The Patience of the Spider by Andrea Camilleri

out:
    O Madonna mia!
    It seemed impossible, but his face, which was pale as could
be, somehow managed to turn even paler. Montalbano worried
that the man might be having a stroke.
    Whats wrong?
Now they wont believe me! Mistretta moaned.
Who wont believe you?
The kidnappers! Because I told a journalist
What journalist? Did you talk to journalists?
    Yes, but only to one. Inspector Minutolo said I could.
    But why, for the love of God?
    Mistretta looked at him, befuddled.
    Wasnt I supposed to? I wanted to send a message to the
kidnappers. ...To say that they were making a terrible mistake,
that I havent got any money to pay the ransom ...And now
theyre going to find three thousand ...Can you imagine, a
young girl going around with all that money in her pocket?
Theyll never believe me! Poor...girl ...My poor daughter!
    Sobbing prevented him from going on, but as far as the
inspector was concerned, hed said more than enough.
    Good day, Montalbano said.
    And he stalked out of the living room, in the grips of an
uncontrollable rage. What the hell was Minutolo thinking
when he authorized him to make that declaration? He could
already imagine how the newspapers, television, and everybody
else would embroider the story! The kidnappers now
would likely turn nasty, and the person who would suffer the
most would be poor Susanna. Assuming there was, in fact, a
ransom to be paid. From the garden, he called to the policeman
who was reading near the French door.
    Go tell your colleague to hold the gate open for me.
    He got in his car, turned on the ignition, waited a few
seconds, then took off like Schumacher in a Formula 1 race.
The journalists and cameramen scattered in every direction,
cursing.
    What is he, crazy? Is he trying to kill us?
    Instead of continuing down the same road hed come in
on, he turned left onto the dirt road where the motorbike had
been found. And in fact the road was impassable for a normal
    vehicle. He had to drive as slowly as possible and continually
perform complicated maneuvers to keep the wheels from
plunging into huge trenches and hollows of the sort one might
find between dunes in the desert. But the worst was yet to
come. Less than half a mile before the outskirts of town, the
road was cut off by an enormous excavation pit. Apparently
one of those roadworks ahead that in Italy have the peculiarity
of always lying ahead even when the whole world has
passed them by. To get past it, Susanna must have got off her
motorbike and walked it around the pit, or else had to make
an even wider detour, since those whod passed through before
her had, by dint of going repeatedly back and forth, created
a kind of bypass trail through the open countryside. But
what did it mean? Why had Susanna taken this route? He had
an idea. With a series of maneuvers so exacting and numerous
that his injured shoulder began to ache again, he turned the
car around and headed back. The dirt road was starting to
seem endless when at last he came to the main road and
stopped. It was getting dark. He couldnt make up his mind. It
would take at least an hour to do what he wanted to do, which
meant that he would return home late, likely sparking a
squabble with Livia. And he was in no mood for that. On the
other hand, what he wanted to do was merely a routine check,
which anyone at the station could do. He started the car back
up and drove back to headquarters.
    Summon Inspector Augello to my office at once, he ordered
Catarella.
    Chief, he int poissonally here.
    Who is?
    Want their names in flabbetical order?
    Okay, theres Gallo, Galluzzo, GermanGiallombardo,
Grasso, Imbr. .
He chose Gallo.
What can I do for you, Chief?
Listen, Gallo, I want you to go back to that dirt road
where you took me this morning.
    What do you want me to do?
    Theres ten or so little country houses along that road. I
want you to stop at every house and ask if