Valerio Varesi - River of Shadows

The road ended alongside the embankment which was as high as a city wall. A couple of kilometres back he had been stopped in the rain and checked with maximum distrust by two very youthful carabinieri. After examining his identity card at length, they moved wordlessly aside to let him continue his journey. The commissario, relieved not to have the officers’ machine guns any longer trained on him, drove on among the low houses fronted by porches, weaving his way between puddles on a tarmac surface softened by the deluge. He parked in front of the Italia bar, some twenty metres short of the embankment, the only relief in an otherwise flat plain and the real border in that wholly level landscape.

As he got out of the car, three elderly men kept him under observation from behind a misted-up window. Soneri disappointed them by turning away towards the embankment and clambering up the incline to the elevated road where several people were milling about and tractors were continually passing to and fro. The water was not far off. Facing him, battered by the current, a pennant was still waving in defiance of the elements, albeit with the desperation of a survivor of a shipwreck. Further on, the flag and the jetty of the riverside port were submerged under the yellowing water. The shack housing the boat club appeared almost to be toppling. Centimetre by centimetre, shallow, dark waves were taking over the yard which ran down to the main embankment, while some men, wellington boots up to their knees, moved around furtively, like ants, carting all manner of objects to safety. Soneri saw two uniformed carabinieri with gun belts over their dark coats step out of the club. A maresciallo was in animated conversation with an old man who was evidently refusing to give way while around him a group of boatmen were listening intently.

“Close down this shack and get out,” the officer was saying.

“We will go as and when. We know what we’re doing,” the man replied.

“You are under my jurisdiction.”

“Maresciallo, we know more about the river than you do, so let us get on with it and you go and help the people who need your help.”

The two men stared at each other, furiously. The maresciallo turned to the others beside the old man, but seeing they were equally unimpressed, he turned away with an angry movement that shook the water off his overcoat and climbed back into his vehicle. From halfway up the incline, Soneri signalled to the driver to stop.

“I am Commissario Soneri from the police,” he said, extending his hand.

The maresciallo, still highly irritated, held out his wet hand with ill grace. “The prefetto will need to come himself and give orders to this lot,” he muttered threateningly from under his helmet. “Get in. We’ll talk back at the station.”

It was not far from the Italia, and through the window the solid mass of the great embankment stood out clearly.

“Let’s hope it holds,” Soneri said to break the silence.

The maresciallo paid no heed to the commissario ’s words and limited himself to glancing over to satisfy himself that there was no sign of any leaks. “So you’re here because of Tonna?” he said. From the nameplate in imitation silver on his desk, Soneri deduced he was called Arico.

“Yes,” he said. Having detected a note of disdain in the officer’s voice, he added: “He had a brother who died yesterday and we may well be dealing with a case of murder.”

For the first time, Arico showed a spark of interest. “How did he die?”

“He fell from the third floor of the hospital. It looked like suicide.”

The maresciallo seemed deep in thought for a moment or two, then he looked down again at the papers in front of him. When the telephone rang, he gave some peremptory orders in a raised voice. Even before the officer turned back to face him, Soneri was persuaded that he was dealing with a difficult individual. “My dear commissario, what can I tell you? The Tonna from here has disappeared. The barge set off without warning, and was found unmanned by my colleagues at Luzzara. I put out a call for information on Tonna’s whereabouts, but so far no-one has come forward. You can see for yourself how badly understaffed we are here.” He launched into a fresh tirade against time off and holidays, but it was pretty clear that, given the opportunity, he would have been off himself. “And then this river!” He cursed in the vague direction of the embankment. “Meantime, the prefetto’s going off his head,” he said, picking up a bundle of transcripts as though he were lifting a burglar by the collar.

“Does Tonna have any relations here?”

“A niece. She has a bar on the piazza.”

“Does she know anything?”

“Nothing at all. She only ever saw him, maybe once a week, when he got off his boat to bring her his things to wash.”

The telephone rang once more. Arico was attentive, this time with an attitude of resignation. It was no doubt a superior. All the while, he was looking outside at the grey sky covered with what looked like bruise marks, and Soneri had the impression he was dreaming of the orange groves of Sicily on hills sloping down to the sea. He, on the other hand, was as happy in the rain as an earthworm. Shortly afterwards, he was back on the embankment, en route to the boat club. He had learned that the old man who had been debating with the maresciallo was called Barigazzi.

He went in search of him and found him bent over his stakes. “Is it rising fast?”

“It’s rising constantly, which is worse.”

“You don’t see eye to eye with the maresciallo?”

“No, he’s sticking his nose into matters he doesn’t understand. Are you from round here?”

“I’m a commissario from the police headquarters. My name is Soneri. I’m here about Tonna.”

Barigazzi stared at him. “A funny business, that.”

“Oh, I agree. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

They went into the boat club. The radio was frenetically churning out bulletins as though it were wartime. It had been freed from its fittings and was the only object left in the bar.

“You’ve got six hours before the water gets here, so be prepared,” Barigazzi said.

“All we’ve got to do is pull out the cable and unscrew the control panel,” replied the man standing next to the radio.

“I see you haven’t altogether ignored the maresciallo’s advice,” Soneri said.

There was annoyance in Barigazzi’s look. “If it had been up to him, we’d have been on the other side of the embankment two days ago. There are some people as would give orders without having even seen the river. They go on like someone who’s just invented the wheel.”

“When it comes to navigation, perhaps Tonna thought of himself in those terms.”

“Perhaps. Nobody knew the river like him.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Leaving aside the night he moored here and disappeared, it was four days ago,’ Barigazzi said. “He tied up to go to his niece’s. He stopped off here at the club, but only for an hour or so, time to down a couple of glasses of grappa, the kind that’s distilled locally and he was so keen on.”

“Was there anything unusual about how he was that night?”

“Tonna was always the same. Quiet. He only spoke about the Po, or about fishing and boats. But he wasn’t much of a talker even on those topics.”

“Did he have friends at the club?”

Barigazzi looked at him, rolled his eyes and then shrugged his shoulders so that they seemed to touch his ears. “I doubt if he had many friends anywhere. Only other boatmen who worked the river like him. He communicated by gestures both on land and on the water.”

The radio was broadcasting alarming news. A leak had opened up in the San Daniele embankment, on the Lombard side facing Zibello.