A Beam of Light Page 8

  Fazio answered for Montalbano.

  “She sure was.”

  “Then we know each other.”

  “O matre santa!” Montalbano exclaimed. “You mean you—”

  “No, but a friend of mine tried, and I met her through him. Then this friend gave up on her because she’d long been with some guy she was hopelessly in love with.”

  “So she knows you’re with the police?”

  “No. I introduced myself as the lawyer Diego Croma.”

  Montalbano started laughing. It sounded to him like a character in a Harlequin romance.

  “So that was your nom de guerre?”

  “One of many.”

  “Tell me another. This is fun.”

  “Carlo Alberto de Magister. But that was when I was playing the gent with noble blood. But will the fact that we know each other compromise what you’ve got in mind?”

  “No. On the contrary.”

  The telephone rang.

  “Chief, ’ere’d be a male jinnelman an’ a female lady onna premisses sayin’ you summonsed ’em ’ere.”

  “Is it Mr. and Mrs. di Marta?”

  “I dunno if ’ere bote called Martha, Chief, but one of ’em’s a man an’ th’other’s a lady.”

  Montalbano got discouraged.

  “Never mind, Cat. Just—”

  “Bu’ if you like, Chief, I c’n ask e’m fer their peculiars.”

  “I said never mind. Tell you what: Count up to ten, then bring them in here to me.”

  “Shou’ I count ou’ loud, Chief?”

  “Count however you like, Cat.”

  He hung up.

  “I’m outta here,” said Mimì, opening the door and leaving.

  “Leave it open!” Montalbano shouted to him.

  A minute went by, and still no sign of anybody.

  “How long’s it take Catarella to count to ten anyway?” Fazio asked.

  Another half minute later, Montalbano picked up the phone.

  “Well, Cat?”

  “Ya gotta ’ave patience, Chief, ’cuz nobuddy’s lettin’ me finish countin’ a ten—one minnit iss the phone, next minnit iss summon cummin’ up to me, an’ so I gotta stop countin’ an’ start all over, an’ now ’at you called me too, I forgot ’ow far I got an’ I gotta start all over again again.”

  “Stop counting and just bring them in.”

  Moments later he saw, at the back of the corridor, Signor di Marta and his wife coming towards his office. He stood up and went out to greet them, introduced himself to the wife, and led them inside and sat them down in front of his desk.

  Fazio settled into the chair in front of the computer.

  Loredana di Marta, who wasn’t quite twenty-one but looked eighteen, was a genuine dark beauty. Tall with long legs and eyes that must have been luminous but were now a bit clouded with emotion, which also made her nervous and pale.

  Instinctively the inspector’s eyes fell on her plump lips. They were perfect in outline, with no trace of her assailant’s bite.

  “We came here without any questions, but I have to say I don’t understand the reason for . . .” di Marta immediately began.

  Montalbano’s raised hand silenced him.

  “Signor di Marta, just remember that if you are present here at this discussion, as you requested, it is only because I’ve granted you this courtesy. You therefore mustn’t intervene in any way, is that clear? You will best understand the reason for this meeting by listening in silence to the questions I ask your wife.”

  “All right,” di Marta muttered.

  “I’ll try to keep you here as briefly as possible,” Montalbano said to the girl. “So without any further ado, I’ll get straight to the questions. Please tell me at what point of the evening your husband gave you the money to deposit.”

  Husband and wife exchanged a quick glance. Clearly they hadn’t expected the inspector to begin with that question.

  “When I was on my way out to see my friend Valeria.”

  “And what time was that?”

  “Probably around eight-thirty.”

  “And you hadn’t had any other opportunity to visit your friend during the day?”

  “I’d already been to her place in the afternoon, from four-thirty to seven.”

  “And after dinner you felt the need to go back there?”

  “Yes. She wasn’t feeling well. I went home at seven, as I said, and made dinner for my husband. Then after we ate I told him I had to go out again, and that was when he gave me the money to deposit.”

  “Was it the first time?”

  “Was what the first time?”

  “That it was you depositing the money instead of him.”

  “No, I’d done it before.”

  “I see. But on the way to your friend’s house you forgot about it.”

  “Yes. I was thinking of other things. I was . . . I was so worried about Valeria.”

  “That’s understandable. So therefore there were only three people who knew that you had that money in your purse.”

  “Two people,” Loredana corrected him. “My husband and me.”

  “No,” said Montalbano. “Valeria Bonifacio told me that as soon as you, Signora di Marta, got to her place you remembered that you were supposed to have deposited that cash and that you even wanted to go back out to do it, but your friend talked you out of it, saying you could do it on your way home. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “So, as you see, I was right. There were three of you who knew about it. Do you rule out the possibility that anyone else could have known?”

  “Yes, I would rule that out completely.”

  “You didn’t stop anywhere on your way to your friend’s house?”

  “Why would I have stopped anywhere?”

  “It happens, signora. Maybe you’d run out of cigarettes and needed to buy more, something like that.”

