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

by Valerio Varesi

  He took delight in the semi-darkness which preceded the first play of the ash-coloured, morning light on the roof tops. He left the house and started out towards the mortuary, even if he was much too early. The rain continued without relief. The clouds hanging low over the city seemed to fray at the edges in a way which somehow reminded him of the woolly interiors of mattresses pulled apart by the narcotics squad during a house search. The only dry spot was the glow of his cigar. Even his bones, as he walked in the early morning light, had grown soft, like the handles of shovels left out in the rain.

  Nanetti was already there, sitting beside the radiator, but Alemanni and the police doctor had yet to arrive.

  “The only way to get dry would be to stick your head in a bread oven,” Soneri said.

  “If this rain doesn’t let up, I’ll have to go off sick. Even my toenails are hurting.”

  The commissario changed the subject. “So what do you think now?”

  Nanetti made a face. “Do you want a bet?”

  “On what?”

  “You know very well. Don’t act the simpleton. In my opinion, Tonna was dead when he went through that window. At the very least, he had lost consciousness.”

  “Did you see anything on the body?”

  “Yes, I saw one or two things that seemed out of place, but there’s another point,” Nanetti said, interrupting himself for a moment to reflect. “Is it really possible to throw a man out of a window from a narrow space if he puts up any resistance?”

  “I wondered about that myself, but I’ve learned that real life makes possible things which in theory seem absurd. Suppose the killer was young and powerfully built. Tonna, on the other hand, was seventy-six and on the short side.”

  “He would still have screamed his head off. There would have been signs of a fight, much more than a kick on a cabinet and a few bits of broken glass.”

  At that moment the door opened and Alemanni made his entrance together with the police doctor. Soneri greeted the doctor and nodded coldly to the magistrate. Their exchange of the previous evening still rankled.

  “If you wish to come along, you are welcome to be present,” the doctor invited them.

  The commissario looked knowingly at Nanetti, who rose reluctantly to his feet. When he drew alongside him, Soneri whispered: “You’ve done the warm-up. Now it’s time to face them.”

  “If I win the bet, you owe me lunch at the Milord,” Nanetti said.

  The commissario had never had any doubt about the stakes. He got up, went over to the door and looked up at the rain still falling as though it was monsoon season and at the frozen doves sheltering under the eaves. He thought of the Po, where everything converged and where sooner or later he too would end up, he thought, like the water perpetually flowing downstream. He was on the point of picking up the telephone on the wall when he remembered he had a mobile of his own and that the local authority paid the bill. Juvara replied instantly, leading Soneri to imagine him seated in front of a screen surfing the net.

  “Anything new, boss?”

  “It’s too soon. They’ve only just gone in. Is there any news at your end?”

  “Nothing new. I’m being told that the patrols are all out.”

  “How high is the river now?”

  “A state of emergency, category two, has been declared. That’s for everyone living in the proximity of the embankment.”

  The situation was becoming more serious by the minute. The meteorologists were saying the only hope lay in a cold east wind bringing on a cold snap in the mountains and causing some of the water to freeze over. Soneri peered at the raindrops blown about in the air. A strong wind had indeed got up, but it seemed not to know where to turn. It snatched puffs of smoke from the chimneys, tossing them wildly hither and thither. Fierce gusts came hurtling along the avenues around the hospital, forming whirlwinds at the points where they clashed. A maelstrom of hypotheses was producing the same effect inside his head.

  Just as the glow of his short cigar was snuffed out by contact with the damp air, the door of the operating theatre opened. The first out was the police doctor, who on seeing the commissario laid his leather bag on the coffee table in the waiting room and hitched his trousers up. “Regrettably, I do not think I have been of much use to you. He has numerous, serious wounds, all compatible with a fall from a third floor.” After a pause, he added: “But also with other things.”

  Alemanni and Nanetti, deep in discussion, joined them. When they found themselves face to face with Soneri, they stopped talking, each waiting for the other to begin. It was the magistrate who broke the ice: “We have not managed to come up with definitive answers,” he said. “If it were not for the indications found by the forensic squad on the window from which he threw himself, I would have no hesitation in filing the case as suicide. However, your colleague was telling me …” he went on, implying Nanetti with a vague, sceptical gesture.

  The commissario had difficulty in suppressing his rage towards that man who, with advancing years, had developed a sourness which had hardened into pig-headed resentfulness. For a moment, a tense look was exchanged, interrupted only by the doctor saying good-bye. As the door thudded shut, Soneri said: “So what do you intend to do?”

  Alemanni stared at him in bewilderment and only then did the commissario grasp what was concealed behind that attitude of cold conceit: he had before him a man made fearful by a career in decline. For that reason, he paused a little before adding with the maximum of studied arrogance: “Sir, I think it would be an idea if you were to turn your mind to the other Tonna as well. I think there may be a link.”

  Alemanni bent even lower, bowing his head: “If there is some scruple still niggling at you … I will sign the authorization today.”

  When he had gone, Nanetti breathed a sigh of relief: “You’ve succeeded with the most difficult part of the post-mortem.”

