Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions (23 page)

“Just a quick question, my dear. I need an address from you.”

That evening she rang the doorbell of a small house situated on a bend in the Provinciale just before Riposto. Not the best of locations, it must be said, and the house itself was a little old cottage with peeling walls. Behind it, however, Poldi made out an almond orchard, and no one who owns a cottage and an almond orchard is a total pauper.

The windows of the little house were tightly shuttered in the usual Sicilian way, and no sounds were coming from inside. It wasn't until she had rung the bell a second time that Poldi heard a suspicious voice.

“Who is it?”

“Donna Poldina.”

Poldi heard shuffling footsteps and coughing. Then the door opened a crack and a face filled with suspicion and apprehension peered out of the frowsty interior.

“What do you want?”

“Good evening, Turi. I think we need to talk.”

The old agricultural labourer peered around mistrustfully.

“I'm on my own, Turi, and that's the way it'll stay if you let me in.”

“I can't think what you want from me, Donna Poldina.”

Poldi said nothing.

Turi hesitated for a moment, then sighed and let her in. The house was gloomy and stuffy. The heat of the day still lingered in its interior, which was redolent of sweat, old age and solitude. Two well-fed cats were romping around on the worn old sofa in the living room, which also contained a shabby carpet and a flat-screen television. The whole house shook as a lorry thundered past outside.

“Let's go into the orchard,” said Turi. “It's quieter out there. Would you like some iced tea?”

“Please,” said Poldi. The old man was limping, she saw. “How's the leg?”

Turi turned and gave her a sorrowful look. “Oh, Donna Poldina, you almost shot me like a mad dog.”

Poldi nodded. “You shouldn't have jumped over the wall like that.”

“But you fired at me.”

“I didn't. I just shouted ‘Bang'.”

“You shouted
what
?”

“Bang.”

“You didn't fire?”

“Certainly not.”

“But I heard the bullet whizz past me.”

“Pure imagination. My old musket can't fire.”

Turi shook his head in bewilderment. “I'm getting too old for these things.”

“How old are you, Turi?”

“Seventy-two.”

“You really ought to retire.”

“How can I, Donna Poldina? I can't survive on my pension alone.” Having rinsed two glasses, he took an old mineral-water bottle full of amber-coloured iced tea from the refrigerator and filled them.

“Would you care for some lemon ice in it?”

“Yes please.”

Taking a spoon, Turi scooped some water ice from a plastic mug, carefully stirred it into the golden liquid, and then led the way out into the orchard. The forty-odd almond trees arrayed there in neat rows were heavy with furry green capsules. Turi had planted a vegetable garden along the wall and installed a plastic table and two chairs nearby. In the background the traffic on the main road roared past like an unpleasant but inextinguishable memory, though the orchard itself made a quiet, peaceful impression. The two cats, which had followed Turi and Poldi outside, were aimlessly roaming around and mewing. Turi coaxed them over by clicking his tongue. They played coy at first, but then the fatter of the two leapt onto his lap and consented to be stroked. The other did the honours with Poldi.

“Nice orchard,” said Poldi.

“A lot of work.”

Poldi stroked the cat, sipped her iced tea, which tasted both sweet and bitter, and waited.

“How did you recognize me?” asked Turi.

“When you raised your hands on the roof, one finger of your left-hand glove hung limp.”

Turi held up his left hand, the one with the little finger missing. “Madonna, you mean to say you noticed that in the dark?”

“To be honest, it only occurred to me this morning.” Poldi's cat had evidently had enough. It leapt off her lap and retired into the shade of an almond tree, leaving a warm patch of white hairs on her skirt. My aunt stroked the cat hairs into a little ball with her fingers. “Somebody left a dead cat outside my front door this morning. With its throat cut.”

“Madonna,” Turi exclaimed in dismay. “Surely you don't think I —”

“No, not now. Any idea who it could have been?”

He slowly shook his head, which might have meant either that he really didn't know, or that he didn't want to say. “May he roast in hell.”

“He will.”

“I didn't kill Valentino.”

“So who did?”

