27

JACOBINI WAS STRUGGLING FOR breath, his head hanging over the fence at the edge of the rugby field. He didn’t look in shape for sport: there was a tyre of fat visible beneath his white t-shirt, and his pale legs were large and flabby. The coach was eyeing him with dismay.

‘It’s the smokes,’ panted Jacobini as he removed his mouth guard. Scamarcio noticed a thin dribble of saliva running down his chin.

‘What are you on?’

‘About twenty a day.’

‘I didn’t mean the fags. What drugs?’

The boy said nothing.

‘Sad to see a lad of your age reduced to this,’ muttered Scamarcio.

Jacobini narrowed his eyes and turned so his back was now resting against the fence. He rubbed his sweaty forehead and looked at Scamarcio. It was a look that said, You’ve caught me unawares, and now I have no cards left to play. ‘This Castelnuovo business is giving me sleepless nights,’ he murmured.

Scamarcio was not surprised by the sudden candour. A visit from the police spelt trouble; events had quickly turned serious for fat boy.

‘Why is that, then?’

‘It’s not a great feeling when you realise your best friend could be a murderer. It’s disorientating. And then I keep thinking about Andrea. That poor guy, his life cut short — and such a difficult life at that.’

Scamarcio exhaled and watched his own warm breath hit cold air. Finally, someone with a soul — or a very good actor. He erred towards the second hypothesis, given the way he’d shopped Frog-boy to Castelnuovo.

‘You knew Andrea?’

‘Not well, but I always felt sorry for him. He was constantly isolating himself from the world with his out-of-control behaviour, then trying to get back in.’

‘The world didn’t seem to make much of an effort to embrace him, as far as I can tell.’

Jacobini shrugged. ‘Some people did; Graziella did.’

‘And that was Castelnuovo’s problem.’

Jacobini nodded. ‘It was.’

Scamarcio wanted to smoke, but knew he’d have to offer Jacobini one, and that wouldn’t look good in front of the coach. He bit down on a dirty stub of nail instead.

‘So, what happened? How did Castelnuovo tell it?’

Jacobini turned to look at him, an earnest sadness in his small brown eyes that actually took Scamarcio aback. ‘Castelnuovo arrives at the apartment, asks Andrea nicely to leave off Graziella. Andrea tells him to go fuck himself.’

‘You think it was nice? The way Castelnuovo asked it?’

Jacobini raised a knowing eyebrow. ‘I doubt it.’

‘Go on.’

‘They get into a struggle. Castelnuovo rams Andrea’s head against the wall, and he passes out. Castelnuovo bends down to check Andrea’s wrist, but he can’t find a pulse.’

‘He rams his head into the wall?’

‘Yes.’

‘And then what?’

‘Castelnuovo freaks — knows he has to get out of there, knows he has to run. Besides, he hears someone in the corridor.’

‘Does he pass them on the way out?’

‘I don’t know, you’d have to ask him. Why, is that important?’

Scamarcio waved the question away. ‘So, he just leaves?’

‘He leaves.’

‘And he doesn’t call an ambulance?’

‘No.’

Scamarcio fell silent.

In a small voice, Jacobini asked, ‘It’s murder, isn’t it?’

Scamarcio sighed. ‘Well, it would have been if he’d strangled him.’

‘What?’

‘Borghese was strangled. That’s how he died.’

‘Oh.’

‘Would Castelnuovo lie about the way he’d killed him?’

‘Well, no … I mean, I don’t know. Why would he, though? What would be the point?’

‘Indeed,’ repeated Scamarcio, his brain stalling, refusing to turn over.

‘So, Castelnuovo was mistaken? He didn’t actually kill him?’

Scamarcio reached for his pack of Marlboros and lit up. He couldn’t give a shit about the coach anymore. He took a long desperate drag, and tracked the thin trail of smoke as it spiralled up into the evening mist. ‘No, he didn’t.’

Scamarcio had worked it hard, and it hadn’t held. Garramone would be delighted, whereas he just wanted to roar at the darkening sky.