There was such happiness and eagerness in the girl’s voice, the inspector didn’t want a note of disappointment to spoil it.
“Well, I won’t say I can’t make it at all.”
“Come whenever you like.”
“Okay, but there’s something I wanted to ask you. Do you know if Michela opened a bank account in Vigàta?”
“Yes, it was more convenient for paying bills. It was with the Banca Popolare. But I don’t know how much she had in it.”
It was too late to dash over to the bank. He opened a drawer in which he’d put all the papers he’d taken from the hotel room, and selected the dozens of bills and the little notebook of expenses. The agenda and the rest of the papers he put back in the drawer. It was going to be a long, boring task, and ninety-percent certain to prove utterly useless. Besides, he was no good at numbers.
He carefully examined all the invoices. As far as he could tell at a glance, they did not appear inflated; the prices seemed to correspond to the market rates and were even occasionally a little lower. Apparently Michela knew how to bargain and save. No dice, therefore. A useless task, as he had expected. Then, by chance, he noticed a discrepancy between the amount on one bill and the round figure recorded in the notebook; the cost had been increased by five million lire. Could Michela, normally so well organized and precise, have possibly made so obvious a mistake? He started over from the top, with the patience of a saint. The end result he arrived at was that the difference between the amounts registered in the notebook and the money actually spent was one hundred fifteen million lire.
A mistake was therefore out of the question. But if there hadn’t been a mistake, it made no sense, because it meant that Michela was taking a cut of her own money. Unless . . .
“Hello, Dr. Licalzi? Inspector Montalbano here. Excuse me for calling you at home after work.”
“Yes, it’s been a bad day, in fact.”
“I’d like to know something about your . . . Let me put it another way: Did you and your wife have a joint bank account?”
“Inspector, weren’t you—”
“Taken off the case? Yes, I was, but now everything is back to how it was before.”
“No, we didn’t have a joint account. Michela had hers and I had mine.”
“Your wife had no income of her own, did she?”
“No, she didn’t. We had an arrangement where every six months I would transfer a certain sum from my account into hers. If her expenses exceeded that amount, she would tell me and I’d take care of it.”
“I see. Did she ever show you the invoices concerning the house?”
“No, and I wasn’t interested, really. At any rate, she recorded her expenditures one by one in a notebook. Every now and then I’d give it a look.”
“Doctor, thank you and—”
“Did you take care of it?”
What was he supposed to have taken care of? He didn’t know how to answer.
“The Twingo,” the doctor helped him.
“Oh, yes, it’s already been done.”
It certainly was easy to lie on the phone. They said good-bye and made an appointment to see each other Friday morning, the day of the funeral.
Now it all made more sense. The wife was taking a cut of the money she was getting from her husband to build the house. Once the invoices were destroyed (which Michela certainly would have done had she remained alive), only the figures logged into her notebook would have remained. Just like that, one hundred fifteen million lire had slipped into the shadows, and she had used them however she wished.
But what did she need that money for? Was somebody blackmailing her? And if so, what did Michela Licalzi have to hide?
The following morning, as he was about to get in his car and drive to work, the telephone rang. For a moment he was tempted not to answer. A phone call to his home at that hour could only have been an annoying, pain-in-the-ass call from headquarters.
Then the unquestionable power that the telephone has over man won out.
“Salvo?”
He immediately recognized Livia’s voice and felt his legs turn to pudding.
“Livia! Finally! Where are you?”
“In Montelusa.”
What was she doing in Montelusa? When did she get there?
“I’ll come get you. Are you at the station?”
“No. If you wait for me, I’ll be at your place in half an hour at the most.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
What was going on? What the hell was going on? He called headquarters.
“Don’t pass any calls on to me at home.”
In half an hour he downed four cups of coffee. He put the napoletana back on the burner. Then he heard a car pull up and stop. It must be Livia’s taxi. He opened the door. It wasn’t a taxi, it was Mimì Augello’s car. Livia got out, the car turned around and left.
Montalbano began to understand.
She looked slovenly and disheveled, with dark circles round her eyes, which were swollen from crying. But most of all, how had she become so tiny and fragile? A plucked sparrow. Montalbano felt overcome with tenderness and emotion.
“Come,” he said, taking her hand, leading her into the house, and sitting her down in the dining room. He saw her shudder.
“Are you cold?”
“Yes.”
He went into the bedroom, took a jacket of his, and put it over her shoulders.
“Want some coffee?”
“All right.”
It had just boiled, and he served it piping hot. Livia drank it down as if it was cold.
They were sitting on the bench on the veranda. Livia had wanted to go outside. The day was so serene it looked fake. No wind, only a few light waves. Livia gazed long at the sea in silence, then rested her head on Salvo’s shoulder and started crying, without sobbing. The tears streamed down her face and wet the little table. Montalbano took one of her hands; she surrendered it lifeless to him. The inspector needed desperately to fire up a cigarette, but didn’t.
“I went to see François,” Livia said suddenly.
“I figured.”
