Gold, Frankincense and Dust Read online

  “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 his memory as a recognition. “It’s nothing to be alarmed about. There’s another death, but this time it’s only a pig.”

  Esposito and Juvara looked incredulously at each other. “So who did it?” they said, almost in chorus and in the stern tones of an interrogating policeman.

  “By a process of simple deduction, I’d say it must have been the gypsies. There’s no-one else in the vicinity.”

  “I thought they were all Muslims,” Esposito said.

  “The majority are one hundred per cent Italian,” Soneri said in a tone of reproof. The ignorance of fellow officers on issues on which they should have been properly briefed always astonished him, but just then a car drew up to take their minds off pigs and gypsies. The forensic squad had arrived.

  “One day you’re going to get in touch with some good news,” were Nanetti’s first words as he got out his car. “You’re lucky I know this zone, otherwise we’d have been looking at this corpse tomorrow morning.”

  “We’re the only ones who know this territory,” the commissario said, as though confiding in an old comrade.

  “I know what you mean. We’re ready to be put out to grass.”

  “The correct term is care home,” Soneri laughed. “That’s what Capuozzo calls it, and he means care of the mind.”

  “His,” Nanetti shot back, giving him the V sign. “Anyway, are you sure this isn’t somebody who got battered about in the crash?” he asked, pointing to the autostrada.

  “First a car crashes, then it catches fire. If someone is thrown onto the road, he escapes the fire, doesn’t he?”

  Nanetti nodded, but he could not hide a certain exasperation at the commissario’s ostentatious display of logic.

  “Perhaps the car went up in flames, and perhaps this poor soul tried to escape from the fire which was already engulfing him and ended up here. But in that case, he would have rolled about on the grass and there would have been some traces. Those paper hankies and those bottles, for instance, they would have been blackened or at least there would be some mark on them, no? And the grass would have been scorched, wouldn’t it?”

 
Nanetti ran his torch up and down the slope and had to agree that there was no trace of all the things the commissario had listed. He let out a groan and said, “I’m afraid you’re right. O.K., let’s cut the fence and search the ground, then we can carry off the body when we get authorisation from the magistrate. The autopsy will be the real test.”

  “By the way, who’s the on-duty magistrate?” Soneri asked.

  “We’re in luck: it’s Dottoressa Marcotti. You know how good she is.”

  “Excellent. We’ll not have to waste time spelling out the totally obvious.” Soneri went towards his car, signalling to Juvara to follow him. The two men were walking along the autostrada barrier when they heard a deep groan, sounding as though it were produced by bronchial tubes clogged up with catarrh. The sound was accompanied by something frantically pawing the ground, and they found themselves face to face with an enormous, rotating mass topped by a majestic pair of horns. A bull and a cow were coupling on the road, almost knocking down the iron railing of a little bridge.

  Juvara looked on, in part troubled and in part excited by the sight. The commissario was amused to see that Juvara was so engrossed that there was no trace of fear on his face.

  “Cheers!” Soneri said to the inspector, who seemed hypnotised. He could not tear himself away even when the bull got down from the cow’s back, quivering, his head lowered, his great detumescent penis dangling and almost touching the surface of the road.

  “Is that the same one we saw before?” Juvara wanted to know, finally getting a grip of himself.

  “Of course it is. Can’t you tell from its balls?”

  “Seriously?”

  The commissario gave him a nudge. “How the hell should I know? It certainly doesn’t look like a limousin. It lacks class.”

  At that moment, the cow arched its back and peed loudly on the road.

  “Usually it’s the male who does that afterwards.” The inspector had a beatific smile on his face, as though it was he himself who had just been making love.

  “So, I hope you picked up something there. Anyway, it’s time to go.”

  The two beasts had disappeared. The mist was still all around them and Juvara seemed hopeful that another miraculous vision would emerge. On Soneri, however, that unexpected juxtaposition of past and present created in him a kind of alienation. He was in the Lower Po valley and in a familiar mist, but somehow it all seemed unreal to him, a caricature of what was imprinted on his memory.

  He started up the engine and inched forward into the dense wall of mist. “And they called this road the Autostrada del Sole,” muttered Juvara at his side.

  2

  FOR ABOUT A quarter of an hour they circled round the bonfire which was blazing in the distance like an unattainable sun.

  “Where is this road?” Soneri said, growing impatient.

  “You’re not really planning to go to the gypsy place, are you?” Juvara said in alarm.

  “Why not? Calm down, they’re not as bad as the bulls.”

  “But there’s only the two of us …”

  “Nothing’s going to happen. These are not aggressive people.”

  “If you say so.”

  “How come you’re so prejudiced? You’re scared of animals, but bodies burned by the roadside have no effect on you. You’re afraid of gypsies and yet you hang out in discos filled with thugs with knives in their pockets, drugged to the eyeballs.”

  The inspector gazed at him as though the thought had never occurred to him. “I suppose it’s a matter of habit …”

  “No, it’s simply that people are fearful of the unknown. Anyway, let me introduce you to them.”

  He drove on for a few minutes but the camp and the fire seemed to keep changing position. After a bit, he turned the car round and went back the way he had come. Thirty seconds later, the headlights lit up a white, rusting sign on which it was just possible to make out the word: DUMP.