“If I knew that, I'd have gone to the police a long time ago, believe me. Valentino was a good lad.”

“And there's no one you suspect?”

Turi shook his head again, this time decisively. He stared at his almond trees in silence.

“Who was Valentino blackmailing?” asked Poldi. “Russo or Patanè?”

“I don't know, Donna Poldina. I had an idea Valentino was in some kind of trouble, but he never spoke to me about it.”

“Then why did you call him from Valérie's phone the night before his death?”

“What? I didn't. Why should I use Signorina Belfiore's telephone, anyway? I have a mobile phone of my own. Besides, everyone knows that phone is rubbish.”

Poldi thought for a moment. “We're getting nowhere, Turi.”

The old man stroked his cat. “Are you going to the police, then?”

A difficult question. Poldi sighed. It was such a nice evening, too. The moon was rising above the almond trees, greeted by countless cicadas.

“You know the joke about God making Sicily out of bits of clay left over from the five continents?” asked Poldi.

“The one where he creates the Sicilians to even things up?”

“That's the one.”

Turi nodded. “Great joke. Why?”

Poldi shrugged her shoulders. “I suddenly remembered it, that's all. You're still a thief and a burglar, Turi.”

“I'm really sorry I broke in, I shouldn't have got involved, but I'm no thief.”

“No? What about all those country houses?”

“But Donna Poldina, those weren't robberies.”

And he proceeded to explain.

When Poldi got home late that evening with a basket of ripe tomatoes and a big lump of
pasta di mandorle
, she was in high spirits. The first thing she did was strike Turi off her list of suspects, which now read:

            
RUSSO

            
PATANÈ

            
TANNENBERGER

            
VALÉRIE

            
HÖLDERLIN
MIMÌ

            
TURI

Only five names left, and one of those she could really have struck off after listening to Turi's account, but she was reluctant to be overhasty. One thing at a time. She didn't want to call Montana either, for one thing because of the lido episode but also because she had given Turi her word. Besides, one important piece of the puzzle was still missing: the scene of the crime.

But Poldi was a step closer to that as well.

Despite the lateness of the hour, she called Aunt Teresa.

“Has something happened?” Teresa demanded, instantly on the alert.

“Don't worry, I'm absolutely fine.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“No, I'm stone-cold sober. Listen, I need your help – or rather, Martino's. Could the two of you drop in here early tomorrow morning?”

Teresa's suspicions were promptly aroused, of course. “What's it about?”

“Why,” said Poldi with lamblike innocence, “the case, of course.”

A brief silence.

“I thought you intended to drop it.”

“I did, but there's just been an important development. It's like a stalled car. If we give it a little push, it may start. Then the case will be solved.”

Teresa reinjected some steel into her voice. “Tell all that to Montana. You're off the case, Poldi.”

“You've no idea how utterly depressed I'm feeling.”

My Auntie Poldi was adept at subtle hints, disguised threats and delicate allusions.

“Is that a threat, Poldi?”

“No, it's just that I'm so emotionally unstable.”

Teresa emitted a grunt of disapproval. “What sort of help?”

“Just local knowledge, that's all. We might go on a little trip.”

“A trip?”

“Not far. Please, Teresa.”

Poldi heard her sister-in-law say something unintelligible to Martino, the only word she distinguished being “
amore
”. Soon afterwards she heard Totti bark and knew it was a done deal.

Martino, Teresa and Totti appeared on the doorstep on the stroke of nine the next morning. Poldi, who was again wearing her khaki linen outfit with the uniform jacket, had everything ready. On the table in the courtyard was a pitcher of ice-cold almond milk made with Turi's
pasta di mandorle
, and beside it the photo of the topographical map, the rolled-up strip of paper from the lion, and a map of Sicily with the thefts of recent months marked on it. Poldi was trembling with excitement. So was Totti, and Martino was only just controlling himself. Aunt Teresa alone remained entirely cool because Poldi's little attempt at blackmail still rankled with her. She calmly sampled the almond milk.

“Excellent. How did you make it?”

“With my informant's
pasta di mandorle
.”

