Rioba indicated four chairs set at a round wooden table. “And now, since your arrival, they’re grumbling more than ever. They’re worried about you folks being here, demanding a town hall meeting this coming Friday. That is, if you have information to share with them by then?”
Stefano nodded at Angelo.
Angelo took his seat across from Rioba. “We can arrange that. My chief engineer here speaks the language. He can explain the details.”
The prefect looked abashed. “I think it would be best if it came from you, Minister.”
“I will be there, of course. I just thought it would be best if they heard it—”
“In German?” Rioba cocked his head. “That would be illegal. All official matters must be conducted in Italian, as you must well know. Many have learned enough Italian to get by with what we need to share with them. At any rate, I’ve seen to that.”
Angelo winced. He could now understand the Colonel’s support for the man. “Apologies. My oversight.” He glanced at Stefano. “And an interpreter? Is that still allowed?”
Rioba opened his hands. “If you insist. I am not a monster, Minister Grimani. I am simply doing my job. Something I will make certain continues when I leave.”
“Leave?” Stefano pressed his glasses to his nose.
“Yes, I’m retiring next year. Roberto Ghirardelli should have the post.”
Angelo remembered the police official who had taken his report of the attack on him. He’d been a capable man and had even come across as pleasant, perhaps a bit softhearted. Angelo wondered whether Ghirardelli had changed over the years, had become tougher under Rioba’s tutelage.
The prefect looked at Stefano, then at Angelo. “So, gentlemen, what of this reservoir?”
Angelo took that as his cue and unrolled his maps onto the table.
Rioba rose. “As I understand it, Minister Grimani, MFE, your father’s company, is vying to purchase it from the state.” He looked hard at Angelo. “Are you prepared to give your blessing on this yet? After all, with the Reconstruction’s policies, Italy now has the largest industrial sector in Europe, and MFE has enough money to invest, no?”
Stefano moved behind Rioba a little but still had one finger on the map. Achtung, he mouthed. Be careful.
To Rioba, Angelo indicated the window. “We may have increased the industrial sector in Italy, but we still need productive farmland. I’m proposing a compromise.”
“From what I know about Colonel Grimani,” Rioba smiled wryly, “he hates compromises.”
His irritation rising, Angelo looked down at the map. “My proposal is for the hydroelectrical society to issue a concession on the Reschen and Graun Lakes,” he said, “with approximately fourteen hundred horsepower available for the first plant. We will divert the local waterways, and that should affect only the areas not used for farming.” He pointed to the land marked as unproductive land. “We’ll raise the first two lakes by five metres—”
“Yes, yes,” Rioba interrupted. “This was the proposal each time, and the locals petition it every time and put a halt to it. So what’s the difference now?”
Stefano rolled his eyes behind Rioba’s shoulder.
“The laws and the leader,” Angelo said.
“The king has already called for more assertive approaches,” Rioba said. “But I imagine that if the locals here are given a new enemy to fight…” He looked up. “For example, someone like MFE—demonised—then the ministry could persuade the farmers to accept its plans.”
“Mmm.” Stefano nodded. The corners of his mouth flicked upwards, and his eyes darted towards Angelo. “Interesting idea.”
Rioba turned to the chief engineer and then back to Angelo. “Well”—the older man shrugged—“I suppose you very well might win. The locals don’t trust MFE’s people after the Gleno. You will have that as an advantage. But they also know that it was your ministry that approved the Gleno’s construction, so that is something you have to overcome. In either case, I am prepared to announce the town hall meeting. Friday evening, seven o’clock. It’s time they heard for themselves that this is moving forward whether it be in your hands or”—his shoulder twitched towards the southern window—“your father’s.”
Stefano and Angelo released the corners of the map at the same time, and it snapped together on its own accord. Rioba shook hands formally with them before leading them to the door. Angelo let Stefano out, waited until he’d reached then end of the hall, then faced the prefect.
“I’m at the Post Inn if you need me.” Angelo lowered his voice. “Mrs Hanny is the innkeeper, isn’t she?”
Rioba narrowed his eyes, bobbed his head.
“Related to Fritz Hanny?” Angelo asked. “The man who stabbed me? Left me to die?”
“He was her husband.”
“I see. Does she know who I am?”
“That woman thinks she knows everyone and everything. I was under the impression that you two had already met. When I told her that I’d informed you of Fritz Hanny’s death myself, she reacted as if she had.”
Angelo frowned. “I met her only now, when I checked in to the guesthouse.”
Rioba shrugged. “Then she probably learned about you through the Thalers, the people you stayed with. The woman who rescued you, the daughter of the old man, is friends with her or related or something of the sort.”
“Yes, I remember the Thalers,” Angelo said, keeping his voice casual. “The woman who found me, she’s called Steinhauser now. Is she still here?”
Rioba looked taken aback. “You’d have to be a real force of nature to get these people off their land. They’re as unyielding as
