51

HE FILLED IN GARRAMONE about the fruitless meeting with Mrs Ganza. Reflecting on it, as he headed down to Naples the next morning, he wondered about the deadness in the eyes, considered anew if, like Mrs Baker, she was also on some kind of medication to ease her pain. Now he thought back, when she turned her head a certain way, the light revealed a plasticity to the skin. But that could be the botox, rather than any anti-depressant drug. He thought about the Moltisanti, wondering about their connection to Ganza and his world.

Although it took just an hour and a half by car to get from Rome to Naples, the heat in the city was far more cloying than in the capital. There was a rank intensity to it that made Scamarcio desperate to leave the place almost as soon as he had arrived. The foetid miasma of two weeks’ worth of garbage hung over Rossi’s street, and as he entered the building he saw the ribbed red tail of something feral disappear between some broken bin bags. A resident held the front door open for him, and he took the lift to the fifth floor, figuring that the family had to be home, that they couldn’t hide out forever. He left the elevator and stepped out into the corridor. This time there were no neighbours around. He found the door, pushing the square buzzer on the wall to the right. He waited, but once again there was no sound of footsteps from inside, no TV murmur, no chatter. He tried the buzzer once more, but he was greeted by the same silence. He was about to turn away when, from nowhere, a tattooed arm reached over his left shoulder and placed a large, hairy hand on the door in front of him.

‘Who wants them?’

Scamarcio turned to see a tall, muscle-bound man with close-cropped hair, over-tanned skin, bulldog features, and a gold stud in each ear standing directly in front of him, barring his way to the elevator.

‘And you are?’

The man pushed him in his chest, throwing him against the door. It caught the back of his head.

‘I ask the questions, arsehole.’

Scamarcio rubbed at his skull and tried to straighten up. The meathead barred his huge arms across his chest, setting his feet apart. The message was clear: Scamarcio wasn’t going anywhere for the time being.

‘I’m looking for Officer Rossi. I’m a colleague of his from Rome.’

The man shook his head. ‘As far as he tells it, his colleagues sold him down the Swanee.’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘What do you want with him?’

‘Just to talk.’

‘Well, he’s not here.’

‘When is he coming back?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘Now listen, Mr …?’

‘Again, none of your business.’

Scamarcio decided he’d had enough. He looked to his right a moment, as if he’d seen something alarming approaching down the corridor, and when the idiot turned to follow his gaze, he rushed forward and kneed him in the groin, spinning him around to the left so that, from behind, he could push his arm across his neck and Adam’s apple, holding it hard under his chin. He tightened the vice and pulled the man down towards the floor while, with the other hand, he twisted his balls.

‘It’s time to be polite.’

The man began whimpering like a baby.

‘It’s actually very simple. I want you to tell me where Rossi is, and I want the truth, otherwise you’ll be looking at losing a testicle — maybe two.’ He twisted harder, and the man screamed.

‘Could you manage without them, do you think?’

The man screamed again.

‘Spit it out.’

Scamarcio’s heart was pounding, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could resist the push of the man’s huge thigh muscles against his arm.

‘He’s in their summer house … in Scala.’ The meathead gasped, and Scamarcio pulled harder. ‘The hills above Amalfi,’ he spluttered. In one movement, Scamarcio prised his arm free from between the man’s legs, and swung it around to his left-hand jeans pocket, where he grabbed his cuffs from their usual place. He then opened them with his teeth, and attached one to his left wrist and the other to the man’s right, where he was trying to prise Scamarcio’s arm from his neck. Scamarcio then quickly swung the right half of his body free. The lout was too slow to follow what he was doing and react.

‘You’re going to take me there,’ said Scamarcio.

As he was bundling him into the elevator, the numbskull spat in his face.

‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’ asked Scamarcio. ‘I have a new set of knives that I’m dying to try out.’

The colour seemed to drain from the man’s face, and they rode down to the lobby in silence.

