barge, had for so many years left in its wake a track as clear as the trail of a snail. Someone had taken the helm of the barge, and when he could no longer maintain control or when he had decided it was time to make off, had escaped by dinghy. Perhaps Tonna? But why? Or perhaps someone who had considered the riverbank at Luzzara the best place to make an escape? Barigazzi had been right: a barge could not navigate four bridges by itself.
He clambered again along the gangway. The force of the water beneath him, causing the barge to shift, was terrifying. From that position, Soneri looked out over the plain where the grass was at a lower level than the shoals of fish around him. The carabiniere replaced the seals over the entrance to the cabin.
“I am sorry to have to ask you to keep constant watch,” the commissario said.
The police officer looked at him untroubled. “We’d have to do it in any case.”
“Why?”
“The prefetto wants us to keep an eye on the riverbanks to see that nothing’s happening. It wouldn’t be the first time someone attempts an act of sabotage.”
“Sabotage of what?”
“Of the embankments,” the carabiniere said. “There are some people who, when the water rises, do not leave the river to decide where to overflow. They make an opening for the water, on the opposite side from where they live, obviously. They flood their neighbours to save themselves. A sort of blood-letting to ease the pressure on the river, and to hell with everyone else.”
The commissario looked along the extra metre of embankment made up of sandbags and reflected that it would be child’s play to cut an opening in it when the water had risen to that level. The current would do the rest. He said good-bye to the carabiniere who got back into his car, but his thoughts returned to the opening which he would like to be able to make in the inquiry. The note had been written recently. The piece of cardboard and the envelope it was in were still quite white, unlike everything else aboard the barge, which had the feel of neglect and age. The register he had handled had yellowing pages and curled-up edges, as well as blots and dark marks. The Kite had only recently come on the scene to trouble the thoughts of Tonna the boatman. But to whom did that nickname belong?
Nanetti called him as he made his way back from Luzzara. “The blood on the windowpane does not belong to Decimo Tonna,” he said without preliminaries.
“Have you reported that to the magistrate?”
“Certainly, but he didn’t attach great importance to it, not as much as you were hoping. He says it doesn’t add anything much, even if it is a step forward.”
“What do you mean — not add anything much!” the commissario exploded, swerving violently, his mind elsewhere. “The glass was broken before Decimo jumped and the blood is not his. It means there was someone else there.”
“I did point this out to him,” Nanetti said calmly. “He said that in these cases you always find someone getting himself injured and careering about, or some nosey fool getting cut and… I have to say he’s got something there. It does happen all the time.”
Soneri had to stop himself taking it out on the mobile. Whenever his temper got the better of him, he always felt the desire to dash it against something. He tried to calm down by letting a few seconds pass before Nanetti brought him back to himself with a deafening “Hello!”
“Alright. I’ll tell Juvara to do a check on the staff in the ward and on everyone who had any business there,” he roared.
“Good idea. Reply to sceptics with actions. It’s always good to see them twisting in their seats when you demonstrate to them that they’ve got it all wrong.”
Soneri drove into the town, following the bends of the embankment. Volunteers hard at work glowered at him resentfully as he went by. In his Alfa sports, he must have looked like someone out on a jaunt while others sweated under the menace of Armageddon. He found Barigazzi observing the boat club shack, now one quarter filled with water. The river was lapping around the window of the front door.
“I have no more need of stakes. All I have to do is take a look at our premises. I know the measurements.”
They were both looking in the same direction, at the water caressing the riverbanks and the walls of the shack. It was disconcerting to think that concealed beneath such gentleness lay the capacity to inflict terrible destruction.
“Is it still rising as fast?”
“No, fortunately. A couple of centimetres an hour, but soon it will stop and then it will begin to drop. Look, see how it’s stopped raining on the mountains and started freezing.”
“So how will it all end?”
“Nothing will happen if the fog persists. All this rushing about
…” Barigazzi wailed, pointing at tractors and lorries which were taking away people and their furniture. “If only they would listen to people who know. It’s as if their arses were on fire.”
“I have to ask you something,” Soneri said.
Barigazzi turned quickly towards him with a piercing glance, as though to make sure he was still at his side. “O.K., but let’s go over to the bar,” he replied, indicating Il Sordo with a jerk of his head.
The landlord still had his hearing aid switched off. This time Barigazzi kept his two fingers raised until he received a silent assent.
The commissario watched him move into the kitchen, and so failed to note the arrival of Torelli, Vernizzi and Ghezzi. He felt himself surrounded, one of the undesirable situations they used to harp on about during training. The men took their seats around the table as silently as they had entered. It was as if they were keeping an eye on each other, as though a password had been exchanged between them. In that position, Soneri felt the unease of a man in the dock. The embarrassment was broken by the deaf landlord, to whom Barigazzi, after a wave which plainly indicated an addition to the order, made a sign with three fingers. Then, looking at the Christ with the drawn-up feet, the old man announced: “Another three days of flooding.”
No-one made any comment until the drinks arrived and the slow notes of Verdi’s “Requiem”, coming from some mysterious emptiness, reached them. They raised their glasses of the foaming Fortanina in a wordless toast. The wine gave its own mute pleasure, but the tension became unbearable after the first sip.
Soneri decided to break the silence: “So, who was ‘the Kite’?”
It seemed as though all four men had swallowed a glass of dregs. Their ashen, impassive faces were masks of hostile indifference, as though carved in marble. His eyes circled from one to the other, ending with Barigazzi, like a roulette ball finding its slot.
“Why do you ask?”
“It’s to do with Tonna.”
“There are no kites around here. At most, there might be some hawks, but…” Barigazzi was attempting to extricate himself.
“There was one. I have Tonna’s word for it,” the commissario insisted.
“All sorts of things go on along the Po. You see some of them, you hear about others. The first are obvious, the second are a matter of faith.”
“You don’t believe what Tonna said?”
“I don’t know. There’s so much chatter…there was one guy who saw sturgeons leap over the Viadana bridge, another one whose chickens were devoured by a catfish…in Ferrara, they still talk about the magician Chiozzini who one day at Pontelagoscuro sailed up into the skies in a horse-drawn carriage…”
“We even have a village which appears and disappears…” Torelli said.
“No,” said Soneri decisively. “‘The Kite’ is a nickname. A nickname of someone from around here.”
“Are you sure of that?” Ghezzi said with a voice in which the commissario detected the faintest trace of alarm.
“Yes,” he said, dissembling as skilfully as he could.
The four men exchanged rapid glances. They had spent years together and must have understood each other in a matter of seconds, in a wager between Verdi and the Fortanina.
“A partisan,” Soneri said, doubling the wager. His mind raced to Tonna and his Fascist past.
“So many have passed along this way…” Barigazzi said, now sure of himself.
The commissario immediately realized he had made a false move. He should have fostered the tension he
