“I am worried. The kidnapper has raised his line of fire, as I’d been expecting. Thirty knife wounds, however superficial, are no joke. What will he do next time?”
“Do you think he may also have raped her?”
“Anything’s possible with a madman like that, but I don’t think so.”
“Tell me why.”
“Because I’m more than convinced that these abductions are not being carried out for sexual purposes.”
In the distance, amid the silence of the night, they began to hear the wail of the police sirens as their colleagues drew near.
“Man, some people really get off on busting the chops of working people trying to sleep!” Montalbano commented on his way back into the house.
* * *
The traveling circus, consisting of the chief of the Flying Squad, the public prosecutor Tommaseo, and a physician, Dr. Amelia Sinatra, arrived in a convoy of four cars and an ambulance and came to a noisy halt right outside the door.
Dr. Sinatra went immediately into the house.
Galeassi, chief of the Flying Squad, got out of his car and said to Montalbano:
“We’re going to see how she’s feeling and whether or not it’s a good time to question her. At any rate, the investigation’s in my hands. Got that?”
“Got it.”
As a result, the inspector and Mimì Augello stayed outside. But it was all for naught.
Indeed, an hour and a half later, Galeassi came out and said angrily to Montalbano, as though it were somehow his fault:
“But that woman can’t recall a damn thing!”
Then Prosecutor Tommaseo emerged:
“It seems she wasn’t raped.”
He was clearly disappointed, since he lived for crimes of passion, rapes, and other forms of sexual violence against women.
Exiting after him were Dr. Sinatra followed by two ambulance attendants carrying Luigia on a stretcher. They loaded her into the ambulance and drove off.
Montalbano and Augello said good-bye to the Roscitanos, thanked them for everything, excused themselves for the disturbance, got into their car, and headed for Vigàta.
Once they were on the road, Mimì asked a precise question:
“To judge from appearances, you were right about the whole thing turning more violent. But tell me in all honesty: What is going through your head?”
“Mimì, among the many things Manuela Smerca told us there was one in particular that I think was absolutely correct.”
“And what was that?”
“That this man is frightened by his own actions. And what he did to Luigia confirms this.”
“Help me understand.”
“He probably would have liked to murder the girl this time around, but he didn’t have the nerve to do it, so he limited himself to torturing her with thirty superficial knife cuts.”
“But that could be the work of a sadist.”
“It could be, but it isn’t. I would bet that he inflicted the knife wounds on Luigia when she was passed out from the chloroform. A sadist wants his victim to be squirming and pleading and wailing in pain, for his enjoyment.”
“All right, but where does this lead us?”
“To the most dangerous category of all, Mimì.”
“And what would that be?”
“That category of people who by nature are not given to harming others, but who, once they’ve done it, are capable of doing anything to cover up what they’ve done.”
“Because they’re afraid to fall in people’s estimation of them?”
“That, too, but above all because they themselves would never get over the shame they would feel if the act were discovered.”
“So what I think you’re saying is that you’re of the opinion that the person doing these things is a man above suspicion?”
“Yes, Mimì, that’s exactly right.”
He heaved a big sigh.
“This is one of those typical cases you can break your head over,” he continued. “And I just wish . . .”
He trailed off.
“You just wish what?”
“I just wish I was twenty years younger, Mimì.”
* * *
What can a man do who comes home at seven in the morning after a sleepless night and has an appointment with his superior at nine in Montelusa?
He can do nothing but what the inspector did. Take all his clothes off, get into the shower, shave, put on some clean underwear, put the coffeepot on the stove, don a clean suit from the armoire, drink an entire mug of black espresso coffee, get into the car, and drive off to Montelusa.
Since he knew the reason for the commissioner’s summons, he prepared a response that was a tremendous lie as big as a skyscraper.
Going into the commissioner’s waiting room, he looked at his watch. Five to nine.
“I have an appointment with His Honor the commissioner,” he said to a uniformed cop sitting behind a desk.
The cop looked at a piece of paper in front of him.
“Yes, I know, Inspector Montalbano, but the commissioner is busy at the moment. If you’d like to take a seat . . .”
Montalbano sat down on a small sofa exactly like the one in his dentist’s office.
Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, this thought made the last tooth on the left upper row of his mouth start hurting a little.
He touched it carefully with the tip of his tongue. It did hurt, there was no getting around it. This brought on a sudden attack of the nerves, and he began squirming on the settee.
Nothing in the world scared him so much as having to sit in a dentist’s chair. Only those sentenced to death, perhaps, when being placed in the electric chair, experienced a comparable terror.
And when was Hizzoner the c’mishner going to get free, anyway?
Great. Now the inspector felt himself getting all sweaty.
