The Smell of the Night

by Andrea Camilleri

  He immediately lost his appetite. If, for a philosopher, there comes a moment when speculation means less than affection, then how much could a criminal investigation mean for a cop heading into the sunset? In spite of himself, he had to admit that there was only one answer to this question: that an investigation probably meant even less than a concept. He slept badly.

  By six the next morning he was already out of the house. The day looked promising: bright, clear sky, no wind. He’d put the little map drawn by Fazio down on the passenger’s seat beside him and consulted it from time to time. Tommasino Antonino or Antonino Tommasino, whatever the hell his name was, lived in the countryside near Montereale, and therefore was not too far from Vigata. The problem lay in choosing the right route, for it was easy to get lost there. The landscape was a kind of treeless desert scarred with dirt roads, goat trails, and crawler tracks, and dotted here and there by peasant cottages and a few rare country houses. The area was doing its best to avoid being transformed overnight into a jumble of weekend getaway bungalows, but one could already see the first signs of the futility of such resistance: trenches for water mains, lampposts, telephone poles, foundations for out-and-out four-lane roads. He drove around inside the desert three or four times, always coming back to the same point. Fazio’s map was too vague. Feeling lost, he headed resolutely towards a kind of farmstead. He pulled up and got out of the car. The door to the house was open.

  “Anybody here?”

  “Come in,” a woman’s voice called out.

  He found himself in a tidy, well-kept sort of living-dining room with old but shiny furniture. A woman of about sixty, well groomed and dressed in gray, was drinking a cup of coffee, the espresso pot on the table still steaming.

  “I just need some information, ma’am. I’d like to know where Mr. Antonino Tommasino lives.”

  “He lives right here. I’m his wife.”

  For some reason he’d imagined Tommasino as a semi-vagrant or, at best, a viddrano, a peasant farmer, that is, an endangered species in need of protection.

  “I’m Inspector Montalbano.”

  “I recognized you,” said the woman, nodding towards the television in the corner. “I’ll go get my husband. In the meantime please have some coffee. I make it strong.”

  “Thank you.”

  She poured it for him, left the room, then reappeared almost at once.

  “My husband asked if you could go to him, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  They walked down a whitewashed corridor, and the woman gestured to him to go in the second door on the left. It was a genuine study, with tall shelves lined with books and old nautical maps on the walls. The man who got up from an armchair to greet him was also about sixty, tall and erect, with beautiful white hair and wearing an elegant blazer and eyeglasses. A fairly imposing figure. Montalbano had been convinced he would be up against a wild-eyed crackpot with a string of spittle hanging from a corner of his mouth. He felt confused. Was he certain there was no mistake?

  “Are you Antonino Tommasino?” he asked. But he would have liked to add, just to be sure: the raving madman who sees monsters and flying saucers?

  “Yes. And you are Inspector Montalbano. Please make yourself comfortable.”

  He sat him down in a cozy armchair.

  “I’m at your service. What can I do for you?”

  That indeed was the question. How to open the discussion without offending Mr. Tommasino, who seemed to be perfectly normal in the head, as far as that was concerned.

  “Reading anything interesting these days?”

  The question had slipped out, and it was so idiotic and absurd that the inspector blushed. Tommasino, for his part, smiled.

  “I’m reading the so-called Book of Roger, by Al-Idrisi, the medieval Arab geographer. But you didn’t come here to ask me what I’m reading. You came to find out what I saw one night a little over a month ago. I guess they’ve changed their minds down at the station.”

  “Yes, thank you,” said Montalbano, grateful that the other had taken the initiative. He was not only normal, this Tommasino, but a refined, cultured, intelligent man.

  “Just one thing, before we begin. What did they tell you about me?”

  Montalbano balked, embarrassed. Then he decided that it was always best to tell the truth.

  “They said that, every now and then, you see things that don’t exist.”