Once outside, he pushed the man into the passenger seat of his car, detaching the cuff from his right wrist and transferring it to the door handle on the passenger side. He swung the door shut on the blockhead and walked around to the driver’s side. He got in and pushed the car into gear, scrabbling for his fags in the tray under the radio. He found his lighter in his shirt pocket, and lit up.

‘Sorry, I should have asked you if you wanted one.’

The man just looked away in contempt.

They left the garbage-strewn suburbs, and headed off in silence along the A3 towards Salerno. Scamarcio only asked the man for directions as they neared the city. He grunted a few rights and lefts until they were ascending a steep hill with the Amalfi coast spread out beneath them. Scamarcio thought he could spot the spires of Positano cathedral glinting in the sun, silver fishing boats dancing in the harbour below. Eventually, the road became dust and, above it, low stone walls appeared, studded with cacti and bougainvillea. Small farms branched off to either side, their red shutters baking in the sun.

‘Next left,’ spat the man.

Scamarcio turned onto a long track. Fields ran alongside it, and at the end of the drive stood a large white villa; terracotta pots lining the paved entranceway to the porch, and pink bougainvillea framing the front door. A couple of black Labradors yapped as they ran up and down the gravel.

There was only one car parked in front of the garage — a black Suzuki jeep. Scamarcio took that as a good sign. It might mean that there weren’t too many of them home.

‘Give me your mobile,’ he said to the man.

‘It’s in my right-hand pocket.’ He rattled his wrist in the cuff to show he couldn’t get to it.

Scamarcio reached over. ‘Sit up a second.’

The man did so, and Scamarcio managed to pull it from his pocket and place it in his own. He opened the car windows slightly and killed the engine before stepping out into the afternoon heat. He clicked the central locking: Meathead could stay where he was for now.

Scamarcio patted the Beretta in its holster inside his jacket and walked up to the house. The Labradors ran up to him, barking, but he ignored them and made straight for the door, pressing the buzzer.

Almost immediately, he heard footsteps inside and several latches being pulled. The door opened slowly, and he saw a young man standing there, probably no more than 23 years old.

‘Gianfilippo Rossi?’

‘Who wants to know?’

Scamarcio flashed him his badge. ‘I’m a colleague of yours from Rome. Your pal Limoni may have told you about me.’

Rossi’s reaction was reflex: he swung around and started running through what appeared to be a huge, tiled lobby. Scamarcio ran after him, slamming the front door behind him to stop the dogs from following. The boy was heading for some patio doors that opened onto a back garden with fields beyond. Before he could reach the sliding doors, Scamarcio leapt onto his back, bringing him crashing to the floor. He rolled him over and sat on his chest, pinning his arms behind him against the tiles, palms up. There was no sound of footsteps running to find them, and no shouts, so he presumed the boy was alone in the house.

‘Not so fast, Rossi,’ he gasped.

The boy was only about 5ft 8 and thin, so he was no match for Scamarcio’s 6 ft 3 bulk. He gave Rossi a hard slap across the side of his face, and then pulled his gun from its holster.

‘How would you feel about having that pretty face of yours cut up a bit?’

There were tears in the boy’s brown eyes, and he saw one of them break and roll slowly down his right cheek.

Scamarcio sighed, suddenly tired from the day, tired of the whole thing. ‘Now listen, Rossi, let’s just keep this simple. I’m a busy man — places to go, people to mutilate.’

The boy wouldn’t meet his eye, and was blinking away the tears.

‘That guy who handed you and Limoni the photos of Foreign Secretary Ganza — did you know him?’

The boy shook his head, so Scamarcio smashed the gun into the side of his face. The boy was shaking now, and blood was mixing with the tears.

Scamarcio kept his tone even. ‘I will ask you again: did you know him?’

The boy nodded feebly, turning his head to the wall so he wouldn’t have to look at Scamarcio.

‘How did you know him?’

When it came, Rossi’s voice was high and shaky. ‘He knew an uncle of mine, my dad’s brother.’

‘How did he know him?’

‘Just a business associate, I think.’

‘Name?’

‘My uncle?’

‘No, the man.’

