had built, though not in his name, at the tip of Capo Massaria. I found out about it from the customary compassionate friend.”
She stood up, went over to the desk, rummaged through a drawer, then sat back down holding a large yellow envelope, a metal ring with two keys, and a magnifying glass. She handed the keys to the inspector.
“Incidentally, he had a mania for keys. He had two copies of each set, one of which he would keep in that drawer; the other he always carried on his person.
Well, the second copy was never found.”
“They weren’t in your husband’s pockets?”
“No. And they weren’t in his engineering studio either. Nor were they found in his other office, the so-called political office. Vanished, evaporated.”
“He could have lost them on the street. We don’t necessarily know that they were removed from him.”
“It’s not possible. You see, my husband had six sets of keys. One for this house, one for the country house, one for the house by the sea, one for the office, one for the studio, one for his little house. He kept them all in the glove compartment of his car.
From time to time he would take out the set he needed.”
“And none of these sets was found?”
“No. I gave orders to have all the locks changed.
With the exception of the little house, of whose existence I am officially unaware. If you wish, you may visit the place. I’m sure you’ll find some revealing vestiges of his affairs.”
Twice she had said “his affairs,” and Montalbano wished he could console her in some way.
“Aside from the fact that Mr. Luparello’s affairs do not fall within the scope of my investigation, I have nevertheless questioned some people, and I must say in all sincerity that the answers I’ve received have been rather generic, applicable to anyone.”
The woman looked at him with the faint hint of a smile.
“I never did reproach him for it, you know. Practically speaking, two years after the birth of our son, my husband and I ceased to be a couple. And so I was able to observe him calmly and quietly for thirty years, without having my vision clouded by the agitation of the senses. You seem not to understand, please forgive me: in speaking of his ‘affairs,’ my intention was to avoid specifying the sex.”
Montalbano hunched his shoulders, sinking farther down into the armchair. He felt as if he’d just taken a blow to the head from a crowbar.
“On the other hand,” the woman continued, “to get back to the subject of greatest interest to me, I am convinced that we are dealing with a criminal act—let me finish—not a homicide, not a physical elimination, but a political crime. An act of extreme violence was done, and it led to his death.”
“Please explain, signora.”
“I am convinced that my husband was forced, under the threat of violence or blackmail, to go to that disgraceful place where he was found. They had a plan, but they were unable to execute it in full because his heart gave out under the stress or—why not?—out of fear. He was very ill, you know. He had just been through a very difficult operation.”
“But how would they have forced him?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps you can help me find out.
They probably lured him into a trap. He was unable to resist. I don’t know, maybe they photographed him at that place or had him recognized by someone. And from that moment on they had my husband in the palm of their hands; he became their puppet.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“His political adversaries, I think, or some business associates.”
“You see, signora, your reasoning, or rather your conjecture, has one serious flaw: you have no proof to support it.”
The woman opened the yellow envelope she’d been holding in her hand all this time and pulled out some photographs, the ones the lab had taken of the corpse at the Pasture.
“Oh, God,” Montalbano murmured, shuddering.
The woman, for her part, showed no emotion as she studied them.
“How did you get these?”
“I have good friends. Have you looked at them?”
“No.”
“You were wrong not to,” and she chose a photo and handed it to Montalbano along with the magnifying glass. “Now, take a good look at this one. His trousers are pulled down, and you can just get a glimpse of the white of his briefs.”
Montalbano was covered in sweat; the discomfort he felt irritated him, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“I don’t see anything strange about that.”
“Oh, no? What about the label of the briefs?”
“Yes, I can see it. So?”
“You shouldn’t be able to see it. This kind of brief—and if you come into my husband’s bedroom, I’ll show you others—has the label on the back and on the inside. If you can see them, as you can, it means they were put on backwards. And you can’t tell me that Silvio when getting dressed that morning put them on that way and never noticed. He took a diuretic, you see, and had to go to the bathroom many times a day and could have easily put them properly back on at any point of the day. And this can mean only one thing.”