  “You’re very kind, Inspector. To get right to the point, they say I’m a madman. A peaceable madman, of course, who pays his taxes, respects the law, never does anything obscene or violent, never threatens anyone or mistreats his wife, but a madman nonetheless. You put it perfectly: every now and then, I see things that don’t exist.”

  “Excuse me,” Montalbano interrupted him, “but what do you do?”

  “You mean professionally? I used to teach geography at the secondary school in Montelusa. But I’ve been retired a few years. May I tell you a story?”

  “Of course.”

  “I have a grandson, Michele, who’s now fourteen. One day, about ten years ago, my son came to visit with his wife and son. Which he still does, I’m happy to say. Michele and I went to play outside. At a certain point, Michele started screaming, saying the courtyard was full of terrible, ferocious dragons. And I played along, and started howling in fear myself. But then the little boy got scared by my fear and wanted to reassure me. ‘Grampa,’ he said, ‘those aren’t real dragons. You’re not supposed to be afraid. I just made them up, for fun.’ You know, Inspector, for a few years now, I’ve been in a situation much like that of my young nephew. One part of my brain must, in some way, and for some mysterious reason, have regressed to the childhood level. With the difference that, unlike the child, I take what I see to be real and continue to believe it for some time. Then I get over it, and I realize that what I saw wasn’t real. Is that clear so far?”

  “Perfectly clear,” said the inspector.

  “May I ask you what they told you I saw?”

  “Well, I think it was a three-headed sea monster and a flying saucer.”

  “Is that all? They didn’t tell you about the flock of winged fish made of tin I saw perched in a tree? Or the time a midget from Venus popped up in my kitchen and asked me for a cigarette? Shall we stop here, before we stray too far off the track?”

  “As you wish.”

  “Now, let’s review the things I just mentioned and the things you already knew. A three-headed sea monster, a flying saucer, a flock of tin-winged fish, and a Venusian midget. Do you agree with me that none of these things are real?”

  “Of course.”

  “Now, if I come to you and say, Look, the other night I saw a car that was like this or like that, why shouldn’t you believe me? Do cars not exist? Are they objects of fantasy? I’m talking about an everyday thing, a real car, with four wheels, a license plate, registration. I’m not talking about a space scooter that can fly up to Mars!”

  “Take me to the place where you saw Gargano’s car,” said Montalbano.

  He’d found a precious witness. He was sure of it.

  11

  That brief moment spent inside the house had been enough for the weather to change. A bitter, cold wind had risen, with gusts like tremendous swipes of the paw of some ferocious beast. Fat, pregnant clouds were rolling in from the sea. Following Mr. Tommasino’s directions as he drove, Montalbano tried, in the meantime, to get him to explain things better.

  “Are you sure it was the night of August the thirty-first?”

  “I’d bet my life on it.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  “Because I remember that I was thinking that the next day, the first of September, Gargano was supposed to pay me my interest, when all of a sudden I saw his car. And I was astonished.”

  “Excuse me, sir, but were you, too, a victim of Gargano’s?”

  “Yes, I was stupid enough to have believed him. Thirty million lire, he snatched from me. But at that moment, when I sa
w his car, I was surprised, yes, but I was also pleased. I thought it meant he would keep his word. Whereas the next morning I was told he never showed up.”

  “Why were you surprised to see his car?”

  “For many reasons. First of all, the place. You’ll be surprised too when we get there. It’s called Punta Pizzillo. Then, the hour. It was surely past midnight.”

  “Did you check?”

  “No, I don’t wear a watch. During the day I go by the sun; at night, I go by the smell of the night. I have my own sort of natural timekeeper, built into my body.”

  “Did you say the smell of the night?”

  “Yes. The night changes smells, depending on the hour.”

  Montalbano didn’t press him on it. He said:

  “Maybe Gargano was with someone; maybe they wanted to be alone.”

  “Inspector Montalbano, this place is too isolated to be safe. Don’t you remember that a young couple were assaulted here two years ago? And I wondered: With all the money he’s got, the standing, the need to keep up appearances, what need does Gargano have to be screwing in his car like a common punk?”

