The Other End of the Line

by Andrea Camilleri

  “Turn off those lights,” he shouted as he ran towards Catarella. “I’m over here, Cat. What’s happened?”

  “Ahh, Chief, Chief! A terrible moider’s wha’ happened!”

  The inspector felt lost.

  He started fumbling for the cell phone in the pocket of his jeans, which were still too tight. Hurling a curse, he managed to extract the phone and give an order to Catarella:

  “Wake up Fazio and tell him to go to the scene.”

  Meanwhile Montalbano had dialed Augello’s number:

  “Mimì, you must come to the port at once.”

  “I’m in my underpants.”

  “Then come in your underpants. I have to go, and you’re going to have to oversee the disembarkment. There are already four dead aboard the ship, and if you’re not here in three minutes, there’ll be a fifth fatality. Got that?”

  “Just tell me one thing,” said Mimì. “Why are you leaving?”

  “I suddenly feel very hungry,” said Montalbano, hanging up, thus interrupting the litany of curses Mimì had started hurling at him.

  “So what happened?” he asked, turning to Catarella.

  “Chief, I gotta tiliphone call onna tiliphone from a night watchman woikin’ at night, an’ ’e said ’e discovered a terrible crime whilse ’e was doin’ ’is night watchin’ an’ ’e said ’e wou’ wait onna premisses for us to get there.”

  “Do you know the address?”

  “Yeah, Chief. Via Calibardo, 62.”

  “I’m gonna go there now,” said Montalbano, “and you get yourself back to the station.”

  Dr. Osman intercepted him on his way back to the car.

  “Could you please tell me—”

  “Yes, Doctor. There’s been a serious crime committed. Inspector Augello’s on his way to take my place. I’m very sorry, but I really must go now.”

  He shook the doctor’s hand and drove off to Via Garibaldi, which ran parallel to Via Roma.

  * * *

  He immediately spotted the night watchman, who was standing outside the half-open entrance to a building. He got out of the car.

  “I’m Montalbano. What happened?”

  “Inspector, I was making my usual rounds when I noticed that this doorway, which is usually closed, was still open. So I poked my head inside and, from the stairwell, I saw the door to the apartment wide open, with all the lights on inside. I got worried and went into the place. I asked out loud if anyone was at home, but there was no answer. Then I looked in the different rooms, and I noticed some towels thrown on the bathroom floor. Then I noticed a small staircase at the end of the corridor. I went down and . . . I’m sorry, Inspector . . . it’s hard for me to talk . . . That’s where I saw . . . the horror . . .”

  But Montalbano was no longer listening. His legs had suddenly turned to mush, and he was overcome by a bout of dizziness that forced him to brace himself against the wall with one hand. Then he asked:

  “But . . . is this . . . the tailor’s shop . . . the tailor . . . Elena?”

  “Yes, yes, Inspector. They killed her in the big room. But, sir, you can’t imagine . . . the butchery!”

  At that moment Fazio pulled up in his car. When he got out he immediately noticed the state Montalbano was in.

  “What’s wrong, Chief? Are you okay?”

  Montalbano gestured for him to wait a minute. He needed to catch his breath.

  At last he was able to speak.

  “Elena’s been killed. The tailor.”

  He was slowly beginning to regain some self-control, and so he turned to the night guard:

  “Please leave your name and telephone number with Inspector Fazio,” he said. And, still supporting himself against the wall, he went into the building and started climbing the stairs, gripping the bannister tight.

  If his legs were mush, his feet had turned to cement.

  Fazio caught up to him on the landing.

  “Should I summon the circus, Chief?”

  “No, let’s us have a look first.”

  He entered the apartment but did not stop to look in the rooms.

  Reaching the end of the corridor, he started descending the staircase leading to the floor below. At the bottom was the small fitting room. He headed for the big room, but then stopped in the doorway.

  He needed a moment of preparation before he could confront the horror, as the guard had called it. For him, however, the horror was twofold.

  He felt an absurd sort of intimacy with the place. He’d met Elena only twice in his life, and yet it was as if she’d already become a friend. It had taken little for her to seem almost like family.

  Then, making up his mind, he took two steps forward, went in, and stopped again. Elena’s body lay on the floor, next to the large table. She was wearing a different dress from the one she’d had on that afternoon. It apparently had once been light in color, but now it was anyone’s guess what the original hue was, as it was entirely drenched in blood.

  There also was blood all around on the coir rugs, and a few spatterings had ended up on the fabric stored on the shelves.

  Elena lay supine, left hand on her belly, right arm extended under the table. Montalbano managed to take another three steps forward, with a silent Fazio still behind him.

  He bent down to get a better look.

  She’d been stabbed to death, the knife thrust into her body over and over. But then he suddenly realized that the murder weapon may have been a large, long pair of tailoring scissors, which was on the table but seemed to have no traces of blood on it.

  At this point he couldn’t take it anymore, and felt the need to go and sit down in the armchair.

  He stayed that way, in silence, until Fazio repeated his question:

  “Chief, can I summon—”

  “Yes.”

