River of Shadows: A Commissario Soneri Mystery (Commissario Soneri 1) Page 14

  “What is the level now?”

  “Can’t you see from the poplars? A couple of metres.”

  Vaeven had pulled up the sleeves of his pullover, revealing a hammer and sickle tattoo on his forearm. It was the right time to ask: “Did you know Tonna?”

  The two men exchanged glances. Their expressions implied that they thought they were being tricked. “By reputation,” Dinon said.

  “As a boatman, or because of his Fascism?”

  “What do you think?” Dinon said, pushing back the rim of his beret with his knuckles. “Will one or the other not do for you?”

  “I know he has left some painful memories.”

  “A number of widows and orphans,” the boatman said sardonically. “But nowadays people have short memories.”

  “But you remember very well.”

  “We’re old enough to have known him.”

  “I believe it’s all ended badly for him.”

  “Maybe he set off with the engine not running to take advantage of the wind, lost control of the barge and ended up running aground against the embankment. He would have been deeply ashamed. His reputation as a fine sailor was all he had left.”

  “He had nothing else but the barge,” Vaeven said. “He couldn’t have lived with the idea that he’d made a mistake that would make a novice cringe.”

  Soneri thought this over for a few moments as he sipped his Malvasia. The notion of his having fled out of shame had not occurred to him. It might even be plausible. After all, it could just have been the way out he had been searching for. But if that was the truth, what was he, the commissario, doing there on the Po, hunting down a phantom when a real crime had been committed in the city? The jeering face of Alemanni – all skull-like features and receding white hair – was imprinted on his mind.

  “Who was ‘the Kite’?” he said, shaking away these jarring thoughts.

  The two looked at each other. “We’re not actually under arrest, I take it,” Dinon protested. “Tell us what you want and we’ll save a lot of time.”

  He was staring at Soneri with those clear, piercing eyes. Soneri took his time lighting his cigar. He wanted to let the accumulated animosity evaporate. “I’ve told you I have reason to suspect that Tonna is dead. They’ve already got rid of his brother.”

  “What’s all that got to do with the so-called ‘Kite’?”

  “We found a note on Tonna’s barge which referred to some decision concerning him.”

  “Must have been one of the partisans. But there were so many of them,” Vaeven said.

  “If that’s true, you would have known him,” Soneri said firmly.

  “We weren’t here then. We were too well known and they’d have picked us out immediately. In ’43, we were up on Monte Caio.”

  “Have you ever heard tell of this ‘Kite’?”

  “There were all kinds who passed this way,” Dinon said, to quash any further discussion. “There were followers of General Badoglio, as well as members of the Garibaldi Resistance group. They came from Lombardy, from the Veneto or up from the Gothic Line. And then there was the other lot, the G.A.P., and nobody had any idea who they were. They wouldn’t have given away their undercover names even to their own families.”

  “Perhaps Tonna had killed—”

  “Nothing more likely,” Dinon interrupted him. “And it wouldn’t have been the only time.”

  Soneri signalled to the waitress to bring another bottle and when he had refilled the glasses, he confronted them: “I believe you both know exactly who this ‘Kite’ is.”

  Vaeven now pushed his hat to the back of his head with his knuckles, put one elbow on the table and leaned forward, causing the table to tilt to one side: “Listen, Commissario, I got to know lots of you police types back in 1960 when we took to the streets to stop Tambroni becoming prime minister. So you’re not going to catch me out.”

  Soneri said nothing and the other took it as a surrender, but instead of attacking, he retreated, relaxing against the back of his seat. They remained in that position until the commissario decided to drop the subject. The equilibrium underlying their exchange was as precarious as the currents of the Po.

  “You’ve stayed in the party?”

  “Always. We’ve never changed our banner. Ours has the hammer and sickle,” Vaeven said forcibly, pulling up his sleeve to show off his tattoo.

  “Are you saying that others …”

  The man raised his right hand as though he were going to toss something over his shoulder. “The majority has changed. Nowadays they’re cosying up to the priests and the churchy lot. They’ve got their co-operatives and strike deals with the bosses.”

  “Barigazzi as well?”

  “He’s getting on now, but the people he has around him …they’ve watered everything down. They used to be Lambrusco, but they’re very thin wine now.”

  “Do the two of you still sail?”

  “We do some fishing as a hobby. I’ve got an old magano which is holding up well.”

  “What did Tonna transport?”

  “They say he carried odds and ends, but what was really below, nobody knows. There are no borders or customs along the Po.”

  It was dark now, nearly time for dinner, and the bar was emptying. Dinon rose to his feet, slowly stretching his giant body. Each of his movements was deliberate, as though he were keeping his balance on a boat on the river. “Commissario, what are you looking for?” he asked, when the conversation seemed over.

  Soneri was thrown by the question. He had lowered his guard and that question reopened the door on all his doubts, because he was not sure himself what he was looking for. For a second time he felt lost, and all the while the boatman kept his steely gaze on him. There was in him a certainty which had probably never faltered. There was no trace of doubt in his eyes. Soneri felt a twinge of envy.

