Gold, Frankincense and Dust

by Valerio Varesi, Joseph Farrell

Genres: International Crime & Mystery; Police Procedurals

Synopsis

Parma. A multiple pile-up occurs on the autostrada into the city. A truck transporting cattle skids off the road. Dozens of cows and bulls go on the rampage, injured and crazed. In the chaos, the burned body of a young woman is found at the side of the road. Her death has no apparent link to the carnage. Commissario Soneri is assigned the case. It is a welcome distraction: his mercurial lover Angela has decided to pursue other options, leaving him even more morose than usual. The dead woman is identified as Nina Iliescu, a Romanian immigrant whose beauty had enchanted a string of wealthy lovers. Temptress, muse, angel - she was all things to all men. Her murder conceals a crime and a sacrilege, and even in death she has a surprise waiting for Soneri.

Release date: November 7, 2013

Publisher: MacLehose Press

Print pages: 216

Sample

THE PAOLOTTI TOWERS and the bell towers of the Cathedral and San Giovanni were gradually disappearing under a blanket of mist, their outlines dissolving. It was like an evening from times gone by, before the seasons blended into one another, an evening when the city wrapped itself in a misty shell, when it seemed suddenly familiar again and the noise, bustle and frenzy died down. In the enveloping mist, Parma had stopped yelling and had taken instead to whispering, like an old lady in church.

Soneri was strolling through the streets, in the grip of a not displeasing nostalgia. Each step summoned up a litany of memories: the university, rushing along Via Saffi, and Ada, lost too soon. He stopped in Piazzale della Pace when he could no longer make out the austere lines of the Pilotta or the houses in Via Garibaldi. There was now nothing to be seen but mist, ahead, behind, beside, above. The only sure thing, and a fleeting one, was the pavement on which he walked. Then his telephone rang. Life, illusory and deceptive life, was reaching out to him.

“Am I interrupting something, sir?” Juvara said nervously.

“Not at all. Just imagine that you’ve grabbed me by the hair of my head a split-second before I fell down a well.” The words were so gnomic that Juvara had no idea how to respond. “So what is it?” Soneri added.

“There’s one hell of a pile-up on the autostrada, a near catastrophe …”

“You get catastrophes in other places apart from autostradas. And you tell me it’s only a near catastrophe …”

“Alright, an accident. A really nasty one. More than a hundred cars, lorries, some on fire …”

“O.K., so you’ve alerted the traffic police, no doubt?”

“No need … they’re already on the case.”

“Good. So everything’s in order?”

“No, not entirely …” the inspector stuttered.

“What then?”

“The questore has asked if one of us could go along. Somebody’s been on the telephone to say that some gypsies are wandering about among the cars, stealing things.” Juvara was struggling to get the words out.

“Why doesn’t he send in the flying squad?” Soneri said with some feeling, but at the same time he was aware of a need to escape from loneliness and the trap of nostalgia.

“He already has, but with the mist the way it is … well, the fact is, they can’t find the place. There’s no-one on duty who knows his way around the Lower Po Valley.”

Soneri felt a threat taking form somewhere above his head, like a coiled spring about to snap. Instead, it was he who snapped as he turned in the direction of the Steccata.

“Where is this place?”

“Near the service area at Cortile San Martino. There’s a road running alongside the Autostrada del Sole.”

“I know the one. What about the flying squad?”

“They’re driving around in circles. The questore says you’re the only man who knows the roads well enough … the only one in Parma.”

“Fetch the car and pick me up in the piazza in five minutes.”

Juvara was unable to find him. The commissario had to wave his arms and jump over the chain between the columns to attract his attention.

“I’ll drive,” he said the moment the inspector rolled down the window. “With you at the wheel, the best we can hope for is to end up in a ditch.”

Juvara did as he was told, with some relief. “I had a problem getting out of the gate at the police station,” he mumbled, as he got into the passenger seat.

“That’s why you never land a girlfriend. You’re hopeless.”

Juvara smiled awkwardly and said nothing, relaxing only when Soneri gave him an affectionate poke in the ribs as he settled behind the wheel.

The mist rose over the bonnet of the car. As they left behind the creamy light of the street lamps and moved into the narrow country roads they were plunged into a near impenetrable darkness.

“You can see why they couldn’t find the place,” Juvara said.

“On a night like this, everybody should stay at home, preferably in front of a roaring fire, better still with a cat on their lap. Think of all the great opportunities we miss. But, maybe it’s just as well,” Soneri said, thinking back to his earlier nostalgia trap.

