The Paper Moon

I am also approaching the end of my reading of the Montalbano books acquired after seeing the two series of made for TV films shown on BBC4 that has established a pattern of showing the best series from Europe on Saturdays at 9pm. The latest read has been the Paper Moon although I am still working out the significance of the title.

A young woman approaches Montalbano because her brother has not responded and she persuades the Inspector to accompany her to his flat, As an after thought despite the fact that she has a key to the flat she thinks of a former laundry room on the roof which he has converted to somewhere to relax and where after breaking in the body of the man is found and with his sexual organ exposed. Later tests reveal that he had not had recent sexual activity. After the usual forensic examination of the area Montalbano who finds the woman attractive allows her to remain for the night in the flat when the body is removed. Because the Inspector is now familiar we the reader are not surprised by this break from normal police practice as we know he is a man who rarely follows convention and has survived because he always gets the right result in terms of uncovering the mystery, identifying the culprits and effecting a form of justice which is empathetic for all the parties and will be regarded fair to anyone who accompanies him on his work and in his private life experiences.

At first there is nothing to indicate why the man has been killed apart from the suggestion that because of his known relationships with women, including married women, jealousy of a husband or another woman could be the motive.

Almost from the outset the sister Michaela points Montalbano in the direction of the latest lover yet one more of the nature emancipated women who we find in the novels of Andrea Camilleri, a woman married to a much older and impotent man who nevertheless likes to enjoy a regular bed with a woman, young enough to be daughter and even grand daughter,

Towards the end of the novel the woman, Elena explains how they came to have such a unique marital relationship in which the husband not only knew about her lovers but required to provide detailed accounts of her experiences, insisting that he always knew in advance when she was to have an assignation.

She had a troubled and rebellious childhood and as an adolescent she had been placed for a year in a specialist residential establishment from which her father had brought the future husband, Emilio, on one of his visits and the man had called again on his own twice.

Because of her difficulties she had run away to Milan and there lived and been used by a large number of men being picked up for prostitution twice by the police. In the first instance she had been sent home to the father but she had run away again and on the second she had been used by the police with violence and humiliation. Between the ages of sixteen and twenty she led a life which Salvo finds difficult to hear and then on her birthday she returns to Sicily. Their relationship begins and they marry.

The evidence against her begins to stack up despite Montalbano not being convinced when he locates the man‘s garage and finds an envelop in the car which contains three letters which she subsequently admits to writing about their relationship experiences but under the direction of the murdered man and which contain a threat to the man‘s life. Elena admits that on the night of his death she had driven to see him but not getting an answer from the flat she had driven around and then home. When Montalbano fails to arrest Elena Michaela complains to his superiors and when she is arrested does she reveal that on the night in question she had an encounter with the garage attendant when she had filled the car with petrol. The reason for the previous non disclosure was that she had broken faith with her husband by not disclosing to him at the time or subsequently about the affair.

One of the reasons for the sister being so against Elena is that he brought the woman very expensive presents including a car and jewellery. Salvo wants to know how the man was able to afford these gifts given his commission based salary as an agent pharmaceutical companies. At first he can find no trace of the man’s financial circumstances and normal household expenditure, It emerges that he had a joint account with his sister and that she managed the household bills giving him the receipts when paid and which he kept in a drawer at the flat. Salvo belatedly works out, admitting that with age, in his early fifties, he is beginning not to be as thorough and as immediately perceptive as he has been throughout his career that the man must have another bank account kept secret from the sister and from the jewellery cases he traces the retailer where he finds the presents were purchased using cheques and this leads to finding the bank account and substantial funds. He also finds that the man had become a gambler at a private establishment, also allegedly unknown to his sister.

As with most if not all the Montalbano stories there is a second mystery, sometimes connected and sometimes not, In this instance there are a number of deaths from bad drugs although in several instances the individuals, well known men, some major political or social figures are said for the media attention and the attention to have died from natural causes. The drugs squad people who Montalbano is asked to cooperate with and where he uses Mimi as the link are convinced that the supplier is based in Vigata. Given the role of the murdered man in the pharmaceutical trade, the gambling debts, it does not take something of the skill of Salvo to appreciate the direction the investigation should take.

However there is also another lead which Salvo follows with his usual persistence. The murdered man had been a doctor struck off because of an involvement in an abortion. However according to the sister her brother had taken the blame for the botched up job of a colleague. The sister is friendly with one fo the young women who her brother had previously been associated and it is from this individual, secretly from the sister that the Inspector is able to locate and interview he young woman and it is what she says that confirms his growing suspicion that the sister has taken action to focus attention on Elena and away from what really happened in order protect the reputation of her brother and to some extent herself. It emerges that with the help of the sister the young woman had been drugged and an abortion carried out on her against her wishes. He also learns from the friend of Michaela that when with the brother he had also directed her to write letters abut their experience together.

Salvo had assigned Caterella in “possion” to try and unravel the three secured files in the mans lap top which eventually he had obtained the information from file one but where all three files subsequently disappeared through a timed ‘abortion’ programme. The first file yielded two sets of numbers which although coded and later established to be a code within a code when he finds the words of a song marked with numbers kept by the man at the flat and eventually this relates to over a dozen customers five of whom, if I remember correctly, have died from a bad cut of drugs and to the payments made for the supply.

Early on the Inspector also establishes that there must have been a strong box in the flat, rooftop room, garage or car and that in addition to placing the incriminating letters in the car for Montalbano to find, the sister had removed the box. This is confirmed that he finds that despite the ordering of a extra large coffin the burial had not immediately taken place because they had not been able to close the lid. Salvo does not immediately interfere with the burial deciding to give the sister the opportunity to own up that box which she was not able to open because this was the one thing where she did not have a key, contained drugs and the evidence that he had attempted to make additional funds keep half the good stuff to sell “privately” while cutting the rest for distribution to the customers arrange via the Mafia. Salvo was able to confirm from a witness that the brother had been visited on the night of his death by known Mafia operator. He was able to get the sister to admit that she had found her brother killed and had decided to incriminate the lover. Faced with the reality the situation Michaela had thrown herself from the flat to her death.

The case it would appears was solved. Livia came and went over a weekend and on the way home he had taken the road to visit the garage attendant with whom she had the affair on the evening of the fatal Monday. He found the garage closed and notes a sign which says that there is closure every Monday.

Once upon his time as a child he had believed his father when he said the Moon was made of Paper! He accuses Elena who for a time he thought had him within her sights as the next lover. She reminds that he had warned her that without an alibi she would be arrested so she had provided an alibi with the participation of the garage attendant who was her lover but not on that Monday and where they had assumed no one would bother to corroborate. While she emphasises that officially they will stick to their statements she admits that she went to flat on the Monday to state the affair was over because she had found a new man. The former lover had attempted to advise his sister not to visit but failed to make contact. They had argued over her decision to break up and she had left.

She then said she did not believe the Mafia man had killed the former lover. She believed it was the sister who had come to see him and was the flat while they were upstairs and she had overheard his begging and declarations of love. She believed the brother and sister had been lovers until her arrival on he scene and he had transferred his affections to her. The sister had committed suicide from guilt and unable to live without her brother. Montalbano believes her remembering that their had been a certificate of registration for a gun in the flat something which had not been followed up and which I now find most surprising.

There was less attention to food in this work although I had previously attempted to check on the notes for clarification only to find here were no notes as the book ended on page 322 without any. Then on reaching the conclusion of the story on page 270 I came to the translated author’s note but which only took me to page 276 so what of the remaining 550 or so pages ? None other than the opening chapters of August Heat the next novel. Wow.