The Potter's Field Read online

  Table of Contents

  A PENGUIN MYSTERY

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Author’s Note

  Notes

  Also by Andrea Camilleri

  Praise for Andrea Camilleri and the Montalbano Series

  “There’s a deliciously playful quality to the mysteries Andrea Camilleri writes about a lusty Sicilian police detective named Salvo Montalbano.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “The books are full of sharp, precise characterizations and with subplots that make Montalbano endearingly human.... Like the antipasti that Montalbano contentedly consumes, the stories are light and easily consumed, leaving one eager for the next course.”

  —New York Journal of Books

  “This series is distinguished by Camilleri’s remarkable feel for tragicomedy, expertly mixing light and dark in the course of producing novels that are both comforting and disturbing.”

  —Booklist

  “The novels of Andrea Camilleri breathe out the sense of place, the sense of humor, and the sense of despair that fills the air of Sicily.”

  —Donna Leon

  “Hailing from the land of Umberto Eco and La Cosa Nostra, Montalbano can discuss a pointy-headed book like Western Attitudes Towards Death as unflinchingly as he can pore over crime-scene snuff photos. He throws together an extemporaneous lunch . . . as gracefully as he dodges advances from attractive women.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “In Sicily, where people do things as they please, Inspector Montalbano is a bona fide folk hero.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Sublime and darkly humorous . . . Camilleri balances his hero’s personal and professional challenges perfectly and leaves the reader eager for more.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Camilleri is as crafty and charming a writer as his protagonist is an investigator.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Montalbano is a delightful creation, an honest man on Sicily’s mean streets.”

  —USA Today

  “Camilleri can do a character’s whole backstory in half a paragraph.”

  —The New Yorker

  “The humor and humanity of Montalbano make him an equally winning lead character.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Camilleri’s sure hand with tragicomedy remains the distinguishing feature of this always entertaining series.”

  —Booklist

  Also by Andrea Camilleri

  The Shape of Water

  The Terra-Cotta Dog

  The Snack Thief

  Voice of the Violin

  Excursion to Tindari

  The Smell of the Night

  Rounding the Mark

  The Patience of the Spider

  The Paper Moon

  August Heat

  The Wings of the Sphinx

  The Track of Sand

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  A PENGUIN MYSTERY

  THE POTTER’S FIELD

  Andrea Camilleri is the author of many books, including his Montalbano series, which has been adapted for Italian television and translated into nine languages. He lives in Rome.

  Stephen Sartarelli is an award-winning translator and the author of three books of poetry.

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in Penguin Books 2011

  Copyright © Sellerio Editore, 2008

  Translation copyright © Stephen Sartarelli, 2011

  All rights reserved

  Originally published in Italian as Il campo del vasaio by Sellerio Editore, Palermo.

  Publisher’s Note This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Camilleri, Andrea.

  [Campo del vasaio. English]

  The potter’s field / Andrea Camilleri ; translated by Stephen Sartarelli.

  p. cm.

  “A Penguin Mystery.”

  ISBN : 978-1-101-55261-2

  I. Sartarelli, Stephen, 1954- II. Title.

  PQ4835.A3894C3513 2011

  853’.914—dc23

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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  1

  He was awakened by a loud, insistent knocking at the door. A frantic knocking, with hands and feet but, curiously, no ringing of the doorbell. He looked over at the window. No dawn light filtered through the closed shutter; outside was still total darkness. Or, rather, every so often a treacherous flash lit up the window, freezing the room, followed by a thunderclap that shook the windowpanes. The storm that had started the day before was raging with greater fury than ever. Strangely, however, the surging sea was silent, though it must have eaten up the beach all the way to the veranda. He groped around on the bedside table, hand searching for the base of the small lamp. He pressed the button, clicking it twice, but the light didn’t come on. Had the bulb burned out, or was there no electricity? He got up out of bed, a cold shiver running down his spine. Through the shutter slats came not only flashes of lightning, but blades of cold wind. The main light switch was also not working. Maybe the storm had knocked out the power.

  The knocking continued. Amidst the pandemonium, he thought he heard a voice cry out, as if in distress.

  “I’m coming! I’m coming!” he shouted.

