“Even if the business had been presented to him as legal?”
This time Griffo didn’t answer. The inspector stood up.
“Well, if you can think of any explanation ...”
“Yes, of course,” said Griffo, looking distracted. He walked Montalbano to the door.
“I was just remembering something Mama said to me last year. I had come to see them, and at one point, when Papa wasn’t around, Mama said to me in a low voice: ‘When we’re no longer here, you’re going to have a pleasant surprise.’ Of course, sometimes Mama wasn’t really all there, poor thing. She never brought it up again. And I forgot all about it.”
At Montelusa Central Police, he had the receptionist call Cicco de Cicco. He had no desire to run into Vanni Arqua, the chief of forensics who had replaced Jacomuzzi. They shared a mutual antipathy De Cicco arrived in a hurry and took the photo from him.
“I was expecting worse,” he said, looking at it. “Catarella said they tried scanning it onto the computer, but —”
“Think you can tell me the number on that license plate?”
“I think so, Inspector. I’ll give you a ring this evening, in any case.”
“If I’m not in, leave a message with Catarella. But make sure he writes the numbers and letters down correctly, otherwise we’re liable to come up with a license plate from Minnesota.”
On the drive back, a stop at the Saracen olive tree seemed almost obligatory. He needed a pause for reflection, a real one, not like what politicians call a pause for reflection, which is in fact a lapse into a deep coma. He climbed astride the usual branch, leaning back against the trunk, and lit a cigarette. He immediately felt uncomfortable, however, as the knots and nubs in the wood dug into the inside of his thighs. He had an odd sensation, as if the olive tree didn’t want him sitting there and was trying to make him change position.
He held out a bit longer, then couldn’t stand it anymore and climbed off the branch. He went to his car, grabbed a newspaper, returned to the olive tree, spread the pages out on the ground, and lay down on top, after removing his jacket.
Viewed from below, from this new perspective, the tree looked bigger and more intricate. He saw complex ramifications he couldn’t see before, from inside. Some words came to mind: “There’s a Saracen olive tree, a big one ... which solved everything for me.” Who had said them? And what had the tree solved? Then his memory came more clearly into focus. It was Pirandello who’d said those words, to his son, a few hours before dying. And they referred to
He lay there for a good half-hour, on his back, never once taking his eyes off the tree. And the longer he looked, the more the tree opened up to him, the more it told how the play of time had slashed and twisted it, how the water and wind, year after year, had forced it to take its present form, not by whim or chance, but by necessity.
His eyes remained fixed on three thick branches that for a brief stretch ran almost parallel before each took off on a personal fantasy of sudden zigzags, backward turns, sidesteps, detours, arabesques. One of the three, the middle one, looked slightly lower than the other two, but with its twisted little offshoots it grabbed at the two branches above, as if wanting to cling to them for the duration of the stretch they had in common.
Tilting his head to get a better look, Montalbano realized that the three branches were not born independently of one another in their common proximity, but all originated from the same point, a sort of great, wrinkly boil protruding from the trunk.
It was probably a light gust of wind that shifted some leaves, but a sudden ray of sunlight shone right in the inspector’s eyes, blinding him. Squinting hard, he smiled.
Whatever De Cicco ended up telling him that evening, Montalbano was now certain that the person at the wheel of the car behind the bus was Nene Sanfilippo.
They lay in wait behind a shrub of boxthorn, pistols cocked. Father Crucilla had led them to a secluded farmhouse he said was Japichinu’s secret hideout. Before leaving them, however, the priest had made a point of advising that they should approach very carefully; he wasn’t sure whether Japichinu was ready to give himself up without reacting. Most important, the fugitive was armed with an assault rifle and had shown on many occasions that he knew how to use it.
The inspector therefore decided to go by the rule book, and had sent Fazio and Galluzzo behind the house.
“By now they must be in position,” said Mimi.
Montalbano said nothing. He wanted to give his two men enough time to find the right spot for positioning themselves.
“I’m going in,” Augello said, impatient. “Cover me.”
“Okay,” the inspector consented.
Mimi began to crawl along the ground. The moon was shining, otherwise his movements would have been invisible. The farmhouse door, strangely, was wide open. Not so strangely, come to think of it: Japichinu obviously wanted to give the impression that the house was abandoned, when in fact he was lurking inside, assault rifle in hand.
In front of the door, Mimi half stood up, stopped on the threshold, leaned his head in for a look. Then, stepping lightly, he went inside. He reappeared moments later, waving an arm in the inspector’s direction.
“There’s nobody here,” he said.
