When he wakes, Ric has no idea how long he has slept or where he is. The room is pitch-black and there is no clock on the bedside table. He stumbles about in the dark until he finds the living room curtains and draws them.
Soft sunlight floods in through glassed patio doors.
His clothes smell of sulphur and when he picks them up they feel coarse with wind salt from the previous night’s travel. A cupboard reveals shirts and trousers in various sizes, and a selection of swimming briefs and shorts. A fancy DeLonghi Nespresso machine sits on the sideboard and the fridge is stocked with bottles of mineral water.
He shivers; it is as though they knew he was coming.
The glass doors slide open onto a neat patio with a table, chairs and an umbrella. Lemon, lime, olive and chestnut trees dapple sunlight on the forest floor and girdle the chalet in a corset of brown and green. There are no books or magazines on the table and there is little to do but make a cup of coffee, bathe in the deep silence and reflect.
That Ric has, for the moment, no other choice than to trust Marcello is obvious. But how far he trusts him is another matter.
If the Liparotan had wanted to dispose of him all it would have taken was for the two of them to throw him overboard in the straits between the islands; in the maelstrom of currents it would have been nigh-on impossible to survive. And besides, Marcello’s right-hand man, Salvo, though wiry and possessed of all the benign charm of a rural vicar, is clearly his enforcer. The way Marcello said he’d sent Salvo to bring Claudio back from Palermo, told Ric all he needed to know about the little guy. To have tried to take Salvo on out in the darkness of open water would have been unwise and that was to discount the raw physicality of his boss.
The choice of who to trust lies between the barrel-chested sailmaker and the diminutive detective, neither of whom Ric knows well enough.
So far, Marcello has been true to his every word. He’s confirmed very readily to Talaia that Ric was out fishing with him at the time Candela was shot, he’s lent Ric his monolocale and attended to the Mara’s repairs without demanding any money. What Ric cannot fathom, though, is what motivates Marcello’s profound openness and generosity. The bullish Liparotan is so casually frank with him, it unnerves him.
Since his arrival, nearly all those he has met have been only too happy to accept him, take him into their homes and treat him as a member of the family. All of them, Valeria, Sandro, Old Nino and Marcello appear to possess a streak of integrity a mile wide. And, as he thinks of the most appropriate word which describes their straightforwardness, he realises that all of them at some time have used the word integrity when describing each other. Valeria described the Maggiore family as un famiglia di integrità and Old Nino the same. Even the inscription on the grave of Antonio Sciacchitano indicates he was un uomo integerrimo, regardless of whether his bones lie in the grave or not. Ric is surrounded by people of integrity, but he knows all too well from Corsica that integrity is measured in actions, not words.
Commissario Talaia, however, is not such a known commodity.
That he is playing some form of long game is self-evident. If he had simply wanted a neck to tie a noose around, he would have read Ric his rights, banged him up in a police cell and hauled him off the island at the first opportunity. But there is something about the little cockerel, as Marcello insists on calling him, which draws Ric to him. He is a thinker, the antithesis of the obsequious Bosquet, the policeman he tangled with in Corsica. But, Ric is guarded to think, that doesn’t make Talaia any less of a liability.
If he is honest with himself, and he sees no reason why he should not be seeing as everyone else apart from Talaia seems to be, he hasn’t got the first clue who to trust. He can’t even be sure there is a contract out on him or if he is safe strolling about this curious camp. The only thing he can be sure of is that someone murdered Claudio Maggiore and Girolamo Candela, and it wasn’t him.
Having gone round in a perfect circle, Ric closes the door behind him and strolls down to the courtyard, a hundred metres or so down the slope.
The encampment is peaceful and the mood docile, like that of an old people’s home. And apart from the insects chattering away in the scrub, the quiet is broken only by distant samba rhythms down the way. A couple sit out on the patio of their chalet, reading the papers; they don’t acknowledge him.
