Looking ahead, he was astonished to find that the canal did not end at the beach, but cut it in two and continued into a natural grotto completely invisible to anyone passing by in front of the little harbor or looking out from the cliff overhead. A grotto! A few yards from the entrance, on the right, was another staircase carved into the rock, similar to the one he’d come down, except that this one was blocked by a gate. Crouching down, he went up to the mouth of the cave and listened. No sound at all, other than the lapping of the water inside. He flopped belly-down on the ground, unhooked the flashlight, flicked it on for a second, then turned it off. He stored in his brain everything the flash of light had allowed him to see, then repeated the procedure, taking in a few more precious details. After the third flash, he knew what was inside the grotto.
Rocking in the middle of the canal was a large dinghy, probably a Zodiac, which came with a powerful motor. Along the right-hand side of the canal was a cement quay just over a yard wide. Halfway down this quay there was a huge iron door, which was shut. It probably led to a hangar where the dinghy was kept when not in use, and even more likely to an internal staircase that went up to the villa. Or an elevator. There was no telling. It was also clear that the grotto went even farther back, but the dinghy blocked his view of what lay behind it.
What now? Should he stop here? Keep going?
“Here goes nothing,” Montalbano said to himself.
He stood up and entered the grotto without lighting his torch. Feeling the cement of the wharf under his feet, he slowly advanced. His right hand grazed the rusty iron door. He brought his ear to it. Nothing. Total silence. He put his hand on it and felt it give. It was barely pulled to. He pressed lightly, and this sufficed to open it about an inch. The hinges must have been well oiled. But what if someone had heard him and was waiting for him with a Kalashnikov? Too bad. He grabbed his pistol and switched on the flashlight. Nobody fired, nobody even said hello. He was inside the dinghy’s hangar. It was full of jerry cans. At the back there was an arch carved into the rock and, beyond this, some steps. The staircase leading up to the villa, as he’d imagined. He turned off the flashlight and closed the door behind him. He took another three steps, then gave himself some light. The quay went on for another few yards then suddenly ended, giving way to a kind of lookout at the back of the grotto, a great accumulation of rocks of various sizes piled high, a kind of chaotic, miniature mountain chain under the soaring vault overhead. He turned off the light.
But what was it about those rocks? There was something strange there. As he tried to understand why the rocks looked strange to him, Montalbano, in the darkness and silence, heard a sound that made his blood run cold. There was something alive in the grotto. It made a continuous scraping noise, staggered by a kind of ticking, like wood against wood. He noticed that the air he was breathing had a rotten yellow color about it. Alarmed, he turned the flashlight on and off again. It was enough to let him see that the rocks, green with sea-moss at the water level, changed color above, because they were literally covered by hundreds, indeed thousands, of crabs of every size and color, continuously moving, swarming, climbing over one another until they formed great living, horrendous clusters that came apart under their own weight and fell into the water. A disgusting spectacle.
Montalbano also noticed that the back of the grotto was separated from the front by a wire fence that rose about a foot and a half above the water and ran from the edge of the wharf to the rock face opposite. What could that be for? To keep big fish from coming in? What the hell was he thinking? Perhaps, on the contrary, it was to keep something from going out? But what, if there was nothing in the grotto but rocks and crabs?
All at once he understood. What had Dr. Pasquano said? That the corpse had been eaten up by crabs, and he’d even found two in its throat . . . This was where Errera-D’Iunio, who’d got a bit too headstrong, was punished by drowning. Baddar Gafsa then let the body steep a long time in the water, right here, wrists and ankles bound with metal wire, as the crabs ate it up, another trophy to show to friends and anyone who might feel tempted to betray him. Finally he had it dumped into the open sea. And sailing, sailing, the body ended up off the shore at Marinella.
What else was there to see? He retraced his steps, went out of the grotto, got in the water, swam, climbed over the barrier, swam around the rock, and felt suddenly overwhelmed by a deadly, endless fatigue. And this time he felt scared. He hadn’t even the strength to raise his arm to keep swimming. He’d suddenly run out of gas. Apparently the only thing that had kept him going was nervous tension, and now that he’d done what he had to do, there was nothing left in his body to give him even a little jolt. He turned over onto his back and began to float. It was all he could do. Sooner or later the tide would carry him ashore. At some point he seemed to wake up, when he felt his back scrape against something. Had he nodded off? Was it possible? In that sea, and in those conditions, had he fallen asleep as in a bathtub? Whatever the case, he realized he’d reached a beach, but he couldn’t stand up. His legs wouldn’t support him. He lay down on his belly and looked around. The current had taken pity on him and carried him back very near the spot where he’d set down the binoculars. He couldn’t very well leave them there. But how to get to that spot? After trying two or three times to stand, he resigned himself to crawling on all fours like an animal. Every yard or so he had to stop, out of breath and sweating. When he was next to the binoculars, he couldn’t grab them. His arm wouldn’t reach out; it refused to solidify; it was like a mass of quivering jelly. He gave up. He would have to wait. But he didn’t have much time to waste. At daybreak the people in the villa would see him.
“Just five minutes,” he said to himself, closing his eyes and curling up on his side like a child.
He needed only to put a finger in his mouth to complete the picture. For the moment he wanted to sleep a little, to recover his strength. In any case, in his current state, he could never manage to climb that terrible staircase. But no sooner had he closed his eyes than he heard a noise very near, and a violent light shone straight through his eyelids, as if they’d disappeared.
They’d found him! He knew it was the end. But he was so drained of strength, so happy just to keep his eyes closed, that he didn’t react and didn’t move from his position, utterly indifferent to what was about to happen to him.
“Just shoot me and go fuck yourself,” he said.
“And why would you want me to shoot you?” asked Fazio in a strangled voice.
Going up the stairway, he had to stop after almost every step, even though Fazio had a hand on his back and was pushing him from behind. They had only five stairs to go when he needed to sit down. His heart was up in his windpipe, and he felt that at any moment it might leap right out of his mouth. Fazio also sat down, in silence. Montalbano couldn’t see his face, but felt his agitation and anger.
“How long have you been following me?”
“Since yesterday evening. After Miss Ingrid dropped you off at home, I didn’t leave right away. I decided to wait a bit. I had a feeling you might go out again. Which you did. I managed to follow you easily up to Spigonella, then I lost you. You’d think I ought to know the area by now. It took me almost an hour to find your car.”
Montalbano looked down. The sea had swelled with the rising wind, which already smelled of the imminent dawn. If not for Fazio, he would surely still be down on the beach, half conscious. It was Fazio who had picked up the damned binoculars, put him on his feet, practially carried him on his shoulders, and forced him to react. He had, in other words, saved him. He took a deep breath.