Anna greeted him.
‘Come on in’
‘Anybody there?’
‘Nobody.’
She sat him down on the sofa in front of the television, turned down the volume, left: the room, and returned with two glasses, one with whisky for the inspector, another with white wine for herself.
‘Have you eaten?’
‘No,’ said Anna.
‘Don’t you ever eat?’
‘I ate at midday.’
Anna sat down beside him.
‘Don’t get too close; I can tell I smell,’ said Montalbano.
‘Did you have a rough afternoon?’ ‘Rather.’
Anna extended her arm across the back of the sofa; Montalbano leaned his head back, resting the nape of his neck against her skin. He closed his eyes. Luckily he had put the glass down on the coffee table, because he fell at once into a deep sleep, as though the whisky had been drugged. He woke up with a start half an hour later, looked all around himself in confusion, realized what had happened, and felt embarrassed.
‘Forgive me.’
‘Good thing you woke up. My arm is full of pins and needles.’
The inspector stood up. ‘I have to go.’ ‘I’ll see you out,’
At the door, very naturally, Anna placed her lips lightly on Montalbano’s.
‘Have a good sleep, Salvo’
He took a very long shower, changed his underwear and clothes, and phoned Livia. The phone rang for a long time, then the connection was suddenly cut off. What was that blessed woman doing? Was she wallowing in her sorrow over Francois? It was too late to ring her friend and get an up-date. He went and sat down on the veranda, and after a short while he decided that if he couldn’t get in touch with Livia within the next forty-eight hours, he would drop everything and everyone, grab a flight to Genoa, and spend at least one day with her.
The ringing of the telephone had him running in from the veranda. He was sure it was Livia calling him, finally.
‘Hello? Am I speaking to Inspector Montalbano?’
He’d heard that voice before, but couldn’t remember who it belonged to.
‘Yes. Who’s this?’
‘This is Ernesto Panzacchi.’
The echo had arrived.
‘What is it?’
Were they on familiar terms or not? At this point it didn’t matter.
‘I want to talk to you. In person. Should I come to your place?’
He had no desire to see Panzacchi in his house. ‘I’ll come to you. Where do you live?’ ‘At the Hotel Pirandello.’ Tm on my way.’
Panzacchi’s room at the hotel was as big as a ballroom. Aside from a king-size bed and an armoire, it had two armchairs, a large table with television and VCR on top, and a minibar.
“There hasn’t been time yet for my family to move down here.’
At least they’ll be spared the trouble of moving twice, the inspector thought.
‘Excuse me, I have to take a piss.’ ‘Look, there’s nobody in the bathroom.’ ‘I really do need to piss.’
There was no trusting a snake like Panzacchi. When Montalbano returned from the bathroom, Panzacchi invited him to sit down in one of the armchairs. The captain of the Flying Squad was a stocky but elegant man with very pale blue eyes and a Tatar-style moustache.
‘Can I get you something?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Should we get right to the point?’ Panzacchi asked. ‘As you like.’
‘Well, a patrolman came to see me this evening, a certain Culicchia, I don’t know if you know him.’
“Personally, no, by name,, yes.’
‘He was literally terrified. Apparently two men from your station threatened him.’ Is that what he said?’ ‘That’s what I believe I understood.’ ‘You understood wrong.’ ‘Then you tell me.’
‘Listen, it’s late and I’m tired. I went into the Di Blasis’ house in Raffadali, looked around a little, and with very little effort found an ammunition box with a hand grenade and a pistol inside. I’ve got them in my safe now.’
‘Jesus Christ! You’ve got no authorization!’ said Panzacchi, standing up.
‘You’re going down the wrong road,’ Montalbano said calmly.
‘You’re concealing evidence!’
‘I said you’re on the wrong road. If we keep talking about authorization and going by the book, I’m going to get up, walk out of that door and leave you behind in the shit. Because that’s where you are, deep in shit’
Panzacchi hesitated a moment, weighed the pros and cons, and sat back down. He’d given it a shot, and the first round had gone badly for him.
‘You should even thank me,’
the inspector went on.
‘For what?’
‘For having taken the ammunition box out of the house. It was supposed to prove where Maurizio Di Blasi found his hand grenade, right? Except that forensics wouldn’t have found Di Blasi’s fingerprints in there even if their lives depended on it. And how would you have explained that? By saying Maurizio had worn gloves? Can you imagine the laughter!’
Panzacchi said nothing, his pale eyes looking straight into the inspector’s.
‘Shall I go on? Your first sin … actually, no, I don’t give a fuck about your sins, the first mistake you made was to hunt down Maurizio before being absolutely certain of his guilt. But you wanted to carry-out a “brilliant”
operation at all costs. Then what happened happened, and you breathed a real sigh of relief. Pretending you were saving one of your men who mistook a shoe for a weapon, you concocted the story of the hand grenade, and to make it more credible, you went and planted the ammo box in the Di Blasi house.’
‘That’s all talk. If you go and say those things to the commissioner, - rest assured he won’t believe a word of it. You’re spreading these rumours just to tarnish my reputation, to avenge yourself for the fact that the investigation was taken away from you and turned over to me.’
‘And what are you going to do about Culicchia?’
‘He’s coming with me to the Flying Squad offices tomorrow morning. I’ll pay the price he’s asking.’
‘And what if I take the weapons to Judge Tommaseo?’
‘Culicchia’ll say it was you who asked him for the key to the depository the other day. He’s ready to swear by it. Try to understand: he has to defend himself, and I suggested to him how to do this.’
‘So - I’ve lost?’
It looks that way.’
‘Does that VCR work?’
‘Yes.’
‘Could you play this tape?’
Montalbano took it out of his pocket and handed it to Panzacchi who didn’t ask any questions, but simply inserted the cassette. The images appeared, the captain of the Flying Squad watched them all the way through, then rewound the tape, extracted the cassette, and handed it to Montalbano. He sat down and lit a half-consumed Tuscan cigar.
‘That’s just the last part.
I’ve got the whole tape in the same safe as the weapons’ Montalbano lied. ‘How did you do it?’
‘I didn’t make the tape myself. There were two men in the area who saw what was going on and filmed it.