‘Zaccardo — Paolo Zaccardo.’

‘How did he get the photos?’

‘I don’t know.’

Scamarcio smashed the left side of his face with the gun, as he had often seen his father do. The boy howled. He was panting now. ‘I promise that’s the truth. I don’t know how he got them. I was just told that I had to take them from him, that I could make some money from them if I wanted, and that I’d have to share the money with him.’

Scamarcio looked towards the patio doors and then behind him, checking for unannounced visitors. He returned his attention to the boy.

‘Where is he now?’

The boy said nothing, so Scamarcio raised the gun. The boy started shaking again. ‘I’m not sure. But there’s a place he might be — Pogerola. It’s not far from here — fifteen minutes or so. I can show you how to get there.’

‘Good idea.’

Scamarcio dragged the boy to his feet and then stabbed the gun into his back, pushing him to lead the way. When they reached the car, the boy was wide-eyed at the sight of Meathead, handcuffed to the passenger door. They exchanged furious glances, but neither of them said a word.

Scamarcio pushed the boy into the back of the car behind the driver’s seat, and pulled out a spare set of cuffs from the glove pocket. He attached the boy to the door handle and then slammed the door shut, locking him inside.

He hopped in front and started the engine, slamming the car into gear and taking the drive as fast as possible. He didn’t want to encounter any relatives back from the shops or a Camorra killing spree.

‘Quite the family outing,’ he said as they approached the main road.

Neither of the men responded.

‘Right or left here?’

‘Right,’ muttered the boy behind him.

It was past midday, and the air conditioning in his Toyota was not up to the job. He could smell the sweat of the two strangers, and opened his window wide. As the sea came into view, the tourist villages of the Amalfi coast blinked back at them, the small sailboats still bobbing in their harbours, the surf rolling gently towards the hills. The boy was murmuring oaths to himself, entreating all the saints, calling God a pig. Eventually, the meathead shouted at him not to take the Lord’s name in vain, and he finally fell silent.

Pogerola was more a hamlet than anything else, a scattering of ten-or-so houses with a tiny chapel at the end of the road. The boy grunted at him to make a right-hand turn, and he pulled up outside a stone cottage set slightly back from the drive, its wooden fence circling a sloping patch of lawn that ran downhill with the gravel lane. The windows were in the old style with yellow wooden shutters, and painted on the stone slabs of the ground floor was a kind of nautical design. There was a large tiled area before the front door, where two black-and-white cats were sunning themselves lazily. The place was well kept: the grass was freshly mown, and two blue pots full of primroses marked the entrance to the house. Scamarcio wondered at the English lawn — getting that to work this far south was quite an achievement.

He turned in his seat to face the boy. ‘Give me your mobile.’

‘I don’t have it.’

Scamarcio got out from the driver’s seat and unlocked the boy’s door. He patted him down, but could find no sign of a phone. ‘Right, stay here while I have a chat with your friend Zaccardo.’

Once again, he felt for his Beretta in its holster and took the path to the house. He was tired, but somehow he liked days like this — it felt like he was cleaning up, tidying away, so they could all move forward. He knocked on the wooden front door, noticing the antique knocker and sliding bolt. A horseshoe hung over the porch above him. Maybe it would turn out to be his lucky day.

He heard footsteps, and the old door creaked open. If this was Zaccardo, he was not what Scamarcio was expecting. He had anticipated Meathead Mark II, not the small wiry man standing before him now. His hair was curly, his face tanned and taut, his narrow eyes a gimlet blue.

‘Yes?’ The accent was undiluted Neapolitan.

‘Paolo Zaccardo?’

The man surveyed him for a few moments, as if weighing up their relative physiques and his chances of winning in a fight. Although the man was small, he was well muscled; nevertheless, Scamarcio reckoned he could take him without too much fuss.

‘Who’s asking?’

Scamarcio showed him his badge. ‘Detective Leone Scamarcio, Rome Flying Squad.’

Scamarcio saw the cogs whir, and figured the man was assessing anew whether it was worth the effort. In the end, he surprised him completely by opening the door wider and saying: ‘You’d better come in.’

