A Beam of Light

by Andrea Camilleri

  If only he’d married Livia when he should have . . .

  For heaven’s sake, let’s not start in with any stocktaking.

  Let’s call a spade a spade: If he’d married Livia they would have broken up after a few years of marriage. He was as sure of this as he was of his own death.

  He knew himself well, and he knew he had neither the will nor the ability to adapt to another person, not even someone he loved as much as Livia.

  Nothing—not love, not passion—would have been strong enough to force them both to spend the rest of their lives under the same roof.

  Unless . . .

  Unless they had adopted François, as Livia had wanted.

  François!

  François had been a total failure. The kid had done his best to make sure the situation worsened, but he and Livia had delivered the coup de grâce.

  Back in 1996 they’d had to take a little Tunisian orphan of ten into their home for a short while. François was his name, and they’d grown so fond of him that Livia had suggested they adopt him. But Montalbano hadn’t felt like it, and so the kid ended up going to live on the farm of Mimì Augello’s sister, where he was treated as one of the family.

  Viewed with the hindsight of many long years, this may have been a big mistake.

  The agreement was that he would send Mimì’s sister a check each month to help pay expenses. He’d instructed his bank to take care of this, and it had gone on for years.

  The problem was that the older François got, the more difficult he became. Disobedient and belligerent, always surly and complaining, he didn’t even want to hear about studying. And yet he was extremely intelligent. In the early going, Livia and Salvo went to see him often; then, as often happens, the visits became fewer and farther between, until they stopped going altogether. But for his part, the kid refused to go to Vigàta to see Livia when she would come down from Genoa.

  Clearly François suffered from his situation and maybe had even taken the fact that they hadn’t adopted him as a rejection. A few days after the boy’s twenty-first birthday, Mimì Augello told Montalbano that François had run away from the farm.

  They searched for him over land and sea, but never found him. And so they’d all had to resign themselves.

  Now that he was twenty-five, it was anybody’s guess where he hung his hat.

  But why go over the past again? What was broken couldn’t be fixed.

  The thought of François brought a lump to his throat. He dissolved it by downing the last quarter of the bottle of whisky.

  At the first light of dawn he saw a majestic three-master on the horizon, heading for the harbor.

  He decided to go to bed.

  When he woke up, Montalbano realized he was in a dark mood. He went to open the window. As if to prove the point, the sky was gloomy, completely covered with dark gray clouds.

  Catarella stopped him on his way in.

  “’Scuse me, Chief, but there’s a jinnelman waitin’ f’yiz.”

  “What’s he want?”

  “’E wants to report a armed assault.”

  “But isn’t Augello around?”

  “’E called sayin’ ’e’s gonna be late.”

  “What about Fazio?”

  “Fazio’s betooken hisself to Casuzza.”

  “Why, was another coffin found?”

  Catarella gave him a bewildered look.

  “Nah, Chief, iss cuzza some kinda nasty fight ’tween two hunners an’ one o’ them, I dunno which, if i’ wuzza foist or the seccon’, shot th’other, an’ so, consequentially, I dunno if i’ wuzza foist or the seccon’ ’at got wounded inna leg, but jest a li’l, jest a grazin’ wound.”

  “All right. What did this gentleman say his name was?”

  “I can’t rilly remember, Chief. Sumpin’ like di Maria or di Maddalena, sumpin’ like ’at.”

  “The name’s di Marta, Salvatore di Marta,” said a well-dressed man of about fifty, generously doused in cologne, completely bald, and shaven to perfection.

  Martha, Mary, and Magdalen, the Pious Women of Calvary. Catarella got it wrong, as usual, but he was close.

  “Please come in and sit down, Signor di Marta.”

  “I’d like to report a case of armed assault.”

  “Tell me what happened, and when it happened.”

  “Well, my wife came home past midnight last night—”

  “Excuse me for interrupting, but who was assaulted, you or your wife?”

  “My wife.”

  “And why didn’t she come in person to file the report?”

  “Well, Inspector, Loredana is very young, not quite twenty-one years old . . . She got very frightened, and even seems to have a little fever . . .”

  “I understand. Go on.”

  “She got home late last night because she’d gone to see her best friend who wasn’t feeling well, and she didn’t have the heart to leave her all alone . . .”

  “Of course.”

  “In short, as soon as Loredana turned onto Vicolo Crispi, which is very poorly lit, she saw a man lying on the ground and not moving. She stopped the car and got out to give the man assistance, but then he suddenly stood up, holding something that looked to her like a gun, and he forced her back into the car and sat down beside her. Then—”

  “Just a minute. How did he force her? By pointing the gun at her?”

  “Yes, and he also grabbed her by the arm, so hard that it left a bruise. He must have been very violent, since he also bruised her shoulders when he pushed her into the car.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Who, the attacker? No, nothing.”

  “Was his face covered?”

  “Yes, he had a kind of bandana covering his nose and mouth. Loredana had left her purse in the car. He opened it, took out the money that was inside, took the keys out of the ignition and threw them out into the street, far away, and then . . .”

