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

by Valerio Varesi

  “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.

  He walked on, persuaded that exercise would clear his mind. He felt alive climbing up and down slopes, as when he was searching for mushrooms, but there was something else at the back of his mind, the beginnings of a thought, if less than an idea. He decided to put himself in the shoes of that mysterious person who had been walking after dark with Dolly towards Croce. In the distance, he could hear the shouts of the carabinieri on the trail of the Woodsman, followed by the rifle shots which rang out along the hillside.

  He heard Dolly, at the bottom of a ditch, bark in the highpitched tone of dogs confronted by a larger animal. He ran to find her and, without being aware, found himself back on the pathway. Dolly went on growling, but Soneri drew up, seeing Baldi appear ten metres ahead of him.

  “She’s found something interesting,” he said, pointing into the ditch.

  The commissario nodded. “She’ll have to deal with it by herself. As you can see, I don’t have a gun.”

  “I think she’s standing still. If it was a boar or a deer, she’d be off after it.”

  “What about you? Have you shut up your place?” Soneri said.

  “It doesn’t thaw during the day any more. It’s time to get out before I’m buried by a storm.”

  “So now all you have to do is wait for spring. Will you back by the Feast of the Liberation in April?”

  Baldi stood in silence, looking in the direction from which Dolly’s barks were still coming. “I doubt it,” he said quietly.

  “So what about the bar?”

  Baldi shrugged, but he said nothing. Soneri was once again overcome by melancholy.

  “It’s no longer a world I know,” Baldi said, still talking in a low voice. Leaving the place where he had worked all his life evidently caused him some distress. “I was born among shepherds, cows and the smell of cheese. Once, I used to live up there among people I knew, not crooks, smugglers and drug dealers who don’t speak my dialect. Sundays used to be feast days for the villagers themselves, not like nowadays when people arrive from the city scowling, with big boots showing off the brand name, people who don’t take even a drop of wine, who are on diets and who sit out in the sun all day long. No, that’s not my world any more. The only one that’s left is the Woodsman and look what’s happening to him, hunted across his own lands like a boar. And then this illness,” he interrupted himself to cough. “Those carabini
eri…” he spluttered, before running out of words.

  “It’s not their fault. If only he’d turned himself in, everything would’ve been cleared up, but now, this way, he makes himself look guilty.”

  Baldi frowned. “You obviously don’t know Gualerzi.” His tone was designed to make the commissario aware how much of an outsider he was. “What chance was there of him surrendering to the carabinieri? In his whole life, he has never taken orders, not from anyone. Do you think a couple of carabinieri would be going to change that?”

  “But they won’t give in either.”

  “Then it’s going to end in disaster. The Woodsman’s got nothing to lose. He’s done for, so’s his wife, and his daughter will have to look after herself.”

  Other shots rang out, and this time they were closer.

  “They’re coming from this side. I don’t understand where he’s leading them,” Baldi said.

  “He’s not firing.”

  “Who knows what’s on his mind? Maybe he thinks it’s going to be a long battle and he’s saving his ammunition.”

  Dolly had stopped barking and from the rustling in the undergrowth near the path it seemed she was coming back. When she emerged, she bristled, looking in the direction from which the shots were coming. At that moment, the shouts of a detachment which had come down across the Macchiaferro on the Malpasso side could be clearly heard.

  “They’re somewhere above us,” Baldi said, mildly alarmed. “They’re at Fontanazzo,” he added, referring to a place unknown to Soneri.

  “I think we’d better get out of here,” Soneri said.

  “You’re right. We could end up as sitting ducks.”

  The commissario called to Dolly, who was caught up in the thrill of the hunt and growing more excited by the minute, and they set off swiftly. The voices pursuing them seemed to be getting closer.

  “I wonder where the Woodsman is,” Soneri said as they emerged onto a clearing from where in the distance, beyond a thicket of chestnut trees, they could see Greppo.

  “If you ask me,” Baldi said, “he’s leading them over to Badignana so he can take up a position on the ridge. And if he gets there, it’s going to be tough for the carabinieri.”

  “He’s going to do something else stupid,” Soneri said.

  Baldi’s expression turned serious and this time he agreed with the commissario. “I fear you’re right. By now he must be sick and tired of being hunted.”

  “Do you mean he’ll fire wildly, and to hell with the consequences?”

  “The fact that he’s not returning fire makes me fear the worst. At first he was trying to scare them off, but now since they’re still pursuing him…”

  Another volley crashed into a cliffside, causing the brittle Apennines sandstone to crumble.

  “They’re firing out of fear,” Baldi said with derision. “They see a shadow and they shoot at it. They have no balls.”

  “That’s another reason for getting out. That lot’ll fire at you the moment they set eyes on you.”

  They hurried down to the small plateau at Campogrande. As they ran through the trees, they heard the whistle of a stray bullet as it passed high over the branches, followed by shouts which seemed to come from close by. Their fear was that they had ended up between the pursuers and their prey, and Soneri thought of squatting down in a gulley so as not to offer a target. Finally they reached a clearing not far from Greppo. Without warning, Ghidini’s dog ran out towards them.

  “Are you mad? You’re going to get a bullet in your skulls!” Ghidini shouted at them. “I heard the Woodsman pass by up at Pietra. I was there an hour ago. Maybe he saw you and that’s why he led the carabinieri this way, to put them off his trail and put them onto yours.”

  It was true that the carabinieri seemed to be making for the point where Baldi and Soneri were. The yells of the officers, together with the precise orders issued by Bovolenta could be quite distinctly heard.

  “Better make a break for it before they catch up with us,” Ghidini said, calling his dog to his side.

