When he got back to the office, he immediately phoned Riguccio.
“Oh, God, Montalbano, I’m so embarrassed!”
“Why?”
“I still haven’t returned those glasses. I’d completely forgotten about them! It’s so chaotic here that—”
“Rigù, I wasn’t calling about the glasses. I wanted to ask you something. What hospitals are the sick, the injured, and pregnant women taken to?”
“To any one of the three hospitals in Montelusa, or else to—”
“Wait, I’m only interested in the ones who were put ashore yesterday.”
“Give me a minute.”
Apparently Riguccio had to flip through some papers before he could answer.
“Here, at the San Gregorio.”
Montalbano informed Catarella he’d be out for an hour or so, got in his car, stopped at a café, bought three slabs of chocolate, and headed towards Montelusa. San Gregorio Hospital was outside the city, but easy to reach from Vigàta. It took him about twenty minutes. He parked, went inside, and asked for directions to the orthopedic ward. He got in the elevator, got off at the third floor, and spoke to the first nurse he saw.
He told her he was looking for a non-European immigrant who had broken her leg the previous evening while disembarking at Vigàta. To help identify her, he added that the woman had three small children with her. The nurse looked a bit surprised.
“Would you wait here? I’ll go check.”
She returned about ten minutes later.
“Just as I thought. There aren’t any non-European women here for a broken leg. We do have one who broke her arm, however.”
“May I see her?”
“I’m sorry, but who are you?”
“Inspector Montalbano.”
The nurse looked him over and must have immediately decided that the man standing before her had the face of a cop, because she said only:
“Please follow me.”
But the immigrant woman with the broken arm was not black; she looked merely like she had a tan. Secondly, she was pretty, slender, and very young.
“You see,” said Montalbano, slightly flustered, “the fact is that yesterday evening, I saw an emergency medical crew take her away in the ambulance with my own eyes . . .”
“Why don’t you try the emergency ward?”
Of course. The medic might have been mistaken when he diagnosed her with a fracture. Maybe the woman had only a sprain, and there’d been no need to hospitalize her.
In the emergency ward, none of the three men who’d been on duty the previous evening remembered seeing a black woman with a broken leg and three small kids.
“Who was the doctor on call?”
“Dr. Mendolìa. But today’s his day off.”
By dint of effort and cursing, he managed to get the doctor’s phone number. Dr. Mendolìa was courteous, but had not seen any non-European woman with a fractured leg. No, not even a sprain. So much for that.
Once out of the hospital square, he saw some parked ambulances. A few steps away stood some people in white smocks, talking. As he drew near, he immediately recognized the gaunt medic with the mustache. The man recognized him as well.
“Last night, weren’t you—?”
“Yes. Inspector Montalbano’s the name. Where did you take that woman with the three children, the one who’d broken her leg?”
“To the emergency room here. But I was wrong, her leg wasn’t broken. In fact, she got out of the ambulance by herself, though it took some effort. I saw her go into the emergency room.”
“Why didn’t you accompany her?”
“Inspector, we’d just received an emergency call from Scroglitti. There was a huge mess over there. Why, can’t you find her?”
6
Seen in the light of day, Riguccio was pale and unshaven, with bags under his eyes. Montalbano got worried.
“Are you sick?”
“I’m tired. My men and I can’t take it anymore. Every night there’s another boatload, every night another twenty to one hundred and fifty illegals. The commissioner’s gone to Rome just to explain the situation and ask for more men. Good luck! He’ll return with a lot of sweet promises. What do you want?”
When Montalbano told him about the disappearance of the black woman and her three kids, Riguccio didn’t make a sound. He merely looked up from the papers piled up on his desk and stared at the inspector.
“Take your time, while you’re at it,” the inspector blurted out.
“And in your opinion, what should I do?” Riguccio snapped back.
“Bah, I dunno, do a search, send out a bulletin . . .”
“Have you got something against these wretched people?”
“Me?!”
“Yeah, you. Seems to me you want to hound them.”
“Hound them? Me? You’re the one who agrees with this government!”
“Not always. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Listen, Montalbà: I’m someone who goes to church on Sunday because I believe in it. End of story. Now let me tell you how things went the other night, because it wasn’t the first time. That woman, you see, took you all for a ride, you, the ambulance men—”
“You mean she faked that fall?”
“Oh yes. It was all an act. She wanted to go the emergency room, where they can basically come and go as they please.”
“But why? Did she have something to hide?”
“Probably. In my opinion, she was part of some kind of family reunion outside the law.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her husband is almost certainly an illegal who nevertheless managed to find work on the local black market. And he probably summoned his family here, with the help of people who make money from this kind of thing. If the woman had gone through the proper procedures, she would have had to declare that her husband was an illegal immigrant in Italy. And with the new law they would have all been kicked out of the country. So they took a shortcut.”
“I see,” said the inspector.
