Dark Valley by Valerio Varesi

Author:Valerio Varesi [Varesi, Valerio]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781906694333
Publisher: Maclehose
Published: 2005-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

7

“I’ll never understand what made you come to this place,” Angela said, as she got out of her car and looked around, still unsure of herself in the dark.

“It wasn’t a wonderful idea, I have to admit,” Soneri said.

“So move on. You’re on holiday, not in custody.”

At which the commissario, plainly uncomfortable, stretched out his arms.

“Oh God, is this you at it again, struggling with ghosts from the past? You manage to get free of the big chief in the office, but fetch up under an even more thuggish boss.” Angela gave him a hug, but Soneri remained impassive. “When I first met you, you never thought about the past. You were too caught up in your work.”

“Maybe that’s why the past weighs so heavily on me now. I feel the years grinding me down. Sometimes I think I’m without memory and I’ve wasted too much time on pointless things.”

“You’ll waste even more if you go on thinking that way. It’ll do you no good at all.”

“I regret everything I didn’t say, and all the time I could have spent with my father.”

Angela sighed but, guessing at what lay behind Soneri’s mood, she went on, “Never mind all these rumours. They’re nearly always malicious lies.”

This time it was Soneri who embraced her, with feeling, holding the cigar away from her. But as he was kissing her, Dolly’s wet nose rubbed against the hand at his side with the cigar between his fingers.

“Don’t tell me you’ve acquired a dog. You’re getting more and more like a maiden aunt.”

“It was she who acquired me. She was Paride’s dog.”

“It’s either her or me,” Angela said, in a tone of playful jealousy.

“I’m going to take her back to her owner tomorrow. It’ll be the second time.”

“She obviously adores you.”

“I’m not the right man for her. She’s already suffered one loss, and I don’t want to put her through another one.”

“Definitely not, but she ran away to be with you again.”

Soneri determined not to grow too fond of Dolly, but he could not help patting her gently.

“Anyway, Angela, tell me about the Rodolfis’ lawyer.”

“The situation is more serious than anyone realised.”

“Isn’t every situation?”

“Paride and his accountants have been getting away with false accounting for years. The balance sheets were just so much fluff. In some cases, they invented credit by fabricating phoney documents and then using them as collateral for more borrowings. The thing came unstuck when they couldn’t redeem a parcel of bonds that fell due. They won a little time by making out that there was a fund where they had assets stashed away, but when that turned out to be a fiction, the whole house of cards collapsed.”

“And nobody had a clue. Not even the banks,” Soneri said sarcastically

“They couldn’t care less. They’ve loaded the majority of the debts onto the savers by selling them junk bonds.”

“Who’s investigating this mess?”

“The guardia di finanza, but it’s hard to find the way through an accountancy labyrinth where legal and illegal operations overlap. There’s no telling how big the final black hole will be.

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