“I decided not to tell Franca I was coming. I got on a plane, grabbed a cab, and descended on them out of the blue. As soon as he saw me, François ran into my arms. He was truly happy to see me. And I was so happy to hold him and furious at Franca and her husband, and especially at you. I was convinced that everything was as I’d suspected: that you and they had been conspiring to take him away from me. And, well, I started railing against them and insulting them. All of a sudden, as I was trying to calm down, I realized that François was no longer beside me. I began to suspect they’d hidden him from me, locked him in a room somewhere, and I started to scream. I screamed so loud that they all came running, Franca’s children, Aldo, the three laborers. And they all started asking each other where François was, but nobody’d seen him. Now worried, they all went outside, calling his name. I remained alone inside, crying. Suddenly I heard a voice. ‘Livia, I’m here.’ It was him. He’d hidden somewhere inside the house, and they were all looking for him outside. See how clever and intelligent he is?”
She broke out in tears again, having held them too long inside.
“Just rest. Lie down a bit. You can tell me the rest later,” said Montalbano, who couldn’t bear Livia’s torment. With some effort he refrained from embracing her, sensing that this would have been the wrong move.
“But I’m leaving,” said Livia. “My flight leaves Palermo at two this afternoon.”
“I’ll drive you there.”
“No, I’ve already arranged it all with Mimì. He’s coming by in an hour to pick me up.”
The moment Mimì walks into the office, the inspector thought, I’m gonna bust his ass so bad he won’t be able to walk.
“It was he who persuaded me to come see you; I wanted to go home yesterday.”
Oh, so now he was supposed to thank Mimì into the bargain?
“You didn’t want to see me?”
“Try to understand, Salvo. I need to be alone, to collect my thoughts, to draw some conclusions. This has all been overwhelming for me.”
The inspector felt curious to know the rest.
“Well, tell me what happened next.”
“As soon as I saw him there in the room, I instinctively drew near to him, but he moved away.”
Montalbano remembered the scene he’d endured a few days earlier.
“He looked me straight in the eye and said: ‘I love you, Livia, but I won’t leave this house and my brothers anymore. ’ I sat there immobile, frozen. And he went on: ‘If you take me away with you, I’ll run away for good and you’ll never see me again.’ Then he ran out shouting: ‘I’m here, I’m here!’ I started to feel dizzy, and the next thing I knew I was lying in a bed, with Franca beside me. My God, how cruel children can be sometimes!”
And wasn’t what we wanted to do to him cruel? Montalbano thought.
“I felt very weak. When I tried to get up, I fainted again. Franca didn’t want me to leave. She called a doctor and never left my side. I slept there. Actually slept! I spent the whole night sitting in a chair by the window. The next morning Mimì came. Her sister had phoned him. Mimì has been like a brother to me, more than a brother. He made sure I didn’t run into François anymore. He took me out, showed me half of Sicily. And he talked me into coming here, even if only for an hour. ‘The two of you need to talk, to explain yourselves,’ he said. We got to Montelusa last night, and he accompanied me to the Hotel Della Valle. This morning he came by and brought me here. My suitcase is in his car.”
“I don’t think there’s much to explain,” said Montalbano.
An explanation would have been possible only if Livia, realizing she’d been wrong, had expressed a word of understanding, just one, regarding his feelings. Or did she think that he, Salvo, had felt nothing when he realized they’d lost François forever? Livia wasn’t allowing for any openings, she was shut up inside her own grief and could see nothing but her own selfish despair. And what about him? Weren’t they, until proven otherwise, a couple whose bond was built on love, yes, and on sex, too, but above all on a relationship of mutual understanding that bordered at times on complicity? One word too many, at that moment, might trigger an irreparable rupture. Montalbano swallowed his resentment,
“What do you intend to do?” he asked.
“About . . . the boy?” She couldn’t bring herself to pronounce François’s name.
“Yes.”
“I won’t stand in his way.”
She got up abruptly and ran towards the sea, moaning in a low voice like a mortally wounded animal. Then, unable to stand it any longer, she threw herself facedown on the sand. Montalbano picked her up in his arms, carried her into the house, lay her down on the bed, and with a damp towel gently wiped the sand off her face.
When he heard the horn of Mimì Augello’s car, he helped Livia stand up and put her clothes in order. Utterly passive, she let him do as he wished. With an arm around her waist, he escorted her outside. Mimì did not get out of the car. He knew it was unwise to get too close to his superior; he might get bitten. He stared straight ahead the whole time, to avoid meeting the inspector’s gaze. Right before getting in the car, Livia turned her head slightly and kissed Montalbano on the cheek. The inspector returned to the house, went into the bathroom, and got into the shower, clothes and all, turning the water on full blast. Then he swallowed two sleeping pills, which he never took, washed them down with a glass of whisky, threw himself on the bed, and waited for the inevitable blow to lay him out.
When he woke it was five in the afternoon. He had a slight headache and felt nauseated.
“Augello here?” he asked, walking into the station.
Mimì entered Montalbano’s office and prudently closed the door behind him. He looked resigned.
“If you start yelling like you usually do,” he said, “it’s probably better if we go outside.”
