The Dark Valley cs-2

by Valerio Varesi

  “I’ll not be staying long,” he said, without looking at Fulvio, who made no reply.

  “And the dog?”

  “She’ll be staying with me tonight.”

  On hearing these words, the man turned away, shrugged and as he went back into his room, could be heard muttering, “Well, at this point…”

  The commissario slept fitfully. Dolly too was aroused every now and again at something that she alone could hear. Around 5.00, Soneri awoke, thinking he had heard a loud noise outside. Dolly was extremely restless and this seemed confirmation that there was someone moving about. The commissario threw open the shutters and peered into the darkness of the yard, but there was nothing to be seen. In spite of that, shortly afterwards he heard the sound of a car engine being revved up, and wondered if someone had come to look for something in the environs of the hotel. Since Dolly was so troubled, he supposed it might have been her they had come looking for. After all, his own suspicions had made him bring her up to his room in the first place.

  As he thought the matter over, the alarm clock told him it was almost six o’clock. He opened the shutters again and was greeted by a gust of brutally cold air. He got ready and made his way out past closed doors behind which he imagined unmade beds, empty cupboards and curtains colonised by bugs. In the dining room, the tablecloths had been removed and the seats turned upside down. What he had previously seen as a sign of familiarity now seemed to him an omen of decay. He closed the door behind him and moved off.

  He breakfasted in the Rivara. The village seen through the window overlooking the piazza seemed as calm as on a Sunday morning. “They were working late,” the barman advised him, indicating the police station.

  “Any idea if they came to any conclusions?”

  Rivara shook his head. “None at all. Nobody knows anything. Crisafulli and the local lot haven’t been seen.”

  It was at that moment that he heard the ignition being turned in the first truck as it set off for Montelupo. A line of vehicles, their headlights reflected on the thick layer of ground frost, drove past. The half-asleep carabinieri inside them were jolted at every bump in the road.

  “They’re not giving up, are they? They haven’t had enough yet,” Rivara said.

  The commissario looked attentively at all the trucks as they went by, but he did not see Bovolenta. “Have they fired him?” he thought aloud.

  “It wouldn’t be a surprise. With all that’s been going on, they could well have accused him of sending them out to be picked off.”

  Soneri drank his caffelatte while Dolly, sitting outside the window, looked on. Dawn was breaking, but light was struggling to break through the damp mist of the valley. He ordered bread, some slivers of parmesan and a hundred grams of culaccia. He fed the fat of the ham to Dolly, and set off for Greppo where the night before he had met the Philippino. As soon as he was away from the shelter of the piazza, he felt the full force of the freezing wind like a slap in the face. The cold had grown yet more intense, and was coming, like the sun, from the east. When he reached the plain, he stopped to get his breath back. The dry air gave him a parched throat. He saw the carabinieri line up above Boldara to advance through the woods, and he wondered about the criteria they were using for deployment in the God-forsaken donkey’s back that was Montelupo. They were being divided into two groups, perhaps with the plan of encircling the Woodsman. He heard the sound of other trucks on the mountainside and realised that reinforcements were arriving already.

  He set off once more for Croce, with Dolly running ahead, darting in and out of the undergrowth. The commissario walked behind with a more measured pace, but as he proceeded he felt a growing sense of anxiety. When he heard shouts from lower down the valley, he understood the risks he was running. All it needed was one carabiniere to get him in his gun sights. He knew only too well that in those circumstances, they would not be required to take precautions. Montelupo was now a free-fire zone for the police forces, and there were simply no codes in place.

  As he climbed higher, the sun lit up the mountain, increasing the chances that he would end up in some sniper’s sights. There was a new danger at every corner, so he kept in the shadows or took shelter in gulleys or thickets where it was still freezing and where the wild boar ran. He left the path, walking parallel to it through the trees. The morning was silent and the light strong, but there was tension in the air. He still had some way to go along a route which took him past the bright trunks of the beech trees before he finally arrived at an almost sheer wall of crumbling sandstone. Looking up, he could see the path twist and turn as it ran alongside a crag where no plants grew. There was a crevice in the cliff which narrowed into a chimney leading over the summit and down the opposite side. Only at that point did he realise he was next to the gorge where Dolly had attempted to entice him down to the bottom the previous day.

