The Dark Valley: A Commissario Soneri Mystery (Commissario Soneri 2) (22 page)

The maresciallo walked round the burned-out wreck.

“Do you know whose it is?” the commissario said. “All I can make out is that it was a Ford.”

Crisafulli nodded. “It belongs to the mayor’s son. I thought this sort of thing only happened in Naples.”

The maresciallo ordered his assistant to take down all the details and to call in the Special Forensic squad who were still in the village investigating Paride’s death. “Who knows? They might come up with something interesting,” he said, but he sounded doubtful.

“That Romanian, the one who was found with Rodolfi’s mobile, do you still have him in your cells?”

“The magistrate has authorised an extension of the period of custody. You never know.”

They both looked again at the car, still burning but no longer fiercely. Neither had anything more to say. From time to time the steel of the chassis made a crackling sound as it buckled in the heat.

“When is the funeral of the two Rodolfis?”

Crisafulli gave him an embarrassed glance from under the peak of his cap, and shivered. He must have been frozen standing about in the cold. “Tomorrow at dawn. Paride’s wife fixed the time and the only ones who know about it are Don Bruno and us.”

“What are they afraid of? The villagers have been quiet up till now and they’ll stay that way.”

“There are other people not from here who feel cheated as well. People from the city, for example, and they always make more fuss. And then,” Crisafulli said, lowering his voice, “the Rodolfis are ashamed of being seen in public.”

The commissario winked at Crisafulli and put his hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to bed. And you’re out hunting again tomorrow.”

“Commissario, we’re not hunters. We’re the hunted.”

In his dreams, Soneri saw the chestnut groves of Campogrande, and saw himself careering half way down the hill, zig-zagging from tree trunk to tree trunk on the steep slopes at whose foot stood the new town with its workshops and wide road, buzzing with activity. Once more he saw himself with his father, once more he heard good advice delivered in half-phrases accompanied by vague gestures, but as he lay half-asleep and half-awake, he felt a sense of anguish creep over him. His father walked ahead round the trunks of fallen trees, indifferent to his son’s inability to keep up. Soneri saw himself tumble and roll madly downhill, bumping into tree after tree, but at that point he awoke with a start to see Ida standing beside his bed, shaking him, bending over him, holding the blankets with both hands as though she were kneading
sfoglia.

When he switched on the light, he saw her face clearly, but it was a face deformed by panic. “Sante’s very ill, very ill,” she repeated, over and over.

Finally she let go, allowing him to get up. He peered at the alarm clock, which read half-past four. Once out of bed, he was assailed by the biting cold, and this, together with the dream, the restless night and the abrupt awakening, knocked him back on his heels as effectively as a punch on the nose. He put on his slippers and slowly began to come to his senses.

Ida led the way, proceeding sideways, almost skipping
down the stairs. When she reached the landing on the floor below, she turned into the room where she and her husband slept. Sante’s eyes were glazed over. He seemed to be staring at the ceiling, but with a look of disbelief. A slight wheeze was the only sign of life. Ida and Soneri positioned themselves at either side of the bed, as powerless as if attending a wake.

“I kept telling him to calm down. He couldn’t sleep and he wouldn’t take the pills to reduce his stress,” Ida said, through tears.

Soneri was lost for words as he passively assisted at the undoing of another image from his past, the one featuring the relaxed and jolly Sante, the inn-keeper who made everyone feel at home. It was at that point he made the decision never to return again to the places where he had grown up.

A few minutes later the ambulance siren rang out and the stretcher bearers rushed in. Before carrying him out, a paramedic attached a drip to his arm, immobilised him with a collar and put a tube down his throat. A machine seemed to keep time with the patient’s precarious, irregular heartbeat. While this was going on, Ida went on explaining obsessively what had happened, but no-one paid any heed to her. She said that Sante had been in a state of agitation for days, that he had not gone to bed at all on recent nights but had padded about from sunset till dawn. He had done the same the previous night, but this time he had wanted to be ready early to go to the Rodolfis’ funeral.

