something — Maria, formerly known as Raffaele. She’s interesting because if you didn’t know the truth, I don’t think you’d be able to guess.’ He paused for a moment, maybe remembering the first time he’d seen her: ‘It’s quite a thing to behold.’ Scamarcio wondered whether Carleone had ever blurred the lines between his professional and private life.

  ‘You’ll find her down in Testaccio, along with a few girlfriends. Next to the McDonalds by the bridge is the main pick-up point, and they’re there most nights. I’ve got a number for her, if you want.’ Scamarcio took it and hung up.

  Testaccio had none of the charm of Trastevere. If anything, it looked like a grim Naples suburb, a malignant growth hidden within the sumptuous folds of the eternal city. The girls were on the corner by McDonalds, all decked out in knee high-boots, zips, and PVC, just as Scamarcio had expected.

  ‘Hey, gorgeous, you look cold.’

  ‘Want someone to snuggle up to?’

  Carleone was right. One of them was stunning, and there was nothing to suggest that she could be anything other than female. The other three were slightly tougher to digest.

  Scamarcio pulled out his badge, which triggered a group sigh of exasperation. The beautiful one, who he presumed was Maria, took a step forward and grabbed him by the wrist. It was a strong grip.

  ‘Listen, we got all this straight with Carleone. We been through it hundreds of times.’

  Scamarcio raised a palm to calm her. ‘I’m not here for that. I was hoping you could help me with an inquiry. No trouble for any of you — no repercussions.’

  ‘How do we know you’re straight?’

  ‘Check with Carleone.’

  Maria flipped open a mobile, pressed a number on speed-dial, and distanced herself from the group. He reckoned that she was almost his height. Her hair was long, lustrous, and dark, and left to hang loose. It framed almond eyes of a startling blue, a shade so intense that he felt sure it was artificial — the result of coloured contact lenses, or some such trick.

  She finished the call and flipped shut the phone, pulling a cigarette from a pocket as she did so. She rooted around for a lighter and lit up, shielding her face from the wind and the damp.

  ‘Carleone says you’re clean. What is it you want?’

  Scamarcio pulled the photos from his shoulder bag, and passed them around the huddle.

  ‘Do you know these boys?’

  Maria rejoined them now, and leaned in to get a better look. He could smell her scent. It was familiar to him, and a memory stirred: a summer evening by the sea in Gallipoli, and a girl from Salento — a girl he had cared for.

  They had cut the foreign secretary out of the picture, and had made singles of the two young men.

  ‘That one.’ Maria tapped a red fingernail against the photo of Arthur. ‘I think that’s Max — I knew him once.’ She scanned the faces of her friends for confirmation. One of them, an older, too-tall blonde, nodded. ‘Yes, it’s him, but he’s changed a bit. Looks like he could have had some work done. As for the other one, no idea.’

  Scamarcio tried to read her, to make sure she wasn’t playing him. ‘You sure it’s Max, because we know him as Arthur?’

  ‘It’s definitely Max. Maybe he changed his name — it happens. Perhaps it’s his new working name.’

  ‘When did you see him last?’

  The two women exchanged glances. ‘It’s been a long time — maybe a year, maybe more. He used to hang with us here.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  Maria shook her head. ‘No idea. He just stopped turning up for work, and then he didn’t return our calls. We thought he’d gone on to bigger and better things.’

  ‘Bigger and better?’

  Maria glanced at her colleague again, and he thought he saw something strange pass between them. ‘It’s just an expression. I have no idea what happened to him.’

  ‘And you?’ Scamarcio turned to the other prostitute.

  ‘Ditto. It happens. Girls and boys get lucky and are able to take themselves off the street, or they get unlucky and fate decides for them.’

  ‘So you would never call in a missing colleague?’

  Maria laughed ‘Back then, no. Now things have settled, maybe. But it’s not like you guys would care. A dead hooker is low down enough on the list. But a foreigner? I don’t think we’d get five minutes, do you?’

  He pushed on, unwilling to be drawn in. �
�What did you know about Max when you did work with him?’

  Maria shrugged. ‘Not a lot. He wasn’t here for long. I think he said he was from Argentina, that he came here some years before. He’d wanted to be a dancer in clubs, but that hadn’t worked out, so he’d ended up on the street. He was a looker, Max, as you can see. He got a lot of attention.’

  ‘Was he underage?’

  ‘No idea. I don’t think so. He was a wise soul.’

  That meant nothing, thought Scamarcio. ‘Any family back home?’

  The two women traded glances again, conferring, waiting for the other to speak.

  The older prostitute went first: ‘He never mentioned anyone. I got the feeling that he’d left on bad terms — traditional family, couldn’t accept what he’d become. The usual story.’

  ‘Did he seem happy?’

  Maria took a long drag on her cigarette. It trailed an amber wake in the darkness, and melted into the sodium of the street-lamps. ‘Hell, who’s happy? But he was making enough to eat and pay the rent. And, yeah, he was always cheerful — upbeat, if that’s what you mean. He had what you’d call a sunny disposition.’ There was a bitterness in the way she said the words.

  ‘Were there any particular punters who liked him — regulars, returning customers?’

  ‘I’m sure there were, but I couldn’t tell you who. It was far too long ago.’

  ‘No one among your current clients?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She seemed almost put out. ‘We were completely different types. Obviously.’ Scamarcio wasn’t sure he agreed. If you took away the long hair, the Latin look was the same, and the doe eyes quite similar.

  ‘Could you ask around the punters, and see if anyone remembers him?’