Excursion to Tindari

9

Leaving behind the national route, he had to take a narrow, uphill dirt road that was all rocks and holes. The car groaned from the effort like a living being. At a certain point he could proceed no further, as the way was blocked by fire trucks and other vehicles that had parked all around.

“Hey, you! Where do you think you’re going?” a fire corporal asked him rudely, seeing him get out of the car and proceed on foot.

“I’m Inspector Montalbano. I was told that—”

“Okay, okay,” the fireman said brusquely. “You can go ahead, your men are already here.”

It was hot.The inspector took off the tie and jacket he’d put on to go see the commissioner. Still, despite this alleviation, after a few steps he was already sweating like a pig. But where was the fire?

He got his answer just round a bend. The landscape was suddenly transformed. There was no tree, shrub, or plant of any kind to be seen, not a single blade of grass, only a formless expanse, uniformly dark-brown in color, completely charred. The air was heavy, as on days when the sirocco is particularly fierce, but it stank of burning, and here and there a wisp of smoke rose up from the ground. The rustic house stood another hundred meters away, blackened by fire. It was halfway up the side of a small hill, at the top of which flames were still visible, and silhouettes of men rushing about.

Somebody coming down the trail blocked his path, hand held out.

“Ciao, Montalbano.”

It was a colleague of his, chief inspector at Comisini.

“Ciao, Miccichè. What are you doing in these parts?”

“Actually, I should be the one asking you that question.”

“Why?”

“This is my territory. The firemen didn’t know whether the Fava district was part of Vigàta or Comisini, so, just to be sure, they notified both police stations. The murder victims should have been my responsibility.”

“Should have?”

“Well, yes. Augello and I called up the commissioner, and I suggested we divvy them up, one corpse each.”

He laughed. He was expecting a chuckle from Montalbano in turn, but the inspector seemed not even to have heard him.

“But the commissioner ordered us to leave both of them to you, since you’re handling the case. Best of luck, see you around.”

He went away whistling, obviously pleased to be rid of the hassle. Montalbano continued walking under a sky that turned darker and darker with each step. He started to wheeze and was having some difficulty breathing. He began to feel troubled, nervous, but couldn’t say why. A light breath of wind had risen, and the ash flew up in the air for a moment before falling back down impalpably. More than nervous, he realized he was irrationally scared. He picked up his pace, but then his quickened breath brought heavy, seemingly contaminated air into his lungs. Unable to go any farther alone, he stopped and called out:

“Augello! Mimi!”

Out of the blackened, tumbledown cottage came Augello, running towards the inspector and waving a white rag. When he was in front of him, he handed it to him: it was a little antismog mask.

“The firemen gave them to us. Better than nothing.”

Mimì’s hair had turned all gray with ash, his eyebrows as well. He looked twenty years older.

As he was about to enter the farmhouse, leaning on his assistant’s arm, Montalbano smelled a strong odor of burnt flesh depite the mask. He backpedaled, and Mimi cast him a questioning glance.

“Is that them?” he asked.

“No,” Augello reassured him. “There was a dog chained up behind the house. We can’t figure out who he belonged to. He was burned alive. A horrible way to die.”

Why, was the way the Griffos died any better? Montalbano asked himself the moment he saw the two bodies.

The floor, once made of beaten earth, had now become a kind of bog from all the water the firemen had poured onto it. The two bodies were practically floating.

They lay facedown, killed each by a single shot to the nape of the neck after being ordered to kneel down in a windowless little room, perhaps once a larder, that, as the house fell into ruin, had turned into a shithole that gave off an unbearable stench. The spot was fairly well shielded from the view of anyone who might look into the big, single room that had once made up the whole house.

“Can a car make it up here?”

“No. It can get up to a certain point, then you have to go the last thirty yards on foot.”

