...
'You bring the car inside,' said Montalbano, getting out and starting to raise the metal grating of the police garage. Once she'd pulled in, he turned on the lights and lowered the grate.
'What do you want me to do?' Ingrid asked.
'See that wrecked Fiat 500 over there? I want to know if its brakes have been tampered with.'
'I don't know if I'll be able to tell.'
'Try.'
'There goes my blouse.'
'No, wait. I brought something.'
He reached into the backseat of his car and pulled out a shirt and pair of jeans that belonged to him.
'Here. Put these on.'
While Ingrid was changing, he went to look for a portable mechanics lamp, found one on the counter, and plugged it in. Without saying a word, Ingrid took the lamp, a monkey wrench, and a screwdriver and slid under the little Fiats twisted chassis. It took her only about ten minutes. She came out from under the car covered with dust and grease.
'I was lucky.The brake cable was partly cut, I'm sure of it.'
'What do you mean partly?'
'I mean, it wasn't cut all the way through. They left just enough so the car wouldn't crash right away. But with the first hard pull, the cable would certainly have snapped.'
'Are you positive it didn't break all by itself ? It was a very old car.'
'The cut is too clean. There's no shredding. Or very little.'
'Now listen closely,' said Montalbano. 'The man who was at the wheel drove from Vig to Montelusa, stopped there a little while, then headed back to Vig. The accident occurred on the steep descent right before you come into town, the Catena hillside. He slammed straight into a truck, and that was that. Clear so far?'
'Yes.'
'What I want to know is this: in your opinion, was this slick little job done in Vig or in Montelusa?'
'In Montelusa,' said Ingrid. 'If they'd done it in Vig, he would definitely have crashed much sooner. Anything else?'
'No. Thanks.'
Ingrid didn't change her clothes, and didn't even wash her hands.
'I'll do it at your house.'
Ingrid got out in the bars parking lot, took her car, and followed the inspector. It was a warm evening, not yet midnight.
'You want to take a shower?' he asked her when they got to his place.
'No, I'd rather go for a swim. I'll shower later, if I feel like it.'
She took off the grease-stained clothes of Montalbanos that she was wearing and slipped out of her panties. The inspector meanwhile had to make some effort to reassume his much-suffered guise as spiritual adviser.
'Come on. Take your clothes off and join me,' she said.
'No. I like watching you from the veranda.'
The full moon was actually too bright. Montalbano remained in his deck chair, enjoying the sight of Ingrids silhouette as she reached the waters edge and began a dance of little hops in the water, arms extended. He saw her dive in, following awhile the small black dot that was her head, and then, suddenly, he fell asleep.
...
When he awoke, day was already dawning. He got up, slightly chilled, made coffee and drank three cups in a row. Before leaving, Ingrid had cleaned the house: there was no trace of her having been there. Ingrid was worth her weight in gold: she'd done everything he'd asked of her and hadn't even wanted an explanation. As far as curiosity was concerned, she was certainly not female. But only as far as curiosity was concerned.
Feeling a pang of hunger, he opened the refrigerator. The eggplant Parmesan he hadn't eaten at lunchtime was gone, dispatched by Ingrid. He had to content himself with a piece of bread and some processed cheese. Better than nothing. He took a shower and put on the clothes he had lent to Ingrid. They still bore a trace of her scent.
As was his habit, he arrived at headquarters about ten minutes late. His men were all ready with one squad car and the Jeep on loan from Vintis, which was loaded up with shovels, mattocks, pickaxes, and spades. They looked like laborers on their way to earn a days pay working the land.
The Crasto mountain, which for its part would never have dreamed of calling itself a mountain, was a rather bald little hill that rose up west of Vig barely five hundred yards from the sea. It had been carefully pierced by a tunnel, now boarded up, that was supposed to have been an integral part of a road that started nowhere and led nowhere, a very useful bypass route for diverting funds into bottomless pockets. It was, in fact, called the bypass. Legend had it that deep in the mountains bowels was a crasto, a ram, made of solid gold. The tunnel- diggers never found it, but those who won the bid for the government contract certainly did. Attached to the mountain, on the landward side, was a kind of stronghold of rock called the Crasticeddru, the little Crasto. The earthmovers and trucks had never reached this area, and it preserved an untamed beauty.
Having come down some impassable roads to avoid attracting attention, the two cars headed straight for the Crasticeddru. In the absence of any further path or trail, it was very hard to go on, but the inspector insisted that the cars pull right up to the foot of the rocky spur.