At the pool, a group of men sit around a table playing Scopa. They mock in unflattering terms each others game-play and moan when their opponents capture a coveted card. Half a dozen others sit in couples, observing their own space as if enveloped in a quarantine zone; the men, suntanned, heavyset, with shining bald pates and dark glasses, ignore their women, who are mostly pale-skinned, slender and bored, their bikinis more supermarket than Milan.
Ric looks around and notices there is one man who sits alone and apart from the rest. He pulls out a seat at the table between the bar and the man, and measures his surroundings against his hazy impressions of the night before.
At first glance the infinity pool lends the beach-style bar an air of opulence. But, like the women perching close to their partners, the two are not perfectly matched. The marble-tiled courtyard gives way in places to unfinished concrete and beyond the pool’s edge the gardens peter out to rough scrub and, further on, forest. Whoever has put the place together has a Monfortino palate, but a Moscato wallet.
Kasim appears at his table. “Vuoi bere? Mangiare?”
“Grazie, Kasim. Per favore, una Birra Messina.”
The beer arrives accompanied by a menu, which reminds Ric he hasn’t eaten a square meal in over twenty-four hours. “Per favore, Kasim, delle sarde.”
“Alla Catanese Palermitana o Messinese?” he asks.
Not realising there is a choice, Ric replies, “Catanese.”
The man sitting alone at the adjacent table turns and says, “You should have chosen the Sarde a Beccaficu alla Palermitana, they are better.”
Ric adjusts his chair so that he can address the man without twisting his tender torso. “If I’d known the difference, I might. Perhaps you’d enlighten me?”
His face is familiar, but from where Ric cannot recall. The man is tall and lean of build and sits straight-backed. His skin is saddle-brown and his shoulder-length, wavy black hair is combed straight back over his head to curl around the collar of his sky-blue linen shirt. He wears wrap-around sunglasses and a vaguely conceited expression, as though he would prefer not to be associated or confused with those other, bald, muscular beefs seated around the pool.
“The Beccaficu alla Palermitana is baked with capers and raisins and pine nuts,” he offers. “Alla Catanese, the sardines are marinated in vinegar and deep fried; the flavour is all cooked out. Messinese is okay, but cheese with sardines, eh? I ask you?”
“Thanks, I’ll remember for next time.” He goes to turn away, but thinks again, “It’s that obvious, is it? My not being Italian.”
The man chuckles, “Yes, it’s that obvious. You have significantly more hair and better manners than most of the others here.
“Which tells everyone I’m not French or German?”
“A lucky guess, eh? A Frenchman would have taken more time to choose his food and a German would not have chosen a dish that is named after a small bird that pecks at figs; Beccaficu is not enough food for a German. I am Ciccio.” He holds out his hand. His fingers are slender and manicured; his grip, though, only a fraction off intimidating.
“Ric,” he replies. “Nice place they’ve got here.”
“Just passing through, Ric?”
“A couple of days.”
“Where are you from?”
“Oh, here and there. Much the same as you, I expect.” But it is the way the man who calls himself Ciccio sits that brings to mind where Ric has seen him before. He is the same man Ric noticed in the barca which passed close by him the day he arrived in Lipari.
Ciccio raises his head and curls his lip, “What do you mean by that?”
“Well, Ciccio, most of the time I’m either on my way to somewhere or on my way back from somewhere else. But right now I’m sitting in a chair beside a pool, looking forward to a cold beer and something to eat.”
“The beer here is not good,” Ciccio states, holding up his dark brown bottle of Birra Messina. “They,” he nods at the table where the men are playing Scopa, “drink this because they think it is the beer of their birthplace. Let me tell you, Ric, this beer no longer comes from Messina; it is no longer made by Siciliani. Now, it is owned by Heineken and brewed in Massafra, in Puglia,” he speaks the name of the town as though he has experienced some unpleasantness in it. “The only true Sicilian beer is Birra del Sole; it carries the Trinacria, the Sicilian flag: the head of Medusa with the three legs and ears of wheat?”
“I know it.”
“I tell you, my friend, the beer here is only for the pigs!” He nods in the direction of the card players.
