. . .
“Play it over again,” said the inspector.
The last thing he wanted to do was to listen again to the fathomless despair in that girl’s voice, but he had to do it. As a precaution, he covered his eyes with one hand, in case his emotions got the better of him.
After the second listening, Dr. Mistretta, face buried in his hands, shoulders heaving with sobs, rushed out, almost running into the garden.
“He’s very fond of his niece,” Minutolo commented.
Then, looking at Montalbano: “So?”
“That was a recorded message. Do you agree?”
“Absolutely.”
“The man’s voice is disguised.”
“Clearly.”
“And there are at least two of them. Susanna’s voice is in the background, a bit far from the recorder. When the man making the recording says, ‘Recognize her voice?’ a few seconds pass before Susanna speaks, the time it takes for his accomplice to lower her gag. Then he gags her again almost immediately, cutting her off in the middle of her plea, which was surely supposed to be ‘Help
“That’s not possible, because in that case the pause between the kidnapper’s question and Susanna’s voice would have been longer.”
“Okay. You know something?”
“No. You’re the expert.”
“They’re not following the usual procedure.”
“Explain.”
“Well, what is the usual procedure for a kidnapping?
There are the manual laborers—let’s call them Group B—
who are given the task of physically carrying out the kidnapping. After which Group B hands the kidnapped person over to Group C, that is, those in charge of hiding her and taking care of her—more grunt work. At this point Group A comes on the scene. These are the ringleaders, the organizers who will demand the ransom. All these transitions take time, and therefore the ransom request is usually not made until a few days after the kidnapping. Whereas, in our case, it took only a few hours.” “And what does this mean?”
“In my opinion, it means the group that kidnapped Susanna is the same one that is holding her prisoner and demand-ing the ransom. It might be a family outfit on a low budget.
And if they’re not professional, that complicates matters and makes it more dangerous for the girl. Follow me?”
“Perfectly.”
“It may also mean they’re holding her somewhere not very far away.” He paused, looking pensive. “On the other hand, it doesn’t look like some fly-by-night kidnapping either.
In those cases the ransom demand is usually made with the first contact. They have no time to waste.”
“This business of letting us hear Susanna’s voice,” said Montalbano, “is it normal? I don’t think—”
“You’re right,” said Minutolo. “It never happens. You only see it in movies. What usually occurs is that if you don’t want to pay up, they wait a bit and then have the victim write a couple of lines to persuade you. Or they might send you a piece of his ear. That’s usually the only kind of contact they allow between victim and family.” “Did you notice how they spoke?”
“How did they speak?”
“In perfect Italian, with no regional inflection.”
“You’re right.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“What do you want me to do? I’m going to call the com missioner and tell him the news.”
“That phone call has got me confused,” said Montalbano in conclusion.
“Me, too,” Minutolo agreed.
“Tell me something. Why did you let Mistretta talk to a newsman?”
“To jump-start things, speed up the tempo. I don’t like the idea of a girl so pretty being at the mercy of people like that for very long.”
“Are you going to tell the media about this phone call?”
“Not even in my dreams.”
That was all, for the moment. The inspector went up to Fazio, who had fallen back asleep, and shook his shoulder.
“Wake up, I’ll take you home.”
