Blood in the Snow

by Franco Marks

  Marzio was about to come out with another idiotic answer: ‘We are bound by investigative confidentiality, it won’t be easy to tell you because of the privacy laws. And anyway, you’re not under investigation.’ But he preferred not to lie in the face of the honesty of a man who had shown himself to be sincere. Instinctively he couldn’t. The sea, the light, the atmosphere of complicity. Sooner or later some newspaper would have written about the relationship between Inspector Marzio Santoni and Elisabetta.

  “It was me.”

  Franz froze. His face suddenly changed from kindly bear to nasty dragon. A look that almost seemed to say you piece of shit, then an angry thought towards Elisabetta – You cheated on me with a policeman! – and finally resignation. At this point there was nothing left to do.

  “I feel like an eel whose head’s been cut off on the marble top in the kitchen.”

  His red shoes oscillated on the sand, stirred by a movement that resembled a pendulum. Franz stood up in front of Marzio – tall as he was, he cast a shadow over him, and it felt as though his bulk would crush him at any moment. He smelled sour, with a hint of sweat. But he wasn’t threatening. His muscles were disarmed, abandoned, his face worn out by events. He extended his hand to the inspector.

  “We can’t not be friends – we loved the same woman.”

  There was nothing to add, thought Marzio. He squeezed it. The hand was big and full of callouses, perhaps because of his habitual handling of hot food in the kitchen. A deadly grip. It was lucky he had only given Elisabetta a haematoma on her left wrist. In his red shoes, Franz Binetti walked towards the Tiffany’s exit, limping slightly. A giant, even from behind, who proceeded as if he had been wounded.

  In the lukewarm sun, Marzio felt better. A young girl in a wetsuit was entering the water. The image, blurred slightly by the light, reminded him of a day with his mother at the sea. Elisa had worn a one piece bathing suit and had moved awkwardly across the sand like a wooden Pinocchio, but his father Alfonso looked at her in awe.

  “Keep your bathrobe on, cover yourself up, I’d rather you didn’t go into the water on your own.” They sounded like the words of a jealous man.

  Elisa went along mildly with his request and adjusted herself under a corner of the beach umbrella. Evidently his mother wasn’t as ugly as Marzio had always thought her: a lonely, pious woman. Did her blue polka dot dress hide a feline temperament? Did that caterpillar sometimes turn into a butterfly? Unlikely. Impossible! Marzio wanted to say. But a detective should never use that word. Reality was always lurking, ready to prove any certainty wrong. Perhaps one day he could investigate on his own, find out if it had all been true. Without resorting to that DNA nonsense. Had her relationship with Don Sergio really been consummated or was it just a trick to create confusion and muddy Marzio’s thinking about the investigation?

  From the small cemetery of Vissone, you could see the ocean in the distance, and even the clouds moved as uncertainly as Elisa had. The colours of the houses reflected the moods of the town: red, ochre, yellow, pea green. The palms wore their hair loose, like the hair of his beloved. Marzio was wearing the earring he’d found in the Pino Rosso. What had made Elisabetta abandon the earring among the cushions in the bar? It was a message he needed to decipher. An alarm bell. Did that object indicate the direction of the investigation? After much deliberation, Santoni had reached the most banal conclusion. In the agitation of the moment, the earring had fallen out of Elisabetta’s bag or trouser pocket. Inadvertently. Load a contingency with different meaning, let your imagination get the better of you, turn that which wasn’t reasonable into something reasonable: everyday pitfalls. The truth was sometimes more obtuse than you would like.

  The photo on the grave was faithful to Elisabetta; inelegant, obsessed with Ikea, her hair fluffed up by a provincial hairdresser, tender trepidation on her skin, in her eyes a hint of melancholy.

