Having completed my reading of the two volumes of George R R Martin’s A Storm of Swords in his Epic Fire and Ice series, I am turning back to the Montalbano novels of Andrea Camilleri with The Shape of Water read yesterday and over night 18th of June 2013. The TV production was shown in the UK in February of last year, nearly a year and half ago yet the story remained fresh in my visual memory as I romped through this first novel of the writer. I believe the TV production is a faithful portrayal of the work as I came to rereading what I wrote of the story at the time.
I commented that I understood” why the first book has becomes the third in the series because of the “softer” approach to criminal activity protecting the reputation of individual.” I now question this observation. I introduce the story saying
“A well known politician is found to have died in a heart attack while being serviced by a prostitute in a notorious beach spot frequented by the lowest level of whores, one of whom an illegal immigrant witnesses the arrival of the vehicle and disappearance of the female involved..” This Montalbano finds out from a former boyhood friend who runs the girls and who provides the Inspector with a list of those he believed to have traded on the night in question together with their addresses. She makes an observation that the woman who was not known to her and who appeared well dressed to be a regular was given a lift almost as soon as she reached the adjacent roadway.
“The story which Montalbano uncovers is complicated.” From the outset there is no suggestion of foul play. The man had a heart condition from which he was being treated and while it is never a good way to die, the dying being the operative word, dying during or immediately after sexual congress is generally regarded as one fo the best of ways of going if one has to!
Because of the man’s political position the establishment of presiding judge, local bishop and other interests in the province want the death quietly buried in order to protect the widow and her son but there is something about the circumstances of the death and its location that puzzles and concerns the Inspector and which rouses his natural instinct to get to the bottom of what happened.” However this is not what it seems.
“A gold diamond encrusted necklace has been found by one of two “street cleaners” who had held on to the find wanting to pawn to gain the funds to take their sick son away for specialist treatment( to Belgium whey where have a relative) which could save his life and which was urgently required.” My understanding from the book is that local doctors were unable to diagnose what was wrong with the lad so they wanted to a different opinion rather than his life was in immediate danger.
“Montalbano tracks down the cleaner and his wife through blagging his way into the home of the other cleaner who discovered and reported finding the body.” This cleaner is a frustrated writer who has made a verbatim note of the decision of the two to advise the lawyer and political associate of the dead man of their discovery and that far from having an emotional reaction to the news about his supposed friend he had told them to report the matter to the authorities, appearing disinterested. This information helps to get Montalbano on to the right track of what had happened especially when the lawyer contacts him about the alleged circumstances of how the necklace came to be lost.
“After hearing the story of the sick child the Inspector gives a receipt for the necklace on the basis that it was handed in on the day of its finding and makes sure the news of finding is out there” and ensure the information that it is in his possession gets about by telling his TV news journalist contact that he does not want any media reference tot he news that the necklace has been discovered in the same area of where the man died.”
“This has the desired effect because the lawyer political fixer of the dead man comes forward to claim the necklace with a cock a bull story about how it came be lost. ”The story is that the wife of a well known person had agreed to having a sexual experience with her husband at this well known spot but when they arrived had changed their minds and she had lost the necklace while getting in and then out of the car.
When I wrote the piece I noted that “I have not grasped some of the essential elements and I am too busy to watch the programme again.” I was not certain about the relationship between the voluptuous, as he was able to find out wife owner of the necklace, a six foot woman from Sweden and regarded as a free spirit, to the dead man. I will try and explain shortly.
“Montalbano agrees to return the necklace said to be worth 70 million lire or more, on the understanding that the finder will be rewarded with 10 million and he then advises the family to immediately make arrangements to take the child for treatment and leave as soon as the money is paid.” At the time fo writing the original piece I attempted to find out the worth of 10 million lire and at the back of each book there are notes to help the non Italian understand some references. From this the amount paid to the street cleaner is £4500 with £5 English money convertible to 11000 Italian lire.
Montalbano refuses to sign off the death from natural causes because of the growing suspicion that the circumstances of the death are suspicious in that although the man was not the kind of politician that the Inspector would want to be friends with, he was not the kind of man to jeopardise everything by having sex in the open with a casual prostitute. This is confirmed by his wife who reveals that her husband had a beach area hideaway not far from the infamous beach in question. The inspector visits finds a gun in a bedside drawer which he leaves, he also finds women’s clothing, wigs and toiletries on the premises. When the wife gains access to the photos of her husbands dead body she fuels his concern by drawing attention that her husband pants are being worn back to front, something would he not ever had done, being a fastidious person and that had he mistakenly put them on that way he would turned them round after going to the toilet, something which he had to do frequently because of medication taken in relation to his heart by pass. Montalbano concludes that he had not died at the site so why go to the trouble?
Further work reveals that there was no direct way given where the husband was known to have travelled to reach the site where the car was found until it is established first through the help of one of his staff, Fazio, that it was possible to take the car along a dried river bed from the coastal cottage although damaging the vehicle’s suspension, and which testing the man’s car also reveals a damaged suspension. Montalbano himself also take the route and this brings me to the second part of the frame up, not just to damage the reputation of the dead man, but the daughter in law of another politician.
