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Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,

Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in Penguin Books 2011

Copyright © Sellerio Editore, 2008

Translation copyright © Stephen Sartarelli, 2011

All rights reserved

Originally published in Italian as Il campo del vasaio by Sellerio Editore, Palermo.

Publisher’s Note This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Camilleri, Andrea.

[Campo del vasaio. English]

The potter’s field / Andrea Camilleri ; translated by Stephen Sartarelli.

p. cm.

“A Penguin Mystery.”

ISBN : 978-1-101-55261-2

I. Sartarelli, Stephen, 1954- II. Title.

PQ4835.A3894C3513 2011

853’.914—dc23

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1

He was awakened by a loud, insistent knocking at the door. A frantic knocking, with hands and feet but, curiously, no ringing of the doorbell. He looked over at the window. No dawn light filtered through the closed shutter; outside was still total darkness. Or, rather, every so often a treacherous flash lit up the window, freezing the room, followed by a thunderclap that shook the windowpanes. The storm that had started the day before was raging with greater fury than ever. Strangely, however, the surging sea was silent, though it must have eaten up the beach all the way to the veranda. He groped around on the bedside table, hand searching for the base of the small lamp. He pressed the button, clicking it twice, but the light didn’t come on. Had the bulb burned out, or was there no electricity? He got up out of bed, a cold shiver running down his spine. Through the shutter slats came not only flashes of lightning, but blades of cold wind. The main light switch was also not working. Maybe the storm had knocked out the power.

The knocking continued. Amidst the pandemonium, he thought he heard a voice cry out, as if in distress.

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” he shouted.

Since he had been sleeping naked, he looked around for something to cover himself, but found nothing. He was sure he had left his trousers on the chair at the foot of the bed. Perhaps they had slid to the floor. But he had no time to waste. He ran to the front door.

“Who is it?” he asked before opening.

“Bonetti-Alderighi. Open up, hurry!”

He balked, utterly confused. The commissioner? What the hell was going on? Was this some kind of stupid joke?

“Just a minute.”

He ran to get the flashlight he kept in the kitchen-table drawer, switched it on, and opened the door. He could only gawk, speechless, at the rain-drenched commissioner standing before him. Bonetti was wearing a black, rumpled hat and a raincoat with a shredded left sleeve.

“Let me in,” he said.

Montalbano stepped aside and his boss came in. The inspector followed him mechanically, as if sleepwalking, forgetting to close the door, which started banging in the wind. Reaching the first chair at hand, the commissioner did not so much sit down as collapse in it. Before Montalbano’s astonished eyes, he buried his face in his hands and started crying.

The questions in the inspector’s mind began to accelerate like a jet plane before takeoff, arising and vanishing too fast for him to catch hold of even one that was clear and precise. He couldn’t even open his mouth.

“Could you hide me here at your house?” the commissioner asked him anxiously.

Hide him? Why on earth would the commissioner need to hide? Was he a fugitive from justice? What had he done? Who was looking for him?

“I don’t . . . understand . . .”

Bonetti-Alderighi looked at him in disbelief.

“What, Montalbano, do you mean you haven’t heard?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“The Mafia took power tonight!”

“What are you saying?!”

“Well, how else did you expect our wretched country to end up? A little change in the law here, a little change there, and here we are. Could I please have a glass of water?”

“Yes . . . of course.”

He quickly realized the commissioner wasn’t quite right in the head. Perhaps he’d had a car accident and was now raving from the shock. The best thing was to call Montelusa Central Police. Or maybe it was better to call a doctor at once. Meanwhile, however, he mustn’t let the poor man suspect anything. So, for the moment, at least, he had to humor Bonetti-Alderighi.