The Pyramid of Mud

by Andrea Camilleri

  And he got up, ran out of the room, went down to the parking lot, and fired up a cigarette.

  Fazio would take care of preparing the man little by little. Montalbano would never have had the nerve.

  Some twenty minutes later he saw Fazio come out, supporting the poor father, who didn’t have the strength to stand on his two feet. Fazio sat him down in his car, and then came over to the inspector.

  “I’m driving him to Montelusa for the official identification. I’ll see you back here at three.”

  Every once in a while he didn’t feel like eating.

  He was picturing the scene of the old accountant in front of his son’s lifeless body in the livid light of the morgue, and his stomach twisted into a knot as tight as a fist.

  He’d read somewhere that in France a great artist from the Abruzzi had been hired to make a morgue less gloomy and sad. What a great idea!

  He decided to go home. As soon as he got back, he slowly sipped half a glass of whisky, then went out onto the beach.

  At the water’s edge, the stormy seas of the past few days had deposited a long, broad strip of rubbish on the sand. Plastic bags and bottles, containers of every sort, bottomless shoes, old tires, tins, jerry cans, all of it covered by a nasty sort of gray foam that not only looked like mud but had a strong, bad smell. It stank of rot, of decaying, dead matter . . .

  Once upon a time—but when? a thousand years ago—the tides used to wash up algae, starfish, and shells on the shore . . . And what a wonderful smell they had! Essence of seawater . . .

  There was a time when Livia used to collect seashells.

  They once even quarreled over it.

  “You know something strange, Salvo? The ones I find in Boccadasse are more beautiful.”

  “Of course.”

  “Since you concur, can you explain why?”

  “Because the ones in Boccadasse are fake, made of plastic.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I know it from a reliable source. The employees of Pro Loco scatter them on the beach for the tourists.”

  Livia didn’t get the joke and flew into a rage.

  Livia! Oh, God!

  A wave of emotion as unexpected as it was unstoppable swept over him, forcing him to run back inside, grab the phone, and dial her number.

  It rang a long time with no answer. Not expecting any calls at that hour, Livia had unplugged the phone. Perhaps to get a little rest. So much the better.

  He took a shower, made a mug of coffee, dawdled about the house for a while, and then went back to the office.

  Fazio was already there and told him that after the heartrending identification, he’d taken the old man, who’d seemed more dead than alive, back to his home and turned him over to the care of some neighbors. And so, between one thing and another, he hadn’t had time to eat.

  They decided to take a squad car with Gallo at the wheel and go back to the victim’s house.

  As they were driving there, Fazio asked:

  “What do you make of the answer the office manager Ranno gave to Gerlando’s father?”

  “You mean that they had no explanation for his absence, either?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s an answer that unwittingly puts the icing on the cake of my suspicions about the way they’re acting. What? You have no explanation and you do nothing to find out? It can mean only one thing: that you do have a hypothetical explanation, but you prefer to sit tight and wait to see how the situation develops.”

  “I see it the same way. And what about the fact that Gerlando hadn’t wanted his father to set foot in his house for the past six months?”

  For his part, Montalbano did have an explanation for this, and a rather clear one, but he couldn’t tell Fazio.

  “I don’t know what to say to you. Maybe the story about Inge not liking him is true.”

  Though it wasn’t raining, and in fact a hint of wan and decidedly short-lived sun had appeared, nobody was working at the construction site. Apparently Jacono still had it under a restraining order.

  It wasn’t yet three-thirty when they pulled up in front of Nicotra’s house. Gallo had sped the whole way. The Forensics team hadn’t arrived yet. They got out of the car.

  With an air of indifference, Montalbano went up to the front door. He wanted to check whether the shell was still there. It was. He wanted to play it safe.

  “Fazio!”

  “What is it, Chief?”

  “Come over here beside me and look at where I’m pointing. Do you see it? Is it what I think it is?”

  “Yes, it is. It’s a bullet shell.”

  “We have to make sure that the Forensics guys don’t stomp it into the ground when they walk around here.”

  Fazio picked up four large rocks and put them around the shell to protect it.

  Forensics arrived ten minutes later. Luckily the chief of the department hadn’t come. In his place was his assistant, Jannaccone, an intelligent man Montalbano liked a lot.

  Fazio showed him the shell. It was photographed and then put in a plastic bag.

  “Shall we unlock this door?” asked Jannaccone.

  “Let’s,” said the inspector.

  As an officer was fiddling with the door, Jannaccone asked:

  “What do you think we’ll find inside?”

  “This was the home of the guy who was found dead from a gunshot wound inside the tunnel. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m afraid we’re going to find the corpse of a woman, his wife, inside.”

  He told this lie with the aplomb of a great actor, face serious and dark.

  “They didn’t have any kids?”

  “No. Just the two of them lived here.”