The ceilings in the house were low. Downstairs seemed to be all open plan, exposed stone walls, and terracotta floors, creating a French farmhouse effect. Zaccardo gestured to a leather armchair by the fireplace. ‘Take a seat, Detective. Can I offer you something?’

Scamarcio wondered if he was playing for time, giving whoever was upstairs the chance to arm up and come down. But he couldn’t hear anyone else in the house.

‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’

Zaccardo took a seat on the sofa opposite. ‘I think I can guess why you’re here.’

‘You can?’

Several seconds of silence followed, in which all Scamarcio could hear was the lazy hum of the cicadas outside.

Eventually, Zaccardo said: ‘Arthur dies, and now, from what I hear, Simon up in Florence. Another acquaintance of mine, Geppo, has also been killed.’ He sighed. ‘The fact is, they’re all linked to the same thing.’

‘Geppo the bookie, you mean?’

‘You knew him?’

‘I knew of him. But not when he was alive. He was connected to Arthur and the other guy?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

Scamarcio stopped a moment, deciding it was best to take things one step at a time.

‘I’ve been told you were the one who handed the photos of Ganza to my two colleagues in Rome?’

Zaccardo sank back into the sofa, crossed his legs, and sighed again. ‘I was just trying to make a bit of extra money.’

‘What was the deal between you and officer Rossi?’

‘He’d share any proceeds with me.’

‘Proceeds from blackmail?’

‘Correct.’

‘Why are you being so open with me?’

Zaccardo got up from the sofa and went to a low shelf cut into the stone to his right. On it stood various bottles of whisky. He selected a Jamesons, and poured himself a generous measure. ‘You sure I can’t offer you anything, Detective?’

‘Quite sure.’

Zaccardo sat back down, said nothing, and just sipped tentatively at the whisky. Scamarcio didn’t take him for an afternoon drinker. ‘Blackmail comes with a hefty sentence, so I’m wondering why you’re willing to own up so readily. I’d expected much more of a fight, to be honest. It’s not usually this easy.’

Zaccardo put down his glass. ‘Actually, Detective, I’ve been thinking about all this for some time now — well, since the deaths started, really. I’d been weighing up whether to approach the police myself, asking them to cut me some sort of deal. Now you’re here, you’ve made up my mind for me. I definitely want a deal.’

‘A deal?’

‘I want to go into witness protection.’

‘You what?’

‘You heard me.’

Neither man said a word for several moments. Somewhere down the corridor, an antique grandfather clock was marking out another fifteen minutes of Scamarcio’s life, gone forever.

After a while, Zaccardo said: ‘To put it simply, I’m scared. Too many people I know, too many associates, are losing their lives, and I’ve got a hunch that I’m going to be next.’

‘Associates to what?’

‘This is where the deal comes in. If I tell you what I know, I want you to guarantee that you’ll provide me with protection. The same deal as you make with the penitents. I want a new house, a new identity, a brand-new life — the works. Somewhere up north, preferably.’

Scamarcio took a breath. ‘But those kinds of deals are cut on huge cases — cases where many others are going to be brought into the frame. I don’t think this one quite ranks in the same league. It’s hardly going to result in a maxi trial.’

Zaccardo shook his head. ‘Then you don’t understand this case at all.’

His words silenced Scamarcio, bringing bitterness to his mouth. He thought for several moments and then said: ‘Look, I’d like to hear what you know. Tell me what I need to do right now to speed that along.’

‘Do you or do you not have the authority to cut me a deal?’

Scamarcio sighed. ‘Not without talking to my boss first.’

‘Then call him, and tell him what I’ve said. Then we can talk. While you make the call, I’ll be in the kitchen.’

Zaccardo got up and left him alone in the room.

Scamarcio dialled Garramone and filled him in. When he was done, the chief surprised him by saying: ‘Just give him what he’s asking for. We’ll sort it all out later.’

‘If he wants a paper contract?’

‘Just sign it.’

