One of the nice one, I liked this episode :-) It translates “the patience of the spider”. It starts with Montalbano being woken up by Catarella with urgent news that a girl is missing, probably kidnapped (it took a while for the message to get through but finally they manage it :p ) . It seems like Susanna, a young woman, has been kidnapped. The police commissioner (questore) calls him to say that Dr. Valente will be in charge of this operation because he’s from Calabria... he’s actually from Messina, but he ‘does’ know more than him about kidnappings, so they work together on the case.
Montalbano goes questioning a friend of Susanna, a girl who is a big fan of him, starts flirting and even calls her friends to come see him, but after a few questions he runs away like the wind before the others arrive :-p
Valente asks Montalbano if he can borrow Fazio just for this case, so our dear Fazio spends all his time at Susanna’s house waiting for the ransom call, preparing everything for it and whatnot.
Montalbano finds him asleep on a couch and smiles. He’s told that the kidnappers indeed called, so he wakes Fazio up and listens to the call. A recording of it has been sent to the local tv stations too, as he learns when Zito calls him. Zito doesn’t, but Televigata goes on air with the phone call.
Mimì had a little accident and got hurt, so the commissioner sends Montalbano in his place. Poor Mimì broke two ribs.
Montalbano calls Galluzzo to go with him, but the poor guy is feeling unwell, is stomach is upside down, he feels so bad that Montalbano is forced to stop the car at some point so he can... do his business behind a bush or something. While taking a look around, Montalbano finds the girl’s helmet, and Montalbano compliments him on his butt’s great detective sense :lol: (che culo! - il tuo. onore al suo acume investigativo) :lol:
Montalbano sees a sign that read “ova frische” :-p and goes there, finding a woman that sells very fresh eggs or...something else. Her husband had a bad accident and lost both legs and is now in pain and in constant need of medicines, they need money so she... does what she can to raise money.
Susanna’s mother is ill, although nobody can say exactly what she has, something like a serious case of depression. Her brother in law says that her soul has been poisoned by her brother and she let herself go. Brother and sister haven’t talked to each other in six years.
There’s another phone call, the kidnappers ask for six billions (6 miliardi di lire), even if there’s already the new coin euro at this point in time.
As orphans, she grew up very attached to her brother Antonio, her only family, staying close to him even after she got married. When Antonio was in desperate need of money because of his troubles with the law, he asked his sister for two billions, and she immediately sold everything she had raising one billion and seven hundred and fifty millions, and her brother-in-law put in the rest of the money. The following year she went to her brother asking for part of the money back for her daughter’s studies, but he didn’t give her anything, refusing to help her.
They stopped talking to each other, and she lost her will to live.
The kidnappers send a picture of Susanna.
Montalbano thinks that the whole thing is a vendetta against Antonio. Montalbano e Valente try to talk to him but he’s not in his office nor in the hotel, and his cell is switched off. Everyone in town is talking about it, almost everyone is against him, saying that he must pay the ransom to save his niece. Antonio’s wife gets beaten up, two trucks go up in flames.. Antonio is forced to pay the ransom.
So he pays, as his lawyer says, but the kidnappers say that he sent them a bag full of useless paper, but they let the girl go anyway.
Susanna now breaks up with her boyfriend saying that she made a vow to give up her old life and go to Africa to do good in a mission.
Her mom dies. Montalbano goes to talk to her and her uncle. He knows what happened because by looking closely at the picture he found out where she had been all this time.
He knows that the whole thing had been planned by her with the help of her uncle. He doesn’t want to charge her because he understands where her pain and hate comes from. He says that he only hopes that after such great hate there must be space for great love.
After what Antonio did to her mother, leaving her completely without money but most of all breaking her heart, using her and abandoning her, Susanna wanted vengeance. Together with her uncle, they didn’t just get the money, they also ruined him, his image. He can’t go into politics anymore (why not? in Italy there’s nothing that can prevent a rich person to go into politics...), and apparently he’s now under investigation by the Irs (finanza). Basically, they’re saying that he’s kinda ruined at the moment.
Susanna assures Montalbano that they didn’t keep one cent of the billions of the ransom, all the money has already been transfert to charity foundations everywhere.
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