The Pyramid of Mud Page 10

  But then another thing occurred to him. And he stated it at once, for fear of forgetting it in turn.

  “If I remember correctly, you told me you wanted to get in touch with someone Piscopo had mentioned to you . . .”

  “Yes, the former site foreman, Filippo Asciolla. Piscopo told him he was fired by Albachiara over a difference with the superintendent and wanted to get revenge.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  Gambardella grimaced.

  “Unfortunately I lost a few hours before I called him, and that was enough for him to find out about Piscopo. By that point he realized that it was dangerous to have anything to do with me.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He immediately ended the conversation, saying he had nothing to tell me concerning his work with Albachiara and asked me not to bother him any further.”

  “So, end of story?”

  “Not exactly. Immediately afterwards I sent him a note in which I solemnly pledged that should he ever decide to tell me anything, I would never mention his name to anyone, and that any eventual meeting between us would remain absolutely secret.”

  “Did you get an answer?”

  “Yes. This.”

  He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it to the inspector. It was a photocopy.

  Signor Gambardella,

  I am warning you that if you do not stop incessantly calling me I will report you to the police for harassment.

  You are trying to persuade me, with the promise of a lot of money, to declare something that is not true, and that is that I was fired by Albachiara Construction because I was not in agreement with their use of second-rate materials in the construction of the school complex in Villaseta. This is false. The cause of my firing was a disagreement with Engineer Riggio, the works manager, for reasons that had nothing to do with the quality of the materials.

  I hope this has cleared everything up and I won’t be hearing from you again.

  Filippo Asciolla

  “It’s quite clear. I wonder who wrote it for him,” Montalbano commented.

  “I know he has a daughter, very pretty and a good girl, who’s in her last year of high school.”

  “Did you offer him money?”

  “Of course not.”

  “How many times did you call him?”

  “Just once, without even mentioning why I wanted to meet with him. It was he who told me he had nothing to say to me about his work with Albachiara.”

  “So this letter has a precise purpose. Asciolla wants it to be publicly known that he has no intention of working with you. It’s a very shrewd move.”

  “I realized that myself. And I gave Asciolla a helping hand.”

  “How?”

  “What you read just now is a photocopy. The original I put in my pocket this morning and went to the offices of Albachiara. As a journalist I wanted to know the reason for the work stoppage. But some sort of guard prevented me from entering because I didn’t have an appointment. I protested and hollered and, pulling out my handkerchief, I let the envelope with the original letter fall out. I am positive that by now the board of directors of Albachiara has had a look at it.”

  “So am I. And what do you intend to do now?”

  “I’m going to sit tight. I have to make it look like I’ve broken off all contact with Asciolla. It’s up to him to make the next move.”

  They spoke a bit longer, Montalbano asked him about his son, and then Gambardella said good-bye.

  He had just sat down at his desk when the telephone rang.

  “Chief, ’ere’d a happen a be a Signor Terrazzino onna premisses ’oo’d like t’ talk t’—”

  “Did he tell you what he wants?”

  “Wait a secon’ an’ I’ll ax ’im.”

  Moments later.

  “’E says as like ’e, Signor Terrazzino, ’d happen a be the owner o’ the ’ouse in Rizzutello where the dead man Nicotira, the one ’at was moidered, used to live.”

  And what could he want? At any rate, it was best to find out.

  “Show him in and get me Fazio.”

  Fazio and Terrazzino, who was a tiny but very well-dressed man of about sixty, came in at the same time. Fazio sat down, while Terrazzino, before settling into his chair, hiked up his trousers, holding them by the crease, and then, once seated, smoothed them out with his fingers and adjusted his jacket, tie, and glasses. Having watched him in silence all the while, Montalbano could finally open his mouth.

  “From what I understand, Signor Terrazzino, you—”

  “Actually, my name is Terrazzano, to be precise: Emilio Terrazzano.”

  “My apologies. So you’re the owner of the house that Nicotra lived in with his wife?”

  “Yes, sir. But, for the sake of precision, I must make it clear that I am a very precise man. I had originally rented the house eight years ago to the German girl, who at the time wasn’t married yet to Nicotra.”

  “Please explain.”

  “To be precise, Inge came to Vigàta when she was barely twenty years old, as the fiancée of a stonemason named Pennisi. A few months later, however, she left him because she’d become the mistress of Don Gaetano Pasanisi. To be even more precise, it was Don Gaetano who set her up in the house, but to avoid gossip, he wanted the contract to be in the girl’s name. Then, after Don Gaetano died six years ago, the girl found comfort at once from Nicotra, who married her.”

  “I see. And why, to be precise, did you come here?”

  “Er, may I ask a question first, just for the sake of precision?”

  “Please go ahead.”

