The Age of Doubt

by Andrea Camilleri

  “All right,” said Fazio, turning to leave the room.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to my office to make the call.”

  “Can’t you just do it here?”

  “No, sir. I’m a better liar when I’m alone.”

  Fazio returned less than five minutes later.

  “Wha’d he say?”

  “He said you’ve been having too many accidents lately and had better start taking better care of yourself.”

  “Didn’t he believe it?”

  “I don’t think so. Chief, I think you’d better go home right away. He’s definitely going to call.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “Yes. He said you’re going to have to resume the investigation because Inspector Mazzamore is too busy with another case.”

  “And you’re telling me this now?”

  “When was I supposed to tell you?”

  “It should have been the first thing!”

  They stood there for a moment in silence, staring at each other.

  “I’m not convinced,” said Montalbano.

  “Me neither. But it’s not the first time he’s given you back a case he’d taken away from you.”

  “I’m still not convinced. At any rate, I wanted to tell you that the body in the dinghy’s been identified. His real name was Jean-Pierre David, and the French police had been keeping an eye on him.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Apparently he was involved in diamond trafficking.”

  Fazio’s eyes narrowed to little slits.

  “Ah, so the guys from the Ace of Hearts . . . ?”

  “Are up to their necks in this. Cross my heart and hope to die. We have to figure out a way to set them up. And we’ve got to do it quickly, because they could leave at any moment. Oh, and one more thing.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I want you and Gallo to be ready. This afternoon, around five o’clock, there’s something we have to do.”

  “What’s it involve?”

  “We’ll probably have to arrest Mimì.”

  Fazio opened his mouth and then closed it again. And he turned red in the face, and then pale as a ghost. He collapsed into a chair.

  “Wh . . . Why?” he asked in a faint voice.

  “I’ll explain later.”

  At that moment Catarella came in with a few sheets of paper in his hand.

  “I prinnit it all up, Chief.”

  Montalbano folded them and put them in his jacket pocket.

  “See you later,” he said.

  And he headed back home.

  But how was it that the telephone had now acquired the fine habit of starting to ring just as he was coming through the door? Since he’d given up hope that it was Laura trying to reach him, he took his time.

  He went and opened the French door to the veranda, then went into the kitchen.

  Since he would, of necessity, have to eat at home, he wanted to see what Adelina had made for him. He opened the oven.

  And what a discovery it was. Pasta ’ncasciata and mullet alla livornese.

  The telephone, which in the meanwhile had stopped ringing, started again. This time he went and picked up.

  It was the c’mishner.

  “Montalbano, how are you feeling?”

  Just as Fazio had predicted, the goddamn sonofabitch wanted to verify whether he had actually had an accident. And Montalbano was ready to oblige him. He began:

  “Well, the crash wasn’t—”

  “I wasn’t talking about that,” the commissioner cut him off sharply.

  Oh no? Then what did he want to talk about? Maybe it was best to keep quiet and see where the guy was headed.

  “I was referring to your mental health, which I’m very worried about.”

  What was this? Was he telling him he thought he was going insane? How dare he?

  “Listen, Mr. Commissioner, sir, I can put up with a lot, but I will not tolerate any comments about my mental—”

  “I’ll do the talking here, Inspector. You just answer my questions.”

  “Listen, this isn’t—”

  “Goddammit, Montalbano, that’s enough!” Bonetti-Alderighi snapped.

  He must really be angry. Better let him get it out of his system. But the question he asked was the last thing Montalbano expected.

  “Is it true that you suffered a terrible loss a few days ago?”

  The inspector felt annihilated. Dr. Lattes must have told the commissioner that he’d lost his son!

  “In other words, that a son of yours died?” the commissioner continued in a frosty tone of voice.

  How the hell was he going to get out of this one?

  “And your wife is in despair?”

  The commissioner’s voice was now well below zero.

  “And can you explain to me how this can be when, as far as anyone knows, you have neither wife nor children?”

  A polar ice floe.

  What the hell to do now? A hundred possible replies raced through his mind at supersonic speed but he ruled them all out. None seemed convincing enough. He opened his mouth, but was unable to speak. The commissioner spoke instead.

  “I understand,” he said.

  The freeze attained by this point was only possible in laboratories.

  “I do hope you’ll one day let me know your reasons for playing such a mean, vulgar trick on a perfect gentleman like Dr. Lattes.”

  “It wasn’t a . . . ,” he finally managed to utter.

  “I don’t think one can talk about something so serious and base over the telephone. So let’s stop trying, for now. Have you been informed that I had to turn the investigation back to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “If it were up to me, you . . . but I was forced to do so, against my will . . . But let me be very clear about this. If you step out of line this time, I’ll screw you. And you must keep me continually up to date on the progress of the case. Good day.”

  “Good night” would have been more appropriate.

  Matre santa, how embarrassing! Enough to make one want to disappear underground! There was, however, a positive side to it: from now on Lattes would never again ask him for news of his family.

  And the commissioner, in his rage, had let slip an important admission. Namely, that he’d been forced to give the case back to him, against his own will. Therefore, someone else had intervened. Who could it have been? And, more importantly: Why?

