The Track of Sand
(Book 12 in the Inspector Montalbano series)
A novel by Andrea Camilleri
A PENGUIN MYSTERY
THE TRACK OF SAND
Andrea Camilleri is the author of many books, including his Montalbano series, which has been adapted for Italian television and translated into nine languages. He lives in Rome.
Stephen Sartarelli is an award-winning translator and the author of three books of poetry, most recently The Open Vault.
1
He opened his eyes and immediately closed them again.
For some time now, he had been sort of refusing to wake up in the morning. It was not, however, to prolong any pleasurable dreams, which he was having less and less of these days. No, it was a pure and simple desire to remain a little while longer inside the dark well of sleep, warm and deep, hidden at the very bottom, where it would be impossible for anyone to find him.
But he knew he was irremediably awake. And so, with his eyes still sealed, he started listening to the sound of the sea.
The sound was ever so slight that morning, almost a rustling of leaves, always repeating, always the same, a sign that the surf, coming and going, was breathing calmly. The day therefore promised to be a good one, without wind.
He opened his eyes, looked at the clock. Seven. As he was about to get up, a dream he’d had came back to him, but he could remember only a few confused, disconnected images of it. An excellent excuse to delay getting up a little longer. Stretching back out, he closed his eyes again, trying to put the scattered snapshots in order.
There was someone beside him in a sort of vast, grassy expanse, a woman, and he now realized that it was Livia, but it wasn’t Livia.That is, she had Livia’s face, but her body was too big, deformed by a pair of buttocks so huge that she had difficulty walking.
He, too, felt tired, as after a long walk, though he couldn’t remember how long they had been walking.
So he asked her:
“Is there far to go?”
“Are you already tired? Not even a small child would wear out so fast! We’re almost there.”
The voice was not Livia’s. It was coarse, and too shrill.
They took another hundred steps or so and found themselves in front of a cast-iron gate that was open.The grassy meadow continued on the other side of the gate.
What on earth was that gate doing there, if there was no road or house as far as the eye could see? He wanted to ask the woman this but refrained, not wanting to hear her voice again.
The absurdity of passing through a gate that served no purpose and led to nowhere seemed so ridiculous to him that he stepped aside to walk around it.
“No!” the woman yelled. “What are you doing? That’s not allowed! The owners get upset!”
Her voice was so shrill it nearly pierced his eardrums. Who were these “owners”? All the same, he obeyed.
Just past the gate, the landscape changed, turning into a racecourse, a hippodrome with a dirt track. But there wasn’t a single spectator; the grandstands were empty.
Then he realized he was wearing riding boots with spurs instead of his regular shoes and was dressed exactly like a jockey. He even had a little whip under his arm. Matre santa, what did they want from him? He had never ridden a horse in his life! Or rather, yes, once, when he was ten years old and his uncle had taken him to the countryside where—
“Mount me,” said the coarse voice.
He turned and looked at the woman.
She was no longer a woman, but sort of a horse. She had got down on all fours, but the hooves over her hands and feet were clearly fake, made out of bone, and indeed, the ones on her feet were slipped on, like slippers.
She was wearing a saddle and bridle.
“Come on, mount me,” she repeated.
He mounted and she took off at a gallop, fast as a Roman candle. Bumpety bumpety bumpety bumpety bumpety bumpety . . .
“Stop! Stop!” he cried.
But she only started running faster. At a certain point he was on the ground, having fallen, with his left foot caught in the stirrup and the horse neighing—no, she was laughing and laughing . . . The horse-woman then fell forward onto her front legs with a whinny, and, finding himself suddenly free, he ran away.
He couldn’t remember anything else, try as he might. He opened his eyes, got out of bed, went to the window and threw open the shutters.
And the first thing he saw was a horse, lying on its side in the sand, motionless.
He balked, momentarily bewildered. He thought he was still dreaming.Then he realized that the animal on the beach was real. But why had that horse come to die right in front of his house? Surely when it fell it must have emitted a faint neigh, just enough to set him spinning, in his sleep, the dream of the horse-woman.
He leaned out the window to have a better look.There wasn’t a living soul about.The fisherman who set out from those waters every morning in his little boat was now a tiny black dot on the sea.The horse’s hooves had left a series of tracks at the edge of the beach, on the hard sand nearest the water, but he couldn’t see where they began.
The horse had come from far away.
He hastily slipped on a pair of trousers and shirt, opened the French door, crossed the veranda, and stepped down onto the beach.
When he got close to the animal and looked at it, he was overcome with rage.
“Bastards!”
The beast was all bloodied, its head broken open with some sort of iron rod, its whole body bearing the signs of a long, ferocious beating.There were deep, open wounds here and there, pieces of flesh dangling. It was clear that at a certain point the horse, battered as it was, had managed to escape and started running desperately away until it could go no further.
The inspector felt so furious and indignant that had he had one of the horse’s killers in his hands at that moment, he would have made him meet the same end. He started following the hoofprints.
Every so often they came to an abrupt halt, and in their place there were signs in the sand indicating that the poor animal had fallen to its knees.
He walked for almost forty-five minutes before reaching the spot where the horse had been bludgeoned.
Here, because of all the frantic stepping and tramping, the surface of the sand had formed a kind of circus ring marked with a confusion of overlapping shoe prints and hoofprints. Scattered around it were three iron bars stained with dried blood, and a long, broken rope, probably used to restrain the beast.The inspector started counting the different shoe prints, which was not easy. He came to the conclusion that four people, at most, had killed the horse. But two others had witnessed the spectacle, keeping still at the edge of the ring and smoking a few cigarettes from time to time.
He turned back, went into the house, and phoned the station.
“Halloo? Iss izza—”
“Catarella, Montalbano here.”
“Ah, Chief! Iss you? Whass wrong, Chief ?”
“Is Inspector Augello there?”
“’E in’t presentable yet.”
“Then lemme talk to Fazio, if he’s there.”
Less than a minute passed.
“What can I do for you, Chief ?”
“Listen, Fazio, I want you to come here to my place right away, and bring Gallo and Galluzzo with you, if they’re there.”
“Something up?”
“Yes.”
He left the front door to the house open and took a long walk down the beach. The barbaric slaughter of that poor animal had kindled a dull, violent rage in him. He approached the horse again and crouched down for a better look.They had even bludgeoned it in the belly, perhaps when it had reared up. Then he noticed that one of the horseshoes had come almost completely detached from the hoof. He lay on the ground, belly down, reached out and touched it. The horseshoe was held in place by a single nail, which had come halfway out of the hoof. At that moment Fazio, Gallo, and Galluzzo arrived, looked out from the veranda, spotted the inspector, and came down onto the beach. They looked at the horse and asked no questions.