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

by Valerio Varesi

  “That’s true.”

  “They’ll never catch him. They don’t know the kind of man they’re dealing with. The Woodsman’s got more cunning than a wildcat. Even the S.S. never managed to trap him, so do you see a handful of carabinieri succeeding? In a couple of days, their teeth’ll start chattering with the cold, they’ll get lost in the mists and they’ll end up whining into their walkie-talkies for someone to come and take them home. The mountain is hard and pitiless. You need a tough hide.”

  The wind carried the sound of dogs barking in the distance on Monte Matto and, outside, Dolly started growling. Even Baldi stopped for a moment to listen to the chorus from the hunting pack.

  “They’re over at Bragalata. They’ve been moving very fast, so they’ll get tired of it quickly.”

  There was only one table without upturned seats, and Baldi sat on top of it. “The one good thing to come out of this is that all those foreigners who used to go up and down to La Spezia have cleared off. They’re afraid of being picked up.”

  Baldi got to his feet and took two glasses and a bottle from the bar which now had nothing on it. He poured a measure for himself and one for Soneri. “Your father had a tough hide. He liked the mountains. He applied for a job in the woods, but it didn’t work out. You needed someone to put in a word for you, so they ended up with people from the Veneto or the South.”

  “You needed the party card, or else a letter from the parish priest,” Soneri said.

  “And your father was a red, and not only that, a partisan in the Garibaldi brigades.”

  “Didn’t the Rodolfis care about these things?”

  “They certainly did! They were always hand in glove with the priests. Every sacristy or church in need of restoration could count on their support. It was all bluff, of course. Palmiro was only interested in money, and Paride was even more of a phoney.”

  “So how come my father…”

  “I’ve never understood that.”

  “Paride’s wife gave me to understand that…” The commissario could not go on. Anger gripped him by the throat.

  “She’s mad,” Baldi cut in. “She married for money, but the moment she discovered it was all coming crashing down, she went right off her head. And then Palmiro’s death…”

  “Did she get on well with him?”

  Baldi burst out laughing, his eyes sparkling with malice. “Get on well with him! Everybody for miles around knew she was in his bed. Paride was living up at the Boschi house, leaving Villa del Greppo to her and Palmiro. It was obvious it was going to end up that way. A woman like her needs to feel reassured and protected, and Palmiro gave her all she wanted. In spite of his age, he was still full of vigour. Paride could hardly give her security. He didn’t feel secure in himself.”

  “But he knew?”

  “Of course he knew, but he didn’t give a damn. When he felt the urge, he’d pick up one of those women available in rich men’s clubs. A quick encounter, no time wasted.”

  Soneri was about to ask more about his father, but he was interrupted by a shot. Others followed in quick succession, like an irregular burst of machine-gun fire. Each shot was separate and distinct.

  “That’s a real battle now.” Baldi rose to his feet and went to the window looking out towards Bragalata. “They must have found the Woodsman, but he fired first.”

  “Are you sure?” Soneri said, coming to join him. He looked over the grey wasteland of rock, below which a green undergrowth of myrtles flourished, with the beech wood further down.

  “The first shot was from a Beretta. Then there was rifle fire.”

  Silence fell again for a few moments, then another round of shots rang out from somewhere among the tangle of beech trees.

  “Rifles. Like in the war.”

  “Have they got him, do you think?” Soneri said.

  “It’s strange that he fired fist.”

  “They probably told him to surrender and he reacted.”

  “Could be. He wouldn’t think twice. Or maybe he’s got one of the carabinieri.”

  “Why would he do that? He has to keep out of the way. If he shoots one of them, it’ll make them the more determined.”

  Dolly came to the window and sought out Soneri’s hand.

  “She’s agitated, and that tells you there’s electricity in the air. Animals sense these things before we do. They can smell our fear,” Baldi said.

  There was not another sound to be heard. Even the dogs had stopped barking.

