“I just wanted to point out to you that Susanna’s helmet was found near the path leading to your patient’s house, and the backpack was recovered almost directly in front of the Good Shepherd Clinic. Did you know?” “Yes.”
Matre santa! Bad move! The inspector would never have expected it.
“And how did you find out?”
“From newspapers, the television, I don’t remember.”
“Impossible. The newspapers and television never mentioned those discoveries. We succeeded in letting nothing leak out.”
“Wait! Now I remember! You told me yourself, when we were sitting right here, on this very bench!”
“No, Doctor. I told you those objects had been found, but I didn’t say where. And you know why? Because you didn’t ask me.”
And that was the snag which at the time the inspector had perceived as a kind of hesitation and couldn’t immediately explain. It was a perfectly natural question, but it hadn’t been asked, and actually stopped the flow of the discussion, like a line omitted from a printed page. Even Livia had asked him where he’d found the Simenon novel! And the oversight was due to the fact that the doctor knew perfectly well where the helmet and backpack had been found.
“But . . . but Inspector! There could be dozens of possible explanations for why I didn’t ask you! Do you realize what kind of state I was in at the time? You want to construct God-knows-what out of the flimsiest of—” “—the flimsiest of spiderwebs, perhaps? You have no idea how apt the metaphor is. Just think, initially my construction rested on an even flimsier thread.”
“Well, if you’re the first to admit it . . .”
“Indeed I am. And it concerned your niece. Something Francesco, her ex-boyfriend, said to me. Do you know Susanna has left him?”
“Yes, she’s already told me about it.”
“It’s a touchy subject. I’m a bit reluctant to broach it, but—”
“But you have to do your job.”
“Do you think I would act this way if I was doing my job? What I was going to say was: But I want to know the truth.”
The doctor said nothing.
At that moment a female figure appeared on the threshold of the French window, took a step forward, and stopped.
Jesus, the nightmare was coming back! It was a bodiless head, with long blond hair, suspended in air! Just as he’d seen at the center of the spiderweb! Then he realized that Susanna was wearing all black, to mourn her mother, and her clothes blended in with the night.
The girl resumed walking, came towards them, and sat down on a bench. As the light didn’t reach that far, one could only barely make out her hair, a slightly less dense point of darkness. She didn’t greet them. Montalbano decided to continue as though she wasn’t there.
“As often happens between lovers, Susanna and Francesco had intimate relations.”
The doctor became agitated, uneasy.
“You have no right . . . And anyway, what’s that got to do with your investigation?” he said with irritation.
“It’s got a lot to do with it. You see, Francesco told me he was always the one to ask, if you know what I mean. Whereas, on the day she was kidnapped, it was she who took the initiative.” “Inspector, honestly, I do not understand what my niece’s sexual behavior has to do with any of this. And I wonder if you know what you’re saying or are simply raving. So I’ll ask you again, what is the point?” “The point is that when Francesco told me this, he said Susanna may have had a premonition . . . But I don’t believe in premonitions. It was something else.”
“And what, in your opinion, was it?” the doctor asked sar-castically.
“A farewell.”
What had Livia said the evening before her departure?
“These are our last hours together, and I don’t want to spoil them.” She’d wanted to make love. And to think that theirs was to be only a brief separation. What if it had been a long and final goodbye? Because Susanna was already thinking that regardless of whether her plans came to a good or bad end, they inevitably spelled the end of their love. This was the price, the infinitely high price, that she had to pay.
“Because she’d put in her request to go to Africa two months before,” the inspector continued. “Two months. Which was surely when she got that other idea.”
“What other idea? Listen, Inspector, don’t you think you’re abusing—”
“I’m warning you,” Montalbano said icily. “You’re giving the wrong answers and asking the wrong questions. I came here to lay my cards on the table and reveal my suspicions . . .
or rather, my hopes.”
Why had he said “hopes”? Because hope was what had tipped the scales entirely to one side, in Susanna’s favor. Because that word was what had finally convinced him.
The word completely flummoxed the doctor, who wasn’t able to say anything. And for the first time, out of the silence and darkness came the girl’s voice, a hesitant voice, as though laden, indeed, with hope: the hope of being understood, to the bottom of her heart.
“Did you say . . . hope?”
“Yes. The hope that a great capacity for hatred might turn into a great capacity for love.”
From the bench where the girl was sitting he heard a kind of sob, which was immediately stifled. He lit a cigarette and saw, by the lighter’s glow, that his hand was trembling slightly.
“Want one?” he asked the doctor.
“I said no.”
They were firm in their resolutions, these Mistrettas. So much the better.
“I know there was no kidnapping. That evening, you, Susanna, took a different road home, a little-used dirt road, where your uncle was waiting for you in his SUV. You left your motorbike there, got in the car, and crouched down in back. And your uncle drove off to his villa. There, in the building next to the doctor’s villa, everything had been prepared some time before: a bed, provisions, and so on. The cleaning woman had no reason whatsoever to set foot in there. Who would ever have thought of looking for the kidnap victim at her uncle’s house? And that was where you recorded the messages. Among other things, you, Doctor, in your disguised voice, spoke of billions. It’s hard for people over a certain age to get used to thinking in euros. That was also where you shot your Polaroids, on the back of which you wrote some words, trying your best to make your handwriting legible, since, like all doctors’ handwriting, yours is indecipherable. I’ve never been inside that building, Doctor, but I can say for certain that you had a new telephone extension installed—” “How can you say that?” asked Carlo Mistretta.
“I know because the two of you came up with a truly brilliant idea for averting suspicion. You seized an opportunity on the fly. After learning that I was coming to the villa, Susanna called in the second recorded message, the one specifying the ransom amount, as I was speaking with you. But I heard, without understanding at first, the sound a phone makes when the receiver on an extension is picked up. Anyway, it wouldn’t be hard to get confirmation. All I need to do is call the phone company. And that could constitute evidence, Doctor. Shall I go on?” “Yes.”
It was Susanna who’d answered.
“I also know, because you told me yourself, Doctor, that there is an old winepress in that building. Thus there must be an adjacent space with the vat for the fermentation of the must. I am willing to bet that this room has a window. Which you, Doctor, opened when you took the snapshot, since it was daytime. You also used a mechanic’s lamp to better illuminate the inside of the vat. But there’s one detail you neglected in this otherwise elaborate, convincing production.” “A detail?”