  “But I don’t see how that could have anything—”

  “I’ll tell you why I asked. Because if you did stop to buy something, it’s possible that somebody noticed that you had a lot of money in your purse.”

  “I didn’t stop anywhere.”

  Montalbano paused and decided that it was time for amateur hour—time, that is, for a little theater.

  He screwed up his lips in a grimace, whistled, stared for a long time in silence at a ballpoint pen, and finally started wailing softly:

  “Ahh! Ahh!”

  Di Marta looked at him in dismay but didn’t say a word. Loredana, however, spoke:

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  “It means it doesn’t look good.”

  “For whom?” the girl asked angrily.

  “What a question, signora! Can’t you figure it out for yourself?”

  “No, I can’t!”

  “For your friend, Valeria, signora! It’s obvious!”

  “What are you saying?” Loredana said, confused.

  “My dear signora, allow me to formulate a hypothesis. Just a hypothesis, mind you. You arrive at your friend’s place saying you forgot to deposit a huge sum of money and would like to go back out and do it at once, but your friend talks you out of it. Don’t you find that strange?”

  “Why do you find it so strange? Given the fact that sooner or later I was going to go back home . . .”

  “No, no, no. It’s one thing for you to go and make the deposit at nine p.m., and it’s another thing altogether for you to go and do it at midnight. And alone. A woman as young and—if I may say so—as beautiful as you! Don’t you think it was a rather careless suggestion, to say the least?”

  “But I had no idea I would be staying so long at Valeria’s, and she didn’t either!”

  The girl was quick with her answer
s, no doubt about it.

  “Let me continue with my hypothesis. Your friend purposely exaggerated her malaise to force you to stay late. And so, as soon as you leave her place, she rushes to the telephone to call her accomplice, informing him that you’ll be passing through Vicolo Crispi with a large sum of money in your purse. So the guy races there and sets up the scam.”

  Loredana was glaring at him in astonishment, mouth wide open. The inspector made a gesture as if waving away a fly.

  “But let’s set aside that argument, which concerns our investigation of Signora Bonifacio. And I ask that neither of you make any mention of these suspicions of mine to her. But let’s move on to the next question. You say that between the fabric store and Burgio Jewelers in Vicolo Crispi you saw a man on the ground. My question is this—and you should think carefully before answering: That man, when you first noticed him, was he already on the ground or in the process of falling to the ground?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “It makes a huge difference.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll explain. Now pay attention. Your attacker certainly did not lie down on the ground in order to rob the first car to drive by. What if it was a truck or a three-wheeler? What’s he going to rob from them? Five euros? No, he has to wait for the right car to pass. And so he stays hidden in a doorway, and as soon as he sees your car coming, he throws himself down on the ground. Do you follow?”

  “Yes.”

  “But since Vicolo Crispi is not very long and perfectly straight, you must have seen not a man already fallen but a man in the process of falling. Is this all clear to you?”

  She looked him straight in the eye. Now her gaze was no longer clouded; it was sharp and alive. She apparently was a rather intelligent girl. She was proving to be a formidable opponent.

  “I stand by my declaration,” Loredana said firmly. “It’s possible I didn’t notice the man moving because I was looking at the clock or doing something else, but when I saw him, the man was already lying on the ground.”

  Hats off. She wasn’t just smart, but shrewd. She’d understood that by reconfirming her version of events, she was weakening the inspector’s hypothesis as to Valeria’s complicity. Montalbano sensed that his next question might trigger a row. And so he coolly decided to spring it on her by surprise, to achieve maximum effect.

  “I’m sorry, but in your statement it says that as soon as he got in the car, the attacker took the keys out of the ignition and threw them into the street.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So after your attacker left, you had to get out of the car and look for them?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did it take you very long?”

  “I think so. The street’s not very well lit, and I was upset.”

  “Which way did he go?”

  “He started running in the direction my car was pointed in, with the headlights shining on his back. Then at the bottom of the street he turned right.”

  “Moving on,” said Montalbano, “your friend Valeria also mentioned a detail to me that curiously does not figure in the report filed by your husband.”

  Signor di Marta, who up until that moment had been listening attentively, made an ugly face and butted in.

  “I told you everything!”

  “You told us everything your wife told you,” Montalbano clarified.

  Di Marta understood immediately. He turned angrily towards Loredana. He looked like an infuriated bull ready to gore.

  “Didn’t you tell me everything? What else happened? And yet you swore you’d told me everything!”

  The girl didn’t answer, but only kept her eyes lowered. Montalbano realized he should intervene.

  “I told you you mustn’t—”

  “I’ll talk whenever I bloody well please!”

  “Fazio, accompany Signor di Marta out of this office,” the inspector said coldly.

  “What is the meaning of this?” the other reacted, jumping to his feet.

  “It means I consider your presence no longer convenient at this time.”

  “This is an outrage! An abuse of power!” di Marta yelled, pale as a corpse and clenching his fists.

