death of the carabiniere officer. He was more than ever convinced that the one essential talent of an investigator is knowing when to ignore procedures. It is crucial to recognise reality, to adapt to it and even to breathe it in, but Bovolenta lacked that quality. He wished to bend reality, to forge it, even if, as Soneri admitted to himself now, at the end the worries and the questions were more numerous than they had been at the outset. An enquiry was a procedure which only superficially aimed at re-establishing order. In fact, the opposite happened. Searching meant creating disorder.
“Commissario.” Crisafulli brought him back to himself.
He turned back to him. “I was thinking of Bovolenta. They’ll pack him off to some police academy to teach procedures,” he said bitterly.
“Early retirement, out of harm’s way. The carabinieri never leave you on your knees. They always guarantee your salary,” Crisafulli said.
“And yet he’s a decent man. If only that bullet hadn’t ricocheted.”
“Which bullet?”
“The one that killed your colleague. Gualerzi told me he didn’t want to kill him, but with those rocks it’s like playing billiards with grenades.”
“And you believed him?” Crisafulli asked incredulously.
“Why not? What reason could he possibly have had for lying to me? He had made up his mind to die and at that moment what could it have mattered to him?” Crisafulli had a sceptical expression on his face, and Soneri realised again that he was a small-minded man. “It was a matter of chance,” he said. The commissario was keen to leave and start recuperating from a long period of unhappiness. “It nearly always is,” he added, opening the door.
“Just a minute. Before he left, Bovolenta asked me to give you this envelope.” The maresciallo handed him a sealed package bearing his name and the instruction that it be delivered by hand.
“Thanks,” Soneri said. “I hope they send you to a place by the sea.”
“Goodbye, Commissario,” Crisafulli said.
It was snowing when Soneri reached his car. Dolly in the back seat licked his cheek and battered the window in her eagerness to get out. Soneri could not wait any longer, and tore the envelope open. Inside, there was a hand-written note, in a formal style.
Dear Commissario,
I made it my personal responsibility to execute a thorough search through the material removed from the Gualerzi residence in the Madoni locality, and I uncovered some documents which may be of interest to you. They were contained in a folder concealed in a cavity (I quote from the report) in the cellar. On the frontispiece, there was written the word “Collaborators” and I have reason to believe that the whole consisted of a dossier prepared by the Partisan Command on those residents of the village who had entered into a relationship with the Fascists, either as spies or as sympathisers. Your knowledge of local history is superior to mine, so you will be aware of what befell such persons in the aftermath of the Liberation. Since Palmiro Rodolfi survived, I also have reason to believe that circulation of the attached document was counteracted.
Perhaps this is the response you were expecting.
Il comandante Bovolenta
Soneri stared at the yellowing document, now almost coming apart along the folds. It was the authorisation issued by the then mayor, complete with the official Fascist stamp, guaranteeing the activities of the salame- producer Palmiro Rodolfi, and setting out the details of the commercial contract for the supply of pork products to schools, canteens and markets in the area. That page would have been the equivalent of a death sentence on Palmiro, but the Woodsman and Soneri’s father had in some way prevented it. All that had subsequently occurred was born of that act. There was no way of knowing if it was dictated by courage, pity or whatever. What the partisans had failed to do, Palmiro had himself carried out many years later.
It was time to leave the whole story behind him. What remained was a late-flowering affection for his father, even if it was a feeling that could not find any expression. Dolly licked his ear while he concentrated on the now completely white road. The falling snow was covering everything, Montelupo, the Woodsman, the Rodolfis, the dull, dishonest village now inhabited only by an ageing population, the woods and even the mushrooms he had come to collect. It was also covering a part of his own past, one he was now leaving for good.
