“My apologies, Mr. Spalato. An unfortunate misunderstanding. Please sit down.”
As Spalato, more confused than convinced, came back in, the inspector brusquely commanded Catarella:
“Go away and shut the door!”
The iris bouquet collapsed in the chair, visibly withered. The inspector felt like spraying a little water on him to perk him up. But perhaps it was best to get right to the point that interested him, and make as though nothing had happened.
“You were talking about a certain traffic . . .”
“You know nothing about it, Inspector?”
“Nothing, I assure you. I would be very grateful if—”
“Just last year—these are the official figures—no less than fifteen thousand minors unaccompanied by an adult relation were tracked down in Italy.”
“Are you telling me they came over by themselves?”
“So it would seem. Of these minors, we can omit, at the very least, more than half.”
“Why?”
“Because in the meantime they’ve come of age. Okay, nearly four thousand—a pretty high percentage, no?— came from Albania, the others from Romania, the former Yugoslavia, and Moldavia. To this number we must add some fifteen hundred from Morocco, and more still from Algeria, Turkey, Iraq, Bangladesh, and other countries. Getting a clear picture?”
“Quite. Their ages?”
“Right away.”
He took a small sheet of paper out of his jacket pocket, reviewed it, then put it back in his pocket.
“Two hundred aged zero to six; one thousand three hundred and sixteen between the ages of seven and fourteen; nine hundred ninety-five aged fifteen; two thousand and eighteen aged sixteen; and three thousand nine hundred twenty-four aged seventeen,” he recited. He looked at the inspector and sighed. “But these are only the figures we know about. We also know that many hundreds of children disappear as soon as they enter the country.”
“What happens to them?”
“There are criminal organizations that have them specially brought here. These children are worth a fortune. They are also considered export commodities.”
“What for?”
Fonso Spalato looked dumbfounded.
“You’re asking me? Recently a member of Parliament from Trieste put together an enormous quantity of wiretap transcripts that talked about buying and selling immigrant children for organ recipients. The demand for transplants is huge and continually growing. Other minors are made available for pedophiles. Bear in mind that with that kind of child—alone, with no parents, relatives, nobody—there are people who will pay huge sums in order to practice certain kinds of extreme pedophilia.”
“Meaning?” asked Montalbano, his mouth dry.
“Involving torture and the violent death of the victim, to increase the pleasure of the pedophile.”
“I see.”
“Then there’s the begging racket. The people who exploit little children by forcing them to beg for alms are very imaginative, you know. I once spoke with an Albanian boy who’d been kidnapped and then rescued by his father. His captors had crippled him, gravely injuring his knee and then purposely letting the wound fester, so passersby would feel more sorry for him. Another kid got his hand cut off, and another—”
“Excuse me, I have to go out a minute. I just remembered something I need to do,” said the inspector, standing up.
As soon as he’d closed the door behind him, he bolted, racing past a befuddled Catarella like a hundred-meter sprinter, elbows chest-high, stride long and decisive. In the twinkling of an eye Montalbano arrived at the cafe on the corner, which at that moment was empty, and leaned against the bar.
“Gimme a triple whisky, neat.”
Without whispering a word, the barman served him. The inspector downed it in two gulps, paid, and left.
Catarella was planted firmly in front of the door to his office.
“What are you doing there?”
“I’m standin guard over the suspeck, Chief,” replied Catarella, gesturing towards the office with his head. “Jessin case the suspeck tries to run away agin.”
“Good, you can go now.”
The inspector went in. The journalist hadn’t moved from his place. Montalbano sat down at his desk. He felt better now, strong enough to listen to new horrors.
“I was asking you if these children leave their countries by themselves or if—”
“Inspector, I already told you there’s a powerful criminal organization behind them. Some of them—a minority, actually—come over alone. Others are escorted.”