  Since he had been sleeping naked, h
e looked around for something to cover himself, but found nothing. He was sure he had left his trousers on the chair at the foot of the bed. Perhaps they had slid to the floor. But he had no time to waste. He ran to the front door.

  “Who is it?” he asked before opening.

  “Bonetti-Alderighi. Open up, hurry!”

  He balked, utterly confused. The commissioner? What the hell was going on? Was this some kind of stupid joke?

  “Just a minute.”

  He ran to get the flashlight he kept in the kitchen-table drawer, switched it on, and opened the door. He could only gawk, speechless, at the rain-drenched commissioner standing before him. Bonetti was wearing a black, rumpled hat and a raincoat with a shredded left sleeve.

  “Let me in,” he said.

  Montalbano stepped aside and his boss came in. The inspector followed him mechanically, as if sleepwalking, forgetting to close the door, which started banging in the wind. Reaching the first chair at hand, the commissioner did not so much sit down as collapse in it. Before Montalbano’s astonished eyes, he buried his face in his hands and started crying.

  The questions in the inspector’s mind began to accelerate like a jet plane before takeoff, arising and vanishing too fast for him to catch hold of even one that was clear and precise. He couldn’t even open his mouth.

  “Could you hide me here at your house?” the commissioner asked him anxiously.

  Hide him? Why on earth would the commissioner need to hide? Was he a fugitive from justice? What had he done? Who was looking for him?

  “I don’t . . . understand . . .”

  Bonetti-Alderighi looked at him in disbelief.

  “What, Montalbano, do you mean you haven’t heard?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “The Mafia took power tonight!”

  “What are you saying?!”

  “Well, how else did you expect our wretched country to end up? A little change in the law here, a little change there, and here we are. Could I please have a glass of water?”

  “Yes . . . of course.”

  He quickly realized the commissioner wasn’t quite right in the head. Perhaps he’d had a car accident and was now raving from the shock. The best thing was to call Montelusa Central Police. Or maybe it was better to call a doctor at once. Meanwhile, however, he mustn’t let the poor man suspect anything. So, for the moment, at least, he had to humor Bonetti-Alderighi.

  The inspector went into the kitchen and instinctively flipped the light switch. And the light came on. He filled a glass, turned to go back, and froze in the doorway, paralyzed. He was a statue, the kind they make nowadays, which could have been called Naked Man with Glass in Hand.

  The room was lit up, but the commissioner was no longer there. Sitting in his place was a short, stocky man with a coppola on his head, whom Montalbano recognized at once. Totò Riina! He’d been freed from prison! So Bonetti-Alderighi hadn’t gone mad after all! What he’d said was the unvarnished truth!

  “Evenin’,” said Riina. “Sorry to burst in on you like dis, an’ at dis hour, but I don’t got much time, and ousside dere’s a helicopter waitin’ a take me to Rome to form the new guv’ment. I already got a few names: Bernardo Provenzano for vice president, one of the Caruana brothers for foreign minister, Leoluca Bagarella at Defense . . . So I come here wit’ one quession for you, Inspector Montalbano, an’ you gotta tell me yes or no straightaway. You wanna be my minister of the interior?”

  But before Montalbano could answer, Catarella appeared in the room. He must have come in through the open front door. He was holding a revolver in his hand and aiming it at the inspector. Big tears rolled down his cheeks.

  “Chief, if you say yes to this ’ere criminal, I’m gonna kill you poissonally in poisson!”

  Talking, however, distracted Catarella, and Riina, quick as a snake, whipped out his own gun and fired. The light in the room went out, and . . .

  Montalbano woke up. The only real thing in the dream he’d just had was the storm rattling the shutters, which he had left open. He got up and closed them, then got back into bed after looking at the clock. Four in the morning. He wanted to seize hold of sleep again, but found himself arguing with the other Montalbano behind his stubbornly closed eyes.

  What was the meaning of that dream?

  Why do you want to find a meaning in it, Montalbà? Don’t you very often have dreams that don’t mean a goddamn thing?

  That’s what you think, because you’re an ignorant beast. They may mean nothing to you, but go tell that to Dr. Freud, and you’ll see what he can pull out of them!

