Ric walks back around the small bay at Portinente, his arms above his head, trying to stretch the ache from his shoulder and his ribs. He is amazed how good Valeria looks for her eighty-plus years and understands why the little Salvo is so taken with her.
And then there is the fact that the headstone for the grave he has found suggests that his forebear, Antonio Sciacchitano, passed away in 1930. Without a birth date, he has no way of knowing how old the man was when he died or whether, perhaps, the man buried in the cemetery really is his relation. He finds the notion that he is trying to trace his own identity whilst at the same time hanging on to false passports, faintly amusing.
And with all these thoughts running around unchecked in his mind, he turns right at the town end of the bay and shortens his stride as he begins the short climb up beside the white-washed walls of the Hotel Rocce Azzurre, through the Maddalena.
The storms he and Valeria watched gathering over the coast of Sicily have not yet ventured out to the islands and the moon hangs like a lantern in the eastern sky, casting impenetrable shadows across the alleyway.
Towards the top of the rise he rounds the bend by the little maritime chapel and rests for a few seconds, realising he is not wise in walking by the piazza in which Candela was murdered two evenings before. But he is weary and his body counsels against the effort involved in turning back only to weave his way through the maze of little vicos that lead to his rooms.
Halfway up the Maddalena, the alley narrows and crowns once more before it begins its descent to the Corta. A television blares from behind a shuttered window and a cat slinks across his path before settling to observe his progress.
Debating whether it would be equally wise to venture in to the Corta after his welcome home committee of the evening before, he pauses by the entrance to the tiny Piazza San Bartolo.
The air in the piazza is cool and refreshing, and though it appears deserted, Ric is suddenly aware that he is standing at the entrance to a dead end and that if the two heavies from the evening before turn up, he has nowhere to run.
“Good evening, Mr Ross.”
Ric spins round and plants his feet, readying.
A man steps out from the shadow of a balcony. If at first Ric doesn’t recognise the man’s voice, his height and the profile of his hat immediately give his identity away.
“Christ, Commissario! You’ll give someone a heart attack.”
“Oh, please forgive me for being so melodramatic.”
Ric fights to control the surge of adrenalin fizzing through his limbs. “Well, excuse me for reacting so, but creeping about in the dark like that… what the hell are you doing?”
The policeman removes his hat and steps over, “Waiting and watching: patience and observation. Sadly, they are old habits which are now reduced in worth by modern technology.” Talaia speaks softly as though he is wary of breaching the sepulchral tranquility of the piazza and in so doing disturbing the slumber of many ghosts.
He sighs, “Ah, these days, the new policeman is taught to rely on the efficiencies afforded him by forensic science and the conclusions of his computer. I prefer the old ways: intuition, presentiment, deduction. Ah, I fear I may be considered by my contemporaries to be something of a relic, perhaps even a dinosaur.”
Ric chuckles, nervously. “You’d do well to hide a dinosaur in this piazza.”
“You know, Mr Ross, I have told you before about this house,” he turns and gazes at the doorway of the house behind him; the moonlight lends the façade a cold and unforgiving aura. “This the house in which Edda Ciano lived after the war. It is difficult to imagine what it must have been like for Il Duce’s daughter, Edda, to live in such humble surroundings, especially after the opulence afforded her by her father’s exalted status. I wonder how she must have felt, being so despised for her privilege when, ultimately, she must have despised it herself for the sorrow it brought to her.”
“And then some,” Ric offers. “But don’t tell me you’re waiting patiently for her spirit to reappear, Commissario. I don’t make you for a ghost hunter.”
“No, Mr Ross, I am not interested in ghosts. Except…” he hesitates and turns back to face Ric. “Except, if it was possible, imagine how useful it would be if the dead were able to exchange information with us. Imagine what lasting peace we could offer them in return for such information.”
“Isn’t that what their Lord and Master is supposed to offer them when they finally get to meet him?”
Talaia allows Ric’s suggestion to float in the cool air for a moment before replying, “So, you are not a man of God, Mr Ross. I have been suffering under the impression that all soldiers are simply the tools of God’s labours. Are you the exception to this rule?”
Clearly, the Commissario has checked Ric’s passport and his history. “First off, Commissario Talaia, I was a Royal Marine, not a soldier–”
“Oh, forgive my poor manners,” he interrupts, with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
“And second,” Ric allows his frustration to creep into his tone, “I’ve seen enough evidence of God’s labours, as you put it, to last me a lifetime. I’m surprised you haven’t.” And again he realises that he is tarring the police detective with the same brush with which he tarred Bosquet in Corsica and cautions himself to adopt a more conciliatory attitude.
Judging by the silence that ensues, the Commissario is considering his response. The moonlight shines in his eyes, lending him a vaguely mischievous air.
“Oh, but I have, Signor Ross. I have seen more than my share of unpleasantness. But as a former soldier – forgive me again, I mean to say marine – you appear to me to be possessed of a moral conscience. This, I hope, sets you apart from those amongst our society who believe they can commit murder in the afternoon and go to Mass the next morning in the hope of obtaining absolution.”
“Commissario, you’ll excuse me for pointing out that your new Pope has outlawed membership of the Mafia; assuming that’s who you are referring to.”
The shorter man chuckles to himself. “Yes,” he replies, “this presents an interesting… indovinello, a riddle, for the church to solve.
“Imagine a priest hears a confession in which a Mafioso admits to murder. What can he do? He cannot violate the Sacramental Seal of the confessional; the Holy Decree of 1862 dictates that he cannot abuse the confidence of the penitent in case it harms him. Of course, if the priest requests it, this penitent may give him permission to discuss the contents of his confession with a third party, but for obvious reasons this is unlikely.
