Game of Mirrors

by Andrea Camilleri

  The moment he got home, he felt an overwhelming need to take a shower. He also thought he’d been wearing the same suit for too many days and it was time to have it cleaned and pressed.

  And so he removed all the sheets and scraps of paper he found in his jacket pockets—there were even some rolled up in the inside breast pocket—and set them all down on the dining room table. Then he went into the bathroom, took a long shower, put on just a pair of underpants, opened the armoire, pulled out a clean suit, and put it on the chair beside the bed.

  And since it was hot—not quite as hot as the previous days but still hot—he decided not to put any more clothes on. After all, he wasn’t expecting any visitors, and it was unlikely anyone would be passing by on the beach when he sat down on the veranda to eat.

  But before setting the table, he decided to look at the papers he’d taken out of his pockets. It was a sort of weekly chore he did, and it was almost certain that, as had happened so many times before, at least half of those papers and scraps would end up in the wastebasket, and many others would have no more meaning for him.

  He pulled up a chair and sat down. On the first piece of paper that his gaze fell upon, there were a couple of words and a number. Droop to 165. He felt bewildered. What on earth was that supposed to mean? The handwriting was his, no doubt about it.

  Why had he felt the need to write down such an incomprehensible phrase? And what did the number 165 mean?

  At that moment the phone rang. It was Livia.

  “I’m calling you now because later I’m going to the movies with a friend.”

  “Have fun,” he said gruffly.

  “What’s with you?”

  Droop to 165, that’s what.

  “Nothing. I’m irritated because I was going through my papers and I found a note that I’m unable to decipher.”

  “Can I be of help?”

  “How?”

  “Well, you could read it to me, for starters.”

  “Droop to one sixty-five.”

  Livia laughed. Montalbano got upset.

  “I’d like to know what’s so funny!”

  “It’s not ‘droop,’ silly!”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because we talked about it the other night.”

  Montalbano was incredulous.

  “You and I talked the other night about drooping—”

  “No! The word isn’t ‘droop.’ I think you meant to write ‘drop.’”

  She was right. Now he remembered everything. Livia had told him that his body mass index was such and such, that he should therefore eat less and bring his weight down to 165, and he must have distractedly made a note of it.

  They chatted for another five minutes, then said good night. Montalbano went back to looking at his papers.

  He picked up a small scrap.

  Suzuki GK 225 RT.

  He very nearly fell out of his chair. This was the license plate number of Liliana’s car, which the mechanic had given to him.

  He started frantically searching through all the scraps of paper until he found the note with the license plate numbers Japico Indelicato had given him. According to Indelicato, the number of the smaller car, the one that had been torched, was 225. The exact same number the mechanic had given him.

  This was the thought that had been tormenting him on his way back from Spinoccia and he hadn’t been able to bring it into focus.

  It was 99 percent certain that the burnt car was Liliana’s.

  He grabbed the telephone and called Fazio.

  “Send me Gallo with the car, would you?”

  He didn’t feel like driving at night over that treacherous dirt road.

  He leapt to his feet, got dressed in a hurry—shirt, jeans, and jacket.

  Gallo arrived half an hour later.

  You could see the glow of the floodlights from afar. They made a luminous aura in the sky.

  They were all still there on the premisses, as Catarella would have said. Apparently the people with the generator had only just shown up.

  Fazio came running up to the inspector.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “It’s possible the torched car is Liliana’s.”

  The inspector showed him the two scraps of paper and explained everything.

  “Have they pulled the body out yet?”

  “No. Forensics hasn’t finished taking samples. The prosecutor gave permission to remove it and then left.”

  “Is Dr. Pasquano here?”

  “He’s locked up inside his car. He’s furious because he lost at poker again.”

  “Listen, I don’t want to have anything to do with Arquà. See if you can find out whether the car is a Suzuki.”

  He waited for Fazio to finish talking with the chief of Forensics, then steeled his nerves and headed over to Dr. Pasquano’s car.

  Despite the heat, the doctor had all the windows up and was immersed in a dense cloud of smoke.

  Montalbano tapped on the car door. Pasquano looked up, recognized him, and then articulated quite clearly:

  “Do-not-bust-my-balls!”

  “Just one minute!”

  The doctor opened the door and got out of the car.

  “I was told you’d gone home, and so I breathed a sigh of relief. But no! Here he is again, the good inspector, back to singe my short and curlies!”

  “Have you had a look at the body?”

  “You call that thing a body? It’s just a piece of charcoal! I’d like to see you identify it!”

  “I might be of some help.”

  “How? By telling me the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves?”

  “No, by telling you I think I know who it is.”

  “Oh, really? Then please do enlighten me with the fruit of your elucubrations, though I have my doubts, given the deteriorating state of your brain due to your advanced age.”

