The Track of Sand

Read The Track of Sand for Free Online

Book: Read The Track of Sand for Free Online
Authors: Andrea Camilleri
anyway, you know how much I like sleeping chastely beside you.”
    Chastely, hah! He alone knew how dearly he had to pay for that chastity: not a wink of sleep, getting up in the middle of the night to take emergency cold showers . . .
    “Okay, but, you see—”
    “And besides, it’s so erotic!”
    “Ingrid, I am not a saint!”
    “That’s precisely what I’m counting on,” she said, laughing and getting up from the couch.

    He woke up late the following morning, with a bit of a headache. He had drunk too much. All that was left of Ingrid was her scent on the sheets and pillow.
    He glanced at his watch. Almost nine-thirty. Maybe Ingrid had something to do in Montelusa and had let him sleep. But why hadn’t Adelina arrived yet?
    Then he remembered that it was Saturday, and on Saturdays the housekeeper didn’t show up until around noon, after she had done her shopping for the week.
    He got up, went into the kitchen, prepared a pot of strong coffee, went into the dining room, opened the French door, and stepped out onto the veranda.
    The day looked like a photograph. Not a breath of wind, everything perfectly still, illuminated by a sun particularly careful not to leave anything in shade.There wasn’t even any surf.
    He went back inside and immediately noticed his pistol on the table.
    Strange.What was it doing—
    Then, all at once, he remembered the previous evening and what a frightened Ingrid told him: that two men had entered the house after he went out to the Marinella Bar to buy whisky.
    He remembered that he always kept an envelope in the drawer of the nightstand with two or three hundred euros in it, the money he would need for the week, which he would withdraw from the cash machine and put in his pocket. He went and checked the drawer.The envelope was in its place, with all the money inside.
    The coffee had bubbled up. He drank two cups of it, one right after the other, and resumed looking around the house to see if anything was missing.
    After half an hour of this, he decided that nothing, apparently, was missing. Apparently. Because, deep inside his head, he had a nagging thought telling him that there was indeed something missing, but he hadn’t noticed what.
    He went into the bathroom, took a shower, shaved, and got dressed. He grabbed his pistol, locked the door, opened the car, got in, slipped the pistol back into the glove compartment, started the engine, and just sat there.
    All at once he remembered what it was that was missing. He needed to confirm. He went back in the house, into the bedroom, and reopened the drawer to the nightstand. The burglars had stolen his father’s gold watch. They had left the envelope that was on top of it, not realizing there was money in it.And they hadn’t tried to steal anything else because they had heard Ingrid arrive.
    He felt two contrasting emotions. Anger and relief. Anger because he was attached to that watch; it was one of the few mementos he kept with him. And relief because it was proof that the two men who had entered his house were merely a couple of petty thieves who clearly had no idea they had broken into the home of a police inspector.
    Since he didn’t have much to do at the office that morning, he went to the bookshop to restock. Approaching the cash register to pay, he realized all his authors were Swedish: Enquist, Sjöwall-Wahlöö, and Mankell. In unconscious homage to Ingrid? Then he remembered that he needed at least two new shirts. And an extra pair of underpants wouldn’t hurt, either. He went off to buy these.
    By the time he got to the office, it was almost midday.
    “Ahh Chief, Chief !”
    “What’s wrong, Cat?”
    “I’s about to phone you, Chief !”
    “What for?”
    “Seeing as how I din’t see you here, I got a li’l worried. I’s afraid you was sick.”
    “I’m perfectly fine, Cat. Any news?”
    “Nuttin, Chief. But Isspector Augello juss came in now sayin’ as how he wants me to tell ’im when y’arrived onna

Similar Books

Zoli

Colum McCann

Dangerous Depths

Colleen Coble

The People in the Photo

Hélène Gestern

Through Glass

Rebecca Ethington

Flights

Jim Shepard