The inspector imagined the old couple walking in the night, in the darkness, ahead of somebody holding them at gunpoint. They must have stumbled over the rocks, fallen, and hurt themselves, but they had to get back up and keep moving, maybe even with the help of a few kicks from their executioner. And, of course, they hadn’t rebelled, had not cried out, had not begged for mercy, but remained silent, frozen in the awareness that they were about to die. An interminable agony, a real Via Crucis, those last thirty yards.

Was this ruthless execution the line that Balduccio Sinagra had said must not be crossed? The cruel, cold-blooded murder of two trembling, defenseless old people? No, come on. That couldn’t have been the limit; this double homicide wasn’t what Balduccio Sinagra was bailing out of. He and his ilk had done far worse, goat-tying and torturing old and young alike. They’d even strangled, then dissolved in acid, a ten-year-old boy, guilty only of being born in the wrong family. Therefore what he was looking at was still within their limits. The horror, invisible for now, lay another shade beyond. He felt slightly dizzy for a moment, and leaned on Mimi’s arm.

“You all right, Salvo?”

“It’s this mask, it’s sort of oppressive.”

No, the weight on his chest, the shortness of breath, the aftertaste of infinite sadness, the feeling of oppression, in short, was not caused by the mask. He bent forward to have a better look at the corpses. And that was when he noticed something that finally bowled him over.

Under the mud one could see the shapes of the woman’s right arm and the man’s left arm. The two arms were extended and touching each other. He leaned even further forward to look more closely, all the while clinging to Mimi’s arm. And he saw the victims’ hands: the fingers of the woman’s right hand were interlaced with those of the man’s left hand. They had died holding hands. In the night, in their terror, with only the darker darkness of death before them, they had sought each other out, found each other, comforted each other as they had surely done so many other times over the course of their lives. The grief, the pity, assailed the inspector, two sudden blows to the chest. He staggered, and Mimi was quick to support him.

“Get out of here, you’re not leveling with me,” said Augello.

Montalbano turned his back and left. He looked around. He couldn’t remember who, but somebody from the Church had once said that Hell does indeed exist, though we don’t know where it is. Why didn’t he try visiting these parts? Maybe he’d get an idea as to its possible location.

Mimi rejoined him, looking him over carefully.

“How do you feel, Salvo?”

“Fine, fine. Where’s Gallo and Galluzzo?”

“I sent them off to lend the firemen a hand. They didn’t have anything to do around here anyway. And you too, why don’t you go? I’ll stay behind.”

“Did you inform the prosecutor? And the crime lab?”

“Everybody. They’ll get here sooner or later. Go.”

Montalbano didn’t budge. He just stood there, staring at the ground.

“I made a mistake,” he said.

“What?” said Augello, puzzled. “A mistake?”

“Yes. I took this business of the old couple too lightly, from the start.”

“Salvo,” Mimi reacted, “didn’t you just see them? The poor wretches were murdered Sunday night, on their way home from the excursion. What could we possibly have done? We didn’t even know they existed!”

“I’m talking about afterward, after the son came and told us they’d disappeared.”

“But we did everything we could!”

“That’s true. But I, for my part, did it without conviction. Mimi, I can’t stand it here anymore. I’m going home. I’ll see you back at the office around five.”

“All right,” said Mimi.

He kept watching the inspector, concerned, until he saw him disappear behind a bend.

Back home in Marinella he didn’t even open the refrigerator to see what was inside. He didn’t feel like eating; his stomach was in knots. He went into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. The ash, aside from turning his hair and mustache gray, had highlighted his wrinkles, turning them a pale, sickly white. He washed only his face, stripped down naked, letting his suit and underwear fall to the floor, put on his bathing suit, and ran down to the beach.

Kneeling down in the sand, he dug a wide hole with his hands, stopping only when the water began to well up from the bottom. He grabbed a handful of seaweed still green and threw it into the hole. Then he lay facedown and stuck his head inside. He inhaled deeply, once, twice, thrice, and with each new breath of air, the smell of the brine and algae cleansed his lungs of the ash that had entered them. Then he stood up and dived into the sea. With a few vigorous strokes he propelled himself far from shore. Filling his mouth with seawater, he gargled a long time, rinsing palate and throat. After this, he let himself float for half an hour, not thinking of anything.

