The Smell of the Night

by Andrea Camilleri

  After the opening credits, an image that looked like something out of an American movie appeared. A large, mangled automobile rose slowly out of the water as Zito’s voice-over explained that this difficult dredging operation had taken place shortly before sunset. Next they showed the car resting on the deck of a pontoon while some men freed it from the steel cables with which it had been hoisted. Then Guarnotta’s face appeared.

  “Inspector Guarnotta, could you please tell us what you found inside Mr. Gargano’s car?”

  “In the backseat we found a suitcase containing Gargano’s personal effects.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing else.”

  This confirmed that the ragioniere had taken Giacomo’s precious briefcase away with him.

  “Are you going to continue to search for Gargano’s body?”

  “I can officially announce that the search for Gargano has ended. We’re more than convinced that his body was dragged out to sea by the current.”

  And this proved that Gargano had been right in his calculations. There had indeed been an idiot ready to believe the whole setup. There he was, the illustrious Inspector Guarnotta.

  “There’s a rumor circulating—which it is our journalistic duty to mention here—that relations between Pellegrino and Gargano were somewhat unusual. Can you confirm this?”

  “We too have heard this rumor and are investigating the matter. If it proves to be true, it could be important.”

  “Why, Inspector?”

  “Because it would explain why Gargano and Pellegrino met late at night in this secluded, seldom frequented place. They came here to—how shall I say?—to be alone. And they were followed here and killed.”

  It was hopeless. Guarnotta was besotted with his bugaboo. It had to be the Mafia, therefore it was the Mafia.

  “About an hour ago we had a chance to talk on the phone with Dr. Pasquano, the coroner, who has just completed the autopsy on the body of Giacomo Pellegrino. He said the young man was killed by a single gunshot wound, right between the eyes, fired at close range. The bullet, which did not exit the body, has been recovered. Dr. Pasquano says it is from a small-caliber weapon.”

  Zito stopped, saying no more. Guarnotta looked puzzled.

  “So?”

  “Well, wouldn’t that be a rather unusual weapon for the Mafia?”

  Guarnotta chuckled condescendingly.

  “The Mafia uses whatever weapon it wants. It has no preferences. From a bazooka to the tip of a toothpick. Never forget that.”

  Zito’s face looked visibly dumbfounded. Apparently he did not understand how a toothpick could become a lethal weapon.

  Montalbano turned off the television.

  Among these weapons, my good Guarnotta, he said to himself, there are also people like you. Judges, policemen, and carabinieri who see the Mafia when it’s not there, and do not see it when it is.

  But he didn’t want to give in to anger. The little hakes were waiting for him.

  He decided to go to bed early so he could read a little. He’d just lain down when the phone rang.

  “Darling? Everything’s all set at this end. I’ll be flying out tomorrow afternoon. I should be in Vigata by around eight o’clock.”

  “If you tell me what time you get in, I’ll come pick you up at Punta Raisi. I don’t have much going on. I’m happy to do it.”

  “The fact is I’ve still got some hassles at the office. I don’t know exactly what time I’ll be able to leave. So don’t worry about it, I’ll just take the bus. I’ll be there when you get home from work.”

  “Okay.”

  “But try to come home early, don’t do as you usually do. I really want to be with you.”

  “Why, don’t you think I do, too?”

  Instinctively, his eye wandered up to the top of the armoire where the sweater lay hidden. He would have to bury it the next morning, before going to work. But what if Livia asked what had happened to her present? He would feign surprise, and thus Livia would end up suspecting Adelina, whom she detested and who repaid her in kind. Then, almost without realizing what he was doing, he grabbed a chair, pushed it against the armoire, climbed up on it, felt around with his hand until he found the sweater, seized it, stepped down from the chair, put it back, took the sweater in both hands and with great effort managed to rip it and start tearing it apart, making one, two, three holes in it; then he armed himself with a knife, stabbed it five or six times, threw it down on the ground, and began stamping on it with both feet. A genuine murderer in the throes of a homicidal frenzy. In the end he left it on the kitchen table so he would remember to bury it the following morning. And all at once he felt profoundly ridiculous. Why had he let himself succumb to such stupid, uncontrolled rage? Perhaps because he’d completely repressed it, and then lo, the sweater had so brutally reappeared before his eyes? Well, now that he’d got it out of his system, not only did he find himself ridiculous, but he fell prey to a kind of melancholy remorse. Poor Livia, who’d so lovingly chosen that very sweater as a present for him! Then an absurd, impossible comparison occurred to him. How would Mariastella Cosentino have behaved in the grips of a sweater given her by Gargano, the man she loved? Or, rather, adored—to the point that she couldn’t see, or wouldn’t see, that the ragioniere was nothing more than a rogue and con artist who’d run off with the money and who, to avoid having to share it, had murdered a man in cold blood. Why hadn’t she reacted when, to calm down the old man Garzullo, he’d concocted that story about the TV announcing that Gargano’d been arrested? She had no television at home, so it seemed logical to assume that she would have believed what Montalbano said. Whereas, nothing. Not a move, not a start, not even a sigh. It was more or less the same reaction she had when he told her that Pellegrino’s corpse had been found. She should have fallen into despair, imagining that her beloved ragioniere had suffered a similar fate. Whereas, that time, too, she’d behaved the same way. He’d felt as if he was talking to something rather like a statue with its eyes popping out. Miss Mariastella Cosentino behaved as if—

  The telephone rang. Was it possible that one could never fall asleep in peace in that house? Anyway, it was late, almost one o’clock. Cursing the saints, he picked up the receiver.

