“You know what? I really don’t remember what I wanted to tell you.”
He immediately bit his tongue. That was a stupid thing to say. Even from ten thousand kilometers away, Livia, over the phone line, could immediately tell when he was lying.
“Don’t even try, Salvo. Come on, tell me.”
During the whole ten minutes he spoke, Montalbano felt like he was walking through a minefield. Livia did not interrupt him once, and made no comment whatsoever.
“. . . And so my colleague Riguccio’s convinced it was all for some kind of family reunion, as he calls it, and a successful one,” he concluded, wiping the sweat from his brow.
Not even the happy ending got a reaction from Livia. The inspector got worried.
“Livia. Are you still there?”
“Yes. I’m thinking.”
The tone was firm; her voice hadn’t cracked.
“About what? There’s nothing to think about. It’s just a little story like any other, of no importance whatsoever.”
“Stop talking nonsense. I also understand why you would have preferred to tell me face to face.”
“Come on, what kind of ideas are you getting in your head? I didn’t—”
“Never mind.”
Montalbano didn’t breathe.
“Of course, it is strange,” Livia said a moment later.
“What is?”
“Does it seem normal to you?”
“If you don’t tell me what you’re talking about—”
“The boy’s behavior.”
“It seemed strange to you?”
“Of course. Why did he try to run away?”
“Try to imagine the situation, Livia! That child was in a panic.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“Because if a child in a panic has his mother beside him, he’s going to grab her skirts and hang on with all his might, as you said the other two kids were doing.”
That’s true, Montalbano said to himself.
“When he surrendered,” Livia continued, “he didn’t surrender to the enemy—which was you at that moment—but to the circumstances. He was lucid enough to realize there was no escape. It was the exact opposite of panic.”
“Tell me something,” said Montalbano. “Are you telling me that boy was taking advantage of the situation to run away from his mother and siblings?”
“If things were the way you tell me, I would say so, yes.”
“But why would he do that?”
“That, I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to go back to his father; that might be one logical explanation.”
“So he decides to run away in an unknown country where he can’t speak the language, without a penny or a helping hand, with nothing at all? The kid was barely six years old!”
“Salvo, you’d be right if you were talking about one of us, but those kinds of children . . . They may look six years old, but in terms of life experiences, they’re like grown men. Between famine, war, massacres, death, and fear, you grow up fast.”
That’s also true, Montalbano said to himself.
He lifted the sheet with one hand, leaned on the bed with the other, raised his left leg, and froze. A chill ran down his spine. It all came back to him at once: the look the little boy had given him as his mother ran up to take him back. At the time, he hadn’t understood that look. Now, after talking to Livia, he did. The little boy’s eyes were imploring him. They were telling him: for pity’s sake, let me go, let me escape. And now, as he was about to get into bed, he felt bitterly guilty for not immediately understanding the meaning of that look. He was slipping. It was hard to admit, but true. How could he not have realized that, to use Dr. Pasquano’s words, things were not what they seemed?
“Chief? There’s a nurse from San Gregorio Hospital in Montelusa onna line . . .”
What was happening to Catarella? He’d said the hospital’s name right!
“What’s she want?”
“She wants to talk to you poissonally in poisson. Says her name is Agata Militello. Want me to put her on?”
“Yes.”
“Inspector Montalbano? My name is Agata Militello . . .” A miracle! That was really her name. What could be happening if Catarella got two names in a row right? “. . . I’m a nurse at San Gregorio. I was told you came here yesterday looking for information on a black woman with three small children and you couldn’t find her. I saw that woman with the three children.”
“When?”
“Night before last. When they started bringing in the wounded from Scroglitti, the hospital called me and asked me to come in to work. It was my day off. I live right nearby, and I always walk to work. Anyway, as I was approaching the hospital, I saw this woman running towards me, dragging three little kids behind her. When she was almost right beside me, a car drove up and came to a sudden stop. The man at the wheel called to the woman, and when they’d all gotten in the car, he drove off again at high speed.”
“Listen, I’m going to ask you something that may sound strange, but please think hard before answering. Did you notice anything unusual?”
“In what sense?”
“Well, I don’t know . . . By any chance, did the oldest boy try to run away before getting in the car?”
Agata Militello thought it over carefully.
“No, Inspector. The biggest boy got in first; his mother pushed him in. Then the other kids, then the woman last.”
“Did you manage to see the license plate?”
“No. It didn’t occur to me. There wasn’t any reason.”
“Indeed. Thank you for calling.”
Her testimony brought the whole affair to a definitive close. Riguccio was right. It was some kind of family reunion. Even though the biggest kid had ideas of his own about that reunion, and didn’t want to go.
The door slammed hard, Montalbano jumped out of his chair, and a piece of plaster fell, even though the wall had been redone less than a month before. Looking up, the inspector saw Catarella standing motionless in the doorway. This time he hadn’t even bothered to say his hand had slipped. He had such a look about him that a triumphal march would have been the ideal background music.
“Well?” asked Montalbano.
Catarella puffed up his chest and let out an elephantine sort of blast. Mimì came running from the next room, alarmed.
“What’s happening?”
“I found ’im. I idinnified ’im!” Catarella yelled, walking up to the desk and laying down an enlarged photo and a computer printout of the profile.
The big photo and the much smaller one in the upper left-hand corner of the profile seemed to be of the same man.
“Would somebody please explain?” said Mimì Augello.
“Certainly, ’Nspecter,” Catarella said proudly. “This here big photoraph was givenna me by Fazio, and it shows the dead man ’at was swimmin the other day with the Chief. This one here’s the one I idinnified myself. Have a look, Chief. Ain’t they like two peas in a pod?”
Mimì circled around the desk, went behind Montalbano, and bent down to get a better look. Then he gave his verdict.
“Yeah, they look alike. But they’re not the same person.”
“But, ’Nspector Augello, you gotta consider a consideration.”
“And what would that be?”
“That the big photoraph’s not a photoraph but a photoraph of a drawing of a face the man mighta had when ’e died. ’S just a drawing. Ya gotta allow a little margin of era.”
Mimì walked out of the office, unconvinced.
“They’re not the same person.”