18

IT WAS 8.00 PM, and as Fiammetta had said she was going to bed, and as he hadn’t been able to find out anything useful about Cafaro’s career history, Scamarcio thought he’d head to the gendarmerie barracks and do some casual asking around. He hoped that the chief inspector might have gone home, and that the visit might give him a chance to speak to the young priests once more.

The golden dome of St Peter’s was looming into view when his phone rang.

‘Could you come right away?’ said Mrs Borghese. There was a tremor in her voice, and Scamarcio couldn’t decide if she’d been hitting the bottle or crying. Perhaps both, he reasoned.

‘Has something happened, Katia?’

‘No. Yes. Well … kind of. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. It would be much better if we could talk in person.’

Scamarcio stifled a sigh. ‘OK. I can be there in half an hour.’

‘Thank you.’

He turned back the way he’d come, searching for a taxi. Friday at 8.00 pm was not a good time to try. The traffic was backed up for miles, and the usual pointless cacophony of horns was starting up. What did she want? He hoped it would be worth the effort.

An hour later, when he finally arrived at the Borghese’s apartment, Mrs Borghese welcomed him with what looked like a tumbler of whisky in one hand and a burned-out cigarette in the other. She was wearing a silk dressing-gown that was sagging open.

Great, he thought, a tired attempt at seduction in the middle of a nightmare inquiry. Could it get any better?

Katia Borghese led him into the living room and flopped herself down on the sofa and yawned. The dressing-gown gaped wider.

‘I’m worried about my husband,’ she said quietly.

‘Your husband?’

‘He keeps disappearing for long periods, and when he does eventually show up, he barely speaks to me.’

Scamarcio tried to push back against a wave of frustration. He’d changed his plans for this?

‘He’s grieving, Katia. Grief affects people in many different ways.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, unconvinced. ‘But I think he’s trying to pull something off.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘My husband’s a mover and shaker. He doesn’t just sit back and deal with what comes — that’s not his way. He’s got to be in the driver’s seat, calling the shots.’

‘So, how does that relate to your son’s death?’

‘I think Gennaro is up to something. I think he may have found out who’s done this and is out for revenge.’

‘What?’

She shrugged and opened her palms. ‘Like I say, he’s proactive.’

‘But surely he knows that’s our job?’

‘Maybe he doesn’t trust you to find the killer? I don’t know, I just have a strong feeling he has a plan in motion.’

Scamarcio sat down on the sofa and pulled out his mobile. But before he placed the call, he asked, ‘And do you have any idea who your husband might be targeting? Who he suspects?’

She shook her head quickly. ‘None. That’s the frustrating thing. Right now, I’m the last person he’d talk to about it.’

Scamarcio patted his jacket pocket for his fags. There were only three left. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

‘As long as you offer me one,’ said Mrs Borghese, readjusting the dressing-gown.

Although it was nearly 9.30 pm by the time he’d dealt with Mrs Borghese, Scamarcio decided to head back to the Vatican as the chances were now high that Cafaro had left. As Scamarcio approached the Ponte Sant’Angelo, the milky pale faces of the statues stared back at him, sombre and pensive in the moonlight. He thought of the body he’d found hanging here the year before last and the way in which that one murder had changed his world view, had perhaps changed him. His mobile rang, and he looked away from the river and checked the screen. Sartori was finally returning his call.

‘See if you can locate Gennaro Borghese, and once you do, put a tail on him,’ barked Scamarcio.

‘What’s cooking?’

‘No idea, but his wife thinks Gennaro doesn’t trust us to do our jobs and that he might want to strike out on his own.’

‘Who does he have in his sights?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Jesus,’ hissed Sartori down the line.

St Peter’s rose up out of the darkness, and Scamarcio upped his pace. ‘Jesus, indeed. Let me know if you get anywhere.’

He finished the short walk to the main entrance of the Vatican and produced his badge for the Swiss Guard.

‘What are you doing here?’ one of them asked, his expression cold.

‘I just need to ask someone a question in relation to my current inquiry.’

‘We’ve heard all about your current inquiry.’

Scamarcio said nothing.

‘Who do you want to see?’

Scamarcio did not feel like sharing his plans, and the reception at the gate was putting him off a trip to the barracks. ‘Priest Lania. He’s from the Veneto,’ he heard himself say.

The guard frowned, but handed back his ID and motioned him through. ‘You have half an hour, then we will be coming to check.’

‘Right you are, then.’

Scamarcio walked away as quickly as he could, then pulled out his mobile and dialled Lania. ‘Any chance you, Michele, and your colleagues from the exorcism could meet me in the next fifteen minutes? Somewhere near the main entrance.’

‘I’m not sure I can round up everyone so quickly,’ said Lania hesitantly.

‘Please try. It’s important.’

The boy said he’d do his best, so Scamarcio slumped down on a cold stone bench in the gardens and spent the next few minutes scrolling through emails. He hoped that the Swiss guards hadn’t alerted the gendarmerie, but he knew there was rivalry there and collaboration wasn’t always a given. There was, of course, the possibility that one of Cafaro’s cronies would be scanning CCTV, but, hell, sometimes you just had to try.

Scamarcio had replied to most of his emails, most of them pointless, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Lania with one of the other, younger, priests, whose name he couldn’t remember. The third one was nowhere to be seen.