He drifted like a branch, a leaf.

Returning to headquarters, he phoned Dr. Pasquano, who answered in his customary fashion.

“I was expecting your ball-busting call. Actually, I was wondering if something had happened to you, since I hadn’t heard from you yet. I was worried, you know! What do you want? I plan to work on the two corpses tomorrow.”

“In the meantime, Doctor, you need only answer me with a simple yes or no. As far as you can tell, were they killed late Sunday night?”

“Yes.”

“A single shot to the nape of the neck, execution-style?”

“Yes.”

“Were they tortured before they were killed?”

“No.”

“Thank you, Doctor. See how much breath I saved you? That way you’ll still have plenty left, when you’re on death’s doorstep.”

“How I’d love to perform your autopsy!” said Pasquano.

For once Mimì Augello was punctual, showing up at five o‘clock on the dot. But he was wearing a long face. It was clear he was stewing about something.

“Did you find time to rest a little, Mimì?”

“When would I have done that? We had to wait for Judge Tommaseo, who in the meantime had driven his car into a ditch.”

“Have you eaten?”

“Beba made me a sandwich.”

“And who’s Beba?”

“You introduced her to me yourself. Beatrice.”

So he was already calling her Beba! Things must be proceeding very nicely. But then why was Mimì wearing that funereal face? He didn’t have time to probe any further, however, because Mimì asked him a question he hardly expected.

“Are you still in touch with that Swedish woman, what’s her name, Ingrid?”

“I haven’t seen her in a while. But she did call me last week. Why do you ask?”

“Can we trust her?”

Montalbano hated it when somebody answered a question with another question. He did it himself at times, but always with a specific purpose in mind. He played along.

“What do you think?”

“Don’t you know her better than I do?”

“What do you need her for?”

“If I tell you, do you promise not to think I’m crazy?”

“Do you think I’m capable of that?”

“Even if it’s a really big deal?”

The inspector got bored with the game. Mimì hadn’t even noticed how absurd the dialogue had become.

“Listen, Mimì, Ingrid’s discretion I can vouch for. As for thinking you’re crazy, I’ve done that so many times already that it won’t make much difference if it happens one more time.”

“Well, I didn’t sleep a wink last night.”

Beba was coming on strong!

“Why not?”

“There was this letter, one of the ones Nenè Sanfilippo wrote to his lover. You have no idea, Salvo, how hard I’ve been studying them! I practically know them by heart.”

You’re such an asshole, Salvo! Montalbano reproached himself. All you ever do is think ill of Mimi, and here the poor guy’s working through the night!

Having duly rebuked himself, the inspector deftly overcame that brief moment of self-criticism.

“Okay, okay. What was in the letter?”

Mimi waited a moment before deciding to answer.

“Well, he gets very angry, at first, because she shaves off her body hair.”

“What’s there to get angry about? All women shave their armpits nowadays.”

“It wasn’t her armpits.”

“Ah,” said Montalbano.

“All her hair, understand?”

“Yes.”

“Then, in the letters that follow, he starts to get into the novelty of it.”

“Okay, but how’s this of any importance to us?”

“It’s important, believe me! Because I think, after losing sleep and my eyesight to boot, I’ve figured out who Nenè Sanfilippo’s lover is. Some of the descriptions he gives, the little details, are better than a photograph. As you know, I really like to look at women.”

“Not just look at them.”

“Okay. And I’ve become convinced that I recognize this woman. Because I’m sure I’ve met her. It would take very little to make a positive identification.”

“Very little! Mimi, what on earth are you thinking! You want me to go to this lady and say: ‘I’m Inspector Montalbano, ma’am. Er, would you please drop your panties for a moment?‘ Why, she’d have me put away, at the very least!”

