River of Shadows: A Commissario Soneri Mystery (Commissario Soneri 1) (2 page)

More than half an hour had gone by, so he went out again to check the stakes.

Meantime the radio continued broadcasting messages from up and down the river. “The tributaries are like torrents. It’s overflowing at some points. They’ve started evacuating? Where?”

In the room, they followed the radio, interrupting the game when some fresh item of news came through. A lamp flickered on the yard outside, before fading out. It was Ghezzi, leaving his bicycle in the shelter. “The lorry with the sandbags has arrived,” he came in to tell them. “The mayor has sent the officers around the houses to tell the families to prepare for evacuation.”

“He’s off his head,” Torelli spluttered. “Nobody’s going to move before the water is lapping around their front doors.”

“Well, Tonna’s cast off,” Vernizzi told them, looking out in the direction of the quay.

The barge looked even more imposing. At that moment, it gave the impression of light buoyancy, pitching slightly as it manoeuvred out into midstream, slipping slowly away from its mooring, straddling the current briefly as it hesitantly left the quay before getting on its way, carried effortlessly off by the flow.

“Still no navigation lights,” Torelli said, pointing to the cabin light, just visible in the seconds before the barge reached the middle of the river.

“Tonna’s getting on a bit,” Vernizzi cut him off sharply. “Did you not see the manoeuvre he’s just done? He wanted to rely on the wind to get him out and he nearly crashed his prow into the sandbank. He was saved by the flood.”

Nobody added anything and in the silence all that could be heard was the radio giving out more data on the water levels. “It’s coming over the floodplains … They’re going to have to open the channels to reduce pressure … They’re filling the sandbags …“

Everything alongside the river was in a ferment, while it itself seemed to be flowing peacefully in the night. There was no other movement apart from the incessant downpour. Barigazzi remained silent, his eyes fixed on the middle of the Po where the barge had moved off into the distance. Now he could see only its three-quarter outline and the light still shining in the cabin. The old man made a gesture of bewilderment or disbelief with his hand. The only sound was the unending crackling of the radio.

“He went off like a piece of wood tossed into the current,” Torelli said.

“It looked as though it was the current that carried him off,” Ghezzi said.

“A coypu burrow? Whereabouts? Letting water through? Is anyone working on it? You’ll need to place the sandbags
where the embankment is lowest …” The radio dialogue went on, interrupted only by an electrostatic crackle.

“Tell him that Tonna has set off,” Vernizzi shouted to the boy who was operating the radio.

The boy picked up the microphone to let all the stations down the valley know that the barge would be passing. At that moment they became aware that Barigazzi was not there. Gianna made a gesture with her chin indicating the jetty. “He went out,” she said. “He’s away again to check his stakes.”

Torelli looked at the clock. “Is he checking them every quarter of an hour now?”

The sudden brightness of headlights told them that a car pulling a trailer with a boat hoisted on to it was passing along the muddy road under the main embankment, proceeding slowly, lighting up the raindrops as it went.

“Taking it home,” Ghezzi said.

“In weather like this, it’ll be more use in the back-yard than at the jetty,” Vernizzi said.

“He’s taking his time,” Torelli said, referring to Barigazzi.

“If he keeps going out to check and cut notches in them, all he’ll do is cause confusion,” Gianna said. “Another round?” She raised the bottle.

The Fortana was held aloft for a few seconds like San Rocco in a procession, but no-one replied. It was as if they had become aware only then of the oddness of Barigazzi’s absence.

“It’s a long time till dawn,” Torelli said, staring out at the impenetrable darkness. He was trying to imagine how far Tonna would have got on his journey down the river. He might already be at Casalmaggiore, and perhaps could see the lights of the dredgers swaying as they were buffeted by the relentless rainfall.

Barigazzi came back in without a word. He sat down and turned to look at the jetty where until a little while ago the barge had been.

“Any higher?” Vernizzi said.

The old boatman made no reply. He raised himself to his feet, supporting himself with both hands on the table, and then went over to the boy working the radio.

“Can you give the alarm with that, or is it better to use the telephone?”

The boy gave Barigazzi a puzzled look, deeply unsure of what to do next.

“Do you mean Tonna?” Torelli said.

Barigazzi nodded. “He set off as though he had hot coals up his arse. He threw off the gangplank sideways, and left a rope on the quay. I’ve never seen him do that before.”

