Valerio Varesi - The Dark Valley

“In the last years,” Rivara said, “he never actually touched cheese. He had his flunkeys to see to that side of things. He stuck to his office, but when you move away from the world you know and handle nothing but paperwork, you’re done for.”

“That’s right,” Maini said. “It was all that form filling that finished him.”

Stefano, Rivara’s son, came in, nodded in their direction and sat apart, on his own. He had nothing to say, it seemed, but all of a sudden he jumped to his feet and exclaimed, “That lorry, the one that was apparently lost yesterday evening, it loaded up after all, and went off this morning in the direction of the autostrada.”

Rivara stopped wiping the bar and said, “He must have been held up by the weather, and no doubt had a deadline to meet.”

Stefano shook his head doubtfully. “What about the other two? Were they in a rush as well?”

Rivara and Maini looked at each other in puzzlement, but said nothing.

“This story of the lorries, it’s an odd business,” the commissario said, in an attempt to keep the discussion going, but no-one had any inclination to break the silence until Maini changed the subject. “How did you get on? Did you fill a basket?”

“I only got a few ‘trumpets of death’.”

“I don’t like them.”

“Mushrooms in general or ‘trumpets of death’ specifically?”

“Neither.”

“I can understand why, with a name like that. But they’re very good,” the commissario said.

“Things that grow in dark places, in the shadows,” Maini said.

“Somebody must like them, considering the trouble I had to find any at all.”

Maini shrugged. He had nothing else to say.

The mobile rang, relieving the embarrassed silence which had fallen over the group.

“I’ve waited a quarter of an hour.” Angela sounded annoyed.

“We were talking about Palmiro.”

“Again? Were you not supposed to be out looking for mushrooms?”

“He’s hanged himself.”

Angela did not speak for a few seconds. “I would never have expected that. It does not seem in his nature.”

“Nobody expected it. It’s a very odd business, and I can’t make head nor tail of it.”

“Well, if you don’t understand it, and you’re from there…”

“I used to be from here,” the commissario corrected her. “So much has changed, it’s as if I’d never lived here.”

“It must be terrible to feel like an outsider in the place you come from. What about the people you know, your friends?”

A sudden, deep unease and a sense of utter futility so overwhelmed Soneri that he found himself lost for words. Angela’s questions led him to reflect on the distrust he aroused among those he still considered his own townsfolk, and on the gulf that now existed between him and them. It was as though all those years of friendship and companionship had been snuffed out, even if their common interest in the affairs of the Rodolfi family could briefly disguise that unpleasant feeling of alienation.

“I would have been better escaping to a seaside resort where no-one knows me. I only like the sea in winter when there’s nobody there apart from those who really love it.”

“It’s going to be hard not to get involved now,” Angela said.

“The mayor is on at me to go and see the maresciallo, but I’m going to stay away from him at all costs. The fact is that there’s nothing to investigate. Palmiro hanged himself and his son, so they say, has shut himself up in the house in the woods where he goes to be alone. Actually, it doesn’t seem at all likely to me that he’s there, otherwise the carabinieri would have been able to locate him. Anyway, these are hardly criminal acts, and if they were serious crimes, they would not be left to a mere maresciallo. Some high-flyer in the carabinieri would have been sent in forthwith.”

“The whole thing stinks,” Angela said.

“Like a rotting carcass. I expect developments.”

“I could work on the lawyer who looks after the Rodolfi affairs, and pass any information on to you.”

“What do you mean, ‘work on the lawyer’?”

“How do you work on a man? You ought to know.”

“Like you’re doing just now, to make me jealous.”

“A waste of time. You never fall for it. However, I have a good relationship with the lawyer in question and I could get him to tell me something. Tomorrow the papers will be full of Palmiro’s suicide.”

“Exactly, and your man of the law will button up.”

“If he stays buttoned up, you’ve no reason to be jealous,” Angela said slyly.

Soneri had no time to put his mobile away before seeing the maresciallo coming towards him. His first thought was to slip back into the bar and pretend he had not seen him, but the maresciallo gave him a wave, compelling Soneri to stop and wait for him.

The officer introduced himself with a jovial smile. “Maresciallo Crisafulli,” he announced with an officer’s precision and a cadet’s stiff pose. He was the same height as the commissario, had dark skin, black hair and bright, sparkling eyes. “They tell me you’re the only man who can find mushrooms in this season,” he said.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Soneri said with a smile, unsure of whether to interpret the remark as friendly or ingenuous.

“I know nothing about them. I can hardly tell the difference between lettuce and tomatoes. I’m a city man, from Naples.”

“So how did you end up here?”

“If you want to get on and earn a bit more, you’ve got to put up with some time in Purgatory. At least it’s quiet round here, and you don’t run risks. Apart from the climate!”

“It’s become a bit more risky of late, has it not?”

The maresciallo glanced over his shoulder before saying, “I am a bit worried about this situation.”

“You’ll know more about it than me.”

“Not at all. When I was talking to the mayor, it occurred to me that I ought to ask your advice, seeing you’re from these parts and you’re off duty at the moment. After all, even if they all respect me, I’m still a carabiniere officer from the south of Italy. You get my point?”

Soneri nodded. “Don’t imagine I’m any better off. The only advantage I have over you is that I understand the dialect and I know the names of the mountains and some of the places. I’ve been away from here too long.”

Crisafulli pointed to the Rivara. “Would you like a coffee?”

Soneri gave a distracted nod before asking, “Have you seen Paride?”

“I haven’t personally, but my colleagues are out looking for him. The family say he’s in his house, but that he’s too upset over his father’s death and won’t answer either the door or the telephone.”

Soneri made no reply as the barman placed a cup of espresso before each of them.

The maresciallo started up again. “What worries me is not so much what has happened to the Rodolfis. It’s all the rest.”

“The village has the feel of a place awaiting sentence,” the commissario said, lighting upon an image connected with the work of both men.

Crisafulli allowed a smile to flicker briefly on his lips. “They’re all scared shitless. They’re afraid of anything that might happen to the Rodolfis; and their well-being is tied up with the fate of the Rodolfi family.”

“They’re in deep trouble now that the old man has hanged himself.”

“Palmiro hasn’t been in charge for some while now. It’s his son who’s been running the business.”

“And once he gets over the shock, he’ll pick himself up and it’s business as usual, isn’t that right?”

The maresciallo drank his coffee in one gulp, put down the cup and looked out at the dying day. “Commissario, maybe it is as you say, but you know perfectly well that it doesn’t add up. Don’t those posters make you wonder? And wasn’t it strange how the old man disappeared, then turned up, and then hanged himself from a noose he made for himself? And what about those gunshots? We’re not deaf.”