the only person who would recognize her. If you find her on one of these tapes, and I’m sure you will, call me at once, no matter the hour. Have fun.”
He left the room, with Mimi unable to open his mouth.
As he was going down the stairs, he heard doors carefully opening on different floors: the tenants of Via Cavour 44 had stayed up waiting for the fiery woman who’d had sex with the inspector to come out. They would lose a night’s sleep.
On the streets there wasn’t a soul. A cat came out from a building and gave him a meow of greeting. Montalbano reciprocated with a “Ciao, how are you?” The cat took a liking to him and followed him for two blocks. Then it turned back. The night air was beginning to dispel his somnolence. His car was parked in front of headquarters. A shaft of light filtered out from under the closed front door. He rang the bell, and Catarella came and opened up.
“What is it, Chief? You a need anyting?”
“Were you asleep?”
Just inside the entrance was the switchboard and a tiny room with a cot, where whoever was on duty could lie down.
“No sir, Chief, I was figgerin’ out a crassword puzzle.”
“The one you’ve been working on for two months?”
Catarella beamed proudly.
“No, Chief, that one I already figgered out. I started a bran new one.”
Montalbano went into his office. There was a packet on his desk, which he opened. Inside were the photos of the excursion to Tindari.
He began looking at them. They all showed smiling faces, de rigueur on these sorts of outings. Faces he now knew after seeing them at the station. The only people not smiling were the Griffos, of whom there were only two photos. In the first, the husband’s head was half-turned around, to look out the rear window of the coach. The wife, on the other hand, was staring at the camera with a blank look on her face. In the second photo, she was leaning her head forward and one couldn’t see her expression, while he was staring straight ahead, with no light in his eyes.
Montalbano looked at the first snapshot again. Then he started searching through his drawers, with increasing frenzy as he realized he couldn’t find what he was looking for.
“Catarella!”
Catarella came running.
“Have you got a magnifying glass?”
“The kind that makes things look all biglike?”
“That’s the one.”
“Fazio maybe’s got one in ‘is desk.”
He came back holding the glass triumphantly in the air.
“Got it, Chief.”
The car photographed through the rear window, practically glued to the back of the bus, was a Fiat Punto. Like one of Nene Sanfilippo’s cars. The license plate was visible, but Montalbano was unable to make out the letters and numbers, not even with the help of the magnifying glass. There was probably no point getting one’s hopes up. How many Fiat Puntos were there driving around Italy?
He slipped the photo in his jacket pocket, said good-bye to Catarella, and got in his car. He felt like he needed a good night’s sleep.
11
He slept hardly at all, three meager hours of twisting and turning in bed, with the sheet wrapped around him as on a mummy. From time to time he would turn on the light and study the photo, which he’d put on the nightstand, as if some miracle might occur and suddenly make his eyesight so keen as to let him decipher the license number of the Punto following behind the bus. He knew by sense of smell, like a hunting dog pointing at a shrub of sorghum, that therein lay the key that would open the right door. The ring of the phone at six was like a liberation. It had to be Mimi. He picked up the receiver.
“Did I wake you, Chief?”
It was Fazio, not Mimi.
“No, Fazio, don’t worry about it. Did you go to confession?”
“Yes I did. And he gave me the usual penance, five Hail Marys and three Our Fathers.”
“Was anything decided?”
“Yessir. It’s confirmed. It’s gonna happen at nightfall. So, we’re supposed to go—”
“Wait, don’t talk about it over the phone. Go and get some sleep. I’ll see you at the office around eleven.”
He thought of Mimi losing sleep watching Nene Sanfilippo’s home videos. It was better for him to stop and also go home to get a few hours’ sleep. The business that awaited them at nightfall wasn’t to be taken lightly. They all needed to be in the best shape possible. Fine, but he didn’t have Nene Sanfilippo’s phone number. Christ, calling Catarella and trying to get it from him—since the number was surely lying about somewhere at the station—was out of the question. Fazio must know it. He was heading home and the inspector could reach him on his cell phone.