  “Hello? Who is this?” he asked in a voice that would have frightened a highwayman.

  “Did I wake you up? It’s Nicolò.”

  “No, I was still awake. Any news?”

  “No, but I wanted to tell you something that’ll cheer you up.”

  “I’m in need of it.”

  “You want to know what theory Prosecutor Tommaseo came up with in an interview I just did with him? He said it probably wasn’t the Mafia that killed the two men, as Guarnotta thinks.”

  “So who was it, then?”

  “For Tommaseo it was a third man, a jealous lover who caught them in the act. What do you think?”

  “With Tommaseo, the minute there’s a hint of sex, his imagination runs away with him. When are you going to broadcast it?”

  “Never. When the chief prosecutor found out about it, he called me up all embarrassed, poor guy. So I gave him my word I would never make the interview public.”

  He read three pages of Simenon, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t read any further. He was too sleepy. He turned off the light and plunged at once into a rather unpleasant dream. He was underwater again, near Gargano’s car, and could see Giacomo’s body inside the cab, moving about like an astronaut, weightless, and tracing what looked like a dance step. Then a voice came from the other side of the rock.

  “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!”

  He turned around at once and saw Emanuele Gargano—he, too, long dead, face covered with green sea moss, algae twisting around his arms and legs. The current was making his body spin slowly around, as though he were mounted on a spit and roasting. Every time Gargano’s face, or what remained of it, turned upwards and faced Montalbano, the mouth opened and said:

  “Cuckoo! Cuck
oo!”

  Tearing himself with difficulty from the dream, he woke up all covered in sweat. He turned on the light. And he had the impression that another light, violent and swift as lightning, had flashed for a moment inside his head.

  He completed the sentence that Zito’s phone call had interrupted: Miss Mariastella Cosentino behaved as if she knew exactly where Emanuele Gargano was hiding.

  15

  After that last thought, he was barely able to get any sleep. He would drift off only to wake up again less than half an hour later with Mariastella Cosentino on his mind. Of the other two King Midas employees he’d been able to get a clear sense, even though he’d never seen Giacomo except as a corpse. At seven o’clock he got up, put in the videocassette that the Free Channel had made for him, and watched it carefully. Mariastella appeared twice in it, both times during the inauguration of the Vigàta office, both times at Gargano’s side, showering him with adoring glances. A love at first sight, therefore, which over time had become total, absolute. He had to speak with the woman and had a good excuse for doing so. Since his assumptions were gradually being borne out, he would ask her if relations between Gargano and Pellegrino had grown tense towards the end. If she said yes, then this assumption, too—that is, that the men had conspired to pretend they were at odds—would prove to have been correct. Yet before going to see her, he decided he needed to know more about her.

  He got to headquarters around eight and immediately summoned Fazio.

  “I need some information on Mariastella Cosentino.”

  “O Gesù biniditto!” said Fazio.

  “What’s so shocking about that?”

  “What’s shocking, Chief, is that lady might look alive, but she’s really dead! What do you want to know?”

  “Whether there is or was any gossip about her circulating in town. Like what she did or where she worked before Gargano hired her. And who her father and mother were. Where she lives and what her habits are. We know, for example, that she has no television, but does have a phone.”

  “How much time have I got?”

  “Report back to me no later than eleven.”

  “All right, Chief, but you have to do me a favor.”

  “Gladly, if I can.”

  “You can, Chief, you can.”

  He went out and returned at once with half a ton of documents in his arms.

  At eleven on the dot Fazio knocked on the door and came in. The inspector was pleased to see him. He’d managed to sign three-fourths of the papers, and his arm was getting stiff.

  “Get these papers off my desk.”

  “Even the ones you haven’t signed?”

  “Them too.”

  Fazio picked them up, took them to his office, and came back.

  “I didn’t find out much,” he said, sitting down.

  He pulled from his pocket a sheet of paper densely covered with scrawl.

  “Fazio, before you begin, I implore you to rein in your records office complex as much as possible. Tell me only the essentials. I don’t give a shit about where and when Mariastella’s parents were married. Okay?”

  “Okay,” said Fazio, wrinkling his nose.

  He read the sheet over twice, then folded it up and put it back in his pocket.

  “Miss Cosentino is the same age as you, Chief. She was born here in February 1950. Only child. Her father was Angelo Cosentino, in the wood business, solid citizen, well respected and admired. Came from one of the oldest families in Vigata. When the Americans arrived in ’43, they made him mayor. And he remained mayor till 1955. After that he wanted out of politics. The mother, Carmela Vasile-Cozzo—”

  “What’d you say?” said Montalbano, who until that moment had been following him distractedly.

