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

by Valerio Varesi

  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.

  “Not one of them has one hundredth of the Woodsman’s guts. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets another one,” Delrio said.

  “Now they’re firing upwards, and that means he’s escaped from the trap. When he’s in danger, Gualerzi always makes for the high ground, like a hare.”

  A volley of shots rang out, the sound carried across the valley by the freezing east wind, the shots coming so closely one after the other as to seem like machine-gun fire. The Woodsman replied with three single shots, fired at regular intervals, followed by another two.

  Something caused Volpi to grimace in seeming disappointment. “He’d got off the hook but now they’re back on top of him,” he mumbled, as though there was some flaw in the narrative. The Woodsman must have done something unexpected.

  “Gualerzi’s an old man. He’s been on the run for days with no rest,” Rivara said.

  As though in reply, the Woodsman’s rifle thundered out, the bullets skimming across the tops of the trees like a scythe. The sun was almost set and only the peak of Montelupo, bathed in a dark grey, aluminium colour, was still in light. The darkness was rising gradually up the mountainside, like water in a tub. In the semi-darkness, the battle continued, but the combatants were now firing at random, more out of fear than with any specific aim. The wind carried some stray yells down the valley, but there was no telling where they originated from.

  “They’re running up the slope. They look as though they’d been bitten by a tarantula,” Volpi said, with some apprehension in his voice.

  “They haven’t wounded him, have they?” Maini asked.

  Delrio shrugged as if to say that was not possible. “If anything, it’ll be the other way about.”

  A new salvo was discharged, and it seemed to contain all the rage of the men who were pulling the triggers. The Woodsman, holed up in some inaccessible cave, seemed almost to be willing them to do their worst. He returned fire only when their shots were less frequent, but his rifle no longer had the same resonance.

  “He’s made a change. He’s down to small bore fire,” Volpi said.

  “He won’t scare them with that,” Maini said.

  “That means he’s running out of ammunition,” Delrio said.

  Silence fell over the Montelupo woods.

  “Yes,” Volpi said. “Gualerzi must be low on bullets, but they’ll not get him this evening, because it’s already too dark to pursue him. He knows every last bush and tree.”

  The lights went on in the piazza, revealing the men’s breath hanging in the air. Volpi replaced the binoculars, which he could no longer use, in their case. Shortly afterwards, they saw the first headlights shine out around the reservoir. The engines started up even before some squads were out the woods.

  To get out of the cold, the group took refuge in the bar. The puddles were already covered by a layer of ice, and the wind blew the smoke from the chimneys this way and that. The commissario waited for the carabinieri to return. He followed the headlights as they bumped about in the darkness, slowly probing the compact mass of the trees. The procession reached a side road and stopped there. Two vehicles continued towards the main road, while the remainder turned in the direction of the village, arriving in the piazza a few minutes later. The carabinieri appeared exhausted. Some of their uniforms were filthy, and some were torn. They looked like an army in retreat.

  Other trucks came slowly down the road towards Boldara. Soneri, who intended to leave Dolly at the Scoiattolo and then eat at Rivara’s, moved off. The village had once more sunk into its shell of distrust and rancour. Shafts of light filtered from kitchens, while the sound of children crying or old men complaining could be heard through half-open shutters. Before Soneri got to the pensione, Dolly stopped in front of him and stood staring, barking into the darkness ahead of her. The commissario saw a man emerge from the shadows, walking under the light of the lamps.

  When they were only a few metres apart, Soneri recognised him as the shepherd he had met pasturing his flock up at Badignana. He had the usual roll-up cigarette between his fingers, one end wet with saliva and the lighted end with scarcely any ash. He smoked on the tip of his tongue, as though he were tasting the cigarette. Soneri stopped but said nothing. The other man stopped too, but seemed embarrassed, as though wishing to give the impression that he just happened to be there, or else was not at his ease away from the woods.

  “Have you been here long?” the commissario said, to open the conversation.

  The other man shrugged, but made no answer. Discussion must have seemed a superfluous luxury to someone accustomed to days of solitude following his flock from one field to another, or simply sitting on a rock waiting for evening.

  “It’s hell up there now,” Soneri said.

  Once again the man shrugged. “I came down a couple of days ago.”

  His voice and his attitude conveyed both a resignation which had been centuries in the making, and an acceptance of the reality, whatever that reality might be, to which it was necessary to adapt in order to survive in the mountains.

  “You haven’t set eyes on Gualerzi again, have you?”

