A Voice in the Night (13 page)

‘I understand. But I don’t see what I—’

‘You could at least summon him to the police station to allow him to better explain his situation. That might, at least, shorten his ordeal a little and—’

‘Counsellor, it is not up to me but to Prosecutor Tommaseo to interrogate him. He’s the one you should be soliciting. Is that clear?’

‘Quite,’ said the lawyer. ‘Good evening.’

Now he could finally go home.

*

In the fridge Adelina had left him a large plate of seafood salad, while in the oven he found some
involtini
of swordfish.

He laid the table on the veranda. It was a gorgeous evening. It took him an hour and a half to dispatch all the food.

He cleared the table, went back out on the veranda with whisky and cigarettes, and started thinking.

What could Duello’s phone call mean?

Were they really so stupid as to want him to interrogate Strangio, even without his lawyer present? And without Tommaseo present?

It was known to one and all that the inspector had often and willingly done that sort of thing, not giving a flying fuck about protocol and rules, but this time was different. In this case
sudden brainstorms and personal initiatives might severely compromise the investigation.

No, he would play by the rules, down to the last comma.

His thoughts turned to the question of the computers. If luck had smiled on him and Fazio the night before and they’d got their hands on both computers, at this moment the customs police
might be able to move against the Honourable Mongibello and the board of directors of the company that owned the supermarket. But that’s not the way it had gone – unfortunately, as Nero
Duello, Esq., might say. Their night-time search of Borsellino’s house and office had been for naught and . . .

He froze.

He had the distinct impression that the entire digestive apparatus in his belly had come to a sudden stop.

He poured himself half a glass of whisky and downed it in a single gulp. Sweat began pouring out of him. How could he have forgotten so completely about it?

This was happening too often lately.

What more proof did he need to convince himself that he was getting too old for his profession?

He remembered perfectly well that he’d taken that sort of tape recorder that Fazio had removed from the breast pocket of Borsellino’s jacket and put it in his own
jacket pocket.

Afterwards, when he got back home, he’d taken off his detergent-dusted clothes and put them with the clothes to be washed.

So the question now was: had Adelina noticed the recorder in his pocket and removed it before taking the suit to the dry cleaners?

And if the answer was yes, where could she have put it?

He got up and started searching all over the house, throwing everything into disarray. After half an hour of this, he gave up.

He’d once had a similar lapse of memory involving a horseshoe and had nearly lost his life over it. But a horseshoe is one thing, and a recorder is another.

If the dry cleaners had stuck the jacket into the machine without noticing the recorder, goodbye recording!

The only hope was to ring Adelina. He looked at his watch. Eleven o’clock. She’d probably already gone to bed. Well too bad.

‘Goo’ God, Isspector! Wha’ happen? I’s aslip!’

‘I’m sorry, Adelì, but it’s really important.’

‘Wha’ is it?’

‘Did you notice whether there was anything in the breast pocket of the jacket you took to get cleaned?’

‘Why, was there somethin’?’

‘Yes.’

‘I dinna notice ’cause you normally dona keep nothin’ in tha’ pocket.’

This was true.

‘Listen, do you have a number for the cleaners?’

‘No, sir.’

‘When did they say you could come and get the suit?’

‘Day afta tomorra.’

There might still be a ray of hope.

‘It must be closed at this hour, right?’

‘Yessir. Bu’ wait. I jess got a idea. If iss a somethin’ sirrious—’

‘It’s very serious, Adelì.’

‘Then I give a you th’ address o’ the cleaners.’

‘But you just said they’re closed!’

‘Bu’ the owner, Mr Anselmo, live a right uppastairs fro’ the shop. Th’ address is Piazza Libertà, nummer eight. Iss a righta besides the cinema.’

*

He put his clothes back on, left for Vigàta, and, since there was hardly anybody else on the road, ventured to drive at sixty kilometres an hour instead of the legal
fifty.

He arrived, stopped, and got out. Next to the cleaners’ shop there was a door without an intercom, but only a doorbell and the name Anselmo.

Before ringing, he took two steps back and looked up. Light was filtering out from the balcony upstairs.

He rang. Almost at once the door opened onto the balcony and a man of about fifty, with a moustache and wearing a vest and pyjama bottoms, came out.