  He looked for the dog as he crossed over the muddy surface solidified by the freezing frost. He was familiar with that type of swampy terrain where it was possible to walk only in winter. He remembered an occasion when a hunter had sunk in it up to his waist, and when he was pulled out, he left behind his boots and trousers. The freezing conditions had made everything hard. Small pieces of rock broke away from the cliff higher up, causing the sandstone below to crumble like dry bread. Dolly was seated at the foot of the slope in the last of the undergrowth which closed off the gorge. In front of her there were signs of something having been dragged through the mud before the freeze. Soneri bent over, and it was then he noticed the butt of a rifle sticking a few centimetres out of the ground.

  It had been driven in, barrels down, like a biscuit ready to sink to the bottom in a glass of milk. The commissario looked up. About twenty metres up the slope from where he was standing, the path ran along the cliffside. He then understood: the rifle must have fallen from there and the barrels had sunk in the mud, but all this had taken place before the freeze, in the soft dampness of the season of mists.

  He pulled at the gun, but it was impossible to move. It was as if it had been set in cement. He attempted to dig it out with stones, branches and with his bare hands, knowing that if he managed to crack the frozen surface, the weapon would come away easily. He worked at it for some time, heedless of everything else around him. Montelupo continued to be enveloped in a silence undisturbed by the cawing of crows, the tap-tap of woodpeckers or the strident screech of vultures. The woods and the skies were shrouded in lethargic stillness.

  Finally with one energy-sapping tug, he pulled the rifle free. It was encased in a sleeve of grey mud, like a cocoon, and patiently he began to scrape the mud away with a piece of wood, cutting from the top down as though he were slicing ham. After a time, he was successful and this made it possible to make out the shape of the barrels and handle, but the time it had spent under the mud had probably compromised the trigger and firing mechanisms. He retraced his steps, trying to get out of that morass of solid mud, but only when he felt the springy crackle of beech leaves under his feet did he allow himself to think of what was to be done next. But at that moment the battle broke out with renewed violence, not far above the path.

  The carabinieri opened fire first, followed immediately by the more sonorous sound of the Woodsman’s rifle as he returned fire from somewhere on the mountainside. Other weapons were discharged across a wide range, bullets whistled through the woods, criss-crossing each other and ending their flight with a bang as they exploded into wood or with a dull thud as they hit the ground. The commissario crouched down behind a beech tree whose roots had pushed through the soil to create a kind of rampart. The air carried the smell of gunshot towards him, while broken branches fell like rain onto the rotting wood beneath the trees. Soneri felt real fear when he heard the carabinieri running towards the pathway, but once they approached the foot of the gorge, a shot from the Woodsman exploded before them, throwing earth and leaves from the undergrowth up into the air. He was firing in the hope of bouncing his shot off a stone, knowing that if
he struck a rock, the ricochet was certain to bring someone down. The carabinieri halted and then doubled back into the thick woods. Soneri took advantage of the pause to drag himself and Dolly along the gulley, and to dive behind the cement columns under a little bridge over a path in the woods. Dolly was reluctant to follow him but Soneri grabbed her by the collar and hauled her in.

  They stayed in there, huddled against each other. Every so often Dolly would turn to him, giving the idea that she was obeying although she did not understand. The commissario for his part was besieged by images from long ago. He felt again like a boy in a cabin, as he recalled the resentful solitude of his teenage years as well as various stories told to him by his father. He seemed to hear his voice as he recounted the events of July ’44, the S.S. round-ups, the three days spent hiding in a hole in the ground and the return to the light of day to find a landscape of death and fire. It was a miracle they had not killed him, and it was a miracle for Soneri that he had been born and was there.