  The man made a clucking noise as if to say no, but after a few seconds he raised his eyes. “If you go up to the mountain bar very early, you might meet up with him.”

  “Did he tell you to tell me that?”

  The man shook his head. “I met his daughter.”

 
“He’s being hunted down, and can’t hold out much longer,” the commissario said.

  The man sniggered. “If it was just the carabinieri…” he replied with a gesture of indifference. “He’s got other things hunting him down.”

  Soneri assumed he was referring to the cancer.

  “Is he starting to feel pain?”

  “He’s been in pain since San Martino.”

  “He would be better coming down and getting himself treated.”

  “He’s not the sort of man who’s prepared to go to a hospital to die. He couldn’t stand being in closed spaces, hospitals, police stations, prisons, whatever. He sleeps with the windows open even in winter.”

  As he listened to the shepherd, the commissario became aware of how a sense of the arcane and primitive was gathering around the figure of the Woodsman, and of how his legend was growing day by day.

  “He didn’t wait for me the last time,” the commissario said.

  “He’s got his own times. He’s up before dawn, and these days he doesn’t even sleep much.”

  Soneri nodded to let it be known he had understood, and watched the man move off slowly, disappearing into the night. The commissario took Dolly to the Scoiattolo and then, feeling the first pangs of hunger, turned back to where he had been. When he arrived at the Olmo, Crisafulli hurried out.

  Soneri stopped to light a cigar before the maresciallo started talking. He invited him to walk with him along the street, since he preferred not to speak within earshot of the group of village elders. They walked some way without addressing each other. Crisafulli turned up the collar of his uniform and kept his hands in his pockets, but he seemed to be turning blue with the cold. He pulled up short, almost barring the commissario’s path. “Commissario, I have to tell you all the rifles are in the right place.” There was a shiver in his voice as he spoke.

  “So you’ve been up at the villa?”

  “I went there immediately after our conversation.”

  “Was the daughter-in-law there?”

  “Yes, and the Philippino.”

  “And they let you see the weapons?”

  “Yes, all three of them, as per the licence. Two double-barrelled guns and one sporting rifle for deer-hunting.”

  “Where were they?”

  “In a locked cabinet.”

  The commissario inhaled his cigar as he reflected on this information. “You also went to the house in the woods, Paride’s house?”

  “Of course,” the maresciallo said, slightly piqued. “But the two weapons for which a licence had been issued were there, and they didn’t look to have been used recently.”

  The commissario stood in silence. The matter now seemed more complex than he had expected, but he was still of the view that the rifle explained everything. “Are we talking about recent models, or ones a couple of years old?”

  Crisafulli was hopping from foot to foot in the cold. “The licences were issued some years ago.”

  “The forensic squad have examined the rifle we found?”

  “They’re still working on it, but they’ll get back to me tomorrow.”

  “If I were you, I’d send someone along to do a check on the gun shops around here,” Soneri said, choosing his words with care. “It’s just possible somebody’s made some purchases in the not too distant past.”

  Crisafulli looked at him quizzically, but his expression turned more defiant. “Commissario, do you really think that each and every one of us in the carabinieri is a complete idiot? I’ve already given orders to the men to carry out investigations. And I’ve started to put the screw on that Romanian we’ve got under arrest because of those fifty grams of some substance found in his house by our colleagues from the Santo Stefano division.”

  “And has he been any use to you?” Soneri said mildly, ignoring the maresciallo’s petulance.

  “If you ask me, he knows more than he’s letting on, but I want to talk to him when I’ve got more information, that is, as soon as the forensic people pass on to me what they’ve found. These foreigners try to make a fool of you, unless you’ve got them with their backs to the wall,” Crisafulli said, in a crescendo of anger.

  The commissario looked him straight in the face, then waved the hand holding the cigar. “I was not doubting your ability. It’s just that two heads are better than one, and I was only thinking aloud.”

  The maresciallo gave him a pat on the elbow as he turned to go. “Tomorrow, I’ll share everything with you,” he promised, moving off with those distinctive little steps of his, and letting it be understood he could no longer put up with the cold.

  Before he reached the piazza, Dolly appeared at his side, leaping happily up at him. He wondered how she had managed to jump over the wall at the Scoiattolo and, especially, to leave a dish of offal. He stroked her to calm her down, while she gazed at him as though her entire world was contained within the confines of his duffel coat. He took out his mobile and phoned Angela. “I have to communicate to you that we have a new member of the family.”

