‘Well, I won’t say I can’t make it at all.’
‘Come whenever you like.’
‘OK, but there’s something I wanted to ask you.
Do you know if Michela opened a bank account in Vigata?’
‘Yes, it was more convenient for paying bills. It was with the Banca Popolare. But I don’t know how much she had in it.’
It was too late to dash over to the bank. He opened a drawer in which he’d put all the papers he’d taken from the hotel room, and selected the dozens of bills and the little notebook of expenses. The diary and the rest of the papers he put back in the drawer. It was going to be a long, boring task, and 90 per cent certain to prove utterly useless. Besides, he was no good at numbers.
He carefully examined all the invoices. As far as he could tell at a glance, they did not appear inflated; the prices seemed to correspond to the market rates and were even occasionally a little lower. Apparently Michela knew how to bargain and save.
No dice, therefore. A useless task, as he had expected. Then, by chance, he noticed a discrepancy between the amount on one bill and the round figure recorded in the notebook; the cost had been increased by five million lire.
Could Michela, normally so well organized and precise, have possibly made so obvious a mistake? He started over from the top, with the patience of a saint.
The end result he arrived at was that the difference between the amounts registered in the notebook and the money actually spent was one hundred and fifteen million lire.
A mistake was therefore out of the question. But if there hadn’t been a mistake, it made no sense, because it meant that Michela was taking a cut of her own money. Unless …
‘Hello, Dr Licalzi?
Inspector Montalbano here. Excuse me for calling you at home after work.’
‘Yes, it’s been a bad day, in fact.’
I’d like to know something about your… Let me put it another way: did you and your wife have a joint bank account?’
Inspector, weren’t you—’
Taken off the case? Yes, I was, but now everything is back to how it was before.’
‘No, we didn’t have a joint account. Michela had hers and I had mine.’
‘Your wife had no income of her own, did she?’
‘No, she didn’t. We had an arrangement where every six months I would transfer a certain sum from my account into hers. If her expenses exceeded that amount, she would tell me and I’d take care of it.’
‘I see. Did she ever show you the invoices concerning the house?’
‘No, and I wasn’t interested, really. At any rate, she recorded her expenditures one by one in a notebook. Every now and then I’d give it a look.’
Doctor, thank you and—’
‘Did you take care of it?’
What was he supposed to have taken care of? He didn’t know how to answer.
‘The Twingo’ the doctor helped him.
‘Oh, yes, it’s already been done.’
It certainly was easy to lie on the phone. They said goodbye and made an appointment to see each other on Friday morning, the day of the funeral.
Now it all made more sense.
The wife was taking a cut of the money she was getting from her husband to build the house. Once the invoices were destroyed (which Michela certainly would have done had she remained alive), only the figures logged into her notebook would have remained. Just like that, one hundred and fifteen million lire had slipped into the shadows, and she had used them however she wished.
But what did she need that money for? Was somebody blackmailing her? And if so, what did Michela Licalzi have to hide?
The following morning, as he was about to get in his car and drive to work, the telephone rang. For a moment he was tempted not to answer. A phone call to his home at that hour could only have been an annoying, pain-in-the-arse call from headquarters.
Then the unquestionable power that the telephone has over man won out.
‘Salvo?’
He. immediately recognized Livia’s voice and felt his legs turn to jelly.
‘Livia.’ Finally! Where are you?’ In Montelusa’
What was she doing in Montelusa? When did she get there?
‘I’ll come and get you. Are you at the station?’ ‘No. If you wait for me, I’ll be at your place in half an hour at the most,’ ‘I’ll wait for you.’
What was going on? What the hell was going on? He called headquarters.
‘Don’t pass any calls on to me at home.’
In half an hour he downed four cups of coffee. He put the napoletana back on the burner. Then he heard a car pull up and stop. It must be Livia’s taxi. He opened the door. It wasn’t a taxi, it was Mimi Augello’s car. Livia got out, the car turned around and left,
Montalbano began to understand.
She looked slovenly and dishevelled, with dark circles round her eyes, which were swollen from crying.
But most of all, how had she become so tiny and fragile? A plucked sparrow.
Montalbano felt overcome with tenderness and emotion.
‘Come,’ he said, taking her hand, leading her into the house, and sitting her down in the dining room. He saw her shudder.
‘Are you cold?’
‘Yes’
He went into the bedroom, got a jacket and put it over her shoulders. ‘Want some coffee?’ ‘All right.’
It had just boiled, and he served it piping hot. Livia drank it down as if it was cold.
They were sitting on the bench on the veranda. Livia had wanted to go outside. The day was so serene it looked fake. No wind, only a few light waves. Livia gazed long at the sea in silence, then rested her head on Salvo’s shoulder and started crying, without sobbing. The tears streamed down her face and wet the little table. Montalbano took one of her hands; she surrendered it lifelessly to him. The inspector needed desperately to light a cigarette, but didn’t.
‘I went to see Francois,’
Livia said suddenly.
‘I guessed.’
‘I decided not to tell Franca I was coming. I got on a plane, grabbed a taxi, and descended on them out of the blue. As soon as he saw me, Francois ran into my arms. He was truly happy to see me. And I was so happy to hold him and furious at Franca and her husband, and especially at you. I was convinced that everything was as I’d suspected: that you and they had been conspiring to take him away from me. And, well, I started railing against them and insulting them. All of a sudden, as I was trying to calm down, I realized that Francois was no longer beside me. I began to suspect they’d hidden him from me, locked him in a room somewhere, and I started to scream. I screamed so loudly that they all came running, Franca’s children, Aldo, the three labourers. And they all started asking each other where Francois was, but nobody’d seen him Now worried, they all went outside, calling his name. I remained alone inside, crying. Suddenly I heard a voice.
“Livia, I’m here.” It was him. He’d hidden somewhere inside the house, and they were all looking for him outside. See how clever and intelligent he is?’
She broke out in tears again, having held them too long inside.
Just relax. Lie down a bit.
You can tell me the rest later,’ said Montalbano, who couldn’t bear Livia’s torment. With some effort he refrained from embracing her, sensing that this would have been the wrong move.