Free The Few by Nadia Dalbuono Page A

chief.
    â€˜I’m worried about Filippi. This case has his attention now.’ Scamarcio was heading towards the centre, his tiredness bone-deep, even though the day was only halfway through.
    â€˜I told you I’ll deal with it. In the meantime, you head up to Milan, and see what you can get out of Limoni.’ He gave him the address for the young officers’ parents, and then hung up.
    Scamarcio let his head fall against the wheel. Suddenly, he wanted to stay put. The anxiety was growing steadily, like a tumour, taking root in his gut, pushing into his ribs, filling his lungs. Instinctively, he felt that leaving the city would be dangerous, that it would be too big a step into the unknown, would be severing some kind of umbilical attachment that was keeping him safe, for now.
    He eased the car into Via Clementina, and found a space up on the curb opposite a goods entrance. He’d flash them his police badge if it got nasty. The doorway to the Palazzo was open, and he stepped into its marble lobby, glad of the cool and the opulence: the fresh lilies on the desk, the pencil drawings of Rome. He took the stairs, and tried to calm himself and steady his breathing, but felt the tension build with every tread.
    He reached the first floor and pressed the buzzer. The glass door released almost immediately, and he saw that it was the pretty brunette on reception. ‘The doctor’s waiting for you — go on through,’ she said. He was relieved. Better this, than too much time with the magazines, too much time to polish his story.
    Doctor Salvai was at the window, the light catching her hair. She looked well — there was colour in her cheeks, and her blue eyes were alive.
    â€˜Detective Scamarcio, good to see you. Please take a seat.’
    He slouched down into one of her huge leather armchairs, leant back, and considered the ceiling for a moment. She moved away from the window and came to sit opposite him.
    â€˜You look tired. Hard week?’
    He moved his eyes from the ceiling and took her in. She was fifteen years his senior, but ever since their first meeting he’d spent many hours imagining them in a whole host of scenarios — none of them professional.
    â€˜Challenging case.’
    Neither of them spoke for several moments, then eventually she said, ‘Is there anything you want to share with me today?’
    He hated the way she said it; he didn’t like the way the onus was always on him. It didn’t seem rigorous; in fact, seemed deeply lazy.
    But he’d play along, like he always did. He might start with, ‘Well, it seems that the prime minister is an old mate of my boss, so now we’re secretly and illegally investigating the murder of an Argentine rentboy who’d been blowing off the foreign secretary, and, to be honest, the whole thing is getting heavy.’ But instead he said, ‘Nothing much — the usual, really.’
    â€˜Talk me through it. It doesn’t matter if I’ve heard some of it before.’
    He wanted to roll his eyes, but instead he sank back in the chair, opened his legs, and fixed eye contact. He allowed the impure thoughts to flip around in his mind, knowing that she knew what he was thinking and that it pleased her.
    â€˜Piocosta came and found me at the bar where I have breakfast. It looks like it’s moved on from simple courtship to an all-out declaration of love.’
    She snorted softly. ‘What’s on the table?’
    â€˜Two million.’
    â€˜One-off payment?’
    â€˜Yearly.’
    She whistled quietly. ‘Not bad.’ Then: ‘Why can’t he let it go, do you think?’
    He sighed, pulling a half-frown: ‘I’m too useful, I guess, plus he’s got some strange guilt-thing going on, some warped sense of duty to my father — he feels like he needs to offer me the kind of lifestyle the old man would have provided.’ He looked away from her, taking his gaze