“I don’t know what he wanted to do, doctor,” she went on, “but I’m afraid he was planning something crazy. ‘I want to go and spit in his face,’ he kept saying. I was doing my best to calm him down, but the rage poisoned his blood.”

Ida repeated that he was no longer taking his pills, and at that the paramedic briefly raised his head. Sante was lifted up and carried cautiously to the front door where the ambulance was waiting. Soneri watched him leave his
pensione
, but it
appeared he was also taking leave of his mind. A new image, that of a defenceless body trussed up like a chicken, was being superimposed on the image of the man Soneri had known.

He got dressed and went out without waiting for breakfast. The first light of day showed up the white of the countryside hardened by the frost. As he walked, he heard the crystals crackle under his feet with the same sound as a footfall on sand, while Dolly’s paws struck lightly and rhythmically against the asphalt. There was no-one in the graveyard chapel other than Don Bruno, busily arranging a bouquet sent anonymously, with no name on the accompanying card. In a corner, there was a brush standing guard over a pile of dust with some dry petals and stems.

“Is this where the funeral is taking place?”

The priest looked up and turned an expressionless face to Soneri. “It’s already taken place,” he said, pointing over to the Rodolfi family tomb.

“When?”

“It finished half an hour ago,” replied the priest, shaking his head. “You didn’t miss anything.”

“Who was there?”

“Only his wife, the son on crutches and the Philippino servant. A dozen or so old men turned up, but they were here only for Palmiro. Nobody so much as looked at Paride’s coffin.”

“He didn’t go out of his way to make himself liked. He’s caused some people, like Sante Righelli, to suffer a heart attack.”

“Sante?” Don Bruno repeated incredulously. “He seemed the most well-balanced man in the world.”

“If they cheat you out of everything you own, it’s not easy to maintain your composure.”

“That’s because people no longer focus on the things which really matter. Look here,” he said, pointing to the rows of
crosses. “All these people lived as though death were not part of their lives. When you believe you’re immortal, you only think of yourself.”

Soneri reacted with impatience, as Don Bruno noticed. He came over to where the commissario was standing, fixing his black, slightly malicious eyes on him. “This village has grown more and more corrupt ever since money, real money, started circulating here. Material possessions have become the centre of people’s world, meaning that everything is treated as merchandise or as a means to an end. Instead – how did Plato put it – you must attend first to your soul.”

“If you want to put it like that,” Soneri said, sceptically, “but that kind of philosophy sounds better in a sermon.”

Don Bruno looked at him darkly. “They’ll all realise eventually that they’re on the wrong path. When they’re near the end, I’ve heard them damning everything they’ve spent their lives pursuing, and spitting on the very things they believed in blindly for many, many years. My sermons are not enough, but death will convince them to look on all the baubles of this world as vanity.”

“I’m no intellectual, and my explanation would be much simpler. When a person is poor, he knows he might need other people, and so he’s prepared to give a hand because one day he might be in trouble himself. It’s got nothing to do with goodness of heart. What moves people is fear and need.”

The priest looked perplexed. “There’s some truth in that. Poverty induces prudence and humility, while wealth leads to arrogance. You might say that these things too are the fruits of fear, but I insist that respect and human understanding are also factors.”

Don Bruno lowered his voice as he came to the end of his speech, as though he were in the confessional. Soneri saw written on his face the concern that must have been tearing
him apart inside, and he thought of all the various spiritual exercises the priest must have practised to stem that haemorrhage of trust. Soneri, on the other hand, was falling in a void where there was no safety net.

“Think about it the way your father did. He too believed that people were motivated only by their needs, including people on his side. He used to say they struggled for a cause because they had no choice, because they’d been humiliated and wanted to redeem themselves, but, so he said, once they were free of poverty they would think the same way as the boss class. When you look at the situation today, he wasn’t far wrong. He believed in what he said, and he understood the difference between a man with ideals and a man with a full belly.”

“How did my father get on with the Rodolfis?”

“You’ve already asked me that and I don’t know what to say.”

“There are some weird rumours going about.”

“Pay no heed to them,” Don Bruno said, waving a hand to clear the air.

