radios.”
Maini shook his head. “They’re not going to find him tonight.”
“You never know,” Rivara said. “There are some people who know the woods like the back of their hands. And Palmiro, if he’s still got any strength in his legs…”
“The carabinieri are relying on Ulisse, who’s been wandering about Montelupo for forty years.”
“Wouldn’t he have had a mobile?” Soneri said.
“Palmiro!” Rivara exclaimed, taken aback by the sheer naivety of the question. “He wouldn’t have anything to do with those things. He still did his accounts with a pencil! No, Palmiro is one of the old school. He reckoned you had to deal with pigs with your bare hands. He would grab them by the ears and turn them over as though they were sacks.”
“And when the mood took him, he wouldn’t think twice about giving you short weight.” The words were spoken in acid tones by a squat man called Ghidini. His teeth were yellowing from the endless cigarettes he rolled himself.
An awkward silence fell and Soneri had the impression that the speaker had touched a delicate nerve. His words had brought to the surface a feeling no-one else would have dared to give voice to.
“We should go up there,” Rivara said.
“To do what?” Maini said. “Either Palmiro comes back under his own steam or he stays in the woods.”
“Maybe he’s found somewhere to spend the night,” Ghidini suggested. “In one of those huts on Montelupo, or in one of the shelters for drying out chestnuts.”
“Those places are full of Albanians,” Rivara said.
“That’s nonsense,” Maini said sharply.
“They must be. The huts are always full of cans and bottles, and every so often someone builds a fire.”
“Well, Palmiro won’t have gone out without his double-barrelled gun,” Ghidini said.
“Just as well,” Rivara said. “There are so many strange individuals on the mountains nowadays, and who knows what they’re up to.”
Soneri looked up towards Montelupo, but he could see nothing, not even the outline of the great mountain that loomed over the village. At that moment another car pulled up and the mayor, instantly recognisable, got out. He had a deeply worried expression.
“Well then?” Rivara said.
The mayor stopped. “Nothing, there’s no sign of him.”
Once again the man in the wheelchair started shouting they should take him with them, but once again no- one paid him any heed.
“Ulisse hasn’t found anything?”
“Montelupo is very big,” the mayor said, removing his hat for a moment to straighten his hair. He was sweating in spite of the cold.
“And what about that rifle shot…” Ghidini said.
The mayor turned towards him with a venomous look. “I know nothing about it, but it wouldn’t be the first time.”
“They heard it before it got dark, and by that time Palmiro…”
The sentence was, as ever, left hanging. The mayor glared again at Rivara with irritation, but then his expression softened, and he spoke in a more measured tone: “It could be anything, if that’s what you mean.”
“They heard it as far away as Gambetta, over towards Croce,” Maini informed him.
“It seems somebody is deliberately putting rumours about,” the mayor said.
“But why ignore the possibility?”
The mayor’s brusque shake of the head was an invitation to Maini to let the subject drop. He turned to Soneri, who had been taking it all in.
“Maybe you could help us,” he said finally.
“The carabinieri are already involved. Once you’re outside the city boundaries, it’s all their territory,” the commissario said.
The mayor looked deeply discouraged. “This is a very strange case and the maresciallo…” but he could not finish that sentence either.
“What does Crisafulli know about anything?” Ghidini sneered, putting into words what was in the mayor’s mind. “They should send a senior officer.”
“If it’s a really serious case, they’ll send someone,” Soneri said.
The mayor turned back to him, but his expression was still downcast. He was uncertain what do to and he was looking for support. Silence fell once more. All the while, the mist was rubbing against the houses, a different mist from the mist in the cities: more swift-moving, rougher, more dense
“When all’s said and done, nothing has actually happened,” the commissario said. “What do you want me to get involved in? One man who hasn’t come home, maybe because he had a quarrel with his wife? Another who got lost in the mountains, probably while hunting wild boar, illegally?”
“Could be,” Ghidini said.
“Or is there something more to it?” Soneri said.
Silence again, the unsaid hanging constantly over their conversation.
“Nobody understands a thing,” Maini said.
The mayor, however, seemed to absorb what was being said, and assumed an official pose, as though he were about to make a speech. “The commissario is quite right. After all, nothing has actually happened yet.”
No-one was sure if the word had slipped out or if the mayor had said it on purpose. That “yet” seemed to have been uttered expressly to make the tension grow. And indeed it did grow, causing Soneri to lose patience.
“Speak clearly. If you know something more, tell us,” he snapped.
The mayor looked at the group one by one, as though to give the impression that he could not speak freely in public. He shied away from saying whatever was on his mind. “Perhaps we’re getting needlessly worked up,” he said, turning away.
For a few moments a kind of electric charge hung in the air, until the car of the municipal police drew up on the piazza and Delrio got out. “We’re getting nowhere,” he said, shaking his head. He leaned sideways on his car and lit a cigarette.
“You’d be as well calling it off. At this hour, what’s done is done,” Ghidini said.
The policeman gave a shrug. “We have a duty to do all we can, assuming he’s still alive.”
“But surely you’d hear him shouting,” Rivara said.
“If he has any voice left.”
“Did any of you hear a shot from the direction of Gambetta?” It was Ghidini who spoke.
“No, not a shot. But something else,” Delrio said.
“Great big animals,” sniggered Rivara.
“Who knows? It’s hard to make out.” Delrio was being deliberately ambiguous.
“Maybe a two-legged animal.” Rivara refused to let the subject drop.
“In this mist… It must have been a wild boar,” Delrio said.
“Let’s just pretend it was a couple of boar. No reason to be afraid of them,” Rivara said, in an attempt to be ironic.
“Can Ulisse not help you?” Maini said.
“He’s checking the paths lower down the hill, but he’s moaning about having the carabinieri at his back. He says they are more trouble than the mist.”
The policeman’s radio crackled, and he put it to his ear. They were asking him to keep the ambulance in a state of readiness for dispatch to the reservoir. At the far side of the piazza, a light could just be made out at the window of the office where the mayor was waiting for developments. The four youths who had arrived a short time before made off again, the headlights of the car cutting twin circular openings in the darkness.
“He’ll be shaking in his boots,” Ghidini said, pointing to the one lighted window.
He received only grunts in response, but it was clear they had all understood and were in agreement. Soneri looked quizzical, but Ghidini and Rivara only smiled.
“Why should he be shaking?”