  Baldi was unnerved by the sound of the gunfire and moved away from the window, but the commissario remained, listening intently. Dolly was sitting beside him, but she was clearly uneasy and even looked as though she wanted to run away.

  “The dog senses something,” Soneri said, looking anxiously around the room.

  “Maybe she’s picking up a voice, or the noise of the carabinieri moving in the undergrowth. We’ll never see them in the woods from here.”

  The commissario moved back from the window. The sun was high enough in the sky to melt the frost on the roof, so water was dripping steadily. Baldi, still shaken, was staring into his glass with the expression of a man in a drunken depression. He got up and started packing away things which were still lying about. The commissario was making an effort to interpret the deep silence which had fallen after the shots, but failed to make sense of it. He was on the point of rising to his feet, even if only to escape the sense of impotence which had come over him, when Dolly, starting to bark, stopped him.

  “Someone’s coming,” Baldi said. He relaxed when Ghidini appeared in the doorway.

  “They’re on friendly terms,” Ghidini said, grinning at Dolly and his lagotto. “Is she on heat?”

  Soneri shrugged to indicate that he had no idea.

  “Where have you been?” Baldi said.

  “Where the battle is raging.”

  Baldi could not hide his curiosity.

  “The Woodsman has fucked them all up, good and proper,” Ghidini said. “I was over at Groppizioso, on the slopes looking out over Bragalata, when I saw the carabiniere detachments coming up. I got my dog to stay quiet and moved off the path. They stopped to have a bite to eat near the drying plant at Pratoguasto, sitting in a neat circle like school kids, each one with his picnic box open between his legs. At that point, who should appear from behind the Macchiaferro waterfalls but the Woodsman himself? He didn’t want to pick them off there and then. He fired at a beech tree and the splinters flew all over the carabinieri. Then he disappeared up the gorge and out of sight.”

  “But they must have fired thirty or forty rounds.”

  “Yes, but at mosquitoes. They had no idea where he was.”

  “That was a stupid thing for him to do. Now they’ll call in reinforcements,” Soneri said.

  “That’s the Woodsman for you,” Ghidini said. “He’s in a rage because they’ve put guards on his house in the Madoni. They even smashed one of the huts where he kept all the cheese he’d got in August.”

  “This is going to end in disaster,” Baldi said.

  “One of the carabinieri has been taken to hospital already,” Ghidini said.

  “Who?” Soneri asked.

  “God knows, but he was shot by one of his own men. They’re not well trained and don’t know about the use of firearms. In the chaos, one of them must have slipped and the gun went off.”

  “Is he seriously injured?”

  “I don’t know. He was holding his arm, and then he must have fainted. A rifle shot could go right through you.”

  The commissario got up. The sun was shining through the window, and had formed a halo round the Bragalata peak. It was a call which Soneri was, as ever, incapable of resisting. He bade farewell to Baldi and shouted to Dolly who was fighting off the amorous approaches of Ghidini’s lagotto. Ghidini himself followed Soneri out, and when he turned towards him, the commissario could not help noticing Ghidini’s embarrassment.

  “There’s something I’ve got to tell you. I sh
ould’ve told you ages ago, but it seemed too trivial.”

  The commissario took out a cigar and matches.

  “It was something the Woodsman said about your father.”

  Soneri’s attention was so concentrated that he allowed the match to burn out in his hand.

  “He said that Palmiro was very grateful to him for resolving some question during the war, but he didn’t want too many people to know about it. It was to be a secret between the two of them and only a few others. The Woodsman was one of those few.”

  “Something to do with the partisans?”

  “Perhaps. I never really understood. Gualerzi is one of those people who never gives a straight answer to a question. If you ask him things directly, he clams up.”

  Soneri experienced another wave of impotence. He felt like dropping it all and leaving, but this mood dissolved on the instant. He had no choice but to continue with this bizarre investigation. Ghidini went back into the bar, and Soneri turned towards Malpasso.

