“Do you have many more questions to ask me? Because I’m sure this is a girlfriend whom I’m supposed to —”
“Ten more minutes at the most.”
Elena went out, answered the phone, returned, and sat down. From the way she walked and talked, she seemed completely relaxed. She had managed to metabolize the news of her lover’s death in a hurry. Maybe it was true she no longer gave a damn about the man. So much the better. Montalbano wouldn’t have to hold back or feel embarrassed.
“There’s one thing that now seems a bit—how shall I say?—odd to me…Forgive me, I’m not very good with adjectives …or maybe it seems odd only to me, since I’m… I couldn’t…
He felt completely nonplussed. He didn’t know how to put the question to this beautiful girl, who was a pleasure just to look at.
“Say it,” she encouraged him with a little smile.
“Okay. You told me you went out Monday evening to go to Angelo’s place, where he was waiting to make love with you. Is that right?” “That’s right.”
“Were you planning to spend the night there with him?”
“Absolutely not. I never spent the night there. I would have come back home around midnight.”
“So you would have stayed about three hours with Angelo.”
“More or less. But why …?”
“Did you ever happen to arrive late for a date with him?”
“A few times.”
“And how did Angelo behave in those instances?”
“How was he supposed to behave? He was usually nervous, irritated. Then he would slowly calm down and …” She smiled in a completely different way from a moment be-fore. A smile half concealed, secret, self-directed, eyes sparkling with amusement. “And try to make up for the time lost.”
“What if I were to tell you that Angelo, that evening, didn’t wait for you?”
“What do you mean? I really don’t think he went out, since you said they found him on the terrace …”
“He was killed right after having sexual relations.”
She was either as great an actress as La Duse or truly shaken. She quickly made a few meaningless gestures, stood up and sat down, brought her empty demitasse to her lips, put it down as if she’d drunk from it, pulled a cigarette out of her pack but didn’t light it, stood up and sat down, knocked over a small wooden box that was on the coffee table, looked at it, then set it down.
“That’s absurd,” she finally said.
“You see, Angelo behaved as if he was absolutely certain you were no longer going to his place on Monday evening. Out of some sort of resentment towards you, or out of spite, or to get back at you, he may have called another woman. And now you must answer me truthfully: That evening, as you were driving around in your car, did you phone Angelo and tell him you weren’t going to his place?”
“No. That’s why I say it’s absurd. One time, you know, I even showed up two hours late. And he was beside himself, but still waiting. Monday evening he had no way of knowing what I’d decided. I could have descended on him at any moment and surprised him!”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Montalbano.
“Why?”
“Because Angelo, in a way, had taken a precaution: He’d gone up to the room on the terrace. And the glass door leading to the terrace was locked. Do you have a key for that door?”
“No.”
“So you see? Even if you’d arrived unexpectedly, there was no way you could have surprised him. Do you have keys to his apartment?”
“No.”
“So all you could have done was knock on the apartment door, and nobody would have answered. Before long you would have concluded that Angelo wasn’t home, that he’d gone out, perhaps to blow off some steam, and you would have given up. In his room on the terrace, Angelo was out of your reach.”
“But not the killer’s,” Elena said, almost angrily.
“That’s another matter,” said Montalbano. “And you can help me in this.”
“How?”
“How long had you been with Angelo?” “Six months.”
“During that time, did you have a chance to meet any of his friends, male or female?”
“Inspector, perhaps I didn’t make myself clear enough. When we got together, it was always to … well, it was always for a very specific purpose. I would go to his place, we’d have a whisky, get undressed, and go to bed. We never once went to the movies together, or to a restaurant. More recently he wanted to do those kinds of things, but I didn’t. And that also led to quarrels.”
“Why didn’t you want to go out with him?”
“Because I didn’t want to give people a reason to laugh at Emilio.”
“But surely Angelo must have spoken to you about some of his friends or girlfriends!”
