The Age Of Doubt

“Ahh, Chief Chief! Dacter Pisquano phoned lookin’ f’yiz sayin’ as how as ’e’s lookin’ f’yiz a talk t’yiz poissonally in-”

“Did he say whether he’d call back?”

“-poisson. Nah, Chief. ’E said sumpin’ ellis.”

“What’d he say?”

“’E said as how y’oughter call ’im atta Isstitute a Lethal Midicine.”

“It’s Legal Medicine, Cat, not lethal medicine.”

“Iss whatever it is, Chief, ’slong as y’unnastand.”

“Call the Institute and when you’ve got the doctor on the line, put him through to me.”

About ten minutes later, the telephone rang.

“What’s going on, Doctor?” the inspector asked.

“Are you surprised?”

“Of course. A phone call from you is so rare an occurrence, we’re liable to get an earthquake tomorrow!”

“Well, aren’t you the wit! Listen, since the mountain didn’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed has gone to the mountain.”

“But in this specific case, the mountain had no reason to go to Mohammed.”

“That’s true. Which is why this time it was up to me to come and break your balls.”

“Go right ahead. It’ll make up for all the times I’ve done the same to you.”

“Not so fast, my friend! Don’t get smart with me! I’ve still got a lot of credit left! You can’t compare the incessant, humongous ball-bustings I’ve had to put up with, with this one-”

“Okay, okay. Don’t keep me on tenterhooks.”

“See what old age does? You used to hate cliches and now you’re using them! At any rate, I’m writing up the report on the unknown corpse found in the dinghy.”

“While we’re on the subject, I should tell you that he’s no longer unknown. I found his passport, which says his name is Emile Lannec, French, born at-”

“I couldn’t give a flying fuck.”

“About what?”

“About his name or the fact that he’s French… To me he’s just a corpse and nothing else. I wanted to tell you that I performed a second autopsy because there was something that had left me wondering.”

“Namely?”

“I’d noticed some scars, despite the fact that they’d smashed up his face… It looked like he’d had it remade.”

“What?”

“Is your question an expression of surprise or do you want to know what he’d had remade?”

“Doctor, I understood perfectly well that he’d had his face remade.”

“What a relief! You see, there are a few things you can still grasp.”

“Are you sure he’d had such an operation?”

“Absolutely certain. And it wasn’t just a snip here and a tuck there, mind you, but a major transformation.”

“But why then-”

“Listen, I’m not interested in your whys and wherefores. It’s not up to me to give you the answers. You have to find them yourself. Or, at your advanced age, are your brain cells so deteriorated that-”

“You know what I say to you, Doctor?”

“No need to tell me. I can intuit exactly what you want to say to me, and I return the compliment with all my heart.”

***

When he carefully considered the information Pasquano had just given him, it wasn’t as if it changed the general picture much.

What difference did it really make whether the Frenchman’s face was the one Mother Nature had given him or a fake, remade face?

Whoever killed him wanted to make it so that the dead man’s face, whatever it was at that time, couldn’t be recognized. Why?

He’d already dealt with this question, but maybe it was best to come back to it for a minute.

Especially because, searching Lannec after he was dead, the killers realized he didn’t have his passport on him. And so they rightly concluded he’d left it at the hotel. Therefore, if the victim’s face appeared on television or in the newspapers, it would be easy for the hotel people to…

Wait a second, Montalba!

He grabbed the phone book, looked up the number of the Bellavista Hotel, and dialed it.

An unknown voice picked up. In must have been the day-shift porter.

“Inspector Montalbano here.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Is Signor Toscano there?’

“He called to say he wouldn’t be in today. You can reach him at the furniture factory.”

“Could you please give me the number?”

The man gave it to him, and the inspector dialed it.

“Signor Toscano? Montalbano here.”

“Good afternoon, Inspector.”

“There’s something I need to ask you, something very important.”

“Go right ahead.”

“Pay close attention. The night that Lannec arrived, did anything strange happen at the hotel?”

Toscano paused to think for a moment, then spoke.

“Well, actually, yes, now that you mention it… But it was something that… which I don’t…”

“Go on, tell me.”

“You see, the hotel is sort of isolated. One night, in high season, three months after we’d opened for business, some burglars broke in and took the safe in which we keep our customers’ money and valuables.”

“But wasn’t the night porter on duty?”

“Of course he was. But it was three in the morning, and it’s always very quiet at that time of the night and so Scime had lain down on a little bed in the room just behind the front desk… They must have drugged him, because he woke up two hours later with a terrible headache…”

How come he’d never heard a thing about this?

“Did you report the burglary?”

“Of course. To the carabinieri.”

“And what was their conclusion?”

“Since there’d been no break-in, only the theft of the safe, the carabinieri concluded the burglars had an accomplice staying at the hotel as a customer, and that he must have drugged the porter with a gas canister and opened the door for his partners. But they didn’t take the investigation any further than that. It was a good thing we were insured!”

“And what happened the other night?”

“Well, after the robbery we hired a night guard who makes the rounds outside the building every half hour. On the night in question, he saw a car stopped with its lights off, outside the back door of the hotel. But the moment he approached, the car drove away in a hurry. That time, however, since nothing actually happened, we didn’t bother to report it… Do you think it might have a connection to the murder?”

Montalbano had no intention of telling him exactly just how close a connection it had.

“Absolutely not. But it’s all grist for the mill, you know.”

Damn! Pasquano was right! The older he got, the more he spoke in cliches!