  The man was clearly upset.

  “And then?”

  “And then he kissed her. Actually, more than kiss her, he bit her twice on the lip. You can still see the marks.”

  “Where do you live, Signor di Marta?”

  “In the new residential neighborhood called I Tre Pini.”

  Montalbano knew the area. There was something about this that didn’t make sense.

  “I’m sorry, but you said the attack occurred in Vicolo Crispi.”

  “Yes, and I think I know what you’re getting at. You see, when I got home yesterday, I hadn’t been able to deposit the supermarket’s receipts in the night safe of my bank. And so I gave the money to Loredana and asked her to be sure to deposit it before going to her friend’s house. But she forgot to, and only remembered when she was on her way home, and that was why she had to take that detour which—”

  “So there was a lot of money in your wife’s purse?”

  “Yes, a lot. Sixteen thousand euros.”

  “Was the guy satisfied with only the money?”

  “He kissed her too! And it’s a good thing he limited himself to one kiss, even if it was violent!”

  “That’s not what I was referring to. Does your wife usually wear jewelry?”

  “Well, yes. A necklace, earrings, two rings . . . A little Cartier watch . . . All valuable stuff. And her wedding ring, naturally.”

  “The attacker didn’t take any of it?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a photo of your wife?”

  “Of course.”

  He took it out of his wallet and handed it to Montalbano, who looked at it and gave it back.

  Fazio came in.

  “Just in time,” said the inspector. “Signor di Marta is going to go into your office now and file an official report of an armed assault and robbery. Good-bye, Signor di Marta. We’
ll be back in touch with you soon.”

  How does a man some fifty-odd years old manage to marry a girl not yet twenty-one? And not just any young girl, but one like Loredana who, to judge from the photo, was so beautiful it was almost frightening?

  How did the guy manage not to realize that by the time he was seventy, his wife would be barely forty? In other words, still desirable and with her own solid, healthy desires?

  Okay, it was true he’d spent the previous night crying over his loneliness, but a marriage like that would be a cure worse than the disease.

  Fazio returned some fifteen minutes later.

  “So what supermarket does the guy run?” the inspector asked.

  “The biggest one in Vigàta, Chief. He married one of the checkout girls last year. People around town say he lost his head over her.”

  “Does this story make any sense to you?”

  “No. Does it to you?”

  “No.”

  “Can you imagine a thief taking only the money and not grabbing the jewelry as well?”

  “No, I can’t. But it’s still possible we’ve got it wrong.”

  “Do you believe in gentlemen thieves?”

  “No, but I do believe in desperate people who suddenly turn to robbery but wouldn’t know where to resell stolen jewelry.”

  “So how do you want me to proceed?”

  “I want to know everything about this Loredana di Marta. What her best friend’s name is and where she lives, what her habits are, who her friends are . . . Everything.”

  “Okay. Do you want me to tell you about that little hunters’ quarrel in Casuzza?”

  “No. I don’t want to hear anything about Casuzza.”

  Fazio looked perplexed.

  3

  After Fazio left, the inspector resumed his bureaucratic labors, signing page after page. Finally, by the grace of God, it was time to eat.

  “You cheated on me yesterday,” Enzo reproached him as soon as he came into the trattoria.

  “I ate at home. Adelina cooked for me,” Montalbano quickly replied, to forestall any fits of jealousy on Enzo’s part. Having the inspector as a regular customer was very important to the restaurateur.

  For some reason, the story that Signor di Marta had told him had dispelled his bad mood. Deep down, the man had practically been asking for his wife to cheat on him. Not that the inspector was in the habit of taking pleasure in others’ misfortunes, but all the same . . .

  “What’ve you got for me?”

  “Whatever you want, Inspector.”

  He ordered and was served. He may even have abused his power: He ordered too much, and repeatedly. So much, in fact, that he even had a little trouble getting up from his chair.

  A stroll along the jetty, ever so slowly, one foot up, one foot down, thus became a dire necessity.

  The handsome three-master he’d seen heading for the port in the early morning was now moored in the berth where every day at eight p.m. the postal boat docked. Apparently it would have to put back out to sea before that hour.

  Two sailors were busy swabbing the deck with buckets and mops. No other crew members or passengers were visible. Astern, on the side of the boat, was the name: Veruschka. It was flying a flag that Montalbano didn’t recognize. On the other hand, how many Italian moneybags flew the Italian flag on their yachts? He vaguely recalled that there was a famous model named Veruschka many years ago.

  He sat down as usual on the flat rock beneath the lighthouse and lit a cigarette.

  Halfway down the rock he noticed a crab that was staring at him without moving.

  Was it possible that for all these years he had been harassing the same crab by throwing pebbles at it?

  Or was it perhaps a family of crabs that had passed the word on from father to son?

  “Look, Junior, almost every afternoon Inspector Montalbano comes around here to play with us. Just indulge him and let him get his jollies. He’s a lonely old bastard who means no harm.”

  He stared back at the crab and said:

  “Thanks, crab, but I don’t feel like it today. Sorry.”