“You know your beer then, Ciccio,” Ric suggests.
“Enough to know what tastes good and what does not.” He leans over towards Ric and waves him closer as if to impart some great secret, “There is a little brewery,” he whispers, “a microbirrificio, you know what I mean by this? I forget the name. It is on the Via Cavour in Palermo. It makes great beer, but don’t tell these viddani. These peasants will only tell others and then the place will be full of their ugly friends.”
Ric tries to imagine exactly how much uglier than these viddani their friends could be.
“You don’t know Palermo, Ric?”
“No,” he replies, “it’s not one of those places I’ve been to. Maybe I’ll get the chance one of these days.” He recalls what Marcello has told him about Claudio, Candela and the club called Exit, and realises that Ciccio is the only man around the pool who isn’t partnered by a female. He is surely the grain amongst the chaff; his nose is straight, his face unscarred and his teeth white.
He sits back, still upright, very possibly content that his new friend doesn’t know Sicily’s capital and is therefore a man apart from those around him.
Noticing this, Ric asks, “You know Palermo well?”
“Sure, I know Palermo well; certainly better than any of these pigs.”
“Good place to enjoy a little fun?” Ric asks.
“Sure. It depends on what kind of fun you are looking for, but most of what a man would want is available.”
Kasim interrupts their conversation and places a plate of breaded sardines and a basket of focaccia with olives before Ric.
“I told you, my friend, you should have asked for the Palermitana,” Ciccio reminds him and, looking over at Ric’s plate, he tugs Kasim’s sleeve. “Tesoro,” he whispers, “Capunata.” A brief, intimate look passes between the two of them.
“Thanks,” Ric replies. “I’ll remember your advice for next time. You want to join me?” Ric starts to eat.
“Eh,” Ciccio says, getting up out of his chair, “why not? A man who eats alone, eats too fast and gets a bad stomach. I know this; I have eaten alone too many times.” He hauls himself out of his chair and pulls it over to Ric’s table. His sky-blue linen shirt is open to his waist, revealing a thick growth of chest hair. “What kind of entertainment would you be looking for, my friend?” His expression, concealed as it is behind his wrap-around sunglasses, Ric cannot read, but his tone is unsettlingly licentious.
“Well,” he replies, rubbing his ear and trying his best to look self-conscious, “everything, really. I like bars, restaurants and clubs. A friend of mine told me about a club…” he hesitates, “it might not be the kind of place everyone likes… Exit, I think it was called. Do you know it?”
Kasim reappears with a plate of aubergines, onions and tomato. This time, he doesn’t linger for any appreciation.
“Sure, I know it. It is in the Piazza San Francesco di Paola; a good place for those who prefer things a little different, a little exotic.” Ciccio grins, tucking into his food.
“My friend,” Ric begins, tentatively, “told me it’s where the arts crowd hang out, you know, intellectuals, politicians, that sort.”
Ciccio bridles. He cuts a morsel of aubergine into a neatly symmetrical portion, forks it delicately into his mouth and closes his eyes to savour the flavour. He waits until he has swallowed before replying, “Yes, of course, it can be. Now that our President, Rosario Crocetta, is open about his sexuality, places like Exit are more acceptable. It doesn’t make him any more popular, though. You know, when he was mayor in Gela, he almost put Stidda out of business; no one could collect their pizzo.”
“Pizzo?” Ric repeats.
“Yes, pizzo,” Ciccio repeats, a lecturer amazed that his pupil can be such a dimwit. He places his fork carefully at the edge of his plate and rubs his thumb and index finger together: “Pizzo, the beak that needs wetting, the money others make from making sure your business is not bothered. Do you not have this in Britain?”
Ric chuckles and nods, “Of course we do, but in Britain pizzo is charged by the council, not the Mafia.”
This concept of official pizzo is anathema to one such as Ciccio. He juggles it around in his head before replying, “Mm, if it isn’t one type of tax, then surely it is another, eh? What can we do?”
