Angelica's Smile by Andrea Camilleri Page B

are dirty.”
    “I can try to fix things myself.”
    “I didn’t dare ask. I’ll explain to you how to get here.”

    She’d certainly picked a nice place!
    It was in the open country, and the inspector took forty-five minutes to get there.
    Leading off a dirt road was a long lane with an iron gate that looked as if it hadn’t been closed for years. At the end of it was a large eighteenth-century villa, completely isolated and well maintained.
    He parked the car behind the villa.
    Angelica was waiting for him at the top of the staircase that led to her room.
    “Here I am!”
    She smiled at him. And it was as if the sun, which was setting, had changed its mind and risen back into the sky.
    Montalbano started climbing, and she came a few steps down. They embraced and kissed halfway. The inspector then said:
    “Let’s get going while there’s still some light.”
    She turned around, went back up the stairs, and disappeared into her room.
    Montalbano began to climb but failed to see a stair and fell, causing a terrible pain in his ankle. He was barely able to suppress a string of curses.
    Angelica rushed to his aid.
    “Did you hurt yourself?”
    “A little, in my . . . ankle.”
    “Think you can walk?”
    “Yes, let’s not waste any time. It’s going to get dark very soon.”
    It didn’t take him long to find the little box that brought the current from the villa to her room. He grabbed a chair, climbed onto it, and removed the cover of the box.
    A wire had short-circuited.
    “Go down into the villa and turn off the power.”
    She opened a door and disappeared.
    Montalbano took advantage of the situation to get a good look at the room.
    It was rather spartan and must have been used for one purpose only. That one. And the observation put him in a dark, terrible mood.
    Angelica returned.
    “Done.”
    “Get me some electrical tape.”
    It took him barely two minutes to fix the problem.
    “Go and turn the power back on.”
    He remained standing on the chair, awaiting the result.
    All at once the light in the middle of the room came on.
    “Bravissimo!” said Angelica, coming back into the room. “Why don’t you come down?” she added.
    “You’ll have to help me.”
    She drew near, and, bracing himself with both hands on her shoulders, he carefully descended.
    His ankle hurt like hell.
    “Lie down on the bed,” said Angelica. “I want to see what you’re made of.”
    He obeyed. She lightly pulled up his left trouser leg.
    “Oh my God! It’s so swollen!”
    She took his shoe off with some difficulty, and then the sock, too.
    “That’s quite a sprain!”
    She went into the bathroom and returned with a small tube in her hand.
    “If nothing else, this will lessen the pain a little.”
    She massaged him all around the ankle with the ointment.
    “In about ten minutes, I’ll put your sock back on.”
    And she came and lay down beside him.
    Then she put her arms around him and rested her head on his chest.
    Through Montalbano’s head flashed the words:
    That in this very bed on which he lies
    His love has lain, and often, in the close
    Embrace that nothing of herself denies
.
    And who knew with how many!
    Flesh for hire. Males who took money to give pleasure.
    How many pairs of eyes had seen her naked body?
    How many hands caressed her on that bed?
    And how many times had that room, which looked like a cell, heard her voice say, “More . . . more . . .”
    A fierce jealousy took hold of him.
    The worst kind, jealousy of the past.
    But he could do nothing about it. He started trembling in anger, in fury.
    No less abhorrence now our hero shows
    And no less quickly from that bed he flies
 . . .
    “I’m leaving!” he said, sitting up.
    Angelica, confused, raised her head.
    “What’s got into you?”
    “I’m leaving!” he repeated, putting his sock back on, and then his shoe.
    Angelica must have intuited a little of what was going on in his mind, because she just lay there watching him,