  The crab moved and started walking sideways to the edge of the rock, then vanished into the water.

  Montalbano wished he could stay there until sunset.

  But he had to return to the office. He got up, sighing, and started heading back.

  As soon as he’d passed the three-master’s gangway, three taxis in a row arrived and pulled up beside the boat. Apparently the passengers had wanted to visit the Greek temples.

  He spent the whole afternoon boring himself to death signing useless papers. But he absolutely had to do it, not out of any sense of duty but because he’d learned that the subtle vengeance of an unsigned paper was to multiply into at least two other sheets, in one of which he was asked to explain why he hadn’t signed the previous one, while the other was a copy of the first, just in case he had never received it.

  Around seven in the evening, Fazio returned, looking like a disappointed hunter coming home with nothing in his game bag.

  “Chief, I got some info on Loredana di Marta.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “It’s not much. The girl, whose maiden name is La Rocca, is the daughter of Giuseppe La Rocca and Caterina Sileci; she was born in . . .”

  Fazio was off and running with his usual obsession, which was to recite the entire records-office file of a person under investigation. If Montalbano didn’t stop him at once, the guy was liable to go back to the girl’s great-grandparents. He threatened him with a dirty look.

  “Hold it right there. I’m warning you: If you continue to indulge in your records-office mania, I swear I’ll—”

  “Sorry, Chief. I’ll stop. As I was saying, before marrying di Marta, this Loredana had been the girlfriend of a certain Carmelo Savastano, a debauched good-for-nothing. They’d been together since she was fifteen and he was twenty. Apparently she was hopelessly in love with him.”

  “So why’d she leave him for di Marta?”

  Fazio shrugged.

  “Who knows? But there’s a rumor going around.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “That di Marta made a deal with Savastano.”

  “Let me get this straight. He told Savastano to leave her?”

  “So they say.”

  “And Savastano accepted?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “I guess he was well paid.”

  “Well, he certainly wasn’t persuaded by words alone.”

  “So di Marta basically bought Loredana. What do people in town say about her?”

  “Nobody has a bad word to say about her. They all say she’s a good girl. Well behaved. She goes out only with her husband or to visit her girlfriend.”

  “Do you know what that girl’s name is?”

  “Yes. Valeria Bonifacio. She lives in a freestanding house in Via Palermo, number 28.”

  “Is she married?”

  “Yes. To the captain of a ship who spends months on end at sea before returning to Vigàta.”

  “So, in conclusion, it really was a case of assault with a deadly weapon?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Which means we have to start looking for the robber.”

  “Which won’t be easy.”

  “I agree.”

  As soon as Fazio went out, the inspector had an idea. He called up Adelina, his housekeeper.

  “Wha’ss wrong, Isspector? Somethin’ happen?”

  “No, everything’s fine, Adelì, calm down. I need to talk to your son, Pasquale.”

  “He jessa wenn out. I have ’im a-call you when’e comma beck.”

  “No, don’t bother, Adelì. I’m about to leave my office and I won’t be home tonight either. It’s better if he calls me tomorrow morning, here
at the station.”

  “Okay, whatteva you say, Isspector.”

  Pasquale was a habitual offender, a house burglar constantly in and out of prison. Montalbano became the godfather of Pasquale’s young son at the baby’s baptism, and in a gesture of gratitude, they named the boy Salvo. Every so often the inspector turned to Pasquale for useful information.

  Why was the metal shutter of the gallery lowered almost to the ground?

  And yet it was five minutes to eight. Had Marian forgotten about him and their date?

  Feeling discouraged, he rang the doorbell. A moment later he heard her voice say: “Raise the shutter and come on in.”

  The first thing he saw as he entered was that there were no more paintings on the walls.

  He didn’t have time to say anything before Marian came running up to him, embraced him, grazed his lips with hers, stepped back laughing, and then did a pirouette like a dancer.

  “What’s going on?” Montalbano asked.

  “I sold all the paintings! All at once! Come.”

  She took his hand, led him into the office, sat him down in an armchair, opened a mini-fridge, and pulled out a bottle of champagne.

  “I bought it just for the occasion. I was waiting for you, so we could have a toast. Please uncork it.”

  Montalbano uncorked the bottle while she went and got two glasses.

  They toasted. Montalbano was happy that she was happy.

  This time Marian held out her lips for him, and Montalbano placed an ever so chaste kiss on them. Then she sat down in the other armchair.

  “I’m happy,” she said.

  Happiness made her more beautiful.

  “Tell me how it happened.”

  “Around ten-thirty this morning a very elegant lady more or less my age came in. She spent a whole hour looking at the paintings, and then complimented me on her way out.”

  “Was she Italian?”

  “I don’t think so. She spoke perfect Italian, but with an accent that sounded German to me. She came back fifteen minutes later with a man who looked about sixty, obese but very distinguished. He introduced himself as Osvaldo Pedicini, an engineer, and said that his wife wanted to buy all the paintings on exhibit. I very nearly fainted.”