“A man accustomed to hunger who devoured life, his own and other people’s.”
“Around here, you either had some desperate strength, or you went under. A whole generation was impelled to accumulate in order to exorcise the demons of hunger and need, and they cared not a whit for other people. They were all engaged in a solitary struggle to keep their heads above water. Once money began to circulate, some of them lost their heads thinking it would always be there, others did try to share it out, but you never have the same will to work if you’ve always had it easy in life. Paride had never experienced pain, and that was the root of everything.”
“Don’t start praising your own cross,” Angela warned him.
“Cross or no cross, I’ve never really done anything.”
“You’re depressed. I recognise this talk. The mountain air has done you no good. Get out as fast as you can.”
“I can’t even say that my father didn’t think of me,” Soneri said, as though he had not heard Angela. “He sacrificed his life for me.”
“Stop thinking about the past. All you find there are mistakes. And anyway, it’s useless.”
“The thing is that I don’t recognise myself in my present, any more than Palmiro did. Nor in my future.”
As he switched off the phone, a gust of wind blew some snow in his face. A flake flew into his mouth and for a second he savoured the fragile fragrance of the crystals. They had an unmistakable flavour, and it was curious that this was the result of the absence of any specific characteristic. The taste was the equivalent of the zero degrees recorded on the thermometer in the pharmacy on the piazza, where Soneri parked shortly afterwards. It matched his current state of mind.
Crisafulli had asked to see him at nine. He arrived in the small Fiat used by the carabinieri, and flashed his lights at him. “Come on in. You’ll be warmer,” he said through a tiny opening in the car window. He had the heating turned up to the maximum, and the fan was roaring like the north wind.
“Are you on your way?” the maresciallo said.
“Shortly,” was the commissario’s laconic reply.
“You’re lucky. I’m totally fed up with this village, and now we’re facing a long, cold winter. As soon as the first snow falls, I feel unwell.”
“You prefer the mists? The snow will bury all that’s taken place. If you play your cards right, you should get a posting to a sunny place, maybe even near to your home town.”
“Who knows!” he sighed, but then his face lit up. “The Romanian has confessed to acting as intermediary between some Albanians and the Philippino who was looking for a hunting rifle. The weapon was handed over a week before the crime was committed, at a meeting on Montelupo. Even though the number was partly rubbed out, we’ve managed to find the owner, a man from La Spezia who’d been burgled months ago. He reported the theft at the time.”
“Had the rifle been fired recently?”
“Yes, and the spent shell is compatible with the wound inflicted on Paride Rodolfi.”
“So it’s all tied up. The case is closed.”
“If only! We don’t yet have proof of who pulled the trigger.”
“All you have to do is exert a bit of pressure on the Philippino. If he doesn’t speak up, he’s going to find himself in big trouble.”
“Yes,” the maresciallo said thoughtfully. “We got there just in time. He was running off.”
“He’s got nothing to do with it. He’s a pathetic creature.”
“Maybe I just can’t bring myself to believe it. The whole affair is so massive. What’s happened is not normal, a father killing his own son. I don’t get it.”
Soneri turned down the heater two notches to reduce the noise. The words spoken by the maresciallo echoed his own thoughts, which in spite of his efforts to impose some order on them were still confused. For that reason, he did his best to avoid getting into a detailed discussion, and threw in the catch-all term “self-interest” to bring the conversation to an end.
Crisafulli would not be put off. “Have you formed some idea of how the murder was committed?”
On the basis of that question, the commissario measured the enormous gulf that existed between the maresciallo and himself, as well as between his private world and the world of the investigator. It was the same gulf that separated his life as commissario from his life as human being.
“Do you remember the shots in the mist? Palmiro and the Woodsman were at war up there on Montelupo, and neither man cared any more about dying, because they both knew they were at the end of the line, especially Palmiro. Apart from being ruined, he feared the prospect of shame. It was then he decided to cancel out everything, including the son who had started to play at high finance, which he believed was to blame for his bankruptcy.”
“So when do you think he did it?”
“The day you went searching for him on Montelupo. He went out with the rifle he’d told his Philippino servant to acquire for him. He knew that Paride would not go too far up the mountain, so he waited for him at the edge of the gorge where we found him. He hid in the undergrowth, and of course the mist was very thick. That’s where he shot him. Paride’s body rolled down, but someone higher up heard everything, including the subsequent shots when Palmiro tried to shoot his son’s dog. He chased Dolly, thereby wasting a lot of time. The mist grew thicker and thicker, so when darkness fell he was lost. The daughter-in-law saw the old dog return on its own and raised the alarm. She had no idea of what Palmiro had done.”
“He certainly couldn’t have told her,” Crisafulli said.
“This way, suspicion was bound to fall on other people, above all on the Woodsman. Palmiro knew he was sick and hadn’t long to live. What could it matter to him? He was sure he’d never talk. Besides, didn’t Gualerzi have every good reason for murdering Paride? He’s been ruined, and so… Everybody in the village would’ve approved, but a father killing his own son, no, no. Palmiro was a man who held to ideas of honour. He couldn’t bear being remembered only for that terrible crime, so he arranged things in such a way that no-one would be too badly damaged by them, and that they would seem perfectly plausible. He would be seen to have hanged himself in the name of outraged honour, Gualerzi was dying anyway and Paride had been shot, perhaps by some creditor or other. A dreadful story, but perfectly logical in its own way. The stolen rifle he used for the killing was essential for this plot. Obviously he couldn’t use one of his own weapons, and that’s why when Palmiro heard them looking for him in the woods, he had to get rid the rifle earlier than he had planned. He went up to the swamp and threw it in, believing that the mud would swallow it up, but he hadn’t allowed for the freezing conditions.
“He then turned up at home as though nothing had happened. That same evening he killed his own dog, not because he felt he’d been let down by him but because he was the only creature who had remained faithful to him and he couldn’t bear leaving him alone. When he shot his son, he knew what the final outcome would be, and the following day they found him dangling on a rope.” With these words, Soneri laid his hands flat on his thighs to indicate that he had nothing more to relate.
“I believe that’s all true,” the maresciallo said slowly, “but how are we going to prove events that happened in the mists of Montelupo?”
“There were the shots fired that day. Did you not tell me that you had taken a note of the chronology? And then there was a witness, but you’ll not be able to call on him.”
“So you’re telling me he’s…”
“Yes, he’s dead and you won’t find him till the spring. He’ll be buried in the snow by now.”
“But you took his evidence, didn’t you?”
“Leave me out of it. This is your case, Maresciallo. I’m handing it all over to you. There’s nothing more I can do for you,” he said gruffly.
Crisafulli looked at him in disbelief, but the commissario headed off his objection. “I think I can claim to have been a good informer.”
Crisafulli smiled and relaxed.
“Where is Bovolenta now?” Soneri said.
“He left this morning for the provincial H.Q. The future’s not too bright for him either.”
“A pity. He’s one more victim of this affair.”
“He was in too big a rush. They’d told him Gualerzi was a savage, and, you know, after spending seven years on Aspromonte hunting bandits, you develop certain habits. All he did was follow procedures.”
Soneri’s mind went back to that absurd manhunt, to those shots fired off senselessly and to the needless
