A Voice in the Night by Andrea Camilleri Read Free Book Online

not?’
    ‘Because in court a good lawyer could come up with a hundred explanations for the bruises.’
    ‘But if you don’t express your opinion officially, how am I going to take any action?’
    ‘Up yours,’ said Dr Pasquano, with his customarily exquisite politeness.
    And he hung up.
    *
    ‘I heard that complete bastard Ragonese on TV last night,’ Mimì Augello said as he came in. ‘Can’t we do anything to defend ourselves?’
    ‘What do you want to do? Sue him? You’d be lucky if the law gave you satisfaction in three or four years, by which time everyone will have forgotten the whole thing.’
    ‘It makes my palms itch so badly I can’t tell you. One of these days, if I see him in the street, I’m going to knock him out.’
    ‘Mimì, if your palms itch, get your wife to scratch them. Anyway, aside from the nonsense and insults, Ragonese gave you the answer you were looking for.’
    ‘Gave
me
the answer?!’
    ‘Yes indeed. Yesterday you said you had your doubts about the fact that the outside door hadn’t been forced, and you said they’d made a big mistake by using the keys. Whereas
Ragonese indirectly let you know that the thief purposely arranged things to set Borsellino up and make him look like the culprit.’
    ‘That makes me feel even worse! It means that not only is that journalist an idiot, but he’s a rogue with multiple ties to the Cuffaros.’
    ‘Those are
your
conclusions,’ said Montalbano.
    Mimì went out even more upset than when he’d come in, practically colliding with Fazio in the doorway.
    ‘You’ve come at just the right moment,’ the inspector said to Fazio. ‘There’s something I need to know. Try and find out what night-time security service the
supermarket employs.’
    Fazio smiled.
    ‘Already taken care of.’
    Fazio was undoubtedly a terrifically good policeman, but whenever he used that phrase, it made Montalbano want to box his ears, just as Mimì wanted to do to Ragonese.
    ‘So tell me.’
    ‘There’s nobody, Chief. There was no need. Everybody knew that the supermarket belonged to the Cuffaros. And so no thief in his right mind would ever dream of burgling it. However .
. .’
    ‘However?’
    ‘Right next door there’s a branch office of the Banca Regionale. And you can be sure they subscribe to a night-time security service. Any nightwatchman checking on the bank would
have to pass in front of the supermarket. Shall I look into it?’
    ‘Yes.’
    At that moment the outside line rang. Montalbano picked up the receiver almost automatically. He froze in terror. What he was hearing was surely a human voice, but one that was imitating some
enormous prehistoric animal along the lines of
Tyrannosaurus rex
.
    ‘Mooooo . . . aaaaa . . . nooooo!’
    Moano? Was that a surname? Or the masculine form of Moana?
    Good thing he wasn’t Moano, because talking to a Judgement Day trumpet would have been rather awkward.
    ‘You have the wrong number,’ he said.
    And he hung up.
    ‘Shall I go, then?’ Fazio asked.
    ‘Go.’
    Fazio left and the phone rang again. When he picked up the receiver, Montalbano held it at a safe distance from his ear, as a precaution.
    ‘Inspector Montalbano? This is Lattes.’
    The chief of Hizzoner Mr C’mishner’s cabinet was nicknamed ‘Lattes e Mieles’ for his priestly, simpering way of talking.
    ‘What can I do for you, sir?’
    ‘The commissioner wants to see you at once. He asked me to call you, because he had to run to the toilet.’
    He couldn’t hold it in? This was no doubt precious information, but Montalbano didn’t quite know what to do with it. Then he had a revelation that made his blood turn cold.
    ‘Was . . . he . . . the p . . . person who rang me a moment ago?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Matre santa
, what had happened to him? Had he turned into a giant reptile?
    ‘I’m sorry, but why was the commissioner talking that way?’
    ‘Because he was beside himself with anger. Because of you.’
    ‘Me?!’
    ‘It is my