IM10 August Heat (2008) (18 page)

“Put him on the line in Augello’s office, and I’ll pick up in there.”

He stood up.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Adriana. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Fazio, you come with me.”

In Mimì’s office, with the sun shining straight in, the heat was stifling.

“Hello? What can I do for you, Mr. Commissioner?”

“Montalbano! Have you any idea?”

“Of what?”

“What? You don’t have any idea?”

“Of what?”

“You didn’t even deign to answer!”

“Answer what?”

“The questionnaire!”

“About what?”

Uttering any more syllables than that would have been painful.

“The questionnaire on personnel, which I sent you a good two weeks ago! It was extremely urgent!”

“It was filled out and sent.”

“To me?!”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Six days ago.”

A whopping lie.

“Did you make a copy?”

“Yes.”

“If I can’t find your answers, I’ll let you know and you can send me the copy.”

“Okay.”

When he hung up, his shirt was dripping wet.

“Do you know anything about some questionnaire on personnel that the commissioner sent here about two weeks ago?” he asked Fazio.

“Yessir. I remember giving it to you.”

“So where the hell did it end up? I have to find it and fill it out. The guy’s liable to call back in half an hour. Let’s go look for it.”

“But the girl’s still in your office.”

“I’ll have to send her home.”

The girl was in the same position as when they’d left her. She seemed not to have budged.

“Listen, Adriana, something’s come up. Can we meet again this afternoon?”

“I’m supposed to be home by five o’clock, when the nurse leaves.”

“Can we make it tomorrow morning?”

“There’s the funeral.”

“Well, then, I don’t know . . .”

“I’ve got an idea. I invite you both to lunch.That way, we can continue talking. If you feel like it . . .”

“Thank you very much,” said Fazio, “but I have to go home. It’s August fifteenth, after all.”

“I, on the other hand, would be delighted to come,” said Montalbano. “Where will you take me?”

“Wherever you like.”

Montalbano couldn’t believe it. They made an appointment to meet at Enzo’s at one-thirty.

“That girl’s got balls of steel,” Fazio muttered as she went out.

 

 

 

Left alone, Montalbano and Fazio searched all over the room and got discouraged.The desk was completely covered with papers, and there were stacks of paper on the caddy with water and glasses, on top of the file cabinet, and even on the little sofa and the two armchairs for important visitors.

They worked up a royal sweat and took a good half hour to find the questionnaire. But the worst was yet to come, and they sweated even more filling in the answers.

When they had finished, it was past one o’clock. Fazio said good-bye and left.

“Catarella!”

“Here I am.”

“Photocopy these four pages for me. Then, if anyone from the commissioner’s office should call asking about a questionnaire, send them the photocopy you’ve made. But be absolutely certain: the photocopy!”

“Don’ worry, Chief.”

“Now, go get the clothes you set out to dry and bring them to me.Then go and open the doors to my car.”

Undressing in the bathroom, he had the impression that his skin stank. It must have been all the effort he’d made searching for that goddamned questionnaire. He washed himself thoroughly, changed clothes, gave Catarella the sweaty clothes to put in the courtyard, and went into Augello’s office. He knew that Mimì kept a little bottle of cologne in one of his drawers. He looked for it and found it. It was called
Irresistible
. He unscrewed the cap and, thinking that there was a dropper, managed to empty half the bottle on his shirt and pants. Now what? Should he put the sweaty clothes back on? No, maybe out in the open air the cologne would evaporate. Then he had a moment of hesitation: Should he bring the minifan or not? He decided against it. He would surely have looked ridiculous to Adriana, holding the little contraption to his face and smelling sweet as a whore.

Despite the fact that he’d had Catarella open the doors, getting inside the car was like entering a furnace. But he didn’t feel up to walking all the way to Enzo’s, especially as he was already late.

 

 

 

In front of the trattoria, which was closed, Adriana stood in the scorching sun, beside a Fiat Punto. He’d forgotten that Enzo celebrated the August 15 holiday by closing the restaurant.

“Follow me,” he said to the girl.

Near the bar in Marinella there was a trattoria he’d never tried. But, driving by in his car, he’d noticed that the tables outside were always in shade, protected by a very dense pergola. It took them ten minutes to get there. Despite the holiday, there weren’t many people at the restaurant, and they were able to choose a table more isolated than the rest.

“Did you change and douse yourself with cologne for my sake?” Adriana asked mischievously.

“No, for my own sake. As for the cologne, the bottle spilled all over me,” he said gravely.

He probably would have been better off smelling of sweat.

They sat there in silence until the waiter appeared and started reciting the litany.

“An’ we got spaghetti wit’ tomata sauce, spaghetti in squid ink, spaghetti wit’ sea urchin, spaghetti wit’ clam sauce, spaghetti—”

“I’ll have it with the clam sauce,” Montalbano interrupted him. “And you?”

“With sea urchin.”

The waiter then began a different litany.

“For seconds we got salt-baked mullet, baked gilthead, sea bass in sauce, grilled turbot—”

“You can tell us later,” said Montalbano.

The waiter looked offended. He returned a few minutes later with cutlery, glasses, water, and wine, white and ice-cold.

“Would you like some?”

“Yes.”

Montalbano poured her half a glass and did the same for himself.

“It’s good,” she said.

“Would you believe I can’t remember where we left off ?”

“You were asking me if Spitaleri and Rina had crossed paths on any other occasion, and I said yes.”

“Ah, yes, right.What did your sister say about that?”

“She said that after that time with Ralf, Spitaleri started hovering over her a bit too much.”

“In what sense?”

“Rina had the impression that Spitaleri was spying on her. She would run into him a little too often. For example, if she took the bus into town, on the way back Spitaleri would appear and offer her a lift home. And this, up until a week before.”

“A week before what?”

