Rounding the Mark

12

For an instant everything stopped; for an instant, even the confused background noise of the world vanished. Even a fly that was decidedly aiming for the inspector’s nose froze, suspended in air, wings spread. Getting no answer to her question, Ingrid looked up. Montalbano looked like a statue, wallet half-inserted in his jacket pocket, mouth hanging open, eyes staring at Ingrid.

“Why do you have all those pictures of Ninì?” she asked again, picking up the other photos on the desk.

A kind of furious southwester, meanwhile, was blasting through all the twists and turns of the inspector’s brain, and he couldn’t get hold of himself. What?! They’d searched everywhere, phoned Cosenza, combed the archives, questioned potential witnesses, explored Spigonella by land and sea in the hopes of giving that corpse a name, and along came Ingrid, cool as a cucumber, actually calling it by a nickname?

“D-d-d . . . y-y-y . . . ouuu . . . nnn—”

Montalbano was struggling to get out the question, “Do you know him?” but Ingrid misunderstood and interrupted him.

“D’Iunio, exactly,” she said. “I believe I already mentioned him to you once.”

True enough. She’d talked about him the evening they’d downed a bottle of whisky on the veranda. She said she’d had an affair with this D’Iunio, but they’d broken it off because . . . Because why?

“Why did you break up?”

“I broke off the affair. There was something about him that made me uneasy . . . I was always on my guard . . . I could never relax with him . . . Even though there wasn’t really any reason . . .”

“Did he make unusual . . . demands on you?”

“In bed?”

“Yes.”

Ingrid shrugged. “Well, no more unusual than any other man.”

Why did he feel an absurd twinge of jealousy upon hearing these words?

“So, what was it, then?”

“Just a feeling, Salvo. I can’t really explain it . . .”

“What did he say he did for a living?”

“He’d been captain of an oil tanker . . . Then he came into some kind of inheritance . . . In reality, he didn’t do anything.”

“How did you meet him?”

Ingrid laughed.

“By chance. At a filling station. There was a long queue, and we started talking.”

“Where did you normally get together?”

“In a place called Spigonella. Do you know where it is?”

“Yeah, I know it.”

“Excuse me, Salvo, but are you interrogating me?”

“I’d say so.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain later.”

“Would you mind if we continued somewhere else?”

“Why, don’t you like it here?”

“No. In here, the way you’re asking me those questions . . . you seem like a different person.”

“A different person?”

“Yes, a different person, someone I don’t know. Could we go to your place?”

“If you like. But no whisky. At least not before we’ve finished.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Inspector.”

They drove to Marinella in separate cars, and naturally Ingrid got there long before he did.

Montalbano went and opened the French doors giving onto the veranda.

It was a very soft night, perhaps a little too soft. The air smelled of brine and mist. The inspector took a deep breath, his lungs enjoying the sweetness.

“Shall we go sit on the veranda?” Ingrid suggested.

“No, it’s better inside.”

They sat down across from each other at the dining room table. Ingrid stared at him, looking perplexed. The inspector set the envelope with D’Iunio’s photos, which he’d brought from the station, down on the table beside him.

“Want to tell me why you’re so interested in Ninì?”

“No.”

Ingrid felt hurt, and Montalbano noticed.

“If I told you, it would very probably influence your answers. You said you called him Ninì. Is that a diminutive for Antonio?”

“No. Ernesto.”

Was it a coincidence? Oftentimes people who change identities keep the initials of their first and last names. Did the fact that both D’Iunio and Errera were called Ernesto mean they were the same person? Better go at it slowly, one step at a time.

“Was he Sicilian?”

“He never told me where he was from. Except he once said he’d been married to a girl from Catanzaro who died two years after they were married.”

“Catanzaro, he said?”

Ingrid seemed to hesitate, sticking the tip of her tongue between her lips.

“Or was it Cosenza?” Adorable wrinkles appeared on her forehead. “My mistake. I’m sure he said Cosenza.”