  That was how she had appeared one morning in Valdiluce, dressed in an almost funny way, like a townie who had no experience of the mountains, in a purple windbreaker, baggy trousers and sealskin shoes. As imposing as some brightly coloured candy. Sexy, though. Whatever fabric she wore was like invisible ink on her. It was as if she were walking about naked. All the spotlights were focused on her in the middle of a stage in a provincial theatre. The absolute protagonist. She drew light from others. She even made Marzio appear wan, like the trees, the houses, the street, the walls. Elisabetta walked softly and confidently – she knew she was irresistible. White Wolf was as dazed as if he’d seen the Madonna. She walked straight over to him, unhesitatingly, a fiery sword. She’d jotted something down quickly on a piece of paper and she held it out to him.

  “This is my mobile number. Call me if you fancy going for a drink.”

  That was how she’d approached him – distracted and dreamy yet confident and convinced. Marzio had stood immobile, extremely embarrassed, looked around him. He’d never had a woman take the initiative with him before. In Valdiluce it was the man who did the courting – it was inconceivable that the opposite could happen. Elisabetta’s lips wore a spectacular smile, which partially disguised the fact that she was awaiting an answer. Marzio made his mind up. He got back into his role, grabbed the note, tore it up and threw it in the waste paper basket.

  “Why waste money on phone calls? Let’s have a drink together right away. At the Pino Rosso.”

  It was an impulsive triumph, partly because they drank at least five Ginpins – Elisabetta, who came from Vissone on the Sea, melted the hoarfrost that ran through Marzio’s veins. He took her to his house. They made love in a way he’d never imagined was possible. A woman he’d just met, a blunt invitation, a few glasses too many and something new between his sheets.

  Marzio felt a little stupid that he was still thinking about it. A few days together, the beginning of a love affair, a tragic ending. No American film producer would have ever accepted that a story which had started so passionately could end in such a terrible way. That was why it wasn’t easy to get out of it, to climb out of that chasm.

  For the first time in many years, Marzio made the sign of the cross and said a little prayer. He put an edelweiss in the vase on the tomb. He had collected it for her on the rocks of Valdiluce. An innocent instinct, as though he wanted to communicate something to Elisabetta.

  In that little cemetery the scent of the waves was inebriating and memories flitted across the sky like kites, circled in the clouds, lost altitude, skimmed the blue sea where the snow had melted so many centuries ago.

  White Wolf, with his blonde hair tied up in the red scarf, the shining earring, his mouth caressed by the wind, his muscles composed in a devout pose, so handsome that if she could have seen him…

  Marzio felt a burning saltiness upon his cheeks. It looked like tears. He couldn’t cry right now, there were so many things he had to do. He had to redeem Elisabetta, discover the truth. In her memory.

  12

  After it had snowed all night, a dazzling sun had risen. Marzio awoke like a child, with a feeling of excitement more powerful than any duty. He had to free himself of his obligations and hassles, take a day off and get on his skis. He hadn’t done so for months. There was a metre of fresh snow to consecrate. While White Wolf was getting ready, the phone rang: it was Soprani. He couldn’t tell him that he was taking a day off.

  “See you on Monte Gomito in an hour. I’m coming in the helicopter. We’re going to ravish her – we won’t leave an inch of snow untouched.”

  Soprani was a skilled skier, but his six feet of height made his movements awkward – he looked like a periscope sticking up out of the snow.

  “Try and keep your weight back, Mr Soprani. It’s like waterskiing.” Marzio launched himself down the slope. “Follow me.”

  White Wolf’s relationship with the snow was an emotional one. They came together, they desired one another, they adored one another.

  While the white veil and tulle skirt rose into the sky, he felt as if he were near Eli
sabetta. Her body. Naked. Perfect curves, suddenly steep, he had to adjust his speed, under the dark bridge down into the depths, then back into the blinding light. He was drowning in the wet arms and then, in the false plain he rediscovered the serenity of furrowing, of asserting dominion over the earth. Bent breathless over the valley. The ample white breast drawn on Monte Sassone rose from the coulters like Elisabetta’s backside. Not a wrinkle, vibrating with goose bumps. The fragrances multiplied, dazzling him. On her sex, the smell of apricot, on her breast, apple, grapes and must in the mouth, currants in the hair, on the backside a pink dawn, just bloomed. Finally. Marzio had the courage to dream. A bio-detective at large in the mountains.

  “Santoni, what’s the matter with you? Stop, please. Have you gone mad?”