“The poor man’s burden,” Ric adds.
The two sit and eat and watch the women who wait on their men the way a bitch waits in the presence of her master.
Ciccio eats only half of his meal before pushing his plate away. He sits back and closes his eyes for a moment before asking, “Do you mind if I smoke while you are still eating?”
“It’s a free country,” Ric replies.
“As long as you pay your pizzo,” Ciccio suggests. He smokes and studies Ric from across the table. When he has reached a conclusion of sorts he says, “It is said,” he hesitates, lowering his voice, “it is said that the police suspect a foreigner of the killing of this politician who was shot in Lipari. Have you heard this, Ric?”
He remembers what Marcello told him regarding not trusting those he meets, so he looks up from his plate and delivers the Sicilian a stern, uncompromising expression; one designed to leave him no doubt that Ric has much to hide and doesn’t appreciate his line of questioning. It is, he reasons, the reaction Ciccio would expect.
Ric pauses and is about to return to his food, when he reconsiders, looks back and says, “No, I hadn’t heard that, Ciccio. What nationality do they think the foreigner is this time, another Lithuanian?”
Ciccio grins. “No, English.”
“Counts me out then, I’m Welsh.” Ric delivers the Sicilian a stark glance, which spawns an anxious silence while he works his way through the plate of sardines.
Ciccio sits, quietly smoking his cigarette, still studying and assessing. He stubs his cigarette end into the ashtray, smiles and lifts the blanket of silence: “No, I am mistaken. This man they are looking for is not English; he is Gallese, like you, eh?”
He waits and watches for Ric’s reaction to his less than subtle accusation. Judging by his smirk, Ciccio is both amused and no little pleased that he has now joined all the dots in his puzzle.
Ric offers him as serious and deadpan an expression as he can muster, then, “What’s it to you, Ciccio?”
“To me? Nothing,” he replies, shrugging his shoulders and holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Nothing except that someone should have shot that snake Candela long ago. It was as much as he deserved. No, I am mistaken. It was probably not as much, come to think of it; he deserved worse.”
“Except that I didn’t shoot him,” Ric states.
“Of course you did not my friend. Of course you did not. And I am King Ferdinand III.” Ciccio laughs, as much at his own joke as at Ric’s. But gradually, his amusement wanes and his serious, game-face returns. “Wait a minute, my friend; this is why you asked me about the club in Palermo, no?” He leans forwards. “You know that Girolamo Candela was often seen in this place and you wanted to know if I knew this place also.”
Ciccio frowns in thought and then appears very suddenly enlightened. “Gallese, you are playing some kind of trick with me. Be careful, eh? Francesco Ferro is not so amused when people play tricks with him.” His lip curls again and he glares so hard, Ric can feel the heat through Ciccio’s dark glasses. “I tell you, Gallese, I met you only five minutes before and already you make me nervous, and when I am nervous I do not react so kindly to people who ask questions.”
Ric, though, is equal to Ciccio’s stare. “A moment ago, you were the one asking all the questions.” He hadn’t known there was the chance the man in front of him was going to turn out to be Francesco Ferro; Ric had only been fishing for information. But, now that he has given up his name, Ric knows for certain Ferro is the reason why Marcello has spirited him through the night to Vulcano.
Anger wells up through his core and threatens to overwhelm him. Marcello has set him up. His hands begin to tremble and he is sure his face must be reddening with embarrassment that Marcello can take him for such an easy ride. But why? That is the question which suddenly creeps under his shirt like an army of ants. If Marcello knew Ferro was here, at this curious encampment, why not just stroll in and have it out with him?
Ric looks around and wonders if he has been billeted in some kind of Mafia convalescent home; a retreat or safe-house where no one can be touched.
“Oh, cut the crap, Ciccio,” he murmurs, tetchily, his expression matching that of the man opposite him. “Everyone knows you and Candela were more than just friends. You and Candela and Claudio Maggiore all tucked up in your love nest in Palermo, cooking up dishes no one round here wants to eat.” Ric smiles, “You ought to know that since Candela was shot, you’ve been the favourite topic of conversation at passeggio in the Corta.”