  But since the commissioner had, in fact, called, and it had not been possible to give any ready answers to his questions, the inspector decided to go out and eat at Enzo’s.

  As he was heading towards the port for his customary stroll, he had an idea. Maybe he could do something to help to loosen La Giovannini’s tongue and make her reveal to Mimì exactly what she did while sailing the seas, and perhaps confirm whether it was the sort of traffic he already suspected her of.

  He took the roundabout way to the lighthouse, and when he was in front of the Vanna, he headed up the gangway and stopped at the deck.

  “Anybody here?”

  Captain Sperlì answered from the mess room.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Inspector Montalbano.”

  “Come in, come in.”

  The inspector went below decks through the hatch. The captain was finishing his lunch. Beside him stood Digiulio, serving as his waiter.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Montalbano. “If you’re eating, I can come back later.”

  “No, please, I’ve already finished. Would you have some coffee with me?”

  “I’d love some.”

  “Please sit down.”

  “Signora Giovannini’s not here?”

  “She’s here but she’s resting. If you like, I—”

  “No, no, please let her sleep. I heard you were having some problems with your fuel. Has that been set right?”

  “Apparently it was a false alarm.”

  “So you’ll be leav
ing as soon as you can?”

  “If we can get poor old Shaikiri’s body back tomorrow morning, as we’ve been promised, we’ll bury him and then set sail in the afternoon.

  Digiulio brought the coffee. They drank it in silence. Montalbano then started digging in his pockets. To get better access to what he was looking for, he pulled out the sheets of paper Catarella had given him, and set these down on the table. On the top sheet was the name, in block letters: KIMBERLEY PROCESS. He hadn’t yet had the time to read them, but whatever they said, they must nevertheless have a precise meaning for the captain, since Giovannini kept a file with the same name in her safe. And indeed, the moment the captain’s eyes fell on the sheet of paper, he gave a start. At last Montalbano extracted the pack of cigarettes from his pocket, fired one up, and put the papers back in his pocket.

  Meanwhile Sperlì had become visibly nervous.

  “Look, if you’d like to speak with Signora Giovannini, I can go—”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it!” said Montalbano, getting up. “It was nothing of importance. I’ll pass by again later. Have a nice day.”

  He went up on deck, then back down onto the wharf. Sperlì hadn’t budged. He seemed to have turned to stone.

  Perhaps he really ought to find out what this Kimberley Process was, the inspector thought, considering the effect it had on the captain.

  But he would look into it later, at the office. First the walk to the lighthouse.

  As he was sitting on the flat rock, all at once the thought of Laura assailed him with all the ferocity of a rabid dog. It caused him genuine, physical pain. The violence was perhaps due to the fact that he had managed for a while not to think of her, thanks to his preoccupation with the case. It had been his sort of revenge. But now her absence sliced right through him. It was an open wound.

  No, he couldn’t phone her. He mustn’t. There was, however, one thing he could do that wouldn’t have negative consequences.

  He got in his car and headed to the Harbor Office.

  Outside the entrance stood the usual guard and two sailors, chatting. He drove a little further past, then parked in such a way that he could see, in the rearview mirror, who went in and who came out.

  He stayed there for fifteen minutes, smoking one cigarette after another. Then, in a moment of lucidity, he felt embarrassed, ashamed of himself.

  What was he doing there? He hadn’t even done this sort of thing when he was sixteen, and now he was doing it at fifty-eight? Fifty-eight, Montalbà! Don’t you forget it! Or was it perhaps the folly of old age that made him act this way?

  Humiliated and depressed, he started up the car and drove back to the station.

  As soon as he sat down, he pulled out Catarella’s printouts and was about to start reading them when the phone rang.

  “Ah Chief! ’At’d be Dacter Lattes onna line who—”

  “I’m not here!”

  He yelled it so loudly that Catarella complained.

  “Matre santa, Chief! Ya got my ears a-ringin’!”

  The inspector hung up. He didn’t feel like talking. How could he ever justify his actions to Lattes? How could he ask to be forgiven? With what words? Why had he been so stupid as not to follow Livia’s advice?

  So, Kimberley Process was . . .

  The telephone rang again.

  “’Scuse me, Chief, but there’s a young lady says she wants a talk t’yiz poissonally in poi—”

  “On the phone?”

  “Nah, she’s onna premisses.”

  He didn’t have the time. He absolutely had to read those printouts.

  “Tell her to come back tomorrow morning.”

  So, Kimberley Process was . . .

  Again the phone.

  “Chief, ya gotta try ’n’ unnastand but the young lady says iss rilly rilly urgentlike.”

  “Did she say what her name was?”

  “Yessir. Vanna Digiulio.”

  17

  To say he was astonished wouldn’t have been accurate. If anything, he felt a sort of small satisfaction for having been right on target; indeed, he’d been certain the girl would turn up sooner or later to explain the whole affair to him. One thing, however, did indeed astonish him no end: that Catarella, for the first time in his life, had neither mangled nor mistaken her name.

