‘I think the question should be put differently. Who would have an interest in giving the lie to those people who have been levelling those accusations at me and my second-in-command?’
‘Does that make any difference?’
‘It makes a lot of difference. Sending that recorder was not a gesture in my favour, but a hostile act towards those claiming that Borsellino was driven to suicide.’
‘And who might it have been that sent us the recorder?’
‘Well, let me preface that by saying that these are only my personal opinions. first and foremost, I think we are dealing with people close to Borsellino who knew that he occasionally used that recorder. I believe, however, that there is, in this affair, a sort of “fifth column” that is trying to exploit Borsellino’s supposed suicide to their greatest advantage.’
‘Why do you say “supposed” suicide?’
‘Because we have strong doubts that it was really a suicide.’
‘Can you give us some indication of why?’
‘I’m sorry, but the investigation is still ongoing.’
‘Let’s move on to another question: why do you think the recorder was stolen from us?’
‘Most probably because that recorder contained other recordings as well. And maybe one of them has proof that the presumed suicide involved persons considered above suspicion. In short, whoever sent you the recorder was not the same person who stole it from you. But, whatever the case, it was a useless, stupid move, in my opinion.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because I am firmly convinced that whoever sent you Borsellino’s recorder had copies made of all the recordings on it first; that they didn’t leave themselves empty-handed. That would be typical behaviour for an extortionist.’
‘Do you think that, because of the fake suicide, someone may try to blackmail those behind it?’
‘I’d say it’s quite likely.’
‘Thank you, Inspector Montalbano, for having accepted our invitation and answered our questions.’
‘Thank you.’
*
As he was heading back down towards Vigàta he started singing out loud in the car. The interview, with all its ins and outs, the things said and not said, was certain to give the Cuffaros a few headaches. But the one it was certain to scare the most was the Honourable Mongibello, because he would realize that among the persons considered above suspicion the inspector was including him too. And so he would find himself between a rock and a hard place: on one side, there was the person who had called him on the phone and played him the recording, and on the other side, there were the police. At this very moment, he was in a cold sweat just waiting for the blackmailer’s next call.
He went back to the station and locked himself in his office with Catarella.
‘Explain to me again what I have to do to make the thing work.’
After the second explanation, he said:
‘Maybe it’s better if I write it down.’
He wrote it down on a half-sheet of paper, which he put in his jacket pocket.
Then he sped home to watch the interview.
*
Zito performed well. He broadcast the interview at the end of the news report, after having solemnly announced it at the beginning. Montalbano was more than certain that Mongibello was watching, and that his heart must be pounding hard at that moment.
He laid the table on the veranda and treated himself to pasta ’ncasciata and swordfish, then went back inside and started looking for a good movie on TV.
He found a broadcast of Bad Lieutenant and watched the whole thing. At eleven-thirty he got up, took out of his pocket the instructions he’d written down at the office, read them over twice, then found the cassette player he’d got Catarella to buy for him and plugged it in.
Then he opened a little box, also bought for him by Catarella, and took out its contents, which consisted of a cord with a sort of sucker at one end and a small jack at the other. Following the instructions, he stuck the sucker onto his mobile and slipped the jack into the cassette player.
The equipment was ready now, but he had to test it to see whether it worked, and whether he’d done the right things.
He called Livia on his mobile and immediately pressed the red button with the abbreviation ‘Rec’ under it. ‘Hi, Livia. I’m calling you now because I have a bit of a headache and am going straight to bed.’
They spoke for five minutes, then wished each other a good night.
After he hung up, he pressed the rewind button, then pushed the green button. And he immediately heard his own voice. Wow! It worked! A miracle!
He went to wash his face, then came back and sat down at the table. He closed his eyes for a moment as he reviewed in his head what he had to do – all these complicated things involving recorders, video cameras, and computers were really not his forte. He got up, put the clothes peg over his nose, sat down again, and dialled Mongibello’s number as he turned on the recorder.
‘Hello?’ said the politician, who sounded like he had his hand over the receiver.
Montalbano turned on the taped copy of the digital recording.
‘Hello? This is Guido.’
He let it play for a few moments, then stopped it.
‘Figgered out who I am?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wanna make a deal?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll make you a reasonable offer. Two million.’
‘But—’
‘No buts. Two million. Tomorrow at midnight, at the old signal box in Montereale. Come alone. If I see any of your little Cuffaro friends with you, I won’t come out in the open, an’ I’ll send the tape to the Free Channel. Leave the money outside the cabin door an’ then get the hell out of there.’
‘What about the tape?’
‘I’ll send it to you.’
‘But how can I be sure that—’
‘You’ll just have to trust me. An’ be careful. If you give me marked notes, you can consider yisself a marked man. Unnastan’?’
‘Yes.’
He put down the phone, rewound the tape, and pushed the green button.