  But why should I tell my dreams to Freud?

  Because if you’re unable to explain your dream, or have it explained to you, you’ll never get back to sleep.

  Oh, all right. Ask me a question.

  Of all the things in the dream, what made the strongest impression on you?

  The change.

  Which one?

  When I come out of the kitchen and find Totò Riina in Bonetti-Alderighi’s place.

  Explain.

  Well, in the place of the representative of the law, there’s the numero uno of the Mafia, the boss of people who are outside the law.

  So, what you’re telling me is that in your own living room, in your own home, there with all your things, you found yourself playing host to the law and to people outside the law.

  So what?

  Could it be that in your mind the boundary between the law and those outside the law has been getting a little more blurry each day?

  Cut the shit!

  All right, let’s look at it another way. What did they ask of you?

  Bonetti-Alderighi asked me to help him, to hide him at my house.

  And did that surprise you?

  Of course!

  And what did Riina ask you?

  He asked me to be his minister of the interior.

  And did that surprise you?

  Well, yeah.

  Did it surprise you as much as the commissioner’s question? Or did it surprise you more? Or less? Answer sincerely.

  Well, no, it surprised me less.

  Why less? Do you consider it normal that a Mafia boss should ask you to work for him?

  No, that’s not how I would put it. Riina, at that moment, wasn’t a Mafia boss any longer, he was about to become prime minister! And it was as prime minister that he asked me to work for him.

  Hold it right there. There are two ways to look at this. Either you think that the fact of someone’s becoming prime minister cancels out all his prior crimes, murders and massacres included, or else you belong to that category of cops who always serve, no matter what, whoever happens to be in power, an honest man or a criminal, whether a Fascist or a Communist. To which of these two categories do you belong?

  Wait a minute! That’s too easy!

  Why do you say that?

  Because then Catarella appeared!

  And what does that mean?

  It means that I, in fact, said no to Riina’s offer.

  But you didn’t even open your mouth!

  I said it through Catarella. He pops up, points his gun at me, and tells me he’ll kill me if I accept. It’s as if Catarella was my conscience.

  Now there’s something new from you! Catarella, your conscience?

  Why not? Do you remember the time that journalist asked me if I believed in my guardian angel? When I answered yes, he asked me if I’d ever seen him. And I said, “Yes, I see him every day.” “Does he have a name?” the journalist asked. And without missing a beat, I said, “His name is Catarella.” I was joking, of course. But later on, after thinking it over, I realized that only a small part of it was in jest, and the rest was the truth.

  Conclusion?

  The question should be read in the opposite way. The scene with Catarella means that rather than accept Riina’s offer, I was ready to shoot myself.

  Are you sure, Montalbà, that Freud would have interpreted it this way?

  Yo
u know what I say to you? That I don’t give a flying fuck about Freud. Now let me get some sleep, I can hardly keep my eyes open anymore.

  When he woke up it was already past nine. He didn’t see any lightning or hear any thunder, but the weather certainly was nasty outside. Why bother to get up? His two old wounds ached. And a few little pains, unpleasant companions of his age, had awakened with him. He was better off sleeping for another couple of hours. He got up, went into the dining room, unplugged the phone, went back to bed, pulled up the covers, and closed his eyes.

  Barely half an hour later he opened them again, awakened by the phone’s insistent ringing. But how the hell could the phone be ringing if he’d unplugged it? And if it wasn’t the phone making that sound, what was it? The doorbell, idiot! He felt a kind of motor oil, dense and viscous, circulating in his brain. Seeing his trousers on the floor, he put them on and went to the door, cursing the saints.

  It was Catarella, out of breath.

  “Ahh, Chief, Chief!...”

  “Listen, don’t tell me anything, don’t talk at all. I’ll tell you when you can open your mouth. I’m going to get back into bed, and you’re going to go into the kitchen, brew me a pot of good strong coffee, pour it all into a big mug, put in three teaspoons of sugar, and bring it to me. Then you can tell me whatever it is you have to say.”

  When Catarella returned with the steaming mug, he had to shake the inspector to wake him up. During those ten minutes he had fallen back into a deep sleep.