Death at Sea: Montalbano's Early Cases by Andrea Camilleri & Stephen Sartarelli

Author:Andrea Camilleri & Stephen Sartarelli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

THE TRANSACTION

1

Montalbano was fed up. He couldn’t take it any longer. After glancing at his watch—it was almost twenty past five in the afternoon—he looked at Augello and Fazio, who were sitting in front of his desk, also feeling fed up.

“Boys,” he said, “we’ve been talking about this question of night shifts for over two hours without arriving at any solution. But I have a great idea I want to propose.”

He never had a chance to propose his great idea, however, because a bomb, surely thrown in through the open window, went off in the room, deafening them all.

Or, more precisely, such was the terrible impression all three of them had. At any rate, Fazio fell out of his chair, Augello threw himself forward onto the floor, shielding his head with his hands, and the inspector found himself kneeling behind his desk.

“Anyone hurt?” Montalbano asked a moment later.

“Not me,” said Augello.

“Me neither,” said Fazio.

They fell silent.

Because, as they were saying this, they all realized that it wasn’t a bomb that had made that frightening boom, but the door to Montalbano’s office, which, flung open, had crashed against the wall.

And, indeed, in the doorway stood Catarella, who this time did not, however, “papologize” or “beck their parting,” but merely excused himself, saying his hand had slipped.

He was red in the face and trembling all over, his eyes so goggled they looked like they were about to pop out of his head.

“Th-th-they-sh-sh-shat-th-th-the-po-po-pope!” he said in a voice that came out very shrill, like one of the Flying Squad’s sirens.

And he started weeping uncontrollably.

None of the three, ears still ringing from the boom, understood a thing. But clearly something terrible had happened.

Montalbano went up to him, put his arm on his shoulder, and spoke paternally to him.

“Come on, Cat, get ahold of yourself.”

Meanwhile Fazio brought a glass of water, and Montalbano made Catarella drink it. It seemed to calm him down.

“Sit down,” Fazio said to him, indicating his chair.

Catarella shook his head in refusal. He would never sit in Montalbano’s presence.

“Speak slowly and tell us what happened,” said Augello.

“They shot the pope,” said Catarella.

He said it quite clearly. It was the others who didn’t understand or couldn’t believe what they’d heard.

“What did you say?!” asked Montalbano.

“They shot the pope,” Catarella repeated.

The others remained spellbound for a few seconds. The pope couldn’t possibly have been shot. It was inconceivable, and their brains, in fact, were refusing to accept the news.

“But where did you hear it?” the inspector asked.

“Onna radio.”

Without saying a word, all three raced into Augello’s office, where there was a television set. Augello turned it on. A reporter was saying that John Paul II, while standing up in his automobile, greeting the faithful in St. Peter’s Square, had been struck by two shots from a revolver, one in the left hand and the other in his intestine. The latter injury was very serious. The pope had been taken to the Gemelli hospital. The gunman had tried to escape but was stopped by the crowd.

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