“And what can you tell me about the knife?”
“A kitchen knife, very used. Between the blade and the handle we found a fish scale.”
“Didn’t you pursue that any further? Was it a mullet scale or a cod scale? Keep investigating, don’t leave me hanging!”
“What is wrong with you anyway?”
“Jacomu, try to use your brains a little. If we were in the Sahara desert and you came to me and said you’d found a fish scale on a knife that had been used to kill a tourist, then the thing might, I say might, mean something. But what the fuck could it possibly mean in a town like Vigata, where out of twenty thousand inhabitants, nineteenthousandninehun-dredandseventy eat fish all the time?” “And why don’t the other thirty?” asked Jacomuzzi, stunned and curious.
“Because they’re newborn babies.”
o o o
“Hello? Montalbano here. Could I please speak with Dr.
Pasquano?”
“Please hold.”
He had just enough time to start singing:
“Hello, Inspector? The doctor’s very sorry, but he’s performing an autopsy on the two men found goat-tied in Costabianca. But he said to tell you that as far as your murder victim is concerned, the man was bursting with health and would have lived to be a hundred if somebody hadn’t killed him first. A single stab wound, dealt with a firm hand. The incident occurred between seven and eight o’clock this morning. D’you need anything else?”
o o o
In the fridge he found some pasta with broccoli, which he put in the oven to warm up. As a second course, Adelina had made him some roulades of tuna. Figuring he’d had a light lunch, he felt obliged to eat everything. Then he turned on the television and tuned in to the Free Channel, a good local station where his red-haired, Red- sympathizing friend Nicolo Zito worked. Zito was commenting on the killing of the Tunisian aboard the
“Buffoon!” Montalbano shouted, then switched the channel to TeleVigata, the station where Galluzzo’s brother- in-law Prestia worked. Here, too, Jacomuzzi made an appearance, except that he was no longer on the fishing boat; now he was pretending to take fingerprints inside the elevator where Lapecora had been murdered. Montalbano cursed the saints, stood up, threw a book against the wall. That was why Galluzzo had been so reticent! He knew that the news had spread but didn’t have the courage to tell him. Without a doubt it was Jacomuzzi who’d notified the journalists, so he could show off as usual. He couldn’t live without it. The man’s exhibitionism reached heights comparable only to what one might find in a mediocre actor or some writer with print runs of a hundred and fifty copies.
Now Pippo Ragonese, the station’s political commenta-tor, appeared on the screen. He wanted to talk, he said, about the cowardly Tunisian attack on one of our motor trawlers that had been peacefully fishing in our own territorial waters, which was the same as saying on the sacred soil of our homeland. It wasn’t literally soil, of course, being the sea, but it was still our homeland. A less fainthearted government than the current one in the hands of the extreme left would certainly have reacted more severely to a provocation that—Montalbano turned off the television.
o o o
The agitation he felt at Jacomuzzi’s brilliant move showed no signs of passing. Sitting on the small veranda that gave onto the beach and staring at the sea in the moonlight, he smoked three cigarettes in a row. Maybe Livia’s voice would calm him down enough so he could go to bed and fall asleep.
“Hi, Livia. How are you?”
“So-so.”
“I’ve had a rough day.”
“Oh, really?”
What the hell was wrong with Livia? Then he remem bered their phone call that morning, which had ended on a sour note.
“I called to ask you to forgive me for my boorishness.
But that’s not the only reason. If you only knew how much I missed you . . .”
It occurred to him that he might be overdoing it.
“Do you miss me, really?”
“Yes, a lot, really.”
“Listen, Salvo, why don’t I catch a plane on Saturday morning? I’ll be in Vigata just before lunchtime.” He became terrified. Livia was the last thing he needed at the moment.
“No, no, darling, it’s such a bother for you . . .” When Livia got something in her head, she was worse than a Calabrian. She’d said Saturday morning, and Saturday morning it would be. Montalbano realized he’d have to call the commissioner the next day. Good-bye, pasta in squid ink!
o o o
Around eleven o’clock the next morning, since nothing was happening at headquarters, the inspector headed lazily off to Salita Granet. The first shop on that street was a bakery; it had been there for six years. The baker and