  “May I ask you—you’re perfectly free not to answer—what you were doing in a place you tell me is so isolated, at that time of the night?”

  “I go walking at night.”

  Montalbano refrained from asking any more questions. Some five minutes later, after a spell of silence, the schoolteacher said:

  “Here we are. This is Punta Pizzillo.”

  And he got out first, followed by the inspector. They were on a small plateau, a kind of ship’s bow, utterly deserted and devoid of trees, with only a few clumps of sorghum and caper here and there. The edge of the plateau was about ten yards away; beyond it must have been a sheer drop down to the sea.

  Montalbano took a few steps but was stopped by Tommasino’s voice.

  “Careful. There are landslides here. The ground’s soft. Gargano’s car was parked where yours is now, and in the same position, with the trunk facing the sea.”

  “And what direction were you coming from?”

  “From Vigàta.”

  “That’s far.”

  “Not as far as it seems. From here to Vigata on foot, it takes forty-five minutes, an hour at the most. So, coming from that direction, I had no choice but to pass in front of the car’s nose, about five or six paces away. Unless I were to make a long detour inward to avoid it. But what reason would I have to do that? And so I recognized the car. There was sufficient moonlight.”

  “Did you manage to get a look at the license plate?”

  “Are you kidding? I would have had to stick my nose right up to it to read it.”

  “But if you couldn’t see the license plate, how could you—”

  “I recognized the model. It was an Alfa 166. The same car he was driving when he came to my house to steal my money.”

  “What kind of car do you drive?” the inspector thought to ask him.

  “Me? I don’t even have a driver’s license.”

  Nottata persa e figlia femmina, Montalbano thought to himself, disappointed. This Tommasino was a madman who saw things that weren’t there; but even when he saw things that were there, he adjusted them to his liking. The wind turned colder, the sky had clouded over. What was the inspector doing wasting his time in this godforsaken place? The schoolteacher must have somehow noticed his disappointment.

  “Listen, Inspector, I have an obsession.”

  Oh, God, another one? Montalbano got worried. What if the guy went bonkers right then and there and started yelling that he was seeing Lucifer in person? How should he act? Pretend it’s nothing? Get in his car and hightail it out of there?

  “I’m obsessed with cars,” Tommasino continued. “I subscribe to quite a number of Italian and foreign magazines specializing in the subject. I could probably go on a TV game show. If the theme was cars, I’m sure I’d win.”

  “Was there anyone inside the car?” asked the inspector, by now resigned to Tommasino’s utter unpredictability.

  “You see, coming from over there, as I said, I was able to observe the car in profile, so to speak, for a short spell. Then I drew near enough to see whether or not there were any silhouettes of people inside. I didn’t notice any. It’s possible that, seeing a shadow approach, whoever was in the car ducked down. I walked past without turning around.”

  “Did you hear the sound of the car being started up at any point?”

  “No. But I think—and it’s only an impression, mind you—that the trunk was open.”

  “And was there anyone near the trunk?”

  “No.”

  Montalbano then got an idea that was so simple it was almost embarrassing.

  “Mr. Tommasino, could you please take about thirty steps and then walk back towards my car, taking the same path you took that night?”

  “Certainly,” said Tommasino, “I like to walk.”

  As the schoolteacher was walking away from him, Montalbano opened the trunk and crouched down behind the car, poking his head up just enough to allow him to look through the rear-door windows and see Tommasino take the last of his thirty paces and turn around. At that point he lowered his head, making himself completely invisible. When he figured Tommasino was in front of the car, he scrambled over behind the trunk, crouching all the while. Then he moved again to the other side of the car when he realized the schoolteacher had passed, an unnecessary precaution, since Tommasino said he hadn’t turned around. At this point he stood up.

  “That’s enough, Mr. Tommasino, thank you.”

  Tommasino gave him a puzzled look.

