He noticed that Catarella seemed a little awkward. ‘Have you got anything else to tell me?’
‘Nah, Chief, ’ass alls was inna messitch. But . . .’
‘Come on, man, speak!’
‘Ascuse me fer bein’ so bol’, Chief, but I gotta ax yiz a quession: are ya also a dacter?’
‘What do you mean “also”?’
‘I mean also a middical dacter?’
‘Are you kidding?’
‘’Enn why’s Miss Livia want yiz to go an’ visit a sick man?’
‘Cat, Livia means she wants me to visit him and keep him company.’
Catarella looked disappointed.
‘I’s thinkin’ utterwise. ’Cuz if you was also a middical dacter I’s gonna tell yiz about dis stiff neck I got ’at rilly hoits a lot an’ . . .’
Montalbano ran away.
*
At Enzo’s he kept to mostly light stuff in view of the meal he would be having that evening with Giovanna. He thought he would take her to the trattoria on the beach between Montereale and Sicudiana, whose speciality was every kind of antipasto the heart desired. However, even though there was no need, he took his regular walk along the jetty out to the lighthouse.
Sitting down on the flat rock, it occurred to him that the dinner with Giovanna was coming at exactly the right moment, just after everything Fazio had told him about Arturo.
And for her part, Giovanna herself, with more than a little skill and grace, had managed to insinuate a few less than edifying things about her brother Arturo.
Therefore, if there really was a will, then the only person who had something to gain by making it disappear was Arturo.
According to what Giovanna said, the will granted her the bigger part of the inheritance and left the smaller part to Arturo. Also according to Giovanna, Barletta had made this decision because she had two children while Arturo had none.
But it’s possible the real reason was something else entirely.
Barletta may have been taking revenge on his son for not allowing him to carry on his love affair with his former mistress, who had become Arturo’s wife.
But the reasons that had led Barletta to make that kind of will were not terribly important. The important thing was that the disappearance of the will was to Arturo’s advantage, since in that case, by law, the inheritance had to be divided equally.
This did not mean, however, that Arturo murdered his father.
*
Augello came in at five-thirty, instead of five o’clock, as he’d promised.
‘Do you know what time it is, Mimì? It’s five-thirty.’
‘Yeah, I know, I’m sorry, but—’
‘Half an hour is half an hour!’
He realized he was repeating Livia’s reproach when she told him off for coming home too early.
Mimì sat down, took out of his pocket six letters bound by a rubber band, and handed them to the inspector.
‘Should I read them myself or will you tell me what’s in them?’
‘For the moment I can tell you about them, but I think you’d do well to have a look at them later yourself.’
Montalbano put them in his jacket pocket. ‘So tell me.’
‘A preliminary statement. These six letters have no envelopes that might tell us who sent them, and they are not signed. From our perspective, they’re totally anonymous. The only thing they have in common is the handwriting. They’re all written by the same person and must have been fairly important to Barletta, for him to keep them hidden in a secret drawer.’
‘You’ve already told me this.’
‘Yes, but it’s good to remind oneself. Even though they’re not dated, it’s clear they cover a rather long span of time.’
‘How long?’
‘In my opinion, about ten years.’
‘So long? How can you tell?’
‘Well, over time a person’s handwriting tends to change in certain ways. And that’s what happens in these letters. Then there are some references in the letters themselves that make you realize this.’
‘Are they love letters?’
‘In a way, yes. I don’t know whether there really was any love between the two, but there was certainly a strong physical attraction.’
‘Strange.’
‘Why?’
‘Because normally Barletta’s affairs lasted three or four months at the most. After that he would get tired of the girl and find another.’
‘Well, he never got tired of this one, that’s for sure. She may be the exception that proves the rule.’
‘I’ll forgive you the cliché. Go on.’
‘There’s one letter above all that seems extremely interesting to me. It’s very clear. The woman doesn’t speak in metaphors. And you realize that, after not frequenting each other for a very long time, chance brought them back together, alone . . .’
‘. . . and without suspicion,’ said Montalbano.
But Augello didn’t catch his scholarly quotation of Dante.
‘. . . for a few hours. And they couldn’t resist.’
‘It happens.’
‘Yes, it happens, but it’s not that often that one such encounter happens to have a serious consequence.’
‘Namely?’
‘She got pregnant.’
‘A pretty pickle! So how did it turn out?’
‘The letter that follows explains everything.’
‘What does it say?’
‘It says that despite the advice that Barletta—’
‘Wait a second. How do these letters begin? With his name? Or do they say, “My darling”, or “My love”, or something similar?’
‘No, there’s nothing like that. She always gets straight to the point. You’ll see for yourself.’
‘Sorry, go on.’
‘Anyway, Barletta must have advised her to get an abortion, and she wrote back that she wanted to have the baby. And it’s clear that she wins in the end.’
‘So we’re dealing with a young single mother.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because she often refers to a man she’s living with.’
‘Does she ever mention him by name?’
‘No.’