  “I’m looking for Tonna,” he said, but he had voiced the first thought that came into his mind.

  The other two stared harder at him and then left the Italia without another word.

  At that hour, the town was deserted. The only noise that cut through the mist was the unchanging sound of the water pumps. Behind the embankment, the floodlights trained twin beams, two shining circles made almost solid by the enveloping mists, on to the floodplain at the points where the pumps were draining the water away. He felt the full weight of the question: was he wasting his time in a town indifferent to the fate of a boatman who had been a leading figure in an age long gone? Not even his family wanted to understand. For them, too, Tonna had been dead for some time. He belonged to a past that no-one wished, or was able, to remember – the old from abhorrence and the young from ignorance.

  He walked under the colonnade leading to Il Sordo, and on the far side of the street he heard the click of heels, a woman’s heels. He stopped but could see no-one. He went on walking but again heard from under the arches the steps of someone who seemed to be playing hide-and-seek with him. He stepped into the middle of the road and shouted, “Come out, whoever you are!”

  Angela appeared from behind a pillar and walked towards him, imitating a streetwalker.

  “Stop that,” he said with a smile. “This is a small town and people talk.”

  “I can see the headline and the photograph already. The commissario and his lady friend.”

  “I’m not important enough for the gossip columns. The stuff Alemanni is planting with the journalists is ample for the time being.”

  “They’re getting all hot and bothered now about your absences. Juvara is running out of things to say. He tells them that you’re away, pursuing leads, and he has no idea when you’ll be back.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “I came down when it was still light and followed you until you went into that bar.”

  “I had someone to meet.”

  “And two bottles of Malvasia to down.”

  “I can’t stand vegetarians and teetotallers.”

  Angela start
ed unbuttoning her shirt, but Soneri pulled her close to him to make her stop.

  “Please, don’t hit me. I’m feeling very fragile tonight,” he begged her in a voice weighed down with anxiety.

  Suddenly recognizing his vulnerability, she returned his look, gave him a tender hug and a kiss. “You’re irresistible when you surrender,” she whispered in his ear. “But do remember that you owe me one. Remember? That barge and only us on board making …”

  “What are you talking about? There might still be people at the boat club.”

  “So much the better. More exciting.”

  Resistance was pointless, but as they walked on, Soneri felt ill at ease in the unaccustomed role of a fragile man looking for consolation from a woman, yet if he was disconcerted at first, he rediscovered his self-assurance in assuming the more usual role of taking the necessary precautions to avoid being seen by the members of the club, whose shadowy outlines were visible as they passed in front of the brightly lit windows. They climbed up the embankment and came down at a dark corner of the yard. Once more the commissario was acting as guide to Angela.

  They proceeded cautiously in the dark on the far side, away from the lamp light, in the shelter of the slope. There were no steps there alongside the club, so they had to make their way on the riverbank itself.

  “I’ve got high heels on,” Angela murmured.

  Soneri cursed under his breath. In addition to vegetarians and teetotallers, he now had to cope with an insane woman. He lifted her in his arms and began the descent, while she whispered ironical flatteries, “How strong you are!” and such like, punctuated with melodramatic sighs.

  “Carry on with that nonsense, and I’ll drop you in the Po.”

  They reached the bottom, out of sight of the club. They ran the risk that someone might come outside for a pee and catch sight of them on the landing stage. The noise from the pumps mixed with the splash of the water as it gushed over the embankment from the field was particularly loud there, in contrast to the river which flowed silently by. Whoever had set off in the barge on the night of the flood had in all probability taken the same route, unseen by Barigazzi and the others.

  Soneri put the gangplank in place and helped Angela across before following her. When he was safely on board himself, he used the perch pole to carefully reposition the plank on the quay. They went down below, and Angela made an immediate beeline for the cabin.

  “I want the captain’s bunk,” she said, peremptorily.

  They lay in each other’s arms for a while until the barge was rocked by bigger waves and the mutter of voices made itself heard alongside. A craft was passing close to the jetty, causing Soneri some alarm. The cavernous roar of its engine, only partially drowned out by the noise of the pumps, died away as it drew alongside the barge. The commissario leapt up from the bunk. He tried to pull on his clothes, but Angela held him by the arm and made him lie back on the mattress. Every time he attempted to raise his head to listen, she gripped him firmly round the neck and pulled him over to her. Outside, an engine was turning over and someone was talking. Then the barge rocked gently and feet were heard on the deck.

  “They’re coming down,” Soneri said, struggling to free himself from her embrace. She clasped him more tightly with both her arms and legs, forcing him to stay where he was and concentrate on not making a sound.

  Up above, someone was walking about. The commissario tried to picture what was happening on deck, and remembered with relief that an hour earlier he had been meticulous about closing the wheelhouse door from the inside. Shortly afterwards, he heard the rusty creak of the doorhandle as it was tried a couple of times. Someone was attempting to break in. The footsteps rang out again, passed directly over their heads and then went towards the side of the barge. Moments passed, and then the engine revved up again and moved away.

  “That is the most exciting situation I have ever been in,” Angela said, close to ecstasy.