As Scamarcio hung up, he saw that Zaccardo was back in the room. He must have been listening to the end of the conversation.

‘Yes, I want it all down on paper.’

‘OK, so draw it up.’

Zaccardo reached for a pad and pen in a cupboard next to the dining-room table, and pulled out a seat to jot down a few lines. When he brought it over, Scamarcio saw that it was crude stuff — just one paragraph, replete with spelling and grammatical errors, asking for protection and a new identity as they’d discussed. It reminded him of the letter sent to Filippi. Scamarcio signed beneath the text, knowing that, if push came to shove, Garramone could invoke a whole set of laws to deem it invalid.

Zaccardo took the paper, folded it, and put it in his shirt pocket. He sat back down on the sofa and crossed his legs again. Scamarcio took out his phone and pressed the recording device. Zaccardo saw him do it and nodded.

‘OK, Detective. Where do you want to start?’

‘So how did you get the photos in the first place?’

‘I took them myself.’

‘Where were they taken?’

‘At a villa, outside Radda in Chianti.’

‘How did you know that Ganza was going to be there?’

‘Due to my work, I knew where a whole lot of important people were going to be on certain dates at certain times, and what they’d be doing when they got there.’

‘Go on.’

Zaccardo looked up to the ceiling for a moment, and his shoulders seemed to sag. Scamarcio thought he read guilt on the man’s face. When they finally came, there was a tiredness and resignation in the words: ‘I suppose you could call it a kind of exclusive club, although they did their best not to pin it down, or give it any kind of definition or identity. That would make it real, you see.’

Scamarcio decided not to say anything; he didn’t want to get in the way for now.

‘They’d organise get-togethers every few weeks. Only a select few were invited: figures from the world of high politics and big business.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Actually, Andrea Spezzi was one of them until he conveniently killed himself.’

That chimed with Scamarcio’s initial instincts.

Zaccardo sighed again. It seemed as if the burden of this knowledge was weighing him down, was getting harder to carry by the second. Sharing it with someone else didn’t appear to make it any easier. ‘These get-togethers, well …’ He took a deep breath. ‘Imagine the sickest sexual perversion you can find online, and then imagine it catered for to the very last detail, with no expense spared. And I’m not just talking adults, if you get my drift. All tastes were catered for there.’

Scamarcio nodded gently, anxiety churning in his stomach.

Zaccardo continued: ‘The locations were luxurious; the drink and drugs on tap. Preparing for an event took two weeks of around-the-clock organisation. Sometimes it looked like they were creating a film set.’ He paused a moment, reflecting. ‘In fact, in some cases I do believe they were.’

Scamarcio leaned forward. ‘And where did you come into all of this?’

‘I supplied the drugs, Detective. I had the contacts, I got them the best, and they paid me … well, they paid me …’ He shrugged. ‘I guess “decently” would be the word I’d choose. But, just that — nothing more. In the end, it wasn’t enough. When I heard what they were charging the clients to attend, and I compared it with the cut they gave me, I decided to try and make a bit more profit with those photos.’

For Zaccardo to confess so readily to several major crimes, he had indeed to be extremely scared of something, figured Scamarcio. ‘What were they charging the clients?’

‘Twenty grand a night, with 100 grand paid up-front just to be a member. You couldn’t attend the get-togethers unless you were a member, and members were extremely highly vetted. Quite a few famous names were rejected.’

‘What were they vetting for?’

‘It wasn’t just status, it was discretion. They didn’t want people who would talk, brag around too much. Membership was on recommendation from other members. If someone recommended you, and you passed the vetting, then you’d be invited.’

‘Was anyone invited who didn’t accept? Wouldn’t that have potentially exposed what they were up to?’

‘As far as I know, that never happened. They made quite sure they chose people who would jump at their invitation.’

‘So how did Arthur and his friend in Florence fit in?’

‘They were good-looking boys, well ripped, everything just right, and there were quite a few clients who were into that — Ganza among them — so they were there to cater for that particular preference.’