That made two! The late Mr. Ernesto D’Iunio kept picking up points of resemblance to the equally late Mr. Ernesto Errera. Without warning, Montalbano got up and kissed Ingrid on the corner of her mouth. She gave him a quizzical look.

“Do you always do that when the person you’re questioning gives you the answer you want to hear?”

“Yes, especially when it’s a man. Tell me something. Did your Ninì walk with a limp?”

“Not always. Only in bad weather. But you could hardly tell.”

Dr. Pasquano had been right. Except that there was no way to know whether Errera also limped or not.

“How long did your affair last?”

“Not very long, a month and a half, maybe a little longer. But . . .”

“But?”

“It was very intense.”

Another twinge of groundless jealousy.

“And when did it end?”

“About two months ago.”

Shortly before somebody killed him, therefore.

“Tell me exactly what you did when you broke it off with him.”

“I called him on his cell phone in the morning to tell him I was coming to see him that same evening in Spigonella.”

“Did you always meet in the evening?”

“Yes, late in the evening.”

“So you never, say, went out to eat?”

“No, we never met anywhere but in Spigonella. It was as though he didn’t want to be seen, either with me or without me. That was another thing that bothered me.”

“Go on.”

“Anyway, I called him to say I’d be at his place that evening. But he said there was no way he could see me. Somebody had come unexpectedly, and he needed to talk to this person. The same thing had already happened twice before. So we arranged to meet the following night. Except that I never went. By my own choice.”

“Ingrid, honestly, I don’t understand why, all of a sudden, you—”

“I’ll try to explain, Salvo. Whenever I arrived there in my car, the front gate would be open and I would drive up the driveway to the villa. Then there was a second gate, which would also be open. While I pulled into the garage, Ninì, in the dark, would go and close the gates. Then we would go up the stairs—”

“What stairs?”

“The villa has two storeys, right? Ninì was renting the upstairs, which you could enter by an external stairway on the side of the house.”

“Let me get this straight. He wasn’t renting the whole villa?”

“No, just the upstairs.”

“And the two floors were not connected?”

“Yes, they were. Or at least that’s what Ninì said. There was a door that led to an internal staircase, but the door was locked and the landlord had the key.”

“So you got to know only the upper floor?”

“Right. As I was saying, we would go up the stairs and straight into the bedroom. Ninì was a maniac. Before we could ever turn on a light in a room, he had to make sure it couldn’t be seen from outside. Not only were all the shutters closed, but there were heavy curtains over all the windows.”

“Go on.”

“We would get undressed and start making love.”

This time it wasn’t a twinge, but an out-and-out stab wound.

“Who knows why I started having second thoughts about our affair after I couldn’t see him that time? The first thing I noticed was that I had never felt like sleeping with Ninì—I mean, spending the night there with him. After making love, I would just lie there, smoking the customary cigarette, staring at the ceiling. Him too. We never talked. We had nothing to say to each other. And those bars over the windows—”

“Bars?”

“Over all the windows. Even on the ground floor. I used to see them even when I couldn’t see them, when the curtains were drawn . . . They made me feel like I was in some kind of prison . . . Sometimes he would get up and go talk over the radio . . .”

“Over the radio? What kind of radio?”

“A ham radio. It was his hobby, he told me. He said that when he used to sail the seas the radio always kept him company, and ever since . . . He had a huge setup in the living room.”

“Did you ever hear what he said?”

“Yes, but I didn’t understand . . . He often spoke in Arabic or some similar language. After a while I would get dressed and leave. Anyway, that day I started asking myself some questions, and I decided our affair was meaningless, or that, in any case, it had gone on too long. And so I didn’t go see him.”

“Did he have your cell phone number?”

“Yes.”

“And he used to call you?”

“Of course. He would call when he wanted to tell me I should come a little later than planned, or a little earlier.”

“Weren’t you surprised that he didn’t come looking for you when you never showed up for your appointment?”

“To be honest, yes. But when he didn’t call, I decided it was better that way.”