  Fazio pulled out his cell phone and went into the corridor. As soon as Montalbano was alone, he started looking around, while remaining seated.

  The first question that popped into his mind was:

  How is it that, with all this blood around, the killer left no footprints?

  Then he stood up, came across Fazio in the corridor, who was still talking, and went and checked everything. The glass door was locked from the inside. He opened it. The metal shutter was down and secured with a padlock. He reclosed the door and returned to the great room.

  To leave the building, the killer must necessarily have gone back up to the apartment. But how? By flying?

  “I’ve informed everyone,” Fazio said as Montalbano was sitting back down in the armchair.

  Fazio approached the victim, being careful about where he stepped. He crouched down and started studying her from up close.

  Then he stood back up and went and sat in the armchair next to Montalbano, who was sitting with his head in his hands.

  “Chief,” he said in a soft voice. “What are you doing? Did you know her, by any chance?”

  “Yes, she was a friend. I saw her just today.”

  Noticing that the inspector seemed particularly upset, Fazio ventured to ask:

  “But was she a friend friend or just a friend?”

  “She was a friend. And she was also my tailor. Just this afternoon she had me try on a suit.”

  Fazio realized that one word wouldn’t be enough and two would have been too much.

  So he changed the subject.

  “Did you also notice something strange?”

  “What?” asked Montalbano, lost in thought.

  “The body was lacerated all over—the neck, the stomach, the face, the arms, but her chest was untouched.”

  “It’s probably just a coincidence,” said the inspector.

  “I don’t think so, Chief. If the murder weapon was that pair of scissors on the table, then it wasn’t a premeditated crime but some
kind of fit of rage. And how do you explain that someone stabbing wildly like that never manages, not even by chance, to strike the broadest part of the victim’s body?”

  “Fazio, do me a favor. Let’s talk about this later. Right now I can’t deal with it.”

  He suddenly remembered the cat.

  “Rinaldo!”

  Fazio’s eyes opened wide.

  “Who’s Rinaldo?”

  “The cat,” said Montalbano. “Listen, please go back up into the apartment and see if the cat is in there. He’s a white cat, with long hair.”

  Fazio went out.

  Montalbano couldn’t resist the urge to smoke a cigarette.

  He raised his eyes slowly and let them rest on Elena’s corpse.

  For an instant, but only an instant, he saw her standing again, smiling, softly rubbing that special fabric against her cheek . . . what was it called again? Princess? Princess of Sicily!

  And at that exact moment he spotted, right beside the scissors, a bloodied piece of fabric. He sprang to his feet and went over to look at it without, however, touching it, and he realized it was a large remnant of the fabric that Elena had had him feel. Except that it was folded in two as if it had been used as some sort of neck band and then violently yanked to the point that it was half-torn.

  The smoke from the cigarette bothered him, and so he extinguished it with his hand and put the butt in his jacket pocket.

  He went and sat back down.

  “I looked for the cat, Chief, but couldn’t find him,” said Fazio. “It’s anybody’s guess where he’s gone to hide. He’s probably on top of an armoire, or maybe he went out of the house.”

  He hadn’t finished speaking when Montalbano noticed the slightest of movements on the set of fabric-stacked shelves behind the table. Then everything became motionless again. But the inspector didn’t take his eyes off the spot. And his patience was rewarded, because moments later the movement resumed.

  He was positive it was Rinaldo. At the risk of getting scratched again, he got up, went over to the shelving, and called in a soft voice:

  “Rinaldo.”

  Then a sort of miracle occurred. At the very back of the shelving, the cat’s face popped out, eyeing him.

  “Come, Rinaldo.”

  The cat came out a little farther.

  Without saying a word, Montalbano reached out and laid a hand on the wooden tabletop. Rinaldo came slowly forward until he was close enough to sniff his hand. Then he lightly licked one of the inspector’s fingers.

  Montalbano picked him up with both hands. The cat put up no resistance. And at that moment he realized that all the cat’s white fur had become pink with its mistress’s blood. He also noticed that the cat’s paws were all redder than its fur. It was possible that the cat had attacked the killer. He set the animal back down gently on the shelf, scratching its nose and saying:

  “Be a good kitty now, Rinà, and stay right there.”

  The sound of police sirens began to fill the air.

  “That must be Forensics,” said Fazio.

  “Go and meet them. I’m going upstairs to have a look.”

  He wanted to see the layout of the apartment, and so he opened the first door on the right.

  There was a large kitchen, reminiscent of those old-fashioned Sicilian kitchens with colored terra-cotta tiles over the oven. Past it was a door leading to a spacious dining room.

  He turned around, went back into the corridor, and headed for the last room on the right. It was a large, elegant salon full of books.

  Going to open the door opposite, he found a small guest room with a single bed; next to it was a large, colorful bathroom. Beyond that was Elena’s bedroom, which had a small door leading to a personal bathroom. As the night watchman had said, there were towels thrown on the floor.

  Montalbano heard the forensics team coming up the stairs and raced into the kitchen and pushed the door to, with the tip of his toes.

  He didn’t want to see anyone.

  He started looking around.

