River of Shadows: A Commissario Soneri Mystery (Commissario Soneri 1) Read Online Free Page A

Tonna perhaps being dead, but the thought had come into each one’s mind.
    “No barge can navigate four bridges on its own,” Ghezzi said, cutting short the discussion.
    Once again it was the radio which broke the silence. The order had been given to pile the newly filled sandbags near the embankments and alongside old coypu burrows.
    Barigazzi once again left the clubhouse, crossed the yard under the driving rain and climbed the embankment. The river had risen considerably in a few hours. The sandbank which separated the quay from midstream had been swallowed up, and the boats which were still tied up looked as restless as stallions. The town was afloat in a lake of lights oxidized by the wet weather. A few hours more and the fish would be swimming higher than the magpie nests. An immense pressure was building up against the embankment, stubbornly searching for some cavity. Barigazzi was making his way back to the club through sheets of driving rain, but first went back down to take another look at the stakes. The midnight marks were already deep underwater. The light from the club, battered by the driving rain, seemed like wisps of smoke or steam in the yard.
    The old man shook himself in the doorway before going in, relishing the warmth within. The radio was talking about Tonna. “They’ve lost sight of it … The light is out? … You think it’s the battery? … Ah! It flickered out … And now there is nothing to be seen? … The carabinieri have switched on floodlights near the Guastalla bridge. At other spots they’ve turned the headlights of their jeeps on to the river?”
    “The final curtain,” Vernizzi said.
    “Now they’ll turn their attention to the flooding.”
    The telephone rang again.
    “Yes, yes, we know that the light has gone out,” Gianna said. “You’re coming back? Barigazzi,” she said, looking over at him, “Barigazzi says it’ll run aground at the Luzzara bend … He says about three o’clock.”
    When she had hung up, she explained: “They’re going to the Guastalla bridge to watch it pass under the floodlights, then they’ll wait for it at Luzzara.”
    Barigazzi shrugged. “Now that the light’s gone off, they’ll leave him to his fate.”
    The radio repeated the news several times with maddening insistence. “Tonna’s barge is making its way downstream. It’s holding to the middle, but it seems the hand on the tiller is not exactly up to it … Yes, yes, I am telling you, the engine’s not running.”
    “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