Juvara looked at him uncomfortably, making no reply and staring tensely at the road, or at the little he could see of it, which was hardly more than two metres ahead. “Even if we do manage to find the place, with all this mist about, how are we going to catch the people we’re after?”

“O.K., one thing at a time. Let’s concentrate on finding the right road,” the commissario said curtly. Whenever more serious subjects came up, the inspector was quickly out of his depth. It was impossible to know if it was due to indifference or shyness. Or maybe it was on account of his youth. When Soneri had been thirty, what did he care about weighing up choices or roaring fires at home?

They drew up at a fork in the road where there were no signs. Soneri was not sure which was the right way, but some instinct made him turn to the left.

“Might be this one. Who knows?” he muttered to himself.

They carried on for a few hundred metres until they heard a menacing roar in the darkness, like the despairing bellow of an animal in the slaughterhouse.

“Did you hear that?” Juvara said, sitting bolt upright as the figure of a bull came into view in the fog lights.

“Yes, and we’re on the right road,” Soneri said.

The animal must have weighed several hundred kilos but seemed more apprehensive than aggressive. The commissario noticed Juvara take hold of his door handle and stiffen up.

“I’m wearing red,” he said.

“Relax. He’s vegetarian. Even if there’s a lot of good eating on you, it’s of no interest to him. Be careful not to upset him, though.” Soneri laughed as he flashed the lights at the bull. The beast turned lazily to face them, before lumbering off with his great scrotum swinging between his legs.

“He’s well hung,” the inspector said, plainly relieved.

“What did you expect? He’s not like our dear Chief, Capuozzo.”

They drove on in the mist from which emerged bellows and cries like the pleas of orphans at night. They caught a second bull in the headlights, its tail raised as it trotted across the road.

“A limousin. Good beef cattle.”

“I thought they were less dangerous,” Juvara said.

“You’re thinking of limousines, and even there I’m not so sure. Think of what happened to J.F.K., not to mention all the Cosa Nostra men who’ve met their end in one of them.”

They came across an enormous cow, which began to moo as they drew up close. “She’s going to have a memorable night of passion, with all those bulls on the loose,” Soneri chuckled.

“So long as they find each other.”

“They’re not shy and retiring like you.”

They continued on their way until the mist took on a yellowish tint.

“It’s either a motorway café or a hypermarket,” Soneri said.

They stopped at another fork in the road. Everything around them was the colour of moscato wine. The engine was just turning over, allowing them to hear the rhythmic strains of a primitive, metallic music, heightened by the mooing and pawing of the bulls running free in the mist. When the commissario rolled down his window to look out, the interior filled with the acrid stench of burning. “Roasted tyres on the menu,” he said, swerving to the right in the direction the smell seemed to be coming from.

“We’re near the accident,” Juvara said.

“Smart deduction.”

“What about those bulls? Where did they come from?” the inspector said, apprehensive once more.

“Am I right in thinking that you suspect that they were on a lorry which crashed into another vehicle?” Soneri said in the same ironic tone as before. “Disasters can sometimes give rise to liberation.”

There were now black streaks in the mist, and the smell of burning was even more pungent. The commissario leaned forward and looked upwards through the windscreen. The sky had the appearance of a huge peroxide wig with darker patches. He turned to Juvara, who looked as amazed as a child in a fairground. Ahead of them a herd of pigs was clustered together, as though homesick for their sty. Meanwhile a horse, bringing its own aura of mystery, galloped past through the darkness which was now filled with plaintive animal cries.

“What’s this? Animal Farm?” Juvara said.

He was answered by a neighing sound somewhere in the surrounding darkness, but almost at the same time they became aware of a flickering brightness on their left which had the colour of a good Lambrusco. The sight disconcerted the commissario, who stopped the car.

“That’s carcasses burning,” Juvara said.

“That’s impossible. The autostrada should be on the far side.” It was the only thing he seemed sure of. He remained silent for a few moments, trying to get his bearings. He was lost and floundering, overwhelmed by memories of the days when he had walked those remote roads on the plain searching for isolated spots. The past was yet again taking hold of him and this time the memories were the names of girls with whom he had long since lost all contact.

He inched forward, and rolled down his window a little. He decided to follow the smell, as do animals on heat, as the bulls were doing at that moment in pursuit of the invisible. Shortly afterwards, over to his right, patches of more intense brightness appeared. The autostrada was indeed there, a long stretch of road indifferent to its burden of tragedies.