The inspector got up from his chair, brought himself face-to-face with Mimì, then put an arm around the other’s neck.
“You’re a real friend, Mimì. But I advise you to leave this room immediately. I’m liable to change my mind and start kicking you.”
“Inspector? Clementina Vasile Cozzo’s on the line. Shall I put her through?”
“And who are you?”
It couldn’t possibly be Catarella.
“What do you mean, who am I? I’m me.”
“And what the hell is your name?”
“It’s Catarella, Chief! Poissonally in poisson!”
Thank God for that. The impromptu identity check had resuscitated the old Catarella, not the one the computer was inexorably transforming.
“Inspector! What happened? Are you mad at me?”
“Signora, believe me, I’ve had some pretty strange days . . .”
“You’re forgiven. Could you come by my place? I have something to show you.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
Signora Clementina escorted him into the living room and turned off the television.
“Look at this. It’s the program of tomorrow’s concert, which Maestro Cataldo Barbera had someone bring to me a short while ago.”
Montalbano took the torn, squared notebook page from the signora’s hand. Was this why she’d so urgently wanted to see him?
On it, in pencil, was written: Friday, nine-thirty. Concert in memory of Michela Licalzi.
Montalbano gave a start. Did Maestro Barbera know the victim?
“That’s why I asked you to come,” said Mrs. Vasile Cozzo, reading the question in his eyes.
The inspector went back to studying the sheet of paper:
“Programme: G. Tartini, “Variations on a Theme by Corelli”; J. S. Bach, “Largo”; G. B. Viotti, from Concerto no. 24 in E minor.”
He handed the sheet back to Mrs. Vasile Cozzo.
“Did you know that they were acquainted, signora?”
“Never. And I wonder how that could be, since the Maestro never goes outside. As soon as I read that piece of paper, I knew it might be of interest to you.”
“I’m going to go upstairs and talk to him.”
“You’re wasting your time. He’ll refuse to see you. It’s six-thirty. He’s already gone to bed.”
“What does he do, watch television?”
“He hasn’t got a television, and he doesn’t read newspapers. He goes to sleep, and then wakes up around two o’clock in the morning. I asked the maid if she knew why the Maestro keeps such odd hours, and she said she had no idea. But, after giving it some thought, I think I’ve found a plausible explanation.”
“Which is?”
“I believe that the Maestro, in so doing, blots out a specific period of time, that is, he cancels, skips over, the hours during which he normally used to perform. By sleeping through them, he erases them from his memory.”
“I see. But I can’t not talk to him.”
“You could try tomorrow morning, after the concert.”
A door slammed upstairs.
“There,” said Mrs. Vasile Cozzo, “the maid is going home now.”
Montalbano made a move towards the door.
“Actually, Inspector, she’s more a housekeeper than a maid,” Mrs. Vasile Cozzo explained.
Montalbano opened the door. A woman in her sixties, appropriately dressed, descended the final steps from the floor above and greeted the inspector with a nod of the head.
“Ma’am, I’m Inspector—”
“I know.”
“I realize you’re on your way home, and I don’t want to waste your time. But tell me, did Maestro Barbera and Mrs. Licalzi know each other?”
“Yes. They met about two months ago. The lady had come to the Maestro on her own initiative. He was very happy about this, since he rather likes pretty women. They got into an involved conversation. I then brought them coffee, which they drank, and then they closed themselves in the studio, where you ca
n’t hear anything.”
“Soundproof?”
“Yes, sir. So he doesn’t disturb the neighbors.”
“Did the lady ever come back?”
“Not when I was there.”
“And when are you there?”
“Can’t you see? I leave in the evening.”
“Tell me something. If the Maestro has no television and doesn’t read newspapers, how did he find out about the murder?”
“I told him myself, by chance, this afternoon. I saw the funeral announcement for tomorrow on the street.”
“And how did the Maestro react?”
“Very badly. He turned all pale and asked for his heart pills. What a fright I had! Anything else?”
16
That morning the inspector showed up at the office dressed in a gray suit, pale blue shirt, neutral tie, and black shoes.
“My, my, don’t we look fashionable?” said Mimì Augello.
He couldn’t very well tell him he’d decked himself out to attend a violin recital at nine-thirty in the morning. Mimì would have thought him insane. And rightly so, since the whole business did have something of the madhouse about it.
“Actually, I have to go to a funeral,” he muttered.
He went into his office, the phone was ringing.
“Salvo? This is Anna. A little while ago I got a phone call from Guido Serravalle.”
“Was he calling from Bologna?”
“No, from Montelusa. He said Michela’d given him my number some time ago. He knew we were friends. He’s down here for the funeral, staying at the Della Valle. He asked me to join him for lunch afterwards; he’s going back in the afternoon. What should I do?”
“In what sense?”
“I don’t know, I’m afraid I’ll feel awkward.”
“Why?”
“Inspector? This is Emanuele Licalzi. Are you coming to the funeral?”
“Yes. What time does it begin?”
“At eleven. When it’s over, the hearse will head straight for Bologna after it leaves the church. Any news?”
“Nothing major, for now. Will you be staying long in Montelusa?”
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