“No, there’s no need for you to come right now. If you don’t have any other engagements, could you be here around nine tonight?”
“Yes.”
“And, listen, have you got another car?”
“I could take my husband’s. Why?”
“Yours attracts too much attention. Is your husband’s a fast car?”
“Yes.”
“See you tonight, then. Thanks.”
“Wait. In what role?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yesterday I came to your place as a witness. And tonight?”
“Tonight you’ll be deputy sheriff. I’ll give you a star.”
“Chief, Marzilla din’t call!” said Catarella, jumping to his feet.
“Thanks, Cat. But stay on the alert, I mean it. Could you send in Inspector Augello and Fazio?”
As he’d decided, he would tell them only about the swimming corpse. Mimì was the first to come in.
“How’s Beba?”
“Better. We were finally able to get a little sleep last night.”
Then Fazio appeared.
“I have to tell you,” the inspector began, “that, entirely by chance, I’ve managed to identify the drowned man. You, Fazio, did a great job, finding out that he’d recently been spotted in Spigonella. That’s where he lived. He’d rented the villa with the big terrace overlooking the sea. D’you remember it, Fazio?”
“Of course.”
“He said he was captain of an oil tanker, and went by the name of Ernesto—‘Ninì’ to friends—D’Iunio.”
“Why? What was his real name?” asked Augello.
“Ernesto Errera.”
“Madunnuzza santa!” said Fazio.
“Like the guy in Cosenza?” asked Mimì again.
“Exactly. They were the same person. Sorry to say, Mimì, but Catarella was right.”
“I want to know how you arrived at this conclusion,” Mimì insisted coldly.
Apparently he was finding the news hard to swallow.
“I didn’t arrive at it myself. My friend Ingrid did.”
And he told them the whole story. When he had finished speaking, Mimì put his head in his hands and shook it at intervals.
“Jesus . . . Jesus . . .” he said softly.
“Why are you so surprised, Mimì?”
“I’m not so surprised by the thing in itself, but by the fact that we were breaking our heads over it when Catarella had come to the right conclusion long before.”
“Then you’ve never understood just who Catarella is,” said the inspector.
“I guess not. Who is he?”
“Catarella’s a little kid, a child inside a grown man’s body. And so he reasons like someone barely seven years old.”
“So?”
“What I mean is that Catarella has the kinds of fantasies, brainstorms, and bright ideas a little kid does. And being a little kid, he says what he’s thinking, he doesn’t hold back. And often he’s right on the mark. Because reality, when seen through our eyes, is one thing, but when seen through a child’s eyes, it’s something else.”
“So, to conclude, what are we going to do?” Fazio cut in.
“That’s what I’m asking you,” said Montalbano.
“Chief, I’d like to say something, if Inspector Augello doesn’t mind. I want to say that this whole business is not so simple. As things now stand, this murder victim—call him D’Iunio or Errera, it makes no difference—has never been officially declared a murder victim, either by the police or the courts. He’s still considered dead by accidental drowning. So my question is: on what grounds do we open a case file and continue the investigation?”
The inspector thought about this a moment.
“We use the old anonymous phone call trick,” he decided.
Augello and Fazio looked at him questioningly.
“It always works. Don’t worry, I’ve used it before.”
He took out the photo of Errera with a mustache and handed it to Fazio.
“Take this immediately to the Free Channel. I want you to hand it to Nicolò Zito in person. Tell him I need an urgent phone call in this morning’s newscast. He should say that Ernesto D’Iunio’s family are distraught because they’ve had no news of him in over two months. Now go.”
Without a peep, Fazio got up and left. Montalbano looked keenly at Augello, as if he’d just noticed at that moment that Mimì was sitting right in front of him. Augello, who knew that look, began to squirm in his chair.
“Salvo, what the hell are you cooking up?”
“How’s Beba?”
Mimì gave him a dismayed look.
“You already asked me that, Salvo. She’s better.”
“So she’s able to make a phone call.”
“Of course. To whom?”
“To the public prosecutor, Tommaseo.”
“And what’s she supposed to say to him?”
“I want her to perform a little drama. Half an hour after Zito broadcasts the photograph on TV, I want Beba to make an anonymous call to Prosecutor Tommaseo and to tell him, in an hysterical voice, that she’s seen the man in the photo. She recognizes him perfectly, there is no doubt in her mind.”
“What? Where?” asked Mimì, annoyed and obviously not keen on getting Beba mixed up in the case.
“Okay, she has to tell him that about two months ago, when she was sitting in her car in Spigonella, she saw the guy in the photo being badly beaten up by two men. At a certain point the guy managed to break free and started coming toward Beba’s car, when he was caught again by the other two and dragged away.”
“And what was Beba doing in her car?”
“Lewd things with a man.”
“Come on! Beba will never say anything like that! And I don’t like it either!”
“And yet it’s essential! You know what Tommaseo’s like, don’t you? Tommaseo lives for these sex stories. It’s just the bait we need for him, and he’ll bite, just you wait and see. In fact, if Beba can make up a few particularly sordid details—”
“Have you gone insane?”
“Just some little thing . . .”
“Salvo, you’re sick in the head!”
“Why are you getting angry? I just meant any old bullshit, like saying that they couldn’t intervene because they were both naked—”
“Okay, okay. Then what?”
“Then, when Tommaseo calls you, you say—”
“Excuse me, but why would Tommaseo call me instead of you?”
“Because I won’t be in this afternoon. I want you to tell him that we already have a lead, have got the missing-person report in hand, and we need a blank search warrant.”
“Blank?!”
“Yes indeed. Because I know where this house in Spigonella is, but I don’t know who it belongs to or if anyone’s still living there. Have I made myself clear?”
“Crystal clear,” Mimì said sullenly.
“Ah, and one more thing. Get him to give you authorization to bug the phone line of one Gaetano Marzilla, who lives at Via Francesco Crispi 18, Montelusa. The sooner we listen in, the better.”
“What’s Marzilla got to do with any of this?”
“Mimì, Marzilla’s got nothing to do with this investigation. But he may be useful to me for something I have in mind. So I’ll answer your question with a cliché that’ll make you happy: I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone.”
“But—”
“Mimì, if you persist, I’m going to take the stone intended for those birds and—”
“Okay, okay, I get the drift.”
Fazio shuffled back to the office less than an hour later.
“It’s all taken care of. Zito’s going to broadcast the photo and the phone call on the two o’clock news. He sends regards.”
And he headed for the door.
“Wait.”
Fazio stopped, certain the inspector was going to say something else to him. But Montalbano said nothing. He only looked him up and down. Fazio, who knew him well, pulled up a chair. The inspector kept eyeing him. Fazio, however, was well aware that he wasn’t really looking at him; he had his eyes on him, yes, but probably didn’t see him because his mind was God-knows-where. And indeed, Montalbano was wondering whether he shouldn’t perhaps ask Fazio to lend him a hand. But if he were to tell him the whole story of the African boy, how would Fazio react? Might he not reply that, in his opinion, this was all a figment of the inspector’s imagination and had no basis in fact? On the other hand, by singing only half the Mass, Montalbano might be able to get some information without revealing too much.