“Before the twelfth of October.”

“And Rina would let him drive her home?”

“Sometimes.”

“And did Spitaleri always behave?”

“Yes.”

“And what happened a week before your sister disappeared?”

“Something unpleasant. That evening, it was already dark, and Rina accepted the ride. But right after they turned onto the little road for Pizzo, in front of the house that belongs to that peasant who was later arrested, Spitaleri stopped the car and started putting his hands all over her. Just like that, out the blue, according to Rina.”

“What did your sister do?”

“She screamed so loudly that the peasant came running out of his house. Rina saw her chance and took refuge in the man’s house. Spitaleri was forced to leave.”

“How did Rina go home?”

“On foot.The peasant walked her home.”

“You said he was arrested?”

“Yes, poor thing. When police began looking for her, they searched his house as well. And, as luck would have it, they found one of my sister’s earrings under some furniture. Rina thought it had fallen in Spitaleri’s car, whereas in fact she’d lost it there. And so I decided to tell the police what had happened with Spitaleri. But it was useless. You know how the police are, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“The poor man was persecuted for months.”

“Do you know if they questioned Spitaleri?”

“Of course. But Spitaleri told them that on the morning of the twelfth he’d left for Bangkok. It couldn’t have been him.”

The waiter arrived with the spaghetti.

Adriana brought the first forkful to her mouth, tasted it, then said:

“It’s good.Would you like to try some?”

“Why not?”

Montalbano reached over, armed with a fork, and rolled the spaghetti onto it.The food wasn’t comparable to Enzo’s, but it was edible enough.

“You try mine.”

Adriana did the same as him and tasted.

They didn’t speak again until they had finished. Every now and then they looked at each other and smiled.

Something strange had occurred. It was as if the familiarity of sticking one’s fork into the other’s dish had established a sort of mutual confidence, an intimacy, that hadn’t existed before.

14

They had finished eating for some time but still weren’t talking. As they each sipped a cold, digestive limoncello, Montalbano could feel her observing him, just as he had observed her at the station. Just to appear nonchalant—since it was hard to pretend nothing was happening, with those eyes the color of the sea looking at him—he fired up a cigarette.

“Could I have one, too, please?”

He held out the pack, she extracted a cigarette, put it between her lips, and half stood up, bending far forward to light it from the inspector’s lighter.

Don’t forget she could be your daughter!
the inspector admonished himself.

What he was seeing, thanks to the girl’s position, made his head start spinning wildly. And the skin under his mustache became wet with sweat.

There was no way she didn’t know that by leaning forward in that manner, he would be forced to look down her blouse. So why had she done it? To provoke him? But Adriana didn’t seem the type to resort to such manipulations.

Or had she done it because she thought he had already reached an age where one no longer paid much attention to women? Yes, that must be it.

He didn’t have time to start feeling sorry for himself before the girl, after taking two puffs, suddenly put her hand on top of his.

Since Adriana showed no sign of feeling the heat—in fact, she looked fresh as a proverbial daisy—the inspector was amazed to find that she had such a burning touch.Was it the combination of their body heat, his and hers, that made the temperature increase? And, if not, just how hot was the blood circulating inside her?

“She was raped, wasn’t she?”

It was the question that Montalbano, at every moment, had been expecting, fearing. He had prepared a good, articulate answer in advance, which he now completely forgot.

“No,” he said.

Why did he answer that way? So as not to see the light of beauty go out before him?

“You’re not telling me the truth.”

“Believe me, Adriana, the autopsy revealed that—”

“That she was a virgin?”

“Yes.”

“That’s even worse,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because in that case the violence was even more horrific.”

The pressure from her hand, which was now scalding hot, increased.

“Could we drop the formalities?”

“If you like . . .”

“I want to tell you something in all confidence.”

She let go of his hand, which suddenly felt cold, stood up, grabbed her chair, put it next to Montalbano’s, and sat down. Now she could speak softly, whisper.

“She most certainly was raped, I’m sure of it. When we were at the station I didn’t want to tell you in front of that other man. But with you, it’s different.”

“You mentioned that a few minutes before feeling the pain in your throat, you’d felt something else.”

“Yes. A sense of total, utter panic. A terror, a sort of fear for my very existence. It had never happened to me before.”

“Try and explain it to me.”

“All of a sudden, as I was standing near the armoire, I saw my sister’s image reflected in the mirror. She was upset, terrified. One second later I felt myself plunged into total darkness. Horrifying. It was as if I was enveloped in something slimy, without light or air, something malignant. A place—well, not really a place, but where every sort of horror or outrage became possible. Like what happens in nightmares. I wanted to scream, but my voice made no sound. I also know that I went blind for a few seconds. I groped around in the emptiness and then leaned against a wall so I wouldn’t fall. And that was when . . .”

She stopped. Montalbano didn’t say a word, didn’t move. Sweat started dripping down his forehead.

“That was when I felt robbed.”

“How?” the inspector couldn’t help but ask.

“Robbed of myself. It’s hard to put into words. Someone was violently, ferociously taking possession of my body, separating it from me, to offend it, humiliate it, annihilate it, to make it an object, a thing . . .”

Her voice cracked.

“That’s enough,” said Montalbano.

And he took her hands in his.

“Is that what happened?” she asked.

“We think so.”

But why wasn’t she crying? Her eyes had turned a darker blue, the wrinkle at the corners of her mouth had deepened, but she wasn’t crying.

What was it that gave her such strength, such inner toughness? Was it perhaps the fact that she knew that Rina had died at the very moment she was killed, whereas her mother and father had kept on hoping that their daughter was still alive?

Perhaps after all these years, the pain, the sorrow, the tears had clotted into a kind of solid mass, a stony lump that would never again dissolve into an expression of pity for Rina or herself.