Voice of the Violin

by Andrea Camilleri

  Yes and no, the company that rented cars at Punta Ràisi Airport told him after hemming and hawing for half an hour about not being authorized to give out information, so much so that he had to get the chief of airport police to intervene on his behalf. Yes, the previous evening, Thursday, that is, the gentleman in question had rented the car he was still using. And, no, the same gentleman had not rented a car from them on Wednesday evening of the previous week, according to the computer.

  17

  Guggino’s answer came a few minutes before three. And it was long and detailed. Montalbano carefully took notes. Five minutes later Giallombardo called up and told him Serravalle had gone back to his hotel.

  “Stay right there and don’t move,” the inspector ordered him. “If you see him go out again before I’ve arrived, stop him with whatever excuse you can think of. Do a striptease or belly dance, just don’t let him leave.”

  He quickly leafed through Michela’s papers, remembering that he’d seen a boarding pass among them. There it was. It was for the last journey the woman would ever make from Bologna to Palermo. He put it in his pocket and called Gallo into his office.

  “Take me to the Della Valle in the squad car.”

  The hotel was halfway between Vigàta and Montelusa and had been built directly behind one of the most beautiful temples in the world—historical conservation bureaus, landscape constraints, and zoning regulations be damned.

  “Wait for me here,” the inspector said to Gallo when they got to the hotel. He then walked over to his own car. Giallombardo was taking a nap inside.

  “I was sleeping with one eye open!” the policeman assured him.

  The inspector opened the trunk and took out the case with the cheap violin inside.

  “You go back to the station,” he ordered Giallombardo.

  He walked into the hotel lobby, looking exactly like a concert violinist.

  “Is Mr. Serravalle in?”

  “Yes, he’s in his room. Whom should I say?”

  “You shouldn’t say anything. You should only keep quiet. I’m Inspector Montalbano. And if you so much as pick up the phone, I’ll run you in and we can talk about it later.”

  “Fourth floor, room four-sixteen,” said the receptionist, lips trembling.

  “Has he had any phone calls?”

  “I gave him his phone messages when he got in. There were three or four.”

  “Let me talk to the operator.”

  The operator, whom the inspector, for whatever reason, had imagined as a cute young woman, turned out to be an aging, bald man in his sixties with glasses.

  “The receptionist told me everything. Around noon a certain Eolo started calling from Bologna. He never left his last name. He called again about ten minutes ago and I forwarded the call to Mr. Serravalle’s room.”

  In the elevator, Montalbano pulled from his pocket a list of the names of all those who on Wednesday evening of the previous week had rented cars at Punta Ràisi airport. True, there was no Guido Serravalle; there was, however, one Eolo Portinari. And Guggino had told him this Portinari was a close friend of the antiquarian.

  He tapped very lightly on the door, and as he was doing this, he remembered he’d left his pistol in the glove compartment.

  “Come in, it’s open.”

  The antiques dealer was lying down on the bed, hands behind his head. He’d taken off only his shoes and jacket; his tie was still knotted. As soon as he saw the inspector, he jumped to his feet like a jack-in-the-box.

  “Relax, relax,” said Montalbano.

  “But I insist!” said Serravalle, hastily slipping his shoes on. He even put his jacket back on. Montalbano had sat down in a chair, violin case on his knees.

  “I’m ready. To what do I owe the honor?”

  “The other day, when we spoke on the phone, you said you would make yourself available to me if I needed you.”

  “Absolutely. I repeat the offer,” said Serravalle, also sitting down.

  “I would have spared you the trouble, but since you came for the funeral, I thought I’d take advantage of the opportunity.”

  “I’m glad. What do you want me to do?”

  “Pay attention to me.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand.”

  “Listen to what I have to say. I want to tell you a story. If you think I’m exaggerating or wrong on any of the details, please interrupt and correct me.”

  “I don’t see how I could do that, Inspector, since I don’t know the story you’re about to tell me.”

