Read Online The Fourth Secret by Andrea Camilleri - Free Book Online Page B

to find out more about Puka.”
    “Then why are you interested in him?”
    “Because it wasn’t an accident. He was killed. Marshal Verruso, whom I’m sure you met, and myself are certain of it.”
    “My God!” Catarina said, covering her face with her hands. “It was my fault!”
    Montalbano didn’t let her cry.
    “Don’t be silly and answer me. When the other worker was crushed by the beam about a month ago, was Puka at that construction site?”
    “No, he was at another.”
    “Is it normal for the police to give you the names of foreigners?”
    “It has happened two or three times.”
    “Good,” Montalbano said, getting up. “You have no idea how helpful you have been. And I’m honored to have met a woman like you.”
    They looked at each other, and Montalbano nodded.
    How did they understand each other like that? With her eyes, she had asked him: Should I take my son somewhere safe?
    “To Rome, to my in-laws’,” she said, answering the Inspector’s mute question.
    They shook hands. Then she walked up to the inspector, hugged him, and put her head on his chest.
    “Thank you.”
    She stepped back and opened the door to let him out.
    “Do you know when they’re going to reopen the construction site?” he asked walking in front of her.
    “They resumed their work at two this afternoon.”

7
    And so the plot thickened and thinned at the same time. It thinned because now he knew that the Albanian wasn’t an Albanian, that his name definitely wasn’t Pashko Puka, and that he was a man of the law, maybe from DIGOS, the anti-Mafia police division, who went undercover pretending to be a construction worker. He was supposed to discover, but he was the one discovered. And killed. But the plot thickened because if Puka was a cop, DIGOS, the anti-Mafia police division, would start investigating his death as soon as they found out, if they hadn’t found out already. That would make three of them, DIGOS, Verruso, and himself, conducting the same investigation. Three dogs after one bone. He had to hurry before Rome took the case away from poor Verruso, robbing of the last satisfaction he could have got from his job. He looked at his watch; it was five thirty. By the time he got to Tonnarello, working hours would be over at the construction site. In fact, when he got to the top of the small hill, he didn’t see a living soul. Chances were that he went all the way out there for nothing, since the guard, the man he went to see, probably wasn’t even there. He waited awhile and got lucky. The door to the smaller shack opened; a man came out, undid his pants, and started to piss. Then he went into the shack, closing the door behind him. Montalbano got in the car and started to drive down toward the construction site. The road was a slab of slippery mud. He stopped in front of the main gate, crossed the fence, raised his hand to knock on the shack’s door, but froze with his hand in midair. In the silence of the countryside, he could clearly hear what was going on inside.
    “Ah! Ah! More! Give it to me!” a panting female voice said.
    It was a strange voice, high-pitched, almost childish.
    He wasn’t expecting that, so much the worse for the guard.
    He knocked so hard that it sounded like a gunshot.
    The shack fell silent.
    “Who’s there?” a male voice asked.
    “Friends.”
    The inspector heard footsteps; clearly, the man had got up. But he didn’t come to the door; he walked around a little longer, opened a drawer, and closed it.
    Click.
    Montalbano became alarmed; he knew that sound very well. The man had loaded a gun. For a moment, he thought of running to his car to grab his, which he kept in the glove box. What then? He and the guard would have a showdown at the O.K. Corral. The tiny peephole next to the door opened.
    “What do you want?”
    “I want to talk to you. It’s Montalbano.”
    “The inspector?”
    “Yes.”
    “Step back so I can see you.”
    Montalbano moved back. The peephole