  “Is it true that there has been no news of Ingrid and that her car was set on fire?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Then I am here to tell you that yesterday evening I got a phone call from a lawyer in Germany who said he was speaking on Inge’s behalf. The time was seven-thirty, to be precise.”

  Montalbano’s and Fazio’s eyes opened wide, and they exchanged a puzzled glance. They hadn’t expected this.

  “Are you sure he was calling from Germany?”

  “My dear Inspector, the number that appeared on the readout was not Italian, and while the man did speak Italian, he had a very strong German accent.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He was informing me of the cancellation of the rental contract and bringing to my attention that, as the current month had been paid in advance, I still retained in my possession the three months’ rent paid as a security deposit upon the signing of the contract. He said I should check the condition of the house and if I found no damage or repairs to deduct, would I please forward the money by means of a check made out to Inge, and send it to the lawyer’s address.”

  “And he left you his name and address?”

  “I’ve got them right here.”

  He handed the inspector a piece of paper, on which was written:

  Rudolf Sterling, Esq., attorney-at-law, Wochenerstrasse 142, Bonn

  Montalbano took down the information and gave it back to him.

  “What do you intend to do?” he asked.

  “I would like to know if I can go into the house and see precisely what state they left it in, and if I do find damage, assess the monetary value and subtract this from the security deposit.”

  “I don’t think there are any legal barriers, especially if we accompany you. The problem is that there are no more keys. We’ll have to—”

  “Well, to be precise, I myself have a copy,” said Terrazzano. “If they didn’t change the lock over all these years . . .”

  Montalbano made a split-second decision.

  “Are you free at the moment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s go there right now,” he said.

  Halfway up t
he country road, the abandoned worksite was an enormous blot against the greenery that over the past few days had burst forth with unstoppable force.

  And this fresh, sparkling, renewed life made the construction site look like an infected wound that would never heal.

  That was when the idea Montalbano’d had as he was speaking to Gambardella and had been unable to bring into focus came back to him, clear and sharply defined.

  “Remind me, when we get back to the station, that there’s something I need to ask you about the construction sites,” he said, touching Fazio, who was at the wheel, on the shoulder.

  They pulled up in front of Nicotra’s house and got out.

  Terrazzano, key already in hand, slipped it into the lock and turned. The door opened, and they went in.

  Fazio opened the windows. Luckily Forensics had left everything reasonably in order.

  “I need to look at everything very precisely,” Terrazzano announced.

  “I didn’t doubt it for a minute,” said Montalbano.

  It took Terrazzano two hours to check everything from the faucets and their related plumbing, to the toilet bowls and their drainpipes, to the ceilings and double ceilings, to the floor tiles and the state of the walls, and he did it with a fussiness that very nearly made Montalbano lose his cool.

  When they all met back up on the ground floor, Montalbano felt like asking him a question.

  “Just for the sake of precision, sir, did you know that the Nicotras had a permanent guest for several months?”

  “Yes. Inge told me one day when I ran into her by chance—in Via Garibaldi, to be precise.”

  “Did she say who it was?”

  “Yes, an uncle of hers. She’d lost both her parents when she was just a girl, and this uncle had been a sort of second father to her.”

  Montalbano didn’t know what to say.

  Nothing made sense anymore in this affair.

  “Well, I’ve done what I had to do. We can go now,” said Terrazzano.

  Fazio reclosed the windows, and they went out. Terrazzano locked the door.

  “All that’s left for me to do is return the whole deposit,” he said.

  “Aren’t you going to have a look at the garage?” Montalbano asked.

  “The garage isn’t mine. And, more precisely, I don’t have the key to it.”

  “What do you mean, it isn’t yours?”

  “About six months ago Inge called me to ask for permission to build a garage for their car on the land next to the house, and I said okay, as long as they took responsibility for everything.”

  “About six months ago, you say. Could you be more precise?”

  Terrazzano reflected for a moment, then said:

  “To be absolutely precise, I’d say six and a half months ago. I’m sure of it because on that day . . .”

  But Fazio and Montalbano were no longer listening to him. An exchange of glances was enough, and each knew what the other was thinking.

  The arrival of the supposed uncle was what made them need to build a garage.

  Montalbano looked over at the garage.

  The Forensics guys had raised the door and then pulled it back down to the ground, but they had left it unlocked.

  His legs began moving on their own, without waiting for his brain to give them the order.

  He bent down, grabbed the handle on the door, and raised it.

  All the same, there wasn’t much light.

  He took a step forward, felt around for the switch with his right hand, and pressed it, but no light came on.

  Maybe the bulb was burnt out.

  He took two steps inside.

  Terrazzano got into the car, since the matter, to be precise, didn’t concern him. Fazio, on the other hand, went into the garage and instinctively pushed the switch.

  Nothing.

  He tried again twice, and finally the light came on.