  The kitchen was in perfect order. He opened the garbage pail and was convinced that Elena had had somebody over for dinner.

  At this point he heard Dr. Pasquano walk past in the hallway, cursing for having been woken up in the middle of the night. Montalbano hid behind the door.

  After Pasquano had passed, he went into the far room at the end of the hall.

  It was an enormous, meticulously outfitted salon: precious rugs on the floor, an antique chaise longue reupholstered in the Oriental style, a small opium-smoker’s cot transformed into a little couch, and a great many large cushions to sit down on. The walls to both left and right were covered with shelves teeming with books and statuettes. Books, but also Caltagirone pottery, a series of small objets d’art, all gold, little Greek houses, Maghreb terra-cotta, Tunisian ceramics . . . It was like a little Mediterranean bazaar.

  A small glass showcase, similar to those one finds in doctors’ offices, featured a great many men’s fashion magazines.

  He went back out into the corridor and into the guest room, which had a small armoire and a single bed that had been made up for the night.

  On top of the bed were some folded towels.

  Then the spacious, immaculately clean bathroom.

  Finally he went into the room where Elena slept. It was huge, all white, and her bed, wide enough for three, was covered in white linen.

  Instead of the usual table lamps on the nightstands, there were two standing lamps with broad shades beside them, also white. A colossal armoire, also the color of the moon, covered an entire wall. The only note of color in the room was a midnight blue desk with three drawers on the right and three drawers on the left. Next to the desk was the entrance to the bathroom, which had a modern shower all made of glass, as well as a renovated old bathtub with little lion’s feet.

  Montalbano bent down to feel the two towels that were on the floor between the tub and the shower. They were still damp.

  He slid open the door to the shower..

  He noticed that it had been recently used, because there were still a few droplets of water on the glass walls.

  Apparently Elena, either before or after dinner, had taken a shower and changed her clothes to meet the person who would then kill her.

  And it could not, moreover, have been the dinner guest who used the shower, since he would have used the guest bathroom.

  Still struggling, he extracted his cell phone from his pocket and rang Fazio.

  “How far along is Dr. Pasquano?” he asked in a soft voice.

  “He’s almost done, Chief.”

  “Then, when he’s about to leave, bring him to me upstairs. Take him into the first room on the right, just past the staircase. But don’t tell him I want to see him.”

  “Okay, Chief.”

  He went back into the kitchen, and as he was sitting down his cell phone rang.

  Good thing the door was half-closed.

  “Salvo.” It was Augello, talking in a whiny voice. “The scene here is a total madhouse. Couldn’t you take five minutes and come—”

  “No,” said Montalbano, cutting him off.

  Then he heard Pasquano’s voice in the stairwell.

  “So, to what do we owe the fact that the illustrious inspector is out of our hair for once? Is he having trouble getting out of bed, considering his age?”

  “Here I am,” said Montalbano, opening the door and appearing in front of the doctor.

  Pasquano recoiled in surprise, took a step back, and collided with Fazio.

  “What? So you managed to rise from the dead?”

  “I need to ask you some questions,” said Montalbano, turning and going back into the kitchen.

  Pasquano and Fazio followed him.

  “So, how long has she been dead, in your opini
on?”

  “Let’s make a preliminary agreement: only three questions, because I’m so sleepy I could die.”

  “Okay.”

  “In my opinion, not more than three hours. Let’s say she died sometime after eleven o’clock.”

  “My second question is yes or no. Was she killed with the scissors?”

  “I think so. The wounds are too wide and deep. It’s consistent with the tailor’s scissors. I counted twenty-two, at least four of which were fatal. Okay, let’s have the last question.”

  “How much did you lose at poker?”

  “Good night,” said Pasquano, casting a disdainful glance at him, turning around, and heading out.

  “Go see him out, Fazio,” said the inspector.

  “I don’t need anyone to see me out. Unlike you, I can still find my way,” said Pasquano, walking away, teetering down the corridor.

  Fazio and Montalbano looked at each other.

  “Is Prosecutor Tommaseo here yet?”

  “Not yet, Chief. He probably went and crashed into a tree somewhere. Forensics says this is gonna take a while. And you know what else? They grabbed the cat and put him in a sack.”

  “Why’d they do that?”

  “Because they said the cat’s claws are covered in blood, and it’s probably not just the victim’s blood. He may have scratched the killer.”

  “Tell you what,” said Montalbano. “There’s nothing left for me to do here. I’m going to go to the station. As soon as they’ve finished here, you come and join me at the office. We have to inform the family. Could you look into that?”

  “Okay,” said Fazio.

  The inspector got in his car, but instead of heading for the station, he turned in the direction of the port. Upon arriving he noticed that everyone was already gone.

  Then he spotted Mimì Augello in the distance, walking back to his car, alone.

  He started flashing his headlights and honking his horn.

  Mimì stopped and turned.

  Recognizing Montalbano’s car, he tapped his right hand against his watch, as if to say:

  So you decide to show up now?

  Montalbano stopped the car and got out.

  “Mimì, don’t give me any guff. Do you know who was killed? Elena. The tailor.”