Rounding the Mark

by Andrea Camilleri

  Not only was the road unpaved, but one could clearly tell that it actually was an old goat path whose countless holes had been poorly and only partially filled. How could a car ever have driven down it at high speed without risking a breakdown? Was it being chased by another car? Rounding a bend, Montalbano realized he’d reached the right place. At the base of a mound of gravel to the right of the path was a small bouquet of wildflowers. He stopped the car and got out to have a better look. The mound looked gouged out on one side, as if from a powerful impact. The gravel was stained with large, dark splotches of dried blood. From where he stood, he could see no houses, only cultivated fields. Off to the side, about a hundred yards down the path, a peasant was hoeing. Montalbano walked towards him, having trouble keeping his footing on the soft ground. The peasant was about sixty, thin and bent, and didn’t bother to look up.

  “Good afternoon.”

  “Good afternoon.”

  “I’m a police inspector.”

  “I figgered.”

  How so? Better not to dwell on it.

  “Was it you who put the flowers in the gravel?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Did you know that little boy?”

  “Never seen ’im afore.”

  “So why did you put those flowers there?”

  “He was a creature of God, not no animal.”

  “Did you see the accident happen?”

  “I both seen it and didn’t see it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come over here and follow me.”

  Montalbano followed him. After about ten paces, the peasant stopped.

  “At seven o’clock this morning I was here, hoeing this spot right here. All of a sudden I hear this terrible scream. I look up and see a little kid run out from behind the bend. He’s runnin like a rabbit and screamin.”

  “Did you understand what he was saying?”

  “No sir. When he’s over there by that carob, a car come speedin really fast around the bend. The kid turned round to look and then tried to git off the road. Maybe he was tryin a come towards me. But then I din’t see ’im no more cause he’s hid behind that mound of gravel. Then the car swerved behind ’im, but I din’t see no more. I heard a kind of thud. Then the car went into reverse, went back out on the road, an’ disappeared around the next bend.”

  Though there was no chance the man was mistaken, Montalbano wanted to make especially sure.

  “Was that car being followed by another?”

  “No sir. It was alone.”

  “And would you say it deliberately swerved behind the boy?”

  “I dunno if he did it ’liberately, but he swerved all right.”

  “Did you manage to see the license plate number?”

  “You kiddin? Have a look fo’ y’self an’ see if you c’n see over there.”

  Indeed, it was impossible. The difference in elevation between the field and the road was too great.

  “What did you do next?”

  “I started runnin toward the mound. But when I got there I knew ’mmediately the kid was dead or just about. So I run back to my house, which you can’t see from here, an’ I called Montechiaro.”

  “Did you tell the Road Police what you just told me?”

  “No sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “Cause they din’t ask.”

  Ironclad logic: no question, no answer.

  “Well, I’m asking you straight out: do think they did it on purpose?”

  The peasant must have already pondered this question a long time. He answered with a question.

  “Coun’t the car swerve without wanting to, ’cause it hit a rock?”

  “Maybe. But you, deep down, what do you think?”

  “I don’t think, Mr. ’Nspecter. I don’t wanna think no more. The world’s become too evil.”

  The last statement was decisive. Obviously the old peasant had a very clear idea of what happened. The kid had been deliberately run over. Butchered for some inexplicable reason. But the peasant had immediately wanted to expunge that idea from his head. The world had become too evil. Better not to think about it.

  Montalbano wrote down the phone number of the Vigàta Police on a scrap of paper and handed it to the peasant.

  “That’s the phone number of my office in Vigàta.”

  “What’m I supposed to do with it?”

  “Nothing. Just hang onto it. If by chance the boy’s mother or father or some other relative comes asking about him, find out where they live and then tell me.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  “Good day.”

  “Good day.”

