Voice of the Violin Page 16

  “Till tomorrow morning. I need to talk to a real estate agency about selling the house. I have to go there this afternoon with one of their representatives; they want to see it. By the way, yesterday evening I flew down here with Guido Serravalle. He’s here for the funeral.”

  “That must have been uncomfortable.”

  “You think so?”

  Dr. Emanuele Licalzi had lowered his visor again.

  “Hurry, he’s about to begin,” said Signora Clementina, leading him into the little parlor next to the living room. They sat down solemnly. For the occasion, the signora had put on an evening gown. She looked like one of Boldini’s ladies, only older. At nine-thirty sharp, Maestro Barbera struck up the first notes. And before he’d been listening even five minutes, the inspector began to get a strange, disturbing feeling. It seemed to him as if the violin had suddenly become a voice, a woman’s voice, that was begging to be heard and understood. Slowly but surely the notes turned into syllables, or rather into phonemes, and yet they expressed a kind of lament, a song of ancient suffering that at moments reached searing, mysteriously tragic heights. And this stirring female voice told of a terrible secret that could only be understood by someone capable of abandoning himself entirely to the sound, the waves of sound. He closed his eyes, profoundly shaken and troubled. But deep down he was also astonished. How could this violin have so changed in timbre since the last time he’d heard it? With eyes still closed, he let himself be guided by the voice. And he saw himself enter Michela Licalzi’s house, walk through the living room, open the glass display, and pick up the violin case . . . So that’s what had been tormenting him, the element that clashed with the whole! The blinding light that burst inside his head made him cry out.

  “Were you also moved?” asked Signora Clementina, wiping away a tear. “He’s never played like that before.”

  The concert must have ended at that very moment, for the signora plugged the phone back in, dialed the number, and applauded.

  This time, instead of joining in, the inspector grabbed the phone.

  “Maestro? Inspector Montalbano here. I absolutely have to speak to you.”

  “And I to you.”

  Montalbano hung up, and, in one swift motion, bent over, embraced Signora Clementina, kissed her forehead, and went out.

  The door to the apartment was opened by the housekeeper.

  “Would you like a coffee?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Cataldo Barbera came forward, hand extended.

  On his way up the two flights of stairs, Montalbano had given some thought to how the Maestro might be dressed. He’d hit the nail on the head: Maestro Barbera, a tiny man with snow-white hair and small, black, but very intense eyes, was wearing a well-cut coat and tails.

  The only jarring note was a white silk scarf wrapped around the lower part of his face, covering his nose, mouth, and chin, leaving only his eyes and forehead exposed. It was held in place by a gold hairpin.

  “Please come in, make yourself comfortable,” Barbera said politely, leading him into the soundproof studio.

  Inside, there was a glass showcase with five violins; a complex stereo system; a set of metal office shelves stacked with CDs, LPs, and cassette tapes; a bookcase, a desk, and two armchairs. On the desk sat another violin, apparently the one the Maestro had just played in his recital.

  “Today I used the Guarneri,” he said, confirming Montalbano’s suspicion and gesturing towards the instrument. “It has an incomparable voice, heavenly.”

  Montalbano congratulated himself. Though he didn’t know the first thing about music, he had nevertheless intuited that that violin sounded different from the one he’d heard in the previous recital.

  “For a violinist, believe me, it’s nothing short of a miracle to have such a jewel at one’s disposal.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, I have to give it back.”

  “It’s not yours?”

  “I wish it were! The problem is, I no longer know whom to give it back to. I’d intended to phone the police station today and ask somebody there. But since you’re here . . .”

  “I’m at your service.”

  “You see, that violin belonged to the late Mrs. Licalzi.”

  The inspector felt all his nerves tighten up like violin strings. If the Maestro had run his bow across him, a chord would have rung out.