Ciccio glares at Ric for a second and then looks around the patio. The card players are too interested in their game to bother with what is going down between the two of them. The other couples sit, like stone statues sunning themselves, while Kasim stands polishing glasses behind the bar.
“Puddaciaru!” Ciccio spits.
Ric waits until the man’s venom has dried on the marble floor. “Puddaciaru?” he repeats, recognising the word he heard during the quarrel between the two men that night he was tied up to the jetty at Pietra Liscia.
“I’ve heard that quaint expression before, Ciccio. I gather it has two meanings. A friend of mine explained it to me. He said puddaciaru are either people who have not enough to do with their hands, so they exercise their mouths, or they are people who don’t know when to remain silent, so they speak out of turn.
“Is that what Claudio Maggiore did, Ciccio? Did Claudio speak out of turn? Is that why Girolamo Candela sent you over to Lipari before his grand presentation?”
Ciccio stiffens in his seat. His face reddens and he clenches his fists. But he looks around once more and realises that he cannot go across the table at Ric with so many witnesses present. His lips twitch and he bares his teeth.
Ric watches him very closely and continues, “My guess is that when Candela found out how Marcello Maggiore had sent his man over to Palermo to bring Claudio back for his father’s funeral, he got jumpy that Claudio might spill the beans to his brother about how you and Candela were trying to bribe the others on the planning committee to vote for the new hotel up at Porticello.
“Candela sent you over to persuade Claudio to keep quiet and you took him up to the beach at Pietra Liscia to talk some sense in to him. You couldn’t do it at his place, because too many people had come into town for his father’s funeral. But when Claudio told you he’d already spoken to his brother, you knew the game was up and you decided you had no alternative but to silence him and bury his body in the warehouse. You knew Claudio’s boat was in Palermo and you hoped that people would come to the conclusion he’d gone back there to mourn his father’s death in private. Afterwards, while most of Lipari was preparing for Onofrio’s funeral, you paid one of the fishermen to take you over to Vulcano, thinking that as there was no body, no one would know a crime had been committed and therefore no one would be looking for you.
“What you didn’t reckon on was that the police were onto Candela’s game and that nothing goes on here without the right people knowing about it. Lipari is a small island, Ciccio. You’ve spent so much time in Palermo, you’ve forgotten that.”
Ric pauses, but he isn’t finished. “But someone tipped the police off about Candela bribing the planning committee and they came here to arrest him. They left it until after his big speech up in the Piazza Mazzini because they wanted to look good. They like a bit of opera seria when they can get it and they wanted the best publicity they could get for their money.”
Ciccio fidgets uncomfortably, as though he has fallen victim to one of the many feral cats which wander the Maddalena at night.
“What you, and they, didn’t bargain for was someone shooting Candela. The police wouldn’t normally get so annoyed; after all, Girolamo was just another cheap politico from Palermo. But whoever shot Candela emptied the theatre on their curtain raiser, so they locked down the island. You didn’t panic though; you thought you’d just lie low here until the noise dies down. Out of all of this, you were going to be the only winner. With both Candela and Claudio Maggiore out of the picture, there’s nothing to link you to either of them, which means you’ll get away clean.”
Ciccio is now squirming in his seat; his facial muscles twitch and draw tight over his cheeks. “Fituso!” he snarls. “Ed a chi la racconterai questa frottola, eh? You think anyone will believe your fairy tale?”
Ric leans as far across the table as he can without getting up. “It doesn’t matter whether you believe me,” he whispers, “but there’s a little cockerel of a Commissario in Lipari who won’t fall asleep when I read him your bedtime story. You see, Ciccio, I heard you use the word puddaciaru once before. It was late the first night I arrived at Pietra Liscia and you were talking to Claudio. And as if that isn’t enough, I heard Claudio Maggiore call you by your name just before you strangled the life out of him.”