The Patience of the Spider (8 page)

And what does this mean?

In my opinion, it means the group that kidnapped Susanna
is the same one that is holding her prisoner and demanding
the ransom. It might be a family outfit on a low budget.
And if theyre not professional, that complicates matters and
makes it more dangerous for the girl. Follow me?

Perfectly.

It may also mean theyre holding her somewhere not
very far away. He paused, looking pensive. On the other
hand, it doesnt look like some fly-by-night kidnapping either.
In those cases the ransom demand is usually made with the
first contact. They have no time to waste.

This business of letting us hear Susannas voice, said
Montalbano, is it normal? I dont think

Youre right, said Minutolo. It never happens. You
only see it in movies. What usually occurs is that if you dont
want to pay up, they wait a bit and then have the victim write
a couple of lines to persuade you. Or they might send you a
piece of his ear. Thats usually the only kind of contact they
allow between victim and family.

Did you notice how they spoke?
How did they speak?
In perfect Italian, with no regional inflection.
Youre right.
So what are you going to do now?
What do you want me to do? Im going to call the com

missioner and tell him the news.
That phone call has got me confused, said Montalbano

in conclusion.
Me, too, Minutolo agreed.
Tell me something. Why did you let Mistretta talk to a

newsman?

To jump-start things, speed up the tempo. I dont like
the idea of a girl so pretty being at the mercy of people like
that for very long.

Are you going to tell the media about this phone call?
Not even in my dreams.

That was all, for the moment. The inspector went up to
Fazio, who had fallen back asleep, and shook his shoulder.

Wake up, Ill take you home.

Fazio put up a feeble resistance.

Come on. At any rate, theyre not going to call back
until day after tomorrow. They told you themselves, didnt
they?

After dropping Fazio off, he headed home. Entering without a
sound, he went into the bathroom and then got ready to lie
down on the sofa. He was too tired even to curse the saints. As
he was taking off his shirt, he noticed, in the dark, that the bedroom
door was ajar. Apparently Livia was sorry for having banished
him. He went back in the bathroom, finished undressing,
tiptoed into the bedroom, and lay down. A short spell later,
he stretched out close to Livia, who was in a deep sleep. The
minute he closed his eyes he was in dreamland. Then suddenly,
clack. Times spring jammed. Without looking at the clock, he
knew it was three-twenty-seven and forty seconds. How long
had he slept? Luckily he fell back asleep almost at once.

Livia woke up around seven the next morning. Montalbano,
too. And they made peace.

Francesco Lipari, Susannas boyfriend, was waiting for him in
front of the station. The dark circles under his eyes betrayed
his agitation and sleepless nights.

Im sorry, Inspector, but early this morning I called Su-
sannas father and he told me about the phone call, so

What?! I thought Minutolo didnt want anyone to know!

The kid shrugged.

All right, come inside. But dont tell anyone at all about
that phone call.

As he went in, the inspector told Catarella he didnt want
to be disturbed.

Is there something you have to tell me? he asked the
young man.

Nothing in particular. But it occurred to me there was
something I forgot to tell you the last time I saw you. I dont
know how important it is...

In this case, everything is potentially important.

When I discovered Susannas motorbike, I didnt go
straight to her house to tell her father. I took the dirt road all
the way back to Vig, then turned around and went back to
where Id started.

Why?

I dunno. At first it was sort of instinctive. I thought she
might have fainted or fallen and lost her memory, so I decided
to look for her along that road. Then, on the way back, it
wasnt her I was looking for anymore, but

The helmet she always wore, said Montalbano.

The boy looked at him, wide-eyed with surprise.

6

You thought of it, too?

Me? Well, when I arrived at the scene, my men had already
been there for a while. And when Susannas father told
them she always wore a helmet, they looked for it everywhere,
not only along the road but also in the fields beyond the
walls.

I just cant imagine the kidnappers forcing Susanna in the
car with her struggling and screaming with her helmet on.

Me neither, as far as that goes.

But do you really have no idea how things went? asked
Francesco, torn between incredulity and hope.

The kids of today! thought the inspector. They put their faith
in us so readily, and we do everything we can to disappoint them!

To prevent Francesco from seeing his emotion (but was
this not perhaps a first sign of senility and not an effect of his
injury?), he bent down to look at some papers inside a drawer.
He didnt answer until he was sure he could speak in a steady
voice.

There are still too many things we cant explain. The
first is: Why did Susanna take a road shed never taken before
to come home?

Maybe theres somebody around there

Nobody knows her. And nobody even saw her pass by
on her motorbike. Of course its possible one of thems not
telling the truth. In that case, the person not telling the truth
is an accessory to the kidnapping, maybe only as a coordinator.
Maybe he was the only one who knew that on that specific
day, at that specific hour, Susanna would come driving
down that road. Do you follow?

Yes.

But if Susanna took that road for no particular reason,
then the kidnapping must have resulted from an entirely
chance encounter. But that cant be how it went.

Why not?

Because the kidnappers are showing that they planned
the job in advance and are therefore at least minimally organized.
We know from the phone call that this was not a rush
job. They seem in no hurry to get rid of Susanna. This means
theyre keeping her in a safe place. And its unlikely they
found such a place in a matter of hours.

The young man said nothing. He was concentrating so
hard on the words he was hearing that the inspector thought
he could hear the gears churning in his brain. Francesco then
drew his conclusion.

According to your reasoning, Susanna was very probably
kidnapped by someone who knew she was going to take the
dirt road that evening. Someone who lives around there. In
that case we need to get to the bottom of this, find out every-
bodys name, verify that

Stop. If youre going to start calculating and forming hypotheses,
you must also be able to anticipate failure.