  The climb back up to the road was harder than the descent. He ran out of breath. At last he reached his car, opened the door, and got in, but instead of starting the motor he just sat there, immobile, arms on the steering wheel, head resting on his arms, eyes shut tight, trying to blot out the world. Just like the peasant, who had resumed hoeing and would continue to do so until night fell. Suddenly a thought came into his head like an ice-cold blade that, after cleaving his brain, descended and stopped in the middle of his chest, running him all the way through: the valiant, brilliant Inspector Salvo Montalbano had taken that boy by his little hand and, ever willing to help, turned him over to his executioners.

  8

  It was too early to hole up in Marinella, but he decided to go home anyway, without first stopping at the office. The genuine rage that was churning inside him made his blood boil and had surely given him a slight fever. He was better off trying to get the anger out of his system alone and not taking it out on his men at the station, grasping at the slightest excuse. His first victim was a flower vase someone had given him, which he had hated right from the start. Raising it high over his head with both hands, he dashed it to the floor with great satisfaction, accompanied by a vigorous curse. After the loud thud, however, Montalbano was flabbergasted to find that the vase hadn’t suffered so much as a scratch.

  How could that be? He bent down, grabbed it, raised it again, and hurled it down with all his might. Nothing. And that wasn’t all: now a floor tile was cracked. Was he going to wreck his house just to destroy that goddamned vase? He went out to his car, opened the glove compartment, took out his pistol, went back inside, grabbed the vase, went out on the veranda, onto the beach, walked down to the water’s edge, laid the vase down on the sand, took ten steps back, cocked the pistol, aimed, fired, and missed.

  “Murderer!”

  It was a woman’s voice. He turned around to look. From the balcony of a house in the distance, two figures were waving their arms at him.

  “Murderer!”

  That time it was a man’s voice. Who the hell were they? Then he remembered: Mr. and Mrs. Bausan from Treviso! The couple that had made him make an ass of himself by appearing naked on television. Telling them in his mind to fuck off, he took careful aim and fired. This time the vase exploded. Satisfied, he headed back home accompanied by an increasingly distant chorus of “Murderer! Murderer!”

  He got undressed, stepped into the shower, and even shaved and put on fresh clothes as if he were going out to see people. Whereas he was only going to see himself, but he wanted to look good. He went out and sat on the veranda to think. Even if he’d not expressed it in words or in his mind, he had definitely made a promise to that pair of gaping eyes staring out at him from their refrigerated drawer. And he was reminded of a novel by Dürrenmatt, in which a police inspector’s whole life is consumed trying to find a young girl’s killer, to keep the promise he’d made to her parents . . . But the killer has died in the meantime, and the inspector doesn’t know this. He’s chasing a ghost. In the case of the little black boy, however, the victim was also a ghost; he didn’t know his name, nationality, nothing. Just as he knew nothing about the victim in the other case he was working on, the unknown forty-year-old who’d been drowned. Most importantly, these weren’t even proper investigations; no case files had been opened. The unknown
man was, in bureaucratic terms, dead by drowning; the little kid was one of the countless victims of hit-and-run drivers. What, officially speaking, was there to investigate? Less than nothing. Nada de nada.

  Now this is the kind of investigation that might interest me after I retire, the inspector reflected. If I work on it now, does it mean I feel as though I’m already retired?

  A great wave of melancholy swept over him. The inspector had two proven methods for combating melancholy: the first was to bury himself in bed, covers pulled up over his head; the second was to stuff himself with food. He glanced at his watch. Too early to go to bed; if he fell asleep now he was liable to wake up at three in the morning, and then he would really go nuts fidgeting about the house. That left only the food. Besides, he remembered that at midday he hadn’t had time to eat. He went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. For whatever reason, Adelina had prepared him beef roulades. Not what he needed. He went out, got in the car, and went to the Trattoria Da Enzo. During the first course, spaghetti in squid ink, the melancholy started to recede. By the time he’d finished the second—crispy fried calamaretti—his melancholy, put to rout, disappeared behind the horizon. Back home in Marinella, the gears in his brain felt smooth and oiled, like new again. He went back out on the veranda and sat down.

