24

TOMMASO POMBENI HAD CALLED just after lunch.

‘Can you meet me? Not at my place though — there’s a café on Via Civinini. Caffè Giò. I’ll see you there in half an hour?’

‘Has something happened, Tommaso?’ Scamarcio fingered the plastic on a fresh pack of Marlboros and tried to stop thinking about Aurelia. She’d been playing on his mind all morning, and he felt guilty, but the more he tried to push any thoughts of her away, the more they persisted. Maybe it was something about being in the office — sitting at a desk allowed his mind to wander.

‘Not on an open line,’ said Pombeni dramatically. He sounded slightly breathless.

Not on an open line. Scamarcio mouthed the words silently and rolled his eyes. The boy thought he was in Miami Vice.

‘I hear you,’ said Scamarcio, gravely, deciding to embrace it. ‘I’ll see you in thirty. You’d better not be packing.’

‘Packing?’

‘Thirty minutes, Pombeni.’ Scamarcio rolled his eyes again and cut the call. Still playing with the unopened cigarette packet, he turned his attention to the document Sartori had drawn up of Borghese’s employment history. For the past twenty-five years, Borghese had worked for one pharmaceutical company after the next. He’d left Sapienza with a degree in marketing and communications, and had been taken on by an American firm called Delaware Pharmaceuticals as an intern. After six months, they’d offered him a permanent position, and he’d gone on to stay with them five years. Scamarcio made a note of the company’s name — he’d run a search on them later. He noticed that Borghese’s final salary was 65 million lire — around 35,000 euros in today’s money. Good, but not spectacular. After Delaware, Borghese had been hired by a firm called Genesis Pharmaceuticals, but had only stayed for two years. Final salary, 74 million lire — around 40K. Most of Borghese’s career had been spent with his current company, Arrow Communications, who specialised in providing marketing and media consultancy for various healthcare and pharmaceutical firms. He’d joined Arrow just before his son was born. Among the companies Arrow counted as clients were several European and US pharmaceutical businesses. Scamarcio typed the names of each of the companies into Google and had a look around.

The US firms seemed to have a presence in several European countries, including France, Italy, and Spain. They specialised in vaccines for influenza and cervical cancer, as well as drugs for epilepsy, prostate problems, and migraines. Their annual turnovers were around the 100-million mark. None of them were in the mega-league with the likes of Sanofi or GSK, but they all sat comfortably in the middle. Scamarcio searched some of the firms’ drugs, but it seemed none had featured in the news — only a few trade periodicals. He noticed that the Italian Ministry of Health had chosen one of the firms, DC Pharmaceuticals, as their key supplier for epilepsy medicines and influenza vaccines — a huge contract which had seen the DC share price soar.

Scamarcio looked away from the screen and scored a dense box around the word ‘epilepsy’. He wasn’t sure why — he just knew it had figured in the early discussions of Andrea’s condition. It probably wasn’t significant, but he found himself drawing a second frame around the word, nevertheless.

He studied the wrapped box of fags — the perfect envelope corners, the smooth glittery lettering, the sheen of his desk light playing on the plastic. He picked up the pack and slipped it back into his shirt pocket. But two seconds later, he pulled it out again and tore it open.

He looked up and realised that Sartori was watching him. ‘What number are you on?’

‘I haven’t been counting.’

‘Start. You can’t smoke around a baby.’

‘Then I’ll smoke outside.’

‘Then you’ll always be on the balcony, and your girlfriend will be inside doing all the work.’

Scamarcio inhaled, drew it deep into his lungs, waited for his synapses to sing back their response. ‘You joined women’s lib?’

Sartori gave him a pitying look, then slapped another sheet down in front of Scamarcio. ‘Ninety grand.’

‘You won the lotto?’

‘Borghese’s current salary.’

Scamarcio fell silent and cupped his nose in his hands. ‘Again, good, but not spectacular.’

‘I don’t think it can explain a 200-square-metre apartment in Parioli.’ Sartori chewed down on a nail.

‘Or a Porsche.’

‘That rat you smelled is starting to stink, Scamarcio.’

Scamarcio leaned back in his chair and swung around so he could see the window. He observed his own reflection in the glass. His face was tired and drawn, his eyes sunken. Beyond his distorted form, Via San Vitale was bleak and empty — the rain must have been keeping everyone inside.