  “Where were you hiding? I saw the open trunk, but the car was empty and you were nowhere to be seen.”

  “You were coming from over there, and Gargano, seeing your shadow—”

  He broke off. The sky had suddenly opened an eye. A small hole, a rent, had appeared in the uniformly black fabric of clouds, and through the breach a bright ray of sunlight shone down, almost entirely circumscribed, on the spot where they were standing. Montalbano felt like laughing. They looked like two characters in a naïf votive painting, illuminated by divine light. And at that moment he noticed something that only that particular angle of light, like a floodlight in a theater, could have brought to his attention. He felt a chill run down his spine, and a familiar bell began to ring in his head.

  “Let me drive you home,” he said to Tommasino, who was looking at him questioningly, waiting for him to continue his explanation.

  After dropping off the former schoolteacher—having barely restrained himself from embracing the man—he raced back to the place they’d just been. Meanwhile no other cars had shown up to give him any trouble. He pulled up, got out, and began to walk very slowly, step by careful step, looking down at the ground all the while, as far as the edge of the cliff. The ray of sunlight was no longer there to help him like the beam of a flashlight in the night. But now he knew what he needed to look for.

  Then he cautiously leaned forward to see what was under his feet. The plateau was made up of a layer of earth atop a base of marl. Below, a smooth white wall of marl plunged straight into the sea, which must have been at the very least thirty feet deep in that spot. The water was dark gray, like the sky. He didn’t want to waste any more time. He looked around once, twice, thrice, to establish a few fixed reference points, then got back in his car and sped off to the station.

  Fazio wasn’t there. Unexpectedly, however, Mimi was.

  “Beba’s father’s doing better. We’ve decided to postpone the wedding for a month. Any new developments?”

  “Yes, Mimi. Many.” He told him everything. When he’d finished, Mimi sat there dumbfounded.

  “What are you going to do now?” he finally said.

  “I want you to find me a dinghy with a good motor. It should take me about an hour to get to the spot, even if the weather’s not the greatest.”

  “Look, Salvo, you’re liable to get a heart attack. Put it off for
a little while. The water must be ice cold today. And, sorry to say, you’re not a kid anymore.”

  “Find me a dinghy and don’t break my balls.”

  “Have you at least got a wet suit? An oxygen tank?”

  “I should have a wet suit somewhere in the house. I’ve never used oxygen tanks. I can dive without them, just holding my breath.”

  “Salvo, you used to dive without them, just holding your breath. Meanwhile you’ve kept right on smoking all these years. You don’t know what condition your lungs are in. How long do you really think you can stay underwater? Shall we say twenty seconds, just to be generous?”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “You call smoking bullshit?”

  “Gimme a break with the smoking! Of course smoking is harmful, to those who smoke. But for you, smog doesn’t count, high-tension wires don’t count, depleted uranium is good for the health, smokestacks are fine, Chernobyl has boosted farming production, fish filled with uranium—or whatever the hell it is—are better for you, dioxin is a pick-me-up, and mad cow, foot-and-mouth disease, genetically modified food, and globalization will make you live like a king. The only thing that harms and kills millions of people is secondhand smoke. You know what the new slogan’s going to be in the coming years? Keep the air clean. Do a line of coke.”

  “Okay, okay. Calm down,” said Mimi. “I’ll find you a dinghy. But on one condition.”

  “What condition?”

  “That you bring me along.”

  “To do what?”

  “Nothing. I just don’t want to let you go alone. I wouldn’t feel right.”

  “Okay, then. Two o’clock, at the port. I’ve got to keep my stomach empty, in any case. Don’t tell anyone where we’re going. I mean it. If I should turn out to be wrong, the whole police department’ll be razzing me.”

  Montalbano learned how hard it was to put on a wet suit while in a dinghy speeding over a sea that wasn’t exactly calm. Mimi, at the helm, looked tense and worried.

  “Getting seasick?” the inspector asked him at one point.