  But Fazio had grabbed him forcefully by the shoulders and was pushing him outside as he kept on yelling.

  “Would you like some water?” the inspector asked the girl.

  She nodded yes. Montalbano got up, grabbed a glass, filled it from the bottle he normally kept on top of the filing cabinet, and handed it to her.

  She drank it down in a single gulp.

  Fazio returned.

  “I persuaded him to wait in the waiting room. At any rate, I’ve got someone keeping an eye on him.”

  “Do you feel up to continuing?” Montalbano asked.

  “Well, I’m here,” she said, resigned.

  “Why didn’t you tell your husband that the robber, on top of the kiss, had demanded something else?”

  Loredana turned flaming red. Her upper lip was damp with sweat. She was forcing herself with visible effort to remain calm, but it was clear she was very upset.

  “Because . . . he’s very jealous. Sometimes he’s quite irrational. He gets so blind with jealousy he’s liable to say I consented. Anyway, I thought that if I told him . . . something bad might happen to him, physically. I wanted to spare him . . . And I honestly don’t understand why Valeria felt obliged to go and tell you . . .”

  “Your friend acted correctly. But to be honest with you, I was under the impression she didn’t tell me everything.”

  It was a shot in the dark. He hadn’t had that impression at all. It was Loredana’s agitation that had given him the idea.

  8

  Loredana didn’t answer. Indeed, she seemed not even to have heard the inspector. She was staring hard at the floor, shoulders slightly hunched. Every so often she would shake her head as if to discard some troubling thought or memory. Then she opened her handbag, extracted a small embroidered handkerchief, and wiped her upper lip. When she’d finished, she held it tightly with both hands.

  The inspector figured that this was the right moment to throw down his trump card. He closed his eyes, reopened them, and fired away.

  “Would you please give me the name and address of your gynecologist?”

  Loredana gave a start in her seat. She turned and looked at Montalbano with surprise and fear.

  “Why?”

  She’d shouted it out, with all her heart, goggling her eyes and stiffening all over, nerves tensed.

  Montalbano couldn’t help but congratulate himself. He’d been right on target.

  “Because I want to ask him a question that he’ll have to answer, since it won’t violate any norms of professional secrecy.”

  “What question?”

  Loredana’s voice was barely audible.

  “I will ask him, quite simply, when was the last time you went in to him for an examination.”

  Loredana suddenly started crying in despair. Remaining seated, she turned three-quarters towards him, sliding to the edge of the chair. Then she joined her hands in supplication and laid them on the desk.

  “For heaven’s sake . . . stop! Take pity on . . .”

  Fazio was staring at him, but Montalbano avoided his gaze.

  “I’m sorry, signora, but I have no choice but to continue. Try to control yourself. Do it for your husband’s sake. If he sees you so upset . . . I’ll help you out, okay?”

  “How?”

  “I’ll tell you what I think happened, and if I get anything wrong, I want you to correct me. So. The attacker made you get into the car, took the money from your purse and then, threatening you with a gun, ordered you to start the car. Is that right?”

  Loredana nodded yes. She was now holding the handkerchief
up against her face with both hands, almost as if she didn’t want to see the world around her.

  “Then, as soon as you were in a dark, secluded spot, he told you to pull over and get into the backseat. Am I right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then he raped you.”

  “Yes,” said Loredana, almost voicelessly.

  Then, with a cry, she fainted, sliding off the chair and to the floor.

  Rushing to her aid, Montalbano and Fazio collided. Then Fazio lifted her bodily and laid her down on the little sofa. Montalbano wiped her face with his handkerchief, which he had wet with water from the bottle. It took them about ten minutes to rouse her.

  “Do you feel like taking a few steps?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fazio, take the young lady into your office and stay there with her.”

  The moment they left, he rang Catarella.

  “Bring the gentleman in the waiting room into my office.”

  “Where is my wife?” di Marta asked as soon as he entered and didn’t find her there.

  “She’s in Fazio’s office. As soon as your wife pulls herself together, he’s going to draft her new deposition.”

  “New deposition?!”

  They stared at each other. There was no need for the inspector to say anything else. Di Marta seemed suddenly short of breath. And his head began to shake, quake. He brought a hand to his heart. Montalbano feared he might have an attack.

  All they needed was for him to faint too.

  “She was raped, wasn’t she?”

  “Unfortunately,” said Montalbano.

  Five minutes after the di Martas left, the inspector held a conference with Fazio and Mimì. First off, Montalbano told Fazio to bring Augello up to speed on the investigation while he went out to the parking lot to smoke a cigarette.

  He needed to think alone about what had just happened. When he returned, he opened the session.

  “I want to hear from you first, Fazio. Do you have any questions for me?”

  “I do. I realized when you expressed your supposed suspicions of La Bonifacio, that it was only to provoke the reaction that Valeria will have as soon as Loredana tells her about it. But, concerning what happened after the kiss, were you really under the impression that Bonifacio, when she mentioned the fondling, hadn’t told you the whole story?”