The Potter's Field Read Free Page B

practically unreachable, unless it stops raining.”
    â€œBut this isn’t going to stop before evening, if we’re lucky!”
    â€œThere’ll be a break in the clouds in about an hour,” Ajena cut in. “Guaranteed, with a twist of lemon on it. And then it’ll start raining again.”
    â€œSo what are we supposed to do here till then?”
    â€œHave you eaten this morning?” Ajena asked him.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWould you like a little fresh tumazzo with a slice of wheat bread made yesterday?”
    Montalbano’s heart opened and let in a gentle breeze of contentment.
    â€œI don’t mind if I do.”
    Ajena got up, opened a spacious haversack that was hanging from a nail, pulled out a loaf of bread, a whole tumazzo cheese, and another flask of wine. Pushing aside the playing cards, he set them all down on the little table. Then he extracted a knife from his pocket, a kind of jackknife, which he opened and laid down beside the bread.
    â€œHelp yourselves,” he said.
    â€œCould you tell me at least how you found the body?” asked Montalbano, mouth full of bread and cheese.
    â€œNo, come on!” Mimì Augello burst out. “First, he has to finish the game. I haven’t been able to win a single one so far!”

    Mimì lost that one too, and so he wanted another rematch, and another rematch after that. Montalbano, Fazio, and Catarella, who was drying himself by the fire, packed in the tumazzo, which was so tender it melted in one’s mouth, and knocked back the entire flask of wine.
    Thus an hour passed.
    And, as Ajena had predicted, there was a break in the clouds.

2
    â€œWhat the . . . ?” said Ajena, looking downwards. “It was right here!”
    They stood all in a row, elbow to elbow, on a narrow footpath, looking down below towards a very steep stretch of earth, practically a sheer drop. But it wasn’t actually earth, properly speaking. It was an assortment of grayish, yellowish slabs of clay that the rainwater did not penetrate, all of them covered, or rather, coated, with a sort of treacherous shaving cream. You could tell from the look of the slabs that you had only to set your foot down on them to find yourself suddenly twenty yards below.
    â€œIt was right here!” Ajena repeated.
    And now it was gone. The traveling corpse, the wandering cadaver.
    During the descent towards the spot where Ajena had spotted the corpse, it was impossible to exchange so much as a word, because they had to walk in single file, with Ajena at the head, leaning on a shepherd’s crook, Montalbano behind, leaning on Ajena, hand on his shoulder, Augello next, hand on Montalbano’s shoulder, and Fazio behind him, hand on Augello’s shoulder.
    Montalbano recalled having seen something similar in a famous painting. Brueghel? Bosch? But this was hardly the moment for art.
    Catarella, who was the last in line, and not only in a hierarchical sense, didn’t have the courage to lean on the shoulder of the person in front of him, and thus slid from time to time in the mud, knocking into Fazio, who knocked into Augello, who knocked into Montalbano, who knocked into Ajena, threatening to bring them all down like bowling pins.
    â€œListen, Ajena,” Montalbano said irritably, “are you sure this is the right place?”
    â€œInspector, this land is all mine and I come here every day, rain or shine.”
    â€œCan we talk?”
    â€œIf you wanna talk, sir, let’s talk,” said Ajena, lighting his pipe.
    â€œSo, according to you, the body was here?”
    â€œWha’, you deaf, sir? An’ whattya mean, ‘according to me’? It was right here, I tell you,” said Ajena, gesturing with his pipe at the spot where the slabs of clay began, a short distance from his feet.
    â€œSo it was out in the open.”
    â€œWell, yes and no.”
    â€œExplain.”
    â€œMr. Inspector, it’s all clay