A Voice in the Night (20 page)

‘He stayed at the Hotel Vulcano,’ said Fazio.

If, in response to his next question, Fazio replied again with ‘Already taken care of,’ the inspector might not be able to control himself any longer. So he asked it in another
way.

‘And naturally you’ve informed yourself as to which flight Giovanni took from Rome to Naples to meet his father, who had summoned him there.’

Mimì looked puzzled, whereas Fazio smiled.

‘Yes, sir, I have. He didn’t take any flight at all, as it turns out. He rented a fast car from Avis, which he left at Fiumicino airport early the next morning. His Roman girlfriend
didn’t tell the truth.’

‘At any rate, he therefore couldn’t have come here to kill the girl,’ Augello concluded.

‘Listen, guys,’ said Montalbano. ‘To recapitulate, here is how things might have gone. The professor feels his old flame for Mariangela rekindling, and the two resume their
former relationship. But the girl gets pregnant and tells her lover. She doesn’t want to get rid of the kid; maybe she even insists that the professor marry her. And if he won’t, she
threatens to create a scandal. On the evening of his departure for Naples, the president goes to see the girl, perhaps to try again and persuade her to abort. They have a violent altercation. The
distinguished president loses his head, thinking that a scandal would ruin his political career, and kills her with a box cutter he finds on the desk. He butchers her hatefully. Then he takes off
her bathrobe, puts her in an obscene pose to make it look like a crime of passion, picks up the bathrobe, goes out, locks the door to the house, enters the garage through the back door, puts the
bathrobe in the boot of his car, and races desperately to the airport after calling Giovanni and making an appointment to meet with him in Naples. When his son arrives at the hotel in Naples, he
tells him everything and persuades him to help him. He promises to get him the best defence lawyers. And the kid, who’s in no condition to say no to his father, accepts. And you know the
rest.’

‘Nice reconstruction,’ said Augello. ‘Even plausible. But I don’t understand the stuff about the bathrobe.’

‘Let me explain it to you, Mimì. She was wearing it when Strangio started slashing her with the box cutter. Almost certainly, in his frenzy, he cut himself as well. And since he
could easily be screwed by an eventual DNA test, he’s forced to take the bathrobe away with him.’

‘But surely Strangio’s suit, shirt, and shoes must also have been covered with blood!’ Mimì objected.

‘Of course they were. But he changed them in the garage and put on some clean clothes that he had in his suitcase. Don’t forget, he’d gone to the girl’s house with a
packed suitcase.’

‘But there’s something I don’t understand,’ Fazio cut in. ‘Why did Giovanni mention the bathrobe to us in the first place?’

‘Look, Strangio senior left it in the boot of his car when he arrived at the airport. He didn’t throw it out of the car on his way there, as he did with the box cutter, because a
bloodstained bathrobe, if anyone found it, might attract the attention of the police or carabinieri. And he didn’t have time to stop somewhere and bury it. So as soon as he gets to Palermo he
asks his son to get rid of it. And the kid takes it out of his father’s car and puts it in his own. But he doesn’t get rid of it.’

‘Why not?’ asked Fazio.

‘Because, perhaps for the first time in his life, it dawns on him that he’s taking too big a risk by obeying his father. That bathrobe, if the worst comes to the worst, could be his
salvation. And when he realizes that he’s seen neither hide nor hair of all the lawyers promised him by his father, he begins to take cover.
That’s
why he told us about the
bathrobe.’

He looked at Fazio.

‘Shall we bet I’m right?’

‘I already told you once: I never bet when I’m sure to lose. Have you got the keys to the garage?’

‘Yes, let’s go inside and I’ll give them to you.’

‘Give me also a large plastic bag to put it in.’

*

Montalbano and Augello had a glass of whisky while waiting. It took Fazio about twenty minutes to go to Strangio’s and come back.

‘It’s in my car. What should I do with it?’

‘Take it to headquarters and lock it up. And now, while we’re at it, let’s talk about another story, the supermarket.’

‘Speaking of which,’ said Mimì, ‘I wonder who it was that sent that recording to the Free Channel. Maybe . . .’

Fazio stared at his toecaps.

‘Nobody sent it: I took it there myself,’ said Montalbano.

Augello sat upright in his chair.

‘You?! How did you get it?’

‘We found it by chance, Fazio and I did, the other night, when we went into the supermarket.’

‘And what were you doing there?’

‘To tell you the truth, I didn’t really know at the time.’

‘But why didn’t you turn the recorder over to the prosecutor?’

‘Mimì, think for a second. First of all, because we entered the supermarket illegally. Second, because the prosecutor would have told us that before deciding what to do with the
recorder, he would have to discuss it with the chief procurator, then with the prefect, then with the bishop, then with the American ambassador, and in conclusion he would have informed us that the
recording, having no evidentiary value in court, had to be destroyed.’ Mimì said nothing. Then Montalbano let his two men know what he’d been thinking: that the recorded
discussion that preceded Mimì’s arrival might be about the burglary.

‘Let’s hear it,’ said Augello.

‘I left the recorder with Zito, but last night the Free Channel offices were broken into and the only thing that was stolen was in fact the recorder . . . However, I’d told Zito to
make a copy of the recordings, and this is still in his possession. To make up for it, however, I’ve got here the transcriptions Catarella made of those recordings for me.’

