“Paride took after his mother. She was frail, fearful, very nervous and had never enjoyed good health. In her last years, she wouldn’t even sleep with her husband, because she couldn’t cope with his colossal virility. They say Palmiro was a bull of a man.”
By some sort of conditioned reflex which pitched the brutal reality against the gentle image, the Rodolfi trademark, with its smiling pork butcher and the pig at his side, came back to Soneri. As the commissario felt many of his most deeply held convictions and memories disintegrate, Magnani, standing with the door ajar behind him, went on: “Don’t get the idea that it was all plain sailing for Palmiro, as they believe here in the village. Nor was it all Paride’s fault, even if he wasn’t exactly guiltless.”
“It’s always easier to be forgiving about times past, and in many ways Palmiro belonged to a different world.”
“I’m not nostalgic about the past. I know what it is to suffer hunger and poverty. What Palmiro’s story proves is that the arrogant and unscrupulous always come out on top. Like in wartime.”
“Around here he was treated as a saint.”
“By people with small minds, or those who were dependent on him. That’s all there is to it. They make out they don’t remember how he made his money. He dealt with both the Fascists and the partisans. He was an expert at keeping a foot in both camps. He used to do what the immigrants do today, black marketeering. He never did drugs, just foodstuffs. He had a stranglehold over the peasants, but once the Americans turned up, there he was hand in glove with them. He even betrayed a couple of boys in their twenties to the Fascists, in ’44. Not people from around here, because he would have been wary of the villagers.”
Soneri lit a cigar to calm himself as Magnani continued, “What’s at the root of the Rodolfi fortune? Greed, bullying and a fair bit of outright theft. The same as with anybody who makes money in this world. They’re treated with respect, people grovel out of fear, and all their dirty tricks are forgotten. But then, even with the most beautiful animal at large in these woods, slit open their bellies and what do you find? Gore and shit.”
“Until recently, the Rodolfis were still up to what you call ‘dirty tricks’.”
“They all are. The Rodolfis were caught out. Do you really believe that other companies are not up to their eyes in debt, and that they don’t get up to the same kind of underhand dealings? The difference is that they’re cleverer and have a little more style.”
“Or more effective political cover.”
“Politicians don’t count for anything any more. Take Aimi. He was no more than a middle man, but he had to flee the village like a thief. Maybe the real mistake the Rodolfis made was to bet on politics, and to think that politicians were still major players. They gargle ideas and ideologies in public, but it’s cash that counts nowadays. Financiers, bankers and industrialists, these are the men who pay the piper, and they toss a few crumbs to the politicians to keep them quiet, the way you toss a dog a bone.”
“The Woodsman was one of the partisans and he must have known all this.”
Magnani nodded, deep in thought. His face was flushed, perhaps because what he had been saying had made him agitated. They both remained silent, until the wife of the old man who had been Palmiro’s assistant came down the street, pushing the wheelchair
“Here’s another one who saw it all but found it convenient to keep his mouth shut,” Magnani said. He stood out of the way to let them pass. The husband, forcibly removed by his wife from the company of his peers, was cursing her loudly, but she remained impassive. The commissario helped her lift the wheelchair over the entrance, bending down so that his face was level with man’s as he did so.
“Give me a cigar,” the man whispered.
His wife intervened peremptorily. “He’s not allowed to smoke. Doctor’s orders.”
She spoke as though her husband were not there, but he persisted. Soneri got the impression that if he had been able to rise, he would have slapped her. Without warning, he changed the subject. His mind leaped from one topic to another, particularly concerning the past.
“If you want to know where Palmiro used to go, I’ll tell you,” the old man said. The subject was plainly an obsession with him. The commissario could not tell if he was aware that his ex-employer was dead. Perhaps at that moment he had forgotten.
“We used to go to Malpasso, Badignana, then on to Monte Matto and Bragalata in summer, if we had time or if we were out hunting. In the evening, we would sometimes walk along the Croce path with the dogs. That was a shorter walk,” he mumbled, the saliva running over his chin.
With the zeal of a nurse, his ever-vigilant wife bent over to clean round his mouth, cutting off the final words and provoking a fresh spasm of impotent rage. She proceeded to push the wheelchair forward, preventing further conversation, but as she was doing so, the old man turned his head to the side and managed to utter one more sentence which, from what he heard, Soneri worked out had something to do with full baskets. He took it from the pride with which the old man expressed himself that they had both been excellent hunters.
Magnani shook his head. “It’d be far better to end it all rather than live like that, a burden to yourself and those around you.”
Soneri was thinking of Palmiro’s walks and of the fact that he had not stopped going to the woods even when he had been left on his own, totally isolated inside his company and alone in life, apart from the Woodsman with whom he continued to have mysterious, fleeting encounters, and Manuela, with whom he shared a bed.
“They should give him a pill. I’m sure he’d prefer that if he was still lucid. I’ve no doubt he would do the same as his old boss if he could,” Magnani said. He turned on his heel, pushed open the door and without another word went back into the bar.
Soneri walked through the village to the Scoiattolo. He found Sante, pacing anxiously up and down in the courtyard. “There’s that carabiniere in there waiting for you,” he announced.
“The maresciallo?”
“Not him. The officer, his superior.”
“Bovolenta, the captain.”
“That’ll be the one. I asked him when Palmiro’s funeral is to take place, and he told me the magistrate has now given authorisation. It could be tomorrow afternoon, but they’ve nothing to do with it any more. It’s the family’s responsibility, and if you ask my opinion, they’ll want it done quietly.”
Bovolenta got up when he saw Soneri come in. He seemed exhausted, but was keen to maintain his military bearing. “If I’m ever to have you as my guest at dinner, I’ve got to come to your den.”
“After a day like you’ve had, you must have something really important to tell me. By the way,” Soneri added hurriedly, “how are the wounded officers?”
Bovolenta put on a serious expression. He was clearly very worried. “One is in hospital. Nearly lost his forearm. The other man is only concussed. He was hit on the forehead by a huge branch.”
“So all in all, it wasn’t too bad, considering the number of shots that were exchanged.”
“He’s mad. He seemed to be everywhere at once. He was out to kill us all.”
“Mad he may be, but he didn’t want to kill anyone. He was deliberately firing into the air.”
Sante came over to ask what they wanted to eat. Bovolenta chose the anolini in brodo, and Soneri did the same.
“We’ve lost face over this.”
“Don’t look at it that way. It’s not a duel, and your honour’s not at stake. The Woodsman’s on his home ground and Montelupo is difficult terrain.”
“A lot of them don’t want to go back up there. They’re scared stiff. A couple of my men went completely berserk and started screaming. I think he heard it.”
Soneri tried to think back to when he had been in a similar position, with bullets whistling around him and not much cover. He remembered an armed robbery in Milan when huge bullets pierced the doors of his Alfa Romeo, leaving the shattered metal looking like a cheese grater. The shots had missed him by a whisker. Half a degree more one way or the other and he would not be there now addressing an angry policeman.
“You’re not likely to take home any prizes from this hunting trip,” the commissario warned him.
Bovolenta looked at him and was close to agreeing, but he said, “I have no choice.”
“Are you quite sure it was the Woodsman?”
“His wife’s seriously ill with diabetes and he needs to get back the money he lent the elder Rodolfi to pay for her treatment. Does that not seem to you motive enough?”
“Then why didn’t he kill Palmiro?”
