IM7 Rounding the Mark (2006)

by Andrea Camilleri

  While driving around, he had an idea. He braked, got out, and started walking, looking absorbed, now and then kicking the little white stones he encountered along the road.

  The little boy’s long escape, which had begun on the landing wharf in the port of Vigàta, had ended not far from Spigonella. He was almost certain the child was running away from Spigonella when the car ran him down.

  The nameless dead man he’d encountered while out for a swim had also been sighted in Spigonella. And in all likelihood he’d been killed in Spigonella. Their two stories seemed to run parallel, even though they weren’t supposed to. The inspector recalled the famous expression coined by a politician killed by the Red Brigades: “parallel convergences.” Was the ultimate point of convergence none other than the ghost town of Spigonella? Why not?

  But where to begin? Should he try to find out who owned those villas? This immediately seemed an impossible undertaking. Since every single one of those constructions was strictly unauthorized, there was no point in checking the land registry or town hall. Discouraged, he leaned against an electrical pole. The moment his shoulders touched the wood of the pole, he stepped away as though he’d gotten a shock. Electricity! Of course! All towns had to have electricity, and therefore the homeowners had to submit signed requests to be hooked up. But his enthusiasm was short-lived. He could already imagine the electrical company’s response: Since there were no registered streets or street numbers in Spigonella, and since, in short, there was no such place as Spigonella, the electrical bills were sent to the owners’ regular residential addresses. Sorting out these owners would surely be a long and arduous process. And were he to ask how long, the answer would be so vague as to be almost poetic. What about trying the telephone company? Right!

  Aside from the fact that the phone company’s answer would have many points in common with the electrical company’s, what about cell phones? Hadn’t one of the witnesses, the fisherman, stated that when he’d seen the unknown dead man, the guy was talking on a cell phone? Hopeless. No matter which way he turned, he ran into a wall. An idea came to him. He got in the car, turned on the ignition, and drove off. Finding the road wasn’t easy. He drove past the same villa two or three times, and then finally, in the distance, saw what he was looking for. The caretaker was still sitting in the same cane chair, the extinguished cigar in his mouth. Montalbano pulled up, got out, and approached the man.

  “Good afternoon.”

  “If you say so . . . Good afternoon.”

  “I’m a police inspector.”

  “I figured. You came by with the other policeman, the one that showed me the photograph.”

  Had a sharp eye, this caretaker.

  “I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “Do you see many immigrants around here?”

  The caretaker gave him an astonished look.

  “Immigrants? Sir, around here we don’t see no immigrants, emigrants, or even migrants. All we ever see is the people who live here when they come. Immigrants! Hah!”

  “Why does that seem so preposterous to you?”

  “’Cause around here the private security car passes every two hours. And those guys . . . if they saw an immigrant, they’d kick his ass all they way back to where he came from!”

  “So why haven’t I seen any of these security officers today?”

  “Because today they’re on strike for half the day.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No, thank you for helping make a little of the time go by.”

  He got back in the car and left. But when he got to the white-and-red house in front of which he and Fazio had met, he turned around. He knew there was nothing to find there, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave that place. He pulled up again at the edge of the cliff. It was getting dark. Against the still luminous sky, the villa with the enormous terrace looked ghostly. Despite the luxurious homes, the well-tended trees rising above the enclosure walls, and the lush greenery everywhere, Spigonella was a wasteland. Of course, all seaside towns, especially those that depend on vacationers, seem dead in the off-season. But Spigonella must have been already dead at the moment of its birth. In its beginning was its end, to mangle Eliot again. Getting back into his car, this time he finally drove back to Vigàta.

  “Marzilla call, Cat?”

  “No, Chief, he din’t. But Pontius Pilate did.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said he in’t gonna make the plane, but tomorrow he can, and so tomorrow afternoon he’ll be here in the afternoon.”

  The inspector went into his office but didn’t sit down. He immediately made a phone call. He wanted to see if there was any chance of doing something that had occurred to him as he was parking the car in front of the police station.

  “Signora Albanese? Good evening, how are you? This is Inspector Montalbano. Can you tell me what time your husband will be done with today’s fishing? Ah, he didn’t go out today? Is he at home? Could I talk to him? Ciccio, what are you doing at home? A touch of the flu? Feeling any better now? All gone? Good, I’m glad. Listen, I wanted to ask you something . . . What’s that? Why don’t I come by for dinner, so we can talk about it in person? I really don’t want to take advantage of you, or put your wife to any trouble . . . What was that? Pasta with fresh ricotta? And a second course of whitebait? I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  He was unable to speak for the duration of the meal. From time to time Ciccio Albanese would ask him:

  “What was that you wanted to ask me, Inspector?”

  But Montalbano didn’t even answer, merely rotating the forefinger of his left hand, gesturing “later, later,” since either his mouth was too full or he simply didn’t want to open it, lest the air dilute the taste he was jealously guarding between his tongue and palate.

  When the coffee was served, he decided it was time to talk about what he wanted, but only after complimenting Albanese’s wife on her cooking.

