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

by Valerio Varesi

  “Who believes it’s navigating normally in this weather?” Torelli was growing impatient.

  “With no engine, the battery will run flat.”

  “In just a few hours?”

  “Tonna’s as mean as the drought in ’61. He uses batteries lorry drivers have thrown away.”

  “He always lives in the dark or he uses the candles you put round coffins. As soon as it gets dark, he moors at the first place, gets off to have something to eat and then goes to bed.”

  “What a cheery life! You can see why his grandson …”

  “So the light kept burning all that time, down at the mooring …” Barigazzi said. He spun his hand round, all five fingers pointing upwards in a gesture suggesting some piece of machinery searching in vain for a plug.

  “It’s not that difficult to work out,” Vernizzi said.

  “No,” Barigazzi murmured, looking up at the clock. “In less than two hours we’ll know everything.”

  They all looked up. The hands on the club clock were almost at 1.00.

  The carabinieri returned. “I’ll say I haven’t seen you,” the maresciallo mumbled, as damp and swollen as a savoiardo biscuit dipped in Marsala. He was an unhealthy colour, whether from the onset of influenza or from suppressed rage.

  “You’re just not used to this rain,” Barigazzi told the maresciallo, who gave him an evil look in return.

  “Another nine centimetres. It’s coming up like Fortanina wine when you pull the cork,” the old man went on.

  The radio operator passed on this news, and received equally alarming data in reply.

  “At this rate, you’re going to have to sound the retreat in the carabinieri headquarters as well,” Barigazzi said. “But it won’t take much evacuating,” he said, staring at the only carabiniere, a shy young man accompanying his superior officer.

  The maresciallo swallowed the grappa which Gianna had poured for him without waiting to be asked.

  Barigazzi joined him at the bar. “It suits you fine to let your colleagues in Luzzara attend to this other business,” he said gravely.

  “What other business?” came the surly response from somewhere under the officer’s helmet.

  “This business of the barge.”

  The officer’s face brightened. He was evidently relieved. “Why Luzzara?”

  “It will get as far as that,” Barigazzi assured him. “Tell them at the station, if anyone’s still there.”

  Vernizzi went out for a pee. “It brings good luck if you piss in the river,” he said. He lived in the town but he had never got used to peeing in a closed W.C. As he drew near the riverbank, he became aware of just how high the water had risen. There was someone at work with the winch at the moorings, trying to pull ashore a boat still riding at anchor. The clammy libeccio wind ensured that the rain drove into the side of his body.

  “You’ve pissed yourself,” Torelli teased him when he saw Vernizzi come in with his trousers wet.

  “Not at all. I’ve salted the sea.”

  The radio announced that the barge was close to the Guastalla bridge.

  “Call them and ask if they can actually see it,” Ghezzi instructed Gianna.

  In seconds the woman was on the line. “Moving slowly … And the lights are still off, right? Ah, difficult to see. The cars have pointed their headlights where it sails in and out of view.”

  Barigazzi imagined himself on the embankment, standing behind the vehicles whose headlights were resting on the surface of the water, picking out glimpses of the hull in the bobbing confusion of barrels, logs, dead animals, tree trunks.

  “It’s going past?” Gianna was shouting into the receiver. “Are you sure? Too dark? In midstream … This bit has gone smoothly as well.”

  Barigazzi looked up at the clock. “It’s all over now.”

  The others looked at him, not sure if he was referring to the river or to Tonna. Probably both. Vernizzi remembered hearing his pee gurgle on the surface of the water scarcely a metre from where he had been standing.

  “Gianna, start packing up,” Barigazzi told her.

  The operator unplugged the radio in preparation for moving out. Everything that could be carried to safety was swiftly put into large boxes, making the club look in no time like temporary premises. Torelli manoeuvred the lorry into place in the yard and for a moment the lights played on the surface of the river without reaching the far shore. Then they started loading. In all the coming and going, the radios on both sides of the river continued broadcasting a litany which became a sort of rosary for all the wrecks dragged away by the current.

  “What about the clock?” Vernizzi said.

  “The water’ll never get that high,” Barigazzi said firmly, noting that it was a few minutes before three. “This is the epilogue,” he reminded everyone.

  Then, in the almost bare room, silence fell. One bottle of white wine remained on a table. Gianna found some paper cups and shared the wine out among the company until it was all gone. A few more minutes of waiting passed, leaving them to listen to the rain hammering on the roof and to the incessant drip drip from the beams. At 3.10, the telephone rang. At the first tone, Gianna got quickly to her feet, but Barigazzi stopped her with a sign and made for the telephone himself. Without waiting for whoever it was on the other end to speak, and without even a “hello”, he said: “Has he run aground?”

  The others watched him only nod. Then, slowly, as though in a trance, he put the telephone down. “There was no-one on the barge.”

  2

  COMMISSARIO SONERI DELICATELY raised the white sheet while two volunteers from the Red Cross sheltered the body with their umbrellas. What he saw was a broken body which looked as though its bones had been removed. He looked up at the window from which a male nurse was staring down at the scene below. One of the volunteers pointed to the canopy over the entrance to the courtyard. On the cement, which had been softened by the rain, there was a mark from the impact.

