The Dark Valley: A Commissario Soneri Mystery (Commissario Soneri 2) (30 page)

“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.

VALERIO VARESI
is a journalist with
La Repubblica. The Dark Valley
is the second in a series of thrillers featuring Commissario Soneri, now the protagonist of one of Italy’s most popular television dramas. The first,
River of Shadows
, was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association International Dagger.

JOSEPH FARRELL
is professor of Italian at the University of Strathclyde. He is the distinguished translator of novels by Leonardo Sciascia and Vincenzo Consolo, and plays by the Nobel Laureate Dario Fo.