  He said this on purpose. He wanted the presence of a third person to be a surprise for Jannaccone, too, to get his attention and arouse his curiosity.

  “We’ll go in first, and then I’ll call you,” said Jannaccone.

  “Success,” said the officer at the door.

  Some ten minutes later, with Montalbano already on his third cigarette, Jannaccone came back out.

  “We didn’t find any bodies.”

  “So much the better,” said Montalbano, sighing with fake relief.

  “But there weren’t two people living here, as you said, Inspector. There was a third person as well.”

  Montalbano looked at Fazio with a masterly expression of surprise. Fazio’s, however, was authentic.

  “A third person?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Listen, Jannaccone, I absolutely have to—”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you go in. There are muddy footprints on the floor which—”

  “Please.”

  It was a word of entreaty, but uttered in a tone of command that admitted no refusal. Jannaccone got the message. He shook his head, then shrugged in resignation.

  “Well, all right. Come in behind me in single file and don’t touch anything for any reason.”

  They went in. The lights had been turned on. Fazio looked around as if to photograph everything.

  “There was a struggle here,” he whispered behind Montalbano, seeing the two chairs on the floor.

  “Right.”

  The scene was already etched in the inspector’s brain.

  Jannaccone took them upstairs and into the room across from the staircase.

  “This was the room the other person was staying in. His hosts slept in the one in front.”

  “But that pillow is bloodstained! They must have beaten him!” said Montalbano, feigning surprise.

  “They probably punched him in the face to make him get up and get dressed,” said Jannaccone.

  “Could you open the armoire for me?” the inspector asked.

  Jannaccone opened it.

 
“The guest was a man and, to judge from the color and the cut of the suits, probably wasn’t young. You can close it now, thanks.”

  When they went back out into the hallway, Fazio ventured to ask:

  “Could we see the other bedroom?”

  “Okay, but still in single file, please.”

  As soon as they entered, Fazio made an observation, more to himself than to the others.

  “Why did they take the clothes?”

  “What clothes?” asked Jannaccone, who hadn’t understood.

  Montalbano explained.

  “Clearly both the woman and the third person were made to get dressed before they were kidnapped. But the murder victim’s clothes are also missing, even though he’d managed in time to hop on a bicycle and escape and was found wearing only an undershirt and underpants. All that’s left here are his shoes.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Jannaccone.

  He went out and returned almost immediately.

  “They’re not in the bathroom, either.”

  “It’s clear that his clothes were taken by the assailants,” the inspector concluded. Then, heaving a sigh, he continued:

  “Listen, Jannaccone, we absolutely have to find the identity of the person sleeping in the other room.”

  “Look, Inspector, we have the blood on the pillow and we’re certain to find a whole lot of fingerprints. It’ll take a while, but we’ll manage.”

  “How long?”

  “I expect there won’t be enough time today and we’ll have to continue into tomorrow morning. But since, luckily, there’s no corpse here, we can work completely undisturbed.”

  “Then I don’t think there’s any point in us staying here.”

  “No, I don’t think so, either.”

  On the drive back, neither Montalbano nor Fazio said a word.

  Each was reflecting in his own way on what he had seen in the house.

  They talked about it as soon as they got back to the station.

  “Who, in your opinion,” asked Fazio, “was the old man staying with the Nicotras?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t want to make any pointless speculations. Let’s wait and see what Forensics can tell us. All I can say for certain is how long he’d been there: six months.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Gerlando’s father himself told us, indirectly, when he revealed that his son hadn’t let him set foot in the house for the past six months.”

  “That’s true. And they kept him well hidden, to the point that neither the old lady up the road nor Gerlando’s father even mentioned the man. But what about the missing clothes?”

  “They must have grabbed them to avoid wasting time looking for the guy’s cell phone, wallet, the papers he had in his pocket . . . They didn’t know whether or not they’d hit Gerlando, and so they might have been worried he would send for help . . .”

  “But now I’m wondering whether we’re really looking at the whole affair from the right perspective,” said Fazio.

  “Meaning?”

  “I’m wondering whether the guys that came in were after Gerlando or the old man.”

  “There’s only one thing I’m starting to be sure of. If Gerlando hadn’t run away, there wouldn’t have been any murder, only three kidnappings. And if all had gone according to plan, it would have lasted only a day or two, and nobody would have been any the wiser.”

  “But Gerlando and his wife weren’t rich enough to pay any ransom.”

  “Maybe not Gerlando or his wife, but what do we know about the old man? Anyway, a ransom doesn’t always involve money.”

  There was a pause.

  “What are you thinking?” asked Montalbano.

  “I’m racking my brains trying to figure out what that man could have been doing in the Nicotras’ house. At first I’d thought they were maybe keeping him prisoner . . .”

  “Come on! There weren’t any ropes or gags in his room.”

  “Right. I could see that he was being treated like a sort of boarder. You got any ideas about that?”