  There was hardly anything to see, other than a pair of tires in a corner. On a shelf were a hammer, three screwdrivers, a pair of pliers. On the floor, a dirty rag.

  The cement floor, divided into large squares, was stained with motor oil in the middle.

  Fazio looked questioningly at the inspector.

  Why was he standing there motionless, eyes half-closed, as though listening to a faraway song?

  Then, without moving, Montalbano said softly:

  “Close the garage door.”

  Fazio obeyed.

  “Turn off the light, but press the button only once.”

  Bewildered, Fazio did as he was told.

  The light did not go off.

  “Now try again, but pressing twice consecutively.”

  The light went off.

  “Now turn it on, but pressing only once.”

  It remained dark.

  “Try pressing twice.”

  The light returned.

  Montalbano then went over to the switch, which was one of those large industrial ones covered in thick but transparent plastic. He studied it long and hard, took one step back, and continued looking at it thoughtfully. Fazio held his tongue, not wanting to disturb him.

  Then Montalbano asked:

  “Do you have anything with a sharp point in the car, something to make a hole in the wall?”

  “No.”

  The inspector cursed.

  “However,” Fazio continued, “on that shelf there’s a hammer and three screwdrivers. We can try.”

  “Then bring me the flashlight you always keep in the car, but without letting Terrazzano see you. And tell him to hang on a little longer; we should be done in about fifteen minutes.”

  When Fazio returned, Montalbano asked him for the flashlight and told him to lower the garage door and turn off the light with the method they’d discovered.

  Then he turned on the flashlight.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Fazio.

  “As you can see, the electrical wires are trunked and chased into the wall. But when a wall is poorly plastered like this one, the outline of the trunking begins to emerge. Now, if we start at the switch and follow a straight line up, we should be able . . .”

  “There it is,” Fazio said suddenly.

  “Where?” asked Montalbano.

  “There’s a kind of strip about an inch wide that starts roughly six or seven inches before the wall meets the roof.”

  The inspector couldn’t see anything.

  Goddamn old age! But this was no time to get depressed.

  “Could I have the flashlight?” asked Fazio.

  Montalbano handed it to him. What, after all, was the point of him hanging on to it?

  “Up on the ceiling you can see the whole strip, up to the hole where the cable comes out.”

  “Excellent. Have you figured out why the strip becomes more visible as it gets closer to the roof?”

  “Yes, because there’s more humidity there.”

  “Right. Shall we make a bet?”

  “First you have to tell me what we’re betting on.”

  “That we’ll find a second strip of trunking, but this time at the opposite end, where the wall meets the floor.”

  “Nah, I’ll pass on that bet.”

  He pointed the beam downwards, and a moment later said:

  “There it is! I see the strip!”

  Montalbano bent down to look. The strip started to become visible about three inches above the floor and then disappeared.

  “Get the hammer and screwdriver and remove the plaster over the strip, but carefully, as gently as possible, otherwise you risk cutting the light cable.”

  Five minutes later, a piece of typically flexible sheath of the kind used to encase electrical wires appeared.

  “I wonder what this other installation is for,” said Fa
zio.

  “Can’t you imagine?”

  “No.”

  “It’s for the light in the basement.”

  Fazio looked stunned.

  “Are you telling me there’s a basement under here?”

  “To be precise, yes.”

  “Where’s the entrance?”

  “That is the question. Do something for me. Take Terrazzano back into town and then come straight back out here.”

  He went out with Fazio to say good-bye to Terrazzano, then watched Fazio race off like a rocket. He went back into the garage.

  Use your brains, Salvo. With one push, the switch turns on the light in the basement, with two, the light in the garage . . .

  And what if the same switch opened and closed the basement entrance as well?

  10

  This was a plausible hypothesis, yet to be verified.

  For there was one thing he was sure of, which was that the controls to the basement entrance could not be inside the house. It would not have escaped the careful examination of the Forensics team, nor Terrazzano’s precision inspection.

  Thus, before getting down to work, he wanted to check the garage walls inch by inch to see whether there wasn’t some sort of hidden button.

  He found nothing.

  He remembered how nice and convenient it was when, as a child, he believed in the existence of a magical formula that uncovered hidden doors and made them open.

  Open sesame . . .

  Just to leave no stone unturned, half joking and half pretending—and all the while feeling ridiculous and even a little ashamed—he uttered the magic words aloud.

  No hidden door miraculously opened.

  And so he went over to the switch, held his index finger on it, and began his search.

  Three clicks in a row: nothing.

  Four: still nothing.

  Five: still nothing.

  When he got to ten, he stopped.

  No, that wasn’t the answer. Anyway, say somebody was in a hurry to get down into the basement, he couldn’t waste ten minutes going click click click with the switch.

  He had to think about this.

  He went out of the garage and set fire to a cigarette.