“I was too far away. Volpi had a better view through his binoculars.”
“He’s dead. The bullet shattered his ribs and tore away half his lungs. There’s a hole the size of a water pipe in his back.”
“Large calibre bullets, for boar hunting. You must know the sort of thing,” Soneri said.
Delrio nodded. “The Woodsman doesn’t fool about. If you ask me, he won’t stop at one carabiniere.”
Rivara came over and Soneri ordered dinner. “Have you anything with mushrooms?”
“It’s been a bad year. All you can find are ‘trumpets of death’,” Rivara said, touching himself between the legs in a superstitious gesture which annoyed the commissario. He opted for tortelli di patate and while he was waiting, Rivara brought him a plate of cooked pears and chestnuts. He remembered that autumnal dish, when the two fruits were put in the one pot and left to boil together.
“How are the other two?” Rivara asked Delrio.
“They’ll be O.K., but if I were them I would go and light a candle to San Martino.”
“They obviously didn’t expect to find him lying in wait for them, otherwise they’d never have gone strolling like daytrippers over the stony ground where there was no cover,” Rivara said from behind the bar, but it was clear he had overheard someone else make that comment, because Delrio gave him a look of indifference before replying, “Ah well.”
Soneri thought of the Woodsman in Badignana, hiding in one of those summer cabins reopened off-season, or sheltering for the night in some paddock, reflecting on life as it slipped away from him. Perhaps he was focusing on the last days in which he would really feel alive, up there, fighting them off, gun in hand. The commissario made every effort to get under the Woodsman’s skin, but concluded that perhaps he neither reflected deeply nor tormented himself enough. Perhaps he was a man who simply took destiny and its judgments as they come.
As his main course, he had some very ordinary roast beef and began to feel nostalgic for Ida’s cooking, but that was now a thing of the past. He got up and decided to go and keep the moon company. Rivara and Delrio watched him go out, but neither addressed him.
Dolly welcomed him, jumping up and putting her paws all over his duffel coat. He stroked her head and brought his face close to hers. They had an important matter to attend to. He wandered through the village with no fixed destination in mind. His route took him past the carcass of the burned-out car, and his nostrils were once more filled with the stench of melted plastic. He stopped to look down at the new town in the lower valley and at the headlights on the road leading to the Pass. As he walked back, he bumped into the man in the wheelchair, pushed as ever by his imperturbably zealous wife. Soneri was tempted to turn away, but the man had spotted him and even from some way off began talking. As he had done before, he babbled on about his adventures with Palmiro, until his wife made a sharp turn and took him in another direction. The commissario watched him vanish into the uncertain light under the lamp-posts, and thought wryly of yet another life descending into dementia.
He left the village and walked in the direction of Villa del Greppo, but turned off the road at a point where he knew he could pick up the path. As soon as they were near it, Dolly began wagging her tail and raced off in the direction of Croce so rapidly that the commissario had scarcely time to call her back. She seemed to be falling into a well-established routine. He made her sit, stroking her gently and speaking to her quietly in an effort to calm her. Dolly eventually settled, even if she was provoked by the many scents surrounding her. They did not move for some time. Soneri watched the moon move slowly across the sky, while the freezing cold embalmed the woods and fields in hoar frost. To keep Dolly calm, he placed his hand inside her collar. Every so often, the dog would give a shudder, and sit bolt upright, causing Soneri some alarm. An animal passed a very short distance from them, making the lower branches sway, but Dolly had already smelled it from a distance before it came within range of her hearing.
More time went by before Dolly began once again to show signs of agitation, but on this occasion she appeared unworried. Her tail began to beat against the commissario like a whip, and he had to hold her to prevent her making any noise. After a few seconds, a terrier appeared before them. The dog, attracted by Dolly, sniffed her from a distance and began to bark. Dolly did the same and Soneri withdrew behind a bush just in time to make out a hooded figure walking smartly towards Croce. He allowed him to draw close, but not before checking he had his pistol with him.
When he stepped out of the trees, he noted to his surprise that he was completely calm, perhaps because at that point he knew who he was dealing with. It was the other man who became alarmed and let out a shriek which caused the two dogs to bark in chorus. He made as if to run off, but Soneri stood blocking his way on the valley side, and flight through the Croce woods was obviously not an inviting prospect. Judging by his actions, he was already in a state of terror.
“It’s an unusual time to be out for a stroll,” Soneri said. “And you don’t appear much at your ease in the dark.”
The Philippino from the Rodolfi house mumbled something which the commissario did not pick up. He was wearing a heavy, corduroy overcoat with a hood which came down over his forehead, partially hiding his face.
“I walk dog,” he managed to say.
Soneri laughed and the Philippino appeared disconcerted.
“I’ve never met anyone who walks his dogs at night.”
“Signor Palmiro, yes. He come back late.”
“Of course he did. He was out poaching. So where is your gun?”
The Philippino ingenuously turned out his pockets, and Soneri almost felt sorry for him, a poor soul sent out into the woods at night and perhaps not even paid as well as the other Rodolfi employees
“Why does she send you here?” Soneri asked peremptorily.
The Philippino bowed his head and did not speak for a few moments, then, having no answer to give, turned and made to run off. Soneri grabbed hold of him. He was so light he had no difficulty in pulling him back. He seemed to have got one sleeve caught in a tree.
“There’s no point in running away,” he said calmly. “I know where to find you. If you run home and tell your employer everything, you know what’ll happen? She’ll tell you to disappear, and you’re out with no bonus and no salary.”
The man was plainly terrified at that prospect but something still prevented him from speaking. Dolly and the terrier were sitting facing each other, giving the impression of being keen to help along a conversation which had not quite taken off.
“Me time only for dogs,” he whined, his head bowed. “Search always Dolly who run away.”
Soneri shook his head at these implausible excuses. He could feel his temper rising and had to make an effort not to let it get the better of him. However, in that silence and in the faint light of the new moon, various thoughts milled about in his head before gelling into one insight which linked Dolly’s loud barking in the gorge before the meeting with Baldi and her familiarity with the path. Perhaps he should have allowed her to lead him on, for he now believed it would not have been a waste of time. And then there was the Philippino: he knew he was not there by chance.
As he mulled these matters over, he dropped his guard and relaxed. For a single second he looked up at the sky at the lights of an aeroplane flying low overhead, and in that second he lost control of the situation. With his clenched fist, the Philippino landed him a blow in the solar plexus and pushed him aside. The commissario stumbled off the path and slipped backwards, grabbing at branches to keep his balance and arousing the dogs who began barking wildly at this brawl. The Philippino took full advantage of the turmoil to free himself and run off down the road to Greppo. By the time Soneri struggled to his feet, the Philippino had a full twenty metres start on him, making it impossible to catch him. Soneri decided to let him go. The terrier went after him, while Dolly repressed her wish to do the same and watched them into the distance.
On another occasion, Soneri would in all probability have been furious with himself, but this time he remained calm. Putting pressure on that pathetic creature was not unduly important. His presence on this road at night time was more eloquent than any information he might have been willing to give, and his evident discomfort was confirmation enough of a hypothesis that was forming in Soneri’s mind. He walked back towards the village and when he bent to pass under a barrier of branches, he felt a stab of pain at the place where the Philippino had struck him. A quarter of an hour later, he came out on the main road, and became aware of the nails in Dolly’s paws clicking on the hard surface. It was only then he realised that she had been at his side all the time. He stopped and gave her a hug, thinking as he did so that a bond of affection had now been formed between him and the dog.
There was a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing outside the police station, while in the piazza itself the blue cars