“That’s why I thought of Ingrid. If it’s the woman I think it is, I actually saw her a few times with Ingrid in Montelusa. They must be friends ...”

Montalbano twisted his mouth.

“You’re not convinced?” asked Mimi.

“Oh, I’m convinced all right. But the whole idea has one major problem.”

“What?”

“I don’t think Ingrid would be capable of betraying a friend.”

“Who ever said anything about betrayal? We just need to find a way, any way at all, to create a situation where she might blurt something out—”

“How, for example?”

“Bah, I don’t know, you could invite Ingrid out for dinner, then bring her to your place, give her something to drink, a little of that red wine of ours that the girls are so crazy about, and—”

“—And then start talking about body hair? She’s likely to have a fit if I mention certain things with her! She doesn’t expect it from me.”

Mimi’s jaw dropped in surprise.

“She doesn’t expect it? Do you mean to tell me that, between you and Ingrid ... Never?”

“What are you thinking?” said Montalbano, irritated. “I’m not like you, Mimi!”

Augello looked at him for a moment, then joined his hands in prayer, eyes raised to the heavens.

“What are you doing?”

“Tomorrow I’m going to write a letter to His Holiness,” Mimi replied coyly.

“Saying what?”

“That you should be canonized while still alive.”

“Spare me the bonehead humor,” the inspector said gruffly.

Mimi quickly turned serious again. With certain subjects, when dealing with Montalbano, one had to tread lightly.

“Anyway, as for Ingrid, give me a little time to think about it.”

“Okay, but don’t take too long, Salvo. You know, it’s one thing to kill someone over a question of infidelity, and it’s something else—”

“I am well aware of the difference, Mimi. And you’re not exactly the person to be teaching me about it. Compared to me, you’re still wrapping your ass in diapers.”

Augello took this in without reacting. He’d pushed the wrong button, talking about Ingrid. He had to try to dispel the inspector’s bad mood.

“Salvo, there’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about. Yesterday, after we ate, Beba invited me over to her place.”

Montalbano’s gloom immediately lifted. He held his breath. Had what was supposed to happen between Mimi and Beatrice already happened, just like that? If Beatrice slept with Mimi too quickly, the affair might soon be over, and Mimi would inevitably go back to his Rebecca.

“No, Salvo, we didn’t do what you’re thinking,” said Augello, as if he could read Montalbano’s mind. “Beba’s a nice girl. And very serious.”

How did Shakespeare put it? Oh, yes: “These words content me much.” If Mimi spoke this way, there was hope.

“At a certain point she went to change her clothes. Left to myself, I picked up a magazine that was on the coffee table. When I opened it, a photo that had been inserted between the pages fell out. It showed the inside of a bus, with the passengers in their seats. In the background, you could see Beba from behind, with a frying pan in her hand.”

“When she came back out, did you ask her when—”

“No, it would have seemed, well, indiscreet. I put the photo back, and that was that.”

“So why are you telling me about it?”

“Something occurred to me. If people are taking souvenir photos on these tours, it’s possible there are some in circulation from the excursion to Tindari, the one the Griffos went on. If we could find these photos, maybe they could tell us something, even if I don’t know what.”

Well, there was no denying that Mimi had a very good idea. And he was obviously awaiting some words of praise. Which never came. Coldly, perfidiously, the inspector didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. On the contrary.

“Did you read the novel, Mimi?”

“What novel?”

“If I’m not mistaken, along with the letters, I gave you some sort of novel that Sanfilippo—”

“No, I haven’t read it yet.”

“Why not?”

“What do you mean, why not? I’ve been racking my brains with those letters! And before I get to the novel, I want to find out if my hunch about Sanfilippo’s lover is correct.”

He got up.

“Where are you going?”

“I have an engagement.”

“Look, Mimi, this isn’t some kind of hotel where you can—”

“But I promised Beba I’d take her to—”

“All right, all right, just this once. You can go,” Montalbano conceded, magnanimously.