He began to feel an overwhelming desire to get up and go. So he stood up, and at that exact moment the telephone on the cop’s table rang. Montalbano didn’t move. The cop listened, then said:
“You can go in now.”
The inspector knocked gently, opened the door, and went in.
“Good morning,” he said. The commissioner didn’t return his greeting, but merely set down a sheet of paper he’d been reading, looked at Montalbano, who was standing stiff as a pole before him, drummed his fingers on the desk, and finally said:
“Montalbano, I will get immediately to the point, because I find your presence irksome.”
“Then please get to the point, Mr. Commissioner.”
“Would you mind telling for what mysterious reason you decided not to inform any of your superiors about the abductions that were occurring and unfortunately are still occurring in Vigàta?”
“If I—”
“Actually, before you say anything, I want to warn you that your answer to my question will determine whether or not I decide to take measures against you. Do you understand me?”
“Sure.”
“Now go ahead and speak.”
For a fraction of a second, Montalbano closed his eyes, then took the plunge.
“I was following orders, Mr. Commissioner.”
Bonetti-Alderighi looked at him in shock.
“Following orders?!”
“That’s right, sir. And you have no idea how many sleepless nights it has cost me, since I was forced to ignore my most basic duties in obeying such an order from above.”
“From above? But from whom?”
“From His Excellency the Undersecretary Macannuco, who is the uncle, on the mother’s side, of the first girl who was abducted. He called me straightaway and ordered me to remain absolutely silent about the whole thing, with everyone. He didn’t want his niece . . . Do you know Macannuco?”
“Not personally.”
“If you did, you would understand. He’s a very vindictive man. If I’d refused, he would never have let me forget it.”
The commissioner’s attitude changed immediately. He certainly didn’t want to jeopardize his own career.
“Please sit down.”
The inspector sat down.
“Have you known Macannuco for a long time?”
“Since elementary school.”
“But then why didn’t you tell me about the second abduction?”
“Because when you finally did find out that there had been a first abduction, you would have gotten angry with me and—”
“All right, then, let’s not talk about it any further,” he said, interrupting him.
They chatted amicably for another five minutes or so, after which the commissioner dismissed Montalbano, absolving him of all his sins, except for original sin, which did not fall under his jurisdiction.
Once out of the building, Montalbano no longer had a toothache.
* * *
In speaking with the commissioner, he’d learned that Luigia had been taken to San Giacomo Hospital, and so, since he was already in Montelusa, he might as well go and check in on her and possibly talk to her about the abduction.
The nun, or whatever she was, sitting behind a reception desk that was all telephones, computers, and devices with red and green lights incessantly flashing as on a Christmas tree, carefully read the inspector’s police ID card, studied him long and hard to determine whether he really looked like the photo, then said, as she handed him back his card:
“Room 29, second floor.”
And this was where the trouble began.
Because not once in the inspector’s life had he entered a hospital without getting lost in it.
Having found the elevator with some effort, since it was strategically hidden by a giant fuchsia plant on one side and a statue of San Giacomo on the other, the inspector pushed the button to summon it to the ground floor.
After a short wait, the elevator arrived, empty. He went in and pushed button number 2. The elevator took off and, barely thirty seconds later, stopped.
Montalbano got out, took a few steps, but then realized he was walking down a darkened, dusty corridor full of half-open cardboard boxes, bottomless chairs, and broken bed frames. Instead of going upstairs the elevator had gone down and taken him into a basement.
Turning around to get back into the elevator, he could no longer find it. It had disappeared. How was that possible?
He took three steps forward, three steps back, all the while feeling the wall. He turned around to the opposite wall, felt its surface as well. Nothing. The wall was solid. There was no trace of an elevator.
He began to get scared.
The basement was utterly deserted. If he didn’t quickly find a way to get back upstairs, he was sure to remain stuck down there for days on end. And he would likely die of hunger and thirst, a horrible end, the thought of which made his hair stand straight up like fresh spinach.
As a sense of panic came over him, his head started to spin, and he leaned his back against the wall. At which point the wall behind him opened up, and he lost his balance, staggered two steps backwards, arms rotating in the air like the blades of a windmill, and suddenly found himself back inside the elevator.
This time it took him to the second floor.
As soon as he was in the hallway, however, he froze.
What was that room number? With the fright he’d just had, he’d forgotten.
So how was he going to get out of this now?
There was no question whatsoever of getting back in that accursed elevator and returning to the reception desk. No way, not even at knifepoint.
Luckily, he spotted a nurse coming his way. He told her the young woman’s name and she told him her room number. He knocked on the door to room 29, but there was no answer within. So he turned the doorknob and went in.
Luigia was lying with her eyes closed and breathing calmly and evenly.
