The reason why it can be said that in July 2013 I became occupied with crime and cricket is because of the decision to commence reading through Inspector Salvo Montalbano novels of Andrea Camilleri in chronological sequence, todate The Shape in the Water, the Terracotta Dog, the Voice of the Violin and now, perhaps the best, at least so far, in terms of storyline cleverness and integration, Excursion to Tindari, having previously read The Snack Thief, out of sequence, because it was the first of his books shown as a television programme, in Italy and then more recently on Channel Four on Saturday nights. I should also qualify the reading list by add, those books that have already been translated into English from Italian.
The translations by Stephen Sartarelli who understands English idioms, capturing the flow of the Italian as well as the differences between Italian and Sicilian in the same way of the fake policeman in Allo Allo. In this book the murders of an elderly couple and young man spending more money than any likely honest job appears justified and an extraordinary request from one of the aging heads of a major Mafia family are all connected in a manner which does not leave continuing questions or stretches credulity.
The murder of the young man outside the block flats where he lives is discovered first. It is not clear how the young man is able to afford his evident lifestyle from his part job involving computers, especially as neighbours confirm his practice of bringing attractive young women to his flat and then hearing the cries of the love making which sometimes continues throughout the night. They then discover a number of recorded and commercial video tapes with some home made tapes showing the experiences of the night. Later Salvo realises that the victim also used the commercial tapes and in one instance and important recording inserted into a commercially produce tape of a well known film. The reason why this particular film proves of great interest is that the Inspector has used the comic character of the books, Catarella, whose grasp of Italian creates mayhem, but who passed the new computers training programme top of the class, to go through the hard drive of the murdered young man and print out all the correspondence and what appears at first to be a novel.
The correspondence is of a passionate and extremely intimate nature between the young man and a young woman and from this the Inspectors learns through his deputy Mimi that the young woman has a distinguishing feature, unusual for southern Italian women and I have tried hard to remember how this aspect was covered, or more accurately uncovered in the television version. The discovery causes Salvo to spend a night going through the various tapes until he finds the young woman with the described feature and this causes the flat of the murdered man to be broken into by two of his closest and armed colleagues called to the scene because neighbours have panicked as it appears the ghost of the young man has returned with yet another young woman. Because as usual Salvo had embarked on the study without informing colleagues what he was doing, they immediately assume he is using the flat for an illicit assignation until he explains what he has actually been up to.
He resorted to the idea because the alternative was for him to ask his friend and socialite Ingrid if she had encountered another young woman with the same physical characteristic and while the worldly Ingrid would not have battered one of her adorable eyelids, Salvo’s southern perspective on womanhood would make him blush although in fairness the latest episode of Scandinavian Wallander, Firewall, shown this Saturday past has him also blushing at the suggestion that his relationship with the nurse he believes appointed to deal with his diagnosed condition has developed into a more intimate one.
He does ask Ingrid to view the tape and she immediately confirms the young woman to be the wife of an internationally known transplant surgeon with a clinic on the island. The reason why Mimi suggested that Salvo’s friend might know the young woman is because the correspondence revealed that the woman was not a native Italian and Ingrid from Sweden was known to have moved in a social circle which was likely to include others of a certain lifestyle of standing on the island. While the other films of the man’s sexual experiences concentrated on performance, the correspondence and indeed the film while intimate and direct was not pornographic or obscene, but revealed a love passion and a sensitive adoration for the body of the young woman.
However this was not to be a simple case of a jealous older husband arranging for the murder of the young man and his faithless young wife, for she unexpectedly returned to her homeland and family of a central European country. Ingrid provides a telephone number and the conversation helps Montalbano work or the connections between the murder and the disappearance of an elderly couple on an all day excursion to Tindari where there is a statue of a black Madonna.
