The Shape of Water (15 page)

“So where did this story about the Pasture come from?”

“That happened later, when he came home for lunch. He explained to me that Rizzo, his lawyer, had told him the insurance company needed a more convincing story about how I lost the necklace and had suggested the story about the Pastor to him.”

“Pasture,” Montalbano patiently corrected her. The mispronunciation bothered him.

“Pasture, Pasture,” Ingrid repeated. “Frankly, I didn’t find that story very convincing either. It seemed screwy, made up. That’s when Giacomo told me that everyone saw me as a whore, and so it would seem believable that I might get an idea like the one about having him take me to the Pasture.”

“I understand.”

“Well, I don’t!”

“They were trying to frame you.”

“Frame me? What does that mean?”

“Look, Luparello died at the Pasture in the arms of a woman who persuaded him to go there, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, they want to make it look like you were that woman. The purse is yours, the necklace is yours, the clothes at Luparello’s house are yours, you’re capable of driving down the Canneto—I’m supposed to arrive at only one conclusion: that woman is Ingrid Sjostrom.”

“Now I understand,” she said, falling silent, eyes staring at the glass in her hand. Then she roused herself. “It’s not possible.”

“What’s not possible?”

“That Giacomo would go along with these people who want to . . . to frame me.”

“Maybe they forced him to go along with them. Your husband’s financial situation’s not too good, you know.”

“He never talks to me about it, but I could see that. Still, I’m sure that if he did it, it wasn’t for money.”

“I’m pretty sure of that myself.”

“Then why?”

“There must be another explanation, which would be that your husband was forced to get involved to save someone who is more important to him than you. Wait.”

He went into the other room, where there was a small desk covered with papers. He picked up the fax that Nicolò Zito had sent to him.

“But to save someone else from what?” Ingrid asked as soon as he returned. “If Silvio died when he was making love, it’s not anybody’s fault. He wasn’t killed.”

“To protect someone not from the law, Ingrid, but from a scandal.”

The young woman began reading the fax first with surprise, then with growing amusement; she laughed openly at the polo club episode. But immediately afterward she darkened, let the sheet fall on the bed, and leaned her head to one side.

“Was he, your father-in-law, the man you used to take to Luparello’s pied-à-terre?”

Answering the question visibly cost Ingrid some effort.

“Yes. And I can see that people are talking about it, even though I did everything I could so they wouldn’t. It’s the worst thing that’s happened to me the whole time I’ve been in Sicily.”

“You don’t have to tell me the details.”

“But I want to explain that it wasn’t me who started it. Two years ago my father-in-law was supposed to take part in a conference in Rome, and he invited Giacomo and me to join him. At the last minute my husband couldn’t come, but he insisted on my going anyway, since I had never been to Rome. It all went well, except that the very first night my father-in-law entered my room. He seemed insane, so I went along with him just to calm him down, because he was yelling and threatening me. On the airplane, on the way back, he was crying at times, and he said it would never happen again. You know that we live in the same palazzo, right? Well, one afternoon when my husband was out and I was lying in bed, he came in again, like that night, trembling all over. And again I felt afraid; the maid was in the kitchen. . . . The next day I told Giacomo I wanted to move out. He became upset, I became insistent, we quarreled. I brought up the subject a few times after that, but he said no every time. He was right, in his opinion. Meanwhile my father-in-law kept at it—kissing me, touching me whenever he had the chance, even risking being seen by his wife or Giacomo. That was why I begged Silvio to let me use his house on occasion.”

“Does your husband have any suspicions?”

“I don’t know, I’ve wondered myself. Sometimes it seems like he does, other times I’m convinced he doesn’t.”

“One more question, Ingrid. When we got to Capo Massaria, as you were opening the door you told me I wouldn’t find anything inside. And when you saw instead that everything was still there, just as it had always been, you were very surprised. Had someone assured you that everything had been taken out of Luparello’s house?”