  “In my opinion, he’d been entrusted to Nicotra’s care. Somebody must have assigned them the task of looking after him.”

  “Maybe he’s a fugitive?”

  “It’s possible. But Nicotra’s house doesn’t seem like the best place to hide someone wanted by the law. The old lady—just to cite one example—told us that there were often cars going to that house. You don’t go and pay a call on a fugitive in broad daylight and out in the open.”

  “Maybe his visitors were relatives and friends . . .”

  “That’s also possible. But there’s still a question that hasn’t been answered. If he wasn’t a fugitive, why was he hiding out? What were his reasons? Whatever the case, they must have been very serious, because when someone found out where he was staying, they burst in and kidnapped him, and they didn’t hesitate to shoot to kill, either.”

  “So the guy must be a big cheese,” Fazio concluded.

  Montalbano looked at him pensively.

  “That may just be the right word for it,” he said.

  6

  The inspector devoted his last half hour at the office to signing the papers he’d been told were the most pressing. He’d once tried a little experiment. He’d taken a memo at the top of which were the words EXTREMELY URGENT: REPLY AT ONCE, and he’d put it in a drawer. Months and months went by, without anyone noticing he’d never replied. And so, convinced as he was that it was all a pointless bureaucratic ritual, nowadays he always signed his name wherever he was supposed to, without ever reading so much as one line of what was written in the document. And the method worked to perfection, to the point that he’d never received any criticism about it from the administration.

  At last, figuring he’d worked enough and earned his day’s salary, he got up and went out of his office. Walking past Catarella’s closet, he noticed the receptionist was busy trying to solve a crossword puzzle. His brow was furrowed and he was chewing the end of his pencil.

  “Need any help?”

  “Yeah, Chief. I can’t tink of a woid.”

  “What’s the definition?”

  “‘Together with the carabinieri, they pursue killers and thieves and maintain law and order.’”

  “How many letters?”

  “Six.”

  “Police.”

  “Are ya sure? I tought o’ that, but then I arased it.”

  “Why?”

  “When have us police ever woiked t’getter with the carabinieri?”

  Ironclad logic.

  “Well, then I guess I’m wrong. Have a good evening.”

  He got in his car and headed home to Marinella.

  The minute he was out on the road, he felt suddenly, overwhelmingly hungry, like a crazed dog that hadn’t eaten for days. He hadn’t felt like having any lunch, and now his body was clamoring for reinforcements without further delay.

  Then, twenty yards before the turn that led to his house, he had to stop because there was a line of cars in front of him with no end in sight.

  What could have happened? At that hour there normally was some traffic, of course, but not so much as to create that kind of jam. Probably an accident caused by some drunkard or addict at the wheel, as seemed to be happening more and more often.

  The unexpected stop so aggravated his hunger that he couldn’t see.

  He began to curse all the saints he knew the names of, with every possible variation of theme.

  Finally, to top things off, he realized he was out of cigarettes.

  At that point he couldn’t take it anymore and, biting his tongue, began the perilous maneuver of trying to pull out of the queue and drive against the oncoming traffic.

  At that exact moment he heard a siren approaching. It was a carabinieri squad car. He
let it pass and then tagged along behind it. He covered the twenty yards in a flash and made the turn to his house.

  After unlocking the front door, he dashed into the kitchen, drooling.

  Adelina had prepared him a double serving of sartù and—finally!—a generous fry of calamari and shrimp. The latter, after such long privation, he savored slowly, every so often moaning with pleasure.

  After clearing the table, he went into the bathroom and washed his face over and over with cold water. It was a kind of preparation before phoning Livia. Having done this, he felt more relaxed and therefore better able to handle the heartache that Livia’s sad, faraway voice was sure to cause him.

  He dialed her number.

  The days of the long nighttime phone conversations that often ended in a squabble were over. Livia nowadays went to bed early, dead tired from having to get through yet another day.

  From the start he noticed her voice had changed. It sounded much more lively, and this cheered him up.

  “Feeling better?”

  “A little. Today was a beautiful day and I took advantage of it to go out and buy some necessities.”

  “Well, you should go out in any case, every day, get some fresh air, a little exercise, walk around . . .”

  Was he mistaken or did Livia give a little giggle? If only it were true!

  “I think that starting today I’ll be forced to do just that.”

  Montalbano felt confused.

  “Forced by what?”

  “Guess.”

  “I can’t.”

  “A little creature that at this moment is sleeping in my lap.”

  The inspector understood immediately.

  “You got a dog?”

  “I had no choice. This tiny little puppy started following me on the street and wouldn’t leave me alone. It touched my heart, and so I took it home.”

  “You were perfectly right to do so. It’ll be a true companion. But you should have it looked at by a vet.”

  “I plan to go tomorrow morning.”

  Good! That way, between one thing and another, and having to take the little dog out for walks, she’ll get back into the habit of going outside every day.