The son of the couple, a lawyer, presses Salvo to investigate the disappearance of his parents who through a process of elimination he is able to conclude did into return home from the trip. He “invites” everyone on the coach to go to the police station which causes some mayhem and provides a good insight into the behaviour of Italian seniors inclined to go on such outings. He discovers that the couple went to the back to the coach and stayed there, ignoring the rest. It then emerges that they spent some time looking out of the rear window. The coach stop in the morning and on return for arranged food and comfort breaks but they were asked by the husband of the disappeared couple to make an additional stop and later to establish that the couple did not board the coach when it continues although this was not noted at the time as it was dark and everyone was tired and anxious to return to their homes.
Two of those on the coach are important in establishing these facts, especially that a car was following the coach to and back from Tindari. A young university student was helping to pay her way through college by going on the trips and attempting to sell to the travellers household utensils which she kept in boxes at the rear of the coach and which usually meant the rear seats were not occupied. This meant she had taken particular notice of the couple. Salvo arranges to meet her at a restaurant and Mimi arrives before they leave, despite the rival between the two and Mimi’s resentment of the way his boss treats him, Salvo is horrified when he learns that Mimi has established a relationship with another senior police officer from a distant district and has become engaged with the intention of joining his partner after putting in a transfer request, Noting Mimi’s instant interest in the young demonstrator he asks the young woman to tell Mimi all that she has told him so he can make a report. His move is effective as Mimi begins a serious relationship with the young woman and loses interest in the proposed transfer and marriage to another police officer.
However it is the coach driver whose interview was initially unhelpful who provides a major clue which connects the couple to the death of the young man after Montalbano finds out that the elderly couple lived in the same block. The coach drives makes an make additional income by arranging for photographs of those on the coach to be taken restricting to taking photos when off the couch. By enlarging one of the photos they are able to identify that the car following the couple is that of the young man. The bodies of the elderly couple are then found, Salvo is upset that he did not give the report of the disappearance as much attention as he now feels he should and his interests is furthered when he discovers that the post office pass book which the couple used for their monthly retirement cheques has also disappeared, He is then able to persuades the manager of the local post office centre to disclose the latest transactions as this led to finding an accumulation of nearly 100 million lire, not as exciting an amount as might be first suggested about £31000 but significant more than the couples pension income and expenditure balance and created by the inclusion of a regular sum of around £1000 a month over the previous two years.
The search for how the money was accrued leads to a sister with whom the couple had little contact over member years because the woman’s parents had left her a small estate, a couple of flats and a tiny property on the coast in the middle of nowhere. The murdered couple had visited the sister in law at her request shortly before her expected death. She was leaving the main flat to her housekeeper together with the income of the rented out second flat but the small isolated property she was passing on to her sister although in terms of sale value it was almost worthless because building had no electricity or toilet, It was explained that the reason why one sister had inherited because had stayed home while the other sister and brother had left early to make separate lives.
Salvo then investigates on his own and then purchases breaking in equipment and then injures himself getting into the property which he finds cleared although noting the recent addition of electricity and phone line and a number of connection points. It then is revealed that the young man from the same building had rented the property from the couple on the understanding that they never visited. The breakthrough comes when the husband of the young woman with whom the young man was having an affair catches them together when he returns unexpectedly one afternoon. The reaction of the husband, confirmed by the wife helps Salvo to make the right connections, It is evident to the woman that the husband and the young man knew each other and that from that moment the husband became extremely afraid and insisted that his wife return to her homeland for her own good. He had also closed down his transplant clinic on the island and appeared to be living in fear when interviewed. The explanation lies with the telephone call Montalbano had previously received from the lawyer known to be acting for one two major Mafia families on the Island, a man who had served a long prison sentence for murder, but who was known to have committed a score of other murders where proof had not been possible for one good reason and not so good another.