‘How come Arrow coughed up the info?’

‘Our pervy judge has just been onto them, urging cooperation.’

‘That’s what I call good service.’

Sartori shrugged and followed Scamarcio’s gaze to the street. As if from nowhere, a hard flurry of rain hit the glass, turning the world outside into a grey blur. ‘It’s bad when you can smell the corpse, but wherever you look, you still can’t find it.’

‘That’s a recurring nightmare of mine,’ muttered Scamarcio.

Sartori eyed him with concern. ‘So, what now?’

‘Our judgeship seems on the ball. Get back onto the bank, see if he’s already ruffled their feathers. You might point out that it will look a hell of a lot better for them if they cough up the data before we slap them with an official order.’

Frog-boy was pale — well, paler than normal. There were dark rings beneath his eyes and a sprinkling of acne had broken out across his forehead. Scamarcio wondered if it was stress-related.

‘So, Tommaso, how’s it hanging?’

Pombeni took a hurried swig of Sprite and coughed when it went down the wrong way. He glanced around nervously. ‘Did you come alone?’

‘What?’

‘I asked if you came alone.’

Scamarcio leaned forward. ‘Pombeni, this is not Law and Order. Yes, I came alone.’ He sat back in his chair and pulled a Marlboro from the pack. His lighter was refusing to respond, but Frog-boy leaned forward and helpfully produced one from his pocket. Scamarcio noticed a sketch of a topless woman on the front.

When Scamarcio was good to go, the boy said quietly, ‘They threatened me.’

‘Who?’

‘Castelnuovo and that cunt friend of his, Jacobini.’

‘Threatened you how?’

‘I did as you said, tried to get Jacobini to talk a bit. After less than five minutes he calls Castelnuovo over — I hadn’t realised he was around — and goes, “This guy’s trying to make me grass on you.” That’s when all hell broke loose.’ The boy lifted up his AC/DC t-shirt — his abdomen was a mess of bruises: purple, yellow, and brown.

Scamarcio breathed in quickly, but forgot to breathe out. ‘Jesus,’ he said after a moment. Then, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m just a kid. There’s some serious shit going down, and I don’t want to find myself slap-bang in the middle of it.’

Scamarcio nodded. He was right, he needed to lift him out of this before there was blowback. But instead he said, ‘“Trying to get me to grass on you,” is an interesting choice of phrase.’

The boy shrugged. ‘I dunno if they’d be that stupid. But there’s something else.’ He was playing with a sachet of sugar, squeezing it, and the paper suddenly broke. The granules left a glittery trail on the table top.

Scamarcio frowned. ‘Go on.’

‘Just as I was about to approach Jacobini, I heard him on the phone to someone. He was trying to keep his voice down, but he was talking about Castelnuovo. He was bragging that he had him by the short and curlies — that Castelnuovo had fucked up big time, and that he had to help him out of it. Jacobini said he owned Castelnuovo. He said he’d own him for the rest of his life, and that he’d own his bastard politico parents, too. I waited for Jacobini to finish the call, hung about a few minutes and then I made my approach. But, like I say, he didn’t want to talk to me.’

‘After that call, I’m not sure he really needed to.’

Frog-boy’s lower lip drooped. For a moment, Scamarcio imagined him on a lily pad, trapping flies with his tongue. ‘Did I make a mistake?’

‘No. You did right. You have any idea who he might have been talking to?’

‘It could have been his girlfriend, Maura Valentini. He has another good friend Stefano — Stefano what-is-it?’ He looked at the ceiling, as if he hoped to find the name scrawled up there. ‘Rosati! Could have been him.’

Scamarcio’s mind whirred over the possibility of tracking them down, getting them to spill what they’d heard.

‘And when Ale Castelnuovo came over, how did he seem?’

The boy’s eyes clouded for a moment at the memory. ‘Angry, obviously.’ He fell silent for a beat. ‘But what was different was that he wasn’t his normal self. At least, he didn’t give off the usual relaxed rich-boy air that nothing or nobody could touch him. If anything, he seemed a bit worried — stirred up.’ He fell silent again, then added, ‘Perhaps even scared.’