  For a second, upon seeing her, he thought that the young woman standing before him was not the same one he’d met. And that the whole business was even murkier than he’d imagined. How many Vanna Digiulios were there, anyway?

  This one was blonde, without glasses, and had beautiful blue eyes. More importantly, she didn’t have that beaten-dog look that had made him feel so sorry for her. On the contrary, to judge by the way she walked, she seemed like a decisive, self-assured person.

  She smiled at Montalbano as she held out her hand. Montalbano, standing erect, returned the greeting.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

  “I knew you would be,” she said.

  So they were even. The girl knew how to fence. Montalbano gestured towards the chair in front of his desk, and she sat down, setting the large purse she carried slung across her shoulder onto the floor.

  She began speaking before the inspector had even asked her anything.

  “My name is Roberta Rollo. We have the same rank, but for the past three years I’ve been in the direct employ of the U.N.”

  So this must be a really big deal. And while she might be of equal rank to him, she certainly was far more important than a simple chief inspector of police. He wanted confirmation.

  “Was it you who forced the commissioner to give the case back to me?”

  “Not personally, no. But I pulled a few strings,” she said, smiling.

  “Could I ask you a few questions?”

  “I’m indebted to you. Go right ahead.”

  “Was Shaikiri your informer on the Vanna?”

  “Yes.”

  “And were you the person Shaikiri met with at the carabinieri station?”

  “Yes.”

  “The lieutenant told me it had something to do with terrorism, but I didn’t believe it.”

  “That’s not a question but an affirmation. But I’ll answer anyway. You were right not to believe it.”

  “Because in fact it involved the illegal diamond trade.”

  The woman opened her eyes wide, and they became two little sky-blue lakes.

  “How did you find that out so quickly? I was told you were a good policeman, but I had no idea you—”

  “You’re not too bad yourself, I must say. You got me to swallow whole your story about being the neglected niece of a rich yacht owner . . . Did you know that? You even managed to make me feel sorry for you. But then why, at the same time, did you indirectly provide me with a number of clues that would lead me to realize that you were a completely different person from the one you pretended to be?”

  “I have no problem telling you the whole story. The morning we met, when you rescued me from an unexpected predicament, you introduced yourself as Inspector Montalbano, the very person I’d been told to contact, to enlist your cooperation on an operation that was to be launched shortly thereafter.”

  “And what was that?”

  “We’d learned that Émile Lannec . . .”

  Montalbano shook his head.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “His name wasn’t Lannec, but Jean-Pierre David.”

  The girl was astonished.

  “So Lannec was David!”

  “Did you know him?”

  “I certainly did. But we didn’t know they were the same person. How did you figure that out?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Go on.”

  “At any rate, we’d learned that Lannec had left Paris to come here. And so—”

  “What was Lannec’s role?”

  “Wait. He seemed to us to be a sort of troubleshooter. He would turn up whenever there were problems.”

  “And what was his role when he
was David?”

  “He was one of the leaders of the organization. A very important man. Then I got a message from Shaikiri saying that due to the bad weather, the Vanna was heading for Vigàta. As you’ve probably already surmised, the Vanna and the Ace of Hearts both belong to the same organization, though they have different responsibilities.”

  “And what are they?”

  “The Vanna picks up the diamonds, and the Ace of Hearts sorts them out. Having them both at the same port, and knowing that Lannec was here too, presented us with a unique opportunity. Imagine if we’d known that Lannec was actually David! That was why I rushed to the scene. My intention was to see how things stood and then, if necessary, have you organize a roundup. But there was one hitch. A big one. Those people know who I am, and they know I’ve been after them for some time . . . And as you’ve seen, they’re people who won’t hesitate to kill. So I planted a few doubts in your mind, in case something happened to me.”

  “I’d figured as much. Then why did you disappear?”

  “Because they suddenly found Lannec’s body in the dinghy. I realized there would be a lot of commotion, and that it wouldn’t work in my favor. And Lannec’s murder, which must certainly have taken place aboard the Ace of Hearts, changed the whole picture. I needed to think things over.”

  “I’m sorry, but what interest did the Vanna have in bringing Lannec’s body back to shore? If he was killed by their very own accomplices on the Ace of Hearts . . .”

  “They didn’t recognize him! They couldn’t! They made a grave mistake by bringing him back to shore! And, in fact, Shaikiri told me about a furious quarrel that had taken place between Giovannini and Sperlì on the one hand, and Zigami and Petit on the other . . . Do you know who they are?”

  “Yes. The supposed owner of the Ace of Hearts and his secretary.”

  “And they were arguing precisely because the Vanna had dragged the body back to port.”

  “Are all crew members on both ships implicated?”

  “On the Ace of Hearts, yes; on the Vanna, only Alvarez knows what’s going on.”

  And that was why La Giovannini made certain that Shaikiri wasn’t killed aboard her yacht.

  “Why only Alvarez?”

  “Alvarez is Angolan, not Spanish, as everyone thinks. Apparently it was he who originally got the late Mr. Giovannini interested in the diamond trade.”