The Safety Net

by Andrea Camilleri

  Because a story like that actually touched a very specific point of the inspector’s character, which, though it might be drawn to certain juridical questions, was also, and perhaps above all, attracted to the intricate muddle that is a man’s soul.

  Sitting back down, he called Fazio in and told him the whole story.

  Fazio sat down beside him, and Montalbano set the projector running again. When they’d finished, Fazio turned around and gave him a confused, questioning look, but said nothing.

  By way of reply, Montalbano handed him Sabatello’s letter.

  “What do you think?” he then asked.

  Poor Fazio could only shrug.

  “Listen, Chief,” he said then. “The first thing I ask myself is whether this gentleman was all there in the head or not.”

  “That I can’t tell you, but I believe he was fully conscious. Otherwise he would never have gotten out of bed in the condition he was in.”

  “Another hypothesis,” Fazio ventured blindly, “could be that there was something hidden inside that wall, and that these home movies bear witness to the fact that nobody has touched that patch of wall.”

  “Then in that case,” said Montalbano, “I have to assume that the home movie was made not only for the man who shot it, but was also supposed to be seen by someone else. You know what I say? Before casting ourselves out on the open sea of hypotheses, which’ll take us who-knows-where, I need for Sabatello to tell me a few things.”

  “Whatever you say, Chief,” said Fazio.

  The office door then crashed open and into the wall, sending the poorly hung calendar with the police force photo to the floor. In the doorway Catarella, naturally, apologized, saying his hand had slipped.

  Then he announced that Signura Sciosciostrom was there with two gentlemen and wanted to speak poissonally in poisson with the inspector.

  “Show them in.”

  After rehanging the calendar from the nail, Catarella vanished, and in his place Ingrid appeared, followed by the blond bear—the TV movie’s director—and by one of the four Swedes Montalbano had seen during the sister cities ceremony.

  Ingrid introduced him as the representative producer of the film on the Swedish side. Montalbano did something of a double take, as he’d noticed that the bear actually seemed to be dancing like a bear, balancing his body weight first on one foot, then on the other, all the while gnashing his teeth. He seemed quite angry.

  “We’d like to speak to you alone,” said Ingrid.

  “Excuse me,” said Fazio, and he got up and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  “Please sit down,” the inspector said to his visitors.

  Ingrid spoke first. She was wearing a very serious face, but Montalbano, who knew her well, noticed a little twinkle of amusement in her eyes.

  “It’s a rather delicate matter, Salvo. I don’t know if you know what happened last night after the ceremony at city hall.”

  “No, I don’t know anything.”

  “The second half of the sister cities ceremony had planned for a small bottle of water from the Baltic Sea from Kalmar to be poured into the sea at Vigàta. And so, with the two mayors leading the way, a procession formed and marched all the way to the port. When they got there the mayor of Kalmar handed the vial to the mayor of Vigàta, who uncorked it and poured it out from the central wharf. At this point we all saw a motorboat come up, driven by Mimì Augello, with the actress Maj Andreasson on board as well, and that was when the fireworks started.”

  Hearing mention of that name, the blond bear sprang to his feet, not only gnashing his teeth harder than ever but accompanying the snarl with some guttural yells that sounded more like a roaring lion than a bellowing bear. The Swedish producer promptly stood up, grabbed him by one arm, and, speaking softly to him in one ear, made him sit back down.

  Ingrid resumed speaking.

  “You should know that this girl is the same actress who called in sick yesterday, as well as our director’s companion. It was clear to everyone that the two were returning from a little boating escapade. Gustav, as you probably noticed, didn’t take it too well. They began to quarrel in front of everyone, putting the future of the project at risk. So at that point Mr. Ergstrom, the movie’s producer, begged me to talk to you and ask you to remove Augello from duty on the police escort service.”

  Montalbano sat there pensive for a moment.

  “Is there some problem with that?” Ingrid asked.

  “Well, yes,” said the inspector. “First of all, what proof do you have that their little spin on the motorboat was any more than a little spin on a motorboat? I always proceed only on the basis of evidence. What evidence have you got? What do you mean when you say ‘it was clear to everyone’? That was merely your impression, but I don’t take disciplinary measures based on impressions.”

  Bewildered by his unexpected defense of Augello, Ingrid was momentarily unable to translate the inspector’s words. But she was saved by the ringing of the telephone.

  Montalbano picked up the receiver.

  It was Mimì Augello.

  “Salvo. Are you alone?”

  “No.”

  “Can you talk?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll do all the talking.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know what happened last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m very sorry, but I can’t leave the house, because Beba, who found out, scratched and battered my face.”

  “Yes.”

  “Look, if I don’t find a way out of this business, Beba swore she’s gonna leave me.”

  “Yes.”

  “So do me a favor. Assign someone else to lead the squad.”