  He stopped at the stables next to the summer grazing lands, hoping to meet the man who had acted as messenger the day before, but he found the doors locked and bolted against drifting snow. He was about to take the path down the mountain when his mobile rang. Angela seemed flustered, or perhaps she had some important information to communicate.

  “Monica, the one whose barn they burned, he’s put all the blame on the banks and on the Rodolfis.”

  “So?” Soneri said, sitting on a rock to savour the heat of the sun.

  “He says the banks had been perfectly aware for some time of the company’s plight, and for that reason should never have advised their customers to buy the bonds, nor should they have sold them themselves.”

  “That’s true as far as it goes, but if the company had never run up all those debts…”

  “You could equally say that about the savers. They knew, and continued to invest in junk bonds because the rates of interest were much higher than usual.”

  “They all knew and they all went along with it, hoping it would all turn out right in the end. There wasn’t a single one with the courage to dig his heels in, or just say no!”

  “It wouldn’t have resolved anything. There were too many snouts in the trough. You’re always digging your heels in at the police station, and what have you got to show for it?”

  “I’ve got an ulcer. But at least I’m at peace with my conscience. Do you think it’s enjoyable eating shit and then having to say how lovely it was? I choose the lesser evil.”

  Angela snorted and, pretending not to have heard, carried on. “As regards the hole in the company’s accounts, Monica puts the whole blame on the Rodolfis, and specifically on his former friend, Paride. He says he made a lot of mistakes. He was guilty of selling at too narrow margins, with the result that he ended up with a gaping chasm in the balance sheets. So as not to go bankrupt, he asked him to cover the debts with fictitious operations, or with false, offshore financial instruments in phantom companies.”

  The commissario grunted something to imply he could not take any more. He felt depressed, weighed down by a deep sadness. He thought back to his carefree childhood on the streets of the village, and reflected that there had been more happiness when everyone was poor. He found himself, by some obscure mechanism, recalling philosophical precepts he had learned at school, and particularly a definition of happiness as the cessation of suffering. That said it all; people are happy when they no longer suffer.

  He heard Angela calling out to him repeatedly. “Did you roll off the path?”

  “No, I was just thinking of suffering and happiness.”

  “You’re a great one for contradictions. Maybe that’s why you’re such a bitter-sweet man.”

  After he switched off his phone, he decided that basically she was right. He was quite downcast, but at the same time he was relishing the straw-coloured, autumn sunshine. Before plunging into the shadow of the woods, he waited till the light took on a copper hue as the sun set behind Bragalata.

  8

  There was about half an hour of daylight left when Soneri took the road to Villa del Greppo for the second time. Dolly trotted faithfully behind him, evidently having no idea that she was facing another separation. Only when they were at the gates did she betray any sign of recognising the place, and began to sniff about and growl. The commissario pressed the bell and this time heard a hollow ring inside. After a minute, the Philippino arrived and looked unwelcomingly at him.

  “The Signora not here. Out. Car.”

  “I’ve brought the dog back. She ran away the last time.”

  “Always run. Not want here.”

  “She’s young. She needs exercise, so if you keep her in a pound…”

  “Used to Signor Palmiro. His dog dead, so took this one.”

  “Wasn’t it Paride’s?”

  “Yes, but he not go shoot. This dog good, very good.”

  “Did Palmiro always take his rifle with him in the evening?”

  The Philippino blushed, and Soneri realised he had touched a nerve. The servant waved his hands about him as though he were losing his balance and was struggling, with his limited vocabulary, to find the right words.

  “I can ask the gamekeeper,” Soneri said.

  “He said it only pleasure left,” the Philippino said, relieved at being allowed to give an indirect reply.

  “I agree,” Soneri said, looking at Dolly. “Take her to her kennel.”