  “Vasile-Cozzo,” Fazio repeated.

  She was probably related to Signora Clementina! If so, that would make everything easier.

  “Wait a minute,” he said to Fazio. “I have to make a phone call.”

  Signora Clementina sounded happy to hear Montalbano’s voice.

  “How long has it been since you last came to see me, you naughty man?”

  “Please forgive me, signora, but work, you know.... Listen, are you by any chance a relative of Carmela Vasile-Cozzo, the mother of Mariastella Costentino?”

  “Of course. First cousins, the daughters of two brothers. Why do you ask?”

  “Signora Clementina, would you mind if I dropped by for a visit?”

  “You know very well how much I enjoy seeing you. Unfortunately I can’t invite you to lunch, because my son, his wife, and my grandson are here. But if you want to come by around four in the afternoon...”

  “Thank you. See you later.”

  He hung up and looked pensively at Fazio.

  “You know what I say? I say I don’t need you anymore. Just tell me what the gossip is on Mariastella.”

  “What gossip? There’s just the fact that she fell head over heels for Gargano. But they also say that there was never really anything between them.”

  “Okay, you can go.”

  Fazio went out, muttering to himself.

  “The blessed guy made me waste the whole morning!”

  At the Trattoria San Calogero the inspector ate so listlessly that even the owner noticed.

  “Got worries?”

  “A few.”

  He left and went for a walk along the jetty, out to the lighthouse.

  He sat down on his customary rock and fired up a cigarette. He didn’t want to think about anything. He just wanted to sit there and listen to the sea swashing between the rocks. But thoughts come even when you do all in your power to keep them away. And the thought that came into his mind concerned the Saracen olive tree that had been cut down. Now he had only the rock for a refuge. All at once, though he was out in the open air, he felt strangely as though he were suffocating, as though the space allotted to his existence had suddenly shrunk. By a lot.

  After they’d had their coffee and sat down in the living room, Signora Clementina began to speak.

  “My cousin Carmela got married at a very young age, to Angelo Cosentino, who was a nice, educated, open-minded man. They had only one child, Mariastella. She was a pupil of mine, and had a peculiar temperament.”

  “In what sense?”

  “Well, she was very closed, reserved. Almost sullen. She was also very formal. She later got an accounting degree at Montelusa. I think the fact that she lost her mother when she was only fifteen must have had a rather negative effect on her. From that moment on, she devoted herself to her father. She never went out of the house anymore.”

  “Were they well off financially?”

  “They weren’t rich, but I don’t think they were poor, either. Five years after Carmela’s death, Angelo also died.

  Mariastella was twenty at the time, so she was no longer a little girl. But she acted like one.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Well, when I found out that Angelo had died, I went to see Mariastella. I was with some other people, men as well as women. Mariastella came up to greet us, dressed in her usual fashion. She didn’t wear black, not even when her mother died. Being her closest relative, I embraced her and tried to console her. But she stepped back from me and looked at me. ‘Why, who died?’ she asked. My blood ran cold, my friend. She couldn’t accept that her father was dead. The problem continued—”

  “For three days,” said Montalbano.

  “How did you know?” Clementina Vasile-Cozzo asked, astonished.

  The inspector looked at her, even more astonished than she.

  “Would you believe me if I told you that I don’t know?”

  “Well, it lasted indeed three days. We all tried to find ways to convince her, all of us: the priest, her doctor, me, the people from the funeral home. Nothing doing. Poor Angelo’s body lay there on the bed, and Mariastella could not be persuaded to turn him over to the undertakers. Then—”

  “—Right when you were about to resort to for
ce, she gave in,” said Montalbano.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Vasile-Cozzo, “if you know the story already, what point is there in my telling it to you?”

  “Believe me, I don’t know the story,” said the inspector, feeling uneasy. “Yet it’s as though somebody’d already told me the same story. Except that I can’t remember how or where or why. Let’s conduct an experiment. It seems to me that, if I ask you, say, ‘Did you all begin to think that Mariastella was crazy?,’ I already know your answer: ‘We didn’t think she was crazy. We thought there was an explanation for why she was behaving that way.’ ”

  “You’re right,” said Signora Clementina, surprised. “That’s exactly what we thought. Mariastella was rejecting reality with all her might. She was refusing to be an orphan, without another person to lean on in life.”

  But, good heavens, how did he know even the thoughts of the characters in the story? Around 1970, he and his father had already been away from Vigàta for years, and had no relatives or friends there, either. Therefore he couldn’t have even heard the story from someone who’d experienced it directly. So what was the explanation?

  “And what happened next?”

  “For a few years Mariastella got by on the little her father had left her. Then a relative found her a position in Montelusa, and she worked there up to the age of forty-five. But she no longer socialized with anyone. Then, at a certain point, she quit her job. She explained—I forget to whom—that she’d quit because the drive to work and back frightened her. There was too much traffic, and this upset her.”

  “But it’s barely six miles.”

  “What can I say? And to anyone who pointed out that to go into town, she also had to drive, she would reply that she felt safer on that road because it was familiar to her.”