  Montalbano let the provocation slide.

  “It’s probably a youth not much more than twenty years old, and I know his name, address, and family.”

  “What the hell do I care about his family?”

  “I was just telling you, to save time. In case we need to resort to DNA testing to identify him.”

  “Jesus, how well spoken you are tonight! I’m glad.”

  At that moment some sort of nurse came over to Pasquano.

  “Doctor, we can take the body out now, if that’s all right with you,” the person said.

  Pasquano walked away with the nurse without saying anything to Montalbano, who headed over to the squad car. Fazio pulled up beside him.

  “Arquà says it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that it’s a Suzuki. But he needs to check some other things.”

  “I’m convinced of it. Just as I’m convinced that the charred body in there is Arturo Tallarita.”

  “I’m of the same opinion.”

  “Things didn’t go the way you and I had thought,” said the inspector. “Liliana may have wanted to reach her husband, but she didn’t make it; they intercepted her first.”

  “Apparently they were keeping an eye on her,” said Fazio.

  “Yeah. And if they burned the kid alive, that means they’d kept him prisoner for a few days. Maybe even together with Liliana, who we now know—assuming she’s still alive—is in the hands of the people who shot at her.”

  “But what do you think this all means?”

  “If we forget Arturo Tallarita for just a moment—since I think he’s a case entirely apart, though I may be wrong—what we’re seeing is the extreme pressure these people are putting on Adriano Lombardo through his wife.”

  “And what might they hope to gain?”

  “For him either to do or not do something.”

  “And what could that be?”
>
  Montalbano threw his hands up.

  “I’m totally in the dark. But I do think I’m beginning to understand a few things.”

  “Shall I have someone take you home?” Fazio asked.

  “No, I’ll go and wait in the car till you’re done.”

  They didn’t finish until two in the morning.

  15

  Between one thing and another he managed to get to bed by quarter past three, and as soon as he closed his eyes, he passed out as if he’d been clubbed in the head, sinking into a fathomless sleep, an utter nothingness of total darkness and sidereal silence.

  Then, after a little while, inside that nothingness, a constant, annoying sound, sort of like a drill, began to bore its way into his mind, starting at first very far away, then becoming gradually louder and louder.

  At a certain point it grew so shrill and close that it became unbearable and woke him up.

  But when he opened his eyes, the sound, instead of vanishing, as happens with dreams, was still there, as insistent as ever.

  He turned on the light and looked at his watch. Four o’clock. He’d slept a scant forty-five minutes.

  He felt completely addled, lacking the coordinates for orienting himself in time and space, still half blanketed under the cloak of sleep, and it wasn’t until the irritating sound stopped that he was able to realize that what had woken him up was a siren.

  He waited for someone to ring the doorbell, convinced that it was Gallo coming to pick him up because something big had happened.

  But no one rang.

  He got up and went to open the French door that gave onto the veranda.

  To the left, the beach looked like it was moving, undulating, and this was because it was lit up by a great heaving blaze that could only be coming from the Lombardos’ house.

  This was all he could see from where he was standing, but it was enough to tell him that their house was going up in flames.

  He dashed into the bedroom, put his jeans and shirt back on, and opened his front door.

  Now he could see the flashing red lights of the fire trucks and cars and heard frantic voices shouting commands.

  He rushed over.

  Though he was sure he was awake, he felt as if he were still dreaming. The flashing lights, the shadows of the firemen, the silhouettes of the cars made the whole thing seem sort of artificial, rather like a film set.

  He felt as if he were running in slow motion.

  “I’m Inspector Montalbano. I live in the house next door,” he said to a fire sergeant. “What’s going on?”

  The guy must have recognized him.

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “Good morning, Inspector. We were alerted by someone driving by on the main road who thought he saw the beginnings of a fire in this house. It took us only twenty minutes to get here from Montelusa. The part that’s in flames is on the side by the sea.”

  Montalbano knew that about fifty yards ahead there was a passage that gave access to the beach. He covered the distance at a run, then turned around and started walking back across the sand towards the Lombardo house.

  When he got there, he saw that the fire, which had consumed the veranda and also set upon the French door, was already dying down, thanks to the powerful jets of water from the fire hoses.

  The sergeant he’d spoken to earlier came up to him.

  “We were lucky to get here in time. If not for the phone call, the whole house would have burned down.”

  A question occurred to Montalbano.

  “Did the person give his name?”

  “No, they wanted to remain anonymous.”

  Anybody’s guess why.

  “Do you know if there was anyone in the house?” the fireman asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Still, it’s always better to check.”

  “Antò, could you come over here a minute?” one of the firemen rummaging through the debris of the veranda called out to the sergeant.

  The two chattered a bit in low voices.

  The fireman was folding some strange, unidentifiable object. Then the sergeant turned to the inspector.