  First off, he had to give credit to Livia for having got it right—that is, for having understood that the boy’s behavior on the wharf had been very strange indeed. Obviously the kid was trying to take advantage of the momentary confusion so he could escape. And he hadn’t succeeded because he, the brilliant, sublime Inspector Montalbano, had prevented him. But, even assuming this whole business involved a troubled family reunion, to use Riguccio’s expression, why would anyone so brutally murder a little boy like that? Because he had the bad habit of running away no matter where he happened to be? But how many kids were there the world over, of all colors—white, black, yellow—whose greatest fantasy is to run away from home? Hundreds of thousands, surely. And are they punished by death? Surely not. And so? Maybe he was slaughtered because he was restless, talked back, didn’t obey daddy, or refused to eat his soup? Come on! In the light of that killing, Riguccio’s hypothesis became ridiculous. There had to be something else. That kid must have been carrying something big on his shoulders, from the outset, whatever his country of origin.

  The best thing was to start over from the beginning, neglecting none of the details that at first glance might have seemed entirely useless. And to proceed in stages, without piling up too much information all at once. That evening, he’d been sitting in his office, waiting till it was time to go to Ciccio Albanese’s house so the captain could tell him about sea currents and also, certainly not secondarily, to gorge himself on Signora Albanese’s striped surmullet. At a certain point, Deputy Commissioner Riguccio calls the station: he’s at the port, processing a hundred and fifty illegal immigrants; he’s broken his glasses, and asks if anybody’s got a pair that might work for him. Montalbano finds a pair and decides to bring them to Riguccio himself. When he arrives at the wharf, one of the patrol boats has lowered its gangway. The first person to come out is a fat, pregnant woman who is taken directly to an ambulance. Then four men come down, and when they’re almost at the bottom of the gangway, they stumble briefly over a little boy who seems to have slipped between their legs. The boy manages to evade the policemen at the scene and starts running towards the old silo. The inspector runs after him and senses the kid’s presence in an alley full of refuse. The kid realizes there’s no way out and surrenders, literally. The inspector takes him by the hand and is bringing him back to the area near the gangway when he notices a woman, rather young, wailing in despair as two other small children hang from her skirts. As soon as she sees him with the boy, the woman runs towards them. Apparently she’s the boy’s mother. At this point the kid looks at him (better not to dwell on this detail), the mother trips and falls. The policemen try to get her back on her feet, but to no avail. Somebody calls an ambulance.

  Stop. Wait a second. Let’s think about this for a minute. No, in fact he didn’t see anyone call an ambulance. Are you sure, Montalbano? Let’s review the scene again. No, he’s sure. Put it this way: Somebody must have called the ambulance. Two medics then get out of the car and one of them, the skinny guy with the mustache, touches one of the woman’s legs and says it’s probably broken. The woman and three children are put in the ambulance and it drives off in the direction of Montelusa.

  Let’s go back again, just to be sure. Glasses. Wharf. Disembarkation. Pregnant woman. Little kid darts out between the legs of four refugees. Kid runs away. He follows. Kid surrenders. They go back to the wharf. Mother sees them and starts running towards them. Kid looks at him. Mother stumbles, falls, can’t get back up. Ambulance arrives. Medic with mustache says broken leg. Mother and kids get into ambulance. Ambulance leaves. End part one.

  Conclusion: Almost certainly, nobody called the ambulance. It arrived on its own. Why? Because the medical workers had themselves witnessed the scene of the mother falling to the ground? Maybe. Then the medic diagnoses the broken leg. And his words authorize the ambulance to take her away. If the medic had said nothing, some policeman would have called over the doctor who, as always, was there with them. Why wasn’t the doctor consulted? He wasn’t consulted because there wasn’t time. The ambulance’s sudden arrival and the medic’s diagnosis had steered events in the direction desired by the director. Yes, director. That whole scene had been prearranged and staged with great intelligence.

