A Voice in the Night

by Andrea Camilleri

  ‘The jacket and tie are missing,’ Fazio observed to Montalbano.

  ‘I remember clearly that when he was hanging from the beam he wasn’t wearing either. The killers must have taken them off the body, since you can’t really hang yourself in a jacket and tie. You’ve got more freedom of movement in shirtsleeves.’

  ‘So the jacket and tie should still be at the supermarket.’

  ‘They almost certainly are. I think I even remember seeing them hanging in the office. But look at this shirt. Do you remember the one he was wearing when he called us about the burglary?’

  ‘Yeah, I think it was dark blue.’

  ‘I think so too. Whereas this one is white. Which means that there’s no way that Borsellino, as they want us to believe, hanged himself as soon as we left because he was upset over our interrogation. Pasquano’s right. Borsellino went home, had a little something to eat – he wasn’t very hungry, given all the worries he had on his mind – changed his shirt – remember how much he sweated in front of us? – and then went back to the supermarket.’

  ‘Then he must’ve got a phone call, or a knock at the door, at which point he let his killers in.’

  ‘Something like that,’ said the inspector.

  Then, looking Fazio in the eye, he added:

  ‘Maybe we should go and have a look at the office.’

  ‘We would need the prosecutor’s authorization.’

  ‘And what would I say to him? If Pasquano had written his doubts into the report, it would be easy . . .’

  ‘Can I ask a question?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why didn’t Pasquano want to mention the bruises?’

  ‘He said it wouldn’t stand up in court. But in my opinion he’s just protecting himself.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘My dear Fazio, do you somehow think that Pasquano, as well informed as he is, doesn’t know that the Cuffaros are behind this whole affair? He must have decided that it wouldn’t hurt to be a little careful.’

  ‘So, you were saying?’ Fazio asked.

  ‘I was saying that since we’ve got nothing to show Tommaseo, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to go and stir him up.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Fazio, already knowing where the inspector wanted to go with this.

  And indeed:

  ‘You feel like coming with me tonight?’

  ‘To the supermarket?’

  ‘Where else do you think I’d want to go? Dancing?’

  SIX

  Fazio didn’t hesitate for a second.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Listen, to save time, I want you to do something for me. Go and see which of these keys open the front door to Borsellino’s building and his apartment. So we don’t waste time fumbling around in front of the supermarket. Then come by my place to pick me up around twelve-thirty, one o’clock.’

  ‘Chief, the later it is, the better.’

  ‘Then come by some time after one.’

  But Fazio didn’t get up from his chair.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Chief, you really need to think hard before doing something like this.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘If they find out we entered the supermarket with no authorization, there could be some serious consequences.’

  ‘Are you worried that the commissioner—’

  ‘No, Chief, don’t insult me. Nothing the commissioner says could ever make any difference to me.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘I’m afraid that if anybody ever finds out – say, the Honourable Mongibello – they’re liable to claim that we went into the supermarket to plant false evidence.’

  ‘That you can bank on. But we’ll make sure nobody ever finds out.’

  *

  Back at home he wolfed down another abundant helping of octopus. He had all the time in the world to digest. Then he cleared the table and went back out onto the veranda with a pack of cigarettes, half a glass of whisky, and a local newspaper. Naturally it featured an article about the supermarket burglary and the manager’s suicide. The reporter seemed almost to have written the piece under dictation. He never mentioned the inspector’s or Augello’s names. Everything revolved around the central thesis that the shop’s proceeds had been stolen by the manager himself, who, upon realizing he’d been found out, had hanged himself.

  ‘Amen,’ said Montalbano.

  At midnight he turned on the television.

  Pippo Ragonese, more purse-lipped than ever, was saying that even admitting that the manager himself robbed the shop, this did not justify Inspector Montalbano’s brutal methods, which were the real reason the unfortunate Mr Borsellino had hanged himself.

  ‘Since when has a death sentence been the punishment for theft in our country?’ he asked rhetorically at one point.

  ‘I’ll tell you since when,’ Montalbano answered. ‘Ever since your government made it legal for people to shoot at thieves.’

  He turned the television off and went and had a shower.

  *

  At twelve-thirty, Livia rang.

  ‘Sorry for calling so late, but I went to the movies with a friend. Were you already in bed?’

  ‘No, I have to go out on a job.’

  ‘At this time of the night?’

  ‘At this time of the night.’

  He heard her mutter something but couldn’t understand what she said.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  But the way she’d said ‘nothing’ let Montalbano know what she was thinking. And he flew into a rage.

  ‘Livia, you continue to make a fuss over something we’ve discussed time and time again. I’m not some clerk with a fixed schedule. I don’t get off work at five-thirty in the afternoon and go home. I—’

  ‘Wait a second. What are you getting so worked up about?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I get worked up? You’re trying to insinuate that—’

  ‘I’m not trying to insinuate anything. I asked you a simple question and you flew off the handle. You must admit, however, that you policemen have the best excuses for staying out all night.’

  ‘Excuses?!’