  “About two months ago,” Maestro Barbera recounted, “I was practicing with the window open. Mrs. Licalzi, who happened to be walking by, heard me. She was very knowledgeable about music, you know. She saw my name on the intercom downstairs and wanted to meet me. She’d been at my very last performance in Milan, after which I retired, though nobody knew that at the time.”

  “Why did you retire?”

  The bluntness of the question caught the Maestro by surprise. He hesitated, though only for a moment, then pulled out the hairpin and slowly unwrapped the scarf. A monster. Half his nose was gone. His upper lip had been entirely eaten away, exposing the gums.

  “Is that a good enough reason?”

  He wrapped the scarf around himself again, securing it with the pin.

  “It’s a very rare, degenerative form of lupus, totally incurable. How could I continue to appear in public?”

  The inspector felt grateful to him for putting the scarf back on at once. He was impossible to look at; one felt horrified, nauseated.

  “Anyway, that beautiful, gentle creature, talking of this and that, told me about a violin she’d inherited from a great-grandfather from Cremona who used to make stringed instruments. She added that, as a child, she’d heard it said within the family that it was worth a fortune, though she’d never paid much attention to this. These legends of priceless paintings and statuettes worth millions are common talk in families. I’m not sure why, but I became curious. A few days later she called me in the evening, came by to pick me up, and took me to the house she’d recently built. The moment I saw that violin, I tell you, something burst inside me, I felt a kind of overpowering electrical shock. It was in a pretty bad state, but I knew it wouldn’t take much to restore it to perfection. It was an Andrea Guarneri, Inspector, easily recognizable by the powerful glow of its amber yellow varnish.”

  The inspector glanced at the violin, and in all sincerity he didn’t see any glow coming from it. Then again, he was hopeless in matters of music.

  “I tried playing it,” said the Maestro, “and for ten minutes I was transported to heaven in the company of Paganini, Ole Bull, and others . . .”

  “What’s its market value?” asked the inspector, who usually flew close to the ground and had never come close to heaven.

  “Market value?!” the Maestro said in horror. “You can’t put a price on an instrument like that!”

  “All right, but if you had to quantify—”

  “I really don’t know . . . Two, three billion lire.”

  Had he heard right? He had.

  “I did make it clear to the lady that she mustn’t risk leaving so valuable an instrument in a practically uninhabited house. We came up with a solution, also because I wanted authoritative confirmation of my assumption—that is, that it was indeed an Andrea Guarneri. She suggested I keep it here at my place. I didn’t want to accept such an immense responsibility, but in the end she talked me into it, and she didn’t even want a receipt. Then she drove me home and I gave her one of my violins to take its place in the old case. If anyone were to steal it, little harm would be done; it wasn’t worth more than a few hundred thousand lire. The next morning I tried to reach a friend of mine in Milan, the foremost expert on violins there is. His secretary told me he was abroad, traveling the world, and wouldn’t be back before the end of this month.”

  “Please excuse me,” said the inspector. “I’ll be back shortly.”

  He ran out and managed to reach headquarters on foot, also running.

  “Fazio!”

  “At your service, Chief.”

  He wrote something on a piece of paper, sig
ned it, and stamped it with the Vigàta Police seal to make it official.

  “Come with me.”

  They took his car and pulled up a short distance from the church.

  “Give this note to Dr. Licalzi. I want him to give you the keys to the house in Tre Fontane. I can’t go in there myself. If I’m seen in church talking to the doctor, who’s going to stop the rumors?”

  Less than five minutes later they were already on their way to Tre Fontane.

  They got out of the car, and Montalbano opened the front door. There was a foul, suffocating smell inside, owing not only to the lack of circulation, but also to the powders and sprays used by forensics.

  With Fazio still behind him not asking any questions, he opened the glass showcase, grabbed the violin case, went out, and relocked the door.

  “Wait, I want to see something.”