  “He fell on that first,” he said.

  Soneri climbed the stairs and pushed open the door of ward 3, where he was met by a clammy heat which felt like a kitchen with several pots coming to the boil at the same time. The window was the main source of light for a recess along the corridor where the nurses stored the drip-feeds and broken chairs. There was an old metal cabinet on one side. The corridor led to the consulting rooms in one direction and in the other to the nurses’ off-duty room.

  Soneri stuck his head out. “Quite a jump.”

  “But you saw the state he’s in?”

  The commissario nodded before stopping to study the broken glass from the bay window. Shards were scattered among the fittings. He looked out again. The two volunteers were putting down the umbrellas and others were busying themselves with the body. He recognized the profile of Alemanni, the magistrate assigned to the case, a tedious individual who was forever talking about taking early retirement without ever actually taking it. Alemanni was just in the act of authorizing the removal of the corpse.

  The cabinet was open and inside there were detergents, cloths and dusters. At the bottom, near the vent, there was a dent which looked recent. He studied the steel door from inside. The paint had come away where something had knocked against it. There were flakes of the paint on the floor.

  As he went back along the corridor, he bumped into Juvara, the only ispettore he could bear having near him and who for that reason he had taken for his personal assistant.

  “You might have warned me sooner.”

  “Your mobile is turned off.”

  The commissario checked. He had switched it off after the umpteenth call, or maybe had never had it on. “Any idea who it could be?”

  “Certainly – I know who it is.”

  Soneri raised his eyes heavenwards.

  “Well, get on with it!” He was in a highly excitable state of mind. Whenever he embarked on a case which promised from the outset to be murky, he felt like an addict suffering withdrawal symptoms.

&nbs
p; “Tonna, Decimo Tonna.”

  The name meant nothing to Soneri.

  “Age?”

  “Seventy-six.”

  He stood there with his cigar in his mouth, staring at a diagram of the digestive system on the wall behind Juvara. His own digestive system had been feeling the pinch for about an hour, but this promised to be another day when he was going to have to go without lunch.

  “Any ideas?”

  “Suicide, most likely.” He had a mania for statistics.

  “Have you called forensics?”

  “Yes, Nanetti will be along any minute.”

  “Close off that cubbyhole, will you? No-one is to be allowed in before they complete their inquiries.”

  Soneri set off towards the consulting rooms, but halfway along he stopped in his tracks, turned back and went in the opposite direction towards the nurses’ room. He looked like a man unsure of the way out.

  The ward sister glowered at the cigar until she was certain it was not lit. The commissario stood facing her for a few seconds without speaking, his head spinning. It was she who began: “We heard a thump and the sound of glass shattering, and when we got here we saw the window wide open. I didn’t think much of it. Then I heard people in the courtyard shouting, I looked out and …” Her voice trailed off. She shrugged in a fatalistic gesture.

  “You all ran immediately to the window?”

  “Actually, no. I was on the phone to Casualty and my colleagues were busy elsewhere on the ward.”

  “How long between your hearing the noise and your getting here?”

  The telephone started ringing again, but the woman ignored it.

  “A couple of minutes at the most. We thought it was the wind rattling the windows. Those shutters are always kept half-closed.”

  “But you didn’t see anyone?”

  The sister pursed her lips and gave a look over her shoulder.

  “No, no-one comes that way except when the doctors are doing their rounds.”

  “Will they do their rounds today?”

  “Until 11.00. Then some patients hang around, but never more than a quarter of an hour.”

  “Does the name Tonna mean anything to you? Decimo Tonna.”

  “Tonna? Was it Tonna who threw himself out the window?”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Who doesn’t know him? A strange creature. He used to turn up in the waiting room for the pleasure of chatting to the patients. He would come here the same way other men go to a bar.”

  “How often?”

  “Once or twice a week. I believe he used to go to other departments as well.”

  “So you all knew him well?”

  “No, not well. For us he was a bit of an oddball, we passed the time of day with him, but we knew nothing about him. He spoke only about illnesses, even if he himself seemed in good health.”

  Soneri nodded in assent. Odd facts and traits were always invaluable sources of information for him.

  “Did he seem to you …” and he tapped his index finger against the side of his head.

  “What do you think?” The sister laughed. “Someone like that seems normal to you?”

  Soneri nodded several more times as though to apologize. His mind had now soared off into distant realms, causing him to take a few steps back and give a cursory greeting to a group of curious nurses who had gathered round.

  In the corridor, he found Nanetti, the head of the forensic squad, who came straight to the point: “Not one of those who land on their feet, was he?”

  “Have you seen the corpse?”

  “I had a quick look in the hearse before it was taken off to the mortuary.”

  “What do you make of those broken panes of glass?”

  “I’d say it was not usual for a suicide. And then there is that dent …”

  The two looked at each other, instantly on the same wavelength.

  “I reckon that everything will be cleared up by the post-mortem.”

