Free Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions by Mario Giordano Page A

brief preliminary investigation, which seemed to indicate that she was the last person to see Valentino alive. Apart, of course, from the murderer.
    A shadow fell across her face.
    â€œSignora Oberreiter?”
    A man in a pale-grey suit was standing beside the car. Possibly a trifle short for Poldi’s taste, he was wearing the grumpy expression of someone attempting to give up smoking. The beginnings of a tummy, but thoroughly fit in other respects, aquiline nose, dark hair not cut too short. A face like a Greek god cast in bronze, beard and moustache flecked with grey. A face devoid of fatigue. An angry little furrow between the eyebrows offset by laughter lines around the eyes. Hands like a pianist’s, slender but strong, with the curving thumbs indicative of willpower. Poldi was something of an expert on these things.
    â€œMy name is Vito Montana. I’m heading this investigation.” The man held up his ID card. Poldi saw a passport photo and the words “ Commissario Capo ”. A detective chief inspector. “I should like to ask you some questions.”
    â€œWhat outfit do you belong to, commissario?”
    â€œState Police.” The commissario indicated Poldi’s Alfa. “I used to have one of these.”
    â€œI didn’t kill Valentino.”
    Montana nodded as if this had long ceased to be an issue. “Any idea who it could have been?”
    Poldi shook her head and eyed Montana’s hands.
    â€œRing?” asked my Aunt Teresa, pragmatic as usual, when Poldi gave her a detailed description of this first encounter.
    â€œAbsolutely not. And his eyes,” sighed Poldi. “Bright green and always on the move. But quite unlike Russo’s. Not so… predatory. More observant, more receptive – you know, more interesting.”
    Teresa, Caterina and Luisa nodded. They knew a thing or two about beautiful eyes.
    But Poldi immediately detected something else in the inspector’s eyes: profound sorrow despite the laughter lines that belied his grumpy manner. She put him in his late fifties, so by no means too young for her. And although he wasn’t, alas, in uniform, one thing was clear from the start: the man appealed to her. This was also the moment when a kind of hunger, a painful ferment in her epicentre, spread rapidly and set everything ablaze.
    â€œYou come from Munich?”
    â€œI’m sorry?”
    â€œYou’re from Munich?”
    â€œEr, yes, originally, but I live at 29 Via Baronessa in Torre Archirafi. I must change the registration on my car.”
    She surreptitiously adjusted her wig, squinting in the rear-view mirror and cursing herself for not wearing any make-up.
    â€œWhat brought you to Sicily?”
    â€œLove,” she said spontaneously, and Montana smiled. He produced a small notebook and turned over a page. To Poldi’s regret, she could no longer see his eyes.
    â€œYou were acquainted with Valentino Candela?”
    â€œHe sometimes ran errands for me.”
    â€œAnd you come here to swim every day?”
    â€œFor my figure’s sake – I’m not twenty any more. That’s to say, no, not every day.”
    â€œBut today.”
    Montana made a note with his strong, willpower-laden hands.
    â€œWhy do you believe this isn’t the scene of the crime?”
    â€œHeavens, surely you must have noticed?”
    â€œNoticed what?”
    â€œWell, there’s hardly any blood beneath his head and none round about, either. There’d have to have been blood everywhere with a killing like this. Like the Totò Scafidi case.”
    Montana looked up from his notebook. Much to Poldi’s regret, he wasn’t smiling any more.
    â€œYou think this murder is somehow connected to that of Totò Scafidi?”
    Poldi sighed. “That was just an incidental remark.”
    â€œPerhaps you’d better refrain from making incidental remarks, signora. Did you remove anything from the