  “It looks like arson,” he said. “My colleague found the remains of a jerry can of gasoline.”

  Montalbano had already thought of that scenario. But what could it mean?

  “I’m going to have them remove the French door, which is still burning, and then go inside,” said the fire sergeant.

  “May I come with you?”

  The question had come out before he knew it.

  “If you wish . . .”

  They got going. The lights didn’t work; there’d probably been a short circuit. The fire sergeant asked for a large flashlight and they went in.

  The dining room was full of dense, viscous smoke that had turned all the surfaces black.

  Same in the hallway. The door to the extra room was locked. The fire sergeant opened it with a sort of passe-partout he kept in his belt. In this room there was hardly any smoke, and the bed, wardrobe, and shelves with computers remained relatively clean.

  They headed for the bedroom, the sergeant leading the way with the flashlight and the inspector following behind.

  When he reached the doorway, the fire sergeant did two things in rapid succession: he first gave a stifled cry and then leapt backwards, the flashlight falling from his hands and going out.

  Montalbano, also reeling backwards as the sergeant’s body collided with his, didn’t understand what was happening.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “There’s somebody on the bed,” the sergeant said, bending down to look for the flashlight.

  Montalbano froze. Who could it be?

  Could it be Lombardo, holed up in his house the whole time everyone was searching for him over land and sea?

  Was he asleep?

  And why hadn’t he woken up with all the mayhem around him?

  At last the fire sergeant found his flashlight and lit up the room.

  Liliana’s naked body lay facedown across soot-blackened sheets partly stained red with the blood that had clearly come from her slit throat.

  The wound wasn’t visible, but it was clear they had slashed her throat.

  Her clothes lay on a chair near the bed.

  Montalbano stood stock-still, a high-tension current running up his spine.

  He couldn’t make any connections; only dribs and drabs of ideas raced through his head. One train of thought would break off all of a sudden, followed by another even more short-lived.

  “I’d better call this in,” the fire sergeant said with a quavering voice.

  “I’ll join you in a minute,” said the inspector. “Leave me the flashlight.”

  He wanted to check whether his impression had been correct. He went up to the bed and touched the sheet. The blood on it was still wet.

  Liliana had been murdered that same night.

  But why had they brought her home to kill her? And if one thing was certain, it was that they’d set fire to the house so the body would be discovered immediately.

  And the anonymous caller who’d phoned the fire department was the same person who’d set the house on fire. He’d wanted to make sure the body wasn’t destroyed by the flames.

  Montalbano went back to his house, quickly washed himself, got dressed again, in his best clothes, grabbed his cigarettes, and started smoking outside his front door while waiting for his men to come and pick him up.

  Liliana’s murder hadn’t surprised him. Actually, he’d thought they’d done away with her some time ago.

  But seeing her butchered on the bed like that had unleashed a great swell of melancholy in him that he was unable to shake off.

  His men’s car, with Gallo at the wheel accompanied by Fazio, didn’t stop at the Lombardos’ house bu
t went on until it pulled up right in front of him. At his feet were a good ten crushed cigarette butts.

  Fazio rushed out of the car.

  “I didn’t really understand,” he said. “Who was it that was killed?”

  “Liliana,” said the inspector. “They slit her throat.”

  Fazio gave a start. Then he lowered his voice.

  “But she wasn’t there yesterday!”

  “Well, she’s there now.”

  “But why?”

  Montalbano changed the subject.

  “Have you alerted everyone?”

  “Yessir. You wouldn’t believe the cursing. They’d all just got back home and undressed before they had to get dressed again and go back out.”

  “Listen. I’m gonna stay here,” said Montalbano. “If you need me, just call.”

  “You don’t want to be present?”

  “Are you kidding? With a beautiful dead woman before his eyes, and naked to boot, Prosecutor Tommaseo’s gonna go nuts! He’ll ask me ten thousand questions! Don’t forget, he also saw the footage of the failed scoop.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “Oh, and one thing. When he’s done, I want to talk to Pasquano. Try to talk him into coming over here to see me. Tell him I’ll make him a cup of good coffee.”

  After some two hours sitting out on the veranda and drinking two mugfuls of coffee, he heard a knock at the door. It was Pasquano.

  The doctor came in muttering to himself.

  “I’m warning you that even if they kill half of Vigàta over the course of the day, I’m not setting foot out of my house!” Then, looking at the inspector askance, he threatened: “And I truly hope, for your own good, that the coffee you promised me is excellent.”

  “I made it just now.”

  Montalbano sat him down on the veranda.

  “My compliments,” said Pasquano. “You have a lovely house.” Then he added: “And you used to have a lovely neighbor.”

  Montalbano went on the offensive:

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  The doctor gave him an indignant look.

  “And you think you can buy me with a barely drinkable cup of coffee?”