Teresa ignored the keyword. “It's really excellent.”

Poldi got the message. “Please forgive me, Teresa. The bit about being depressed just slipped out.”

Teresa put her glass down. “So who is this informant?”

When describing this scene to me in September, my Auntie Poldi broke off to interpolate a little footnote. “The thing is,” she said, “all your aunts are Taureans, which means they never bear a grudge. They're the opposite of Scorpios, and I know what I'm talking about. Make one mistake with a Scorpio, drop one little clanger, and you'll be on their blacklist for the rest of your days. Sooner or later, when
you've
forgotten all about it long ago – ouch, they sting you.”

“Who was the Scorpio in this case?” I asked.

“Oh, that would be going too far.”

“I mean, did that play a role in your investigations?”

Poldi looked at me as if I'd just discovered the formula for world peace. Without another word she disappeared into her bedroom, rummaged in the cardboard box containing her investigative notes, and eventually turned up what she was looking for.

“Hallelujah,” I heard her cry. “Now I'll believe anything.”

“So who was the Scorpio?” I asked when she returned.

Instead of replying she showed me a slip of paper.

“All three?” I exclaimed in bewilderment.

“You bet. And one of them is Valentino's murderer.”

But back to that morning in the courtyard. Poldi kept quiet about the identity of her “informant”, as she had promised. With due brevity, she gave an account of recent developments, including the dead cat, the restoration of her memory and the discovery of the antiquities price list.

“My informant confessed that he took part in the thefts with Valentino. But they weren't real thefts because they all took place with the tacit approval of the owner of the houses, who naturally took his cut.”

“Why on earth should he do such a thing?”

“Because he's broke.”

“Then he could simply have sold the houses.”

“Yes, but only with the land that goes with them, and that's what the gentleman wanted to hang onto.”

“Who?” demanded Teresa.

“Mimì Pastorella di Belfiore, of course. All the looted houses belong to him. That's to say, the ownership of some of the properties is unclear. He may not have wished to go shares with his relations.”

“Then it remains theft,” said Teresa.

“In principle, yes,” Poldi conceded. “Valentino used that to blackmail Patanè too.”

“Are you sure?”

“It's obvious.”

“Patanè is Valentino's murderer, you mean?” Uncle Martino chimed in.

“I'm convinced of it. Patanè compelled my informant to break in and steal the lion. That's why it was probably him that slipped the knockout drops into my wine, the same as he did with Valentino. So he's the murderer. I'm sure it was also him that left the dead cat outside my door.”

“You must speak to Montana at once, then.”

Poldi shook her head. “I must prove it first, and for that we must find the scene of the crime.”

“We?”

“Yes. The thing is, Valentino told me before his death that he had something important to do at Femminamorta, so I assumed that Valérie had something to do with it, because of the lion and Russo and so on. But yesterday my informant hinted that this wasn't necessarily so. Because – brace yourselves – there isn't just one Femminamorta in Sicily, there's a whole bunch of them.”

Teresa and Martino exchanged a look.

Poldi was momentarily speechless.

“You knew that?”

“Of course,” Teresa said with a shrug. “In Italy, Femminamorta is a far from uncommon name for small villages. Just like Donnafugata.”

“Or Donnadolce,” Martino amplified. “Or Occhiobello, Campodimiele, Buonvicino, Fiumelatte, Bastardo – even Baciaculo. They're all over the place.”

Especially in the south, where people think more floridly and express themselves more bluntly. Poldi should really have thought of that, because place names such as Lovely Eye, Honey Field, Good Neighbour, Milk River, Bastard or Kiss Arse have similar counterparts in Bavaria. Many place names are coloured by stories and personal destinies dating from times gone by, and many personal destinies repeat themselves in one way or another. At Valérie's Femminamorta, near Riposto, a consumptive signorina whom everyone loved was said to have died during the eighteenth century. In another Femminamorta the “dead female” might have been murdered by a spurned admirer. At all events, the name was popular and catchy. Uncle Martino estimated that there were at least half a dozen Femminamortas in Sicily alone.