‘Hello?’ said Mongibello at the other end.
‘Hello? This is Guido.’
Just to be sure, he listened to the whole recording. Not until he went to bed did he realize that he still had the clothes peg over his nose.
*
He got to the station at eight-thirty the next morning and immediately locked himself in his office with Catarella.
‘I want you to make me a copy of everything.’
‘But, Chief, t’make a copy from bote tings ya need a toid recorder!’
‘Do you know if there’s anyone here . . . ?’
‘Isspecter Augello’s prolly got one.’
‘Go and see.’
Catarella returned in triumph with a recorder and a new cassette. When they’d finished and Catarella was returning the recorder to Augello, Montalbano put the cassette in a drawer and locked it.
Then he headed for Montelusa at a leisurely pace.
At five minutes to ten he entered Montelusa Central through the back door to avoid running into Dr Lattes, who would certainly have mentioned the encounter to the commissioner.
He asked a guard to explain to him where Sponses’s office was, then knocked on the closed door.
‘Come in.’
He went in. Sponses stood up and came forward to greet him, hand extended. He was a physically fit man of about forty, with blue eyes and a decisive manner. He seemed likeable enough to the inspector.
‘Please sit down. Let’s get straight to the point. Why did you want to see me?’
The inspector reached into his left jacket pocket and took out the cassette recorder with the copy of the recording of Borsellino’s call to Mongibello.
‘There’s a very brief telephone call here that I would like you to listen to carefully.’
He turned on the tape. When it was over, Sponses
asked:
‘Who’s at the other end?’
He’d recognized Borsellino’s voice perfectly well and hadn’t hidden that fact. They were off to a good start.
‘The man at the other end is the Honourable Mongibello, who as you must know is the president of the company—’
‘That owns the supermarket, a company made up of front men for the Cuffaro family. Well, this phone call certainly presents an interesting new element. Which is that Mongibello knew about the burglary before Borsellino told him. But, even leaving aside this detail, the phone call, if anything, shows that it wasn’t you or your second-in-command that drove Borsellino to suicide, but Mongibello himself, who cut him loose in brutal fashion.’
‘Except that Borsellino did not commit suicide; he was hanged.’
Sponses frowned darkly.
‘Do you have proof?’
‘Indirect proof,’ said Montalbano. ‘Did you know that a local television station anonymously received a digital recorder containing—’
‘I know everything.’
‘Did you know that the digital recorder was stolen the night of the broadcast?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘I asked myself why they did it, since the recording of my conversations with Borsellino had already been aired. The only possible answer was that there was more inside that recorder. Luckily the station manager had a copy made of everything in the recorder. And he gave it to me. And in it I found the phone call I just had you listen to. You see, Sponses, if Borsellino really had killed himself, that phone call would be of no real importance. But if Borsellino was murdered, then Mongibello, by letting it slip that he knew about the burglary, shows that he’s aware of a larger plan, which is the elimination of Borsellino himself. Who was killed because the Cuffaros discovered that he was in contact with you. They were unconvinced by the kidnapping that you set up with him. They did some investigating and found some things out, so they set up the fake suicide, using his complicity in the supermarket burglary as the motive. And all this just so you wouldn’t suspect that they’d discovered that Borsellino was in touch with you. Some poor nightwatchman even lost his life because of it, because he happened to be passing in front of the supermarket when the supposed burglar was going in.’
Sponses said nothing, but only got up, went over to the window, hands in his pockets, and looked outside. Then he came and sat back down.
‘Listen, Montalbano. Your argument makes sense. But it’s only one argument, don’t you see? We would never, in a court of law, succeed in establishing Mongibello’s complicity solely on the basis of that phone call.’
‘Actually, I’d anticipated this observation on your part,’ the inspector said.
And from his other pocket he extracted the recorder with his own phone call to Mongibello and set it down on the desk beside the first one, but before turning it on, he said:
‘I have to explain first that before this call there was another one that was not recorded, in which an unknown person had Mongibello listen to a recording of his phone conversation with Borsellino, and then told him that he’d be in touch soon.’
‘Wait a second,’ said Sponses. ‘How do you know this?’
‘If you listen to the tape, it’ll become clear to you.’
He turned it on. When it was finished, Sponses’s face was red as a beetroot. Apparently he was shaken by what he’d just heard.
‘Do you know who the blackmailer is?’
‘Yes. Me.’
Sponses leapt forward in his chair as if he’d just sat on a landmine.
‘But that’s totally illegal!’
‘Oh, yeah? And your fake kidnapping of Borsellino I suppose was completely legal? You guys fight terrorism by resorting to methods well outside the law, and you reproach me for doing something similar? Sponses, I’m offering you a golden opportunity. By agreeing to pay the ransom, Mongibello is implicitly admitting his guilt. And the fact that he hasn’t reported the blackmail is further confirmation. Think about it.’
