The Other End of the Line

by Andrea Camilleri

  “All right, Inspector. We’ll be there in half an hour.”

  “Thank you so much, and please, when you get here, ask for Inspector Augello, who will be waiting to take your deposition. Thank you again. You’ve been very helpful,” said Montalbano, before hanging up.

  Then he rang Augello’s office.

  “Listen, Mimì, I’ve just now got a phone call from a guy named Mizzillis, whose wife has some important information concerning Trupia. I’m hoping it’s something that’ll help you corner him. They’ll be here in half an hour.”

  “Thanks, Salvo. You’re a real friend,” said Mimì.

  Montalbano stood up, circled around his desk three times, humming and hopping first on one foot, then on the other, before Fazio’s astonished eyes, which seemed to be saying: What a great big son of a bitch my boss is!

  “I’m gonna go home now,” said the inspector.

  “Okay,” said Fazio. “But I don’t want to miss this.”

  “That way you can tell me about it tomorrow.”

  16

  While heading home to Marinella, he suddenly felt terribly thirsty. He tried to produce a little saliva in his mouth, but it was like searching for water in a desert. He actually had trouble swallowing, and so the first thing he did when he went into his house was race into the kitchen.

  He opened the tap, filled a glass, downed it in one gulp, and then turned off the water. Or, more correctly, he closed the knob, but the water kept coming out. Apparently the gasket was stripped. So he opened the tap again and then reclosed it forcefully. The result was the opposite of the desired one. The flow of water increased. Matre santa! In half an hour’s time the kitchen was likely to be flooded. He went to close the main valve, then hurried back inside to look for the plumber’s phone number.

  He was sure he’d written it down in his little red address book.

  But where had he put the book?

  He started looking for it in the area around the telephone, then suddenly froze.

  The luminous snake that had been flashing in his brain every so often had returned, with the difference that this time the thought was no longer vague and confused, but in fact clear and precise.

  What a lamebrained dickh—well, let’s just say feebleminded old codger—he was! He’d completely forgotten to look for Elena’s address book!

  Not wanting to lose so much as one second of time, he put his jacket back on, checked to see whether he had the keys to Elena’s shop in the pocket, as well as his cell phone, and then, leaving all the lights on, drove off to Via Garibaldi.

  Given the hour and lack of traffic, he parked without difficulty, got out of the car, opened the front door, and climbed the stairs. He recalled that there were two phones there: one on a nightstand in the bedroom and the other on the small table in the corridor.

  He started with the bedroom. There was no address book. He opened the drawer of the nightstand and found a pair of women’s glasses, a book, a box of sleeping pills, and a handkerchief. He closed it and looked in the other nightstand. Nothing.

  He went back downstairs into the corridor and pulled out the little table. Not a trace of any address book. Just to be thorough, he opened the drawers of the big table in the workroom and rummaged through the scraps of fabric, but nothing doing.

  And so he sat down in the armchair to think.

  And his cogitations led him to a negative conclusion. Probably, as had become the custom with most people, Elena no longer wrote her telephone numbers down in an address book but merely registered them on her cell phone.

  For a moment he lost heart. Then he realized there was still one more chance, and he went back upstairs and sat down at the blue desk.

  He opened the first drawer on the left, pulled it all the way out, took it in both hands, and set it down before him. He began taking the papers out by the handful, and with the second load, something red slid out from the mass of papers and fell to the floor: It was a little daybook exactly like his. From three years earlier. He picked it up, opened it just a crack, and saw that it was densely filled with names and numbers. Closing it, he put it in his jacket pocket, put everything back in place, and headed home.

  He had unburdened himself, as Mizzillis might have said, of one worry.

  So pleased was he that he caught himself singing a little Beatles tune in broken English: Lov, lov mi du.

  * * *

  When he got home, he went to set Elena’s address book down near the phone, and since colors attract like to like, his little red book appeared on the shelf right in front of him.

  He wasted no time calling the plumber, and they planned for him to come the following morning around eleven, when Adelina would be there. The man also told him how to resolve the problem temporarily.

  He went into the kitchen, took a cork, and, using a knife, forcefully worked it into the mouth of the tap until it was snug. Then he took a rag and looped it under the cork, securing it with a tight knot. After reopening the main valve, he saw that the expedient held up.

  The unexpected rediscovery of his own address book triggered a wolflike hunger in him, and so, while he was at it, he went and had a look at what was in the refrigerator.

  And here he made a second discovery: rice sartù with fish, one of Adelina’s glorious inventions. He put it in the oven to warm, then went to see if the conditions were right for eating on the veranda. They were, and so he went about setting the table. When he figured the sartù was warm enough, he took it outside, sat down, heaved a long sigh of satisfaction, and started eating.

  Once he’d finished and cleared the table, he sat down in the armchair with Elena’s daybook in his lap. Then he decided it was best for him to call Livia first, so he wouldn’t be interrupted later.

  “Hi, Livia. Sorry, but I’ve only got a minute. A ship with seven hundred migrants is coming into port, a lot of them children and injured . . . I’ll be out all night.”