Montalbano sat down in a chair right beside the bed. The young woman must have sensed his presence there, because moments later she opened her eyes, blinked a few times, brought her vision into focus, and looked at him questioningly.
“I am Inspector Montalbano, of Vigàta Police. I’m in charge of the case. How do you feel?”
“I’m recovering.”
“Would it bother you to talk about what happened?”
“Well, yes, it would, and it makes me feel very anxious, but I don’t think it can be avoided.”
“Have you been in touch with your family?”
“This morning my sister came to visit.”
“Want to tell me how the whole thing unfolded?”
The woman told him. At first the abduction was a carbon copy of the previous ones. A car stopped at the side of the road with the hood up, a man asking for help, she pulling over, he pointing a handgun at her, forcing her out of the car, and knocking her out with chloroform.
Then came the second part, and here there were some new twists.
Waking up a few hours later, naked and hurting all over, terrified to find herself covered in blood, and not knowing what had happened to her, she started looking around for help, but found none.
She walked for a while—but couldn’t say for how long—losing blood until she finally collapsed, exhausted and disoriented, outside a metal shutter, no longer able to move.
“Were you able to see your abductor’s face?”
“Well, only in a manner of speaking. I couldn’t really describe his face, because he was wearing a cap pulled down practically over his eyes, dark sunglasses, and a large scarf that covered the lower part of his face.”
“What kind of voice did he have? Was it gravelly, nasal . . . ?”
“He never once spoke.”
“Then how was he able to tell you to get out of the car?”
“By gesturing with the hand that was holding the gun.”
“In what hand was he holding the gun?”
“In his right hand. I don’t think he was left-handed.”
“And were you unconscious when he inflicted those wounds on you?”
“Yes, but they’re not actually wounds; they’re more like scratches of varying depth.”
“In your opinion, was your abductor a young man or an older man?”
Luigia answered at once:
“An older man.”
“Did your sister tell you that it was a couple living near the Scala dei Turchi who finally rescued you?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Now please listen to me carefully. Apparently, when that couple was picking you up off the ground to take you to their house, you said a word with a clear meaning.”
“I had the strength to speak?” the young woman asked, sincerely surprised.
“Not to speak, but to say one word.”
“What word was that?”
“Well, that’s the question. The man insists that you said ‘call,’ while his wife is sure that you said ‘car.’”
Luigia, looking intently at the inspector, rolled her eyes upon hearing the word “car.”
“What difference does it make?” she asked after a pause.
“It makes a tremendous difference. If you said ‘car’ when only half-conscious, this might mean you recognized the car stopped at the side of the road, the kidnapper’s car. Which I’m sure he stole.”
“No, the car I saw wasn’t anything I recognized,” Luigia said firmly.
“Do you know much about cars?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Could you perhaps describe it to me anyway, tell me what color it was . . . ?”
“I really didn’t pay any attention to that, believe me . . .”
At this
point Montalbano asked her a question without knowing why he was asking it.
“Has anyone told you you are the third?”
“The third what?”
“The third woman abducted in an overnight kidnapping.”
“So there were two other kidnappings before me?”
Her tone was that of someone unable to accept what she has just heard.
“Yes, except that the other two girls were released with all their clothes on and hadn’t been harmed or aggressed in any way. But there is a strange coincidence which may not mean anything: The other two girls also worked at banks.”
Luigia closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry, but I suddenly feel very tired.”
“Then I’ll leave you in peace,” said Montalbano, standing up. “But if in the meantime any details about the abductor’s stolen car come back to you—”
“How can you be so sure that it was a stolen car?”
“Because in the first two cases, the kidnapper used a car he’d stolen, which he then set fire to. Anyway, to repeat: If you happen to remember anything, please call me at police headquarters.”
And he went out, thinking that Signora Roscitano was probably right, that Luigia had said “car” and not “call.”
8
“Ahh, Chief! A’ nine a’clack this mornin’ Signor Pitruzzo came an’ said ’e ’adda ’pointmint wit’ yiz . . .”
Montalbano slapped himself on the forehead. Virduzzo! Damn his porous memory! He’d forgotten completely about that appointment!
“Did he leave a message?”
“Nuttin’, Chief. After spennin’ an hour waitin’ inna waitin’ room, he come an’ says he cou’n’t wait no more . . .”
“Oh, well. He’ll be back. Send Fazio and Inspector Augello to my office, would you?”
The first to arrive was Fazio, who’d already been told by Augello that they’d found Luigia.
“Any news of Di Carlo?” Montalbano asked him.
“None whatsoever. I’m gathering information on him from a variety of people. As soon as I have a clear picture, I’ll let you know.”
“Here I am,” said Augello, coming in. “And a good morning to all, even though I haven’t slept a wink.”
The Overnight Kidnapper Page 8
