A Voice in the Night Read online

  Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  Author’s Note

  Notes

  ONE

  He woke up at exactly six-thirty a.m., rested, fresh, and perfectly lucid.

  He got up, went and opened the shutters, and looked outside.

  Calm sea, flat as a table, and a clear sky, blue with a few small white clouds, that looked as if it had been painted by a Sunday painter and put there as decoration. A decidedly anonymous day, but he liked it precisely because of its lack of character.

  For there are certain days that from the first light of dawn impose their strong personalities on you, and you have no choice but to bend down, submit, and put up.

  He went back to bed. There was nothing to do at the office, and so he might as well take it easy.

  Had he dreamed?

  He’d read in a magazine that one always dreams, and that even when we think we haven’t, it’s because in waking up we forget what we’ve dreamed.

  And perhaps this loss of dream memory was also due to age. In fact, at one point in his life, the moment he opened his eyes his dreams of the night would come rushing back to him and he could watch them unfold in sequence like movies. Then he had to make an effort to remember them. Whereas now he just forgot them, and that was that.

  His sleep of late had become like diving into a pitch-black mass, deprived of his senses and brain. For all practical purposes, he became a corpse.

  So what did this mean?

  That each time he woke up he should consider it a resurrection?

  A resurrection which, in his own case, featured not the sounding of the trumpets but, 99 per cent of the time, the voice of Catarella?

  But are we sure that trumpets have anything to do with the Resurrection?

  Or are they only supposed to accompany the Last Judgement?

  There: was it, at that very moment, the trumpets sounding or the telephone ringing?

  He looked at the clock, undecided whether to go and answer the phone or not. It was seven a.m.

  He went to pick it up.

  But at the very moment his right hand was about to land on the receiver, his left hand, of its own initiative, reached down for the plug and pulled it out of the wall. Montalbano stood there a moment, speechless, just looking at it. Sure, he didn’t feel like hearing Catarella’s voice reporting the daily murder, but was that any way for a hand to behave? How do you explain such an act of independence? Could it be that as old age approached, his limbs were gaining a certain autonomy?

  If so, even walking would soon become a problem, with one foot wanting to go in one direction and the other in another.

  He opened the French windows, went out onto the veranda, and noticed that the usual morning fisherman, Mr Puccio, had already returned and had just finished pulling his boat ashore.

  The inspector went down to the beach just as he was, in his underpants.

  ‘How’d it go?’

  ‘My dear Inspector, the fish have all taken to the open seas by now. The water just offshore is too polluted with all our crap. So I didn’t catch much.’

  He thrust a hand into his boat and pulled out an octopus over two feet long.

  ‘Here, this is for you.’

  It was a big octopus, enough for four people.

  ‘No thanks. What am I supposed to do with that?’

  ‘What are you supposed to do with it? Eat it, that’s what, and think of me. All you got to do is boil it for a long time. But first you got to tell your housekeeper to beat it with a cane to soften it up.’

  ‘Listen, I really appreciate it, but—’

  ‘Just take it,’ Mr Puccio insisted.

  Montalbano took it and headed back towards the veranda.

  Halfway there, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his left foot. The octopus, which he was having trouble grasping, slipped out of his hands and fell onto the sand. Cursing the saints, Montalbano raised his leg and looked at his foot.

  He had a cut on the sole, and it was bleeding. He’d stepped on the top of a rusty tin of tomatoes that some stinking son of a whore had left on the ground.

  Of course the fish stayed away! By now the beaches had become the branch offices of the waste-disposal companies, and the coasts were all sewage outlets.

  He bent down, picked up the octopus, and started running, with a pronounced limp, towards the house. He’d had his tetanus booster, but still it was best to be safe.

  He headed to the kitchen and dumped the octopus into the sink, turning on the water to rinse it of all the sand that had stuck to its skin when he dropped it. Then he threw open the shutters, went into the bathroom, and disinfected the cut for a long time with alcohol, swearing in pain. Then he put a large plaster over it.

  Now he urgently needed a coffee.

  As he was preparing the espresso pot in the kitchen, he started feeling a strange apprehension that he couldn’t explain.

  He slowed down his movements to try and work out what was bothering him.

  And he suddenly became aware of something: that two eyes were fixed firmly on him.

  There was someone staring at him from outside the kitchen window. Someone standing there silently, without speaking, who therefore surely didn’t have the best of intentions.

  What to do?

  The first thing was not to let them know that he’d noticed. Whistling the Merry Widow waltz, he went and lit the gas ring and put the coffeepot on the flame. He could still feel the strange eyes on the back of his neck like shotgun barrels.

  He was too experienced not to realize that a hard stare like that, so still and menacing, could only come from a profound hatred. It was the stare of someone who wanted him dead.

  He felt the skin under his moustache moisten with sweat.

  Slowly his right hand reached for a large kitchen knife and gripped the handle tight.

  If the man outside the window had a gun, he would shoot the moment Montalbano turned around.

  But he had no choice.

