IM10 August Heat (2008) by Andrea Camilleri

yes, I’ve seen the photo on the printout.What a beautiful girl!”
    “Right.”
    “Raped and slaughtered!”
    “Did Dr. Pasquano tell you she’d been raped?”
    “No, he told me only she’d had her throat slashed. But I sense intuitively that she was raped. In fact, I’m sure of it.”
    As if the public prosecutor’s brain wouldn’t be working round the clock trying to imagine the crime scene down to the finest detail!
    At this moment, Montalbano had a truly brilliant idea that might perhaps spare him or Fazio the unpleasant task of breaking the tragic news to the girl’s family.
    “You know something, Tommaseo? Apparently the girl has a twin sister, or so I’ve been told, who is far more beautiful than the victim.”
    “More beautiful? Really?”
    “Apparently, yes,”
    “So today this twin sister would be twenty-two years old.”
    “It adds up.”
    Fazio was glaring at him, dumbfounded. What on earth was the inspector concocting?
    There was a pause. Surely the prosecutor, his eyes glued to the photo in the dossier, was licking his chops at the thought of meeting the twin sister.Then he spoke.
    “You know what, Montalbano? I think it’s better if I go in person to inform the family . . . given the victim’s tender age . . . and the particularly savage manner . . .”
    “You’re absolutely right, sir.You are a man of profound human understanding. So you’ll take care of telling the family?”
    “Yes. It seems only right.”
    They said good-bye and hung up. Fazio, having understood the inspector’s game, started laughing.
    “Man, that guy, the minute he hears talk of a woman . . .”
    “Forget about him. He’ll dash over to the Morreales’ house hoping to meet a twin sister who doesn’t exist. What was I saying to you before he called?”
    “You were telling me about Inspector Lozupone.”
    “Ah, yes. Lozupone’s been around, he’s smart, and he knows what’s what.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It means that in all likelihood Lozupone thought the same thing we did, that is, that the protective railing was put up after the accident, but he let it slide.”
    “And why would he do that?”
    “Maybe he was advised to stick to what Dipasquale and Spitaleri were telling him. But it’s unlikely we’ll ever find out who, in the commissariat or in the ministry of so-called justice, gave him this advice.”
    “Well, we might be able to get an idea, anyway,” said Fazio.
    “How?”
    “Chief, you said you know Lozupone well. But do you know who he’s married to?”
    “No.”
    “Dr. Lattes’s daughter.”
    “Ah.”
    Not bad, as news went.
    Dr. Lattes, chief of the commissioner’s cabinet, dubbed “Caffè-Lattes” for his cloying manner, was a man of church and prayer, a man who never said a word without first anointing it with lubricant, and who was continuously, at the right and wrong moments, giving thanks to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
    “Do you know what political group Spitaleri’s brother-in-law is with?”
    “You mean the mayor? Mayor Alessandro is with the same party as the regional president, which happens to be the same party as Dr. Lattes, and he’s the grand delegate of the Honorable M.P. Catapano, which is saying a lot.”
    Gerardo Catapano was a man who had managed to keep both the Cuffaros and the Sinagras, the two Mafia families of Vigàta, on good behavior.
    Montalbano felt momentarily demoralized. How could it be that things never changed? Mutatis mutandis, one always ended up caught in dangerous webs of relations, collusions between the Mafia and politicians, the Mafia and entrepreneurs, politicians and banks, money-launderers and loan sharks.
    What an obscene ballet! What a petrified forest of corruption, fraud, rackets, villainy, business! He imagined a likely dialogue:
    “Proceed very carefully because Z, who is M.P. Y’s man and the son-in-law of K, who is Mafia boss Z’s man, enjoys particularly good relations with M.P. H.
    “But doesn’t M.P.