“You mean the
“I see you know about these things.”
“It’s just a personal interest, for fun.”
“Listen, to get back to what we were saying, I asked you if there are a lot of rich people who-”
“-spend their lives at sea? I don’t think so.”
“So how else do you explain it?”
“I have no explanation for it. It may just be some mania of hers. Her husband had the same mania, and I guess she caught it from him.”
Montalbano remained pensive for a moment. Then he asked:
“How could one find out how many ports the
“It’s probably all recorded in the captain’s log.”
“And how does one go about having a look at it?”
“Only the public prosecutor can do that. But he would have to come up with a brilliant excuse. Can you tell me why you’re so interested in the
“I can’t really say why… I’m just curious… I don’t know… There’s something about it that doesn’t add up.”
He could hardly tell her that his suspicions had been aroused by a young woman he had met, who said her name was Vanna, the same as the yacht.
Laura didn’t leave until after midnight, with the promise that they would talk by phone the following day.
The inspector stayed up to think about the dead man.
If, as Dr. Pasquano maintained, they’d rendered him unrecognizable on purpose, this meant he was someone who might be recognized. At first glance, this line of reasoning might seem worthy of Catarella or Monsieur de Lapalisse.
But it was a start.
Some poor bastard killed in this fashion did not normally, nowadays, grab the headlines, as they say in the business. The national press might give him five lines, max, and the local papers half a column. The national TV stations wouldn’t even mention it, though the local ones would.
So whoever would have been in a position to identify the corpse, had they left his face intact, had to be somewhere in the vicinity of Vigata. And the eventual identification would, therefore, have led directly to the killer. Why?
For one simple reason: because the man had been poisoned. To poison someone, you have to put the poison in something to eat or drink, there was no getting around it.
The victim must therefore have known his killer.
Maybe he was invited for an aperitif, or for dinner, as the inspector had just done with Laura, and then, when the poor guy was looking the other way…
Laura! Man, was she ever beautiful! But what the hell was coming over him? What was he thinking? It was hardly imaginable, at his age… Still, what eyes she had! And the way she looked at him!
As he was unable to think straight anymore, he decided that the only thing to do was to go to bed.
“Fazio here?” was the first thing he asked, walking into the station the following morning.
“Yessir, Chief. An’ there’s summon ellis ’e’s got together wit’ ’im.”
“Tell Fazio to come to my office alone.”
He had just sat down when Fazio came in.
“What’s Digiulio like?”
“What do you expect? He’s from Palermo and-”
“I want to know if he got nervous or upset when you told him he had to come to the station.”
“No. He was cool and calm. Actually, he said he was expecting it.”
“He was expecting it?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Bring him in.”
“Can I hang around?”
“No.”
Fazio went out, seeming offended.
Mario Digiulio was about forty and had one of those faces that you forget one second after you’ve seen it.
He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater and a pair of dirty jeans. He was completely different from how Montalbano had imagined him. As Fazio had mentioned, he wasn’t the least bit scared. Then, unexpectedly, as soon as Montalbano told him to sit down, the man began to speak.
“So you received the complaint, eh?”
Montalbano made a vague gesture that could have meant nothing or everything.
“The bastards.”
The man paused.
“The fuckin’ bastards!”
Having taken in the high esteem in which Digiulio held those who had reported him, the inspector decided he needed to know a little more.
“Please tell me your version of the story.”
“In Rethymno, me and Zizi went out drinking at a tavern, and there was two Greeks there who-”
“-who provoked you.”
“Exactly. Zizi reacted immediately, and I went to back him up, and before we knew it, there was a brawl and-”
“You smashed the place up.”
“Smashed it up? Come on! Zizi broke a couple a chairs and…”
Zizi. Where had he heard that name before? Someone had mentioned it in passing. But who? And when? He couldn’t quite call it to mind.
“I’m sorry, but was Zizi a local?”
Digiulio gave him a look of astonishment.
“No, he’s one of the crew.”
“But his name’s not listed in the-”
“Ah, sorry, we call him Zizi, but his real name’s Ahmed Shaikiri. He’s North African.”
Montalbano had a flash.
“Was he the former owner’s manservant?”
Digiulio’s astonishment increased.
“The former owner’s manserv… No way! Zizi signed on with us barely three months ago!”
Montalbano’s brain was now firing on all cylinders.
“Could you run through the names of the other crew members for me?”
“But they weren’t involved in the fight.”
“Please tell me them just the same.”
“Maurilio Alvarez is the engineer, Stefano Ricca’s the…”
Montalbano stopped paying attention. Ricca! Now it had all come back to him. Vanna had said Ricca was a banker and associate of her uncle Arturo. But it was the yacht that was named
The girl had certainly been clever. What a subtle edifice of lies! Hats off!
Want to bet that what he had thought was an elaborate prank on Vanna’s part actually had a precise purpose?
Meanwhile, however, he had to get rid of the sailor.
“Listen, do you by any chance have a sister named Vanna?”
