“I’ll do the talking here, Inspector. You just answer my questions.”
“Listen, this isn’t-”
“Goddammit, Montalbano, that’s enough!” Bonetti-Alderighi snapped.
He must really be angry. Better let him get it out of his system. But the question he asked was the last thing Montalbano expected.
“Is it true that you suffered a terrible loss a few days ago?”
The inspector felt annihilated. Dr. Lattes must have told the commissioner that he’d lost his son!
“In other words, that a son of yours died?” the commissioner continued in a frosty tone of voice.
How the hell was he going to get out of this one?
“And your wife is in despair?”
The commissioner’s voice was now well below zero.
“And can you explain to me how this can be when, as far as anyone knows, you have neither wife nor children?”
A polar ice floe.
What the hell to do now? A hundred possible replies raced through his mind at supersonic speed but he ruled them all out. None seemed convincing enough. He opened his mouth, but was unable to speak. The commissioner spoke instead.
“I understand,” he said.
The freeze attained by this point was only possible in laboratories.
“I do hope you’ll one day let me know your reasons for playing such a mean, vulgar trick on a perfect gentleman like Dr. Lattes.”
“It wasn’t a…,” he finally managed to utter.
“I don’t think one can talk about something so serious and base over the telephone. So let’s stop trying, for now. Have you been informed that I had to turn the investigation back to you?”
“Yes.”
“If it were up to me, you… but I was forced to do so, against my will… But let me be very clear about this. If you step out of line this time, I’ll screw you. And you must keep me continually up to date on the progress of the case. Good day.”
“Good night” would have been more appropriate.
Matre santa, how embarrassing! Enough to make one want to disappear underground! There was, however, a positive side to it: from now on Lattes would never again ask him for news of his family.
And the commissioner, in his rage, had let slip an important admission. Namely, that he’d been forced to give the case back to him, against his own will. Therefore, someone else had intervened. Who could it have been? And, more importantly: Why?
But since the commissioner had, in fact, called, and it had not been possible to give any ready answers to his questions, the inspector decided to go out and eat at Enzo’s.
As he was heading towards the port for his customary stroll, he had an idea. Maybe he could do something to help to loosen La Giovannini’s tongue and make her reveal to Mimì exactly what she did while sailing the seas, and perhaps confirm whether it was the sort of traffic he already suspected her of.
He took the roundabout way to the lighthouse, and when he was in front of the Vanna, he headed up the gangway and stopped at the deck.
“Anybody here?”
Captain Sperlì answered from the mess room.
“Who’s there?”
“Inspector Montalbano.”
“Come in, come in.”
The inspector went below decks through the hatch. The captain was finishing his lunch. Beside him stood Digiulio, serving as his waiter.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Montalbano. “If you’re eating, I can come back later.”
“No, please, I’ve already finished. Would you have some coffee with me?”
“I’d love some.”
“Please sit down.”
“Signora Giovannini’s not here?”
“She’s here but she’s resting. If you like, I-”
“No, no, please let her sleep. I heard you were having some problems with your fuel. Has that been set right?”
“Apparently it was a false alarm.”
“So you’ll be leaving as soon as you can?”
“If we can get poor old Shaikiri’s body back tomorrow morning, as we’ve been promised, we’ll bury him and then set sail in the afternoon.
Digiulio brought the coffee. They drank it in silence. Montalbano then started digging in his pockets. To get better access to what he was looking for, he pulled out the sheets of paper Catarella had given him, and set these down on the table. On the top sheet was the name, in block letters: KIMBERLEY PROCESS. He hadn’t yet had the time to read them, but whatever they said, they must nevertheless have a precise meaning for the captain, since Giovannini kept a file with the same name in her safe. And indeed, the moment the captain’s eyes fell on the sheet of paper, he gave a start. At last Montalbano extracted the pack of cigarettes from his pocket, fired one up, and put the papers back in his pocket.
Meanwhile Sperlì had become visibly nervous.
“Look, if you’d like to speak with Signora Giovannini, I can go-”
“I wouldn’t dream of it!” said Montalbano, getting up. “It was nothing of importance. I’ll pass by again later. Have a nice day.”
He went up on deck, then back down onto the wharf. Sperlì hadn’t budged. He seemed to have turned to stone.
Perhaps he really ought to find out what this Kimberley Process was, the inspector thought, considering the effect it had on the captain.
But he would look into it later, at the office. First the walk to the lighthouse.
As he was sitting on the flat rock, all at once the thought of Laura assailed him with all the ferocity of a rabid dog. It caused him genuine, physical pain. The violence was perhaps due to the fact that he had managed for a while not to think of her, thanks to his preoccupation with the case. It had been his sort of revenge. But now her absence sliced right through him. It was an open wound.
No, he couldn’t phone her. He mustn’t. There was, however, one thing he could do that wouldn’t have negative consequences.
He got in his car and headed to the Harbor Office.
Outside the entrance stood the usual guard and two sailors, chatting. He drove a little further past, then parked in such a way that he could see, in the rearview mirror, who went in and who came out.
He stayed there for fifteen minutes, smoking one cigarette after another. Then, in a moment of lucidity, he felt embarrassed, ashamed of himself.
What was he doing there? He hadn’t even done this sort of thing when he was sixteen, and now he was doing it at fifty-eight? Fifty-eight, Montalbà! Don’t you forget it! Or was it perhaps the folly of old age that made him act this way?
Humiliated and depressed, he started up the car and drove back to the station.
As soon as he sat down, he pulled out Catarella’s printouts and was about to start reading them when the phone rang.
“Ah Chief! ’At’d be Dacter Lattes onna line who-”
“I’m not here!”
He yelled it so loudly that Catarella complained.
“Matre santa, Chief! Ya got my ears a-ringin’!”
The inspector hung up. He didn’t feel like talking. How could he ever justify his actions to Lattes? How could he ask to be forgiven? With what words? Why had he been so stupid as not to follow Livia’s advice?
So, Kimberley Process was…
The telephone rang again.
“’Scuse me, Chief, but there’s a young lady says she wants a talk t’yiz poissonally in poi-”
“On the phone?”
“Nah, she’s onna premisses.”
He didn’t have the time. He absolutely had to read those printouts.
“Tell her to come back tomorrow morning.”
So, Kimberley Process was…
Again the phone.
“Chief, ya gotta try ’n’ unnastand but the young lady says iss rilly rilly urgentlike.”
“Did she say what her name was?”