River of Shadows

by Valerio Varesi, Joseph Farrell

Genres: International Crime & Mystery; Police Procedurals

Synopsis

Introducing Commissario Soneri - Italy's answer to Inspector Maigret - and shortlisted for the C.W.A. International Dagger, River of Shadows is a brooding, visceral crime novel packed with atmosphere and tension. "A master storyteller" Barry Forshaw, Independent A relentless deluge lashes the Po Valley, and the river itself swells beyond its limits. A barge breaks free of its moorings and drifts erratically downstream; when finally it runs aground its seasoned pilot is nowhere to be found. The following day, an elderly man of the same surname falls from the window of a nearby hospital. Commissario Soneri, scornful of his superiors' scepticism, is convinced the two incidents are linked. Stonewalled by the bargemen who make their living along the riverbank, he scours the floodplain for clues. As the waters begin to ebb, the river yields up its secrets: tales of past brutality, bitter rivalry and revenge.

Release date: September 1, 2011

Publisher: MacLehose Press

Print pages: 295

Sample

A STEADY DOWNPOUR descended from the skies. The big lamp over the boatman’s clubhouse, put there as a beacon for the dredgers which navigate by memory, in the dark, could hardly be made out through the raindrops bouncing off the main embankment alongside the river.

“Foul weather,” Vernizzi said.

“And no sign of a let-up,” Torelli said, without raising his head.

The two had been sitting facing each other over a game of briscola which showed no sign of reaching a conclusion.

“How high has it risen?” Vernizzi said.

“Twenty centimetres in three hours,” said the other, keeping his eyes on the cards.

“By morning the waters will have covered the sandbank.”

“And the current will be tugging at the moorings.”

There were games at all four tables, but play was more desultory than usual since the rain and the rising river were distracting the boatmen. At intervals they could hear the groan of the capstan at the nearby jetty as someone laboured to haul the hulls of the boats out of the river. The continuous dripping of the rain, splashing gently, sounding like a man peeing against a wall, was an undertone. It was the fourth day of rain, falling at first with the fury of a summer storm and then with greater persistence. Now a kind of mist was descending and a breeze was gently ruffling the surface of the pools of water outside the clubhouse. Old Barigazzi appeared at the doorway, his hat and oilskin running with water. A draft of cold air swept across the room, and behind the bar Gianna shivered.

“Did you put your stakes in?” Vernizzi asked him.

Barigazzi nodded, hanging up his dripping outer garments.

“It’s up another three centimetres,” he announced as he moved over to the bar where Gianna had already filled a glass for him. “If it carries on at this rate, it’ll be on the first of the floodplains during the night,” he said in the tone of a man thinking aloud. No-one said a word. No-one ever took issue with Barigazzi, who knew the river like the back of his hand.

From outside there came the dull thud of a wooden object crashing into something. Everyone jumped to their feet. It felt as though the river had reached the wall of the clubhouse and carried away the bicycles from the shelter next door. It was then that they noticed the massive outline of Tonna’s barge, square enough to resemble a sluice gate raised up on the surface of the water.

No-one had noticed its arrival, except for Barigazzi. “He’s come from Martignana,” he said. “With a cargo of wheat for the mill.”

Tonna was more than eighty years old, most of them spent working the river. Not long before, against the day when he would have to tie up for good, they had persuaded him to take on his grandson, but the boy soon got bored. Weary of the solitude, he had abandoned his grandfather, leaving him to spend his nights alone on the river.

“Water above and water below,” Torelli said, pointing to the barge.

“He must have blue mould on his jacket. He’s more at home in wet weather than Noah,” Vernizzi said.

“Have they finished pulling up the boats?”

“They’ve winched up four of them,” Barigazzi said, peering through the window, from where he could just make out Tonna’s barge. “They want to keep them close to the houses because they’re sure the water’s going to come right up to the main embankment.”

Barigazzi sat down, collapsing heavily on to a seat, and the others went back to shuffling the cards. It was around eleven o’clock, and in the club there was not a sound to be heard apart from the constant drip from the rafters. From time to time, the light swayed about. The barge was still moored to the jetty, its cables strong enough to withstand the swollen current. Dark objects passed by on the surface of the river. From their tables, the men could see the doorway of the look-out post, where a radio crackled. A volunteer from the club was doing the emergency shift. In such weather, the men would take turns all through the night. Every so often, someone would pick up the microphone to speak to the others on watch along both banks of the river. They exchanged information and forecasts about the flooding.

“Is it rising fast up there? What’s that you said? Already into the poplar wood?”

Barigazzi went back outside to check the stakes: an hour had passed. When he returned, a dark light from the jetty filtered in under the door.

“Is Tonna setting off now?”

“Wouldn’t put it past him,” Vernizzi said. “He knows the river well.”