  He shook his head at that thought and Dolly, who took the gesture as an invitation, licked his hand. He was surprised at these mysterious associations which carried him back to relive episodes from the past, but these were all swept aside a few moments later by the heavy marching steps of the carabinieri. They were moving at a steady pace towards the spot from which the Woodsman had been firing. He heard the radios crackling and one voice communicating the direction they were to take. He assumed they were trying to surround the Woodsman, forcing him to higher ground where there was less shelter and less space for manoeuvre. From the sound of their footsteps, he calculated that there must be about fifteen of them. He had been hiding to avoid being shot by mistake, but even if he was now at liberty to come out and give himself up, he put his hand into Dolly’s collar to keep her calm, and stayed where he was. He had no wish to expose himself to the carabinieri as he crawled out of his hole like a beetle. In there, he felt like a real man of the mountains, or like an animal in its den. He was different from those untrained, frightened and shivering policemen.

  He waited until the marching, the shouts and the confusion had passed. When he came out into the sunlight, he thought once more of his father and of how he must have felt himself a survivor. There were so many things he did not know about him, but there was at least one memory which could be rescued from the oblivion into which his life had almost completely fallen, provided, of course, that Soneri could reach the Woodsman in time.

  This thought drove him on. He called to Dolly and started down the valley. Time had flown, as he understood from the sun which seemed even brighter in the freezing wind from the north-east. He stopped at a sheltered spot near some rocks and since his stomach had been rumbling for about half an hour, he decided to have something to eat. He was certain they would not be able to capture the Woodsman as long as his cancer left him even a little strength, but he was equally certain that he himself would have little chance of meeting up with him in that rocky landscape, unless he chose to let himself be found.

  With these thoughts in his mind, he set off again. He walked along the final stretch of the path until he felt himself out of danger. He heard one isolated shot fired by the Woodsman further up the Macchiaferro valley, but it wasn’t at a great distance. Perhaps the gun had gone off by accident. When he reached Greppo, he took out his mobile, dialled the number of the police station and asked the officer on duty if Crisafulli was there.

  “I’ll put you through,” was the reply. “Can I say who’s calling?”

  “Just put me through to Crisafulli.”

  As Soneri was wondering how Crisafulli had managed to dodge heavy duty yet again, he heard his voice. “What’s the matter, Commissario?”

  “Come up to Greppo. I’ve something interesting to show you.”

  “What’ve you found? A dozen huge ceps?”

  “A really superior type of mushroom. Get up here and see for yourself.”

  He switched off his mobile, convinced he had done the right thing in calling the maresciallo rather than bringing the rifle down to the police station, since everybody in the village would have seen him. The case now seemed to him closed. There was only one further check to be made, but he could not do it himself, which was why he had called in Crisafulli.

  He finished his meagre meal while Dolly chewed at the rind which she gripped between her paws. He lit his cigar and looked contentedly at the old village with its houses covered by slates of Montelupo stone darkened by moss. About ten minutes later he saw the carabiniere cap with the tongues of fire on the front, as Crisafulli himself walked towards him with his trademark, springy step. Soneri got to his feet as he drew near, and gave him time to get his breath back before he spoke.

  “I wanted to give you this myself,” he said, handing over the mud-encrusted rifle.

  The maresciallo started back as though he was afraid of soiling his uniform. He took a good look at the weapon without touching it, until the commissario handed it firmly to him, leaving Crisafulli with no choice but to get his hands dirty.

  “Where did you find this?”

  “Along the Croce path.”

  The maresciallo’s eyes lit up briefly. “You believe that…” he tried to say, before losing himself in a tangle of thoughts.

  “I think the whole lot of you have made a mess of the entire business.”

  “Bovolenta is in charge of the enquiry,” Crisafulli said, too emphatically for Soneri’s taste.

  “Palmiro didn’t get lost that night,” the commissario said.

