The Other End of the Line Read online

  “Yessir, Chief!”

  The inspector went into Mimì’s office to see if his second-in-command had shown up yet. But the room was empty. Returning to his own office, he sat down at the desk, noticing that the papers to be signed had grown into two small stacks.

  For once, however, he did not look at them with hatred. Maybe sitting there for two hours signing papers would help lighten the weight of the night before.

  Five minutes later, however, there was a knock at the door.

  “Come in!”

  It was Fazio, eyelids drooping. Indeed, as soon as he sat down in the chair opposite the desk, he was unable to stifle a yawn.

  “Chief,” he said, “maybe we need to assign shifts for these landings at the port. ’Cause if something happens when we’re all at the port, the only person here in the station will be Catarella.”

  “All right,” said the inspector. “As soon as Augello gets here we can set up these shifts.”

  4

  Mimì Augello didn’t show up at the station until after eleven. If Fazio was dead tired, Mimì looked like he was sleepwalking.

  He was literally in a state of catalepsy.

  Montalbano asked him if he was of sound mind and body.

  Augello didn’t answer him in words, but merely waved his left hand as if to say so-so.

  “Fazio suggested we work in shifts at the port. Are you all right with that?”

  Augello nodded yes.

  “Well, then,” the inspector went on, “if there are any arrivals tonight, Fazio’ll be there. The following day it’ll be me, and on the third night you’ll take over.”

  Augello repeated the same gesture he’d made a moment before. Then he raised a finger and said:

  “But isn’t there any hope of a night going by without any landings?”

  “Of course there’s always hope! Why don’t you go to Syria yourself and talk to the caliphate?” Then he asked: “Have you got any news of new arrivals?”

  “Not yet,” Fazio answered. “We always get the bad news in the afternoon.”

  “If we’ve got nothing else to discuss,” said Mimì, “I’m gonna go into my office.”

  “The meeting is adjourned,” said Montalbano. “Barring any unexpected developments, we’ll meet back up here at four.”

  Strangely enough, he felt like signing more papers. He had the impression that diving into the great sea of bureaucracy might have a therapeutic effect on him. But the illusion didn’t last very long, because once again he was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.

  “Ahh, Chief! ’Ere’s ’at Dacter Cosma onna line.”

  “Put him through.”

  “Good morning, Inspector. I wanted to let you know that unfortunately I won’t be available if needed tonight.”

  Montalbano felt his heart sink.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have a high fever. I already had a little yesterday evening, but apparently the cold last night . . .”

  “But what am I going to do?” the inspector blurted out.

  “I’ve already made provisions,” the doctor reassured him. “I talked to a friend of mine. Her name is Meriam. She’ll be an excellent replacement for me, you’ll see. I’ve already told her how she should proceed with the migrants.”

  The sound of that name was not unfamiliar to Montalbano.

  “I’m sorry, but does this Meriam by any chance work at a tailor’s shop?”

  “Yes, she does. That’s the one.”

  “I’ve met her. Do you think she can manage?”

  “I assure you she can. She speaks four languages perfectly.”

  “Could you give me her cell phone number?”

  After he’d written this down, the inspector ended the conversation and summoned Fazio. When he told him the news, Fazio twisted up his face.

  “That’s not okay with you?”

  “No, no, Chief, it’s perfectly fine with me. But will it be okay with the migrants? Let’s not forget, Chief, she’s a woman . . .”

  “I trust Dr. Osman. But if you still have doubts, here’s a suggestion. Let’s switch shifts: I’ll go tonight in your place.”

  Fazio bristled.

  “Chief, I was just mentioning a potential complication. But if you trust Dr. Osman, then you should trust me, too.”

  * * *

  The trattoria was deserted, but all the tables had been arranged in a sort of horseshoe pattern.

  One table, however, had been set a bit apart from the rest.

  “What’s going on? Some kind of banquet?” the inspector asked, alarmed.

  “No, Inspector. It’s a party for the ninetieth birthday of cavaliere Sciaino,” said Enzo.

  “So why didn’t you set a table for me in the little room in back?”

  “My apologies, Inspector. I’m having the walls repainted.”

  Montalbano had no choice but to make the best of a bad situation. He sat down.

  He was secretly hoping to finish eating before the merrymakers arrived.

  “What’ve you got for me?”

  “Spaghetti with clam sauce?”

  “Hell, yes! Bring me some, and quick.”

  Enzo vanished into the kitchen, and at that moment a few people who looked like they were coming to a wake started filing in through the door. Folks in their fifties and sixties of both sexes, all wearing sorrowful faces fit for the Day of the Dead.

  They took their seats while other people, equally gloomy and sad looking, came in behind them.

  Outside they heard a powerful, cheerful voice say:

  “Here I am, kids!”

  And in came an elegant, smiling, ruddy-faced old man with two young men, perhaps grandsons, holding his arms, though it looked more like it was the cavaliere, with his firm, swift gait, supporting the other two.