“So, I ask again, what course of action is left open to the priest? By condemning the Mafioso, is our Pope removing the Sacramental Seal? No! Is our Pope permitting the priest a form of discretion to report the penitent for his crimes? No, again! The priest merely threatens to excommunicate the penitent if he does not renounce the path of evil. In which case, the penitent simply leaves, only to return to the confessional to unburden himself of his crimes the next time he commits them, and so on. It is a riddle, eh?”
“Not one for me to solve,” Ric replies. “But if solving it keeps you up at night, don’t count on getting any sleep soon.”
The Commissario nods, knowingly. “Yes, it would if I did, but I don’t, so it does not. As I told you, I was merely waiting and watching.”
“For what? I mean for what or for whom are you waiting out here in the middle of the night?”
Talaia snorts, as if he finds it hard to believe Ric can ask such a naïve question. “You may not know it, but Signor Candela was murdered in the doorway to this house,” he points at the door opposite, which Ric now notices is crossed with police tape.
“It is clear,” Talaia continues, “that our killer possesses a sense of melodrama too; shooting Signor Candela in the entrance to the house of Edda Ciano, eh? I wonder if our murderer means us to understand something of his motive by luring his victim to such a location.
“Oh, forgive me again, I should have told you. We understand that shortly before his speech in the Piazza Mazzini, Signor Candela received a note inviting him to a meeting at this house. Against the advice of his security advisors, he came alone.”
“I’d heard that.”
Talaia straightens up, “Oh, yes?”
“Gossip, Commissioner: word on the street, in the cafés.”
“Of course, yes, I see.” He pauses. “But, I was thinking – something, as I have said, the modern policeman does not commit enough time to these days – if a man was possessed of such a desire for melodrama, perhaps he might be the sort of man who would relish returning to the scene of his perfectly executed crime.”
“Perhaps,” Ric interrupts, “it’s your turn to forgive me, Commissario, but I think you’ve been reading too much Camilleri.”
He lifts his hand and waggles a finger in denial, “No, but that is not to say I do not enjoy the work of this Sicilian; a trifle overcomplicated at times, a little like trying to find one’s way out of a Souk. But I suppose one must take into account that Camilleri is from Porto Empedocle near Agrigento, and Agrigento, as any educated man would know, is just across the water from Tunis. You like to read, Mr Ross?”
“Sure, but whoever shot Candela would have to be pretty stupid to return to the scene.” And as Ric says what he is thinking, he realises in his next breath that that is exactly what the Commissario is thinking too.
“Whoa! Hold on, Commissioner. Just because I happen to take the shortest route from Portinente to the Corta, it doesn’t mean to say I’ve dropped by for a quick gloat over Candela’s corpse.”
“Gloat?” Talaia repeats, stepping closer to Ric. “This is a word I do not know. What does it mean?”
“It means to glory in one’s triumph.”
“Ah, you read dictionaries. I see you are interested in the way people use language. For myself, I have always found it important to listen to what people do not say, as much as what they do say. This word, gloat, it is also an interesting word,” Talaia repeats. “Its meaning – to glory in one’s triumph – has a rather Roman feel to it. But, Mr Ross, you are here and here is where Signor Candela was shot. So you can see why I am, let us say, interested.”
“More of your uncomfortable coincidences, Commissioner?”
“Exactly, Mr Ross! Exactly! And yet…” Talaia quiets, rubbing his cheek with his forefinger; appending his own gaudy punctuation to the melodrama of their meeting. “And yet, it is just possible the perpetrator of this crime would return to look for evidence he has left behind.”
“I guessed there must be a good reason why you wanted to discuss apostolic conundrums at midnight in the Piazza San Bartolo, rather than at passeggio in the Marina Corta like everyone else.”
Talaia chuckles, “Yes, there is, Mr Ross. There is.” The Commissario takes a small evidence bag from his pocket. The moonlight silvers on the clear plastic sac and inside it appear to be three small, bronzed metal cylinders.
“Bullet casings?”
“They are, Signor Ross. And they are most likely to be the casings from the rounds that were responsible for Signor Candela’s death. They were found near to Signor Candela’s body and one does not need the eyesight of an owl to know that he was shot from extremely close range. Would it interest you to know what calibre of gun they are from?”
“Not particularly, but if you think it’s important, please go ahead.”
“At first glance, a 9 millimetre of some sort; possibly an old semi-automatic pistol; the sort that was much in evidence during the Second Great War.”
“I guess,” Ric suggests, “there must be a lot of old ordnance left over around this neck of the woods.”
“Yes, Signor Ross, there is much that still hangs over us from the two Great Wars.” He pauses. “Now, I think we have spoken enough for one evening. If we have to speak again, which I have a feeling we will, I must say again how important it is for us to speak when it is not so easy for others to take an interest in what we might be speaking about; word on the street, in the cafés, as you so rightly say. You know how it is, eh? I notice you don’t carry a cellphone.”
“Don’t have much call for one, if you’ll excuse the pun.”
“Ah,” Talaia sighs. “I know what you mean by this.”
“You do, huh?”
“Yes, of course. Cellphones are a constant interruption to our thought and relaxation. How can a man think or relax if his phone rings and people know where he is all the time?”
Ric knows what the policeman is getting at: cellphone tracking by multilateration of radio signals and GPS. “I’m sure if I need you, I’ll find you, Commissario.”
“I am sure you will, Mr Ross. The police station is not far from your current residence. It is on the Via Marconi Guglielmo, but you will see me around the town. Buonanotte, Signor Ross.”
“Buonanotte, Commissario.”