Montalbano was struggling to get out the question, “Do you know him?” but Ingrid misunderstood and interrupted him.
“D’Iunio, exactly,” she said. “I believe I already mentioned him to you once.”
True enough. She’d talked about him the evening they’d downed a bottle of whisky on the veranda. She said she’d had an affair with this D’Iunio, but they’d broken it off because . . . Because why?
“Why did you break up?”
“I broke off the affair. There was something about him that made me uneasy . . . I was always on my guard . . . I could never relax with him . . . Even though there wasn’t really any reason . . .”
“Did he make unusual . . . demands on you?”
“In bed?”
“Yes.”
Ingrid shrugged. “Well, no more unusual than any other man.”
Why did he feel an absurd twinge of jealousy upon hearing these words?
“So, what was it, then?”
“Just a feeling, Salvo. I can’t really explain it . . .”
“What did he say he did for a living?”
“He’d been captain of an oil tanker . . . Then he came into some kind of inheritance . . . In reality, he didn’t do anything.”
“How did you meet him?”
Ingrid laughed.
“By chance. At a filling station. There was a long queue, and we started talking.”
“Where did you normally get together?”
“In a place called Spigonella. Do you know where it is?”
“Yeah, I know it.”
“Excuse me, Salvo, but are you interrogating me?”
“I’d say so.”
“Why?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“Would you mind if we continued somewhere else?”
“Why, don’t you like it here?”
“No. In here, the way you’re asking me those questions . . . you seem like a different person.”
“A different person?”
“Yes, a different person, someone I don’t know. Could we go to your place?”
“If you like. But no whisky. At least not before we’ve finished.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Inspector.”
They drove to Marinella in separate cars, and naturally Ingrid got there long before he did.
Montalbano went and opened the French doors giving onto the veranda.
It was a very soft night, perhaps a little too soft. The air smelled of brine and mist. The inspector took a deep breath, his lungs enjoying the sweetness.
“Shall we go sit on the veranda?” Ingrid suggested.
“No, it’s better inside.”
They sat down across from each other at the dining room table. Ingrid stared at him, looking perplexed. The inspector set the envelope with D’Iunio’s photos, which he’d brought from the station, down on the table beside him.
“Want to tell me why you’re so interested in Nini?”
“No.”
Ingrid felt hurt, and Montalbano noticed.
“If I told you, it would very probably influence your answers. You said you called him Nini. Is that a diminutive for Antonio?”
“No. Ernesto.”
Was it a coincidence? Oftentimes people who change identities keep the initials of their first and last names. Did the fact that both D’Iunio and Errera were called Ernesto mean they were the same person? Better go at it slowly, one step at a time.
“Was he Sicilian?”
“He never told me where he was from. Except he once said he’d been married to a girl from Catanzaro who died two years after they were married.”