Sponses thought it over for a spell, then made up his mind.
‘I can’t make any decision on my own, you realize. Leave me all the materials here. I’ll call you no later than three o’clock this afternoon, OK?’
‘Who do you want to talk to about it?’
‘With my superiors and with the prosecutor.’
‘Who is it?’
‘La Cava.’
You couldn’t ask for more.
‘You’ll have to hurry. The appointment is for midnight tonight. Oh, and I should also tell you, just so you know, that I’ve made a copy of everything I’m leaving you here.’
‘I didn’t doubt it for an instant,’ said Sponses.
*
Sponses’s call came at three o’clock sharp. Montalbano hadn’t budged from his office since returning from his meeting with him. He’d felt so nervous awaiting his reply that he hadn’t even felt hungry for lunch.
‘Come right away.’
He sped off in his car as never before and even raced up the steps to Sponses’s office.
‘Tell me everything,’ he said, out of breath.
‘There’s good news and bad news.’
‘Start with the bad.’
‘La Cava isn’t on board. He says he can’t take a legal action based on an illegal one – your blackmail, in other words. But he gave me some good advice.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘He said that we should both forget – that is, La Cava and I should forget – that we ever spoke about this.’
‘And that seems like good advice to you?’
‘Look, he didn’t say we shouldn’t conduct the operation. He just said he didn’t want to hear about it before the fact. But if we tell him the whole story after all has been said and done – the whole story except for the blackmail part, that is – with our excuse being, say, that we didn’t have enough time to tell him about it, then he’ll act accordingly without asking us too many embarrassing questions.’
‘I get the picture. The whole story of my blackmail has to disappear. And what’s the good news?’
‘My bosses have decided to go through with the operation anyway.’
‘And what are you going to replace my blackmail with?’
‘We’re going to say a mole informed us that Mongibello was being blackmailed by an unknown person and so on. Got that?’
‘Got it.’
‘One last thing, maybe the worst thing for you. You’re no longer operational.’
He’d been expecting this. He would have bet his balls that this was the price they would make him pay.
‘So I have to stay out of it?’
‘Right. As of this moment, everything passes into our hands.’
‘Can you tell me why?’
‘Because before you could take any action you would need to request the authorization of the prosecutor, who, since this involves a Member of Parliament, would be required to inform the undersecretary, who would be required to inform the minister . . .’
Montalbano swallowed the bitter pill.
But Sponses was right. The fewer politicians were involved in the matter, the better. They were liable to undermine all the work that had been done. ‘I understand perfectly. fine. Whatever you say.’
He got up to leave.
‘Thanks for everything,’ said Sponses. ‘I’m glad to have met you.’
‘Me too. Oh, listen, there’s something I should warn you about. Mongibello will almost certainly have spoken to the Cuffaros about the blackmail. I don’t think he’ll come alone to the appointment. I think the Cuffaros will have decided to spring into action as soon as the blackmailer comes and picks up the money.’
‘But if they kill him they won’t have the tape!’
‘I don’t think they’ll want to kill him. I think their intention will be to kidnap him and torture him until he tells them where he’s hidden it.’
‘Thanks for the warning.’
‘Listen
, would you do me a favour? Could you call me at home tonight after you’ve completed the operation?’
‘Absolutely. Give me the number.’
*
How was he going to make the hours go by, since he wasn’t the least bit hungry? After his meeting with Sponses he’d gone straight home, undressed, and plunged into the icy sea. He’d swum until he lost all strength and sense of time. Then he went back to the house and sat down on the veranda with his cigarettes and whisky within reach. There was half a bottle and he drank it all down.
Afterwards, he went inside and sat down in the armchair. He watched a spy film about which, as usual, he didn’t understand a thing. After that he switched to a love story that took place in India. Halfway through the third film, which was about samurai, he fell asleep.
The ringing of the phone woke him up. He looked at his watch. Three-thirty. Shit, it was late! He ran to the phone. It was Sponses.
‘Sorry to call you at this hour, but it’s a big mess. Something terrible happened.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Well, we’d taken up our positions and saw Mongibello arrive with a briefcase in his hand. He put it down on the ground outside the signal box, and at that exact moment we heard a gunshot and Mongibello collapsed. I ran up to him as my men raced to the spot where the shot had come from. All they found was a precision rifle with an infrared sight. They’d clearly used a marksman: Mongibello died instantly.’
‘Apparently the Cuffaros felt he’d become a weak link in the chain, or even a traitor, and decided to eliminate him.’
‘But they still haven’t got the tape!’
‘What the fuck do they care about the tape? Their name is never mentioned in it! They’ll just say that it was a private matter of Mongibello’s that they knew nothing about! They’ll say they’re shocked! So, what line are you guys going to take now?’
A Voice in the Night Page 19