“Listen, I want you to try hard to remember. When you were with him there, did you ever hear any noises in the rest of the house?”

“What do you mean, in the rest of the house? Do you mean the other rooms?”

“No, I meant on the ground floor.”

“What kind of noises?”

“I dunno, voices, sounds . . . a car pulling up . . .”

“No. The downstairs was empty.”

“Did he get a lot of phone calls?”

“When we were together, he would turn off his cell phones.”

“How many did he have?”

“Two. One was a satellite phone. Whenever he turned them on, someone would call almost immediately.”

“Did he always speak in Arabic or whatever that language was?

“No, sometimes he’d speak Italian. And in that case he would go into another room. But it’s not like I really cared to know what he was saying.”

“How did he explain them?”

“Explain what?”

“All those phone calls.”

“Why should he explain them?”

True enough, again.

“Do you know if he had any friends in this area?”

“I certainly never saw any. I don’t think so. It suited him just fine, not having any friends.”

“Why’s that?”

“One of the few times he told me about himself, he said that on his last voyage, his oil tanker had caused a huge environmental disaster. There was a lawsuit still pending, and the shipping company had advised him to disappear for a while. Which explained everything: the secluded villa, why he always stayed home, and so on.”

Even assuming everything he told Ingrid was true, thought the inspector, it still didn’t explain why D’Iunio-Errera had died the way he did. Was one to think that his shipping firm, to keep him quiet, had ordered him killed? Come on. There certainly were dark motives behind the murder and, according to Ingrid’s description of him, he wasn’t a man with nothing to hide. But these dark motives lay elsewhere.

“I think I’ve earned a little whisky, Mr. Inspector,” Ingrid said at this point.

Montalbano got up and opened the liquor cabinet. Luckily Adelina had remembered to restock. There was a brand-new bottle. He went in the kitchen to get two glasses, returned, sat down, and filled the glasses halfway. They both wanted it neat. Ingrid took her glass, raised it, and eyed the inspector.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Murdered, right? If not, you wouldn’t be handling the case.”

Montalbano nodded yes.

“When did it happen?”

“I believe he never called you after you failed to show up because he was no longer in any condition to do so.”

“He was already dead?”

“I don’t know if they killed him immediately or kept him prisoner a long time.”

“Killed him . . . how?”

“Drowned him.”

“How did you find him?”

“He found me, actually.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Remember when you saw me naked on TV?”

“Yes.”

“The dead body I bumped into on my swim was his.”

Only then did Ingrid bring the glass to her lips, and she didn’t lower it until there wasn’t a drop of whisky left in it. Then she got up, went to the veranda, and stepped outside. Montalbano took his first sip and lit a cigarette. Ingrid came back inside and went into the bathroom. She returned after washing her face, sat back down, and refilled her glass.

“Have any more questions?”

“A few more. Is there anything of yours at the villa in Spigonella?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you leave anything of yours there?”

“Like what?”

“How should I know? A change of clothes . . .”

“Panties?”

“Uh . . .”

“No, there’s nothing of mine there. As I said, I never felt like spending the whole night there with him. Why do you ask?”

“Because, sooner or later, we’ll have to search the villa.”

“Don’t worry about that. Any other questions? I’m feeling a little tired.”

Montalbano pulled the photos out of his pocket and handed them to Ingrid.

“Which one looks most like him?”

“But aren’t these pictures of him?”

“They’re computer composites. His face was very badly deteriorated, unrecognizable.”

Ingrid studied them, then chose the one with the mustache.

“This one,” she said. “But . . .”

“But?”

“Two things are wrong. His mustache was a lot longer and had a different shape, kind of a handlebar mustache . . .”

“And the other thing?”

“The nose. The nostrils were wider.”

Montalbano took the dossier out of the envelope.

“As in this shot?”

“That’s him, all right,” said Ingrid. “Even without the mustache.”

There was no longer any doubt: D’Iunio and Errera were the same person. Catarella’s wacky theory had proved true.