  Soprani had risked hurting himself in order to pursue the possessed Marzio.

  “Forgive me. I lost my head. I’d been dying to go skiing.”

  White Wolf’s eyes were inebriated by the wind – a fierce joy, like Dik, the Irish setter, when he ran in the woods. They stopped at the end of the slope and turned to see their perfect trails, the rounded curves, the skilful lines of a great painter. Soprani’s weren’t bad either.

  “You’re becoming a champion, Sir.”

  Soprani’s face, still expressionless, his mouth wet with the snow, his nose shining, was struck by the thought. He seemed almost human.

  “The snow is docile. It feels as though she likes being taken, she doesn’t cry out in pain, and above all, she doesn’t call you the next day to ask you to marry her because you deflowered her.”

  The rides in the gondola ski lift were the most awkward moments. Marzio was embarrassed to have his boss sitting next to him. Did he smell of some Levantine mix, a deodorant with Indian essences, or was it his breath that smelt of couscous with a lot of coriander? A pleasant oriental odour that subtly confused him. With him, even the most innocuous conversation ended up turning into an interrogation. But then, that was his job. Trapped in the gondola, Marzio became his prisoner and the dialogues that he would gladly have avoided began. Soprani was an interesting man: complex, precise in his reasoning, examining every facet of an issue. But he was also a chauvinist, arrogant and full of himself. In his presence, Marzio was simply a man of passion who believed in humanity, in nature. A true bio-detective. Soprani, instead, was cynical, confident, ruthless, not in thrall to his feelings – a man of power. His behaviour was governed by relationships.

  “What do you think, Marzio? How do you see the situation? You have all the information on the investigation you need now to be able to make a judgment.”

  Marzio knew that this was the classic trick question, and he gazed blankly at two aeroplanes that appeared to almost touch the gondola as they flew past, leaving white stripes in the sky. His silence weighed heavy and hung in the air, waiting for an answer. White Wolf could have said that the more he learned, the more he realised that this was a murder, but he didn’t take the bait.

  “I believe what you believe, Soprani. Whatever direction you take is the best that can be imagined, because you have a vast amount of experience and a lot of intuition, and I’m just a ski instructor who can bring an injured man down to the valley without too many problems.”

  “Stop trying to belittle yourself. You know you’re a good cop, you’re conducting the investigation well, with guts. But you’ve got a worm in your head that you need to remove. This idea that we somehow want to hide the truth. You’ve got something else in mind, even if you don’t say so – I can see it in the way you behave. You think that only you know or can discover the truth. I wouldn’t want to discover that this attitude of yours was something to do with your relationship with Elisabetta…”

  “Never when I’m at work. I’ve managed not to get emotionally involved…”

  “As I’ve said before, the truth always lies under the fire. The flames are illusions, appearances – what you think they are, they’re not. All you need do is blow on it and you’ll fan the flames of a thousand conjectures, invention, imagination. If you follow its tongues, you’ll get burned – you’ll fall into its trap. The truth is what is beneath the flames, in the embers. That’s where you have to look. An artificial intelligence. You have to give it life. Soul. If you want to put an end to your conjectures, you must observe the embers that glow, like a pulsing heart. In that expanse lies the truth, without illusions and without the mirages of the flames. There – there is the origin of everything, the big bang that leads from chaos to creation. But what is it? And what point do you think you are at?”

  Marzio didn’t know what to answer.

  “I’m referring to what we know. Of course, it is true that the flames haven’t yet completely gone out.”

  “But you still have one firm conviction: the four girls were killed. A murder. Who told you that? The killer? Bring him to me, otherwise you’re just groping about in the ashes that will be swept away by the first gust of wind. Don’t think that I don’t know or think or fear that… I know very well that there’s a mystery hiding behind these four women, but at this moment we need there not to be one. It’s pointless blowing on the fire, it’s pointless fanning the flames. If we were to follow your instincts, I should first of all have to suspend you from the investigation, because you would be suspected of murder. Your relationship with Elisabetta would immediately mark you down as a suspect. You would certainly be found innocent, but in the meantime you would have to leave your post. It’s the fact that it was a suicide that allows you to work on the case.”

