im6 The Scent of the Night (2005)

by Andrea Camilleri

  'I recognized the model. It was an Alfa 166. The same car he was driving when he came to my house to steal my money.'

  'What kind of car do you drive?' the inspector thought to ask hun.

  'Me? I don't even have a driver's licence.'

  Nottata persa e figlia femmina, Montalbano thought to himself, disappointed. This Tommasino was a madman who saw things that weren't there; but even when he saw things that were there, he adjusted them to his liking. The wind turned colder, the sky had clouded over. What was the inspector doing wasting his time in this godforsaken place? The schoolteacher must have somehow noticed his disappointment.

  'Listen, Inspector, I have an obsession.'

  Oh, God, another one? Montalbano got worried. What if the guy went bonkers right then and there and started yelling that he was seeing Lucifer in person? How should he act? Pretend it's nothing? Get in his car and hightail it out of there?

  'I'm obsessed with cars,' Tommasino continued. 'I subscribe to quite a number of Italian and foreign magazines specializing in the subject. I could probably go on a TV game show. If the theme was cars, I'm sure I'd win.'

  'Was there anyone inside the car?' asked the inspector, by now resigned to Tommasino's utter unpredictability.

  'You see, coming from over there, as I said, I was able to observe the car in profile, so to speak, for a short spell. Then I drew near enough to see whether or not there were any silhouettes of people inside. I didn't notice any. It's possible that, seeing a shadow approach, whoever was in the car ducked down. I walked past without turning around.'

  'Did you hear the sound of the car being started up at any point?'

  'No. But I think -- and it's only an impression, mind you -- that the boot was open.'

  'And was there anyone near the boot?' 'No.'

  Montalbano then got an idea that was so simple it was almost embarrassing.

  'Mr Tommasino, could you please take about thirty steps and then walk back towards my car, taking the same path you took that night?'

  'Certainly,' said Tommasino, 'I like to walk.'

  As the schoolteacher was walking away from him, Montalbano opened the boot and crouched down behind the car, poking his head up just enough to allow him to look through the rear-door windows and see Tommasino take the last of his thirty paces and turn around. At that point he lowered his head, making himself completely invisible. When he figured Tommasino was in front of the car, he scrambled over behind the boot, crouching all the while. Then he moved again to the other side of the car when he realized the schoolteacher had passed, an unnecessary precaution, since Tommasino said he hadn't turned around. At this point he stood up.

  'That's enough, Mr Tommasino, thank you.'

  Tommasino gave him a puzzled look.

  'Where were you hiding? I saw the open boot, but the car was empty and you were nowhere to be seen.'

  'You were corning from over there, and Gargano, seeing your shadow--'

  He broke off. The sky had suddenly opened an eye. A small hole, a rent, had appeared in the uniformly black fabric of clouds, and through the breach a bright ray of sunlight shone down, almost entirely circumscribed, on the spot where they were standing. Montalbano felt like laughing. They looked like two characters in a naive votive painting, illuminated by divine light. And at that moment he noticed something that only that particular angle of light, like a floodlight in a theatre, could have brought to his attention. He felt a chill run down his spine, and a familiar bell began to ring in his head.

  'Let me drive you home,' he said to Tommasino, who was looking at him questioningly, waiting for him to continue his explanation.

  After dropping off the former schoolteacher -- having barely restrained himself from embracing the man' -- he raced back to the place they'd just been. Meanwhile no other cars had shown up to give him any trouble. He pulled up, got out, and began to walk very slowly, step by careful step, looking down at the ground all the while, as far as the edge of the cliff. The ray of sunlight was no longer there to help him like the beam of a torch in the night. But now he knew what he needed to look for.

  Then he cautiously leaned forward to see what was under his feet The plateau was made up of a layer of earth atop a base of marl Below, a smooth white wall of marl plunged straight into the sea, which must have been at the very least thirty feet deep in that spot The water was dark grey, like the sky. He didn't want to waste any more time. He looked around once, twice, thrice, to establish a few fixed reference points, then got back in his car and sped off to the station.

  Fazio wasn't there. Unexpectedly, however, Mimi was.

  'Beba's father's doing better. We've decided to postpone the wedding for a month. Any new developments?'

  'Yes, Mimi Many.' He told him everything. When he'd finished, Mimi sat there dumbfounded.

  'What are you going to do now?' he finally said.

  'I want you to find me a dinghy with a good motor. It should take me about an hour to get to the spot, even if the weather's not the greatest'

  'Look, Salvo, you're liable to get a heart attack. Put it off for a little while. The water must be ice cold today. And, sorry to say, you're not a kid anymore.'

  'Find me a dinghy and don't break my balls.'

  'Have you at least got a wet suit? An oxygen tank?'

  'I should have a wet suit somewhere in the house. I've never used oxygen tanks. I can dive without them, just holding my breath.'

  'Salvo, you used to dive without them, just holding your breath. Meanwhile you've kept right on smoking all these years. You don't know what condition your lungs are in. How long do you really think you can stay underwater? Shall we say twenty seconds, just to be generous?'

  'That's bullshit.'

  'You call smoking bullshit?'