  At last, with the ninety-year-old gentleman in his place, the table began to come to life.

  During the entire meal, Montalbano heard nothing but the old man’s voice telling joke after joke, each one dirtier than the last, all the while eating and drinking without cease and toasting to the health of his table companions.

  The inspector left the trattoria with the firm conviction that the ninety-year-old would bury them all before going himself into that good night.

  He went out onto the jetty for his customary walk and noticed that the two ships of the night before were no longer in the port. They’d surely gone back out to look for more migrants on the open sea.

  * * *

  As Fazio had predicted, the bad news came in around four-thirty, with Sileci as its messenger.

  In Montalbano’s office were also Augello and Fazio.

  As soon as Catarella mentioned the caller’s name, Montalbano turned on the speakerphone.

  “Montalbano, I need to inform you that, as usual, around midnight tonight, a motor patrol boat will be coming into port. Luckily there are only thirty-five migrants aboard, all of whom were rescued from a barge that was sinking. So it shouldn’t be too taxing tonight.”

  “Good. I won’t be there. Fazio’ll be taking my place.”

  “I’ll be waiting for him at the dock at eleven-thirty. I think five of your men should be enough tonight.”

  “All right,” said the inspector, looking Fazio in the eye to get his approval, which his assistant gave with a nod.

  Montalbano said good-bye to Sileci.

  * * *

  Before leaving for home, he went into Fazio’s office.

  “It might be a good idea to get in touch with the girl who’s replacing Osman.”

  “Already taken care of” was his reply.

  Montalbano stifled the fit of pique that came over him every time he heard Fazio say those words, and simply asked:

  “What was your impression?”

&n
bsp; “She seemed like a determined young woman. With a clear head.”

  “So much the better,” said the inspector, waving good-bye and going out.

  * * *

  Since he got home early, he felt like going for a walk, but the libeccio had littered the whole beach with plastic bottles, shopping bags, and even, go figure, an old, broken-down washing machine. The shoreline had become a literal dump.

  At least there weren’t any corpses this time, the inspector thought, remembering the dead boy he’d found the day before.

  He spent a quiet evening, and even managed to read a few beautiful pages of a novel whose protagonist was a Roman assistant commissioner of police sent among the snows of Aosta. The mere thought of being in the same place as that fictional colleague of his sent cold chills down his spine.

  Before going to bed he called up Livia. When he told her about the migrants’ landing of the night before, Livia got angry at him for not having told her anything earlier. Then they made up and wished each other good night, according to the usual ritual. At least this time it would, for once, be a good night.

  But here, too, he was wrong.

  At one point he woke up with a start, positive that he’d heard the telephone ringing.

  He pricked up his ears.

  Nothing.

  Dead silence. He turned on the lamp on the bedside table and looked at the clock. One o’clock on the dot. Turning the light off, he got back in his sleeping position, and the telephone rang.

  He raced through the darkness. Surely if they were calling him at that hour something must have happened during the disembarkation.

  It was Fazio.

  “Sorry, Chief, but Sileci wants you here.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “It’s a little complicated to explain right now, Chief, but we can’t take any action till you get here.”

  He went into the bathroom, put his head under the tap, got dressed haphazardly, and dashed out of the house.

  * * *

  The full, Leopardian moon that accompanied him all the way to the dock reinvigorated him. When he got there the situation didn’t seem so dramatic.

  Fazio and Sileci were waiting for him on the steps of the bus, inside which the migrants were now all seated while the five cops from his station were chatting. Sileci’s men were already in the flatbed. Everyone was ready to leave. No trace of Meriam, however.

  “What’s going on?” Montalbano asked Fazio and Sileci when they came up to greet him.

  “The disembarkation all went quite smoothly,” said Fazio, who then turned to Sileci as if to let him have the floor.

  “The trouble began,” Sileci said with irritation, “when I gave the order for everyone to leave. A young girl came running off the bus screaming and crying, though her parents tried to hold her back. So at that point that woman intervened . . . what’s her name?”

  “Meriam,” said Fazio.

  “So, this Meriam started talking to the girl. It took a while to calm her down. The two stepped off to the side to talk, and then Meriam came over to me and explained that something terrible had happened during the crossing, and that the girl didn’t want to get back on the bus.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Meriam didn’t want to tell us,” said Sileci. “But what do you expect happened, Salvo?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me,” said the inspector, who was beginning to get a little irritated himself.

  “Somebody probably grabbed her ass,” said Sileci, “and we’re wasting a great deal of time on chickenshit.”

  “But where are Meriam and the girl?” Montalbano asked Fazio.

  “They’re in my car, Chief.”

  Montalbano wasted no time, went over to Fazio’s car, opened the front door, and sat down in the driver’s seat.