“What did I tell you?” Vernizzi said. “That was not a manoeuvre, whatever else it was.”

“Nobody saw if he was working down there on the quay.”

Torelli stared out with the look of a man taking aim at bowls. “We couldn’t see him from here,” he said. “Not in this dark …”

“The rope looks to have been sliced through, cleanly, with a knife.”

“Keep a look-out for barge, already subject of warning,” the boy said into his microphone. “Danger to shipping: more than two hundred tons afloat … The way he cast off aroused suspicion … Tonna knows his business, but this time … Repeat, no navigation lights, only a cabin light, and in this weather … He set off without engine … Problem steering by helm alone …”

“If he bangs into the column of a bridge, he could bring the whole thing down,” Vernizzi said.

“If he gets stuck and the barge turns into a dam, the current
will capsize him,” Barigazzi said. “The river’s really high now, and you need your wits about you.”

Vernizzi was on the telephone to the carabinieri, but the conversation sounded unduly laborious. “Maresciallo, I’m telling you I have no idea whether Tonna was actually on the barge. Certainly, you need someone who knows what he’s about, or else … We saw the light going on and off twice, then the barge moved into midstream … Was he there? Obviously someone had to be there … That’s right, the ropes were thrown ashore any old way …” He hung up almost in a sweat. “The maresciallo says there are only two of them on duty,” he informed the company. “They all go home for All Souls. He’ll alert the stations along the way.”

Ghezzi looked out at the enormous sheet of water and felt almost afraid. “Where will he be by now?”

“Maybe at the mouth of the Enza,” Barigazzi said. “If my boat were in decent shape, I’d go after him. Maybe I’d manage to draw alongside …”

“I don’t think we’d find anything good,” Barigazzi murmured.

No-one spoke. The black waters of the swollen river were flowing ever more rapidly, and the sandbank in the middle of the river was all but submerged. It was hard to see far beyond the moorings, but in the liquid darkness the impression was that the great basin, altogether visible in the days of low water, was already overflowing. The water level was just below their line of vision. It was possible to observe the current from above only from the main embankment itself, and the town alongside the river, with a vast mass of water looming threateningly over the houses, gave every appearance of being already inundated.

Several cars arrived and a dozen or so young men came in to ask what had happened to Tonna. They listened, then made
their way back out, letting in a gust of damp air. They would follow the boat from the embankment in their cars, they said they could go faster than the current. By now the barge had made the flood a matter of secondary interest.

“Yes, I’m here … Are you sure? He hit the railway bridge? A quarter of an hour ago?”

Silence fell. There was no need for the boy to repeat what he was being told. Everyone instinctively grasped the situation.

“It’s what I was saying. He hasn’t even got as far as Reggio,” Barigazzi spluttered. “The riverbed widens there and the water is more sluggish.”

“The way things are going, they must have sounded the alarm all the way downstream to Mantua,” Vernizzi said.

A couple of car doors slammed shut, and the vehicles set off at speed up the embankment. In the beam of the headlights, the rain looked to be heavier still.

“If there’s a hole in the hull …” Ghezzi said hesitantly, “Tonna’s done for. He’s food for the pike.”

“With all the wheat he has in the hold, they’ll be flocking down all the way from Piedmont.”

“It was only a bump,” Barigazzi said. “It’s a tough old craft. If it goes into a spin, he’s in big trouble. It all depends on the rudder. And on the grip of whoever’s on the tiller.”

“If it starts spinning, the game’s up. The first bridge he hits side on, he’s going to get jammed, and he’ll be pulled under,” Torelli said.

“With some bridges, you only need to nudge the prow against them. With all the weight that’s aboard, he’ll bring the columns down on top of him,” the old boatman said.

“He’s passing in front of the mouth of the Enza,” the radio operator informed them.

“Let’s hope the extra current doesn’t push him over to the
Lombard side,” Barigazzi said, as he peered into the emptiness by the jetty.

The conversation drifted on, one guess after another, each man in his mind’s eye going over that stretch of water which Tonna would have reached by then. Beneath it all lay one more troubling thought, as insistent as the rain which continued to fall or as the current which dragged everything in its wake. Finally it was Vernizzi who gave voice to a doubt which seemed dictated by a will not his own: “But he set off in such a great rush, and with that crazy manoeuvre …”

There followed a long silence, broken only by the sound of water dripping from the roof beams, until Gianna said: “Maybe it wasn’t Tonna at the helm.”

