apartment and done whatever they wanted!”
“Yes, but then they would have had to kill them right then and there in their apartment. Which would have alarmed Sanfilippo, to whom the killers would certainly have said they had no intention of killing the old folks, but only terrorizing them the right amount ... And bear in mind that it was in everybody’s interest to make us believe there was no connection between the Griffos’ disappearance and Sanfilippo’s murder. In fact, how long did it take us to realize the two cases were interrelated?”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“No maybe about it, Mimi. Then, after they clear this place out with Sanfilippo’s help, they take the kid off with them. Maybe with the excuse that they need to talk about setting up his office somewhere else. In the meantime they go into his apartment and do the same thing they did at the Griffos‘. They take the electricity and phone bills for this place, for example. Which we were unable to find, in fact. And Sanfilippo they send home late at night and —”
“What need was there to send him home? They could have killed him wherever they took him.”
“Three mysterious disappearances in the same building?”
“True.”
“Sanfilippo goes home, it’s almost morning, he gets out of his car, sticks his key in the door, and whoever was waiting for him calls to him.”
“So how do we proceed from here?” Augello asked, after a brief pause.
“I don’t know,” Montalbano replied. “We can leave this place, for starters. There’s no point in calling forensics for fingerprints. They probably scrubbed the joint down with lye, including the ceilings.”
They got in the car and left.
“You’ve certainly got a lively imagination,” Mimi commented after thinking over the inspector’s reconstruction of events. “When you retire you could start writing novels.”
“I would definitely write mysteries. But it’s not worth the trouble.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because certain critics and professors, or would-be critics and professors, consider mystery novels a minor genre. And, in fact, in histories of literature they’re never even mentioned.”
“What the hell do you care? Do you want to enter literary history alongside Dante and Manzoni?”
“I’d die of shame.”
“So just write them and be content with that.”
After a short spell, Augello resumed talking.
“All of which means that my whole day yesterday was a waste.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Have you forgotten? All I did all day was gather information on Dr. Ingro, as we’d decided when we thought Sanfilippo was killed over an illicit love affair.”
“Ah, yes. Tell me about him anyway.”
“He’s truly a worldwide celebrity. He has a very exclusive clinic all his own, between Vigata and Caltanissetta, where only a few choice VIPs go. I went and had a look at it from the outside. It’s a big house surrounded by a very high wall, with enormous grounds. They even land helicopters in there. Two armed guards are posted outside. I asked some questions, and they told me the place was temporarily closed. The doctor, in any case, can operate pretty much wherever he likes.”
“Where is he at the moment?”
“You know what? That friend of mine who knows him said he’s holed up at his seaside villa between Vigata and Santoli. Says it’s a bad time for him.”
“Maybe he found out about his wife’s affair.”
“Maybe. My friend also said that a little over two years ago the doctor went through another bad period but later recovered.”
“Obviously that time, too, his fair consort—”
“No, Salvo, that time there was a better reason, I’m told. Nothing certain, just rumors. But apparently he over-extended himself for a vast sum, to buy a painting. He didn’t have the cash. He bounced a few checks and was threatened with legal action. Then he came up with the money and everything went back to normal.”
“Where does he keep the paintings?”
“In a vault. At home he only hangs reproductions.”
After another silence, Augello asked guardedly:
“So, what did you get out of Ingrid?”
Montalbano bristled.
“I don’t like that kind of talk, Mimi.”
“I just meant did you find anything out about Vanya, Ingro’s wife!”
“Ingrid knew that Vanya had a lover, but didn’t know his name. In fact she hadn’t made any connection between her friend and the murdered Sanfilippo. At any rate, Vanya left; she’s gone back to Romania to visit her sick father. She left before her lover was killed.”