“Yes, Giacomo told me.”

“So your husband did know?”

“Wait, don’t confuse me. When Giacomo told me what I was supposed to say in case I was questioned by the insurance people—that is, that I had been to the Pasture with him—I became worried about something else: that with Silvio dead, sooner or later someone would discover his little house, with my clothes, my purse, and everything else inside.”

“Who would have found them, in your opinion?”

“Well, I don’t know, the police, his family . . . I told Giacomo everything, but I told him a lie. I didn’t say anything about his father; I made him think I was going there with Silvio. That evening he told me everything was all right, that a friend of his would take care of it, and that if anyone discovered the little house, they would find only whitewashed walls inside. And I believed him. What’s wrong?”

Montalbano was taken aback by the question.

“What do you mean, what’s wrong?”

“You keep touching the back of your neck.”

“Oh. It hurts. Must have happened when we drove down the Canneto. How’s your ankle?”

“Better, thanks.”

Ingrid started laughing. She was changing moods from one moment to the next, like a child.

“What’s so funny?”

“Your neck, my ankle—we’re like two hospital patients.”

“Feel up to getting out of bed?”

“If it was up to me, I’d stay here till morning.”

“We’ve still got some things to do. Get dressed. Can you drive?”

14

Ingrid’s red fillet-of-sole car was still parked in its spot by the Marinella Bar. Apparently it was judged too much trouble to steal; there weren’t many like it in Montelusa and environs.

“Take your car and follow me,” said Montalbano. “We’re going back to Capo Massaria.”

“Oh, God! To do what?” Ingrid pouted. She really didn’t feel like it, and the inspector realized this.

“It’s in your own interest.”

 
 
By the glare of the headlights, which he quickly turned off, Montalbano realized that the entrance gate to the house was open. He got out and walked over to Ingrid’s car.

“Wait for me here. Turn off your headlights. Do you remember whether we closed the gate when we left?”

“I don’t really remember, but I’m pretty sure we did.”

“Turn your car around and make as little noise as possible.”

The woman did as he said, the car’s nose now pointing toward the main road.

“Now listen to what I say. I’m going down there. You keep your ears pricked, and if you hear me shout or notice anything suspicious, don’t think twice, just cut out and go home.”

“Do you think there’s someone inside?”

“I don’t know. Just do as I said.”

From his car he took the purse and his pistol. He headed off, trying to step as lightly as possible, and descended the staircase. This time the front door opened without any resistance or sound. He passed through the doorway, pistol in hand. The large room was somehow dimly illuminated by reflections off the water. He kicked open the bathroom door and then the others one by one, feeling ridiculously like the hero of an American TV program. There was nobody in the house, nor was there any sign that anyone else had been there. It didn’t take much to convince him that he himself had left the gate open. He slid open the picture window and looked below. At that point Capo Massaria jutted out over the sea like a ship’s prow. The water below must have been quite deep. He ballasted Ingrid’s purse with some silverware and a heavy crystal ashtray, spun it around over his head and hurled it out to sea. It wouldn’t be so easily found again. Then he took everything that belonged to Ingrid from the armoire in the bedroom and went outside, making sure the front door was well shut. As soon as he appeared at the top of the stairs, he was bathed in the glare of Ingrid’s headlights.

“I told you to keep your lights off. And why did you turn the car back around?”

“I didn’t want to leave you here alone. If there was trouble . . .”

“Here are your clothes.”

She took them and put them on the passenger seat.

“Where’s the purse?”

“I threw it into the sea. Now go back home. They have nothing left to frame you with.”

Ingrid got out of the car, walked up to Montalbano, and embraced him. She stayed that way awhile, her head leaning on his chest. Then, without looking back at him, she got back into her car, put it in gear, and left.

Right at the entrance to the bridge over the Canneto, a car was stopped, blocking most of the road. A man was standing there, elbows propped against the roof of the car, hands covering his face, lightly rocking back and forth.

