“No conclusions at all, Livia. But it provides many starting points, many indications that I didn’t have before.”
“Such as?”
“Such as the fact—and I’m convinced of this—that they wanted to kidnap not the daughter of Salvatore Mistretta but the niece of Antonio Peruzzo. He’s the one with the dough. And there’s no saying she was kidnapped only for the ransom money; there’s also the revenge motive. When Peruzzo went bankrupt, he must have messed up many people’s lives. And the kidnappers’ strategy is to drag Antonio Peruzzo slowly into the middle of this. Slowly, so that nobody realizes that they wanted to get to him from the start. Whoever organized this kidnapping knew what had happened between Antonio and his sister; they knew that Antonio was beholden to the Mistrettas, and that, as Susanna’s godfather, he was responsible . . .” He trailed off, wanting to bite his tongue. Livia cast a placid glance at him; she looked like an angel.
“Why don’t you continue? Did you suddenly remember that you yourself want to become the godfather at the baptism of a criminal’s son, and that you may soon have some serious responsibilities of your own?” “Can we please drop that subject?”
“No, I think we should explore it.”
They explored it, squabbled, made peace, and went to bed.
At three twenty-seven and forty seconds, time’s mechanism jammed again. But this time the
o o o
It was as if the inspector had spoken to crows. (Indeed, people in Vigata and environs believe that to those who can understand them, these black birds, garrulous creatures that they are, communicate the latest news on the doings of human beings, since they have a clear view—a bird’s-eye view, in fact—of the whole.) What happened was that around ten o’clock the following morning, when Montalbano was in his office, the bomb exploded. Minutolo called.
“Do you know what’s up at TeleVigata?”
“No. Why?”
“They’ve interrupted all their programming. There’s only a notice saying that in ten minutes there’s going to be a special edition of the news.”
“I guess they’re acquiring a taste for it.” He hung up and rang Nicolo Zito.
“What’s this business about a special news broadcast at TeleVigata?”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“Have the kidnappers got back in touch with you?”
“No. But since we gave them no satisfaction last time . . .” The inspector went to the cafe near the station. The television was on, displaying a notice for the upcoming broadcast.
Some thirty people had gathered round, also awaiting the special edition. Apparently word had spread fast. The notice then disappeared, and the TeleVigata News logo appeared, with the words
“Dear viewers, about an hour ago, in the morning mail, our editorial offices received a perfectly normal-looking envelope, posted in Vigata, with no return address, and with our address written in block letters. Inside was a Polaroid snapshot of Susanna Mistretta, who is being held prisoner. We cannot show it to you because we had it sent immediately to the magistrate conducting the investigation, as it was our legal duty to do. On the other hand, we believe it is our journalistic duty to inform you of this development. Susanna is shown at the bottom of some sort of dry well, wearing a heavy chain around her ankle.
She is neither blindfolded nor gagged. She is sitting on the ground, atop some rags, her arms around her knees, and looking up with tears in her eyes. On the back of the photo, also in block letters, are the enigmatic words: ‘
“The instant we first learned of the girl’s kidnapping, our hard-working editorial staff sprang into action. What point was there, we asked ourselves, in kidnapping a girl whose family is in no way able to pay any ransom? Thus we immediately steered our investigation in what turned out to be the right direction.”
“And today we’ve come up with a name,” Ragonese continued, his voice sounding like something out of a horror film. “The name of the person who is in a position to pay the ransom demanded. He is not the girl’s father, but perhaps her godfather. The words on the back of the photo,
But we implore him to intervene, as he can and must, without any further delay.”
Ragonese’s face disappeared, and a hush came over the cafe. Montalbano left and returned to his office. The kidnappers had got what they wanted. He’d barely sat down when Minutolo called again.
“Montalbano? The judge just sent me the photo that asshole was talking about. Do you want to see it?”
o o o
Minutolo was alone in the villa’s living room.
“Where’s Fazio?”
“He went into town. He had to go sign something for some bank account of his,” Minutolo replied, handing him the photo.
“Where’s the envelope?”