The daughter in law and owner of the necklace which she kept in a handbag at the coastal cottage admitted having a brief affair with the dead man but had subsequently become his friend and used the cottage when he was not there for sexual encounters with her father in law. She had been effectively raped by her father in law when at a hotel attending a conference where her husband had to drop out at the last moment.
After that first time he had become obsessed insisting on having sex frequently for which the cottage was used as well as sexually pawing her at very opportunity, often in the presence fo his wife, his son and friends and other family members. He was aggressive tearing her clothes off which is the reason why she kept sets of clothing.
I cannot remember how the woman came to be effectively blackmailed to having ongoing sex with her father in law and to initially repeating the story of how she came to lose the necklace fed to her by the lawyer. What is clear is that as a known rally driver she was capable of driving along the river bed as she does with Montalbano when he takes her to the cottage to break the story she has been pressing on him. Montalbano has a further investigation of the site and the former, now walled and derelict, factory adjacent after insisting on getting a key and entering through the only entrance. Among with the rubbish he finds the handbag of the Swedish wife where her initials are still visible although there has been a crude attempt to erase them. He had gone looking for the handbag because it had not been found at the scene and his witness to the departing woman accompanying the dead man and alleged to have had sex with him, did not report to having the handbag with her as she left the scene.
Having worked out what happened he recounts his knowledge to the Commissioner after he had enjoyed two helpings of baby Octopuses the Commissioners wife. I have commented before on the love Montalbano has of good food and his critical evaluations. Earlier on asking a colleague to visit late he offers a dish of prawns which his help had prepared by his help ( sufficient for four persons) but lacking some seasoning and he also provides some pasta which he prepares for himself. The help had offered her domestic service after he had helped her son from getting into worse trouble and a more severe sentence than was likely.
We are also introduced to his relationship with Livia, who lives on the mainland and he plans to visit at the weekend as long as the work does not detain him. She has expressed concerns about the domestic help but Montalbano reassures adding that he would be surprised if he could find someone better.
Montalbano explains about the cottage and therefore would such a careful man go to a public site. He then explains about the impassable route unless the driver is skilled and that a woman was reported to have driven the vehicle adding to desire on someone part to frame the Swedish wife of another senior politician as she was known to be a rally driver.
The Inspector also points out if the death had occurred as witness subsequently stated why had the woman not reacted emotionally. There is also the suggestion that the when the woman went to the roadway she was immediately picked up without appearing to seek a lift or having to wait at a location where there was little passing traffic.
The man’s wife had explained to Montalbano that apart from the early years of their marriage which saw the birth of a son the couple had not continued sexual relations, moreover the husband was bisexual and has acquired and used the cottage for the purpose. Moreover it became evident from the distress of the beautiful young man, a nephew who lives at the home of the dead man and his wife that his relationship had developed what would normally be expected.
The young man had been with his uncle at the cottage when the death occurred, It was the young man who had used the neck brace he had been using to make it look as if the his lover was alive in the car, using the female clothing and a wig and it was the lawyer who been called in to help who had in turn had devised the plan to use the death to discredit his former political boss and the daughter in law of another rival politician. He pretended to be protecting her and her father in law by getting her to confirm the story that the necklace has been lost sometime before and in the circumstances when she had been there with her husband, knowing that all the clues would lead to her being identified as the prostitute. The cleverness was in persuading the wealthy and influential of the province to all lean on the Inspector to close the case knowing that he would do nothing of the kind and follow the trail that had been set and with the story coming out with its attempted cover up it would remain a scandal finishing the political careers and enabling the lawyer to step in.
Montalbano is able to piece the story together after the lawyer is also found dead and shot with the first reaction of officialdom that this was yet another Mafia shooting of a politician who they felt they would not be able control at the point when he was to have great power.
Montalbano then realises that the murder weapon is the one he found at the villa, and left it there. The nephew is then found dead having gone off the road at a bend high on the cliff side. This confirms that he had taken the revolver, knowing where it was, killed the lawyer for betraying his uncle for his personal political career and then turns the weapon on himself.
Montalbano then tells the story to his mistress Livia when he visits at the weekend as she realises there is an aspect continuing to worry him. Guilty at having left the gun at the Coastal Cottage.
He closes the case much to the delight the establishment but without disclosing or recording all that he knows.
I like the style of writer, assuming the translation is a faithful one because like me he likes to tell everything he feels someone needs know, so a sentence becomes page sometimes two. As I shall recount about the Corleone Crime network, there was, and I suspect remains a very dark side to Sicily through the creation of a totalitarian crime state built up over generations. Camilleri creates a more humorous, lighter world where the crime fighter has time to swim regularly from his beach house, to enjoy good food and to have a loving sexual relationship, but a mistress, to which he is faithful, at least when the series commences.
I wish I had commenced with this nook rather than how the series was shown in the UK with Snack Thief in which in addition to the main interesting tale his relationship change with a proposal of marriage and the intention to adopt the child“ the snack thief” orphaned boy of an immigrant., We are also yet to meet his deputy, Mimi and her behaviour of his desk sergeant who remains the station clown although there is more to him as is revealed as lives of backstories of the main characters begin to unfold. I also seem to have reversed the order in which the books were written and television with the next two, The Terracotta dogs and the Voice of the Violin, which is next.
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