  ‘Yes, excuses. How could I ever verify that you’re going out for work?’

  ‘Verify?!’

  ‘Stop repeating what I say, please.’

  Montalbano started seeing red.

  ‘And how could I ever verify that you were at the movies this evening with a friend?’

  ‘So who would I have gone with, in your opinion?’

  ‘How should I know? Maybe your little cousin, the one you spent a summer with on his boat!’

  The spat was gargantuan this time.

  *

  Fazio arrived at quarter past one.

  ‘Are we going in my car or yours?’ he asked.

  ‘Let’s take yours.’

  On their way there, the inspector said:

  ‘When we were at the station I forgot to mention that you should find out what time the nightwatchmen normally pass by the supermarket.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t forget.’

  Which was the exact equivalent of the damn ‘already taken care of’. A simple variation on the theme. Montalbano bit his lower lip to avoid reacting the wrong way. ‘What did you find out?’

  ‘That the nightwatchman checks the bank around one-thirty. He should already have come and gone by the time we get to the supermarket.’

  ‘And when does he come by again?’

  ‘An hour later.’

  ‘We don’t have a lot of time.’

  ‘No need to worry. The office is at the back of the supermarket. The nightwatchman won’t be able to see us back there.’

  He was silent for a few moments and then said:

  ‘I wanted to ask you something, Chief.’

  ‘So go ahead.’

  ‘What are you looking for in that office?’

  ‘I’m not going there to search for anything.’

 
‘Then what are we going there for?’

  ‘I want to have another look at the office.’

  Fazio didn’t understand.

  ‘But haven’t you already seen it a hundred times?’

  ‘I have, but always with different eyes.’

  ‘Can you explain a little better?’

  ‘When I went in there the first time, the office had been the scene of a burglary. So I looked at it as a place where a burglary had occurred. Then I went back there because it had been the scene of a suicide. And so I saw it as a place where someone had committed suicide. Later Pasquano told me that it was a murder, not a suicide, that had taken place there. But I haven’t had a chance to look at it again from that perspective. That’s what we’re going to do now.’

  *

  Fazio parked two streets away.

  ‘It’s better if it isn’t seen anywhere nearby.’ Then, instead of heading for the four main metal rolling shutters, he turned the corner and made for the back of the supermarket.

  ‘The back door is the service entrance, Chief. It’s where they bring in the merchandise, where the cleaning ladies and staff enter. There aren’t any streets running past it.’

  This was true.

  The back of the supermarket gave onto a large stretch of concrete that was fenced off and served as a parking area for delivery lorries.

  Beyond the fence was the open countryside.

  Fazio unstuck a part of the tape that held up the sheet of paper representing the police seal, then in the twinkling of an eye he opened the door, let the inspector in, followed him in, and closed the door behind them.

  Walking in complete darkness towards the manager’s office, at one point Montalbano stepped on a tin can and began skating along the floor, swearing like a madman and unable to stop his advance, finally crashing into a stack of little tubs of detergent, making a terrible racket.

  Fazio came running and pulled him out from under a mountain of detergent tubs.

  Perhaps owing to the powdered detergent, the inspector started sneezing so hard that his eyes began to water. And so the little he’d been able to see was no more. He took two steps with his arms extended before him like a blind man, then gave up.

  ‘Help me.’

  Fazio took him by the arm and led him all the way to the office.

  There, he let him go and went and carefully closed all the rolling shutters, so that no light would filter outside. Then he turned on just the table lamp that was on the desk.

  Now they could work with their minds at ease.

  But as soon as he looked up at the inspector he couldn’t keep from laughing.

  Montalbano frowned.

  ‘I’m sorry, Chief, but you look just like a fish covered in flour, ready for frying.’

  Montalbano looked at his suit and shoes. They were all white. Apparently a few tubs of detergent had popped open in the crash.

  He went into the office’s small toilet and saw himself in the mirror. He looked like a clown. He washed his face and then went back and sat in the manager’s chair.

  He looked all around the room.

  Just as he’d remembered, the jacket and tie were hanging from a hook on the wall beside the door.

  ‘Search through the jacket pockets and give me everything you find.’

  Borsellino apparently never used to keep anything on the desktop – no paper, no pens, none of the kinds of things that one might normally find on a desk.

  Montalbano opened the middle drawer, the one that had been forced. The first time he’d looked in it he hadn’t noticed, but this time he realized that in that drawer Borsellino kept everything he needed for writing: paper, pens, pencils, stamps, and so on. The telephone, on the other hand, sat on a small, separate table. Fazio, meanwhile, had put on the desk a wallet, five sheets of paper folded in four, and a small, empty book of matches of the sort that, in the days when you could smoke freely, without risk of fines or prison sentences, they used to give out at hotels, nightclubs, and restaurants. Inside were the words: Chat Noir.

  ‘That’s all I found, Chief.’

  The wallet contained five hundred and fifty-five euros, a cash card and a national health service card, a credit card and ID card, a photo of a woman who must have been his deceased wife, and a receipt for a pair of glasses he was having repaired.