He pulled the three slabs of chocolate out of his jacket pocket and laid them on Riguccio’s desk.
“I bought them for those little kids,” he muttered.
“I’ll give them to my son,” said Riguccio, putting them in his pocket.
Montalbano gave him an uncomprehending look. He knew that his colleague, after six years of marriage, had given up hope of having a child. Riguccio understood what was going through his head.
“Teresa and I managed to adopt a little boy from Burundi. Oh, I almost forgot. Here are the glasses.”
Catarella was puttering away at the computer, but the moment he saw the inspector, he dropped everything and ran up to him.
“Ah, Chief, Chief!” he began.
“What were you doing at the computer?” Montalbano asked.
“Oh, that? I’s workin onna idinnification Fazio axed me to do. Of the dead guy who was swimmin when you was swimmin.”
“Good. What did you want to tell me?”
Catarella got flustered and stared at his shoes.
“Well?” asked Montalbano.
“Beggin’ pardon, Chief, I forgot.”
“That’s all right, when it comes back to you—”
“It’s back, Chief! Pontius Pilate called again! And so I tol’ him as how you tol’ me to tell him that you’s meeting with Mr. Caiphas and Sam Hedrin, but he made as like he din’t unnastand, and so he tol’ me to tell you as how he got something he gotta tell you.”
“Okay, Cat. If he calls back, tell him to tell you what he has to tell me, so you can tell me yourself.”
“Chief, sorry, but I’m curious ’bout something. Wasn’t Pontius Pilate the guy?”
“What guy?”
“The guy that washed ’is hands inni olden days?”
“Yes.”
“So he was the ansister of this guy that called?”
“When he calls back, you can ask him yourself. Is Fazio around?”
“Yessir, Chief. Got ba
ck just now.”
“Send him to me.”
“Can I sit down?” asked Fazio. “With all due respect, my feet are smoking from all the walking I’ve been doing. And I’ve only just started.”
He sat down, pulled a small stack of photographs out of his jacket pocket, and handed these to the inspector.
“My friend in forensics got them to me fast,” he said.
Montalbano looked at them. They showed the face of an ordinary forty-year-old, with long hair in one, a mustache in another, a crewcut in another, and so on. But they were all, well, totally anonymous, inert, not personalized by any light in the eyes.
“Still looks dead,” said the inspector.
“What did you expect, for them to bring him back to life?” snapped Fazio. “That’s the best they could do. Don’t you remember the state of the guy’s face? For me they’ll be an enormous help. I gave Catarella copies for comparison with the photo archives, but it’s going to be a long haul, a real pain in the neck.”
“I’m sure it will,” said Montalbano. “But you seem a little on edge. Anything wrong?”
“What’s wrong, Chief, is that the work I’ve been doing, and the work still left for me to do, might be all for nothing.”
“Why?”
“We’ve been searching the towns along the coast. But who’s to say the man wasn’t killed in some inland town, put in the trunk of a car, driven to some beach, and dumped into the sea?”
“I don’t think so. Usually when somebody is killed in the countryside or some inland town, they end up inside a well or buried at the bottom of a mountain ravine. In any case, what’s to prevent us from first checking the towns along the coast?”
“My poor feet, Chief, that’s what.”
Before going to bed, he phoned Livia. She was glum because she couldn’t come to Vigàta. Montalbano wisely let her vent her feelings, occasionally clearing his throat to let her know he was listening. Then, without a break, she asked:
“So, what did you want to tell me?”
“Me?”
“Come on, Salvo. The other night you said you had something to tell me, but you preferred to wait until I got there. Since now I can’t come, you have to tell me everything over the phone.”
Montalbano cursed his big mouth. If he’d had Livia right in front of him when telling her of the little boy who’d tried to escape on the wharf, he could have weighed his words, tone, and gestures appropriately, to keep Livia from getting too sad thinking about François. At the slightest change in her expression, he would have known how to steer the drift of the conversation. Over the phone, on the other hand . . . He tried a last-ditch defense.
“You know what? I really don’t remember what I wanted to tell you.”
He immediately bit his tongue. That was a stupid thing to say. Even from ten thousand kilometers away, Livia, over the phone line, could immediately tell when he was lying.
“Don’t even try, Salvo. Come on, tell me.”
During the whole ten minutes he spoke, Montalbano felt like he was walking through a minefield. Livia did not interrupt him once, and made no comment whatsoever.
“. . . And so my colleague Riguccio’s convinced it was all for some kind of family reunion, as he calls it, and a successful one,” he concluded, wiping the sweat from his brow.
Not even the happy ending got a reaction from Livia. The inspector got worried.
“Livia. Are you still there?”
“Yes. I’m thinking.”
The tone was firm; her voice hadn’t cracked.
“About what? There’s nothing to think about. It’s just a little story like any other, of no importance whatsoever.”
“Stop talking nonsense. I also understand why you would have preferred to tell me face to face.”