‘Does she ever say explicitly that he’s her husband?’
‘No.’
‘So it might just be someone she shares a flat with.’
‘I suppose. But when she tells Barletta she wants to keep the baby, she tries to persuade him by saying, in so many words, that neither he – that is, the person who lives with her – nor any of the others will ever suspect that Barletta is the real father.’
‘In short, she kept the baby and led everyone else to believe that the father was her husband or the man she lived with.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And afterwards, how does her relationship with Barletta evolve?’
‘They have their ups and downs. What comes out of the letters is that they both do their best to break off the relationship, but they can’t live without it. Whenever they get the opportunity, they end up together in bed.’
‘And there’s nothing that might give us even a little clue as to this woman’s identity?’
‘Salvo, why do you think I spent all that time on those letters? No, there’s nothing at all.’
‘Do you think she did it on purpose?’
‘Did what on purpose?’
‘Took all these precautions to prevent anyone from recognizing her, in case the letter ended up in the wrong hands?’
‘I’m absolutely convinced she did it on purpose!’
‘Tell you what, Mimì. I’m going to take those letters home with me tonight and read them. And we can discuss them again tomorrow.’
*
At five minutes to eight the phone rang.
‘Ahh, Chief! ’Ere’s ’at lady ’at sez ’er name is Giovanni Pustateri onna line!’
What? Had something come up?
‘Wh
at is it, signora?’
‘Inspector? I’m so sorry, but I’m going to be late. The nanny went to see her sister in Montereale and just called to say she’s on her way, and I don’t have anyone else to leave the kids with.’
‘No problem at all, signora. I can wait.’
‘I won’t be more than half an hour late.’
‘Nowadays, being half an hour late isn’t late at all.’ Wait a second! He was being inconsistent! He’d reproached Mimì for being late, just as Livia had reproached him for being early! Half an hour was half an hour!
Indeed. What could he do during that half an hour of waiting?
Read a letter, for one thing.
He took them out of his pocket, removed the rubber band holding them together, took the one on top, and started reading. From the very first lines he realized he was looking at the important one. Mimì hadn’t bothered to put them in a hypothetical chronological order.
A little over two months have passed since that afternoon when a combination of lucky (or unlucky) circumstances brought us back together in an embrace that immediately shut out the world around us. It was as though the years of separation – which we’d both wanted, but hadn’t sought – had never happened. Our two bodies immediately recognized each other and fused in a sort of vibrant inevitability . . .
A bit rhetorical, but the girl wrote pretty well. The telephone rang. He put down the letter and picked up the receiver.
‘Ahh, Chief! ’Ere’d a happen a be summon calls hisself Mazzancolla ’at wants a talk t’yiz poissonally in poisson!’
‘On the phone?’
‘Yessir.’
‘Put him through.’
‘Montalbano? This is Fabio Mazzacolla. I trust the commissioner has informed you that he assigned me a section of the Barletta case two days ago.’
Therefore ’izzoner the c’mishner had already done the deed when he spoke to Montalbano, and the whole bit about giving Mazzacolla the assignment the moment the inspector left the office was a big fat lie. But there was probably no point in picking a fight with Mazzacolla, who had nothing to do with it.
‘You mean his breaking up the Barletta investigation into two sections? Yes, he told me everything.’
‘Well, since I think the two sections of the investigation should proceed in parallel fashion, but not independently of each other, it seems it would be helpful if there was an ongoing exchange of information between the two of us. Don’t you think so?’
No, I don’t, he felt like answering.
Instead Montalbano the hypocrite said, in a joyous tone of voice:
‘I think that’s an excellent idea!’
‘I knew you would agree. If you like, I can begin to brief you.’
Why not? After all, he had to kill some time before Giovanna arrived.
‘Brief away.’
‘So. In the meantime I must tell you that earlier this afternoon something happened that made us all rather uneasy. This morning one of the people working with me, when he saw the photos of the girls—’
‘But how many people have you and Tommaseo shown those photos to?’
‘Well, five or six. Certainly the bare minimum.’
‘You should try to be very careful.’
‘In what sense?’
‘In the sense that you could cause trouble.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Mazzacolla, most of those girls are not professional prostitutes.’
‘I’m well aware of that.’
‘Say one of the girls who frequented Barletta because she was momentarily desperate for money but then stopped got engaged to be married and is now living a respectable life. You, by breaking into her private life, could—’
‘Unfortunately it’s already happened.’
‘What has already happened?’
‘It’s what I was saying. One of my colleagues this morning thought he recognized one of the girls, but at the time he couldn’t remember where he’d seen her and in what circumstances. As soon as we got back to work after lunch, my colleague suddenly remembered having seen her in Mandorliti’s office and—’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Mandorliti? You don’t know him? He’s an assistant commissioner, the new Chief of the Anti-Prostitution Office.’
‘Got it, go on.’
‘So, my colleague and I, drawing the wrong conclusion, were convinced the girl was a prostitute. And so I authorized my colleague to show Mandorliti a few photos so he could tell us who she was.’