  'Gimme a break with the smoking! Of course smoking is harmful, to those who smoke. But for you, smog doesn't count, high-tension wires don't count, depleted uranium is good for the health, smokestacks are fine, Chernobyl has boosted farming production, fish filled with uranium -- or whatever the hell it is -- are better for you, dioxin is a pick-me-up, and mad cow, foot-and-mouth disease, genetically modified food, and globalization will make you live like a king. The only thing that harms and kills millions of people is secondhand smoke. You know what the new slogan's going to be in the coming years? Keep the air clean. Do a line of coke.'

  'OK, OK. Calm down' said Mimi 'I'll find you a dinghy. But on one condition.' 'What condition?' 'That you bring me along' 'To do what?'

  'Nothing. I just don't want to let you go alone. I wouldn't feel right'

  'OK, then. Two o'clock, at the port I've got to keep my stomach empty, in any case. Don't tell anyone where we're going. I mean it. If I should turn out to be wrong, the whole police department'll be teasing me'

  Montalbano learned how hard it was to put on a wet suit while in a dinghy speeding over a sea that wasn't exactly calm. Mimi, at the helm, looked tense and worried.

  'Getting seasick?' the inspector asked him at one point

  'No. Just sick of myself'

  'Why?'

  'Because every now and then I realize what a stupid shit I am to go along with some of your brilliant ideas.'

  This was their only exchange. They didn't resume speaking until.they'd finally arrived, after many aborted attempts, in the waters in front of Punta Pizzillo, facing the headland where Montalbano had been that morning. The white rock face rose straight up out of the sea without a single spur or cavity. Mimi looked at him darkly.

  'We risk crashing into that, you know' he said 'Well, make sure we don't' was all the comfort the inspector had to offer as he began to lower himself into the water, scraping his belly against the edge of the dinghy. 'You don't look so confident yourself' said Mimi. Montalbano glared at him, unable to bring himself to plunge into the sea. He was torn. The desire to go underwater and check to see if he'd seen right was very strong; but equally strong was the sudden impulse to drop everything. The weather, of course, didn't help: t
he sky was so dark that it seemed almost night, and the wind had turned very cold. At last he made up his mind, mostly because he could never allow himself to lose face in front of Augello by giving up. He released his grip.

  Straightaway he found himself in darkness so total, so impenetrable, that he couldn't tell which way his body was positioned in the water. Was he vertical or horizontal? He remembered the time he'd woken up in the middle of the night, in bed, unable to make out where he was, no longer knowing where to look for the usual markers: the window, the door, the ceiling. He backed into something solid, then moved aside. He touched a viscous mass with his hand. He felt it envelop him. He struggled, and broke free. He then tried frantically to do two things: resist the absurd fear that was coming over him and grab the torch he had in his belt. At last he managed to turn it on. To his horror, he saw no beam of light. The thing didn't work. A strong current began to pull him downward

  Why am I always trying to pull these kinds of stunts? he asked himself in despair.

  Fear turned into panic Unable to master it, he rocketed up to the surface, crashing his head into Augello's face, as his assistant was leaning far out over the edge of the dinghy.

  'You nearly broke my nose!' said Mimi, rubbing his proboscis.

  'So get out of the way' retorted the inspector, grabbing hold of the dinghy. He still couldn't see a thing. Could it possibly be night already? He could only hear his own panting.

  'Why are your eyes closed?' Augello asked with concern.

  Only then did the inspector realize that the whole time he'd been underwater he'd kept his eyes shut, stubbornly refusing to accept what he was doing. He opened his eyes. To double-check, he turned on the torch, which worked line. He just sat there a few minutes, cursing himself, and when he felt that his heartbeat had returned to normal, he lowered himself into the water again. He felt calm now. The fright he'd had must have been due to the shock of first contact with the water. A natural reaction.

  He was fifteen feet under. He aimed the light still farther down and gave a start, not believing what he saw. He turned off the torch, counted slowly to three, then turned it back on.

  Another ten or twelve feet down, tightly wedged between the wall of marl and a white rock, was the wreck of a car. A surge of emotion made him expel the air in his lungs. He hurriedly swam to the surface.

  'Find anything? Groupers? Mackerels?' Mimi asked sarcastically, holding a wet handkerchief to his nose.

  'I hit the damn jackpot, Mimi. The car is down there. It either crashed or was pushed off that cliff. I was right, this morning, when I thought I saw tyre tracks leading all the way to the edge. I need to go back down to check something, then we'll go home.'

  Mimi'd had the foresight to bring along a plastic bag with towels and an unopened bottle of whisky inside. Before asking any questions, he waited for the inspector to take off the wet suit, dry off, and get dressed. He waited still longer for his boss to attack the bottle, then attacked it himself. Finally, he asked:

  'So, what'd you see twenty thousand leagues under the sea?'

  'Mimi, you're being a wise guy because you don't want to admit that I've left your arse in the dust. You took this case lightly, you told me yourself, and now I've screwed you. Pass the bottle.'

  He took a long swig and handed the bottle to Augello, who did the same. But it was obvious that after what Montalbano had said, he didn't enjoy it quite as much.

