‘Your reasoning holds’ said the inspector.
‘To continue. Let me offer a variant of your story. The protagonist mentions his girlfriend’s discovery to a man named Eolo Portinari, a two-bit hood. And Portinari comes to Vigata on his own initiative and does everything you say your protagonist did. Portinari rents the car, rising his driver’s licence, Portinari tries to sell the violin that so dazzled the Maestro, and Portinari rapes the woman so the murder will look like a crime of passion’
‘Without ejaculating?’
‘Of course! The semen would have made it easy to trace the DNA!’
Montalbano raised two fingers, as if asking permission to go to the bathroom
‘I’d like to say a couple of things about your observations. You’re absolutely right. Proving the protagonist’s guilt will be long and arduous, but not impossible. Therefore, from this moment on, the protagonist will have two vicious dogs at his heels, his creditors and the police. The second thing is that the Maestro wasn’t wrong in his estimate of the violin’s value. It is indeed worth two billion lire.’
‘But just now …’
Serravalle realized he was giving himself away and immediately fell silent, Montalbano went on as if he hadn’t heard.
‘My protagonist is very crafty. Just imagine, he keeps phoning the hotel, asking for his girlfriend, even after he’s killed her. But there’s one detail he’s unaware of.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Look, the story’s so far-fetched that I’ve half a mind not to tell you.’ ‘Make an effort.’
‘I don’t feel like it — oh, all right, just as a favour to you. My protagonist found out from Michela that the Maestro’s name is Cataldo Barbera, and he did a lot of research on him.
Now, give the hotel operator a ring and ask him to phone Maestro Barbera, whose number’s in the phone book. Tell him you’re calling on my behalf, and have him tell you the story himself’
Serravalle stood up, picked up the receiver, told the operator who he wanted to talk to. He remained on the line.
‘Hello? Is this Maestro Barbera?’
As soon as the other replied, Serravalle hung up.
‘I’d rather hear you tell it.’
‘OK. Michela brings the Maestro to her house in her car, late one evening. As soon as Cataldo Barbera sees the violin, he practically faints. Then he plays it, and there can be no more doubt: it’s a Guarneri. He talks about this with Michela, and tells her he wants to have it examined by a certified expert. At the same time he advises her not to leave the instrument in a seldom-inhabited house. So Michela entrusts the violin to the Maestro, who takes it home and in exchange gives her one of his violins to put in the case. The one which my protagonist, knowing nothing, proceeds to steal. Ah, I forgot: my protagonist, after killing the woman, also filches her bag with her jewels and Piaget watch inside. How does the expression go? Every little bit helps. He also makes off with her clothes and shoes, but this is merely to muddy the waters a little more and to thwart the DNA tests.’
Montalbano was ready for anything, except Serravalle’s reaction. At first it seemed to him that the antiquarian, who had turned his back to him to look out the window,’ was crying. Then the man turned around and Montalbano realized he was trying very hard to refrain from laughing. But all it took was that split second in which his eyes met the inspector’s to make the man’s laughter burst forth in all its violence. Serravalle was laughing and crying at once. Then, with a visible effort, he calmed down.
‘Maybe it’s better if I come with you,’ he said.
‘I advise you to do so,’
said Montalbano. ‘The people waiting for you in Bologna have other things in mind for you.’
‘Let me put a few things in my bag and we can go.’
Montalbano saw him bend over a small suitcase that was on a bench. Something in Serravalle’s movement disturbed him and he sprang to his feet.
‘No! the inspector shouted, leaping forward.
Too late. Guido Serravalle had put the barrel of a revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Barely suppressing his nausea, the inspector wiped away the warm, viscous matter that was dripping down his own face.
EIGHTEEN
” Half of Guido Serravalle’s head was gone. The blast inside the small hotel room had been so loud that Montalbano heard a kind of buzz in his ears. How was it possible that nobody had yet come knocking on the door to ask what had happened? The Hotel Delia Valle had been built in the late nineteenth century and had thick, solid walls. Maybe at that hour all the foreigners were out amusing themselves taking pictures of the temples. So much the better.
The inspector went into the bathroom, washed his sticky, bloodied hands as best he could, and picked up the phone.
Inspector Montalbano here.
There’s a police car in your car park. Tell the officer to come up here. And please send me manager immediately.’
The first to arrive was Gallo. The moment he saw his superior with blood on his face and clothes, he got scared.
‘Chief, Chief! You hurt?’
‘Calm down, it’s not my blood. It’s that guy’s.’ ‘Who’s that?’
‘Mrs Licalzi’s murderer.
But for the moment, don’tsay anything to anybody. Hurry into Vigata and have Augello send out an all-points bulletin to Bologna, telling them to be on the lookout for a shady character named Eolo Portinari. I’m sure they’ve already got the facts on him. He’s his accomplice,’ he concluded, gesturing at the suicide. ‘And listen. Come straight back here when you’re done.’
Gallo, at the door, stepped aside to let in the hotel manager, a giant at least six and a half feet tall and of comparable girth. When he saw the corpse with half a head and the room in disarray the manager said, ‘What?’ as if he hadn’t understood a question, dropped to his knees in slow motion, then fell face forward on the floor, out cold. The manager’s reaction had been so immediate that Gallo hadn’t had time to leave. Together they dragged the colossus into the bathroom, propped him up against the edge of the bath, whereupon Gallo took the shower extension, turned on the water, and aimed it at his head. The man came to almost at once.
‘What luck! What luck!’ he mumbled while drying himself off.
As Montalbano gave him a questioning look, the manager confirmed what the inspector had been thinking, and explained, ‘The Japanese group are all out for the day.’
Before Judge Tommaseo, Dr Pasquano, the new captain of the Flying Squad and the forensics team got there, Montalbano was forced to change out of his suit and shirt, haying yielded to the pressures of the hotel manager, who insisted on lending him some of his own things. He could have fitted twice into the giant’s clothes. With his hands lost in the sleeves, and the trousers gathered like accordions over his shoes, he looked like Bagonghi the dwarf. And this put him in a far worse mood than the fact of having repeatedly to describe, each time from the top, the details of his finding the killer and then witnessing his suicide. Between all the questions and answers, observations and explanations, the yeses, nos, buts and howevers, he wasn’t free to return to the Vigata — to the station, that is -until almost eight o’clock that evening.
‘Have you shrunk?’ asked Mimi upon seeing him.