  “It’s usually women who make that kind of announcement,” she said. “Or have you found a babe in the woods?”

  “No, I’ve decided to keep Dolly.”

  “Really. It took me longer to convince you to keep me.”

  “So, you agree?”

  “I’ve always believed that a dog is the ideal companion for introverted, taciturn types like you. Faithful and reliable, something that can make itself understood with signs, who has no need of words, and who’ll never interrupt your train of thought.”

  Soneri felt, not for the first time, that yet again Angela had got it exactly right. His mind filled with memories of those silent afternoons in the woods gathering chestnuts, firewood or mushrooms with his father, and of the perfect understanding achieved between them with glances or gestures. This was now an obsession with him.

  “Dolly has solved the case,” he said.

  “She’s certainly got a better nose than you.”

  “Well, it was a question of a nose.”

  “What did she sniff out?”

  “A rifle which had ended up in the mud, and if it hadn’t been for the freezing weather, not even Dolly would’ve found it.”

  “Are you talking about the weapon that killed Paride?”

  “I think so, but the carabinieri are still investigating.”

  He was still speaking when he saw a carabiniere uniform march across the piazza in his direction. As it came closer, he recognised Bovolenta. He quickly said goodbye to Angela and put the mobile back in his pocket. When they came face to face, he saw how exhausted and dejected the captain looked. The cold made the wrinkles under his nose seem even deeper, and his eyes were bloodshot. Soneri held out his hand to shake Bovolenta’s, but the captain awkwardly stretched out his left hand.

  “What’s happened to you?” the commissario said, only then noting a plaster cast protruding from the right sleeve.

  “Nothing, just a bit of a shrapnel which got me side on.”

  “I told you. It was never going to be easy trying to bring Gualerzi in.”

  “He’s nearly killed another four men. He’s mad.”

  “Any more wounded?”

  “Five. He’s firing dum-dum bullets which become grenades the moment they hit a rock.”

  “There’s no point in going after him any more. He’s not got long to go. You should never have…”

  Bovolenta glowered at him, struggling not to lose his temper. He calmed himself down and spoke in a deliberately measured tone. “Crisafulli spoke to me about the rifle. Was it you who found it?”

  “Why do you ask me that question?”

  “I know the maresciallo. He couldn’t walk for more than twenty minutes at a stretch.”

  “There are other people who could do the walking.”

  “No-one in this village would lift a finger in this business. You’ve seen them, haven’t you? They don’t speak to each other, they look daggers at one another, they burn down barns
, they set fire to cars and houses, they stab each other in the back.”

  “That rifle will tell you many things, above all that the Woodsman has nothing to do with it.”

  The captain looked down, considering this remark. “It has already started telling its tale. The registration number has been partially scored out.”

  “Has it been used to shoot recently?”

  “It seems so, but we need to do further tests. The weapon is not in the best condition because of the mud.”

  “How long will it be before you get the full results?”

  “Tomorrow.” The captain’s reply was hissed out, with an edge of impatience, but from the dark expression on his face, Soneri deduced that this was due to a stab of pain in his arm. “What I really wanted to ask you to do was to mediate with the Woodsman.”

  “Gualerzi is not the type who welcomes mediation, as you will have noticed.”

  “I know, but up there, on his own, running short of ammunition, hungry … and in addition, I understand he’s seriously ill.”

  “He’s on his way out.”

  “Exactly. There’s no point in him carrying on with this resistance. He’d never surrender to us, but you’re from here, and then there’s your father…”

  “Have you seen the documents?” the commissario asked anxiously.

  “Yes, I have, but they don’t say very much. At least they don’t resolve the doubt that’s been gnawing at you.”

  Soneri’s expression darkened.

  “I believe the Woodsman disposed of most of the papers,” the captain continued. “Or perhaps he’s hidden them somewhere.”

  The commissario imagined Gualerzi making off with all he could carry to prevent the past from being exhumed, but once again Bovolenta’s words took him by surprise. “I’m asking you to go, as much because of your personal interest as anything else.”

  Soneri needed only a few seconds to think it over before replying, “I will go.”

  11

  Since he wanted to be well on his way before the sun appeared behind the mountains, Soneri was out before daybreak. Bovolenta had promised him a truce until midday, after which, if the Woodsman had not given himself up, they would resume their pursuit of him. What worried him was not the carabinieri but that obsessive question to which he had found no reply. He was convinced Gualerzi would not accept any terms for surrender, and he feared he knew how the story would end. That was another reason why he was in a hurry.