  He turned around abruptly and at the same time threw himself flat on the floor. It hurt, and the thud of his fall made the pane on the sideboard and the glasses inside tinkle.

  But no shot was fired because there was nobody outside the window.

  This, however, meant nothing, the inspector reasoned, because it was also possible that the man had very quick reflexes and had stepped out of his range of vision as soon as he’d seen Montalbano turn around. Now he was absolutely certain that the guy was crouching under the window, waiting for him to make the first move.

  He noticed that his body, now sweating all over, was sticking to the floor.

  He started to get up slowly, eyes fixed on the square of sky between the shutters, ready to spring against his enemy and fly straight out of the window, the way cops in American movies do.

  At last he was on his feet when a sudden noise behind him made him start like a skittish horse. Then he realized it was just the coffee bubbling up.

  He took a quick step forward and to the right.

  And in this way the far edge of the sink came into his field of vision.

  His blood ran suddenly cold.

  Clutching the slab of marble beside the sink with its tentacles was the octopus, perfectly still, eyes fixed menacingly on him.

  But there was no battle.

  Montalbano cried out in terror, jumpe
d backwards, and crashed against the stove, upsetting the espresso pot, which spilled four or five burning drops of coffee onto his back and sent him running out of the kitchen, still screaming like a madman, and through the hallway in the grips of an uncontrollable terror to the front door, which he opened to race out of the house, when he crashed into Adelina, who was on her way in. They both fell to the ground yelling, Adelina more frightened than he was, to see him so frightened.

  ‘Wha’ss happenin’, Isspector? Wha’ss goin’ on?’

  He was unable to answer. He couldn’t say a word.

  Still lying on the ground, he was in the clutches of a laughing fit that brought tears to his eyes.

  His housekeeper wasted no time grabbing the octopus and killing it with a few mallet blows to the head.

  Montalbano had a shower and then subjected himself to Adelina’s medical ministrations to the burn marks on his back. Then he drank a cup of coffee from a newly brewed pot and got ready to go out.

  ‘Wha’ should I do, plugga tiliphone becka in?’ Adelina asked him.

  ‘Yes.’

  The telephone rang at once. He went to pick it up. It was Livia.

  ‘Why didn’t you answer earlier?’ was her opening salvo.

  ‘Earlier when?’

  ‘Earlier.’

  Matre santa, the patience you had to have with that woman!

  ‘Could you please tell me at what time you called?’

  ‘Around seven.’

  He was worried. Why had she called so early? Had something happened? ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  Shit, what a dialogue!

  ‘Why did you call me so early?’

  ‘Because this morning, the moment I opened my eyes, you were the first thing that came into my mind.’

  For reasons unknown, Montalbano’s quibbling reflex kicked into action, which risked creating unpleasant consequences.

  ‘In other words,’ he replied coldly, ‘there are days when I am not the first thing that comes into your mind.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’

  ‘No, no, I think this is interesting. What is in fact the first thing that comes into your mind when you wake up?’

  ‘Excuse me, Salvo, but what if I asked you the same thing?’ But Livia was in no mood to quarrel and continued: ‘Don’t be silly. Have a good one.’

  Montalbano plunged at once into a state of anguish. He’d always been hopeless with dates, holidays, birthdays, name days, anniversaries, and similar drudgeries, and always forgot them. There was nothing doing. Dense fog.

  Then, suddenly, a light went on in his head: it must be the umpteenth anniversary of their time together. How long had they been together?

  Soon they could celebrate their silver anniversary of being together, if such a thing even existed.

  ‘You too,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean, me too?’

  From Livia’s answer he knew he’d made a mistake. What a tremendous pain in the arse!

  It must therefore be something that concerned him poissonally in poisson. But what?

  Better just bow out gracefully, with a generic thank-you.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  Livia started laughing.

  ‘Oh, no you don’t, my friend! You only said “thanks” to end the discussion! Whereas I bet you don’t even remember what day it is today!’

  It was true. He didn’t.

  Luckily the previous day’s newspaper was on the table. Craning his neck, he managed to read the date: 5 September.

  ‘Livia, I think you’re going a little overboard! Today is the sixth . . .’

  A blinding flash.

  ‘My birthday!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘See what it took to get you to remember that today is your fifty-eighth birthday? Were you trying to repress it?’

  ‘What do you mean, my fifty-eighth?’

  ‘Salvo, I’m sorry, but weren’t you born in 1950?’

  ‘That’s exactly right. Today I finish my fifty-seventh year on earth and enter the fifty-eighth, which I have yet to use up. I’ve still got twelve months ahead of me, minus a few hours, to be exact.’

  ‘You have a strange way of counting.’

  ‘Look, Livia, it was you who taught me to count that way!’

  ‘It was?!’

  ‘Oh, yes, it was your fortieth birthday, and I—’

  ‘You’re such a boor,’ said Livia.

  And she hung up.

  Good God! Another two years and he would be sixty!

