As promised I now turn to Montalbano and I begin with the novel August Heat. Through the genius of Andrea Camilleri we experience the insufferable intensity of the heat in the Sicilian summer and too late Detective Inspector Salvo Montalbano sends staff to locate an appropriate fan although he manages to find one fo the small hand held fans which I have also used to cope with the heat of the Mediterranean day. The police crime story of this book happens by accident, in fact and literally. He is asked to find a suitable beach house on the island for the family of a relative of Livia who also plans to stay with them rather than wait alone at his home or elsewhere for Salvo as he is consumed by the latest cases to emerge. Salvo has great difficulty given that holiday properties have long since been hired but relatively close to hand he about to find a house on its own close the sea.
Everyone is pleased with the find until after a storm with great rain the house becomes infested on three separate occasions requiring the attention of local pest control the intervention of the local major. Just when it seems the visitors can settle and enjoy their holiday the three year old child of the couple disappears. The child is find with the help of a cat and where he is located brings to attention the practice of builders and land developers to try and maximise profit from speculative venture. In this instance a couple from Germany with a simpleton of a son had built the house on a hillside but had never used the property. The son had disappeared while travelling to Germany with the husband and the husband had died subsequently so the widow had asked the building agent to get rid o the property for her.
It is not clear if she was aware that her husband had done a deal with the proper agent site developer and builder to create a second property beneath that of the owner in such a way that it was complete except for adding the windows and doorway with the space covered to ensure the protection of everything else and then the whole level hidden by earth. Then after due time application would be made for the property to recognised despite the failure to gain planning permission and comply with the contemporary local regulations. Successive governments had given amnesty to all those who engaged in this widespread practice from time to time.
In this instance Salvo is curious about a trunk left in the living room and after the boy is reunited with his family he has an explore and finds a body carefully wrapped of a young girl Given the hour and the likelihood that he would not be able to find alternative accommodation for the family he leaves official action until the morning.
Livia and the family having overcome everything else of those first days are horrified that they spent the night oblivious that a body was below with Livia in particular refusing to accept Salvo’s reasoning that the body had been there at the outset and after the trauma of the boy getting himself into the flat and she and the family immediately retreated back to the mainland but as she departed the mood is created that some irreparable about her long standing relationship with Salvo and indeed before the books ends she has departed to sail with a male relative and became incommunicado with Salvo. Meanwhile!
Pieces of the puzzle commenced to emerge. The missing girl was identified as a beautiful young woman with a twin sister just as beautiful. There is something seductive about her manner when interviewed by Salvo but he knows he must resist her charms. His attention centre on the agent and builders especially when one, I cannot remember which is found to have an interest in adolescent girls and has taken trips to places where the poor will strike deals over their children. The way in to his murky world is through those who were engaged in work on the homes and in the sealing of the second home with the body in the trunk. It is also the finding that an immigrant worker had died on another site and that it had been made to look as if the man was drunk and fallen from a properly protected height when in fact evidence is found to show that the protecting rail was purchased later although proving in a court of law would be difficult to impossible. Salvo use the information gained about this situation as leverage in relation to the death of the girl.
According to his superiors the prime suspect is however the son of low intelligence of the property owner who has the habit of accosting young women usually for a kiss or just to touch. When the body of this young man is found naked close to a railway line it is assumed by Salvo’s master that this was a suicide and the case is closed the based that the dead girl was killed by the young man who had previously shown interest in her and hidden in the home before it was closed up.
However Salvo is far convinced with the more likely explanation that the young had accidentally opened the wrong door at night instead of the toilet. This young did not have the wit to kill and hide the girl. Salvo would like to believe the guilty man is the one with the penchant for adolescent girls, although in this instance young woman was older and the man appears to have a cast iron alibi by taking a flight to the Far East confirmed when his secretary notes a telephone call at the flight refuel stop.
The breakthrough comes when Salvo finds that the suspect was unable to get the connecting flight to Bangkok and he supposes that on his intended return to Vigate he to took the road to check that work on the secret home has been completed and sees the young girl and on the spur phones his secretary to stay he has reached the stop over destination unaware that since his last trip the flight no longer stopped over. He had abducted the girl and hidden her body in the trunk after killing her. On his return he had drawn up a contract with the agent to ensure that his firm was responsible for bringing the secret home back to life when the amnesty application was granted, enabling him to then dispose of the body. All this was conjecture based on circumstantial evidence and Salvo devises a plan with the willing assistance of the twin sister in which her family offer to purchase both properties and arranges to meet with Salvo close to hand and colleagues within shouting distance.
By this time the girl has seduced Salvo and he has given her his gun to hand as an added precaution. She uses the weapon to shoot her sister’s killer and Salvo then onoy realises that was her attention all along and that far from having a serious interest in him he was used and in the circumstances he has to give the impression that eh fired the shot when the man attacked the girl although it was she who had wrenched open her blouse to incite and incriminate the man who was shocked to initially discover the purchased appeared to be the girl he had killed several years before.
He responded to the realization by taking off his clothes and going for along swim in the waters below the crime scene. He had wept as swam out anger and humiliation he had been a puppet in her hands, all theatre and make believe. He had behaved as a child and not a fifty five year old.
I listened to an interview with sir Derek Jacobi earlier to day in which he made the point that those who want to act should not but those he needed to act should do. This truth applies to all of us driven in some profession, work, action but there are prices to pay and while expert at the myopic drive, the need there is often ignorance and innocence at other aspects of life.
There is also a moment towards the book when he sets out on a table all the dishes his housekeeper has prepared in the fridge, the green olives, the cured black pass ulna olives, celery, caciocavallo cheese and six dishes, one with fresh anchovies, one with calamaretti another with perpidettri, another with squid, another with tuna and one with sea snails. Each was dressed differently with more in the fridge. In inhaled the aromas He rings Livia and she does not respond. Adriana then arrives for the invited meal.
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