I dont understand.

Ill explain. Lets assume we conduct a careful investigation
of all those who live on that road. We come to know
every detail of their lives, down to the number of hairs on
their asses, and in the end we learn that there was never any
contact whatsoever between Susanna and any of them. Nothing
at all. What do you do then? Start over from the top? Give
up? Shoot yourself?

The kid didnt let up.

Well, what do you think one should do?

Formulate and test other hypotheses at the same time,
letting them all play out simultaneously, without giving preference
to any single one, even if it appears to be the most
likely to prove true.

And have you formed any others?

Of course.

Could you tell me one?

If itll make you feel better...Okay, Susannas on that
dirt road because someone told her to meet him or her in that
very place, because theres never anyone around . . .

Thats not possible.

Whats not possible? That Susanna might have had such
an appointment? Can you really be so certain? Im not saying,
mind you, that it was some sort of amorous rendezvous.
Maybe she was meeting someone for reasons we dont know.
So she goes to this appointment unaware that shes walking
into a trap. When she arrives, she parks the motorbike, removes
her helmet, but keeps it in her hand, knowing that the
meeting is supposed to be brief. Then she approaches the car
and is kidnapped. Does that work for you?

No, Francesco said firmly.

And why not?

Because when we saw each other that afternoon, she
would surely have told me about this prearranged meeting.
Im sure of it, believe me.

I believe you. But maybe Susanna didnt get a chance to
tell you.

I dont understand.

Did you accompany her on her way to her friends house
that evening?

No.

Susanna had a cell phone, which we havent found,
right?

Right.

She could have received a phone call after she left your
place, as she was on her way to her friends house, and agreed
to the meeting only then. And since you havent seen her
since, she had no way of letting you know.

The boy thought about this for a moment. Then he made
up his mind.

I guess its possible.

So what are you trying to tell me with all these doubts
of yours?

Francesco didnt answer. He buried his face in his hands.
Montalbano threw oil on the fire.

But we may be entirely on the wrong track.

The kid jumped out of his chair.

What are you saying?

Im merely saying that its possible were starting from a
mistaken assumption. That is, that Susanna went home by way
of that dirt road.

But thats where I found the motorbike!

That doesnt necessarily mean Susanna took that road
when leaving Vig. Ill give you an example, the first thing
that comes into my head. Susanna leaves her friends home
and takes the road she normally does. This road is used by
many of the people who live in the houses before and after
the villa, and it ends a couple of miles past the Mistretta house
in a kind of rural suburb of VigLa Cucca, I think its
called. Its a road of commuters, peasants, and others who prefer
to live in the country even though they work in Vig.
They all know one another, and probably go back and forth
on that road at the same times of day.

Yes, but what has that got to do with

Let me finish. The kidnappers have been following
Susanna for some time, to see what kind of traffic there is
around the hour she comes home, and to figure out where
would be the best place for them to make their move. That
evening, they get lucky. They can carry out their plan at the
intersection with the dirt road. In one way or another, they
block Susannas path. There are at least three of them. Two
of them get out of the car and force her to get in. The car
drives off, probably taking the dirt road in the direction of
Vig. One of the two, however, stays behind, grabs the motorbike,
and follows the car. Then he leaves the bike at some
point along the dirt road. This would explain, among other
things, why the motorbike was pointed in the direction of
Vig. Then he gets in the car with the others, and they drive
off into the sunset.

Francesco looked doubtful.

But why bother with the motorbike? What do they

care? Their main concern is to get out of there as quickly as
possible.

But I just told you that roads full of commuters! They
couldnt just leave the motorbike on the ground. Someone
might think thered been an accident, another might recognize
the motorbike as Susannas...In short, alarm bells were
ringing and they didnt have time to find a good place to hide
it. And while they were at it, they might as well move it onto
the dirt road, where nobody ever drove by. But we can form
other hypotheses as well.

We can?

As many as you like. After all, were conducting a lesson
here. But first I must ask you a question. You told me you
sometimes accompanied Susanna all the way home.

Yes.

Was the gate open or closed?

Closed. Susanna would open it with her key.

So we can also hypothesize that Susanna, having leaned
her motorbike against the gate, was reaching for her key when
somebody came up to her on foot, someone shes seen a few
times along that road, some commuter. The man pleads with
her to take him on her motorbike to the dirt road, making up
some bullshit story or othersay, that his wife felt sick in the
car on her way to Vig and called him on her cell phone for
help, or that his son got hit by a car . . . something like that.
Susanna feels she cant refuse, so she has him get on the back
of her bike and sets out. And in this case as well, we have an
explanation for the positioning of the motorbike. Another
possibility . . .

Montalbano suddenly broke off.

Why dont you go on?

Because Im bored. Dont kid yourself: It doesnt matter
that much exactly what happened.

It doesnt?

No, because, if you think about it . . . The more we examine
the details that seem essential to us, the fuzzier, the more out-
of-focus they become. Take you, for example. Didnt you come
to me to find out what ever happened to Susannas helmet?

Her helmet? Yes.

As you can see, the more our discussion progressed, the
more the helmet receded into the background. In fact it became
so unimportant that we stopped talking about it. The
real question is not the how, but the why.

Francesco was opening his mouth to ask another question
when the door burst open and crashed loudly against the wall,
sending him flying out of his chair in fear.

What was that? he asked.

My and slipped, Catarella said contritely from the
doorway.

What is it? Montalbano asked in turn.

Seeing as how you said you dint wanna be disturbed by
any disturbers, I hadda come ax you a question in poisson.

Go ahead.

Is Mr. Zito the newsman one of them that youda call
disturbers, an if he int, int he?