  “You’re right. You mean you’ll tell me your impressions at the end. The protagonist of my story is a gentleman who has a pretty comfortable life. He’s a man of taste, owns a well-known antique-furniture shop, has a good clientele. It’s a profession our protagonist inherited from his father.”

  “Excuse me,” said Serravalle, “what is the setting of your story?”

  “Bologna,” said Montalbano. He continued:

  “Sometime during the past year, roughly speaking, this gentleman meets a young woman from the upper-middle class. They become lovers. Their relationship is risk-free. The woman’s husband, for reasons that would take too long to explain here, turns not a blind eye, as they say, but two blind eyes on their affair. The lady still loves her husband, but is very attached, sexually, to her lover.”

  He stopped short.

  “May I smoke?” Montalbano asked.

  “Of course,” said Serravalle, pushing an ashtray closer to him.

  Montalbano took the pack out slowly, extracted three cigarettes, rolled them one by one between his thumb and forefinger, opted for the one that seemed softest to him, put the other two back in the pack, then started patting himself in search of his lighter.

  “Sorry I can’t help you, but I don’t smoke,” said the antiques dealer.

  The inspector finally found the lighter in the breast pocket of his jacket, studied it as if he’d never seen it before, lit the cigarette, and put the lighter back in his pocket.

  Before starting to speak, he looked wild-eyed at Serravalle. The antiquarian’s upper lip was moist; he was beginning to sweat.

  “Where was I?”

  “The woman was very attached to her lover.”

  “Oh, yes. Unfortunately, our protagonist has a very nasty vice. He gambles, and gambles big. Three times in the last three months he’s been caught in illegal gambling dens. One day, just imagine, he ends up in the hospital, brutally beaten. He claims he was assaulted and robbed, but the police suspect, I say suspect, it was a warning to pay up old gambling debts. In any event, the situation for our protagonist, who keeps on gambling and losing, gets worse and worse. He confides in his girlfriend, and she tries to help him as best she can. Sometime before, she’d had this idea to build a house in Sicily, because she liked the place. Now this house turns out to be a perfect opportunity because, by inflating her costs, she can funnel hundreds of millions of lire to her boyfriend. She plans to build a garden, probably even a swimming pool: new sources of diverted money. But it turns out to be a drop in the bucket, hardly two or three hundred million. One day, this woman, who, for the sake of convenience, I’ll call Michela—”

  “Wait a second,” Serravalle broke in with a snicker that was supposed to be sardonic. “And your protagonist, what’s his name?”

  “Let’s say . . . Guido,” said Montalbano, as if this were a negligible detail.

  Serravalle grimaced. The sweat was now making his shirt stick to his chest.

  “You don’t like that? We can call them Paolo and Francesca, if you like. The essence remains the same.”

  He waited for Serravalle to say something, but since he didn’t open his mouth, Montalbano continued.

  “One day, Michela, in Vigàta, meets a famous violin soloist who has retired there. They take a liking to each other, and Michela tells him about an old violin she inherited from her great-grandfather. Just for fun, I think, she shows it to the Maestro, and he, upon seeing it, realizes
he’s in the presence of an instrument of tremendous value, both musically and monetarily. A couple of billion lire, at least. When Michela returns to Bologna, she tells her lover the whole story. If what the Maestro told her is true, they can easily sell the violin, since Michela’s husband hasn’t seen it but once or twice, and nobody is aware of its real value. All they have to do is replace it with any old violin, and Guido’s troubles will be over forever.”

  Montalbano stopped talking, drummed on the case with his fingers, and sighed.

  “Now comes the worst part,” he said.

  “Well,” said Serravalle, “you can tell me the rest another time.”

  “I could, but then I’d have to make you come back here from Bologna or else go there myself. Too much trouble. But since you’re polite enough to listen to me, even though you’re dying of the heat in here, I’ll explain to you why I consider this the worst part.”

  “Because you’ll have to talk about a murder?”

  Montalbano looked at the antiques dealer, mouth agape.