Soneri turned onto a track running alongside it and drove towards the fires. There was a little space on the footpath and he parked there among piles of rubble, broken tiles, waste paper and used handkerchiefs. Juvara too got out, but he stayed close to the car and kept the door open.

“Now what?” Soneri asked himself as he looked at the slope strewn with rubbish on the other side of the barrier. The inspector, continuing to look cautiously about him, made no reply.

The commissario walked a little further along the path. The flickering light of the fires, the dome of mist tinted with yellow, the bellowing of the stricken animals and music in the distance made the whole scene somewhat surreal. The countryside behind him was swarming with life not native to it, and he knew that ahead of him lay rows of crashed cars, and hanging over them was the pall of death, disturbed only by the coming and going of breakdown trucks and the sirens and flashing lights of the emergency services.

He turned back. “Call headquarters and tell them we’re on the spot. Ask them what we should do next.”

The inspector was only too pleased to get back to the car. “Sir, that fire …” he asked, leaning out the window and pointing to a bonfire on the far side.

“The gypsies, obviously,” Soneri said.

“They’re telling us to be patient and stay put until the police cars turn up,” the inspector told him. “Can you hear the fairground?”

“What fairground?”

“The one they’ve put up at the shopping mall behind the service station.”

“Ah, so that’s where the music’s coming from.”

“That’s right. A lot of people are going there.”

At that point, the barking of a dog could be heard above the animal chorus. The mist made it difficult to tell if the sound was coming from the slope or from ditches on the far side of the barrier.

“Another lost soul,” Soneri said.

“It must have been in one of the cars caught up in the crash,” Juvara said.

There was a call on the radio. Pasquariello, the head of the flying squad, wanted directions to find the commissario. A sudden gust of wind made the column of smoke change direction and the stench of burning tyres came through the open window. Juvara started coughing and threw open the car door to get a breath of fresh air.

“That’s how they flush out foxes,” Soneri said. He saw the inspector leap back into the car with unexpected agility. He turned and became aware of a bull’s head a couple of metres away. The beast’s snorts made it seem like a cartoon caricature, but this effect vanished when it opened its mouth, let its tongue hang out, arched its back and gave a roar that made the mist vibrate. The commissario was unsure if it was looking for food or wanted to mark off territory of its own, but Soneri remained there rooted to the spot, while Juvara, already inside the car, shouted to him to get in.

It all seemed to him unreal, a fairground scene like the one in the distance with the blaring musical background. There he was, confronting his own Minotaur, enveloped in a mist which had taken on the improbable colours of a showground. He heard Juvara’s imploring voice, but he stayed where he was, staring at the motionless beast, watching his own reflection in its large, resigned eyes. It lasted no more than a second; the bull lumbered away and vanished into the mist.

“Your shouting nearly got me gored, Juvara.”

“You take too many risks. It was about to charge you for real.”

“Always remember that animals are much less dangerous than human beings. A policeman is always more likely to be killed than a vet.”

Meanwhile the dog went on barking, the sound growing more shrill and irritating. “He’s really scared,” Juvara said.

“He’s afraid of the bulls, just like you.” As he spoke, headlights shone out ahead of them.

“Here come the police cars,” Juvara announced.

“We turned into a half dozen farmyards,” one of the officers said, getting out of his car.

“You’ve seen nothing yet. Your real troubles will start when you try to find your way back,” Soneri said, intending to be facetious but succeeding only in unsettling them.

“Where’s that dog?” snapped the man who seemed to be in charge of the detachment.

The commissario made a vague gesture, raising his hand and waving it about.“There’s no sign of gypsies,” the officer said.

In reply, Soneri pointed to the fire on the opposite side of the road. The officer in charge mumbled something before putting a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it. The commissario did the same with his cigar. They stood facing each other in silence until a loud moo came from very close by and another stray animal appeared, this time little more than a calf, as the commissario understood from the short horns.

“Fuck me!!” The commanding officer leapt to one side, pulling his Beretta from its holster.

“No need for that. It’ll do you no harm. Anyway, with this mist, there’s no knowing where the bullets will end up.”

The officer moved back towards the safety of his car. The bullock pawed the ground as though it was considering charging, but then changed its mind.

“If it sees you’re afraid, it might be tempted to rough you up a bit.”

The officer lowered his pistol only when he saw the beast trot off, but his hand was trembling as he replaced the weapon in its holster.

“Will I take the M12?” one of the policemen said, referring to the semi-automatic they had been issued with. His superior officer said no, but he appeared badly shaken. Soneri stared at him. “First time you’ve seen a bull?”