‘And who was she?’
‘She was Mandorliti’s niece!’
‘Oh, shit!’
‘You have no idea of the shitstorm! He raced to the commissioner’s office wanting my head. It took some doing, in short, to calm him down. But I wouldn’t want to be in that girl’s shoes.’
‘What did I say?’
‘Listen, I have to tell you about another discovery we’ve made. I need to brief you on this too.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Over the phone?’
‘Well, isn’t that what you’ve been doing up till now? Briefing me over the phone?’
‘Yes, but this is sort of, how shall I say, a different matter. Perhaps it’s better if I come to you.’
‘When are you thinking of coming?’
‘Now.’
‘Now?!’
THIRTEEN
At that moment Catarella appeared, signalling from the doorway that he needed to talk to him. With a wave of the hand, Montalbano invited him to enter. Catarella approached with the stealthy step of a cat burglar, circled round the desk, came up practically behind him, bent down, brought his lips to the inspector’s ear and said in a low conspiratorial voice:
‘The Signora Giovanni Pustateri jess now arrived poissonally in poisson.’
‘Bring her in here,’ the inspector replied, just as conspiratorially, meanwhile covering the receiver with his hand.
‘Montalbano? Are you there?’ said Mazzacolla at the other end, not hearing anything.
‘Sorry, Mazzacolla, I dropped a sheet of paper on the floor . . . You were saying?’
‘That I’ll be dropping by your office.’
Giovanna came in, well dressed and looking gorgeous. Montalbano gestured to her to make herself comfortable. She sat down in such a way that the slit on the side of her skirt exposed her legs, which in any case merited attention.
‘I’ll be there in about twenty minutes,’ Mazzacolla continued.
Out of the question! All he needed was this Mazzacolla in his hair! He had to find a good excuse. Giovanna meanwhile was passing the time looking around.
‘Are you still there, Montalbano?’
Why was he in such a hurry! At last an idea came to him.
‘No, listen, I’m very sorry, but you really can’t come right now! It’s just not possible, I mean it! I’m in the middle of an important interrogation . . .’
Giovanna cast him an admiring glance.
‘. . . which I broke off momentarily, but only for the time needed to answer your call.’
‘I could come later.’
Good God, this Mazzacolla was desperate to brief someone!
‘Look, you’d be putting yourself out for nothing. I already know I’m going to have my hands full all night with this interrogation.’
Giovanna, who by now had caught the drift, put a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.
‘OK, then, I’ll come by tomorrow morning, if I can.’
‘All right.’
He hung up, smiled at Giovanna, who smiled back, got up, and started to pick up the letter he’d been reading, but then it fell to the floor in front of the desk. Giovanna bent down, picked it up, and handed it to him. Montalbano put it with the others, stretched the rubber band around them, and put the packet in his pocket.
‘Do you really intend to interrogate me all night?’ Giovanna asked with an innocent, angelic look on her face.
‘If needs be . . .’ said Montalbano, standing up. She d
id the same.
‘Oh my God! And will you give me the third degree?’ she asked, pretending to be afraid.
‘If necessary . . .’
Giovanna laughed. ‘Did you find out whether that place is open?’
‘You know I totally forgot to call? Wait just one minute while I . . .’ he said, hand poised over the telephone.
‘Don’t do it,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘Let’s just go there anyway.’
‘And what if it’s closed?’
‘We’ll look for a different place.’
‘And what if we don’t like it?’
‘Then we’ll look for another.’
‘So we’ll just go hunting in the dark?’
‘Don’t you think that would be fun, to go hunting in the dark with me?’
Giovanna didn’t miss a single opportunity to try to provoke him. Better not follow her down this perilous path. He dodged the question.
‘Shall we go in my car or yours?’
‘Do we go past your place on the way to the restaurant?’
‘We pass right in front of it.’
‘Then let’s leave here in two cars, and you can park yours at home and get into mine.’
As he was passing his cubicle, Catarella called him aside.
‘Can I ax yiz a quession, Chief?’
‘You go on, I’ll be right with you,’ the inspector said to Giovanna. ‘What do you want?’
‘Can ya ’splain a me why a lady ’ass a lady like Signura Giovanni’s got a man’s name?’
‘Because her parents wanted a boy, but since they got a girl, they consoled themselves by giving her a boy’s name.’
‘Tanks, Chief! Y’er a reggler encyclapythia! Ya know th’answer t’evverting!’
*
Montalbano parked his car outside his house, got out, came back down the unmade road that led to the main road where Giovanna was waiting for him, and got in her car.
‘You found a beautiful place to live,’ she said, heading off.
‘I got lucky.’
‘Do you live there . . . alone?’
‘Well . . . most of the time.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Sometimes my girlfriend comes and stays with me.’
‘Oh. She’s not from around here?’
‘No. She’s from Genoa. She just left, in fact.’
A Nest of Vipers Page 12