  “You think that’s why? No, I’m accustomed to murder. I consider it the worst part because I have to leave the realm of concrete fact and venture into a man’s mind, enter his thoughts. A novelist would have the road laid out in front of him, but I’m simply a reader of what I think are good books. Excuse me for digressing. At this point our protagonist gathers some information on the Maestro whom Michela spoke to him about. And he discovers that not only is he a great performer of international renown, but also a connoisseur of the history of the instrument he plays. In short, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance his hunch is right on target. There is no question, however, that, if left in Michela’s hands, the matter will take forever to settle. Not only, but she will want to sell the instrument, well, quietly, yes, but also legally. And of those two billion lire, after sundry expenses, commissions, and the workings of our government, which will swoop down from above like a highwayman, she’ll be left in the end with less than a billion. But there’s a shortcut. And our protagonist thinks about it day and night. He talks about it with a friend. This friend, whom we’ll call, say, Eolo . . .”

  It had gone well for him; conjecture had become certainty. As though struck by a large-caliber bullet, Serravalle abruptly stood up from his chair only to fall heavily back down in it. He undid the knot of his tie.

  “Yes, let’s call him Eolo. Eolo agrees with the protagonist that there’s only one way: eliminate the lady and seize the violin, replacing it with another of little value. Serravalle persuades him to give him a hand. Most importantly, theirs is a secret friendship, perhaps based on gambling, and Michela has never seen Eolo before. On the appointed day, they take the last flight out of Bologna together, changing at Rome for the connecting flight to Palermo. Now, Eolo Portinari—”

  Serravalle gave a start, but feebly, as when a dying man is shot a second time.

  “How silly of me, I gave him a last name! Anyway, Eolo Portinari is traveling without luggage, or almost, whereas Guido brings along a large suitcase. Aboard the plane, the two men pretend not to know each other. Shortly before flying out of Rome, Guido phones Michela, telling her he’s on his way down. He says he needs her and she should come pick him up at Punta Ràisi airport. Maybe he gets her to think he’s fleeing his creditors, who want to kill him. Landing in Palermo, Guido heads to Vigàta with Michela, while Eolo rents a car and also heads to Vigàta, though at a safe distance. During the drive, the protagonist probably tells his girlfriend that his life was in danger if he remained in Bologna. He’d come up with the idea of hiding out for a few days at Michela’s new house. Who would ever think of looking for him down there? The woman, happy to have her lover with her, accepts the idea. Before they get to Montelusa, she stops at a bar, buys two sandwiches and a bottle of mineral water. But as she’s doing this, she stumbles on a stair and falls, and Serravalle is seen by the owner of the bar. They arrive at Michela’s house after midnight. Michela immediately takes a shower and runs into her man’s arms. They make love once, and then her lover asks her if they can do it a special way. And at the end of this second coupling, he presses her face into the mattress, suffocating her. And do you know why he asked Michela to do it that way? No doubt they’d done it before, but at that moment, he didn’t want his victim to look at him as he was killing her. Right after he’s committed the murder, he hears a kind of moan outside, a muffled cry. He goes to the window and sees, in a tree right next to the house, illuminated by the light from the window, a Peeping Tom, or so he thinks, who has just witnessed the murder. Still naked, the protagonist rushes outside, grabbing some sort of weapon along the way, and strikes the stranger in the face with it, though the intruder manages to escape. But our protagonist hasn’t got a minute to lose. He gets dressed, opens up the display case, grabs the violin, and puts it in his suitcase. From this same suitcase he pulls out the cheap violin and puts this in the old violin’s case. A few minutes later, Eolo comes by in his car and the protagonist gets in. What they do next is of no importance. The following morning they’re at Punta Ràisi to take the first flight for Rome. Up to this point everything has gone well for our protagonist, who makes sure to keep track of developments by reading the Sicilian newspapers. Things begin to go even better when he learns that the murderer has been found and that he actually had enough time to admit his guilt before being killed in a gun battle. The protagonist realizes there’s no longer any need to wait before putting the violin up for sale on the black market, and so he turns it over to Eolo Portinari, who will try to make a deal. But then a new complication arises. The protagonist learns the case has been reopened. He jumps at the opportunity to go to the funeral and races down to Vigàta so he can talk to Michela’s friend Anna, the only friend he knows and the only person who might be able to tell him how things stand. After talking to her, he goes back to his hotel. And here he receives a phone call from Eolo: It turns out the violin is only worth a few hundred thousand lire. The protagonist realizes he’s fucked. He killed someone for nothing.”

