The Scent of the Night (9 page)

'Good morning,' said Montalbano,
‘I
was just passing by and... Any news?'

Mariastella threw tip her hands and said nothing.

'Has Giacomo Pellegrino called in from Germany?'

Mariastella opened her eyes wide.

'From Germany?'

'Yes, he went to Germany on an assignment for Gargano. Didn't you know?'

Mariastella looked confused, disturbed.

‘
No, I didn't. In fact I was wondering what had become of him. I thought maybe he hadn't shown up to avoid-—'

'No,' said Montalbano. 'His uncle, who's got the same name as him, told me Gargano had instructed Giacomo, by phone, to go to Germany on the afternoon of August the thirty-first.'

'The day before Mr Gargano was supposed to arrive?'
‘
Precisely.'

Mariastella remained speechless. 'Something not seem right to you?
’
To be honest, yes.' 'Tell me.'

'Well, Giacomo was the only one of us who actually worked with Mr Gargano on payments and calculation of interest. It seems odd to me that Mr Gargano would send him so far away on business when he needed him more here. And anyway, Giacomo...'

She stopped, clearly, not wanting to go on.

'Go on, you can trust me. Tell me everything you're thinking. It's in Mr Gargano's own interest.'

Uttering the last sentence, he felt worse than a cheater at three-card monte. But Miss Cosentino swallowed the bait.

‘I
don't think Giacomo really knew much about high finance. Whereas Mr Gargano did. He was a wizard.'

Her eyes sparkled at the thought of her beloved's brilliance.

'Listen,' said the inspector. 'Do you know Giacomo Pellegrino's address?'

'Of course,' said Mariastella. She wrote it down for him.

If you hear any news, give me a call,' said Montalbano.

They shook hands, Mariastella limiting herself to exhaling a less than audible 'Good day.' Perhaps she had no strength left Perhaps she was letting herself starve to death the way some dogs do over the graves of their masters. He raced out of the office, feeling as if he were suffocating.

The door to Giacomo Pellegrino's apartment was wide open. There were sacks of cement tins of paint and other mason's equipment cluttering the landing. The inspector went inside. 'Can I come in?'

‘
What do you want?' a mason in mason's get-up, paper hat and all, called out from atop a ladder.

‘I
dunno,' said Montalbano, slighdy disoriented. Isn't this where somebody named Pellegrino lives?'

‘I
don't know nothing
‘
bout who lives or don't live here,' said the mason.

He reached up and rapped his knuckles against the ceiling as if it were a door.

'Signora Catarina!' he called.

A woman's muffled voice answered from above.

What is it?'

'Come downstairs, signora, there's someone here wants to talk to you.'

‘I’ll
be right down.'

Montalbano stepped out onto the landing. He heard a door open and close upstairs, then a strange noise that sounded like a bellows in action. It all became clear to him when he saw Signora Catarina appear at the top of the stairs. She must have weighed no less than twenty-one or twenty-two stone, and with every step she took, she made that huffing sound. As soon as she saw the inspector, she stopped.

'And who are you?'

I'm a police inspector. Montalbano's the name.' What do you want from me?' To talk to you, signora.' Will it take long?'

The inspector made an evasive gesture with his hand. Signora Catarina looked at him thoughtfully.

It's better if you come upstairs
’
she finally decided, beginning the difficult manoeuvre of turning herself around.

The inspector lingered. He would wait until he heard the key turn in the door upstairs before he moved.

'Come on up
’
the woman's voice guided him.

He found himself in the right living room. Madonnas under bell jars, reproductions of tearful Madonnas, little Madonna-shaped bottles full of Lourdes water. The signora was already seated in an armchair that had obviously been made to measure. She signalled to Montalbano to sit down on the sofa.

'Tell me something, Mr Inspector. I was expecting this! I could sense he would end up this way, that degenerate hoodlum! In jail! Behind bars for his whole life, till the day he dies!'

'Who are you talking about, signora?
’

'Who do you think? My husband! He's been out of the house for three days straight! Gambling, drinking, whoring, the vile, filthy wretch!'

‘I’m
sorry, signora, but I didn't come here because of your husband.'

'Ah, no? So who'd you come for, then?'

'For Giacomo Pellegrino. He was renting the apartment downstairs, wasn't he?' The sort of globe that was Signora Catarina's face began to look more and more bloated, and the inspector was beginning to fear it might explode. In reality the woman was smiling with delight

'Now there's a line boy for you! So educated and polite! I'm so sorry I lost him!'

‘
You lost him in what sense?' 'I lost him because he left my house.' 'He no longer lives downstairs?'
‘
No, sir.'

'Please tell me the whole story from the beginning, signora.'

'What beginning?' she said in dialect. 'Round about the twenty-fifth of August, he comes up here and tells me he's gonna move out, and since he dint give no advance notice, he puts three months' rent in my hands. On the thirtieth, in the morning, he packed two suitcases with his stuff, said goodbye to me, and left the apartment empty. And that's the beginning and the end.'

'Did he say where he was going to live?'

'An' why should he tell me that? What are we? Mother and son? Husband and wife? Brother and sister?'

‘
Not even cousins?' asked Montalbano, offering another variation on the possibilities of relation. But Signora
Cata
rina didn't grasp the irony.

‘
Not a chance! All he said to me was he was going to Germany for about a month, but when he got back he was gonna move into his own house. Such a good boy. May the good Lord stand by him and help him!'

'Has he written or phoned you from Germany?'

‘
Why would he do that? What are we, relatives or something?'

‘I
think we've well established the answer to that question,' said Montalbano.
‘H
as anyone come looking for him?'