  “Yes,” said Montalbano, and then he hung up. “Excuse the interruption,” he said to those present. “Further militating against fulfilling the gentleman’s courteous request is the fact that my second-in-command, Domenico Augello, wasn’t even on duty at that hour, and therefore I cannot intervene in any way. These factors and my reservations notwithstanding, you can inform the Swedish producer that in homage to the spirit of brotherhood born of the brand-new sistering of our two cities, I am willing to grant his request and shall therefore relieve Inspector Augello of his duties.”

  Looking ever more bewildered, Ingrid managed to say two letters to the Swede.

  “OK.”

  Leaping powerfully up, the blond bear flew through the air and landed beside Montalbano, who, in utter terror, shot to his feet, ending up straight in the arms of the bear, whose stifling embrace was meant to express his gratitude.

  Freeing himself from the bear hug, which he was afraid might leave him mauled, Montalbano held out his hand to the Swedish producer, gave Ingrid a kiss and a hug, and at last found himself alone in his office.

  Fazio came in at once.

  “Did you know what happened last night at the port?”

  “The whole town knows, Chief. You’re the only one who didn’t. What did they want?”

  “For me to get Mimì out of their hair.”

  “And wha’d you say?”

  “I was about to refuse, but then Mimì called and asked to be taken off the assignment.”

  Fazio smiled.

  “I guess Beba got a little heavy-handed.”

  Montalbano gawked.

  “Why, have there been other times when Beba . . . ?”

  “Chief, a couple of years ago Beba decided to take a different approach with her husband. Last summer, when you were up north in Boccadasse, Inspector Augello had to be rushed to the hospital after taking a heavy glass ashtray in the middle of the forehead.”

  In his mind, Montalbano tipped his hat to Beba.

  “So, do we want to talk about these home movies?” he then asked.

  “At your service,” Fazio
said resignedly, sitting down opposite the inspector’s desk.

  “Considering that we should be going to have a look at that villa, what do you say we start trying to figure out what kind of wall that is? Is it an outer wall? A wall of the house? A boundary wall? A divider wall? You conjectured that maybe there was something hidden inside that wall. But what if there was nothing at all?”

  “Then what need would there be for . . . ?”

  “Let me finish. If that patch of wall was really what he was trying to commit to memory every year, then why always on the same day and at the same hour?”

  “But what’s there to remember about a patch of wall?”

  “Nothing, for you and for me, but for the man filming, that patch of wall might represent, I dunno, a place of the soul, of memory . . .”

  “Care to explain a little better?”

  “It’s a symbol, a bit like when two young lovers carve their initials into a tree and then go back to look at it later.”

  Fazio remained doubtful.

  “Not convinced?”

  “Not really.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry, Chief, but you’d said, before the Swedes got here, that it was best to meet with Sabatello before venturing any hypotheses. Why did you change your mind?”

  “You’re right . . .”

  “Meanwhile something occurred to me,” Fazio continued. “If, as it seems, you intend to look at that bit of wall over and over, wouldn’t it be better if I had all those short films copied onto a single DVD, in the order in which they were made? If I take them now, you’ll have a disk ready by this afternoon.”

  “Okay, you can take everything with you. And have them make at least three copies of the disk.”

  * * *

  He pulled up outside of Enzo’s, and as he was about to go in, he had a moment of hesitation. In order to reach the little room with his personal table, he had to cross the big dining room full of noisy customers. What if he ran into the blond bear again? And the bear wanted to display his gratitude anew by forcing him to sit down at his table?

  He ducked his head carefully inside the doorway and looked around. The blond bear wasn’t there. So he decided to go in, greeting everyone with his arm raised, and then slipped into the little room.

  He had the unpleasant surprise of finding all the tables taken, and so he stopped in the doorway. Enzo came running up.

  “Inspector, you have to forgive me, but it was getting late and I had to seat all the new arrivals. But I left you a place at the table of ragioniere Butera, who’s a man of few words.”

  The ragioniere was a regular client nearly ninety years old, thin as a rail, and known as the living memory of the town and its inhabitants, having worked for many years at city hall.

  Montalbano approached the table.

  “May I?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” said the man.

  Montalbano sat down.

  The silence between the inspector and his tablemate lasted until Enzo came to take their orders.

  Then, just to be polite, and because something had occurred to him, Montalbano opened his mouth, violating the strict law of silence surrounding his meals.

  “I beg your pardon, ragioniere, but this afternoon I need to go and inspect the area where the old Sabatello villa used to be. Do you by any chance know where that might be?”

  “Certainly,” said Butera. But then he fell silent. Apparently to get the full response from the ragioniere, one had to use computer logic, asking one specific question after another until one received the complete response.

  “Could you tell me where it is?”

  “Yes,” the man said, then paused.

  Montalbano became worried that he’d formulated the question poorly, and so perhaps the computer might not reply. Luckily, however, Butera continued.

  “It’s in the Granata district,” he said, then reverted to pause mode.