He went into the house, found the papers, selected the one titled ‘Talk with ya-can’t-till-who’, and went back out on the veranda. Before reading it aloud, the inspector gave
it a quick glance. And he immediately understood that it involved not a tête-à-tête conversation, but an exchange over the phone. Borsellino must have held the recorder in such a
way that it would also pick up the voice of the man at the other end. Borsellino was the first to speak.

Here there was a momentary confusion on Borsellino’s part.

End of conversation. Montalbano, Augello, and Fazio just sat there, speechless, looking at one another in astonishment.

‘Sorry, Chief, but could you reread that for me?’ asked Fazio, pulling himself together.

The inspector reread it from the start, stressing practically every syllable. Then he put the sheet of paper down on the table and said:

‘Contrary to what he told us, Borsellino did inform someone of the burglary. And the man cut him loose immediately. He didn’t give him a helping hand; he just let him drown. But the
more serious implication for us is that Borsellino was not in cahoots with the burglar, which is what we’d always thought. On top of this, the man talking to Borsellino already knew about the
burglary before the manager called him. Do you two agree?’

‘Yes,’ said Augello. ‘Even if he doesn’t say explicitly that he already knows.’

‘Borsellino blurts out what he says in surprise, but he’s already perfectly aware that the other man knows. And that’s probably when he starts to smell a rat.’

‘But if he was innocent, why did he start crying in front of us?’ asked Fazio.

‘Precisely
because
he was innocent. Because he realized that the burglary was a setup by the Cuffaros to back him into a corner. He was desperate, he’d done everything to
get himself arrested, which was the only escape route he had left, and we didn’t do it. We left him in his killers’ hands.’

‘But we couldn’t very well have imagined . . .’ Augello began.

‘No, Mimì, there are no justifications. I got the whole thing wrong, all down the line. I should have paid more attention to what you said, Fazio.’

‘What did I say?’

‘Have you forgotten? You maintained that two murders to cover whoever stole less than twenty thousand euros seemed disproportionate to you. There must be something much bigger behind all
this.’

‘So what do we do now?’ asked Augello.

‘Now we must try to think this through with cooler heads,’ said Montalbano. ‘One thing is certain. The intention of those who put this whole plot together was to make it look
as if Borsellino was complicit in the burglary. And that our suspecting him was what drove him to suicide. So they wanted to kill him, but without it looking like a murder. The Mafia, however,
normally just kills without making such a production out of it. But here we’re looking at some very fine stage direction. If it was the Cuffaros, they’ve been guided by a much more
subtle mind. Whatever the case, the question is: what did Borsellino do or say to merit a death sentence? Fazio, do you know how long he’d been manager of the supermarket?’

‘Ever since it opened three years ago.’

‘So it must be something that occurred recently. We have to find out what happened.’

‘I’ll try,’ said Fazio.

Mimì got up.

‘I have to pick my wife up and take her to the cinema.’

‘I’m leaving too,’ said Fazio.

‘Oh, listen, Fazio. Do you have Michele Strangio’s telephone numbers?’

‘Not with me here, no. I’ll give them to you as soon as I get to the office.’

Fifteen minutes later he had the numbers.

*

He enjoyed the sunset, still seated out on the veranda. And after the sunset, he also enjoyed the evening’s first darkness. Then he got in his car and drove off, because,
it being Sunday, Adelina hadn’t come, and so he had to go out to eat.

He felt like amusing himself, so he went to one of those seaside restaurants in Montereale Marina where they serve an infinity of wonderful antipasti. The whole time he was eating he
couldn’t stop thinking about Michele Strangio, the illustrious president of the province. Since Strangio junior would never dare tell the truth, the good president felt safe, and would have
no problem letting his son go to jail. But would he, Montalbano, be able to remain silent in the face of such a sordid, rotten affair? No. They had to flush out the beast, make him come out into
the open.

When he got back home it was past eleven. He undressed, got comfortable in front of the television, channel-surfed until midnight, and then tuned in to TeleVigàta. The chicken-arse face was on duty.

He turned off the TV. He’d already made up his mind. The announcement of Giovanni Strangio’s arrest had given him the final push. But he’d known since the
afternoon, since the business of the bathrobe, that he would end up taking this course of action. What he had in mind was not, of course, something an honest man would do. But how do you remove
shit from the middle of the street without a shovel and bag? You have no choice but to use your hands and get them dirty.

But what he had in mind to do he couldn’t do from his home telephone. It was too dangerous. He put his clothes back on, took a clothes peg from the broom cupboard, a big chunk of bread
from the kitchen, and, from the first-aid box, a handful of cotton and a roll of gauze bandage. Sticking it all in his jacket pockets, he went out, got into the car, and pulled up at the Bar
Marinella, which had a public phone in a booth out of the patrons’ sight. The rolling shutter in front was halfway down. He’d been lucky; the bar was about to close. He crouched down
and went in.

‘Michè, I have to make some phone calls; my home phone doesn’t work.’

‘You can take your time, Inspector, the bar’s closed.’

Just to be discreet, the owner went outside for a breath of air.

The inspector put the clothes peg over his nose and tested his voice, which came out nasal.

He dialled the home of Michele Strangio. The president should be back from Naples already. If not, he would call him on his mobile. A masculine voice, peremptory and irritated, answered after
the sixth ring.

‘Hello? Who is this?’

‘Is this Professor Strangio, Michele Strangio, president of the province?’

‘Yes.’

‘Could you give me your address?’

Strangio blew up like a powder keg.