'Tell them I've gone on a mission.'
'What, you've become a missionary?' quipped the policeman, lightning-quick, chuckling noisily to himself. Montalbano concluded that he'd been right, the previous evening, to unplug the telephone before going to bed.
13
'Dr. Pasquano? Montalbano here. Just wondering if there's any news.'
'Yes, there certainly is. My wife has a cold and my granddaughter lost a baby tooth.'
'Are you angry, Doctor?'
'I certainly am!'
'With whom?'
'You ask me if there's any news! Well, let me ask you how you can have the gall to ask me anything at nine oclock in the morning! What do you think, that I've just spent the night opening up those two corpses bellies like some kind of vulture? I happen to sleep at night! And, at the moment, I'm working on that guy who drowned around Torre Spaccata. Who didn't drown at all, since before being tossed into the sea he'd been stabbed three times in the chest.'
'Shall we make a bet, Doctor?'
'On what?'
'On whether or not you spent the night with those two corpses.'
'All right, all right. You win.'
'What did you find out?'
'Right now I can't tell you much; I still have to look at a few other things. One sure thing is that they were killed by gunshot wounds. He to the head, she to the heart. You couldn't see the womans wound because his hand was covering it. A textbook execution, while they were sleeping.'
'Inside the cave?'
'I don't think so. They were probably already dead when they were brought there, then were rearranged, still naked and all.'
'Have you managed to establish their ages?'
'I wouldn't want to be wrong, but I'd say they were young, very young.'
'And when did the crime take place, in your opinion?'
'I could venture a guess, which you can take with a pinch of salt. About fifty years ago, more or less.'
...
'I'm not here for anyone. No phone calls for the next fifteen minutes,' Montalbano told Catarella. Then he locked the door to his office, returned to his desk, and sat down. Mim Augello was also sitting there, but stiff as a poker, bolt upright.
'Who goes first?' asked Montalbano.
'I do,' said Augello, 'since it was I who asked to talk to you. Because I think it's time I said something.'
'Well, I'm here to listen.'
'Could you please tell me what I've done to you?'
'You? To me? Nothing at all. Why do you ask?'
'Because I feel like I've become a stranger in this place. You don't tell me what you're doing, you keep me at a distance, and I feel insulted. For example, was it right, in your opinion, to keep me in the dark about Tano the Greek? I'm not Jacomuzzi, who shouts these things from the rooftops. I can keep a secret. I didn't find out what happened at my own police station until I heard it at the press conference. Does that seem like the right way to treat someone who's your second-in-command until proved otherwise?'
'But do you realize how sensitive this matter was?'
'It's precisely because I realize it that I'm so pissed off. Because it must mean that for you, I'm not the right person for sensitive matters.'
'I've never thought that.'
'You've never thought it, but you've always done just that. Like with the weapons, which I found out about by accident.'
'Come on, Mim. I was overwhelmed by the pressure and anxiety. It didn't occur to me to inform you.'
'That's bullshit, Salvo. Thats not the real story.'
'Oh, yeah? What's the real story?'
'I'll tell you. You've created a police station in your own image and likeness. Fazio, German, Galluzzo, take anyone you want, they're all just limbs that obey one single head: yours. They never contradict you, never ask questions: they just follow orders.There are two foreign bodies here: Catarella and me. Catarella, because he's too stupid, and me'
'Because you're too intelligent.'
'See? That's not what I was going to say. You make me out to be arrogant, which I'm not, and you do it