  “This has to be it,” the commissario said, turning into the site.

  Juvara remained silent and impassive as he watched Soneri manoeuvre the car and drive up towards some huge metal dustbins filled with rubbish. A group of children emerged and ran off in all directions. The two men drove on towards the fire, around which at least twenty people were seated, feasting. A side of pork with some meat still on the bones was hanging from a kind of trestle.

  “You see now who is more dangerous?” Soneri asked ironically, pointing to the slaughtered animal.

  Their appearance among the caravans had brought the barbecue to a halt. All eyes were trained on the commissario and inspector. An age-old distrust was evident on the faces of all those present, giving a chill to the scene. For a few seconds the only sound to be heard was the crackling of the fire, but then a middle-aged man with a floppy Borsalino cap and a tight-fitting jacket came over to them, stopping a few feet in front of Soneri and making a enquiring gesture with his chin.

  “Police,” Soneri said, with every appearance of calm. Juvara took up a position one step behind, watchful and wary.

  “If you’re here about the pig …” the gypsy began, but stopped as he saw the policeman shake his head.

  “I couldn’t care less about the pig,” Soneri said. “God rest his soul,” he added, smiling over at the remains attached to the hook.

  “Well then?” The gypsy stretched out his arms.

  “How long have you been here?”

  The man turned towards the others to seek help. “Must be a couple of months now. Look, we’ve got nothing to do with any thefts. We killed this pig because it was already injured. It was losing blood and would have died in any case. It was trying to force its way in everywhere, even into our caravans.”

  “Served it right, then,” Soneri said sarcastically. “Anyway, I’m not accusing you of having stolen …”

  “You always do. Every time something goes missing, it’s always our fault.”

  Soneri turned and saw that a group of boys had gathered round his car. The man shouted out something in an incomprehensible dialect and they all scarpered.

  “Someone was burned to death by the autostrada …” he began again, approaching the topic warily.

  “Two people. That’s what we heard. We went along to take a look, but the traffic police told us to go away. We only wanted to see if we could give a hand, but we got the usual stuff – only there to rob and steal, and all that. So they can get on with it themselves. There were other people doing the stealing,” he said with a snigger.

  “I wasn’t talking about those who died when their cars went up in flames after the accident. There was a burned body at the side of the road, but that one had nothing to do with the pile-up.”

  The man turned back to the group with an expression of bewilderment. “And what does that have to do with us?”

  “I don’t think it has anything to do with you, but you might have seen something.”

  “In this mist?”

  “It was light during the day.”

  “Yes, but if someone’s going to commit murder, he’s not going to do it in broad daylight.”

  Some of the group had started eating again, having lost interest in the conversation. Mandolin music, evoking a distant land, came from some of the caravans.

  “I mean, maybe a car drew up, opened its boot and …” Soneri insisted.

  The man stretched out his arms again. “I didn’t see a thing.”

  “Make one more effort. Ask them all. There’s always somebody who sees something, but pays no heed to the one thing that turns out to be really important for us.” As he finished, the commissario stretched out his hand and gave a smile of understanding.

  The gypsy leader shook hands, relieved the visit was going to be over without too many complications. “I’m Omar Manservisi,” he said, but his voice was drowned in the roar of a clapped-out car shooting off at speed down the road away from the camp. All the gypsies exchanged glances which Soneri could not interpret. Manservisi too became suddenly serious, but only for
a moment.

  “Did you catch sight of that car?” he asked Juvara as they set off.

  “I only got the first half of the number plate, AB 32. There was another figure and two letters.”

  “Do you know the make?”

  “An old Citroen XM, at least twenty years old.”

  “It seemed in a hurry.”

  “And in this mist …”

  They passed the bins again and turned onto a side road. The commissario took a wide turn and one wheel bumped against the kerb, making the car shudder. The inspector jumped too. “Apart from the mist, they go and build these raised roads along the side of the canals,” he said uneasily.

  “It’s because of the flooding; it lets you move about.”

  “Maybe so, but it’s like a rodeo.”

  “There’re bulls there too.”

  “Are you sure this is the right road?” the inspector said shortly afterwards.

  “No,” Soneri replied with a touch of anxiety in his voice, leaving the inspector in suspense. He realised as he spoke that he was not on the road he had taken on the way there. He had made a turning to follow the wheel tracks of the car which had sped out of the camp. It was all a matter of instinct.

  “So where are we going?” Juvara asked.

  “Let’s go on a tour of the Lower Po Valley. Is that not a lovely idea? Try to imagine there’s a girl here beside you instead of me.”

  The inspector made no reply and for a moment Soneri was afraid he had offended him. He would rather Angela had been there. It would have been more amusing with her and he would have enjoyed needling her.

  “You see that?” said the inspector, pointing ahead.

  “What?”

  “Someone went onto the grass and nearly ended up in a ditch.”

  A wavy line in the mud marked the way forward for about a hundred metres.

  “Do you think it happened only recently?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “One of those bulls was most likely involved.”

  The commissario said nothing, but accelerated slightly, cutting confidently through the mist. He gripped the steering wheel tightly, ready to swerve. Shortly afterwards, the flashing blue lights of a police car made him draw up.