  Despite the hour, he grabbed the phone.

  “Fazio? Montalbano here.”

  “There’s no news, Chief, otherwise I’d have—”

  “Save your breath. I want to ask you something. Were you planning to continue your search tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want you to take care of something for me first.”

  “Yessir.”

  “At San Gregorio Hospital, there’s an ambulance worker with a mustache, a very thin man of about fifty. I want to know everything about him, the known and the unknown. Get my drift?”

  “Yessir, absolutely.”

  He hung up and called the San Gregorio.

  “Is nurse Agata Militello there?”

  “Just a minute. Yes, she’s here.”

  “I’d like to speak to her.”

  “She’s on duty. We have orders not—”

  “Listen, this is Inspector Montalbano. It’s a serious matter.”

  “Please wait while I look for her.”

  When he was beginning to lose hope, he heard the nurse’s voice.

  “Is that you, Inspector?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry if I—”

  “Not at all. What can I do for you?”

  “I need to see you and talk to you. As soon as possible.”

  “Listen, Inspector. I’m on the night shift and would like to sleep in a bit tomorrow morning. Could we meet around eleven?”

  “Certainly. Where?”

  “We could meet in front of the hospital.”

  He was about to say yes, but thought better of it. What if the ambulance worker were to see them together?

  “I’d rather we met in front of your house.”

  “All right. I’m at Via della Regione, number 28. See you tomorrow.”

  He slept like an innocent cherub with no problems or thoughts, as he always did when he started an investigation on what seemed to be the right foot. The next morning he arrived at the office fresh and smiling. On his desk was a hand-delivered envelope addressed to him. There was no indication of the sender.

  “Catarella!”

  “Your orders, Chief!”

  “Who brought this letter?”

  “Pontius Pilate, Chief. Brought it here last night.”

  He put it in his pocket. He would read it later. Or maybe never. Mimì Augello came in a few minutes later.

  “How’d it go with the commissioner?” Montalbano asked.

&nbs
p; “He seemed down, less self-assured than usual. Obviously all he brought back from Rome was a lot of hot air. He said it’s clear now that the flow of illegal immigrants has shifted from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean and that it’ll be harder than ever to stop. Apparently the people at the top are a little slow to acknowledge this fact. But then again, they’re also slow to acknowledge that petty theft is up, not to mention armed robbery . . . They just sing in chorus ‘Tutto va ben, mia nobile marchesa,’ while we’re supposed to keep plodding along with the little we have.”

  “Did you apologize for my absence?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what’d he say?”

  “What did you want him to do, Salvo? Start crying? He merely said: Fine. Period. Now tell me what was the matter with you yesterday.”

  “I had a problem.”

  “Salvo, who do you think you’re fooling? First you tell me you want to see the commissioner to tender your resignation, then fifteen minutes later you change your mind and tell me I have to go to the commissioner’s instead. What kind of problem?”

  “If you really want to know . . .”

  He told him the whole story of the little boy. When he’d finished, Mimì was silent and pensive.

  “Something not add up for you?” Montalbano asked.

  “No, it all adds up, but only up to a point.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “You directly connect the boy’s murder with his attempt to run away on the wharf. I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Come on, Mimì! Why else would he have done it, then?”

  “Let me tell you something. Last month a friend of mine went to New York and stayed with an American friend of his. One day they went out to eat. My friend ordered an enormous steak with potatoes on the side. He couldn’t eat it all and left some of it on his plate. After clearing the table, the waiter came back with a little bag containing what my friend hadn’t eaten. My friend takes the bag and, outside the restaurant, sees a group of bums and starts walking towards them to give them the bag with his leftovers. But his American friend stops him, telling him the bums won’t accept it. If he feels like being charitable, he should give them fifty cents, he says. ‘Why won’t they accept the bag with half a steak in it?’ my friend asks. ‘Because there are people here who give them poisoned food, the way they do with stray dogs,’ he says. See my point?”