The officer shook his head. He was young, one of a generation who had received all its training in a police academy. Soneri was conscious of belonging to a different age, when a peasant world still existed and a bull did not seem such an alarming, extraordinary rarity. Before he had time to feel superannuated, the headlights of the second car shone on them.

“Will someone tell me why the fuck we’ve been sent to this godforsaken place?” shouted the new arrival.

“Because of the gypsies, Esposito,” his colleague reminded him.

“This is a jungle. We’ve got pigs, bulls, cows …”

“The world is full of pigs and cows,” a policeman said.

“But not of bulls,” Soneri said, cutting short the conversation.

“Commissario, can you tell me what we’re supposed to do even if the gypsies are looting things? I can’t even see the tips of my shoes,” Esposito said.

“You’d better ask Capuozzo,” the commissario said, plainly annoyed. “Drive up and down this road with the headlights full on, just so they know you’re here.”

The officer in charge was struggling to make out what was being said, because the dog was barking wildly.

“Fuck that bloody dog,” Esposito cursed. A new chorus of moos struck up, muffled by the mist.

“We should continue patrolling until fresh orders come through,” Soneri said.

The officers got back into their cars. In the yellow-streaked darkness, the disco music continued to blare out while the firefighters were in all probability dragging the dead and injured from the twisted metal. Soneri watched the flickering blue lamps of the police cars until they were swallowed up by the darkness. He was left on his own, a cigar in his mouth. From the direction of the autostrada he could hear a constant racket occasionally interrupted by the sound of a car accelerating away. From time to time the plain around him would come alive with some sudden agitation, animals running, chasing and perhaps facing blindly up to each other.

“Commissario!” He heard Juvara call out.

“What is it?” Soneri moved back to the car.

“I thought I heard someone running from the autostrada into the fields.”

Soneri stretched out his arms. “What are we supposed to do? Unless they run into us …” He stopped when he saw one of the squad cars coming towards them too quickly for a routine patrol. Esposito jumped out and ran towards the commissario, waving his arms in the air. “We’ve found a body, a badly burned body. I think it was one of those involved in the pile-up.”

Without saying a word, Soneri got into his car and followed them along the road. When he got out, the dog was barking nearby. Esposito switched on his torch and turned it onto a body, disfigured and mutilated by the flames, lying on the other side of the metal fence. There was a little Pomeranian of an indefinable colour two steps away, yelping loudly.

“Do you think he was its master?” Juvara said.

The commissario shook his head. “Normally they keep watch in silence. This one is trying to tell us something.”

“The accident happened right here. He must have been thrown from the car,” said one of the officers.

Soneri looked up towards the autostrada. He struggled to make out the wrecked cars, still in a long line, each one concertinaed into the one in front. A little further on, a burning tyre was giving out black smoke. “Maybe,” he said, but he did not sound convinced. He took the torch from Esposito’s hand and went over to the barrier, staring at that dead body whose features were now only vaguely recognisable as human.

“I don’t believe he was one of the motorists. We’d better call in the forensic squad. Be careful not to trample on anything. Cordon off the area around the body.”

Juvara trotted at his side as he made his way back to the car. “Do you really think … ?”

Soneri nodded. “That body was dumped there, but was burned somewhere else.”

He took out his mobile and dialled Nanetti’s number, leaving the inspector consumed with curiosity. “At the toll booth, go in the direction of the Asolana … you know, where Guido’s osteria used to be. No, before you get to the grain store,” he explained to his colleague, listing places which were no longer there.

When he hung up, Juvara tried to question him, but Esposito butted in. “We’ve taped the site off. Pasquariello is in the office and he says one car is enough if the situation is under control, but he said to check with you first.”

“One will do. Apart from anything else, if there was anything to steal, they’d have gone off with it before we turned up. Besides, it’s a secondary matter now,” he said gravely.

Juvara remained silent, reflecting on those last words. “Are you saying we were called out on a routine matter and discovered a murder?”

“Most things are a matter of chance,” Soneri said. “You ought to know that by now, seeing the number of years you’ve been with the force.”

They went back to where the corpse was and at that precise moment they heard a high-pitched cry, something between a scream and a groan, from a field nearby – enough to unnerve Esposito and his colleague. “Good God, what’s that?” Juvara exclaimed. “Not even in the wilderness …”

Soneri alone remained calm. The cry caused him no anxiety but reawoke in him old experiences of farmyards, frost and horseback rides at Christmas. It was a sound he recognised from his childhood and which at that moment resurfaced from the depths of hi. . .