“Anything wrong?” asked Montalbano, pulling up.

The man turned around. His face was covered with blood, which poured out of a broad gash in the middle of his forehead.

“Some bastard,” he said.

“I don’t understand. Please explain,” Montalbano got out of the car and approached.

“I was breezing quietly along when this son of a bitch passes me, practically running me off the road. So I got pissed off and started chasing after him, honking the horn and flashing my high beams. Suddenly the guy puts on his brakes and turns the car sideways. He gets out of the car, and he’s got something in his hand that I can’t make out, and I get scared, thinking he’s got a weapon. He comes toward me—my window was down—and without saying a word he bashes me with that thing, which I realized was a monkey wrench.”

“Do you need assistance?”

“No, I think the bleeding’s gonna stop.”

“Do you want to file a police report?”

“Don’t make me laugh. My head hurts.”

“Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”

“Would you please mind your own fucking business?”

 
 
How long had it been since he’d had a proper night of God-given sleep? Now he had this bloody pain at the back of his head that wouldn’t give him a moment’s peace. It continued unabated, and even if he lay still, belly up or belly down, it made no difference, the pain persisted, silent, insidious, without any sharp pangs, which was maybe worse. He turned on the light. It was four o’clock. On the bedside table were still the salve and roll of gauze he’d used on Ingrid. He grabbed them and, in front of the bathroom mirror, rubbed a little of the salve on the nape of his neck—maybe it would give him some relief—then wrapped his neck in the gauze, securing it with a piece of adhesive tape. But perhaps he put the wrap on too tight; he had trouble moving his head. He looked at himself in the mirror, and at that moment a blinding flash exploded in his brain, drowning out even the bathroom light. He felt like a comic-book character with X-ray vision who could see all the way inside of things.

In grammar school he’d had an old priest as his religion teacher. “Truth is light,” the priest had said one day.

Montalbano, never very studious, had been a mischievous pupil, always sitting in the last row.

“So that must mean that if everyone in the family tells the truth, they save on the electric bill.”

He had made this comment aloud, which got him kicked out of the classroom.

Now, some thirty-odd years after the fact, in his mind he asked the old priest to forgive him.

 
 
“Boy, do you look ugly today!” exclaimed Fazio as soon as he saw the inspector come in to work. “Not feeling well?”

“Leave me alone” was Montalbano’s reply. “Any news of Gambardella? Did you find him?”

“Nothing. Vanished. I’ve decided we’ll end up finding him back in the woods somewhere, eaten by dogs.”

There was something, however, in the sergeant’s tone of voice that he found suspicious; he had known him for too many years.

“Anything wrong?”

“It’s Gallo. He’s gone to the emergency room, hurt his arm. Nothing serious.”

“How’d it happen?”

“With the squad car.”

“Did he crash it speeding?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to spit it out or do you need a midwife to pull the words out of your mouth?”

“Well, I’d sent him to the town market on an emergency, some kind of brawl, and he took off in a hurry—you know how he is—and he skidded and crashed into a telephone pole. The car got towed to our depot in Montelusa and they gave us another.”

“Tell me the truth, Fazio: had the tires been slashed?”

“Yes.”

“And did Gallo check, as I had told him a hundred times to do? Can’t you clowns understand that slashing tires is the national sport in this goddamned country? Tell him he’d better not show his face at the office or I’ll bust his ass.”

He slammed the door to his room, furious. Searching inside a tin can in which he kept most everything from postage stamps to buttons, he found the key to the old factory and went out without saying good-bye.

Sitting on the rotten beam near where he’d found Ingrid’s purse, he was staring at what had previously looked like an indefinable object, a kind of coupling sleeve for pipes, but which he now easily identified: it was a neck brace, brand-new, though it had clearly been used. As if by power of suggestion, his neck started hurting again. He got up, grabbed the brace, left the old factory, and returned to headquarters.

 
 
“Inspector? This is Stefano Luparello.”