  “Poor Salvo, I’m so sorry! What a tragedy!”

  “I know, but it’s my job. Good night, Livia.”

  “Good night, my love.”

  He opened to the page with the letter A, and began looking at the names. Adamo, Salvatore, and number. Almirante, Rosalinda, who had three numbers: two land lines and one cell phone. There was also her home address.

  When he got to the letter N, he became convinced the book contained only Sicilian numbers and addresses: The exchanges were all from Montelusa, Catellonisetta, Palermo, Trapani, and so on.

  At the letter S, he was beginning to lose hope. There were only three names: Savatteri, Ernesto; Sirch, Nevia; and Siracusa, Valerio.

  As he was about to turn the page, he flipped back to it.

  Nevia Sirch.

  That was not a Sicilian name.

  There were two numbers, for a cell phone and a land line, as well as the address.

  Via Orta, 3, Bellosguardo.

  Then he remembered that Teresa had spoken to him about that very same town, which was in Udine province.

  So it wasn’t true that Elena had burned all the bridges to her past.

  He had a powerful urge he was unable to resist.

  He got up, went over to the telephone, and dialed the number.

  “Hello?”

  It was a woman’s voice, in a cadence so northern it was frightening.

  “Hello, who is this?” the woman repeated.

  Montalbano, to his surprise, didn’t know what to say and hung up.

  Then he had an idea and redialed the number.

  “Hello? Who is this?”

  “Then I guess they gave me the wrong number! This isn’t the home of Signor Siracusa, is it?”

  “No, I’m sorry, it’s not. This is the Sirch home.”

  “Sorry to bother you,” said Montalbano, ending the conversation. But he’d found out what he wanted to know. Nevia Sir
ch had not changed her phone number and was still in Bellosguardo.

  He reviewed in his mind the various commissariats and police bureaucracies in that region, but couldn’t think of any friends or acquaintances there.

  It was too late to come up with any more ideas concerning this Nevia. It was probably best to wait and talk it over with Fazio in the morning.

  He decided to go to bed, grabbing the first book that came to hand, and went into the bathroom. Afterwards, lying down, he opened the book and realized he’d brought with him the book of postal codes. Rather than get up again, he started reading it, amusing himself with the strange names certain Italian towns and villages had. Then he came to the towns with bridges: Ponte a Bozzone, Pontecuti, Ponte Este . . . and, little by little, his eyelids drooped and he fell asleep.

  * * *

  How long had he been asleep when the ringing of the telephone woke him up? He’d left the light on. He looked at the clock. It was two-thirty. Something huge must have happened at the docks. Cursing, he went to answer the phone, and from Augello’s tone of distress he realized that his prediction was not incorrect.

  “You’ll have to forgive me, Salvo, but you need to go to the station.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, as the migrants were disembarking, two women started shouting, and one pulled out a knife and severely wounded the other. All hell broke loose, Salvo, and I can’t really tell you about it now because the friends of the first woman then started brawling with the friends of the other one.”

  “And what’s the situation now?”

  “The injured woman has been taken to the hospital in Montelusa, and the others are all on the bus, ready to leave.”

  “So what the hell has any of this to do with me?”

  “It has to do with you because the knife assailant is at the station. So, if you want to leave her all night in the holding cell, that’s your business. And seeing that you were so ready and able to worry about Trupia, I thought it was best that I worry a little about you.”

  So Mimì had decided to even the score.

  Montalbano hung up without saying a word.

  He would go to the station, but this brought to mind a serious problem. After the kind of day they’d had, he just didn’t have the heart to wake up either Meriam or Dr. Osman.

  And so? How was he going to talk to this woman? He wasn’t. The only thing to do was to go back to sleep and to get to the station no later than seven-thirty the next morning, since Lillo Scotto would be coming in at nine.

  Before closing his eyes, he remembered Mimì’s words: Two women started shouting, and one pulled out a knife and severely wounded the other.

  He didn’t even feel like asking himself why these words had come back to him. There must be a reason, but he was too sleepy and in no condition to devote any thought to the matter.

  * * *

  The first thing Catarella did was hand him four sheets of paper.

  “Chief, ’a’ss evveryting I foun’ inna news inna newspapers, onna basis o’ wha’ ya tol’ me.”

  “Very well done,” said Montalbano, putting the pages in his jacket pocket. “Who’s on the premises?”

  “Fazio’s on ’em.”

  “Send him to me.”

  He sat down and took the pages out of his pocket. Three of the newspapers were from the north. Only one, the Giornale dell’Isola, was Sicilian, and it devoted some ten lines to Franco’s suicide. He took the time to read them. They were utterly generic and contained no new information.

  At this point Fazio walked in.

  “Why are you in so early today?”

  “Chief, Inspector Augello called me last night after talking to you and told me about the stabbing, and after that I wasn’t able to fall asleep.”

  “Okay,” said Montalbano. “I’m going to call Osman now, because I’ll need him if I’m going to question this woman.”

  “Already taken care of,” said Fazio.

  Montalbano could barely keep from flying across the desk and grabbing his assistant by the throat. Instead, he faked a coughing fit, to calm himself down.