They all turned to look at the barge. The only light came from the cabin, but there was no way of knowing if there was anyone moving about inside.

“He can’t be going,” Vernizzi broke in. “He’d have put on his navigation lights fore and aft.”

The light went out and Barigazzi closed the door slowly on the incessant rain.

“What’s going on?” Gianna said.

“It’s coming up like coffee percolating, eight centimetres,” the old man said.

There was no reaction at all. Everyone’s thoughts seemed fixed on the light in Tonna’s cabin. The only one who appeared uninterested was Gianna, who continued to move among the tables in her working jacket, her upper body looking as though perched awkwardly on her thighs. “If we went down to take a look, he might well lose his rag,” she warned.

“He’s left the gangway down. Could he be expecting someone?” Torelli said.

“It’s always left down because of his grandson,” Barigazzi said. “He sometimes comes back at the strangest times.”

“Eight centimetres, repeat eight centimetres,” the shift worker shouted into the microphone. “And still rising there? That’s some flood. And it’s still raining. You what? … Have you sent word to the prefettura? … Did you say that we should get in touch with them as well?”

A car was coming along the embankment road and turned towards the clubhouse. For a few seconds, its headlights shone through the window, swinging round the walls one after the other. Moments later the door was opened and at the same time the light in the cabin of the barge came back on. Two men in uniform, evidently soaked to the skin, walked to the bar. They looked around nervously, feeling themselves under observation, until Gianna – with what sounded like an order – said: “Take a seat.”

They did as they were told. They took out a Flood Warning notice with instructions on the procedure to be followed in the event of the water coming up to the main embankment. “You might put this up somewhere,” one of them said.

Old Barigazzi jerked his head back. “You’ve been sent here to teach the fish how to swim?”

The men looked at each other uncomprehendingly: they were numb with cold and ill at ease.

“We’ll put it here, O.K.?” Gianna resolved the problem by sticking the notice to a board where the fishing calendar was normally fixed. She gave the adhesive a firm slap.

“Do you think we don’t know what to do?” Barigazzi said.

The two men sipped their grappa, but no-one in the room paid them any more attention. They were all watching the light in the barge, even though there was no sign of life in the cabin. A faint light was now falling across the prow, where TONNA in large letters could be made out.

The officers got to their feet.

“You do know the water is rising at eight centimetres an hour?”

“The emergency squad will attend to it.”

They seemed to be quite unaccustomed to the appalling weather and gave every impression of wanting to be on their way. Their trousers were drenched at the turn-ups, their light shoes were sodden and their overcoats were dotted with so many raindrops that they looked to be covered in frost.

Barigazzi scrutinized them, smiling complacently: “Well, you may as well know that nothing like this has happened for ten years, and the last time things didn’t go too smoothly.”

“The prefetto is ready to sign an evacuation order.”

“He can sign what he likes. We’re not evacuating. We’re not scared of the water. It’s better than the roads around here …”

Shortly after, the officers set off, going gingerly in second gear in the direction of the main road. Their headlights picked out the tumbling sheets of rain. Thousands of litres per second, reducing the land to a marshy waste, and under that slow curse the light in the barge cabin came on again.

“Either he’s having bad dreams or else he can’t get to sleep,” Vernizzi said.

“It’s that grandson of his,” Torelli said. “Maybe he’s just got back and the old man is bawling him out.”

“I doubt it.” It was Gianna who interrupted. “They hardly talk, they communicate through sign language. With this weather, I have an idea that the boy’ll be keeping well away from the river.”

“Well then, the old bugger’s got muddled. He’s setting off.”

“At this time? That means navigating all night in the fog.”

“And staying awake, like on guard duty,” Gianna muttered.

Barigazzi stared at her reprovingly. “The water’s high and that keeps you away from the sandbanks. There’s no traffic on a night like this. And Tonna knows what he’s up to.”

More than half an hour had gone by, so he went out again to check the stakes.

Meantime the radio continued broadcasting messages from up and down the river. “The tributaries are like torrents. It’s overflowing at some points. They’ve started evacuating? Where?”

In the room, they followed the radio, interrupting the game when some fresh item of news came through. A lamp flickered on the yard outside, before fading out. It was Ghezzi, leaving his bicycle in the shelter. “The lorry with the sandbags has arrived,” he came in to tell them. “The mayor has sent the officers around the houses to tell the families to prepare for evacuation.”

“He’s off his head,” Torelli spluttered. “Nobody’s going to move before the water is lapping around their front doors.”

“Well, Tonna’s cast off,” Vernizzi told them, looking out in the direction of the quay.

The barge looked even more imposing. At that moment, it gave the impression of light buoyancy, pitching slightly as it manoeuvred out into midstream, slipping slowly away from its mooring, straddling the current briefly as it hesitantly left the quay before getting on its way, carried effortlessly off by the flow.