“Come on, what kind of ideas are you getting in your head? I didn’t—”
“Never mind.”
Montalbano didn’t breathe.
“Of course, it is strange,” Livia said a moment later.
“What is?”
“Does it seem normal to you?”
“If you don’t tell me what you’re talking about—”
“The boy’s behavior.”
“It seemed strange to you?”
“Of course. Why did he try to run away?”
“Try to imagine the situation, Livia! That child was in a panic.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“Because if a child in a panic has his mother beside him, he’s going to grab her skirts and hang on with all his might, as you said the other two kids were doing.”
That’s true, Montalbano said to himself.
“When he surrendered,” Livia continued, “he didn’t surrender to the enemy—which was you at that moment—but to the circumstances. He was lucid enough to realize there was no escape. It was the exact opposite of panic.”
“Tell me something,” said Montalbano. “Are you telling me that boy was taking advantage of the situation to run away from his mother and siblings?”
“If things were the way you tell me, I would say so, yes.”
“But why would he do that?”
“That, I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to go back to his father; that might be one logical explanation.”
“So he decides to run away in an unknown country where he can’t speak the language, without a penny or a helping hand, with nothing at all? The kid was barely six years old!”
“Salvo, you’d be right if you were talking about one of us, but those kinds of children . . . They may look six years old, but in terms of life experiences, they’re like grown men. Between famine, war, massacres, death, and fear, you grow up fast.”
That’s also true, Montalbano said to himself.
He lifted the sheet with one hand, leaned on the bed with the other, raised his left leg, and froze. A chill ran down his spine. It all came back to him at once: the look the little boy had given him as his mother ran up to take him back. At the time, he hadn’t understood that look. Now, after talking to Livia, he did. The little boy’s eyes were imploring him. They were telling him: for pity’s sake, let me go, let me escape. And now, as he was about to get into bed, he felt bitterly guilty for not immediately understanding the meaning of that look. He was slipping. It was hard to admit, but true. How could he not have realized that, to use Dr. Pasquano’s words, things were not what they seemed?
“Chief? There’s a nurse from San Gregorio Hospital in Montelusa onna line . . .”
What was happening to Catarella? He’d said the hospital’s name right!
“What’s she want?”
“She wants to talk to you poissonally in poisson. Says her name is Agata Militello. Want me to put her on?”
“Yes.”
“Inspector Montalbano? My name is Agata Militello . . .” A miracle! That was really her name. What could be happening if Catarella got two names in a row right? “. . . I’m a nurse at San Gregorio. I was told you came here yesterday looking for information on a black woman with three small children and you couldn’t find her. I saw that woman with the three children.”
“When?”
“Night before last. When they started bringing in the wounded from Scroglitti, the hospital called me and asked me to come in to work. It was my day off. I live right nearby, and I always walk to work. Anyway, as I was approaching the hospital, I saw this woman running towards me, dragging three little kids behind her. When she was almost right beside me, a car drove up and came to a sudden stop. The man at the wheel called to the woman, and when they’d all gotten in the car, he drove off again at high speed.”
“Listen, I’m going to ask you something that may sound strange, but please think hard before answering. Did you notice anything unusual?”
“In what sense?”
“Well, I don’t know . . . By any chance, did the oldest boy try to run away before getting in the car?”
Agata Militello thought it over carefully.
“No, Inspector. The biggest boy got in first; his mother pushed him in. Then the other kids, then the woman last.”
“Did you manage to see the license plate?”
“No. It didn’t occur to me. There wasn’t any reason.”
“Indeed. Thank you for calling.”
Her testimony brought the whole affair to a definitive close. Riguccio was right. It was some kind of family reunion. Even though the biggest kid had ideas of his own about that reunion, and didn’t want to go.
The door slammed hard, Montalbano jumped out of his chair, and a piece of plaster fell, even though the wall had been redone less than a month before. Looking up, the inspector saw Catarella standing motionless in the doorway. This time he hadn’t even bothered to say his hand had slipped. He had such a look about him that a triumphal march would have been the ideal background music.
“Well?” asked Montalbano.
Catarella puffed up his chest and let out an elephantine sort of blast. Mimì came running from the next room, alarmed.
“What’s happening?”
“I found ’im. I idinnified ’im!” Catarella yelled, walking up to the desk and laying down an enlarged photo and a computer printout of the profile.
The big photo and the much smaller one in the upper left-hand corner of the profile seemed to be of the same man.
“Would somebody please explain?” said Mimì Augello.
“Certainly, ’Nspecter,” Catarella said proudly. “This here big photoraph was givenna me by Fazio, and it shows the dead man ’at was swimmin the other day with the Chief. This one here’s the one I idinnified myself. Have a look, Chief. Ain’t they like two peas in a pod?”
Mimì circled around the desk, went behind Montalbano, and bent down to get a better look. Then he gave his verdict.
Rounding the Mark Page 7