The square below was well lit, and Mr Anselmo immediately recognized Montalbano.

‘Inspector! What is it?’

‘Sorry to disturb you, Mr Anselmo, but I need you to open your shop for me.’

‘Sure, straight away.’

There must have been an internal staircase. Moments later the front door of the shop opened.

‘Come on in. What can I do for you?’

‘Mr Anselmo, a suit of mine was brought to you and—’

‘It’s already been cleaned. We’ll iron it tomorrow.’

Montalbano lost all hope.

‘The fact is that in the breast pocket of the jacket there was—’

‘Inspector, everything that’s brought to us is carefully searched before we put it in the machine. Come over here.’

He went behind the large counter that cut the room in two, and opened a drawer. Inside there were spectacles, fountain pens, driver’s licences, ID cards, mobiles . . .

‘That’s it there,’ the inspector said with relief, pointing to the recorder.

He felt like kissing Mr Anselmo on the forehead.

*

As usual, as he was unlocking his front door, he heard the phone ringing. And of course it stopped as soon as his hand was poised over the receiver.

Since tomorrow he was going to put on the same suit he had on now, he left the recorder in the breast pocket of the jacket when he undressed.

He didn’t feel sleepy, so he turned on the TV. The purse-lipped face of Pippo Ragonese appeared on the screen.

And so we ask ourselves: whatever happened to the once lightning-quick Inspector Montalbano? The inspector seems to have swung to the opposite extreme. Nowadays he takes
things too easy. He hasn’t taken a step forward in the investigation of the supermarket burglary that led to the suicide of the shop’s manager, Guido Borsellino, which he helped
provoke. And as for the horrendous murder of Mariangela Carlesimo, the architecture student, a crime that has shaken the public, and not only in Vigàta, there’s no movement whatsoever.
We know that the girl’s boyfriend, Giovanni Strangio, was ordered not to leave Vigàta. But, since then, nothing. Poor Mr Strangio is left hanging, prevented from——

He turned it off.

Bravo, Ragonese! How many masters did he serve, anyway? The Honourable Mongibello in Parliament and the president of the province both? And they call this journalism? Ragonese only said what he
was told to say. They must pay him well.

He then remembered that just a few days earlier, somebody from a private TV station, who wasn’t afraid to speak out against the Mafia, had been accused of operating as a journalist without
being registered with the Union of Journalists.

So
, the inspector thought,
nowadays, in order to fight the Mafia you need the authorization of the Mafia itself.

They’re trawling the net away from the fish!

He went and sat on the veranda to wait for his agitation to pass. But not five minutes later the telephone rang.

It was Livia.

‘How come you’re never home when I call?’

‘But I’m home right now!’

‘No, I mean when I tried earlier.’

‘Livia, can I ask you a question?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘How come you always call me when I’m not home?’

‘Well, aren’t you good at flipping the pancake! I would never want to fall into your clutches!’

‘You’ve fallen into them many times over. There must be something you like about it.’

‘I wasn’t referring to that. I meant as someone suspected of a crime.’

‘Livia, you know almost everything there is to know about me.’

‘Almost? What don’t I know about you?’

‘Well, for one thing, the way I conduct an interrogation. To say I flip the pancake and turn things around offends me. I’m extremely fair and above board.’

It was a lie. How many traps had he laid over his career? An infinity.

‘I’ll pretend to believe that,’ said Livia. Then she asked:

‘Are you working on the case of that poor girl who was slashed to death with a knife?’

‘How did you find that out?’

‘It was on the TV news, and I also saw it in the newspaper.’

‘Yeah, I’m working on it.’

‘Well, be careful.’

‘About what?’

‘Don’t immediately suspect the boyfriend. It’s the fashion these days. The moment a girl is killed, they immediately lock up the boyfriend.’

‘I don’t follow fashion and you know it,’ he said, piqued. Then he realized how to get back at her.

‘But tell me something, I’m curious. Did you by any chance get a call from a lawyer named Nero Duello?’

‘No. Who’s he?’

‘The boyfriend’s lawyer.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I just thought you maybe let him corrupt you into trying to persuade me that the boyfriend is innocent.’

‘Idiot,’ Livia said in disgust.

And she hung up.

He went to bed. Having got that off his chest, he could fall asleep.