Montalbano stood up and held his hand out to Ingrid, making her get up. When she was fully erect, he embraced her.

“Thanks,” he said.

Ingrid looked at him.

“Is that all?” she said.

“Let’s take the bottle and glasses out on the veranda,” said the inspector. “Now the fun begins.”

They settled onto the bench very close to each other. The night now smelled of brine, mint, whisky, and apricot, which was exactly what Ingrid’s skin smelled like. It was a blend not even a prize parfumeur could have invented.

They didn’t speak. They were happy just the way they were. Her third glass Ingrid left half full.

“Do you mind if I lie down on your bed?” she murmured suddenly.

“Don’t you want to go home?”

“I don’t feel up to driving.”

“I’ll take you home in my car. You can come pick it up—”

“I don’t want to go home. But if you really don’t want me to stay here, I’ll just lie down for a few minutes. Then I’ll go. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Ingrid stood up, kissed him on the forehead, and went inside. I don’t want to go home, she’d said. What did Ingrid’s and her husband’s house represent for her? Perhaps a bed even more alien than the one she was presently lying in? And if she’d had a child, would her home have seemed different to her, warmer, more welcoming? Poor woman! How much loneliness and melancholy might she be hiding under her apparently superficial joie de vivre? He felt a new emotion towards Ingrid well up inside him, a kind of heartbreaking tenderness. He swallowed a few more sips of whisky and, as a cool wind had started to blow, went inside with the bottle and glasses. He glanced over at the bedroom. Ingrid was sleeping with her clothes on, having removed only her shoes. He sat back down at the table. He wanted to let her sleep another ten minutes or so.

Meanwhile let’s do a brief review of the previous episodes, he said to himself.

Ernesto Errera is an habitual offender, born, perhaps, in Cosenza, and in any case operating around there. He has a fine curriculum vitae that ranges from breaking and entering to armed robbery. A wanted man, he becomes a fugitive from justice. Up to this point, no different from hundreds and hundreds of other crooks just like him. Then at some point Errera resurfaces in Brindisi.

He seems to have established excellent relations with the Albanian mafia and is now involved in illegal immigration. But how? In what capacity? We don’t know.

On the morning of March 11 of last year, a shepherd from the Cosenza area finds a man’s mangled body on the railroad tracks. In an unfortunate accident, the poor bastard slipped and wasn’t able to get out of the way of the coming train. He is so badly mutilated that the only way to identify him is from the documents in his wallet and a wedding ring. His wife has him buried in the Cosenza cemetery. A few months later, Errera turns up again in Spigonella, Sicily. Except now his name is Ernesto D’Iunio, a widower and former captain of an oil tanker. He leads an apparently solitary life, though he has frequent telephone contact and often talks over a two-way radio. One unfortunate day somebody drowns him and lets him rot. Then they put him out to sea. While sailing the seas, the corpse ends up crossing paths with none other than himself.

First question: what the hell was Mr. Errera doing in Spigonella after having himself officially declared dead? Second question: who had made sure that he was not only officially but concretely dead, and why?

It was time to wake Ingrid up. He went into the bedroom. She had undressed and got under the covers. She was sleeping soundly. Montalbano didn’t have the heart to wake her. He went in the bathroom and then slipped ever so gently between the sheets. The apricot scent of Ingrid’s skin immediately assailed his nostrils; it was so strong he began to feel slightly dizzy. He closed his eyes. Ingrid moved in her sleep and stretched out one leg, placing her calf against Montalbano’s. A few minutes later, she got more comfortable. Now her whole leg was resting against him, imprisoning him. Some words came back to him, words he had memorized for a play as a teenager: There are . . . certain good apricots . . . that break down the middle . . . press them lengthwise with your fingers . . . and they open like two succulent lips . . .

Bathed in sweat, the inspector counted to ten and, with a series of almost imperceptible movements, managed to free himself, got out of bed, and, cursing the saints, went to lie down on the couch.

Jesus Christ! Not even Saint Anthony would have made it through that one!