The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri Read Free Book Online Page A

man’s heart. First of all, she has no problem driving down into the Canneto, and then, when Luparello dies between her thighs, she gets up like nothing, closes the door, and walks away. Does that seem normal to you?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    At this point Gegè started laughing and flicked on his cigarette lighter.
    “What are you doing?” asked Montalbano.
    “Come over here, faggot. Bring your face to the light.”
    The inspector obeyed, and Gegè illuminated his eyes. Then he extinguished the lighter.
    “I get it. All along, you, a man of the law, were thinking the exact same thoughts as me, a man of crime. And you just wanted to see if they matched up. Eh, Salvù?”
    “You guessed right.”
    “I’m hardly ever wrong when it comes to you. Gotta go now. Ciao.”
    “Thanks,” said Montalbano.
    The inspector left first, but a moment later his friend pulled up beside him, gesturing for him to slow down.
    “What do you want?”
    “I don’t know where my head was. I wanted to tell you this before. Do you have any idea what a pretty sight you made this afternoon, hand in hand with Corporal Ferrara?”
    Then he accelerated, putting a safe distance between himself and the inspector, his arm waving good-bye.
     
 
Back at home, Montalbano jotted down a few of the details that Gegè had provided, but sleep soon came over him. He glanced at his watch, noticed it was a little past one, and went to bed. The insistent ringing of the doorbell woke him up. His eyes looked over at the alarm clock: two-fifteen. He got up with some effort; the early stages of sleep always slowed down his reflexes.
    “Who the fuck is that, at this hour?”
    He went to the door just as he was, in his briefs, and opened up.
    “Hi,” said Anna.
    He’d completely forgotten; the girl had indeed said that she would come see him around this hour. Anna was looking him over.
    “I see you’re wearing the right clothes,” she said, then stepped inside.
    “Say what it is you have to tell me, then go back home. I’m dead tired.”
    Montalbano was truly annoyed by the intrusion. He went into his bedroom, put on a pair of pants and shirt, and returned to the dining room. Anna wasn’t there. She had gone into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and was already sinking her teeth into a bread roll filled with prosciutto.
    “I’m so hungry I can hardly see.”
    “You can talk while you’re eating.”
    Montalbano put the espresso pot on the stove.
    “You’re going to make coffee? At this hour? Will you be able to fall back asleep afterward?”
    “Anna, please.” He was unable to be polite.
    “All right. This afternoon, after we split up, I found out from a colleague, who for his part had been told by an informer, that starting yesterday, Tuesday morning, some guy’s been going around to all the jewelers, receivers of stolen goods, and pawnbrokers both legitimate and illegitimate to alert them that if someone came in to buy or pawn a certain piece of jewelry, they should let him know. The piece in question is a necklace, with a solid-gold chain and a heart-shaped pendant covered with diamonds. The kind of thing you’d find at some cheap department store, except that this one’s real.”
    “So how are they supposed to let him know? By phone?”
    “It’s no joke. He told each one of them to give a different signal—I don’t know, like putting a green cloth in the window or hanging a piece of newspaper from the front door, things like that. He’s shrewd: that way he can see without being seen.”
    “Fine, but I think—”
    “Let me finish. From the way he spoke and acted, the people he approached concluded it was best to do as he said. Then we found out that some other people, at the same time, were making the same rounds in all the towns of the province, Vigàta included. Therefore, whoever lost that necklace wants it back.”
    “Nothing wrong with that. So why, in your opinion, should this interest me?”
    “Because the man told