“No, I have to resolve this, even if the conclusion is that the whole story is rubbish.”

“Look, all I can tell you is that it was something to do with a piece of paper, a document, but don’t ask me what kind of document, because I couldn’t tell you. I also know that it’s an old story, going back at least as far as the war.”

Soneri immediately thought of the papers Bovolenta had found in the Woodsman’s house, and was tempted to hurry off and find him. Don Bruno noticed this reaction and turned away to get on with cleaning the chapel. The commissario thanked him and went out to find it was already daylight and the sun was rising over the mountains. No sooner had he left the graveyard than he heard the sound of gunfire. It came
from somewhere above Boldara, and no doubt took the carabinieri, who were barely ten minutes along the footpath, by surprise. Plainly the Woodsman was intent on warning them what was in store for them that day. At the same moment, a ray of sunlight shone over the peaks and lit up Montelupo.

Soneri walked quickly down to the village and went into Rivara’s for breakfast. “Any news of Sante?” he asked immediately.

“The ambulance men who took him to hospital say his condition is critical. They think it was a stroke, and he might be paralysed.”

The commissario said nothing, but he thought it might be the end for Sante. “It’s like half-dying,” he finally said.

“Better to go altogether than to linger on,” Rivara said. “Did you hear that?” he added, nodding in the direction of Montelupo.

“The war’s started again.”

“The Woodsman’s bidding them good-morning,” Delrio said, appearing behind Soneri.

“Where’s his daughter?”

“Sometimes at home with her mother and sometimes at the Rodolfi factory. The workers are keeping guard on the salame factory,” Delrio said, before asking, “What’s Paride’s dog doing here?”

“She ran away from the villa, and ever since I found her beside her master’s body she follows me everywhere.”

“Ran away? They must be keeping her in the courtyard.”

“I wouldn’t know, but she isn’t the first dog to run away.”

“The Rodolfis have a pound with a high wall and metal bars. I went up there with an official from the Health Board to check it out because they’d built the pound without a permit. Anyway, you’ve got a good deal with that dog. She’s an exceptional animal. She can sniff out game from kilometres away.”

The commissario patted Dolly as they went out. “Unfortunately I can’t be keeping her. She’s not mine and, besides, I haven’t the space.”

“If you want her, just keep her. What’s the widow going to do with a dog? She’s certainly not going hunting, and nor is that Philippino she’s got in her house,” he said, without hiding his contempt.

“Latterly it was Palmiro who took Dolly out.”

“His own hound was getting on a bit. He couldn’t even catch a bitch on heat.”

In the piazza they passed some carabinieri from the Special Forensic unit with a pack of journalists and photographers at their heels. “What with the Woodsman, the Romanian, the fires and the stabbings, they don’t know where to turn,” Rivara said.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t drag on too long,” Delrio said. Soneri detected a longing for normality and a desire to get back to a peaceful life lived in an out-of-the-way place in the shadow of the mountains. Even if he could see the advantages of the “take life as it comes” mentality, Soneri failed to understand how anyone could aspire to that kind of narcosis, and it occurred to him that perhaps it was that same unbearable emptiness which had forced his father to leave. There comes a point when wandering in the mountains is not enough, and when the discontents of middle age highlight only a series of disappointments.

He went out into the ice-cold air to chase away those thoughts, but he thought of Angela, who was perhaps at that very moment getting ready for the office. He looked too at Dolly with her heart-warming devotion and decided it was time to stop being miserable.

He climbed towards Greppo and then turned onto the Croce path. Bright sunlight alternated with the shade of less
exposed stretches where the stagnant damp and cold were a warning of the imminence of the first snows. He searched for confirmation that someone had been there the previous night, but since the mule-track was covered by a layer of frost there were no footprints. He continued on to the hollow where he had found Paride’s body. He saw signs of the work done by the forensic experts and remembered that access had been permitted in that area only the day before. He called Dolly and let her sniff around, even if the frost had sterilised the smells on the ground. The commissario was aware that he was roaming aimlessly, following Dolly anywhere her sense of smell happened to take her. Only for her was there any purpose to that wandering in the undergrowth among the trees.