perform. By sleeping through them, he erases them from his memory.’
‘I see. But I can’t not talk to him.’
‘You could try tomorrow morning, after the concert’
A door slammed upstairs.
‘There,’ said Mrs Vasile Cozzo, ‘the maid is going home now.’
Montalbano made a move towards the door.
‘Actually, Inspector, she’s more a housekeeper than a maid,’ Mrs Vasile Cozzo explained.
Montalbano opened the door.
A woman in her sixties, appropriately dressed, descended the final steps from the floor above and greeted the inspector with a nod of the head.
‘Ma’am, I’m Inspector—’ ‘I know.’
‘I realize you’re on your way home, and I don’t want to waste your time. But tell me, did Maestro Barbera and Mrs Licalzi know each other?’
‘Yes. They met about two months ago. The lady had come to the Maestro on her own initiative. He was very happy about this, since he rather likes pretty women. They got into an involved conversation. I then brought them coffee, which they drank, and then they closed themselves in the studio, where you can’t hear anything.’
‘Soundproof?’
Yes, sir. So he doesn’t disturb the neighbours.’
‘Did the lady ever come back?’
‘Not when I was there.’
‘And when are you there?’
‘Can’t you see? I leave in the evening.’
‘Tell me something. If the Maestro has no television and doesn’t read newspapers, how did he find out about the murder?’
‘I told him myself, by chance, this afternoon. I saw the funeral announcement for tomorrow on the street.’
‘And how did the Maestro react?’
‘Very badly. He turned all pale and asked for his heart pills. What a fright I had! Anything else?’
SIXTEEN
That morning the inspector showed up at the office dressed in a grey suit, pale blue shirt, neutral tie and black shoes.
‘My, my, don’t we look fashionable?’ said Mimi Augello.
Montalbano couldn’t very well tell him he’d decked himself out to attend a violin recital at nine thirty in the morning. Mimi would have thought him insane. And rightly so, since the whole business did have something of the madhouse about it.
‘Actually,I have to go to a funeral,’ he muttered.
He went into his office; the phone was ringing.
‘Salvo? This is Anna. A little while ago I got a phone call from Guido Serravalle.’
‘Was he calling from Bologna?’
‘No, from Montelusa. He said Michela’d given him my number some time ago. He knew we were friends. He’s down here for the funeral, staying at the Delia Valle.
He asked me to join him for lunch afterwards; he’s going back in the afternoon. What should I do?’ In what sense?’
‘I don’t know, I’m afraid I’ll feel awkward.’ ‘Why?’
Inspector? This is Emanuele Licalzi. Are you coming to the funeral?’
‘Yes. What time does it begin?’
‘At eleven. When it’s over, the hearse will head straight for Bologna after it leaves the church. Any news?’
‘Nothing major, for now.
Will you be staying long in Montelusa?’
‘Till tomorrow morning. I need to talk to an estate agent 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 parlour 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 …
‘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, dialled 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 flat 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. The scarf 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 display case 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 practising 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