“Still no navigation lights,” Torelli said, pointing to the cabin light, just visible in the seconds before the barge reached the middle of the river.

“Tonna’s getting on a bit,” Vernizzi cut him off sharply. “Did you not see the manoeuvre he’s just done? He wanted to rely on the wind to get him out and he nearly crashed his prow into the sandbank. He was saved by the flood.”

Nobody added anything and in the silence all that could be heard was the radio giving out more data on the water levels. “It’s coming over the floodplains … They’re going to have to open the channels to reduce pressure … They’re filling the sandbags …“

Everything alongside the river was in a ferment, while it itself seemed to be flowing peacefully in the night. There was no other movement apart from the incessant downpour. Barigazzi remained silent, his eyes fixed on the middle of the Po where the barge had moved off into the distance. Now he could see only its three-quarter outline and the light still shining in the cabin. The old man made a gesture of bewilderment or disbelief with his hand. The only sound was the unending crackling of the radio.

“He went off like a piece of wood tossed into the current,” Torelli said.

“It looked as though it was the current that carried him off,” Ghezzi said.

“A coypu burrow? Whereabouts? Letting water through? Is anyone working on it? You’ll need to place the sandbags where the embankment is lowest …” The radio dialogue went on, interrupted only by an electrostatic crackle.

“Tell him that Tonna has set off,” Vernizzi shouted to the boy who was operating the radio.

The boy picked up the microphone to let all the stations down the valley know that the barge would be passing. At that moment they became aware that Barigazzi was not there. Gianna made a gesture with her chin indicating the jetty. “He went out,” she said. “He’s away again to check his stakes.”

Torelli looked at the clock. “Is he checking them every quarter of an hour now?”

The sudden brightness of headlights told them that a car pulling a trailer with a boat hoisted on to it was passing along the muddy road under the main embankment, proceeding slowly, lighting up the raindrops as it went.

“Taking it home,” Ghezzi said.

“In weather like this, it’ll be more use in the back-yard than at the jetty,” Vernizzi said.

“He’s taking his time,” Torelli said, referring to Barigazzi.

“If he keeps going out to check and cut notches in them, all he’ll do is cause confusion,” Gianna said. “Another round?” She raised the bottle.

The Fortana was held aloft for a few seconds like San Rocco in a procession, but no-one replied. It was as if they had become aware only then of the oddness of Barigazzi’s absence.

“It’s a long time till dawn,” Torelli said, staring out at the impenetrable darkness. He was trying to imagine how far Tonna would have got on his journey down the river. He might already be at Casalmaggiore, and perhaps could see the lights of the dredgers swaying as they were buffeted by the relentless rainfall.

Barigazzi came back in without a word. He sat down and turned to look at the jetty where until a little while ago the barge had been.

“Any higher?” Vernizzi said.

The old boatman made no reply. He raised himself to his feet, supporting himself with both hands on the table, and then went over to the boy working the radio.

“Can you give the alarm with that, or is it better to use the telephone?”

The boy gave Barigazzi a puzzled look, deeply unsure of what to do next.

“Do you mean Tonna?” Torelli said.

Barigazzi nodded. “He set off as though he had hot coals up his arse. He threw off the gangplank sideways, and left a rope on the quay. I’ve never seen him do that before.”

“What did I tell you?” Vernizzi said. “That was not a manoeuvre, whatever else it was.”

“Nobody saw if he was working down there on the quay.”

Torelli stared out with the look of a man taking aim at bowls. “We couldn’t see him from here,” he said. “Not in this dark …”

“The rope looks to have been sliced through, cleanly, with a knife.”

“Keep a look-out for barge, already subject of warning,” the boy said into his microphone. “Danger to shipping: more than two hundred tons afloat … The way he cast off aroused suspicion … Tonna knows his business, but this time … Repeat, no navigation lights, only a cabin light, and in this weather … He set off without engine … Problem steering by helm alone …”

“If he bangs into the column of a bridge, he could bring the whole thing down,” Vernizzi said.

“If he gets stuck and the barge turns into a dam, the current will capsize him,” Barigazzi said. “The river’s really high now, and you need your wits about you.”

Vernizzi was on the telephone to the carabinieri, but the conversation sounded unduly laborious. “Maresciallo, I’m telling you I have no idea whether Tonna was actually on the barge. Certainly, you need someone who knows what he’s about, or else … We saw the light going on and off twice, then the barge moved into midstream … Was he there? Obviously someone had to be there … That’s right, the ropes were thrown ashore any old way …” He hung up almost in a sweat. “The maresciallo says there are only two of them on duty,” he informed the company. “They all go home for All Souls. He’ll alert the stations along the way.”

Ghezzi looked out at the enormous sheet of water and felt almost afraid. “Where will he be by now?”