  Soneri and Baldi moved off without another word, moving swiftly over the open spaces. They stopped further down when they were within sight of the road and completely out of breath. Silence had fallen again, making it impossible to say exactly how the manhunt was going. They heard an isolated cry, followed by others in response, and calculated that the carabinieri had swung round to the east to make the ascent to Badignana from that side.

  “I told you so,” Baldi said. “He’s leading them up there.”

  “The Woodsman is a beast. He’s leading them into a trap,” Ghidini said.

  Soneri ran over in his mind the path up to the crags. On the upper slopes the mountain became more forbidding and provided less cover metre by metre. “He must be well ahead of them, or he’s going to be an easy target on the final stretch.”

  Baldi shook his head. “Relax, Gualerzi will have everything worked out. He’s not going to provide them with target practice.”

  The commissario tried to imagine where the Woodsman would want to make a stand, and remembered how he and his brother had held a detachment of Nazis at bay with their one Sten gun. The Woodsman was now in the same situation, making his last stand in defence of the last piece of the mountain he considered his own.

  As they spread out over a wider expanse, the shouts from the carabinieri became more isolated. Everything seemed calmer. The sun was up causing the ice to melt and giving a glitter to the tufts of frosty grass.

  “I’d like to go and see what’s going on,” Ghidini said. “It’ll be alright as long as you keep your distance, maybe from the Malpasso path.”

  “I’m not going back up there. The spectacle won’t exactly be edifying,” Baldi said.

  “From Campogrande it should be possible to see how it all unfolds,” Soneri said.

  Baldi appeared hesitant, but at the same time he was evidently curious to see what would happen. “I might go with you as far as Campogrande.”

  “It’s the only place where you’d get a proper view,” Ghidini said.

  They set off back up the slope, but this time they had the impression of being the hunters. The carabinieri seemed to be following the Woodsman at the same distance as before, but they were also producing some kind of unrecognisable background noise. At Campogrande, the three men ran into Volpi who was looking through his binoculars. He was not distracted by their approach, and did not take his eyes off the rocks.

  “Do you see anything?” Baldi said

  “He’s taking them to Badignana,” the gamekeeper replied in his clipped tones, not turning round.

  “That’s not a good sign.”

  “No, it’s not,” Volpi agreed. “They still think they’re dealing with an ordinary fugitive from justice. They just don’t realise…”

  They all understood. “Did you see him make his way up?” Ghidini said.

  Volpi shook his head. “I think he followed the course of the stream, against the current.”

  “You mean he climbed up the Macchiaferro?” Baldi said.

  “He must have done. He might well have a cache of ammunition hidden somewhere in the cabins. He got there first, and so he’s had time to collect it. All he has to do now is wait for the carabinieri.”

  They got confirmation soon afterwards that this was so. A volley of shots rang out from the Badignana ridge aimed down into the lower valley. The beech trees seemed to shake.

  “That’s Gualerzi! That’s his Beretta,” Volpi said.

  Immediately afterwards, all hell broke loose. The carabinieri pointed their weapons upwards, more to cover their advance than in any organised attempt to hit their enemy. They had not expected to find themselves under fire in a clearing with no shelter apart from a few shrubs and stacks of brushwood. Angry orders were yelled out and Soneri imagined they came from Bovolenta, enraged at having fallen into a trap. Then once more the baritone boom of the Woodsman’s rifle thundered along the mountainside.

  “Oh, shit!�
�� Volpi screamed, his eyes glued to his binoculars. “He’s got one of them.”

  The carabinieri returned fire, shooting wildly, while at Badignana a cloud of white smoke rose up.

  “They’re bringing the wounded man down,” Volpi informed them. “He looks like a broken mannequin. All the rest are keeping them covered.”

  Soneri became aware he was sweating with tension. He had tried to warn Bovolenta, and was appalled at the stupidity of his pushing on to the point where the two sides were shooting at each other, but time after time he had found himself obliged to give way in the face of irrationality.

  It was easy to make out the shots fired by the Woodsman, since they had a darker and deeper tone. “What kind of bullet is he using?” Volpi wondered aloud, still looking through his binoculars. “They make huge holes in the ground where they land.”

  “Imagine what they would do if they hit a carabiniere.”

  “The carabinieri are moving back, into the undergrowth,” Volpi said.

  Meantime, they continued blasting away at the Badignana ridge. The cloud of dust which had formed above the rocks where the Woodsman was hidden was becoming even more impressive, but after a time the shooting stopped.

  “They’ve reached the woods,” Volpi said, putting down the binoculars. “The show is over – for the time being…”

  “I’m going down,” Baldi said, setting off for Greppo. Ghidini and Soneri followed him, but Volpi stayed where he was. “Some of the carabinieri will be in the village in about an hour. If they’ve got a wounded colleague, they’ll have to hurry.”

  When they got to Greppo, there was a great deal of activity in the piazza. There were three ambulances, the same pack of journalists and a detachment of men from the Special Forensic unit bustling about shouting instructions. As they carried on down, the sun’s light faded until it took on the colour of a zabaione. They reached the piazza ten minutes later, just in time to hear the police trucks manoeuvre along the winding road from the reservoir. Shortly afterwards, the trucks roared into the village and pulled up at the kerb under the lampposts. A helicopter hovered overhead, and as it came in to land on the piazza, everyone moved over to one side, pushed by the force of the wind from the propeller. A stretcher bearing a police officer in a tattered, blood-covered uniform was carried off the tailgate of one of the vehicles. Two other carabinieri, supported on both sides by colleagues, were helped into the ambulances.