“It’s most certainly not like Tonna to collide with bridges …” Barigazzi said, his voice trailing off.

No-one drew any conclusions. Everything was so confused. The telephone rang: it was one of the youths who had gone off in a car. “Every town is on the look-out and a lot of people have climbed the embankment to watch the barge careering past,” he whispered into Vernizzi’s ear.

“You saw it?”

“Yeah, a short while ago. It seemed out of control, swinging about crazily, sometimes listing to one side, but the current’s keeping it on course. You can see where the paint came off on the side where it hit the bridge.”

“Is the cabin light still on?”

“Yes, still on. When the barge comes close to the bank, you can see in, but it’s hard to make anything out. Somebody said they had seen a man at the helm, but I don’t think there’s anyone there.”

Barigazzi sat calmly, absorbed in his own thoughts, resting his head on his left hand, going over the course of the river as though he could see it from Tonna’s bow. He imagined
where it was at that moment, he saw the bridges looming out of the night, dark skeletons afloat on the immensity of the current. The conversation on the radio broadly confirmed his hypotheses.

“The carabinieri have what? … Closed all the bridges as far as Revere? The only one open is the railway bridge? They’re ready to suspend all shipping?”

“He won’t knock into anything,” Barigazzi murmured, who seemed to be elsewhere.

“He’ll crash into the iron arches at Pontelagoscuro,” Vernizzi said. “But in that case it’ll be tomorrow around mid-day before we get to hear about it.”

Silence fell again in the room. And they became aware of the rain falling even more heavily on the tiles.

Barigazzi was shaking his head, in the manner of the horses in the Po valley. “He’ll never get near Ferrara. Tonna will avoid the delta in these conditions. He’ll stop before then.”

Meantime, the telephone had rung again and Gianna was in conversation with the young men who were tracking the barge. “When? … One or more than one?”

Ghezzi had moved over beside her and seemed on the point of grabbing the telephone from her hand.

“They say that in the light from the cabin they’ve seen some shadows moving about. Maybe more than one, but it seems they haven’t been able to identify Tonna,” Gianna told the room.

Barigazzi’s imagination was still fixed on the river, so wide midstream that the banks were out of sight, on the craft tossed about on the surface of the water as carelessly as a leaf, on the unending groan of the hull, on the blind drift of the barge as it was battered from all sides, on the darkness. He imagined crowds of locals standing like sentinels along the banks in the rain, greeting the little light on the river even if it was no more
visible than a bicycle lamp slowly passing along the embankment road on a foggy night. He felt the sideways jerk of the barge every time it ran into a tree trunk or into a stretch of swirling waters, and felt too the list it took on for a time before righting itself and straightening in the fast-flowing current.

He would not be able to see a thing because there was zero visibility. The Luzzara curve is wide and bent like the
bondiola
sausage. That was the most hazardous point, especially if the barge were indeed in the hands of some novice who had taken over from Tonna. There the current and the deep waters could throw anyone off course. Sluggish on the surface, the water, following the channels in the sands, flows faster below and pushes against the embankment. Without an engine, it would be impossible to avoid running aground, except by making a pre-emptive manoeuvre 300 metres upstream, hugging close to the bank on the Lombard side and holding tight. With anyone lacking the expertise, the barge would crash into the embankment like a stake being driven into the ground.

“Tell them to go and wait for it at Luzzara,” Barigazzi muttered. “It’ll be there by three in the morning.”

But he spoke so softly that no-one picked up his words. A gust of wind and rain shook the windows. “The
libeccio
, from the south-west,” Vernizzi said. “Always a bad sign.”

The rain was getting heavier still, and now the beams were reverberating.

“Have you seen it go by?” the radio operator wanted to know. “What? It’s passing right now? Look and see if you can make out anyone in the cabin. No? The light is on, but the cabin is empty? Just a while ago, someone on the embankment told us there were signs of movement inside. Yes, yes. I agree. If Tonna were in charge, it would not be sailing this way. And would not have touched the railway bridge either. Tonna? Who can tell? Perhaps he’s on board or maybe it’s his
grandson who has taken over … What do you mean, have we thought of that? Of course we have, but in this weather who could have seen him run away? … Yes, I know, he’s an old fox, but the whole business still looks funny to me …”