“Maybe at the mouth of the Enza,” Barigazzi said. “If my boat were in decent shape, I’d go after him. Maybe I’d manage to draw alongside …”

“I don’t think we’d find anything good,” Barigazzi murmured.

No-one spoke. The black waters of the swollen river were flowing ever more rapidly, and the sandbank in the middle of the river was all but submerged. It was hard to see far beyond the moorings, but in the liquid darkness the impression was that the great basin, altogether visible in the days of low water, was already overflowing. The water level was just below their line of vision. It was possible to observe the current from above only from the main embankment itself, and the town alongside the river, with a vast mass of water looming threateningly over the houses, gave every appearance of being already inundated.

Several cars arrived and a dozen or so young men came in to ask what had happened to Tonna. They listened, then made their way back out, letting in a gust of damp air. They would follow the boat from the embankment in their cars, they said they could go faster than the current. By now the barge had made the flood a matter of secondary interest.

“Yes, I’m here … Are you sure? He hit the railway bridge? A quarter of an hour ago?”

Silence fell. There was no need for the boy to repeat what he was being told. Everyone instinctively grasped the situation.

“It’s what I was saying. He hasn’t even got as far as Reggio,” Barigazzi spluttered. “The riverbed widens there and the water is more sluggish.”

“The way things are going, they must have sounded the alarm all the way downstream to Mantua,” Vernizzi said.

A couple of car doors slammed shut, and the vehicles set off at speed up the embankment. In the beam of the headlights, the rain looked to be heavier still.

“If there’s a hole in the hull …” Ghezzi said hesitantly, “Tonna’s done for. He’s food for the pike.”

“With all the wheat he has in the hold, they’ll be flocking down all the way from Piedmont.”

“It was only a bump,” Barigazzi said. “It’s a tough old craft. If it goes into a spin, he’s in big trouble. It all depends on the rudder. And on the grip of whoever’s on the tiller.”

“If it starts spinning, the game’s up. The first bridge he hits side on, he’s going to get jammed, and he’ll be pulled under,” Torelli said.

“With some bridges, you only need to nudge the prow against them. With all the weight that’s aboard, he’ll bring the columns down on top of him,” the old boatman said.

“He’s passing in front of the mouth of the Enza,” the radio operator informed them.

“Let’s hope the extra current doesn’t push him over to the Lombard side,” Barigazzi said, as he peered into the emptiness by the jetty.

The conversation drifted on, one guess after another, each man in his mind’s eye going over that stretch of water which Tonna would have reached by then. Beneath it all lay one more troubling thought, as insistent as the rain which continued to fall or as the current which dragged everything in its wake. Finally it was Vernizzi who gave voice to a doubt which seemed dictated by a will not his own: “But he set off in such a great rush, and with that crazy manoeuvre …”

There followed a long silence, broken only by the sound of water dripping from the roof beams, until Gianna said: “Maybe it wasn’t Tonna at the helm.”

“It’s most certainly not like Tonna to collide with bridges …” Barigazzi said, his voice trailing off.

No-one drew any conclusions. Everything was so confused. The telephone rang: it was one of the youths who had gone off in a car. “Every town is on the look-out and a lot of people have climbed the embankment to watch the barge careering past,” he whispered into Vernizzi’s ear.

“You saw it?”

“Yeah, a short while ago. It seemed out of control, swinging about crazily, sometimes listing to one side, but the current’s keeping it on course. You can see where the paint came off on the side where it hit the bridge.”

“Is the cabin light still on?”

“Yes, still on. When the barge comes close to the bank, you can see in, but it’s hard to make anything out. Somebody said they had seen a man at the helm, but I don’t think there’s anyone there.”

Barigazzi sat calmly, absorbed in his own thoughts, resting his head on his left hand, going over the course of the river as though he could see it from Tonna’s bow. He imagined where it was at that moment, he saw the bridges looming out of the night, dark skeletons afloat on the immensity of the current. The conversation on the radio broadly confirmed his hypotheses.

“The carabinieri have what? … Closed all the bridges as far as Revere? The only one open is the railway bridge? They’re ready to suspend all shipping?”

“He won’t knock into anything,” Barigazzi murmured, who seemed to be elsewhere.

“He’ll crash into the iron arches at Pontelagoscuro,” Vernizzi said. “But in that case it’ll be tomorrow around mid-day before we get to hear about it.”

Silence fell again in the room. And they became aware of the rain falling even more heavily on the tiles.

Barigazzi was shaking his head, in the manner of the horses in the Po valley. “He’ll never get near Ferrara. Tonna will avoid the delta in these conditions. He’ll stop before then.”

Meantime, the telephone had rung again and Gianna was in conversation with the young men who were tracking the barge. “When? … One o. . .