  He turned the corner of the house and went around back, which he’d never done the other times he’d been there. He found something like the rough draft of what would have become a vast garden one day. On the right, almost attached to the house, stood a giant sorb tree, the kind that produced little bright-red fruits rather sour in flavor, which Montalbano ate in great abundance when he was a child.

  “I want you to climb up to the top branch.”

  “Who, me?”

  “No, your twin brother.”

  Fazio started climbing halfheartedly. He was well into middle age and afraid of falling and breaking his neck.

  “Wait for me there.”

  “Yes, sir. After all, I was a Tarzan fan when I was a kid.”

  Montalbano reopened the front door, went upstairs, turned on the bedroom light—here the smell grabbed him by the throat—and raised the rolling shutter without opening the window.

  “Can you see me?” he yelled to Fazio.

  “Yes, perfectly!”

  He went out of the house, locked the door, and headed back to the car.

  Fazio wasn’t in it. He was still up in the tree, waiting for the inspector to tell him what to do next.

  After dropping Fazio off in front of the church to give the keys back to Dr. Licalzi (“Tell him we may need them again”), he drove to Maestro Cataldo’s place. There, he climbed the steps two at a time. The Maestro opened the door for him. He was now dressed in a turtleneck sweater and slacks, having doffed the coat and tails. The white silk scarf with gold pin, however, was still in place.

  “Come in,” said Cataldo Barbera.

  “No need, Maestro. I’ll just be a few seconds. Is this the Guarneri’s case?”

  The Maestro took it, studied it closely, and handed it back.

  “It certainly looks like it.”

  Montalbano opened the case and, without taking the instrument out, asked:

  “Is this the violin you gave to Michela to keep?”

  The Maestro took two steps backward and extended his arm as if to shield himself from an unbearable sight.

  “I wouldn’t touch that thing with my little finger! Look at that! It’s mass-produced! It’s an affront to any proper violin!”

  Here was confirmation of what the voice of the violin had revealed to Montalbano. From the start he had unconsciously registered the difference between the container and its contents. It was clear even to him, who knew nothing about violins. Or about any other kind of instrument, for that matter.

  “Among other things,” Cataldo Barbera continued, “the one I gave to Michela Licalzi may have been of very modest value, but it rather looked like a Guarneri.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be seeing you.”

  Montalbano started down the stairs.

  “What should I do with the Guarneri?” the Maestro called out in a loud voice, still at sea, not having understood a thing.

  “Just hang on to it for now. And play it as often as you can.”

  They were loading the coffin into the hearse. Before the main portal of the church were many funeral wreaths lined up in a row. Emanuele Licalzi stood surrounded by a crowd of people expressing condolences. He looked unusually upset. Montalbano approached him and pulled him aside.

  “I wasn’t expecting all these people,” the doctor said.

  “Your wife inspired a lot of affection. Did you get the keys back? I may need to ask you for them again.”

  “I’m going to need them between four and five o’clock, to take the real estate agents there.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind. Listen, Doctor, when you go into the house, you’ll probably notice the violin is missing from the display case. That’s because I took it. I’ll return it to you this evening.”

  The doctor looked dumbfounded.

  “Is that of any relevance to the investigation? It’s an utterly worthless object.”

  “I need it for fingerprints,” Montalbano lied.

  “In that case, don’t forget that I held it in my hands when I showed it to you.”

  “I won’t forget. And, Doctor, one more thing, just for curiosity’s sake. At what time did you leave Bologna yesterday evening?”

  “I took the flight that leaves at six-thirty, with a change at Rome, and arrived in Palermo at ten P.M.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Excuse me, Inspector, don’t forget about the Twingo!”

  Jeez, what a pain in the ass about that car!

  Among the crowd of people already preparing to leave, he finally spotted Anna Tropeano talking to a tall, distinguished-looking man of about forty. It had to be Guido Serravalle. Then he noticed Giallombardo passing by on the street. He called to him.

  “Where you going?”

  “Home, Inspector, for lunch.”