*

The first thing he did as soon as he walked into the station was to stop at Catarella’s post, dig out the mini-recorder, and show it to him.

‘Cat, what’s this, in your opinion?’

Catarella didn’t hesitate for a second.

‘Chief, ’at’d be a didgytel recorder.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meanin’ iss a mottified impy tree.’

‘And what’s a modified impy tree?’

‘Iss a mottified impy tree, Chief.’

Better take another tack. Otherwise they would spend the whole morning with him always asking the same question and getting the same answer.

‘And what’s it used for?’

‘Fer many tings, Chief. F’r example, iss a recorder you c’n stick in yer kapewter an’—’

‘But do you necessarily have to listen to it on the computer or can you also print out what’s on it on your printer?’

‘Assolutely, Chief.’

‘OK then, I want you to listen to what’s on it and print me a copy.’

‘The whole ting?’

‘The whole thing. How much time is it gonna take?’

‘Chief, I got no ways o’ knowin’.’

‘Why not?’

‘’Cause it all dipinns on wha’ the impy tree’s got onnit. One impy tree c’n fit the whole Divine Comity, the whole civil code an’ the whole penile code, the
hisstry o’ the univoice, the gaspel, the Bible, an’ alla songs o’ Di Caprio . . .’

‘Di Caprio sings?’

‘’E sure does, Chief! ’E’s been singin’ an’ singin’ fer years! C’mon, ya mean ya don’ remimber the one about a voice, a guitar,
an’—’

‘But you mean Peppino di Capri!’

‘In’t that what I said? Din’t I say Di Caprio?’

Better let it slide.

‘Is Fazio here?’

‘Nah, Chief.’

*

Fazio straggled in around eleven.

‘The whole morning gone! Tommaseo was in a meeting and couldn’t see me. But I decided to wait outside the door, and when he came out to go to the loo, I said I absolutely needed
authorization to go into Strangio’s house.’

‘Did he give it to you?’

‘He did, but only orally. He didn’t have time to write it down, but he promised me he’d get it to me by this afternoon.’

*

Fazio went out and the telephone rang.

‘Ah, Chief! ’At’d be a jinnelman onna line ’oo calls hisself Lopollo an’ says ’e wants a talk t’yiz poissonally in poisson immidiately.’

‘What’s he want?’

‘’E din’t say, Chief. Bu’ when ’e talks ya can’t unnerstand.’

‘Is he a foreigner?’

‘Nossir.’

‘So how come you can’t understand him?’

‘’E gots the stubbers.’

The stubbers? The stutters, maybe?

With Catarella, it was always best not to venture too many requests for explanation.

‘OK, put him on . . . Hello? Montalbano here. What can I do for you, Mr Lopollo?’

‘Lee . . . opo-pò . . . ldo-do . . . tha . . . t’s . . . my . . . n-name.’

A moment’s distraction and he was already repeating the idiocies Catarella had told him!

‘I beg your pardon, Mr Leopoldo. What can I do for you?’

‘I . . . I . . . I . . . f-fou . . . nd . . . a . . . d-dead . . . b-b-body.’

‘Where?’

‘In th-the . . . c-coun . . . try . . . Bo . . . bo . . . rru . . . so . . . d-dist . . . trict . . .’

‘And where, exactly?’

‘In . . . in . . . th . . . the . . . g . . . gr . . . een . . . h . . . house . . . on th . . . the . . . l . . . le . . . ft . . .’

This was getting painful.

‘W . . . we . . . we’ll . . . b . . . be . . . r . . . right over,’ Montalbano replied.

It was hopeless. Whenever he came into contact with a stutterer, he was immediately infected.

He went into Fazio’s office.

‘What’s up?’ asked Fazio.

‘Someone by the name of Leopoldo just called. He says there’s a dead body in a green house in the Borruso district. Want to bet it’s Tumminello?’

‘No, because I agree with you.’

‘Do you know where Borruso is?’

‘Did the guy who called stutter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I know who he is. Filippo Leopoldo. And I also know where his country house is.’

‘Is it far?’

‘At the ends of the earth.’

‘Call Gallo and let’s go.’

‘Gallo’s out with Inspector Augello.’

‘Then you and I will go in my car, but you drive.’

*

One got to the Borruso district by way of a track in really bad shape, all holes and mounds.