“Hello, Malaspina Tours? Inspector Montalbano here. Is your driver Tortorici there?”

“Just walked in. He’s right here beside me. I’ll put him on.”

“Good evening, Inspector,” said Tortorici.

“Sorry to disturb you, but I need some information.”

“At your service.”

“Tell me something, on your tours, do people usually take photos on the bus?”

“Well, yes ... but ...”

He seemed tongue-tied, hesitant.

“Well, do they take them or not?”

“I’m ... I’m sorry, Inspector. Could I call you back in five minutes, not a second longer?”

He called back before the five minutes were up.

“I apologize again, Inspector, but I couldn’t talk in front of the accountant.”

“Why not?”

“You see, Inspector, the pay’s not so good here.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Well, I ... supplement my wages, Inspector.”

“Explain yourself better, Tortorici.”

“Almost all the passengers bring cameras. When we’re about to leave, I tell them they’re not allowed to take pictures inside the coach. They can take as many as they like when we get to our destination. The only person allowed to take pictures when we’re on the road is me. They always fall for it. Nobody complains.”

“Excuse me, but if you’re driving, how can you take pictures?”

“I ask the ticket man or one of the passengers to do it for me. Then I have them developed and sell them to anyone who wants a souvenir.”

“Why didn’t you want the accountant to hear you?”

“Because I never asked his permission to take pictures.”

“All you’d have to do is ask, and there’d be no problem.”

“Right. And with one hand he’d give me permission, and with the other he’d ask for a cut. My wages are peanuts, Inspector.”

“Do you save the negatives?”

“Of course.”

“Could I have the ones from the last excursion to Tindari?”

“I’ve already had all those developed! After the Griffos disappeared, I didn’t have the heart to sell them. But now that they’ve been murdered, I’m sure I could sell ‘em all, and at double the price!”

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll buy the developed photos and you can keep the negatives. That way you can sell them however you like.”

“When do you want them?”

“As soon as you can get them to me.”

“Right now I have to go to Montelusa on an errand. Is it all right if I drop them off at the station tonight around nine o‘clock?”

One good turn deserved another. After her father-in-law’s death, Ingrid and her husband had moved into a new house. He looked for the number and dialed it. It was dinnertime, and the Swedish woman, when possible, liked to eat at home.

“You token I lissin,” said the female voice that answered the phone.

Ingrid may have changed houses, but she hadn’t changed her habit of hiring housekeepers that she went looking for in Tierra del Fuego, on Mount Kilimanjaro, or inside the Arctic Circle.

“This is Montalbano.”

“Watt say you?”

She must have been an Australian Aborigine. A conversation between her and Catarella would have been memorable.

“Montalbano. Is Signora Ingrid there?”

“She mangia mangia.”

“Could I speak to her?”

Many minutes passed. If not for the voices in the background, the inspector would have thought he’d been cut off.

“Hey, who is this?” Ingrid finally asked, suspicious.

“Montalbano.”

“Oh, it’s you, Salvo! The maid said there was some ‘Contrabando’ on the phone. How nice to hear your voice!”

“I feel like a heel, Ingrid, but I need your help.”

“So you only remember me when you need me for something?”

“Come on, Ingrid. It’s a serious matter.”

“Okay. What do you want me to do?”

“Could we have dinner together tomorrow night?”

“Sure. I’ll drop everything. Where shall we meet?”

“At the Marinella Bar, as usual. At eight, if that’s not too early for you.”

He hung up, feeling unhappy and embarrassed. Mimì had put him in an awkward position. What kind of expression, what words, would he use to ask the Swedish woman if she had a girlfriend with no body hair? He could already see himself, red-faced and sweaty, muttering incomprehensible questions to an increasingly amused Ingrid ... He suddenly froze. Maybe there was a way out. Since Nenè Sanfilippo had recorded his erotic correspondence on the computer, wasn’t it possible that ... ?

He grabbed the keys to the Via Cavour apartment and dashed out.