‘You met Arthur at these get-togethers?’

‘A few times, but usually only at the start of the night, and then I’d head straight off. They didn’t like me hanging around, and I didn’t want to, anyway.’ He paused a moment. ‘One time, quite close to the end — I mean to when Arthur died — we had a particular conversation which has stuck with me, given everything that’s happened since.’ As if as an afterthought, he added: ‘I sometimes used to have a drink at one of the bar areas; they let me have free beers, and that’s where we got talking.’

Scamarcio nodded at him to continue. ‘Arthur had noticed something that upset him. Despite his line of work, in some ways he was quite naïve about the world, and it seemed like he hadn’t really developed a thick skin for certain things. Well, to cut a long story short, one time at one of the villas he’d seen two little girls — I mean, when I say little, probably just around seven or eight — being led into a room. And when he saw that, it clicked for him, just what they were up to in there. I think until then he’d just reckoned it was adult stuff for adults only. But that freaked him out, and from that point on he wanted out of this thing, and that night he told me as much. I think he’d had a couple of drinks — they’d loosened his tongue.’

‘And how did you respond when he said he wanted out?’

‘I said I knew where he was coming from.’

‘Did you want out, too?’

Zaccardo weighed this up for several moments. ‘I think, in some ways, maybe I did. I mean, I knew bad stuff went on, and I lived with that, but what was beginning to get to me was their arrogance — the fact that cos they had all this money, they knew they could do whatever the hell they wanted, to whoever they wanted. They could get away with murder.’ He looked directly at Scamarcio as he said the word. ‘And when I say murder, I mean murder. Don’t think for a second that the whole snuff thing wasn’t catered for. That was one of their bestsellers.’

Scamarcio swallowed. He felt bile in his throat. ‘They killed people?’

‘Quite a few people.’

‘How many?’

‘I don’t know precisely, but I heard at least ten.’

‘Yeah, but surely those people had been reported missing?’

Zaccardo laughed, but it sounded more like a sigh. ‘Detective, they chose carefully — people who wouldn’t be missed.’

A new thought struck Scamarcio, and settled like a blade of ice in his gut. ‘Children?’

‘Sometimes.’

Scamarcio let that sink in for several moments. He took a breath: ‘So, looking back, you think Arthur wanted to let the world know what they were doing to kids there?’ He decided not to mention the images they’d found on the camera for now.

‘I’m not sure I’d go that far, but he had doubts and wanted out, and I guess they got wind of it and thought they couldn’t trust him. Whether that happened before or after I released the photos, I don’t know. But surely once they were out there, their suspicions were confirmed.’

‘But if you knew Arthur had these doubts and wanted out, why did you take those photos of him? Didn’t you see what might happen?’

Zaccardo was shaking his head again. ‘I didn’t think they’d kill him. I really didn’t. He was one of their most popular guys. I didn’t think it would end like that.’

‘But they were killing people for snuff movies! Why would they care about some Argentine rentboy?’

‘No, it doesn’t work like that. He was a valuable commodity, in demand. I didn’t think they’d kill him.’

He had his head in his hands now, and Scamarcio understood that the guilt was for Arthur, not the children, and this both disturbed and confused him. ‘But didn’t you think you’d get him into trouble?’

‘No, he wasn’t to know I was in the wardrobe taking photos and, anyway, I thought maybe this could be his way out, you know?’

‘But you just said he was a valuable commodity. It doesn’t sound like they’d let him go easily.’

‘No, but if he felt like his identity had been compromised, they might see his point of view, and it could get all get settled amicably. They might have offered him a painless exit.’

In that moment, Scamarcio got it. ‘You were in love with him, weren’t you?’

Zaccardo took a sip of the small slither of whisky still left in his glass. ‘Love is a big word, Detective.’

‘So why the other guy, too? And why Spezzi?’

