“Nuh-unh. Drowned.”
“But how did Dr. Pasquano—”
“Pasquano merely took a look at the body and formed an opinion. But Pasquano’s almost never wrong.”
“And what’s he base his opinion on?”
The inspector told him everything. And he added:
“The fact that Mistretta doesn’t agree with Pasquano actually helps us. In his report, under the heading ‘Cause of Death,’ Mistretta will surely write: ‘Drowning,’ using the proper forensic terminology, of course. And that’ll be our cover. We can work in peace without any interference from the commissioner’s office, the flying squad, or anyone else.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“First of all, you should request an identification profile for the victim: height, hair color, age, things like that.”
“And a photo, too.”
“Fazio, didn’t you see the state he was in? Did that look like a face to you?”
Fazio looked crestfallen.
“If it’ll make you feel any better,” the inspector continued, “I can tell you that he probably limped. He’d been shot in the leg some time ago.”
“It’s still going to be tough to identify him.”
“Try anyway. Have a look at the disappearance reports, too. Pasquano says the body’d been cruising the seas for at least a month.”
“I’ll try,” said Fazio, unconvinced.
“I’m going out. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
He headed straight for the port, stopped the car, got out, and walked towards a wharf where two fishing boats were moored, the rest having already gone out to sea some time before. Luckily, the Madre di Dio was there, having its motor overhauled. He approached and saw the captain and owner, Ciccio Albanese, standing on deck, overseeing operations.
“Ciccio!”
“Is that you, Inspector? I’ll be right down.”
They’d known each other a long time and were fond of one another. Albanese was a brine-bitten sixty-year-old who’d been working on fishing boats since the age of six and who people said had no peer when it came to knowing the sea between Vigàta and Malta and all the way to Tunisia. He could find mistakes in nautical charts and navigation manuals. It was whispered about town that when work was scarce, he wasn’t above smuggling cigarettes.
“Is this a good time, Ciccio?”
“Absolutely, Inspector. For you, I’m always available.”
Montalbano explained what he wanted from him. Albanese limited himself to asking how much time it would take, and the inspector told him.
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours, boys.”
He followed behind Montalbano, who was heading towards his car. They rode in silence. The guard at the morgue told the inspector that Dr. Mistretta wasn’t in yet; only Jacopello, his assistant, was there. Montalbano felt relieved. Meeting with Mistretta would have ruined the rest of his day. Jacopello was quite loyal to Pasquano, and his face lit up when he saw the inspector.
“Good to see you!”
With Jacopello, the inspector knew he could lay his cards on the table.
“This is my friend, Ciccio Albanese. He’s a man of the sea. If Mistretta’d been here, we’d have told him my friend wanted to see the body, fearing it might be one of his deck hands gone overboard. But there’s no need to playact with you. If Mistretta asks you any questions when he comes in, you know what to answer. Right?”
“Right. Follow me.”
The corpse, in the meantime, had grown even paler. It looked like a skeleton with an onionskin laid over it and bits of flesh randomly attached here and there. As Albanese was examining it, Montalbano asked Jacopello:
“Do you know how Dr. Pasquano thinks this poor bastard was killed?”
“Of course. I was there for the discussion. Mistretta’s wrong. See for yourself.”
The deep, circular grooves around the wrists and ankles had, moreover, turned greyish in color.
“Jacopè, think you could persuade Mistretta to order that test Pasquano wanted done on the tissues?”
Jacopello laughed.
“Want to bet I can?”
“Make a bet with you? Never.”
Jacopello was a well-known betting enthusiast. He made bets with everyone on everything from the weather forecast to how many people would die of natural causes over the course of a week, and he rarely lost.
“I’ll think up some reason to convince him that we’re better off having that analysis done. How are we going to look if Inspector Montalbano later discovers that the guy didn’t die by accident, but was murdered? Mistretta will sacrifice his ass if he has to, but he doesn’t like to lose face. But I’m warning you, Inspector, those tests take a long time.”
Only during the drive back did Albanese decide to emerge from his silence.
“Bah,” he managed to mutter.
“What?” the inspector said in vexation. “You look at a dead body for half an hour and all you can say is ‘bah’?”
“It’s all very strange,” said Albanese. “And I’ve certainly seen my share of drowning victims. But this one . . . ,” he interrupted himself to follow another thought: “How long did the doctor say he’d been in the water?”
“A good month.”
“No, Inspector. Two good months, at least.”
“But after two months in the water, there wouldn’t have been any body left, just pieces here and there.”
“That’s what’s so strange about it.”
“Explain, Ciccio.”
“The fact is that I don’t like to talk bullshit.”
“If you only knew how much comes out of my mouth! Come on, Ciccio, out with it!”
“You saw the wounds made by the rocks, right?”
“Right.”
“They’re superficial, Inspector. This past month we had rough seas for ten days straight. If the body was thrown against any rocks in those waters, it wouldn’t have that kind of wound. It would have had its head knocked off, or some ribs broken, or a few bones sticking out.”
“So? Maybe during those bad days you mention, the body was out on the open sea, far from any rocks.”
“But Inspector, you found it in an area where the currents go backwards!”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you find it right off Marinella?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the currents there either go out to sea or run parallel to the coast. Another two days and the body would have passed Capo Russello, you can be sure of that.”
Montalbano fell silent, lost in thought. Then he said:
“You’ll have to explain this business about the currents a little better for me.”
“Whenever you like.”
“You free tonight?”
“Yessir. Why don’t you come to my place for dinner? My wife’s making striped surmullet her own special way.”
Immediately Montalbano’s tongue was drowning in saliva.
“Thanks. But what do you make of all this, Ciccio?”
“Can I speak freely? First of all, rocks don’t leave the kind of wounds that guy had around his wrists and ankles.”
“Right.”
“He must have been tied up by the wrists and ankles before they drowned him.”
“With iron wire, according to Pasquano.”
“Right. Then they took the body and let it soak for a while in sea water, probably in some secluded place. Then, when they figured he was pretty well pickled, they put ’im out to sea.”
“Why would they wait so long?”
“Inspector, those guys wanted to make it look like the body came from far away.”
Montalbano looked at him with admiration. Not only had Ciccio Albanese, a man of the sea, come to the same conclusions as Dr. Pasquano, a man of science, and Montalbano, a man of ironclad police logic; he also had taken a big step forward.
4
But the inspector was destined never to get so much as a whiff, not even from afar, of the striped surmullets specially prepared by Ciccio Albanese’s wife. Around eight that evening, when he was getting ready to leave the office, a call came in for him from Deputy Commissioner Riguccio. Though he’d known him for years and they got on rather well, their relationship had never gone beyond the confines of work. It wouldn’t have taken much for it to turn into friendship, but neither of them could make up his mind.