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

duty to inform you that the commissioner is very angry with you for the mess you’ve made—’
    ‘That
I’ve
made?! What have I—’
    ‘And above all because you were unwilling to wait for his meeting to end, as he had asked you to do.’
    ‘But—’
    ‘And why did you hang up on him just a few minutes ago? Come without a moment’s delay, I beg you. Come immediately. Fly. For the love of God, don’t make him even more
upset!’
    ‘But the fact is that I took him for a—’
    He managed to stop himself in time. Could he really say he’d mistaken him for a dinosaur?
    ‘Come at once, please.’
    What the fuck! So that wild, tropical-forest voice belonged to Hizzoner the C’mishner Bonetti-Alderighi? You could say a great many things about the man, but not that he was uncivilized.
The man must be enraged to death. Two options, therefore, remained for the inspector: either go and let himself be mauled like an ancient Roman in the Colosseum, or shoot himself immediately in the
head. He opted for the first.
    *
    Dr Lattes was pacing back and forth in the waiting room when Montalbano came in. He seemed a bit worried.
    ‘I gave him a couple of tranquillizers. He’s a little better now, thank God.’
    ‘But what did I do to him?’
    ‘He’ll tell you himself. You can go in, he’s waiting for you.’
    Bonetti-Alderighi was sitting behind his desk in his armchair, a little bottle of pills and a glass of water on the desktop in front of him.
    He was dishevelled, eyes slightly protruding, tie loosened and jerked to one side, top shirt button unbuttoned. He who was always so impeccably dressed! But aside from this, he looked normal
enough. As soon as he saw the inspector walk in, he opened the medicine bottle, shook out a pill, put it in his mouth, took a sip of water, and said:
    ‘You’ve ruined my career!’
    Montalbano felt like laughing.
    Apparently from the effort of screaming all those animal yells, the commissioner had lost his voice and now spoke like a horse-whisperer. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mr Commissioner,
but—’
    ‘Si . . . silence! I . . . I’ll do the talking!’
    But before starting to speak, Bonetti-Alderighi took another pill.
    Then he opened and closed his mouth twice without saying anything. He was having trouble talking. ‘I got a . . . call . . . earlier . . . from Dr Strangio, the pre . . . the president of
the province . . . who told me that . . . that . . . you had . . . provoked his son . . . and had . . . him handcuffed . . .’
    ‘But—’
    ‘Ssshhh! And then . . . an hour ago . . . the Honourable Mongibello . . .’
    Montalbano looked at him in fascination. The commissioner’s voice now sounded all slurry, like that of someone dead drunk. It was like listening to Fiorello doing impersonations on the
radio.
    ‘. . . he informed me of his . . . decision . . . to . . . present a . . . request . . . in Parliament . . . on the part of his pa . . . party . . . for an investi . . . gation into the
sui . . . cide of . . . Borselli . . . no . . .’
    And he leaned back, against the headrest of the armchair, and said no more. Montalbano was worried. Was the commissioner dead? Had he fainted? The inspector circled round the desk, stood beside
his boss, and bent down to listen to his breathing.
    Bonetti-Alderighi had fallen asleep with his mouth open.
    What to do? Wake him up? With four tranquillizers in his body, nobody was going to move him, not even with cannon blasts. He would be out until the next day.
    Montalbano tiptoed out of the room, softly closing the door behind him.
    ‘All cleared up,’ he said to Dr Lattes, who looked at him questioningly in the waiting room.

FIVE
    When he entered his office, he found Fazio there waiting for him.
    ‘Any news?’
    ‘Chief, I looked into the night-time surveillance of the Banca Regionale. They have a contract with something called the Sleep Easy Institution.’
    ‘Well, give them a ring and—’
    ‘Already taken care of. I just