'Manau tupapau,' said the inspector.
'No understand.'
He'd cited the title of a Gauguin painting. That eliminated Polynesia and environs from the housekeepers possible land of origin.
'You ready write? Signora Ingrid phone Signor Montalbano when she come home.'
...
When Ingrid got to Marinella, wearing an evening dress with a slit all the way up to her ass, it was already past two in the morning. She hadn't batted an eyelash at the inspectors request to see her right away.
'Sorry, but I didn't have time to change. I was at the most boring party.'
'What's wrong? You don't look right to me. Is it simply because you were bored at the party?'
'No, your intuitions right. It's my father-in-law. He's started pestering me again. The other morning he pounced on me when I was still in bed. He wanted me right away. I convinced him to leave by threatening to scream.'
'Then we'll have to take care of it.'
'How?'
'We'll give him another massive dose.'
At Ingrids questioning glance, he opened a desk drawer that had been locked, took out an envelope, and handed it to her. Ingrid, seeing the photos portraying her getting fucked by her father-in-law, first turned pale, then blushed.
'Did you take these?'
Montalbano weighed the pros and cons; if he told her it was a woman who took them, Ingrid might knife him then and there.
'Yeah, it was me.'
The Swedish womans mighty slap thundered in his skull, but he was expecting it.
'I'd already sent three to your father-in-law. He got scared and stopped bothering you for a while. Now I'll send him another three.'
Ingrid sprang forward, her body pressing against Montalbano's, her lips forcing his open, her tongue seeking and caressing his. Montalbano felt his legs giving out, and luckily Ingrid withdrew.
'Calm down,' she said, 'it's over. It was just to say thank you.'
On the backs of three photos personally chosen by Ingrid, Montalbano wrote:
'I'm going to keep the rest here,' said the inspector. 'When you need them, let me know.'
'I hope it won't be for a long time.'
'I'll send them tomorrow morning, and then I'll make an anonymous phone call that'll give him a heart attack. Now listen, because I have a long story to tell you. And when I'm done, I'm going to ask you to lend me a hand.'
...
He got up at the crack of dawn, having been unable to sleep even a wink after Ingrid had left. He looked in the mirror: his face was a wreck, maybe even worse than after he'd been shot. He went to the hospital for a checkup, and they pronounced him perfect. The five medicines they'd been giving him were reduced to just one. Then he went to the Montelusa Savings Bank, where he kept the little money he was able to put aside. He asked to meet privately with the manager.
'I need ten million lire.'
'Do you need a loan, or have you got enough in your account?'
'I've got it.'
'I don't understand, then. What's the problem?'
'The problem is that it's for a police operation I want to pay for myself, without risking the States money. If I go to the cashier now and ask for ten million in bills of one hundred thousand, it'll seem strange. That's why I need your help.'
'Understanding, and proud to take part in a police operation,' the manager bent over backwards for Montalbano.
...
Ingrid pulled her car up alongside the inspectors, right in front of the road sign indicating the superhighway for Palermo, just outside of Montelusa. Montalbano gave her a bulging envelope with the ten million lire inside, and she put it in her shoulder bag.
'Call me at home as soon as you're done. And be careful not to get your purse snatched.'
She smiled, waved him a kiss from her fingertips, and put her car in gear.
In Vig he got a new supply of cigarettes. On his way out of the tobacco shop, he noticed a big green poster with black lettering, freshly pasted up, inviting the town's people to attend a cross-country motorbike race the following Sunday, starting at three in the afternoon, in the place called the Crasticeddru flats.
He could never have hoped for such a coincidence. Perhaps the labyrinth had been moved to pity and was opening another path for him?