  From that moment on, he was going to stop taking public transport, for fear that some young person might give him his seat upon seeing him.

  Then it occurred to him that he could keep taking public transport without any worry, since the custom of giving up one’s seat to the elderly had fallen out of use.

  Nowadays there was no more respect for the elderly. They were roundly scorned and insulted, as if those who scorned and insulted them weren’t themselves going to grow old one day.

  But why was he thinking such things, anyway? Maybe because he felt that he now belonged to the category of the elderly?

  His mood darkened.

  *

  After he’d been cruising a while on the provincial road at his usual speed, a car behind him started honking its horn to pass.

  At that point the road surface narrowed because there was work in progress. In any case, he was going fifty kilometres an hour, which was the speed limit, since they were still within the Vigàta city boundary.

  Therefore he didn’t move an inch.

  The car behind him started honking wildly; then, with a sort of roar, it pulled up beside him, practically side-swiping his car. What was this idiot trying to do, run him off the road?

  The driver, who looked about thirty, leaned towards Montalbano’s side and yelled:

  ‘Get yourself to a nursing home, granddad!’

  And, not satisfied with this, he grabbed a big monkey wrench and brandished it at the inspector, saying:

  ‘I’m going to beat your brains out with this, you walking corpse!’

  Montalbano couldn’t react in any way; he was too busy trying to keep his car on the road.

  A second later the young man’s car, a powerful BMW, leapt forward and vanished in an instant, recklessly passing the entire queue ahead of him.

  Montalbano wished him a happy flight into the nearest ravine. And for good measure, he wished him a nice little fire when his car hit the bottom.

  But what had happened to people in this country? In the last few years they seemed to have regressed centuries. Maybe if you took their clothes off, underneath you would find the sheepskins that primitive man used to wear.

  Why so much mutual intolerance? Why was it that nobody could any longer stand his neighbour, his co-worker, or even his schoolmate?

  *

  Past the last houses at the edge of town, there was a rather large petrol station. The inspector noticed the BMW stopped there, filling up. He decided to keep on going; he didn’t need refuelling yet. But then he changed his mind. Resentment got the better of him, and the desire to make the guy pay for his actions.

  He accelerated, pulled into the station, and came to a halt with the nose of his car almost resting on that of the BMW. The young man paid and then started his car. But he couldn’t move, because Montalbano’s car was blocking him. Nor could he reverse, because in the meantime another car had come in behind him and was awaiting its turn at the pump.

  The young man honked his horn and gestured to Montalbano to move.

  The inspector pretended that his car wouldn’t start.

  ‘Tell him I have to get out!’ the young man yelled to the station attendant.

  But the attendant had recognized the inspector, who among other things was a regular customer, and so he pretended he hadn’t heard, took the pump, and went to serve the other motorist.

  Wild with rage and foaming at the mouth, the young man got out and came towards Montalbano with the monkey wre
nch in his hand. He raised it in the air and then brought it down with all his might.

  ‘I told you I was going to get you!’

  But instead of Montalbano’s brains, what he broke was the glass on the driver’s side of his car. The young guy raised his arm again and then froze.

  Inside the car, the inspector was sitting in the driver’s seat, calmly pointing his gun at him.

  *

  Officer Gallo, having been summoned by the station attendant, arrived some ten minutes later. He handcuffed the young man and made him sit in the patrol car.

  ‘Put him in a holding cell. And make him do a breathalyser and the other tests,’ said the inspector.

  Gallo was off like a rocket. He enjoyed driving fast.

  *

  When Montalbano got to headquarters, Catarella, as always happened on that day of the year, rushed up to him with his hand outstretched and in an emotional state.

  ‘My virry best wishes wit’ all my ’eart for a rilly rilly long life an’ alla ’appiness an’ ’ealtiness inna world, Chief!’

  Montalbano first shook his hand and then, out of a sudden impulse, hugged him to his chest. Catarella started crying.

  Three minutes later he was sitting in his office when Fazio came in.

  ‘My very best wishes to you, Chief, and on behalf of the whole department,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks. Have a seat.’

  ‘I can’t, Chief. I have to go join Inspector Augello, who also told me to give you his best wishes. He’s in Piano Lanterna.’

  ‘What’s he doing there?’

  ‘A supermarket was burgled there last night.’

  ‘What’d they steal, a few boxes of detergent?’

  ‘No, Chief. They stole the day’s revenues, a pretty good amount.’

  ‘But aren’t each day’s proceeds taken to the bank in the evening?’

  ‘Yes, but not yesterday.’

  ‘OK, go, I’ll see you later.’

  ‘If you don’t have anything better to do, I’ll bring you some papers to sign.’

  No, no signing! Not on his birthday!

  ‘Let’s do it another day.’

  ‘But, Chief, some of those papers go back a whole month!’

  ‘Has anyone made any noise about it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what’s the hurry? One day more, one day less isn’t going to make any difference.’

  ‘Chief, if the Minister for Bureaucratic Reform ever finds out, there’ll be hell to pay.’