  The servant called to Dolly, who kept her eyes on Soneri and did not move. Feeling painfully churlish, he had to turn away from those imploring eyes which seemed to be requesting an explanation. The Philippino took Dolly by the collar and dragged her in. When he heard the lock click shut, he turned towards the village. From where he was standing, it looked like a brazier flickering in the dark.

  “Just down from the villa?” Maini said.

  Soneri nodded.

  “I saw you coming back without the dog.”

  “I had to give her back, but the visit was worthwhile.”

  Maini looked at him blankly, but did not seek further elucidation. “Paride’s wife wasn’t there.”

  “So the Philippino told me, but maybe it was only a way of getting rid of me,” Soneri said.

  “No, she’s in Parma. Her son’s had a car accident.”

  “Did he hurt himself playing with his toy?”

  “It seems he was drunk and drugged up to the eyeballs, but he didn’t do himself much damage.”

  “Drunk? There’s a surprise. Not the best of times for the Rodolfis.”

  “Not just for them. Have you heard what’s happened in the village?”

  “What now?”

  “Somebody took a knife to Biavardi. His daughter was Paride’s secretary.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Nobody knows. They attacked him at home, but possibly they were after the girl.”

  “Have the carabinieri been told?”

  Maini’s gesture implied that the matter was of no interest to him. “It took them two hours to get there because they’re all searching for the Woodsman. Nobody wants to talk, and they don’t exactly trust the carabinieri.”

  “Until a couple of days ago, Crisafulli was playing cards in the village bars.”

  “The general view is that the Woodsman was quite right. Paride was never popular and he cheated everybody.”

  “But it was Palmiro who collected the cash.”

  “They believe Paride deceived him as well, and that by hanging himself the old man confirmed it. He was ashamed and that was his only way out.”

  “It was obvious to him that they were all backing the Woodsman.”

  “He’s only doing what they’d all have liked to do, if they had the courage.”

  Several people were leaving the Rivara, but in the gathering dusk in the piazza the commissario could not make out who they were. The sun was going down, giving way to the freezing air which crumpled the few leaves left on the branches. All along the Montelu
po valley, the mist was growing thicker, making the night darker. At that moment, some lights appeared on the path above Boldara, half way up the mountainside. About a dozen torches were swaying rhythmically as the men marched back. The carabinieri, clearly having mistimed nightfall, were returning to the village.

  “If we were at war, I’d say that was unwise,” Maini said.

  “They’re abandoning the field to the Woodsman – if they’d won it in the first place,” Soneri agreed.

  Their conversation was abruptly interrupted by the sound of gunfire, sudden shots blasted out to disturb the peace of the valley. It seemed almost possible to see flashes as they dispelled the darkness in the foliage and cut through the evening mists, or perhaps it was the torches fanning out in search of the source of the volley. The first salvo was followed by the rifles’ angry retort. Other shots rang out in quick succession, or simultaneously, from many angles, it seemed. It was clear the carabinieri were firing blindly, more in the hope of neutralising the threat than of hitting their target.

  “Good God! He’s firing like a devil.” Soneri recognised Volpi’s voice in the middle of the group that rushed out from the Rivara. “He’s attacking them in the dark to scare them off.”

  Confused shouts came drifting down. Someone could be heard bawling out an order intended to restore discipline in the ranks. The favourable wind carried indistinct sounds, not intelligible words.

  “He’s trying to wear them down with these ambushes,” Volpi said.

  “It’s stupid. He’d have worn them down more quickly if he’d simply kept out of their way,” Soneri said. At that moment, an image of Captain Bovolenta came into his mind: all military stiffness and ingrained stubbornness, his head filled with notions of honour.

  “He feels sure of himself and he’s bursting with rage. If you ask me, I don’t think that what Gualerzi did deserves so much as a fine,” Delrio said.

  “It’s the reaction of a man who’s been ruined.” It was Rivara who spoke. “His brother once kept a regiment of Germans at bay at Badignana with nothing more than a Sten gun.”

  “And he was at his brother’s side.”

  “He’s not even afraid of tanks.”