instead of running to meet her? Montalbano turned to him and was astonished to see that the boy was looking at him, not at his mother, with a desperate, questioning look in his eyes. Maybe he wanted to be left free to escape because his mother was sure to beat him for running away in the first place. The second thing was that, as she was running, the mother turned her ankle and fell to the ground. The three policemen tried to get her back on her feet but were unable. She couldn’t stand up. She was wailing and touching her left knee, and meanwhile kept gesturing to the inspector to bring the boy to her. As soon as the boy was within reach, she embraced him and overwhelmed him with kisses. But she still couldn’t manage to stand up. She tried repeatedly, but kept falling back down. Finally someone called an ambulance. Two medics stepped out of the car, and one of them, a very thin man with a mustache, bent over the woman and touched her leg.
“She must have broken it,” he said.
They loaded her into the ambulance with her three children and left. By now the refugees from the second patrol boat were starting to disembark, but the inspector had already decided to go home to Marinella. He looked at his watch: it was almost ten. No point going to Ciccio Albanese’s house. So much for the striped surmullets. By now they were no longer waiting for him. Anyway, he no longer felt hungry. His stomach was tied in a knot.
As soon as he got home he called Ciccio. The captain said they’d waited a long time for him, but realized in the end that he wasn’t coming.
“I’m still available to explain that stuff about the currents,” he said.
“Thanks, Ciccio.”
“If you want, I could come by the station in the morning, since I won’t be taking the boat out tomorrow. I’ll bring along my charts.”
“Okay.”
He stayed in the shower a long time, to wash away all the things he had seen. He could feel them inside him, reduced to invisible fragments that had entered through his pores. He put on the first pair of pants that came within reach and went into the living room to call Livia. As he reached for the phone, it rang all by itself. He jerked his hand back, as if he’d touched fire. An instinctive, unchecked reaction, which showed that, despite the shower, the thought of what he had seen on the wharf was still churning inside him and making him edgy.
“Hello, darling. Are you okay?”
All at once he felt the need to have Livia there beside him, so he could embrace her and be comforted by her. But since he was the way he was, he answered only:
“Yes.”
“Over your cold?”
“Yes.”
“Completely?”
He should have realized that Livia was setting him up, but he was too nervous and had other things on his mind.
“Completely.”
“So Ingrid must have taken good care of you. Tell me what she did for you. Did she put you to bed? Did she tuck in the sheets? Did she sing you a lullaby?”
Like a fool, he’d stepped right into the trap. All he could do now was counterattack.
“Listen, Livia, I’ve had a very trying day. I’m extremely tired and have no desire to—”
“So you’re really, really tired?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you call Ingrid and get her to perk you up?” He would never win a war of aggression against Livia. Maybe he’d stand a better chance in a defensive war.
“Why don’t you come down here yourself?”
He’d intended to use the question tactically, but had said it with such sincerity that Livia was caught off guard.
“Do you mean that?”
“Of course. What day is it today, Tuesday? Okay, tomorrow, when you get to work, you ask for a little advance on your vacation time. Then you hop on a plane and come down.”
“You know, I have half a mind to—”
“No halves about it.”
“Oh, Salvo, if only it was up to me . . . We’re very busy at the office these days. But I’ll try anyway.”
“Among other things, I want to tell you about something that happened to me tonight.”
“Come on, tell me now.”
“No, I want to be able to look you in the eye when I tell you.”
They stayed on the line another half hour, but wished they could talk even longer.
The phone call, however, had made him miss the Free Channel’s late-night newscast.
He turned on the television anyway and tuned in to TeleVigata.
The first thing they said was that as one hundred and fifty illegal immigrants were being put ashore in Vigata, a tragedy had occurred in Scroglitti, in eastern Sicily, where a large boat crammed with would-be immigrants slammed into rocks in bad weather. Thus far fifteen bodies had been recovered.
“But the number of victims is expected to rise,” said a reporter, using what had unfortunately become a stock phrase.
