Andrea Camilleri - The Age Of Doubt

He barely had time to take off his jacket before the phone started ringing again. It was surely Lattes, who must have thought they’d been cut off.

And so Montalbano decided to go into tragic mode to get Lattes out of his hair for a while.

He picked up the receiver and started speaking in an angry voice.

“What is this?! My child, my flesh and blood is fighting for his life in a hospital bed and you want to talk about files? You do have a heart, don’t you?”

Total silence at the other end. Perhaps he had treated the poor Dr. Lattes a bit harshly. Better try to make up.

“I’m sorry if I raised my voice, Doctor, but you must understand my state of mind. My poor little boy…”

“What the hell are you talking about?” interrupted a woman’s voice, which he recognized at once.

Livia!

He felt as if the whole bleeding world was crashing down on his head.

He hung up at once. He was finished. Toast.

Livia would never believe that the story of the little boy was a stupid lie he’d invented out of whole cloth.

The phone started ringing again.

No, until he collected his thoughts, he was in no condition to talk to her. He bent down and unplugged the phone.

Then he undressed on the spot, throwing his clothes to the floor as he ran to the shower.

He urgently needed to refresh his body and his brain.

Once out of the shower, he plugged the phone back in. Now he felt more in a state to talk to Livia without getting overly agitated. He would tell her the truth simply, in a clear, firm tone. And he would convince her. He dialed her number.

“Listen, Livia, I swear I don’t have a son.”

“I don’t doubt it for a second,” said Livia.

He wasn’t expecting that response and felt rather relieved. It would make everything else a lot easier.

“How can you be so sure?”

“You would never have been able to keep it hidden from me for so long. Who did you think you were talking to?”

“Dr. Lattes. You see, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this before, but he has this obsessive notion that I’m married and have at least two children. I’ve never been able to convince him otherwise. So I had to give him some rope. He was trying to saddle me with some bureaucratic hassle, and so I made up this story that one of my sons was gravely ill. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Livia repeated frostily.

“Yes.”

“And aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“Good God, Livia, why should I feel ashamed?”

“For pretending your son was gravely ill, just to-”

“What are you saying? The son doesn’t exist, you said it yourself just a minute ago!”

“That doesn’t matter. For Lattes, he exists.”

“Livia, you’re not making any sense!”

“No, my dear. I find it utterly ignoble that you used a sick child as an excuse for not doing something you didn’t want to do.”

“Livia, try to be rational. The child is pure fiction.”

“But it still shows what kind of mind you have!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you could have come up with a thousand other excuses, but you didn’t! It certainly would never have occurred to me to say a thing like that, and I’m not even a mother!”

Maybe Livia wasn’t entirely wrong. No, in fact she was decidedly right. One should never joke about sick little children, even imaginary ones. But he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

“Listen, Livia, I really don’t feel like hearing about what kind of mind I have, especially from you.”

“Why? What have I done?”

“You didn’t come to my funeral.”

Livia was speechless.

“What…? What are you talking about? Are you insane?”

“No, I’m not insane! I had a dream that I died, and you didn’t feel like coming down from Boccadasse.”

“But it was a dream!”

“So what? And the little boy was imaginary!”

“No, no, no! It’s not the same thing at all! You were dead, and hopefully resting in peace, whereas that poor little boy is alive and you’re making him suff-”

“Listen, let’s forget about it. You know what I’m going to do? Tomorrow I’m going to call Lattes and set everything straight.”

“Do whatever you think best, but get rid of the story about the little boy. And if it really means so much to you, I apologize for not coming to your funeral. Next time, I won’t miss it.”

They laughed, at last.

“How are you?” Montalbano asked.

“I’m fine. And you?”

“I’m bogged down in an investigation that’s… Speaking of which, do you know anyone called Émile Lannec?”

“What is this? Another one of your strange jokes?”

“Come on. Do you know him or don’t you?”

“Of course I do. We met him together.”

“Where?”

“In Marinella.”

He had no recollection whatsoever of it.

“Really? And who is he?”

“He’s…,” she started and then stopped. Then she giggled. “He’s someone who’s exactly like your son.”

“Come on, Livia, don’t…”

But she’d already hung up. He called back, but the phone rang and rang with no answer.

So this was how Livia would punish him for the story of the sick little boy. Damn! The woman never pardoned him a single weakness! Not one!

As he wasn’t the least bit hungry, he didn’t look to see what was in the refrigerator or the oven. Instead he grabbed a bottle of whisky, a glass, his cigarettes, and went out on the veranda and sat down.

Émile Lannec.

He went back inside, picked up the Frenchman’s passport, then sat down again outside.

From what he could gather from the visas, Lannec had been three times to South Africa, twice to Namibia (which he would never have been able to find on a map), four times in Botswana (which he didn’t know either), and then in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria.

Except for Israel, he’d been to every country on the Mediterranean coast of Africa and the Middle East.

What line of business was Monsieur Lannec in?

Finishing his first glass, he got up, went and got a world atlas, and looked for Namibia and Botswana. They were two countries bordering on the upper regions of South Africa.

Then, all at once, the name South Africa made him remember that the Vanna had also been splashing about in that area. It was Laura who’d told him. He felt a twinge in his heart.

Laura!

By now she was alone with Mimì. They had definitely finished eating, and imagine Mimì not trying to take advantage of the situation! Boat fuel, right! Camouflage, right! The guy was worse than Don Juan! There was a good chance he already had her in his arms and was holding her tight…

To erase the image from his mind, he inhaled a whole glass of whisky in a single gulp.

The only hope was to concentrate, like an Indian holy man, on the question of Lannec.

He succeeded, with some effort, in doing so.

Might there be a connection between Lannec and the Vanna ? But by the time the Vanna entered the port, Lannec had already been dead for a while. Besides, the arrival of the Vanna had been entirely unexpected. And so? Whom had the Vanna come to meet? How was it possible he couldn’t remember having met Lannec, and in Marinella of all places?

What had Livia said?

That Lannec was exactly like the little boy Montalbano had invented.

Wait a second, Montalbà, stop right there. You’re getting very warm.

Livia had therefore implied that Lannec didn’t exist in reality and was thus an imaginary person.

A flash went off in his brain. An invented character! A character in a novel!