  Soneri said nothing. With an authorization so grudgingly conceded, he would feel under intense scrutiny for the duration of the investigation.

  “Don’t worry,” Nanetti consoled him. “He kicks up the same fuss every time. He suffers from chronic insecurity, so he wants to minimize his part and thereby be always in the clear, come what may.”

  “I was hoping that …” Soneri stuttered, before his words trailed off.

  As he was leaving, Nanetti held him by the sleeve. “You haven’t forgotten our bet?”

  “You haven’t won.”

  “But Alemanni did agree to sign.”

  “I’ll concede only because of that stain of blood on the windowpane …”

  “We’ll discuss it over lunch.”

  They were seated in a side room which Alceste kept exclusively for his best customers.

  “When are you setting off?”

  “I’ll go this afternoon. It only takes twenty minutes.”

  A wager was celebrated like a rite and a fixed menu was prescribed. Culatello as a starter, followed by anolini in brodo and then wild boar with polenta. Gutturnio was the non-negotiable wine.

  “So nothing at all came from the post-mortem?”

  Nanetti said, “An elderly man who falls from that height is going to smash into thousands of pieces, like a ceramic dish. And then to complicate matters, there was that bounce off the canopy over the entrance …that apart, I would be almost certain that the blow to the head was not caused by the fall.”

  “There is a blow to the head that does not seem to you compatible?”

  “We’re talking about a fracture of the skull with a deep depression. This rarely happens to people who throw themselves from a height. Normally the injuries are wide and flat, similar to someone who’s been crushed. In his case, however …but it could just be due to an impact with a protruding piece of concrete on the canopy.”

  Soneri remembered the stretcher bearer pointing out to him the place where the body had bounced before it fell on to the courtyard.

  When they left the restaurant, the air was cooler and the commis
sario remembered the forecast. Gusts of wind and rain continued the work of cleansing the city, but the sky had taken on the shade of pewter. By the time he accompanied Nanetti back to the police station, there were only two hours of light remaining. While his colleague got out of his Alfa Romeo, cursing sports cars for being built so low, he hesitated for a few minutes before deciding what to do. He then sped off under the watchful eye of the guard who had come out to see what was afoot.

  The road ended alongside the embankment which was as high as a city wall. A couple of kilometres back he had been stopped in the rain and checked with maximum distrust by two very youthful carabinieri. After examining his identity card at length, they moved wordlessly aside to let him continue his journey. The commissario, relieved not to have the officers’ machine guns any longer trained on him, drove on among the low houses fronted by porches, weaving his way between puddles on a tarmac surface softened by the deluge. He parked in front of the Italia bar, some twenty metres short of the embankment, the only relief in an otherwise flat plain and the real border in that wholly level landscape.

  As he got out of the car, three elderly men kept him under observation from behind a misted-up window. Soneri disappointed them by turning away towards the embankment and clambering up the incline to the elevated road where several people were milling about and tractors were continually passing to and fro. The water was not far off. Facing him, battered by the current, a pennant was still waving in defiance of the elements, albeit with the desperation of a survivor of a shipwreck. Further on, the flag and the jetty of the riverside port were submerged under the yellowing water. The shack housing the boat club appeared almost to be toppling. Centimetre by centimetre, shallow, dark waves were taking over the yard which ran down to the main embankment, while some men, wellington boots up to their knees, moved around furtively, like ants, carting all manner of objects to safety. Soneri saw two uniformed carabinieri with gun belts over their dark coats step out of the club. A maresciallo was in animated conversation with an old man who was evidently refusing to give way while around him a group of boatmen were listening intently.

  “Close down this shack and get out,” the officer was saying.

  “We will go as and when. We know what we’re doing,” the man replied.

  “You are under my jurisdiction.”

  “Maresciallo, we know more about the river than you do, so let us get on with it and you go and help the people who need your help.”

  The two men stared at each other, furiously. The maresciallo turned to the others beside the old man, but seeing they were equally unimpressed, he turned away with an angry movement that shook the water off his overcoat and climbed back into his vehicle. From halfway up the incline, Soneri signalled to the driver to stop.

  “I am Commissario Soneri from the police,” he said, extending his hand.

  The maresciallo, still highly irritated, held out his wet hand with ill grace. “The prefetto will need to come himself and give orders to this lot,” he muttered threateningly from under his helmet. “Get in. We’ll talk back at the station.”

  It was not far from the Italia, and through the window the solid mass of the great embankment stood out clearly.

  “Let’s hope it holds,” Soneri said to break the silence.

  The maresciallo paid no heed to the commissario’s words and limited himself to glancing over to satisfy himself that there was no sign of any leaks. “So you’re here because of Tonna?” he said. From the nameplate in imitation silver on his desk, Soneri deduced he was called Aricò.

  “Yes,” he said. Having detected a note of disdain in the officer’s voice, he added: “He had a brother who died yesterday and we may well be dealing with a case of murder.”

  For the first time, Aricò showed a spark of interest. “How did he die?”

  “He fell from the third floor of the hospital. It looked like suicide.”