  “Therefore,” said Serravalle, who was so drenched in sweat he looked as if he’d washed his face without drying it, “your protagonist stumbled into that tiny margin of error, that one percent, he’d granted the Maestro.”

  “When you’re unlucky at gambling . . .” was the inspector’s comment.

  “Something to drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Serravalle opened his minifridge, took out three little bottles of whisky, poured them straight into a glass without ice, and drank it all down in two gulps.

  “It’s an interesting story, Inspector. You suggested I give you my impressions at the end, and now, if you don’t mind, I’ll do just that. To begin. Your protagonist wouldn’t have been so stupid as to fly under his own name, would he?”

  Montalbano inched the boarding pass a little out of his jacket pocket, just enough for the other to see it.

  “No, Inspector, that’s useless. Assuming a boarding pass exists, it means nothing, even if the protagonist’s name is on it. Anyone can use it, since they don’t ask for ID. As for the encounter at the bar . . . You say it was night, and a matter of a few seconds. Admit it, any identification would be unreliable.”

  “Your reasoning holds,” said the inspector.

  “To continue. Let me offer a variant of your story. The protagonist mentions his girlfriend’s discovery to a man named Eolo Portinari, a two-bit hood. And Portinari comes to Vigàta on his own initiative and does everything you say your protagonist did. Portinari rents the car, using his driver’s licence, Portinari tries to sell the violin that so dazzled the Maestro, and Portinari rapes the woman, so the murder will look like a crime of passion.”

  “Without ejaculating?”

  “Of course! The semen would have made it easy to trace the DNA!”

  Montalbano raised two fingers, as if asking permission to go to the bathroom.

  “I’d like to say a couple of things about your observations. You’re
absolutely right. Proving the protagonist’s guilt will be long and arduous, but not impossible. Therefore, from this moment on, the protagonist will have two vicious dogs at his heels, his creditors and the police. The second thing is that the Maestro wasn’t wrong in his estimate of the violin’s value. It is indeed worth two billion lire.”

  “But just now . . .”

  Serravalle realized he was giving himself away and immediately fell silent. Montalbano went on as if he hadn’t heard.

  “My protagonist is very crafty. Just imagine, he keeps calling the hotel, asking for his girlfriend, even after he’s killed her. But there’s one detail he’s unaware of.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Look, the story’s so farfetched that I’ve half a mind not to tell you.”

  “Make an effort.”

  “I don’t feel like it. Oh, all right, just as a favor to you. My protagonist found out from Michela that the Maestro’s name is Cataldo Barbera, and he did a lot of research on him. Now, give the hotel operator a ring and ask him to call Maestro Barbera, whose number’s in the phone book. Tell him you’re calling on my behalf, and have him tell you the story himself.”

  Serravalle stood up, picked up the receiver, told the operator who he wanted to talk to. He remained on the line.

  “Hello? Is this Maestro Barbera?”

  As soon as the other replied, Serravalle hung up.

  “I’d rather hear you tell it.”

  “Okay. Michela brings the Maestro to her house in her car, late one evening. As soon as Cataldo Barbera sees the violin, he practically faints. Then he plays it, and there can be no more doubt: it’s a Guarneri. He talks about this with Michela, and tells her he wants to have it examined by a certified expert. At the same time he advises her not to leave the instrument in a seldom-inhabited house. So Michela entrusts the violin to the Maestro, who takes it home and in exchange gives her one of his violins to put in the case. The one which my protagonist, knowing nothing, proceeds to steal. Ah, I forgot: my protagonist, after killing the woman, also filches her bag with her jewels and Piaget watch inside. How does the expression go? Every little bit helps. He also makes off with her clothes and shoes, but this is merely to muddy the waters a little more and to thwart the DNA tests.”