  'So what'd you see?' Mimi asked again, sheepishly.

  There's a corpse inside the car. I can't tell whose it is, he's in too bad a shape. The doors probably opened on impact, so there may be another body in the area. The boot was also open. And you know what was in there? A motorbike. And there you have it' 'What do we do now?'

  It's not our case. So we'll inform the people in charge.'

  The two men who stepped out of the dinghy were undoubtedly Inspector Salvo Montalbano and Assistant Inspector Domenico 'Mimi' Augello, two well-known guardians of the law. But all those who saw them were rather taken aback. Arm in arm, the two policemen staggered as they walked, softly singing to themselves 'La donna e mobile'.

  'Huddo? Id Guannodda dare?' asked the inspector, speaking as if he had a very bad cold.

  Inspector Guarnotta, you mean?'

  'Yed'

  'Who's calling?' 'General Jaruselski'

  'I'll put him on at once' said the operator, impressed. 'Hello? This is Guarnotta. I didn't quite get who this is'

  'Listen, Inpector, listen closely and don't athk eddy quedshons.'

  It was a long and tortuous conversation, but in the end Inspector Guarnotta of Montelusa Central Police understood that he'd received some very important information from an unknown Pole.

  It was seven in the evening, and at the station no one had seen hide or hair of Fazio. Montalbano rang up his newsman friend Nicolo Zito at the Free Channel studios.

  'You ever going to pick up the video Annalisa made for you?' said Zito.

  'What video?'

  'The one with the pieces on Gargano.'

  He'd completely forgotten about it, but pretended that that was the reason he'd called.

  If I drop by in half an hour, will you be there?'

  When he got to the Free Channel, Zito's office door was open. The newsman was waiting for him inside, videocassette in hand.

  'Come on, I'm in a hurry. I have to prepare the evening report.'

  'Thanks, Nicolo. I've got something to tell you, from this moment on, keep an eye on Guarnotta. Then, if you can, fill me in.'

  Nicolo's haste suddenly vanished. The reporter pricked up his ears, knowing that one word from Montalbano was worth more than a three-hour lecture.

  'Why, is something up?'

  'Yes.'

  'About Gargano?' I'd say so.'

  At the Trattoria San Calogero, the inspector had such an appetite that even the owner, who was used to seeing him eat, was astonished.

  'What happened, Inspector, did the bottom drop out of your belly?'

  He went home to Marinella, basking in genuine happiness. Not because he'd found the car. At the moment he didn't give a damn about that. But because he felt proud to know he could still engage in such demanding feats as diving without equipment.

  'I'd like to see how many young guys can do what I just did?

  Old, right! How could such a gloomy thought have ever entered his head? It was too early for that!

  As he was trying to insert the videocassette into the VCR, it fell to the floor. Bending down to retrieve it, he froze, unable to move, seized by a lacerating back spasm.

  Old age had reared its ignoble head again.

  TWELVE

  It was the telephone he was hearing, not the violin of Maestro Cataldo Barbera, who'd just told him in a dream: 'Listen to this concertino.'

  Opening his eyes, he looked at the clock. Five to eight in the morning.

  Very rarely did he wake up so late. Getting out of bed, he was pleased to note that the back pains were gone.

  'Hello?'

  'Hi, it's Nicolo. I'm doing a live, on-site broadcast on the eight o'clock news. Watch it,'

  He turned on the TV and tuned in to the Free Channel. After the opening credits, Nicolo's face appeared. In a few words he said that he was at Punta Pizzillo, thanks to a telephone tip that Montelusa.Police had received from a Polish admiral concerning a car that had fallen into the sea. Inspector Guarnotta had had the brilliant intuition that it might be the Alfa 166 of the missing financier Emanuele Gargano. He therefore wasted no time arranging to have the vehicle dredged from the water, an operation that had not yet been completed. Here there was a cut. The camera, zooming vertiginously down from above, showed a small stretch of sea at the bottom of the cliff.

  The car, explained Zito, off camera, was down there, some thirty feet beneath the surface, literally trapped between the wall of marl and a large rock. The cameraman then panned back and a huge pontoon with a crane, along with about a dozen motorboats, dinghies, and trawlers, appeare
d on the screen. The operation would take all day, Zito added, but the divers meanwhile had managed to free a corpse from the wreck and bring it to the surface. Cut. A body lying on the deck of a fishing boat, a man crouching beside it This was Dr Pasquano.

  A reporter's voice: 'Excuse me, Doctor, in your opinion, did the man die in the fall or was he murdered beforehand?'

  Pasquano (barely looking up): 'Get the [bleep] out of my face--'

  The usual grace and charm.

  'Now let's hear what the men in charge of the investigation have to say,' said Nicolo.

  They appeared all huddled together as in a family photo taken outside: Commissioner Bonetti-Alderighi, Public Prosecutor Tommaseo, Chief of Forensics Arqua and the head of the investigation, Inspector Guarnotta. All smiling as if at a picnic, all perilously close to the fragile edge of the cliff. Montalbano banished the wicked thought that had come into his head. All the same, seeing the commissioner of Montelusa Police vanish live on camera would certainly have made an unusual spectacle, to say the least