“Palmiro, on the other hand, remained one of them. He didn’t intimidate them and they trusted him, because he drank wine and his hands were calloused. Do me a favour, try and find out when the company had its last crisis before this one.”
“Anything you say, sir. I’ll need to get my lawyer friend to unbutton.”
“He can do all the unbuttoning he likes, but make sure you remain well buttoned up.”
“Your fingers are not likely to be undoing my buttons any time soon, are they? You haven’t even asked when we’re going to see each other.”
“Mountains make you depressed, you always say.”
“If I’m there too long, but I have no intention of spending all my holidays there.”
“Then come whenever you like. I have a double bed.”
“O.K., Commissario, but don’t start treating me as if I were your assistant, Juvara.”
When he hung up, scents of minestrone were blown towards where he was standing. He glanced at his watch and decided to go back to the Scoiattolo. It was dinner time, and the streets were deserted. He walked though the lanes of the old town, but as he went, the sound of footsteps on the gravel in a garden gave him the feeling that, in the shadows of the trees, someone was following him. He spun round in time to see an imposing figure wrapped in a camel-coloured overcoat walking some thirty metres behind him. At first, he paid no heed, but he was quickly convinced that whoever it was had him in their sights. He turned into the piazza, saw the bell tower looming over him and stopped beside the parapet which overlooked the lower valley where the new village slumbered. Its little villas and cabins were laid out in neat lines and right angles as though part of a re-forestation programme. His pursuer stopped too, feigning interest in the landscape which was finally clear of mist. Soneri decided to confront him, but when he drew up close, he discovered that the person following him was a woman. She was wearing a man’s shoes, her hair was cut short, and the rest of her body was covered by the ill-fitting overcoat. She was tall, not particularly pretty but seemingly very sure of herself.
“Are you Commissario Soneri?” she asked.
He nodded, rolling in his fingers the cigar he had just taken from its box. “And who are you?”
“Gualerzi Lorenza,” she said, putting her surname first, as though answering a school roll call. “My father asked me to tell you that he’ll meet you tomorrow at Badignana because he has some things to tell you. He’s sure you’ll know the right place.”
Soneri nodded again. “And who is your father?”
“I took it for granted that everyone knew. In fact in the village they know him only by his nickname.”
The commissario, looking her squarely in the eye, began to suspect the truth. “Almost everyone has a nickname.”
“My father is known as the Woodsman. Does that mean anything to you?”
That imposing physique was a giveaway. “What does he have to say to me?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t say much even to me, but since I go to the village every day, he asked me to act as go-between.”
“Did you shadow me?”
“I came out of my work and I saw you go into the Olmo. I waited in the garden and followed you.”
“You might have come in. At least you’d have been out of the cold.”
The woman shrugged. “If you lived in the Madoni, you wouldn’t complain of the cold. Every night you’d go to bed in freezing rooms with no heating, but my father would never consider moving from there. He wouldn’t even agree to making life easier with modern conveniences. We have a cooker but that’s all.”
As he looked at her, the commissario realised how primitively dressed she was. Apart from the outsize overcoat, her shoes were almost worn through and the mouse-coloured stockings would have been more suitable for a much older woman. He guessed she had been required to conform to the customs of an earlier time and saw her as one of life’s unfortunates, an object of ridicule among her peers.
“Where do you work?”
“At the Rodolfi plant,” she replied, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Nearly everybody works for the Rodolfis.”
“In an office?”
“I wish! No, in the salting and curing section.”
“Does your father want to talk to me about the crisis? Is he worried about your job or about the possibility you won’t get paid?”
The woman’s face darkened and, after a few moments’ silence, she replied. “I told you I don’t know. I never know what my father wants.”
“They haven’t been paying your salaries for months now, isn’t that right?”
She shook her head in denial, but suddenly seemed to be in a hurry. “Papa will explain it all to you tomorrow. I’ve got to go now. I’m on my scooter and I’m afraid of being caught in the mists on the mountain.”
He made no effort to detain her, and she strode off, taking the long paces only someone brought up in the mountains and used to life in the woods could manage. His thoughts turned to Badignana, to the cabins, to the shepherds down from the mountains, to the cheeses eaten in the company of his often taciturn and distracted father who kept his eyes trained on the hills, gazing at the things he felt closest to. Soneri sensed in that gaze, expressive of everything and nothing, the deep relationship between those mountains and the men born in their shadows, a relationship he could never know, having never suffered sufficiently on those rocks.
As he made his way to the Scoiattolo, he felt himself once more caught up in a mystery which involved him more deeply than any official enquiry ever could have. He opened the door of the pensione, took his seat at a table to wait for Sante to serve him the minestrone which had the same smell as that from the houses which had so delighted him a short time previously. He broke his bread and mixed it in his soup, and when he had finished eating, he poured some wine into his bowl, as his father used to do.
5
He woke from a deep sleep to hear a shutter banging. While still half-asleep and almost dreaming, he had the impression the sound came from far off, but the noise was repeated several times until he was fully awake. It was dark and the digital alarm on his bedside table showed 6.10. He sat up on the side of the bed, and it slowly dawned on him what had caused the shutter to flap. During the night a wind had got up and had cleared the sky, sweeping away all trace of mist. He washed and started to dress. As soon as he heard Sante moving about, he went down for breakfast.
He was served with his caffelatte, with fresh bread which he dipped in the coffee, and home-made plum jam. Without any preliminaries, Sante asked, “Any news?”
“The only news I have is neither good nor certain. I might know more by this evening,” the commissario said, thinking of the coming meeting in Badignana which he now contemplated with growing curiosity.
Sante made no reply, but did not move. “That loan I was talking about,” he began with a stutter, before pulling himself together. “I mean, have they really run out of cash?”
“It’s too early to say. The Rodolfis maintain they do have the money.”
“So where is Paride?” Sante said, raising his voice and close to losing his temper. Soneri knew this was the question they all wanted answered, the question that embodied the fears of a village where they were all creditors.
“Sante,” began the commissario, looking directly upon him so as to sound more convincing, “the truth is I do not know. I’m here on holiday. The carabinieri know a lot more about it. They’ve sent in that captain. He must be on the case by now, mustn’t he?”
“Yes, but I have more confidence in you. I saw you growing up here when I was not much older myself.”
Soneri stood up and put his arm round Sante’s shoulders. “You’ll see: it will all turn out fine. I’ll do what I can to find out more and of course I’ll keep you informed.”
Sante bowed his head. He tried to look grateful, but managed only to be a picture of anxiety.
When the commissario left the pensione he felt the force of the cold, biting wind as it swept along the valley. The freezing temperature was no longer confined to the higher ground, and even in the village the puddles had a