  Montalbano, at this point, gave up, except that at that exact moment Enzo arrived, serving the inspector a plate of spaghetti with sea urchin sauce, and a broth of fish and angel-hair pasta to the ragioniere. And, for some mysterious, unknowable reason, Butera started speaking the moment he brought the first spoonful to his lips. He had a youthful voice that contrasted with his elderly appearance.

  “But all that’s left of the Sabatello house are some ruins. It was once a beautiful villa, with three floors and a tall turret from which you could see the sea. But it’s been more or less abandoned for at least fifty years. Ever since Engineer Ernesto’s father, Francesco, passed away from a tumor at a young age. After that Signora Sabatello, left alone with her son, moved in with her parents in Palermo. Ernesto studied there, got a degree in engineering, and then immediately left to work in Argentina, where he stayed for about ten years. In the meanwhile, the uninhabited villa, with no one to look after it, was left to its inexorable decline.”

  The man stopped eating and speaking at the same moment.

  He resumed some ten minutes later, when he found a plate with steamed sole dressed in olive oil and lemon before him.

  “Did you want to ask me anything else?”

  “But didn’t Francesco Sabatello have any brothers or sisters or other relatives who could have looked after the—”

  “He had a twin brother, Emanuele, who’d had an unfortunate birth.”

  “In what sense?” asked Montalbano.

  “In the sense that he couldn’t speak, never went outside, never communicated with other people. He was incapable of doing anything on his own. At the time there wasn’t even a name for this sort of autism; nowadays, no matter how severe, it can usually be treated with excellent results. But back then these kinds of people were normally kept isolated. Francesco was bound to him not so much as to a twin brother but as a sort of protective, loving father. He always took him everywhere with him, and paid no mind to the difficulties. Among other things, Emanuele didn’t understand others when they spoke to him; he only understood the things his brother said to him.”

  “So, what did he do, in the end?” asked Montalbano.

  “The poor man! He killed himself.”

  “After his brother died?” Montalbano asked again.

  “No, before,” said Butera, finishing his sole and no longer opening his mouth. Except, in the end, to get up, say good-bye to the inspector with a slight nod of the head, and go out.

  When Montalbano likewise left the trattoria and got into his car, before starting it up, he stopped for a moment to reflect. Then he said to himself:

  “Why not?”

  And he pulled out his cell phone.

  “Cat, do you know where Granata is?”

  “I tink iss in Spain, Chief.”

  “Listen, do me a favor and get me Fazio.”

  After Fazio explained where the district was, the inspector started up the car and drove off.

  * * *

  After crawling for a long time along a dirt road that was all ridges and potholes, he found himself atop a small hill, from which, as Butera had said, he could see the remains of the villa below. He stopped and got out. He immediately recognized the Sabatello property at the foot of the hill, among the ruins of a large home with a turret rising above the rest. The building had lost half of its roofing, and the window frames were all gone. There must once have been a large park all around, as one could still glimpse some rubble from a former boundary wall amid the now wild vegetation. The landscape had become desolate.

  When he’d first come to Vigàta, he made a point of knowing the whole area in which he would have to work. And for that reason he’d spent a good deal of time driving around in reconnaissance. The countryside now before his eyes had once been fertile, green, and full of life, because it was respected and cared for by man. It had now become practically a desert, the domain of snakes and yellow gra
ss incapable of sprouting flowers. The land looked as if it had been touched by a biblical curse condemning it to sterility, and the houses, run-down as they were, seemed to have suffered the same fate.

  3

  He got back in the car and drove downhill until he arrived outside a big iron gate, one half dangling dangerously forward, held in place by a single hinge, its other half completely hidden behind a cluster of creeping plants.

  He got out of the car and took a step through the gate.

  From there he studied the villa’s façade. The wall had almost no stucco left on it. The skeleton of a balcony, only the iron framework of which remained, looked like a toothless mouth. And the windows looked like blind eyes.

  It made his heart ache. A sudden wave of melancholy swept over him. He would never manage to approach that ruin alone. He felt the same sense of uneasiness that always came over him when he found himself near a dying person.

  He turned away from the villa, got back in his car, and returned to Vigàta.

  * * *

  “Were you able to find the Granata district?” Fazio asked, coming into the office.

  “No, I didn’t go. I decided to take my usual walk along the jetty instead.”

  He’d been about to tell him the truth, but then he’d felt instinctively ashamed of it. Fazio set the box with the film reels down on the desk, then took an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to the inspector.

  “The DVDs are in there. I had three made. The reels were copied in the same order in which they were shot.”

  Montalbano opened the envelope, took out one of the disks, and put it in his pocket.

  “I’ll have a look at this at home.”

  “There’s also a DVD player in Inspector Augello’s office,” Fazio added.

  “That’s good to know,” said Montalbano, putting the envelope in a drawer.

  Only then did Fazio sit down. He was looking at Montalbano a bit awkwardly.