  Marzio thought that silence would be the best weapon. Soprani continued undeterred.

  “Everything will be resolved soon.”

  “In what way?”

  “An absurd accident, the stupid act of one of the four women who also killed the other three. We need to understand who started the sick game. Everything points to Angela – mentally unstable, an alcoholic, depressed. She could have come up with some demented plan that she impulsively put into action. She turned on the gas as a joke, then the situation got out of hand and something irreparable happened that led to the tragic conclusion.”

  Gazing at the rosy horizon at sunset, Soprani grew romantic.

  “We don’t want to destroy the beauty of Valdiluce, do we? It’s already struggling because of a suicide, just think what would happen if it turned out that it was a murder. Who would ever come up here if they were scared there might be a serial killer lurking in the woods? There will still be difficult days, but if you follow my instructions, we’ll soon close this case. Let yourself be guided by logic. The way you like to be, Inspector. After it’s had a summer to recover, Valdiluce will go back to being the wonderful winter resort that we all know.”

  White Wolf smiled broadly. In his face there was the thrill of speed, of risk – of a pride that didn’t bode well.

  13

  Marzio entered the ski rental shop and was welcomed inside by a desperate Osvaldo. He was crying.

  “You have to find out did it so that I can kill them with my own two hands.”

  In the waxing room, near the machinery that also served to turn the edges of the skis, lay a bundle. At first Marzio thought it must be a child then, as he moved closer, the body came into focus. Dik, Osvaldo’s Irish Setter, his fawn coat as limp as a sail without wind.

  “Everyone loved him like he was a person.”

  With a lump in his throat, Lanzetti, the doctor, was analysing the body of the dog. Even Marzio felt crushed by the setter’s eyes – gently surprised, as though he had experienced that act of infamy as a betrayal. Dead, with the certainty in his heart that no one on Earth would ever have hurt him.

  “You should never weep for an animal. Tears should only be wept for people. And anyway, life’ll give you no shortage of opportunities to cry.”

  That was what Marzio’s grandmother had used to say, but Inspector Santoni was upset all the same. Dik the vagabond. He’d used to meet him in the woods, in the most unexpected places, when he’d chas
e Marzio’s Vespa with his shaggy gallop. Always full of immense affection, he licked your hands, jumped up on you, and no one ever refused his embrace, even when he was filthy with mud. To see him dead, as if he were a helpless baby, inspired a feeling of sadness, but also of fear. The eclipse of the sun in Valdiluce continued.

  Lanzetti had no doubts. “He was poisoned. He ate something that killed him.”

  Osvaldo reacted angrily.

  “That can’t be. Even if he goes around the woods, he only comes to eat here, in the shop. Look at his bowl – his crunchies are still in it.”

  Without consulting Soprani, Marzio instinctively decided that it would be opportune to carry out the investigation as if it were the murder of a man and not of an animal. Everything that happened in Valdiluce had to be analysed. That incident, which at another time would perhaps not have been bothered with, now required looking into.

  From an initial inspection of the rental shop, nothing looked wrong: hundreds of skis, various bits of equipment to fine tune the way they slid, some sledges, a lot of pairs of ski boots. But on the ground, under the waxer, Marzio noticed a little ball. Small and hard. He picked it up, sniffed it: it smelled of wax mixed with a scent of bitter almonds that made you think of a chemical additive. He sniffed again. The nose of bio-detective Marzio Santoni made allowances for no one. He dilated his nostrils. The scent slowly penetrated into the cavities. The neurons settled on the olfactory bulbs, the bundles of nerve fibres began to analyse the contents. In that olfactory tunnel, that sensitive cavern, the chemical components were blown about by violent gusts. In a storm of roaring air, primitive sounds and astral whistles, the mixture gathered itself together, from chaos to celestial order. Clinging together in bright, evanescent spires, molecular chains solidified. A dark blue planet. A sneaky, sweetish smell. Bitter almonds. Marzio was sure of what it was. Cyanide in Valdiluce. That was all they needed to make the atmosphere even more oppressive.