  He stared at her. “Do you think we’ll ever be able to meet in bed at home, between two bedside tables, with a picture of the Madonna hanging above the headboard?”

  “If ever we do, that will mean it’s all over.”

  Soneri went back up to the wheelhouse, pushed open the door and stepped out on to the deck. He jumped on to the jetty to put the gangplank in place. The two of them climbed back up the incline which they had earlier descended, and came out on the dark side of the square. There was no-one left in the boat club. The lights were off and the shutters drawn. Whoever had come aboard the barge had probably taken the club’s closing time into account.

  “Who do you think it was?”

  “I have no idea. I think they were there looking for Tonna. He’d been keeping bad company.”

  “Well, I am indebted to whoever it was. That was unforgettable.”

  “I would be interested to see how you would react if someone did catch us during one of your mad moments.”

  “I wouldn’t turn a hair. Are you or are you not the commissario of police?” she said, giving him another hug. She pulled away and looked squarely at him, trying to read his thoughts. “Did you not like it, or is there something else buzzing about in that head of yours?”

  “I’m thinking about the people who came aboard.”

  8

  ONCE THEY WERE back in the city, he had attempted to persuade Angela to come to his apartment, but she had refused. “You’re bound to have two horrible little bedside tables and a Madonna over the bed,” she had said as they parted.

  In spite of that, within ten minutes he had settled into his usual routine and even felt relieved at being able to sleep on his own, but his state of agitation had him awake once again before dawn. The city was still noiseless in the mist and he stared out at it through the glass door on to the balcony. He knew that his journeys down to the Po valley could not go on much longer, and that this was perhaps the last day he could justify being absent from the police station to pursue a line of inquiry which might be only secondary or possibly irrelevant. He could already hear Alemanni’s victory chants, further exacerbated by the echo which they would produce in the reprimands of his own chief, the questore: a quartet of shrill, menacing violins.

  Instead, the first music he heard was the equally irritating “Aida”.

  “Commissario, thank goodness you’re up early,” Aricò began.

  “These Tonna brothers don’t allow me much sleep.”

  “Nor me. Last night someone set fire to the bar belonging to the bargeman’s niece.”

  “At what time, exactly?” Soneri said, immediately relating this event to his night-time visit to the barge.

  “Around three. There’s no doubt the fire was started deliberately. They found a burned-out petrol can under the bar.”

  “Did anyone see anything?”

  “What do you think? The baker called us when he went down around four and saw the smoke.”

  “Was it an act of hooliganism or something more serious?”

  “Professionals, Commissario. They made a thorough job of it. There’s nothing much left,” continued the maresciallo, before adding: “I called you first before getting the others involved … I’m giving you this chance. I know how things are between us and the magistrates.”

  “Thanks, Aricò,” Soneri said, “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  As he drove through the even thicker dawn mist, he thought gratefully of the maresciallo. Soneri had had to get the questore out of bed to report everything to him, and his superior, still half asleep, had been unable to respond with anything more than a series of Madonna santa!s each time he asked for more time or for the chance to carry out further inquiries. He finally arrived at the conclusion which had seemed evident to Soneri for at least an hour: it was a very serious business, the like of which had never before been seen, could well be the work of extortionists. It might even be that Anteo had been threatened by the gang who had engaged him to transport the illegal immigrants. Maybe he was transporting other things as
well and had not kept his side of the bargain, but if he had been killed, why were they still coming after him? Perhaps another lot had got rid of him, or possibly it was all a set-up, a so-called accident so he could make off with the money after selling a cargo of drugs? It was in any case exceedingly strange that this should have happened exactly one day before the murder of his brother.

  He parked in front of the Italia as the mist was lifting from over the embankment. The pumps were still roaring and the commissario was tempted to go and see how far the water level on the floodplain had dropped, but a gust of wind brought the smell of burning to his nostrils and focused his attention on the cluster of houses in the old town. From a distance, what remained of the bar gave the impression of a black eye. A coating of black had discoloured the facade of the house up to the first floor, and there was no need to go too close to realize that in the interior nothing had been saved. It occurred to him that black had been a constant in the history of that family, more for evil than for good. The firefighters had gone into the building with their hoses and had shored up the ceiling. Now they were directing jets of water at the centre of the room where embers were still smouldering. On the pavement, a slight distance away from onlookers, Tonna’s niece – with an overcoat over her dressing gown – stood with her son.

  Soneri lit a cigar and went over to join Aricò beside his van. “You had a good nose for this Tonna …”

  The commissario brushed the remark aside with a wave of his hand. “Aricò,” he said, putting his mouth beside the maresciallo’s ear, “this one is for you. This is my chance to pay back my debts for this morning.”

  This time it was Aricò’s turn not to overdo things. After a brief pause, he said, “The question is, why should you hand it over to me?”

  “My sense is that the fire has nothing to do with the disappearance of Anteo Tonna. He had various other pieces of business outstanding.”

  “Commissario, are you trying to give me a headache? After a sleepless night, with this pile of charcoal here, you’re in the mood for talking in riddles?”