Salvo is anxious about making the visit to the castle like estate of the family located on a hillside with spectacular views of the surrounding coast and with look outs at various positions. The lawyer meets Salvo at the entrance tot he main property and introduces him to the Mafia head who has his priest confessor with him and who departs with the lawyer after being introduced to Salvo. The man talks in riddles about his frailty and brings man of honour very different from the young criminals of to day and also makes reference to his grandson who has been on the run for many years and is apart of this new order. There is a second meeting after Salvo has to explain to the commissioner why his car number plate was noted by the anti Mafia squad staking out the lair. Salvo convinces the chief to say that they must have recorded the number falsely because the Inspector with him, or in telephonic conversation from the station at the time, giving Salvo the opportunity to proceed with what appears to be an attempt to similar tot hat in the Terracota Dog to stage a police operation by capturing the man on the run who will get help for his medical condition in prison and avoid being terminated by one of the new order of Mafia without honour, a contradiction in terms.
He appoints one fo his trusted assistant to follow the priest with the consequence that the police are led to the location of the wanted man but when they raid the hideout they find villain with his throat cut and his bodyguard disappeared, Salvo has already worked out that the Mafia head had arranged or ordered the killing and for the police to be present and take the blame thus eliminating any connection with the Mafia chief. Salvo refuses to participate n this charade and advises the Mafia family head to arranged for the dead body to disappear without identification.
In the final exchange between the two men, in which admiration is expressed for the way Montalbano had understood the attempted ploy, he learns that the Mafia head is in need of a Kidney transplant, one of hundreds if not thousands who needs such operations but where there are insufficient donors. The information leads Salvo to read the novel which was printed out from the computer of the murdered young man and this is similar to the use of commercial tapes to hide film he wanted to keep and have access without easy detection. The novel is in effect the start of a well known published work but then develops in a story of his experience over the past two years.
The organ transplant doctor achieved international fame which meant that political figures, business leaders and others of great wealth and influence came to him to for help. Acquired a young wife but over time they fell out of love going their own ways for the greater part of the time. He took up the collection of art works and to gambling and these became a weakness which led him to become vulnerable when an organ was required by a leading Mafia figure. The doctor was promised a supply of the required organs almost on demand to match the needs of a patient. The murdered young man had managed the communications link necessary between the need for organs and the requirements of donors in such a way that that the patients and the medial staff had no knowledge of the “donors“ and delivery organisation and vie versa. There was one significant flaw in the system. Those who donated organs did not always fo so voluntarily and some were alive when the organ was removed, then killed and their remains disposed. It was a cruel twist of fate that had brought the young man into direct contact with the doctor via the Doctor’s wife and steps taken to eliminates all evidence of the relationship with first the Doctors wife leaving the country and the doctor closing the clinic and going into effective hiding. The young man had been the instrument of bringing the elderly couple to the meeting place where they were killed and then the young man himself was killed and his body dumped outside his home in an attempt for the two murders not to be linked and was the removal of post office pass book to prevent the extra money being found and the location of the former communication’s base.
In the final scene Montalbano poses and someone coming to kill the doctor with Mimi and another colleague arriving just in time to drive him off so the doctor is only too willing to seek the protection of the police by offering to admit to his part and his knowledge of the organisation behind the gruesome operation.
The relationship between Mimi and the student demonstrator begins to thrive while Salvo starts the process of resuming a goof relationship with Livia and the disappointment of not adopting although in reality he is too preoccupied with work to make a good parent or husband. He admits that part of their problem was that they were behaving as a married couple and he proposes they going back to beginning and court each other, thinking that a dew days spent at Tindari might do them good. However this positive conclusion cannot disguise the revulsion which Salvo and his colleagues feel on learning the way that poor people are being exploited, mutilated and murdered to satisfy he needs of the rich and powerful to sustain their lives regardless of the consequences for everyone else.
While I will leave a full review of Firewall the latest Wallander book brought to television in a two part drama there are two aspects which I must mention. The first with an attempt to control the computers of banks and finance houses through the world. is the emphasis in the book on new technology, thus underlining the impact of computers on the crime genre, The other aspect is related to the inability of the most dedicated and effective of fictional detectives to command on going relationships and lead a family life. In the next book his commitment to work is stretched to breaking point by the behaviour of some colleagues and his self confidence is also shattered by uncovering yet more examples of human exploitation and depravity which lead to decide to resign.
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