  “Obviously not. Now that we have this rifle, things which at first appeared absurd fall into place.”

  “Oh, there’s still no shortage of absurd things. Life is full of them,” Soneri said, with a bitter laugh.

  The maresciallo looked hard at him without appreciating his meaning, while the commissario, turning serious, put a hand on his shoulder. “Listen, Crisafulli, you go back to the police station and hand this rifle over to the forensic people. Then go up to the Rodolfi villa and do a house search. Before you do that, have a look at the weapons licensed to Palmiro. If even one is missing in the villa… all the rest will come out in the report, won’t it?”

  The maresciallo looked at him like a schoolboy gazing at his teacher. “I will report that it was you who found the rifle.”

  Soneri shook his head energetically. “I don’t give a damn about the case. I’m here on holiday. There are other matters which do interest me.”

  “I’ll have to give some explanation of how I found it.”

  “Say that you had an anonymous tip-off, or that you followed your own line of enquiry. I didn’t tell the officer on duty who I was.”

  The maresciallo’s face lit up. “You are a saint and a bearer of grace.”

  Soneri shrugged.

  “I’ll let you know when I have the report. And I’ll go to the villa as soon as I have put this weapon in safe custody.”

  “Thanks, even if I’m already sure how the whole thing went. I don’t need to deal with magistrates. It’s you who needs incontrovertible proof. I have the luxury of being able to follow my instincts.”

  “A terrible business,” Crisafulli murmured.

  “The world is terrible. Don’t you find it disgusts you?” Soneri felt anger swelling inside him, or perhaps it was the pain of living which he had attempted in vain to dispel by coming to the one place where he should have been able to feel at home. “And there is no escape,” he said, as though talking to himself.

  The maresciallo listened with an expression of appropriate gravity, but it was clear he had not grasped the meaning of what Soneri was saying. “So what’s going to happen when they realise the Woodsman had nothing to do with it?”

  “They’ll have to keep on searching for him. He has, after all, killed one of your colleagues.”

  “And he died for nothing,” the maresciallo said. “I told Bovolenta to proceed cautiously. It wasn’t certain it was the Woodsman, but the captain’s not one for subtleties. He
’s a dangerous man.”

  “Have you got a towel?” Soneri said. “You’d better not let anyone see you with a muddy hunting rifle.”

  “You’re right. I’ve got a blanket in the car.” He stood there for a moment, looking quite sheepish, until he saw the commissario giving him a curious look. He stirred himself into action. “You’re right. It does disgust me.”

  Soneri waited a moment or two, then whistled for Dolly and moved off.

  Along the valley, in the shadow of the mountains, the light was fading rapidly, while on higher ground the sunlight was still falling on the copper-coloured leaves of the beech trees. A freezing wind blew onto the piazza from the narrow streets where it met no obstacle. Delrio, Maini and Volpi turned up their collars to give themselves some protection.

  Volpi had his binoculars trained on the near slope of Montelupo, now only half in sunlight. “They’re still climbing up from both sides.”

  “Have they got him surrounded?” Delrio said.

  “They’ll have a hard time of it surrounding the Woodsman.”

  At that moment, a shot rang out along the valley.

  “That’s him,” Volpi said.

  Almost simultaneously the rifles, with their sharper report, returned fire. Rivara stepped out of the bar, slipping his coat over his apron. People in the houses opened their shutters and stood behind the windows listening. From the outset, the Montelupo war was one that could only be listened to. It had been so from the first shot fired days previously in the mist, followed by the other mysterious shots in the twilight or in the depths of the woods.

  “They’ve definitely intercepted him, but they’ll never take him,” Volpi said.

  There was no let-up in the heavy fire from the rifles, but the Woodsman’s hunting rifle boomed out again, three shots discharged one after the other, then a pause, then another three shots, all clearly heard above the police weapons.

  “They’d nearly trapped him in a pincer movement, but he slipped away before the circle closed,” Volpi said, peering through his binoculars without turning round.