“So you don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?”
“Giorgio is dead.”
Montalbano put down his demitasse; the shock had made him spill the coffee.
“How did that happen?”
“Do you remember, the day of your departure I called you to find out if you’d heard from him?”
“Of course.”
“The following morning he still hadn’t returned, so I felt compelled to alert the police and carabinieri.
They conducted some extremely superficial searches—
I’m sorry, perhaps they were too busy investigating Rizzo’s murder. On Sunday afternoon a fisherman, from his boat, saw that a car had fallen onto the rocks, right below the San Filippo bend. Do you know the area? It’s just before Capo Massaria.”
“Yes, I know the place.”
“Well, the fisherman rowed in the direction of the car, saw that there was a body in the driver’s seat, and raced off to report it.”
“Did they manage to establish the cause of the accident?”
“Yes. My cousin, as you know, from the moment Father died, lived in a state of almost constant derangement: too many tranquilizers, too many sedatives. Instead of taking the curve, he continued straight—he was going very fast at that moment—and crashed through the little guard wall. He never got over my father’s death. He had a real passion for him. He loved him.”
He uttered the two words, “passion” and “love,”
in a firm, precise tone, as if to eliminate, with crisp outlines, any possible blurring of their meaning. The voice over the loudspeaker called for passengers taking the Milan flight.
As soon as he was outside the airport parking lot, where he had left his car, Montalbano pressed the accelerator to the floor. He didn’t want to think about anything, only to concentrate on driving. After some sixty miles he stopped at the shore of an artificial lake, got out of the car, opened the trunk, took out the neck brace, threw it into the water, and waited for it to sink. Only then did he smile. He had wanted to act like a god; what Livia said was true. But that fourth-rate god, in his first and, he hoped, last experience, had guessed right.
~
To reach Vigata he had no choice but to pass in front of the Montelusa police headquarters. And it was at that exact moment that his car decided suddenly to die on him. He got out and was about to go ask for help at the station when a policeman who knew him and had witnessed his useless maneuvers approached him. The officer lifted up the hood, fiddled around a bit, then closed it.
“That should do it. But you ought to have it looked at.”
Montalbano got back in the car, turned on the ignition, then bent over to pick up some newspapers that had fallen to the floor. When he sat back up, Anna was leaning into the open window.
“Anna, how are you?”
The girl didn’t answer; she simply glared at him.
“Well?”
“And you’re supposed to be an honest man?”
Montalbano realized she was referring to the night when she saw Ingrid lying half naked on his bed.
“No, I’m not,” he said. “But not for the reasons you think.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I believe it essential to state that this story was not taken from the crime news and does not involve any real events. It is, in short, to be ascribed entirely to my imagination. But since in recent years reality has seemed bent on surpassing the imagination, if not entirely abolishing it, there may be a few unpleasant coincidences of name and situation. As we know, however, one cannot be held responsible for the whims of chance.
NOTES
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