  “You were right, Ciccio. The dead man was spotted three months ago at Spigonella. Things must have happened the way you said: first they killed him, then they threw him into the water at Spigonella or nearby. You really are very good, as everyone says.”

  Ciccio Albanese absorbed the praise without a blink, as his due.

  “What else can I do for you?” was all he said.

  Montalbano told him. Albanese thought about it a minute, then turned to his wife.

  “Is Tanino in Montelusa or Palermo? Do you know?”

  “This morning my sister said he was here.”

  Before phoning Montelusa, Albanese felt he needed to explain.

  “Tanino is my wife’s sister’s son. He’s studying law in Palermo. His dad has a house in Tricase and Tanino goes there often. He’s got a dinghy and likes to scuba dive.”

  The phone call took only about five minutes.

  “Tanino’ll expect you at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Now let me explain how you get there.”

  “Fazio? Sorry to bother you at this hour, but the other day, I think I saw one of our men with a small video camera and—”

  “Yeah, that was Torrisi, Chief. He just bought it. From Torretta.”

  Of course! Torretta must have moved the entire Zanzibar bazaar into the Vigàta police headquarters!

  “Send Torrisi right over here to Marinella, with the video camera and anything else I might need to operate it.”

  11

  When he opened the shutters, he took heart. The morning looked happy to be what it was, alive with light and color. In the shower Montalbano even tried to sing, which he rarely did; being somewhat tone-deaf, however, he merely hummed the tune. Though he wasn’t running late, he realized he was hurrying because he was anxious to leave the house and get to Tricase. In the car, in fact, he realized at one point that he was driving too fast. At the Spigonella-Tricase fork, he turned left and, once past the bend, found himself at the mound of gravel. The bouquet of flowers was gone, and there was a
laborer filling a wheelbarrow with gravel. A bit further on, two more laborers worked on the road. The few paltry things commemorating the death and life of the little boy had all disappeared. By now his small body must have been buried anonymously in the Montechiaro cemetery. At Tricase he carefully followed the instructions Ciccio Albanese had given him and, when very near the shore, he pulled up in front of a small yellow house. A pleasant-looking kid of about twenty, in shorts and barefoot, stood in the doorway. A rubber dinghy bobbed in the water a short distance away. They shook hands. Tanino gave the inspector a curious look, and only then did Montalbano realize he was decked out like a tourist. In fact, in addition to the video camera in his hand, he had a pair of binoculars slung across his chest.

  “Shall we go?” asked the kid.

  “Sure. But first I want to undress.”

  “Go ahead.”

  He went into the house and came back out in a bathing suit. Tanino locked the door and they climbed aboard the dinghy. Only then did the kid ask:

  “Where are we going?”

  “Your uncle didn’t tell you?”

  “My uncle only told me to make myself available.”

  “I want to shoot some footage of the coast at Spigonella. But I don’t want anyone to see us.”

  “Who’s going to see us, Inspector? At this time of year there isn’t a soul in Spigonella.”

  “Just do as I say.”

  After barely half an hour on the water, Tanino slowed down.

  “Down there are the first houses in Spigonella. Is this speed okay for you?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Should I go a little closer?”

  “No.”

  Montalbano grabbed the videocam and realized, to his horror, that he didn’t know how to use it. The instructions Torretta had given him the night before had turned into a formless mush in his brain.

  “Matre santa! I can’t remember anything!” he groaned.

  “Want me to try? I’ve got one just like it at home.”

  They traded places, and the inspector took the rudder, steering with one hand and holding the binoculars to his eyes with the other.

  “And this is where Spigonella ends,” Tanino said at a certain point, turning around to face the inspector.

  Lost in thought, Montalbano didn’t answer. The binoculars dangled from his neck.

  “Inspector?”

  “Hm?”

  “What should we do now?”

  “Let’s go back. And, if possible, a little closer and a little slower.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Another thing: when we’re in front of the villa with the big terrace, could you zoom in on those rocks in the water below?”

  They passed by Spigonella a second time, then left it behind them.

  “What next?”

  “Are you sure you got some good shots?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  “Okay, then, let’s go home. Do you know who owns that villa with the terrace?”

  “I do. An American had it built, but that was before I was born.”

  “An American?’

  “Actually he was the son of a couple that had emigrated from Montechiaro. He came here a few times in the early days, or at least that’s what I’m told. Then he never came back. There were rumors he’d been arrested.”

  “Here in Sicily?’

  “No, in America. For smuggling.”

  “Narcotics?”

  “And cigarettes. People say that for a while he was directing all the traffic in the Mediterranean from here.”

  “Have you ever seen those rocks in front of the house from up close?”

  “Around here, Inspector, everybody minds his own business.”

  “Has anyone been living in the villa recently?”

  “Not recently, no. But there was somebody there last year.”

  “So they rent it out?”

  “I guess.”

  “Do they use an agency?”

  “Inspector, I have no idea. If you want, I can try to find out.”

  “No, that’s all right, thanks. You’ve gone to enough trouble as it is.”