'No, sir, nobody. Except around the fourth or fifth of September, when somebody did come looking for him.' 'Do you know who it was?'

‘
Yessir, a pliceman. He said Mr Giacomo was supposed to report to the p'lice station. But I told him he left for Germany.'

'Did he have a car?
’

‘
Who, Giacomino? No, he knew how to drive, had his licence and all, but he din't have no car. He had a little broken-down motorbike. Sometimes it'd start, sometimes it wouldn't.'

Montalbano stood up, thanked her, and said goodbye. ' 'Scuse me if I don t walk you to the door,' said Signora Catarina, 'but it's hard for me to stand up.'

'Reason with me for a minute
’
said the inspector to the red mullets he had on his plate. 'According to what Signora Catarina told me, Giacomo left the house on the morning of August the thirtieth. According to his namesake uncle, the next day Giacomo told him he was flying to Germany at four o'clock that afternoon. So the question is this: Where did Giacomo sleep on the night of the thirtieth? Wouldn't it have been more logical to leave the apartment on the morning of the thirty-first after spending the night

there? And also: What happened to the motorbike? But the main question is: Is Giacomo's story of any importance to the investigation? And, if so, why?' The mullets did not answer, among other reasons because they were no longer on the plate but in Montalbano's belly.

'Let's proceed as if it was important,' he concluded.

‘F
azio, I want you to check if there was a reservation for Giacomo Pellegrino on the four o'clock flight for Germany on August the thirty-first'

‘
For where in Germany?'

‘I
don't know.'

'Chief, there are a lot of cities in Germany.'
‘
You trying to be funny?'

‘
No, Chief. And out of which airport? Palermo or Catania?'

‘
Palermo, I would say. And now get outta here.'

‘
Yes, sir. I just wanted to tell you that Headmaster Burgio phoned to remind, you of something you're supposed to know about'

Burgio, the retired secondary-school headmaster, had called the inspector some ten days earlier to invite him to a debate between those in favour of and those against building a bridge over the Strait of Messina. Burgio was to be spokesman for those in favour. At the end of the meeting, who knows why, there was going to be a projection of Roberto Benigni's
Life Is Beautiful
Montalbano had promised to attend to please his friend, but also to see the film, about which he'd heard contrasting opinions.

He decided to go to Marinella to change clothes, since the jeans he was wearing seemed a little out of place. He got in his car, drove home, and had the unfortunate idea to lie down on his bed for a moment, not more than five minutes. He slept for three hours straight. Waking up with a start, he realized that if he hurried, he could get there just in time for the film.

The auditorium was jam-packed. The inspector arrived just as the lights were dimming. He remained standing. Every now and then he laughed. But things changed towards the end, and he began to feel a sadness welling up in his throat... Never before had he cried while watching a film. He left the auditorium before the lights came back on, embarrassed that someone might see that his eyes were wet with tears. So why had it happened to him this
t
ime? Because of his age? Was it a sign of ageing? It's true that as one gets older one becomes more easily moved. But that wasn't the only reason. Was it because of the story the film told and the way it told it? Of course, but that didn't explain it, either. He waited outside for the people to exit so he could say hello to Burgio in passing. He felt like being alone and went straight home.

The wind was blowing on the veranda, and it was cold. The sea had eaten up almost the whole beach. He kept a raincoat in the front cupboard, the kind with a lining. He put it on, went back out on the veranda, and
sat down. He was unable, in the gusts, to light a cigarette. He would have to go back in his bedroom to do so. Rather than get up, he decided not to smoke. Out on the water he saw some distant lights that every few moments would disappear. If they were fishermen, they were having a rough time of it, on that sea. He sat there motionless, hands thrust in the pockets of his raincoat, rehashing what had come over him while watching the film. All at once, the true and sole reason for his weeping became perfectly clear to him. And just as quickly, he rejected it as unbelievable. Yet little by little, in spite of the fact that he kept circling around it, to attack it from every angle, that reason stood firm. In the end, he had to give in to it. And so he made up his mind.

Before setting out the next morning, he had to wait at the Bar Albanese for the fresh ricotta cannoli to arrive. He bought about thirty of them, along with a few kilos of
biscotti regno,
marzipan pastries, and
mostaccioli.
Rolling along, his car left an aromatic cloud in its wake. He had no choice but to keep the windows open, otherwise the intense smell would have given him a headache.

To get to Calapiano he chose to take the longest, roughest road, the one he'd always taken the few times he'd gone there, since it allowed him a glimpse of a Sicily that was disappearing a little more each day, made up of land spare in vegetation and men spare in words. After he'd been driving for two hours, just past Gagliano he found himself at the back of a line of cars moving very slowly along the beat-up tarmac A handwritten sign on a lamppost ordered:

SLOW DOWN.

Then a man with the face of an escaped convict (but are we so sure escaped convicts have faces like that?), in civilian dress and with a
whistl
e in his mouth, blew
his whistl
e hard like a referee and raised his arm. The car in front of Montalbano immediately stopped. After a minute or two in which nothing happened, the inspector decided to stretch his legs. He got out of the car and went up to the man.

'Are you a policeman?'

‘
Me? Not on your life! Gaspare Indelicato's the name. I'm a caretaker at the primary school Please step aside, there are cars coming this way.'

'Excuse me, but isn't today a school day?'

'Of course, but the school is closed. Two ceilings collapsed.'

Is that why you were assigned traffic duty?'

'Nobody assigned me anything. I volunteered. If I wasn't here and Peppi Brucculeri — who also volunteered — wasn't over there, can you imagine the mess?'

‘
What happened to the road?'

‘
It caved in about half a mile from here. Five months ago. There's only room for one car to pass at a time.'