The Fourth Secret by Andrea Camilleri Read Free Book Online Page A

he grabbed Fazio’s arm, almost lifted him off the ground, pushing him forward.
    “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked in a low voice.
    “Sir, I’m not going to give it to him. The bag is ours!”
    “You have five minutes, just so Verruso thinks we’re really looking for it. I’m going for a smoke out front.”
    He was furious with Fazio. But then again, if the marshal hadn’t been a real man, wouldn’t he have reacted the same way, even denying he had received the anonymous letter?
    “Here it is,” Fazio said, and went back to his office wearing a long face.
    Montalbano finished his cigarette and went back to the
marshal. He took the bag the inspector handed him, and put it in his pocket without even looking at it, as if it wasn’t important at all.
    “Look, Marshal, if it turns out that the blood is Puka’s, it can only mean that …”
    “Don’t worry, Inspector. I’ll have it analyzed with the rest.”
    “The rest?”
    “You see, Inspector,” Verruso continued to explain, “when you left the construction site, I called in two of my men. They closely examined the toilet, and on the back of the bowl, we found more bloodstains that had escaped the assassins’ attention. Yes, because Puka was killed by more than one man, wouldn’t you agree?”
    “Agreed,” Montalbano conceded flatly.
    This Marshal Verruso wanted to play cat and mouse with him. But was Verruso certain he was the cat? Where was he with his investigation? What advantage, how far ahead was he? Advantage, far ahead? What was it, a race between the police and carabinieri? Let them deal with it; let them fucking sort this one out!
    “Very well,” Montalbano said, washing his hands of the whole thing. “I told you everything and I gave you the evidence. Now, if I may, I have a lot of …”
    He stood up and extended his hand. The other looked at it as if he had never seen a hand in his whole life and remained seated.
    “Maybe you didn’t understand,” he said.
    “What was there to understand?”
    “That I’m here to tell you … to ask you if you feel like helping me out … not officially, naturally.”
    Montalbano couldn’t help but laugh sardonically. How clever he was, that marshal! He was going to solve the case and the merit would go to him.
    “And why should I?”
    “Because I’m dying.”
    Just like that, simply.
    “You’re joking, right?”
    “No. I have a cancer that’s eating me alive. I’m alone. My wife died three years ago. We never had any children. My only reason for living is my work, sending to prison those who deserve it.”
    “Do your superiors know about this?”
    “No. But the doctors tell me that I don’t have much time, one or two weeks, then I have to check into the hospital and undergo … Well, I’m afraid I don’t have enough time to see this one through. But if you … In any case, whatever your decision is, please don’t tell anyone about my illness.”
    “Do you have a particular interest in this case?”
    “Absolutely not. But I don’t like leaving things unfinished.”
    Admiration. No, much more: respect. For the serene courage, the quiet determination of that man. Once he had read a verse that more or less said that it is the thought of death that helps us to live. Well, maybe the thought, but the certainty of death, its daily presence, its quotidian manifestation, its atrocious ticking—yes, because in that case, death is like an alarm clock that would sound not the awakening but the eternal slumber—all of that wouldn’t have caused in him, Montalbano, an unbearable, unspeakable terror? What was that man made of? No, he thought, he’s made of flesh, just like me. For, once we come to the end, all men find a surprising and merciful strength.
    “I’ll do it,” he said.
    He sat back down.
    “Thank you,” Marshal Verruso said.
    He stood back up immediately.
    “Excuse me a moment.”
    Suddenly, unexpectedly, he had felt a knot in his throat. If he had stayed a bit