  In the semidarkness of the backseat, he recognized Meriam’s smile. The girl, who looked barely fourteen years old and seemed to have fallen asleep, was lying across Meriam’s legs as the woman lightly stroked her hair.

  Meriam gestured to him to speak softly.

  Montalbano questioned her with his eyes, without opening his mouth.

  Then Meriam began to speak in a whisper.

  “This child, whose name is Leena, told me she was raped by two men during the crossing. She didn’t dare say anything, otherwise they would have thrown her and her family overboard.”

  “So I gather, from what you say,” said Montalbano, “that the rapists are on the bus.”

  “That’s right, and that’s why Leena didn’t want to get on. She’s afraid it could happen again. I’ve even spoken with her parents, who had no idea of anything and didn’t know what had happened. I reassured them and told them that Leena is exhausted from the journey and will stay with me for a little while. They were reluctant, but in the end they consented.”

  Montalbano made a snap decision.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, and he got out of the car, ever so softly closing the car door without shutting it completely.

  A few steps away stood Fazio, waiting for him.

  “So?” he asked.

  Without answering, Montalbano kept on walking towards Sileci.

  “The girl confessed to Meriam that she was raped twice on the barge during the journey. And you call that chickenshit! There’s only one solution: have all the migrants come off the bus.”

  “What?!” said Sileci, getting more and more upset.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll handle it myself. There’s no need to bother your men about it. Just give me a few minutes.”

  “Okay,” said Sileci.

  Montalbano turned to Fazio.

  “Tell our guys to have them all get out of the bus and form a line. For starters, we’ll separate the men from the women.”

  Ten minutes later, the thirty-four migrants were all lined up in single file in front of the inspector, who said to Fazio:

  “Look at them one by one, and then have all the women get back on the bus.”

  That left only eleven men still outside. Six were old and decrepit, and Montalbano sent them back up on the bus.

  Then he turned to Sileci.

  “You can let them leave now. These five men and the girl will come to the station with us. I’ll have a statement of detention drawn up and ready for you in the morning.”

  Sileci could hardly believe his ears. He shook the inspector’s hand and was off in a flash.

  On Fazio’s orders, the cops from Montalbano’s unit had the migrants get into the two squad cars, two in each. Accompanied by another of his men, Montalbano took with him a boy of about sixteen who didn’t seem to know whether he was scared to death or just dead tired.

  Fazio went back to his car and drove off with Meriam and Leena.

  * * *

  After Montalbano had been driving for a few minutes, Fazio rang him on his cell phone.

  “Chief, Meriam says that at the moment the girl is in no condition to answer questions. She says it’s better if she takes her home with her first, gives her something warm to eat, and lets her wash up and change clothes, especially since she’s got a niece staying with her who’s almost the same age. And then they’ll come to the station.”

  “Maybe she’s right,” said Montalbano. “But how much time do they need?”

  After a brief pause, Fazio answered:

  “About an hour, max.”

  “Okay,” said the inspector. “Then tell the two other cars that they should put the migrants in a holding cell. Our men can go home then, except for two, who must remain on duty.”

  When he was outside the station, he pulled up, let the officer and the sixteen-year-old boy out, then continued on to Marinella and home.

  Having been woken up in the early stages of sleep had dulled his senses. He felt like he needed a major freshening up
to clear his head.

  He went into the house like one of those silent-movie characters whose movements are all sped up. He undressed, got into the shower, came out, dried himself off, prepared a pot of coffee, drank down a mug, grabbed two reserve packs of cigarettes, put them in his jacket pocket, and went out of the house. Just as he was locking the door, his cell phone rang again.

  “What is it, Fazio?”

  “There’s a complication, Chief.”

  “Namely?”

  “When Meriam was washing the girl, she noticed some traces of blood. So she rang her gynecologist, who said that the girl should be brought immediately to her office, which is right in her house. I drove them there myself, and so now I’m here outside in the car, waiting for news. I’ll call you back as soon as I have any.”

  “All right,” said Montalbano.

  Reopening the front door, he went into the bedroom, took off his shoes, lay down in bed, and picked up the novel in which his unfortunate colleague was freezing amid the alpine snows.

  Getting engrossed in his reading, he lost all sense of time. The phone rang, but this time it was the land line.

  “I’m at Meriam’s place, Chief. So here’s what happened. The gynecologist examined the girl, gave her a pill that will prevent her from getting pregnant, and then wanted the kid to be taken to Montelusa Hospital, but Meriam managed to convince her to wait. The girl is now in bed, because she’s not supposed to move. What should we do?”

  “I’ll come to you. Give me the address.”

  “Via Alloro, 14. The name on the buzzer is Choukri.”

  * * *

  Good thing he knew where this street was located, otherwise he’d be wasting time driving around trying to find it.

  He parked, rang the buzzer, pushed the door open, and climbed two flights of stairs instead of taking the elevator. The door was open. Meriam was waiting for him.