  “What does that mean, ‘already taken care of’?” he asked.

  “It means that this morning I looked through the peephole at this woman, and she was sitting there crying desperately. So I opened the door and comforted her, and since she spoke Italian, I questioned her. She said that the other woman had tried to steal a piece of bread from her three-year-old son. First on the barge, a second time on the motorboat, and a third time when they were disembarking onto the dock. At that point she lost her head and grabbed her knife.”

  Montalbano sat there for a moment in silence. Then he asked:

  “Do you have any news of the woman who was sent to the hospital?”

  “Yeah, Chief. She’s out of danger.”

  “All right, then, let’s do this: In half an hour, at the most, you call the prosecutor, explain the situation to him, and throw everything into his lap. I have other things to worry about. When Lillo Scotto gets here, I want you back in my office to make a written record of the interrogation.”

  “Okay, Chief,” said Fazio, going out.

  A short while later Montalbano stood up, crossed the hall, and went and had a look at the woman through the peephole, as Fazio had done.

  She was a poor woman of about thirty, tiny and wearing a long skirt, a kerchief round her head, and a sort of shapeless sweater full of holes that must at one time have been green in color.

  Closing the spy hole, he went back into his office and rang Dr. Pasquano.

  “Good morning, Doctor.”

  Pasquano recognized his voice at once.

  “Good morning, my ass! What the hell’s going through your head to think of calling at this hour?”

  “What happened? Did you lose at poker last night?”

  “None of your fucking business. What do you want to know?”

  “I would like to know whether a woman armed with a pair of scissors is capable of killing another woman.”

  “If the woman is as big a ballbuster as you are, then why not? Rage and hatred multiply anyone’s strength, which is something you surely knew when you were young but have now forgotten, since old age is erasing your memory. And on that note, good-bye.”

  This changed the situation entirely. It was possible he now had to change the gender of the word and consider the murderer a murderess.

  He resumed reading the papers. Two articles were from the Gazzettino, but published five days apart.

  The first one reported the news of the mysterious death of Franco Guida, a promising young figure in the Italian fashion world, whose body had been found in the river near Bellosguardo with the hands bound by a scarf. This immediately led people to presume foul play, but the police came to a different conclusion, which was that the young man had tied his own hands together to prevent himself from trying to swim, as Teresa had said.

  The second article basically reported the findings of the autopsy, which were that before throwing himself into the river, Franco had numbed himself with enough sedatives to kill him all by themselves. The police therefore concluded that this result confirmed the fact that he’d bound his own hands—in other words, that Franco had done everything possible to make sure he would die.

  The third newspaper more or less hewed to the conclusion of the Gazzettino, adding one notable detail. The article’s author had managed to speak with the widow, who admitted that on the evening of his death, Franco had left the house after quarreling fiercely with her. But the woman did not wish, under any circumstances, to reveal the reason for their quarrel.

  There was a knock at the door. Fazio came in.

  “All taken care of. The paddy wagon’s on the way to transfer the woman to Montelusa prison.”

  “To the prison? Lately our esteemed national prisons don
’t confine anyone but these poor wretches anymore!”

  “Yeah, Chief, but we’re talking about attempted murder.”

  “Of course, Fazio, but attempted murder spurred by hunger and despair. Do you ever wonder where the people are who send these wretches to their deaths on these ships? They’re all in the European Union, dictating guidelines on immigration while chowing down on our local fillet of sole!”

  Fazio fell silent.

  The telephone rang.

  “’At’d be the Scottatis onna premisses, mutter an’ son.”

  “Please show them in.”

  An odd procession entered in single file. The first to appear in the door was Lillo, who could barely stand on his own two feet; followed by his mother, who was holding him up by the shoulders from behind, practically pushing him; with Catarella bringing up the rear, also propping up the lady, who was clearly teetering, his hands on her hips.

  Fazio shot to his feet and, to prevent the little train from derailing, grabbed Lillo and sat him down in the chair opposite Montalbano’s desk.

  Catarella led Lillo’s mother to the other chair.

  Catarella then left, closing the door behind him.

  * * *

  Montalbano was struck by the fact that Lillo’s face didn’t look as boyish as he’d remembered it.

  The young man’s wrists were bandaged, and he looked like a ghost.

  He spoke first.

  “I didn’t kill Signora Elena,” he said.

  “He didn’t do it! He didn’t do it!” the mother cut in loudly. “I can swear it on my mother’s grave. He was in his room all evening on that awful night!”

  “Please calm down. So far nobody has leveled any accusations against your son. Did you receive any phone calls or visits that evening from anyone outside the family?”

  “We sure did!” the woman said at once. “For the last week or more, once he got off work, Lillo would just shut himself up in his room, and didn’t even want to eat or sleep or watch TV with the rest of us. And so round about eleven o’clock on the terrible night that Signora Elena was killed, he got so agitated, so nervous, so strange—and it was like he could feel wha’ was happening at Elena’s—that I called Dr. Camilleri and told him to give him something to make him feel a little better.”