undisturbed by that vision was Bovolenta, erect in his starched collar, eyes staring coldly out from under the peak of his cap.
“So this is death,” he finally said. “It’s even uglier than we imagine.”
The commissario remained silent, continuing to stare at the worms wriggling about where the corpse had been.
“Just as well the cold…” the captain said before adding, either from cynicism or in an attempt to reduce the tension, “Remember this spot, Commissario. You’ll get some fabulous mushrooms here.”
Some other members of the Special Forensic Unit arrived, kitted out like speleologists and commanded by a bespectacled man who looked more like an accountant. They embarked on a finger-tip search of the sides of the hollow and the surrounding undergrowth.
“Any mushrooms that grow here will taste of fat,” Soneri said bitterly, but he was overwhelmed by a deep sadness which affected his every thought.
“He met the same end as a street-corner drug pusher,” Bovolenta said.
The commissario’s mind filled with images of himself as a boy, of Palmiro Rodolfi distributing gifts from the company on the feast of the Befana, of the awkward display of gratitude from his father, and of the whole village united in admiration for a family which had shown the enterprise to create a flourishing business able to dispense such largesse.
“Could you have imagined anything like this?” Bovolenta said, his anger beginning to break through his attempts at restraint.
Soneri shook his head. “I told you, I’m a stranger here now. Everything has changed.” He uttered the last words with a vehemence which disconcerted the captain. “My father worked for the Rodolfis, as did everyone else in the village.”
“Met the same end as a small-time pusher,” Bovolenta repeated quietly. “When there’s that level of debt, the motive is clear, but there are so many potential killers. That’s the problem.”
The commissario made no reply. The question of motive was the last thing on his mind. He had never before been so close, physically, to a corpse and yet so mentally distant from an investigation.
“Found anything?” Bovolenta said to the head of the forensic squad.
“Not so much as half a shell. A few footprints,” he said. The offhand tone made it clear he attached no importance to that discovery.
The stench was becoming overwhelming. Soneri watched the daylight spread through the leafless trees, each coloured in a different shade, but all he wanted was to get away from that stinking spot.
“If you need me, you know where to find me,” he said.
Bovolenta stood up and shook his hand, but before Soneri had a chance to move off, he shot him a glance which was perhaps meant as confidential but which came over as merely embarrassed. “I’d like to invite you to have dinner with me one evening.”
Soneri nodded his agreement and set off down the path with Dolly at his heels. She had made herself his shadow, and this worried him because he did not want the dog to grow too fond of him. Dolly had already lost one master and he had no wish to inflict more pain on her, but nor did he wish to hurt himself, since he had already become fond of her. With animals — as with people — his principal aim was to avoid inflicting hurt. He walked briskly down the track, too briskly, he decided, when he stumbled and almost fell. In a grove of fir trees, under whose canopy it seemed still to be night, he almost bumped into a detachment of carabinieri making their way up to Pratopiano, panting under the weight of the implements they were carrying. He stepped aside to let them pass, but as he did so, he felt a pang of anxiety and a lump in his throat. There were more carabinieri at Boldara. The whole of Montelupo seemed now to be crawling with them, and their presence brought back stories told by his father about the round-ups along the Gothic Line in ’44. He recognised a group of journalists assembled alongside the reservoir, but he kept away from them.
He sought quiet to allow him to deal with the sense of melancholy which now pervaded his being. He also needed time, much as does the soil on the Apennines when saturated by too much rainfall. He felt this need all the more keenly when he came in sight of the village and became aware of the hubbub, a state of constant, agitated motion which from a distance resembled the fermentation of grape must. He imagined that the news of Paride’s death must have reached the piazza, but as he approached he could identify no clear purpose in all that bustle. The scene reminded him of a pack of drunks staggering about. He crossed the piazza where bewildered, disconcerted people were standing around, seizing eagerly on any snatches of rumour. He took the Campogrande road which led to Villa del Greppo. In all his years in the village, he had never gone close to that intimidating place, but now he had a reason to go there. Dolly trotted along at this side, obviously very familiar with the path.
The closer he got, the more the villa disappeared behind the surrounding wall and the thick vegetation. One of the bolder pranks they would get up to as boys was to ride past on their bicycles, fire a couple of stones over the wall from their slings and then make off down the slope, leaving the Rodolfi dogs barking furiously in their wake. Now it seemed as though silence had fallen definitively on the villa. Even when he rang the bell he did not hear any sound within. Soneri allowed some time to pass before he tried again. As he waited, he lit a cigar and turned to observe the sunlit valley and Dolly wagging her tail, as excited as on the first day of the hunting season.
At last the gate was pulled back and a small Asian man with an expression of great melancholy appeared in the opening. He stood quite still, looking at Soneri without seeming to breathe.
“I came to bring back the dog,” the commissario said.
The man glowered at him for a few moments, then turned his attention to the dog.
“Not know dog,” he said in low voice.
“It belonged to Signor Rodolfi.”
The Philippino made no reply, but he appeared to be surprised.
“Could you call the Signora?” Soneri said.
The man, still silent, walked in tiny steps across the courtyard in the direction of the house and disappeared inside. The commissario took advantage of his absence to move inside and look over the place which had been forbidden territory to him for so many years. He had expected to see signs of more conspicuous wealth than was on display. It was an old country house, with the barn and stables still recognisable even if now transformed into living quarters. The entire complex retained the unembellished, rustic style which reflected old Palmiro’s peasant tastes.
The door opened and a middle-aged woman, whose severe beauty was tinged with sorrow, appeared. The long black hair which came down over her shoulders seemed to have been ruffled by the wind, and when he saw her from close up, Soneri had the feeling that a different kind of disorder resided in her inner being — or so he deduced from the clash between the haughtiness of her eyes and the brightness of her lips, her imperial bearing and certain listless gestures which were redolent of a languid sensuality. Traits of the abbess and the whore competed in her soul, combining without merging in the way she conducted herself. Even her immediate reaction was idiosyncratic and irrational. Her glance fell only fleetingly on Soneri, but she gave a more intense stare at Dolly, seated at his feet, moving only her tail. The woman’s face lit up with the merest trace of a smile, quickly replaced by an expression of pain which she concealed by placing both hands over her face.
The commissario understood that there was no need to explain anything to her. The presence of the dog was sufficient. “I thought it right to bring her back,” he said.
She nodded, her hands still covering her face. “My husband was very fond of her,” she said.
“She watched over him.”
“She was better for him than any wife,” she said, half laughing and half weeping, in words of bitter self- reproach.
“It’s easier for dogs,” Soneri said, by way of offering her a measure of comfort. “Life or death, love or hate. We get swamped by half measures. We are not as simple as they are.”
The woman made no reply, but took her hands from her face, revealing an expression of suffering and resignation.
“However, I believe you were not unprepared…”
Her expression changed in an instant, as though she were removing one mask and putting on another. And in that instant, the haughty, almost arrogant, expression she had earlier worn, returned.
“We haven’t even introduced ourselves. I am Manuela.”
“Soneri,” the commissario replied, shaking her outstretched hand. He noted that her body had stiffened and