‘I couldn’t get hold of Riccioni,’ said Lania. ‘He’s not answering his mobile.’ Scamarcio remembered Riccioni as the priest who had only joined the group on the day of Andrea’s murder, so his absence seemed less of a loss. ‘And Michele has the flu — he sounds awful, says he’s got a fever of thirty-nine.’

‘It might be the shock,’ said Scamarcio, wondering quietly if Michele Cogo was trying to avoid him. ‘No worries,’ he added, rising wearily. ‘Thanks for coming at such short notice.’

‘You said it was important.’

‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’

‘The library’s just around the corner. It’s closed, but I can get the key.’

‘Sure.’

The boy led the way inside, stopping at a small office, where he muttered a few words to a plump grey-haired man behind a counter and was promptly handed a large key chain.

The library was less than a minute’s walk down a wide wood-panelled corridor, which smelled of sandalwood and expensive polish. When they entered, Scamarcio was struck by the hollow ring of their footsteps across the enormous marble floor. As the overhead lights spluttered to life, he glanced up to see a magnificent corniced ceiling adorned with pastel frescoes depicting the Ascension. Row upon row of massive books stretched to the end of the hall, and when he examined the cover of one, the beaten leather and Latin inscriptions made him wonder if it was penned around the time of the Magna Carta.

The priests were pulling out a couple of heavy chairs from a wide oak table. Scamarcio joined them and took a seat.

‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you so late, but, after speaking to Meinero’s sister, I have some new questions.’

Lania pushed his long fringe away from his eyes and blinked. ‘How’s she holding up?’

‘As well as can be expected. It’s a huge shock for his family, obviously.’

The other priest frowned. ‘It seems that the deaths around this case are mounting. It makes you wonder if you might be next.’

Scamarcio hadn’t considered it from their perspective. ‘I don’t believe either of you are at risk, but if you feel uncomfortable or notice something out of the ordinary, please call me immediately. You both still have my card?’

They nodded solemnly.

‘So, what is it his sister said?’ asked Lania.

‘She told me that Meinero had called her shortly before his death, and said he was concerned about the cardinal’s behaviour. Apparently, he believed Amato was obsessed with Andrea Borghese.’ Scamarcio wasn’t sure what reaction he’d been expecting, but no response came other than a stony silence and a brief exchange of glances.

‘So, neither of you have anything to say on this?’

The young man from the Veneto sighed and looked at his colleague who just nodded slowly, as if giving permission.

Lania took a long breath. ‘We’d all noticed it. Meinero was not alone in his worries.’

‘Ah.’ Scamarcio sat up straighter in his chair.

‘He treated Borghese differently from all the rest: gave him more time, seemed to be totally obsessed with curing him. He’d always be getting us to move other appointments around to accommodate Andrea and his family.’

‘Did you have any sense about why?’

The other priest rubbed a hand along his jaw and shook his head. He said nothing.

‘No. None of us could understand it,’ said Lania.

Scamarcio had been hoping he wouldn’t have to spell it out for them. ‘Might the cardinal have been in love with Andrea?’

The younger priest screwed his face tight into a frown and raised his eyes heavenward. ‘Cardinal Amato is a seventy-five-year-old priest. Are you crazy?’

Scamarcio sighed. ‘Well, what else would it be?’

‘It’s anything other than that,’ said Lania, looking around him at the vast library. ‘Strange rumours do fly about this place, but the one thing I know is that I’ve never heard anything like that in connection with Amato — he’s totally focussed on his work, to the exclusion of everything else.’

Scamarcio couldn’t come up with anything other than, ‘Hmmm.’

‘This obsession thing did trouble us, as we felt it wasn’t fair on the other cases, but to my mind it was always an intellectual obsession. As a subject, Andrea intrigued the cardinal. He told us he was one of the most complicated cases he’d seen, and I think he was absolutely determined to succeed where all the doctors had failed.’ He glanced at his colleague. ‘Wouldn’t you agree, Bruno?’

The priest nodded. ‘That’s always how I saw it, too. I did think it was unhealthy, though — the constant phone calls to the mother, the constant rescheduling, the interrogations after.’ He looked to his friend. ‘After every session with Andrea — and only Andrea, because he didn’t do it with the others — the cardinal would ask us how we thought it had gone: was Andrea improving? Did we think he’d make it through? It was almost …’ The priest stopped as if he didn’t want to use the word.

‘Embarrassing?’ offered Scamarcio.

‘Kind of,’ said the priest, looking away.

Scamarcio rubbed at an eyebrow. ‘You know, I’ve been in this game a long time, but I confess I don’t know what to make of this.’

‘Because it’s new to you,’ said Lania. ‘It’s a world you don’t know.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Scamarcio softly. He paused for a moment, trying to find a comfortable way to phrase his next question. ‘I’ve reason to believe that Alberto Meinero was gay — that he may recently have started a new relationship. Is that something either of you were aware of?’

Lania actually blushed. He cleared his throat. ‘Alberto was a lovely person, but he was a very private man. This was never something he would have discussed with any of us.’

His colleague confirmed it with a sad nod. Scamarcio found it interesting that neither of them had tried to deny it. ‘So, what links these two deaths? That’s my problem right now.’

The priest pulled at the corner of his lip. ‘I don’t envy you. It’s odd, I can see that. None of it makes any sense. I wish we had more information to give you.’

Unfortunately, Scamarcio believed him.