  When he pulled into the main square in Montechiaro, the town clock rang eleven-thirty. He stopped the car, got out, and headed for a glass door with the word REALTOR over it. Inside there was only a pretty, polite girl.

  “No, we don’t handle the villa you’re talking about.”

  “Do you know who does?”

  “No. You see, the owners of these luxury villas very rarely use agencies, at least not around here.”

  “So how do they rent them, then?”

  “You know, they’re all rich and they all know each other . . . They just get the word out in their circles . . .”

  Crooks also get the word out in their circles, thought the inspector.

  Meanwhile the girl was looking at him and noticed the binoculars and video camera.

  “Are you a tourist?”

  “How could you tell?” said Montalbano.

  After that jaunt over the waves he felt irresistibly hungry, his appetite swelling inside him like a river in spate. Though the surest course would have been to head straight to the Trattoria Da Enzo, he had to take his chances with what awaited him in the refrigerator or the oven in Marinella, since he needed to view what they’d filmed right away. As soon as he got home, he dashed into the kitchen, anxious to see what Adelina’s imagination had cooked up for him. In the oven he found rabbit alla cacciatora, as unexpected as it was ardently desired. While warming it up, he grabbed the phone.

  “Torrisi? Montalbano here.”

  “Everything go all right, Inspector?”

  “I think so. Could you pop over to my place in about an hour?”

  When eating alone, one indulges oneself in ways one would never dare in the company of others. Some sit down at the table in their underwear, others stuff themselves in bed or set up in front of the TV. Often the inspector allowed himself the pleasure of eating with his hands. Which is what he did with the rabbit alla cacciatora. Afterwards he had to spend half an hour scrubbing his hands under the kitchen faucet to wash off the grease and the smell.

  He went to answer the door. It was Torrisi.

  “Let me see what we filmed,” said the inspector.

  “Here’s how you do it, Chief. Watch. You flip this switch and . . .”

  He performed the procedure as he spoke, but Montalbano wasn’t even listening. He was utterly hopeless in these matters. The first images Tanino had filmed appeared on the television screen.

  “What beautiful shots, Inspector!” Torrisi said with admiration. “You’re really good, you know. After only one technical lesson last night . . .”

  “Well,” Montalbano said modestly, “it wasn’t hard . . .”

  In the footage shot on the first run, the rocks below the villa looked like a bottom row of uneven teeth in a giant mouth, one jutting out, another recessed, one shorter than the rest, one longer, one slanting crosswise, another standing upright. When filmed on the return run, the same mouth of rocks appeared to be missing a tooth, revealing a gap that was not very wide, just enough to allow a dinghy or small motorboat to pass through.

  “Stop there.”

  Montalbano studied the image carefully. Something about that gap looked odd to him, as though the sea hesitated slightly before entering. In spots, it even looked like it wanted to turn back.

  “Can you enlarge?”

  “No, Chief.”

  When Tanino stopped zooming, one saw the very steep staircase, carved directly into the rock, leading from the villa to the small, natural harbor formed by the rocks.

  “Go back a little, please.”

  This time he noticed a tall wire fence welded to some metal poles planted in the rocks, preventing anyone from climbing up and seeing what was going on inside the little harbor. Thus not only was the villa built without authorization, but its owners had illegally interrupted the shoreline. There was no way to walk along t
he water’s edge there, not even by climbing the rocks, since at a certain point one’s path was blocked by an insurmountable barrier of wire fencing. Yet even on this second viewing, he couldn’t figure out why the sea acted so strangely in front of that missing tooth.

  “Good enough, Torrisi. Thanks. You can take back your video camera.”

  “There is a way to enlarge the image you wanted, Chief. I could print out a copy of the still and give it to Catarella, who then could scan—”

  “Fine, fine, you take care of it,” Montalbano cut him off.

  “My compliments again on the beautiful shots,” said Torrisi as he went out.

  “Thanks,” said the inspector, with the cheek he was able to summon in certain situations. The usurper didn’t even blush.

  “Cat, any news from Marzilla?”

  “No sir, Chief. But I wanted a tell you that a litter came this morning, addrissed to you poissonally in poisson.”

  The plainest of envelopes, with no letterhead. The inspector opened it and pulled out a newspaper clipping. He looked inside the envelope but found nothing else. There was a short article dated Cosenza, March 11. The headline said: FUGITIVE ERRERA’S BODY FOUND. It said:

  Yesterday morning around six A.M., Antonio Jacopino, a shepherd, was horrified to discover the remains of a human body when crossing the railroad tracks near Paganello with his flock. Preliminary investigations by the police, who promptly rushed to the scene, point to an apparent mishap. The man is believed to have slid down the embankment, made slippery by recent rainfall, as the 11:00 PM express was passing by on its way to Cosenza. In their statement to police, the conductors stated they noticed nothing unusual when passing that spot. Authorities were able to identify the victim from the documents in his wallet and a wedding ring. His name was Ernesto Errera, a fugitive from justice, convicted by the Court of Cosenza for armed robbery. He had lately been rumored to be active in Brindisi, having taken an interest in trafficking illegal immigrants and working in close contact with the Albanian mafia.