  The maresciallo seemed deep in thought for a moment or two, then he looked down again at the papers in front of him. When the telephone rang, he gave some peremptory orders in a raised voice. Even before the officer turned back to face him, Soneri was persuaded that he was dealing with a difficult individual. “My dear commissario, what can I tell you? The Tonna from here has disappeared. The barge set off without warning, and was found unmanned by my colleagues at Luzzara. I put out a call for information on Tonna’s whereabouts, but so far no-one has come forward. You can see for yourself how badly understaffed we are here.” He launched into a fresh tirade against time off and holidays, but it was pretty clear that, given the opportunity, he would have been off himself. “And then this river!” He cursed in the vague direction of the embankment. “Meantime, the prefetto’s going off his head,” he said, picking up a bundle of transcripts as though he were lifting a burglar by the collar.

  “Does Tonna have any relations here?”

  “A niece. She has a bar on the piazza.”

  “Does she know anything?”

  “Nothing at all. She only ever saw him, maybe once a week, when he got off his boat to bring her his things to wash.”

  The telephone rang once more. Aricò was attentive, this time with an attitude of resignation. It was no doubt a superior. All the while, he was looking outside at the grey sky covered with what looked like bruise marks, and Soneri had the impression he was dreaming of the orange groves of Sicily on hills sloping down to the sea. He, on the other hand, was as happy in the rain as an earthworm. Shortly afterwards, he was back on the embankment, en route to the boat club. He had learned that the old man who had been debating with the maresciallo was called Barigazzi.

  He went in search of him and found him bent over his stakes. “Is it rising fast?”

  “It’s rising constantly, which is worse.”

  “You don’t see eye to eye with the maresciallo?”

  “No, he’s sticking his nose into matters he doesn’t understand. Are you from round here?”

  “I’m a commissario from the police headquarters. My name is Soneri. I’m here about Tonna.”

  Barigazzi stared at him. “A funny business, that.”

  “Oh, I agree. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

  They went into the boat club. The radio was frenetically churning out bulletins as though it were wartime. It had been freed from its fittings and was the only object left in the bar.

  “You’ve got six hours before the water gets here, so be prepared,” Barigazzi said.

  “All we’ve got to do is pull out the cable and unscrew the control panel,” replied the man standing next to the radio.

  “I see you haven’t altogether ignored the maresciallo’s advice,” Soneri said.

  There was annoyance in Barigazzi’s look. “If it had been up to him, we’d have been on the other side of the embankment two days ago. There are some people as would give orders without having even seen the river. They go on like someone who’s just invented the wheel.”

  “When it comes to navigation, perhaps Tonna thought of himself in those terms.”

  “Perhaps. Nobody knew the river like him.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Leaving aside the night he moored here and disappeared, it was four days ago,’ Barigazzi said. “He tied up to go to his niece’s. He stopped off here at the club, but only for an hour or so, time to down a couple of glasses of grappa, the kind that’s distilled locally and he was so keen on.”

  “Was there anything unusual about how he was that night?”

  “Tonna was always the same. Quiet. He only spoke about the Po, or about fishing and boats. But he wasn’t much of a talker even on those topics.”

  “Did he have friends at the club?”

  Barigazzi looked at him, rolled his eyes and then shrugged his shoulders so that they seemed to touch his ears. “I doubt if he had many friends anywhere. Only other boatmen who worked the river like him. He communicated by gestures both on land and on the water.”

  The radio was broad
casting alarming news. A leak had opened up in the San Daniele embankment, on the Lombard side facing Zibello.

  “This is something new,” said the man who was working the radio. “It’s caught them all on the hop.”

  “Are there still many who make their living sailing up and down the river?” the commissario said.

  “Agh!” Barigazzi exclaimed, with a gesture that indicated deep anger. “Two men and a dog. Nobody invests in boats nowadays and you’ve seen the state of the moorings.”

  “But Tonna apparently wouldn’t give up, in spite of his age.”

  “It was his life,” the old man said, a bit irritated by the question. “Do you expect a man to change his vices at eighty?”

  “Many men opt for a quiet life at that age.”

  “Not Tonna. He never entertained the notion of leaving his barge and digging a garden. And anyway, he always wanted to stay away from people and their empty chatter.”

  “Any unfinished business?”

  Barigazzi made a vague gesture. “He liked his own company …” he said in a tone which seemed to the commissario intended to convey some deeper meaning.

  “Even when he was sailing?”

  “Sometimes he took his nephew along, but he didn’t manage to make a riverman of him. The young nowadays like their comforts, and the river makes its demands.”

  Soneri thought of Tonna and his solitary life, dedicated to commuting endlessly between Pavia and the mouth of the river, his two termini. A riverman who had no liking for company or for dry land. So caught up was he in these thoughts, he failed to notice that it had stopped raining.

  Barigazzi lifted his head as a sign of gratitude. “Don Firmino got it right for once. San Donino has bestowed his grace on us,” he sniggered.

  At that very moment, the lamp over the boat club, three metres above the roof, was switched on. The water, in gently rippling waves, continued to rise over the yard and was now scarcely two metres from the entrance.