  The sheets of paper were the accounts for incoming and outgoing merchandise.

  Speaking of which, the inspector wondered, where did Borsellino keep his computer?

  Montalbano opened the right-hand drawer and found the computer in it. Just under the edge of the desktop were some electrical sockets and a phone jack.

  ‘Do you know what the Chat Noir is?’ he asked Fazio.

  ‘Yeah, it’s a kind of “gentlemen’s club” in Montelusa.’

  ‘Frankly, Borsellino didn’t seem the least bit like the kind of person who would frequent a place like that.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘So why do you think he had that book of matches in his pocket?’

  ‘Well, there could be many explanations. Maybe somebody gave it to him.’

  ‘But he didn’t even smoke! What was he going to do with the matches?’

  ‘Maybe he just put them in his pocket without thinking,’ Fazio continued.

  A second later, Montalbano smiled at him.

  ‘Would you do me a favour? Look under the desk and see if you see an ashtray with a cigarette butt in it.’

  Fazio lay face-down on the floor, because there was barely three inches of clearance between the bottom of the desk and the floor.

  ‘Here it is,’ he said, standing back up and putting the ashtray and butt on the desk. ‘But how did you know . . .’

  ‘I just imagined the scene.’

  ‘Well, tell me how you did that.’

  ‘OK: the killer enters the room with an accomplice, sits down, takes a cigarette out of the pack, and at the same time Borsellino takes an ashtray from the middle drawer and puts it down for him. The killer lights the cigarette with the last match and tosses the book onto the desk. Borsellino, who can’t stand to see anything on his desk, grabs it automatically, just like you said, and puts it in his pocket. Then, in the struggle leading up to the hanging, the ashtray ends up under the desk. Make sense to you?’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘Listen, put the butt and the empty book of matches in a plastic bag. They might turn out to be important.’

  As Fazio was doing this, Montalbano suddenly thought of something else. ‘So where’d the mobile end up?’

  ‘What mobile?’

  ‘Borsellino’s.’

  ‘But did he have one?’

  ‘Of course he did. I distinctly remember that the first time I came here, he had it in his hand.’

  ‘Search the drawers carefully.’

  Montalbano reopened the middle one and stuck his hand all the way to the back. Pens, pencils, envelopes, letterhead paper, stamps, boxes of paper clips, rubber bands.

  He opened the right-hand drawer. Just the computer.

  He opened the left-hand drawer. Receipts, shipping forms, account books.

  No mobile.

  ‘Maybe the killers took it,’ said Fazio.

  ‘Or maybe he left it at home when he went back to eat and change his shirt.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Fazio.

  ‘And do you know what this means?’

  ‘That we have to go to Borsellino’s house,’ sighed Fazio, resigned.

  ‘Right on the money, Fazio. Put everything back in the jacket pockets and let’s go.’

  As Fazio was putting the wallet back, he gave a little cry.

  ‘What is it?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘Maybe the mobile’s here in the inside pocket. I forgot to look before.’

  Fazio stuck two fingers in the specially made pocket and pulled out something that wasn’t a mobile. It was an object shorter and fatter than a thermometer, but it wasn’t a thermometer, because it was made of met
al.

  ‘What is it?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘Come on, Chief, you’ve seen hundreds of these things at press conferences! The journalists use them!’

  ‘But what are they for?’

  ‘They’re digital recorders that you hook up to your computer. They’re very sensitive and have large memories. But I don’t know what they’re called.’

  ‘Let me see it.’

  Fazio handed it to him, and Montalbano slipped it into his pocket.

  ‘You know what I say? All things considered, let’s take the computer too.’

  Fazio rifled through the open drawer and after a few moments said:

  ‘I’m ready.’

  They went out of the office and straight into total darkness.

  ‘Chief,’ said Fazio, ‘walk behind me with your hands on my shoulders. That way we won’t do a repeat of before.’

  Nobody saw them come out of the supermarket.

  And they didn’t run into anyone on their way to the car.

  *

  As they drew near to Borsellino’s place, Fazio again parked in a nearby street, but not too close. By now, however, it was the middle of the night, and the only souls about were a couple of dogs and three cats squabbling near a rubbish bin. Before getting out of the car, Fazio took two torches and gave one to the inspector.

  ‘Borsellino lived on the fifth floor,’ he said as they headed off.

  ‘Is there a lift?’ Montalbano asked, worried.

  ‘Yes there is. What should we do?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Should we go up to the sixth floor and come down one, or to the fourth and go up one?’

  ‘I like the first one better,’ said the inspector.

  Fazio opened the building’s main door as if he’d always lived there himself. But at the door to the apartment, he had some trouble.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  The key refused to go into the lock.

  He tried again.

  ‘What is this?’ he said under his breath. ‘Just a few hours ago it opened just fine!’

  At last he succeeded, and they went in and shut the door behind them. They turned on their torches.

  The apartment consisted of a small entranceway, four rooms off a central corridor, two bathrooms, and a kitchen. Apparently Borsellino, since his wife’s death, had not had any other women living with him. The place was in perfect order.