“Your eyes are shining, Inspector! Got a touch of fever, by chance?”
“Yes,” he lied without hesitation.
He scarfed down two helpings. Afterwards, he shamelessly declared that a few little mullets might be a nice idea. A stroll out to the lighthouse at the end of the jetty thus became a digestive necessity.
Back at the station, he phoned Livia again. The recording repeated that the person could not be reached. Oh well.
Galluzzo came in to report on a case involving a supermarket robbery.
“Excuse me, but isn’t Inspector Augello here?”
“Yes, Chief, he’s over there.”
“Well, then go over there and tell him about it. Before he gets called into the field, as the commissioner put it.”
o o o
There was no getting around it, Susanna’s disappearance was beginning to worry him in earnest. His real fear was that the girl had been kidnapped by a sex maniac. Maybe it was best to advise Minutolo to organize a search team immediately, without waiting for a phone call that might never come.
He took the scrap of paper Mimì had given him out of his pocket and dialed the number of Susanna’s boyfriend.
“Hello, is this the Lipari home? This is Inspector Montalbano. I’d like to speak with Francesco.”
“Oh, it’s you? This is Francesco, Inspector.” There was a note of disappointment in his voice. Apparently he was hoping it would be Susanna calling.
“Listen, could you come see me?”
“When?”
“Right now, if possible.”
“Is there any news?”
This time anxiety had replaced disappointment.
“No, but I’d like to talk with you a little.”
“I’ll be right over.”
04
Francesco arrived barely ten minutes later.
“It’s pretty quick with a motorbike,” he said.
A good-looking kid, tall, well-dressed, with a clear, open gaze. But one could see that he was being eaten alive by worry.
He sat down on the edge of a chair, nerves taut.
“Were you already questioned by my colleague Minutolo?”
“I haven’t been questioned by anybody. I phoned Susanna’s father late this morning to find out if . . . but unfortunately . . .”
He stopped and looked the inspector straight in the eye.
“And this silence makes me imagine the worst.”
“Such as?”
“That maybe she’s been kidnapped by someone who wants to abuse her. And that she’s either still in his hands or else he’s already . . .”
“What makes you think this?”
“Inspector, everyone knows that Susanna’s father doesn’t have a cent. He used to be rich, but he had to sell everything.”
“Why? Did his business go bad?”
“I don’t know why. But he wasn’t a businessman. He earned a good salary and had put a lot of money aside. And I think Susanna’s mother also inherited a . . . well, I don’t know, frankly.” “Go on.”
“As I was saying, do you really think the kidnappers would be unaware of the victim’s economic situation? Would they make that kind of mistake? Come on! They know more about us than the tax collectors!” The argument made sense.
“And there’s another thing,” the kid went on. “I’ve waited for Susanna outside Tina’s place at least four or five different times. After she came out, we would head back to her house on our motorbikes. Now and then we would stop, then we’d continue on our way. When we arrived at the gate we would say goodbye and I’d go home. We always took the same route. The most direct one, which Susanna always took.
Whereas last night she took a different road, more out of the way. It’s full of holes, almost impassable. You need a four-by-four to get through there. There’s hardly any light, and it’s much longer than our usual route. I have no idea why she would go that way. But it’s an ideal place for a kidnapping.
Maybe it was a chance encounter that went bad.” The boy had a good head on his shoulders.
“How old are you, young man?”
“Twenty-three. You can call me Francesco, if you want.
You’re old enough to be my father.”
With a pang to the heart, Montalbano realized that, at this stage of his life, he would never be the father of a kid that age.
“Are you a student?”
“Yes, in law. I graduate next year.”
“What do you want to do in life?”
He asked only to relieve the tension.
“The same thing you do.”
Montalbano thought he hadn’t heard right.
“You want to join the police force?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I like it.”
“I wish you the best of luck. Listen, to get back to your rapist hypothesis . . . which, mind you, is only a hypothesis.”
“Which I’m sure you’d already thought of.”
“Of course. Did Susanna ever mention people making lewd propositions, obscene phone calls, things like that?”
“Susanna’s very reserved. She certainly got a lot of compliments, wherever she went. She’s a beautiful girl. Sometimes she would repeat them to me, and we would laugh about it. If there was any cause for worry, I’m sure she would have mentioned it to me.” “Her friend Tina is convinced Susanna ran away of her own volition.”
Francesco gave him an astonished look, mouth open.
“Why would she do that?”
“A sudden breakdown. The pain and tension caused by her mother’s illness, the physical strain of caring for her, the stress of studying for exams. Is Susanna a fragile girl?” “So that’s what Tina thinks? She obviously doesn’t know Susanna! Susanna’s nerves are bound to give out, that much is certain, but it’s equally certain the breakdown won’t come until after her mother dies! Until that moment, she will stay at her bedside. Because once she gets something in her head, and she’s convinced she’s right, she becomes so determined that . . .
She’s anything but fragile! No, believe me, that’s an absurd hypothesis.”
“Speaking of which, what is Susanna’s mother sick with?”
“To be perfectly honest, Inspector, I don’t know what’s wrong with her. A couple of weeks ago, Susanna’s uncle, Carlo, the doctor, had some sort of consultation with two doctors—one who’d come down from Rome, the other from Milan—and in the end they all threw their hands up. Susanna explained to me that her mother is dying of an incurable dis-ease: the refusal to live. A kind of fatal depression. When I asked the reason for this depression—since I believe there always has to be a reason—she answered evasively.” Montalbano steered the conversation back to the girl.
“How did you meet Susanna?”
“Purely by chance, in a bar. She was with a girl I used to go out with.”
“When was this?”
“About six months ago.”
“And you hit it off straightaway?”
Francesco gave a broad smile.
“It was love at first sight.”
“Do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Make love.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At my place.”
“Do you live alone?”
“I live with my father. But he’s away a lot, often travels abroad. He’s a wholesaler in lumber. Right now he’s in Russia.”
“What about your mother?”
“They’re divorced. My mother’s remarried and lives in Siracusa.”
Francesco opened and then closed his mouth, as if he wanted to add something.
“Go on,” Montalbano prodded him.
“But we don’t . . .”
“Say it.”
The kid hesitated. It was clear he felt embarrassed talking about something so private.
“You’ll see,” the inspector continued, “when you become a policeman yourself, you too will have to ask indiscreet questions.”
“I know. I merely wanted to say that we don’t do it very often.”
“She doesn’t want to?”
“No, not exactly. I’m always the one who asks her to come to my place. But every time I’ve felt as though, I don’t know, she seemed distant, or absent. It was like she went along with it just to please me. I realized that she’s very affected by her mother’s illness. And I felt ashamed to ask her . . . Just yesterday afternoon . . .” He broke off, then made a strange face, as though per-plexed.