  “I’m very sorry, but you can’t.”

  “Christ, of all days you had to pick the day my wife made pasta ’ncasciata.”

  “You’ll eat it tonight. See those two over there? That brunette lady and the gentleman she’s talking to?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Don’t let the guy out of your sight. I’ll be back at headquarters soon. Keep me posted every half hour. Everything he does, everywhere he goes.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Giallombardo, resigned.

  Montalbano left him and walked over to the pair. Anna, who hadn’t seen him approaching, brightened at once. Apparently Serravalle’s presence made her uncomfortable.

  “Salvo, how are you?” She introduced them. “Inspector Salvo Montalbano, Mr. Guido Serravalle.”

  Montalbano performed like a god.

  “Of course, we already met over the phone!”

  “Yes, I offered my help.”

  “How could I forget? You came for the late Mrs. Licalzi?”

  “It was the least I could do.”

  “Of course. Are you going back today?”

  “Yes, I’ll be leaving the hotel around five o’clock. I’ve got a flight out of Punta Ràisi at eight.”

  “Good, good,” said Montalbano. He seemed happy that everyone was so happy and that, among other things, one could count on planes leaving on time.

  “You know,” said Anna, assuming a nonchalant, worldly deameanor, “Mr. Serravalle was just inviting me to lunch. Why don’t you join us?”

  “I would love that,” said Serravalle, absorbing the blow.

  A look of deep disappointment came over the inspector’s face.

  “If only I’d known earlier! I’ve got an appointment, alas.”

  He held his hand out to Serravalle.

  “Very pleased to have met you. However inappropriate it may seem to say so, given the circumstances.”

  He was afraid he might be overdoing his perfect-idiot act; the role was running away with him. Indeed, Anna was glaring at him with eyes that looked like two question marks.

  “You and me, on the other hand, we’ll talk later, eh, Anna?”

  In the doorway to headquarters he ran into Mimì, who was on his way out.

  “Where you off to?”

  “To eat.”

  “Jesus, is that all anyone can think of around here?
”

  “When it’s time to eat, what else are we supposed to be thinking of?”

  “Who’ve we got in Bologna?”

  “As mayor?” asked Mimì, confused.

  “What the fuck do I care who the mayor of Bologna is? Have we got any friends in their police department who can give us an answer in an hour’s time?”

  “Wait, there’s Guggino, remember him?”

  “Filiberto?”

  “Right. He was transferred there a month ago. He’s heading the immigration section.”

  “Go eat your spaghetti with clam sauce and all that Parmesan cheese on top,” Montalbano said by way of thanks, looking at him with contempt. How else could you look at someone with tastes like that?

  It was 12:35. Hopefully Filiberto would still be in his office.

  “Hello? Inspector Salvo Montalbano here. I’m calling from Vigàta. I’d like to speak with Filiberto Guggino.”

  “Please hold.”

  After a series of clicks he heard a cheerful voice.

  “Salvo! Good to hear from you! How you doing?”

  “Fine, Filibè. Sorry to bother you, but it’s urgent. I need some answers within an hour, hour and a half at the most. I’m looking for a financial motive to a crime.”

  “The only thing I have to waste is time.”

  “I want you to tell me as much as you can possibly find out about someone who might be the victim of loan sharks—say, a businessman, heavy gambler . . .”

  “That makes the whole thing a lot more difficult. I can tell you who the loan sharks are, but not the people they’ve ruined.”

  “Try anyway. Here’s his name.”

  “Chief? Giallombardo here. They’re eating at the Contrada Capo restaurant, the one right on the sea. You know it?”

  Unfortunately, yes, he did know it. He’d ended up there once by chance and had never forgotten it.

  “Did they drive there separately?”

  “No, they came in one car and he drove, so—”

  “Don’t let him out of your sight. I’m sure he’s going to take the lady home, then go back to his hotel, the Della Valle. Keep me posted.”