Andrea Camilleri - The Age Of Doubt

“Come on, stop it. Tell me your idea.”

“I thought it might have been something like a robbery gone wrong. The man could have been mugged while strolling along the jetty. And when he tried to defend himself, the attacker picked up a stone and beat him to death. So he put him in a dinghy… There are so many docked around there… Have you checked to see who the dinghy belongs to?”

By some miracle Montalbano managed not to blush again. He hadn’t thought of this. When, in fact, it should have been his first concern. His brain was misfiring, no question.

“No, because Forensics believes the dinghy had never been used before they put the body in it.”

Laura screwed up her face.

“Well, I would do a little check just the same.”

Better change the subject or risk looking bad.

“Maybe you can answer a question for me. As far as you know, are there a lot of rich people who stay out at sea all year long, going from port to port and doing nothing else?”

“Are you referring to Livia Giovannini?”

“Do you know her?”

“The Vanna called at port here three days after I started working in Vigàta. There was a bureaucratic matter that had to be settled, and so I went aboard. That’s how we met. They were coming from Tangiers, but they had left some months before that from Alexanderbaai.”

Montalbano balked.

“Where’s that?”

“It’s a small port in South Africa.”

“And where were they coming from this time?”

“From Rethymno.”

“And where’s that?”

“In Crete. They were supposed to be going to Oran, but bad weather forced them to change course.”

The inspector seemed astonished.

“Are you surprised?”

“Well, yes. It’s not that the Vanna is a small craft, but still…”

“Actually, it’s one of the finest yachts in all the world, you know. On top of that, Livia’s husband had all the equipment and motors customized.”

“Sperlì said they have an auxiliary motor that doesn’t work very well.”

“Come on! I think they only use the sails for decoration. That boat is an eighty-five-foot sea serpent that originally had twenty-four sleeping berths. The cabins were later expanded and modified, so that now there are barely half a dozen beds, but in exchange they gained a great deal of space and another sitting room.”

“That big motorboat looks pretty serious too.”

“You mean the Ace of Hearts ? It measures a good sixty feet and change and has two powerful GM engines and nine sleeping berths. It can go wherever it wants.”

“I see you know about these things.”

“It’s just a personal interest, for fun.”

“Listen, to get back to what we were saying, I asked you if there are a lot of rich people who-”

“-spend their lives at sea? I don’t think so.”

“So how else do you explain it?”

“I have no explanation for it. It may just be some mania of hers. Her husband had the same mania, and I guess she caught it from him.”

Montalbano remained pensive for a moment. Then he asked:

“How could one find out how many ports the Vanna has called at in the past year?”

“It’s probably all recorded in the captain’s log.”

“And how does one go about having a look at it?”

“Only the public prosecutor can do that. But he would have to come up with a brilliant excuse. Can you tell me why you’re so interested in the Vanna ? After all, it only came across that dinghy by chance.”

“I can’t really say why… I’m just curious… I don’t know… There’s something about it that doesn’t add up.”

He could hardly tell her that his suspicions had been aroused by a young woman he had met, who said her name was Vanna, the same as the yacht.

Laura didn’t leave until after midnight, with the promise that they would talk by phone the following day.

The inspector stayed up to think about the dead man.

If, as Dr. Pasquano maintained, they’d rendered him unrecognizable on purpose, this meant he was someone who might be recognized. At first glance, this line of reasoning might seem worthy of Catarella or Monsieur de Lapalisse.

But it was a start.

Some poor bastard killed in this fashion did not normally, nowadays, grab the headlines, as they say in the business. The national press might give him five lines, max, and the local papers half a column. The national TV stations wouldn’t even mention it, though the local ones would.

So whoever would have been in a position to identify the corpse, had they left his face intact, had to be somewhere in the vicinity of Vigàta. And the eventual identification would, therefore, have led directly to the killer. Why?

For one simple reason: because the man had been poisoned. To poison someone, you have to put the poison in something to eat or drink, there was no getting around it.

The victim must therefore have known his killer.

Maybe he was invited for an aperitif, or for dinner, as the inspector had just done with Laura, and then, when the poor guy was looking the other way…

Laura! Man, was she ever beautiful! But what the hell was coming over him? What was he thinking? It was hardly imaginable, at his age… Still, what eyes she had! And the way she looked at him!

As he was unable to think straight anymore, he decided that the only thing to do was to go to bed.

“Fazio here?” was the first thing he asked, walking into the station the following morning.

“Yessir, Chief. An’ there’s summon ellis ’e’s got together wit’ ’im.”

“Tell Fazio to come to my office alone.”

He had just sat down when Fazio came in.

“What’s Digiulio like?”

“What do you expect? He’s from Palermo and-”

“I want to know if he got nervous or upset when you told him he had to come to the station.”

“No. He was cool and calm. Actually, he said he was expecting it.”

“He was expecting it?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Bring him in.”

“Can I hang around?”

“No.”

Fazio went out, seeming offended.

Mario Digiulio was about forty and had one of those faces that you forget one second after you’ve seen it.

He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater and a pair of dirty jeans. He was completely different from how Montalbano had imagined him. As Fazio had mentioned, he wasn’t the least bit scared. Then, unexpectedly, as soon as Montalbano told him to sit down, the man began to speak.

“So you received the complaint, eh?”

Montalbano made a vague gesture that could have meant nothing or everything.

“The bastards.”

The man paused.

“The fuckin’ bastards!”

Having taken in the high esteem in which Digiulio held those who had reported him, the inspector decided he needed to know a little more.

“Please tell me your version of the story.”

“In Rethymno, me and Zizì went out drinking at a tavern, and there was two Greeks there who-”

“-who provoked you.”

“Exactly. Zizì reacted immediately, and I went to back him up, and before we knew it, there was a brawl and-”

“You smashed the place up.”

“Smashed it up? Come on! Zizì broke a couple a chairs and…”

Zizì. Where had he heard that name before? Someone had mentioned it in passing. But who? And when? He couldn’t quite call it to mind.

“I’m sorry, but was Zizì a local?”

Digiulio gave him a look of astonishment.

“No, he’s one of the crew.”

“But his name’s not listed in the-”

“Ah, sorry, we call him Zizì, but his real name’s Ahmed Shaikiri. He’s North African.”

Montalbano had a flash.