‘The other guy was in the picture with Arthur. I guess they figured they shared the same doubts, I don’t know — they were close, always together, those two.’ He sighed. ‘Spezzi, well, there’s an interesting one. When it came out on the grapevine that Arthur had died, Spezzi was gutted, cos he’d been one of his most loyal clients and still was, even though he was about to marry that French girl. He got really scared that it was all about to come out again. From what I heard, he actually was suicidal, but I think they gave him a helpful push because they worried about his state of mind — worried that if he got into a confessional mood, he might spill all to the girlfriend before she could read it in the papers.’

‘And the bookie, Geppo?’

‘Poor old Geppo had a problem, and of late it was getting a lot worse. He supplied fags and booze to the parties, and was touting for more trade; but, unlike me, he was getting high on his own supply. If you ask me, long before the Ganza thing came out, they were thinking of letting him go; they were concerned about him being indiscreet. It just so happened that that coincided with a whole lot of other shit hitting the fan.’ He paused a moment. ‘But I know that he got on with Arthur. They seemed to be friendly, so that could have worried them, too.’

‘For a group of people who want to keep their activities under the radar, they seem a bit heavy-handed to me.’

Zaccardo nodded. ‘They never were in the past, before the brothers, but they certainly are now, and that is going to be their downfall, Detective. It’s just a matter of time. When the brothers got into this, they took it down a road that, if you ask me, it would have been better to avoid.’

For the past few minutes, Scamarcio had had the sense that all this was building to the one dreadful, inevitable conclusion, and now he felt sure that his instinct was about to be confirmed. He was struggling to process the concept that these parties were where Stacey Baker might have been headed — that this was where she would finish up. He prayed to an inner god he didn’t quite believe in that he’d soon be proved wrong.

‘You’re talking about the Moltisanti?’ He almost crossed his fingers when he posed the question, desperate for Zaccardo to utter the one word, ‘No.’

Zaccardo paled slightly, and then just nodded. Scamarcio felt like properly throwing up now. Eventually, he said: ‘Too many of their heavies running around sorting out cock-ups?’

Zaccardo nodded again.

‘So it’s just the brothers?’

‘There’s another guy who had the initial idea, but I don’t know much about him. Lately it’s just the brothers I hear mentioned — I chat with the private drivers they use for the parties, as well as a few of the staff. I know there’s been trouble of late because they farmed out some of the operation to a group of Albanians, but they haven’t been up to scratch. It’s causing friction and, if the gossip is to be believed, they’re about to ditch them.’

Scamarcio nodded. ‘And the great and the good who attend these get-togethers, can you give me any names?’

Zaccardo looked him squarely in the eye, but his voice was shaky now. ‘Can we leave the names for later? What I will say is that you’re looking at another cabinet minister, a couple of regional police and intelligence chiefs, and a few of our heavy hitters in industry, a la Spezzi. There’s a mayor in there, too, of a big northern town.’

Scamarcio exhaled. ‘Are there many of them?’

‘No, it’s very exclusive.’

‘All men?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does the PM know, you think?’

Zaccardo exhaled, and shook his head sharply. ‘He’s never been invited because his tastes are plain vanilla. Plus he’s renowned for getting over-excited: he likes nothing more than to brag about his achievements, as we all know. They figured it would be best to leave him to his little harems at home with his geriatric buddies.’ He paused a moment. ‘Besides, I heard that there’s some bad blood between him and the brothers.’

‘That so?’

Zaccardo shrugged. ‘I don’t have the details.’

‘So why are you so worried, Zaccardo? Why would they kill you? You’re just their dealer.’

‘Look at it from my point of view: they seemed to know that Arthur had doubts, so they had him done in, along with Simon and Spezzi. Geppo is also now out of the picture. I was often seen chatting to Arthur — they knew we were friendly. The way I see it is that they seem to be cleaning up after themselves, clearing the slate of problem people, and I guess I could fit into that. They’ll just want some new guy to take my place who doesn’t know about any of this past stuff. Someone uncompromised — someone cheaper, probably.’

‘And if you’re wrong, and they’re perfectly happy with you?’

Zaccardo’s gaze was unflinching. ‘Then I’ve just made the biggest mistake of my life talking to you, Detective.’