victim of an attempted stabbing by an antiglobalist during the same raid had, in fact, been lying. The cut in his uniform turned out to have been made by the policeman himself, to show just how dangerous these kids were, and it was now emerging that the only thing those young people were doing at the Diaz School was sleeping peacefully. After hearing this news, Montalbano had sat there in his armchair for a good half-hour, unable to think, shaking with rage and shame, drenched in sweat. He hadn’t even had the strength to get up and answer the telephone when it rang and rang. One needed only think a minute about this news—which the press and television were leaking out in dribs and drabs as the government watchfully looked on—and it became clear that his Genoese colleagues had committed an illegal action on the sly, a coldly calculated vendetta, fabricating false evidence into the bargain, the sort of thing that brought to mind long-buried episodes of the Fascist police or the Scelba period.
Then he’d made up his mind and decided to go to bed. As he got up from the armchair, the telephone resumed its irritating refrain of rings. Without even realizing, he picked up the receiver. It was Livia.
“Salvo! My God, I’ve tried calling you so many times! I was starting to get worried! Couldn’t you hear the phone?”
“I could, but I didn’t feel like answering. I didn’t know it was you.”
“What were you doing?”
“Nothing. Thinking about what I’d just seen on television.”
“You mean what happened in Genoa?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. I saw the news, too.” She paused, then: “I wish I was there with you. Do you want me to catch a plane tomorrow and come down? That way we could talk in peace. You’ll see—”
“Livia, there’s not much left to say at this point. We’ve talked it over many times these last few months. This time I’m serious. I’ve made my decision.”
“What decision?”
“I’m resigning. Tomorrow I’m going to go to talk to Commissioner Bonetti-Alderighi and turn in my resignation. I’m sure he’ll be delighted.”
Livia did not immediately react, and Montalbano thought perhaps they’d been cut off.
“Hello, Livia? Are you there?”
“I’m here. Salvo, in my opinion you’re making a big mistake to quit this way.”
“What way?”
“Out of anger and disappointment. You want to quit the police force because you feel betrayed, as if the person you trusted most—”
“Livia, I don’t
“Please don’t yell,” said Livia, her voice quavering.
Montalbano didn’t hear her. There was a strange noise inside him, as if his blood had reached the boiling point. He continued:
“I never once fabricated evidence, not even against the worst criminals! Never! If I had, I would have been stooping to their level. And then you really could have said that this is a filthy job! Do you realize what happened, Livia? The people attacking that school and planting false evidence weren’t a bunch of stupid, violent beat-cops; they were commissioners and vice-commissioners, inspectors and captains and other paragons of virtue!”
Only then did he realize that the noise he was hearing in the receiver was Livia sobbing. He took a deep breath.
“Livia?”
“Yes?”
“I love you. Good night.”
He hung up. Then he went to bed. And the treacherous night began.
The truth of the matter was that Montalbano’s malaise had set in a while back, when the television had first shown the prime minister strolling up and down the narrow streets of Genoa, tidying the flower boxes and ordering the inhabitants to remove the underwear hung out to dry on balconies and windowsills while his interior minister was adopting security measures more suited for an imminent civil war than for a meeting of heads of state: setting up wire fences to block access to certain streets, soldering shut the manholes, sealing the country’s borders, closing certain railroad stations, establishing boat patrols at sea, and even installing a battery of missiles. This was such an excessive display of defense, thought the inspector, that it became a kind of provocation. Then what happened, happened: one of the demonstrators got killed, of course, but perhaps the worst of it was that certain police units had thought it best to fire tear gas at the most peaceable demonstrators, leaving the most violent ones, the so-called “black bloc,” free to do as they pleased. Then came the ugly episode at the Diaz School, which resembled not so much a police operation as a wicked and violent abuse of power with the sole purpose of venting a repressed lust for revenge.
Three days after the G8, as polemics raged all over Italy, Montalbano had arrived late to work. No sooner had he pulled up in his car and got out, than he’d noticed two painters whitewashing one of the walls outside the station.
“Ahh, Chief, Chief!” cried Catarella, seeing him come in. “They wrote us some nasty things last night!”
Montalbano didn’t immediately understand.
“Who wrote to us?”
“I don’t poissonally know them that writ ’em.”
What the hell was Catarella talking about?
“Was it anonymous?”