  “So do I,” Soneri said, “even if …” But suddenly he fell silent. It was never easy for him to find the right words to articulate his concerns.

  He called Juvara over. “Find out everything you can in this unit, and collect all the information you can get about this Tonna. He used to spend whole mornings here.” His voice tailed off in what seemed strangely like an apology.

  He left the hospital and walked towards the city centre. He felt the need to walk and smoke half a cigar to calm himself. That collection of odd facts had upset him and curiosity had the same impact on him as caffeine. What was there to talk about while waiting to consult a doctor? And what on earth did Tonna find so interesting there? Cutting through the narrow streets of the Oltretorrente quarter, he almost walked into a newspaper billboard across his path: transport barge adrift on flooded po. Seconds later his mobile rang with the triumphal march from “Aida”. Ever since they had saddled him with that telephone, he had been trying and failing to alter the ring tone.

  “Have you seen that story about the barge?” Angela asked him, synchronizing perfectly with his thoughts.

  “I’ve just seen the billboard but haven’t had a chance to look at the paper.”

  “There could be a headline saying you had robbed a bank, and still you wouldn’t notice,” she said, laughing.

  “There’s a wodge of notes in the office …”

  “Anyway, you had better know that the barge did about forty kilometres and went aground on the embankment at Luzzara, and there was no-one on board.”

  “Somebody didn’t take enough trouble with the mooring cables,” Soneri said carelessly. He was not much interested.

  “In point of fact, one of the cables was cut clean through,” Angela told him. “They were talking about nothing else today in court.”

  “They’ll all be busting themselves to land the insurance case.”

  “Nonsense. They say that the owner, a man called Tonna, loved that barge more than anything else in the world.”

  “What did you say his name was?”

  “Tonna! Apparently he’s famous on the river. That’s what my colleagues are saying. A transporter. There can’t be many of them.”

  The commissario’s head began buzzing like a beehive in May. Angela was almost shouting down the line but the swirl of thoughts had made him nearly deaf.

  “Are you listening to me or have you fallen down a manhole?”

  “The man who committed suicide today was also a Tonna,” he murmured, as if in a dream, talking more to himself than to Angela.

  “O.K., I’m in court in a while. I’m the duty lawyer and have to defend some poor soul or other. Call me later,” she said, cutting him off.

  Soneri stuck the mobile in his pocket and made for his office. He pulled the string off the bundle of newspapers and took out the local daily. The headline in the provincial news section read: mystery of the barge. He read about the sudden departure, about the rope that had seemingly been slashed, the light which had been switched on and off and the shock of the empty cabin. And then that surname: Tonna. The owner of the barge was Anteo and he was two years older than Decimo, the suicide victim.

  He rang Juvara. “Drop everything at the hospital and get over here. There’s something more interesting to attend to.”

  Then he called the control room: “Would you investigate two names for me? Anteo Tonna and Decimo Tonna.”

  Immediately, his telephone rang again. Alemanni struck his invariable funereal tone. “That man found dead today. The shattered body? The business at the hospital?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “I’ve arranged the post-mortem for tomorrow. Even if personally I do not believe that …”

  “One never knows, sir.”

  With the erratic grace of a billiard ball on cobbled paving, Nanetti crossed the yard which separated the special force from the forensic unit.

  “Right on time for a digestivo,” he said keeping his eye on Soneri, who was busy polishing off his Parma ham sandwich.<
br />
  “As punctual as a cheque,” the commissario said, reaching into the cupboard for a bottle of port. “This little number was left to mature for a full fifteen years before it was allowed out of the barrel.”

  “You understand why I prefer coming to you rather than the other way round.”

  “Found anything?”

  Nanetti smoothed his moustache. He looked like a dog straining at the leash.

  “Incongruities rather than proof, but my experience teaches me that—”

  “There are many, many odd facts,” the commissario interrupted him, raising his glass for a toast. “For instance, the dead man used to spend hours in the surgery talking to the patients.”

  “Plus there’s the broken glass. And that indentation …”

  “That looked suspicious to me as well.”

  “Not to put too fine a point on it,’ Nanetti said decisively, “a man who’s going to commit suicide is hardly going to break the glass opening the window.”

  “The more so if the window was always half open.”

  “And yet more so if we found blood on one of the shards. Blood not belonging to the dead man.”

  Soneri put his glass down and looked his colleague squarely in the eye. He now had everything clear his mind, but he gestured with his cigar, inviting Nanetti to go on.

  “The indentation, the mark on the cabinet, is new and it’s on the outside of the door, indicating, presumably, where somebody kicked out, and there are traces of rubber. We checked and the rubber is from the shoes the dead man was wearing. You get it, right? There’s been a scuffle, at the end of which one of the two people involved went through the third-floor window.”

  “No question about it,” Soneri said.

  The telephone rang. It was the officer from the control room.

  “Anteo Tonna, born 1921, bargeman by profession, collaborated with Mussolini’s Republic of Salò after being a Fascist official in the lower Cremona district, unmarried, no previous convictions.”