A Fine Line E-Book

Gianrico Carofiglio

• Herausgeber: Bitter Lemon Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Guido Guerrieri
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 387

Beschreibung

“A Fine Line is a terrific novel, a legal thriller that is also full of complex meditations on the life of the lawyer and the difficult compromises inherent in any system of criminal justice. A book that is intensely rewarding at many levels." Scott Turow The fifth in the best-selling Guido Guerrieri series. When Judge Larocca is accused of corruption, Guerrieri goes against his better instincts and takes the case. Helped by Annapaola Doria, a motorbike-riding bisexual private detective who keeps a baseball bat on hand for sticky situations, he investigates the alleged links to the mafia. Of course Guerrieri cannot stop himself from falling for Annapaola's exotic charms. The novel is a suspenseful legal thriller but it is also much more. It is the story of a judge who, to quote Dostoevsky, "lies to himself and listens to his own lies, so gets to the point where he can no longer distinguish the truth, either in himself or around himself."

Leseprobe

Award-winning, bestselling novelist Gianrico Carofiglio was born in Bari in 1961 and worked for many years as a prosecutor specializing in organized crime. He was appointed advisor of the anti-Mafia committee in the Italian parliament in 2007 and served as a senator from 2008 to 2013. Carofiglio is best known for the Guido Guerrieri crime series: Involuntary Witness, A Walk in the Dark, Reasonable Doubts, Temporary Perfections and now A Fine Line, all published by Bitter Lemon Press. His other novels include The Silence of the Wave. Carofiglio’s books have sold more than four million copies in Italy and have been translated into twenty-four languages worldwide.

Also available from Bitter Lemon Press by Gianrico Carofiglio

Involuntary Witness

A Walk in the Dark

Reasonable Doubts

Temporary Perfections

The Silence of the Wave

BITTER LEMON PRESS

First published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by

Bitter Lemon Press, 47 Wilmington Square, London WC1X 2ET

www.bitterlemonpress.com

First published in Italian as La regola dell’equilibrio

by Giulio Einaudi editore, 2014

© Gianrico Carofiglio, 2014

English translation © Howard Curtis, 2016

This edition published by arrangement with Rosaria Carpinelli Consulenze Editoriali srl.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher

The moral rights of the author and the translator have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

eBook ISBN: 978–1–908524–62–1

Typeset by Tetragon, London

Printed and bound by Cox & Wyman Ltd. Reading, Berkshire

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Note

1

It was around the tenth of April. The air was cool and clean. A fragrant breeze, rare for this city, was blowing, and the sun spattered liquid light over us and the grey façade of the courthouse. Carmelo Tancredi and I were standing near the entrance, chatting.

“Sometimes I think about quitting,” I said, leaning against the wall. The plaster was flaking, and a spider’s web of small cracks spread worryingly upwards.

“Quitting what?” Tancredi asked, taking his cigar from his mouth.

“The law.”

“Are you kidding?”

I shrugged. At that moment, two judges passed. They didn’t notice me, and I was pleased I didn’t have to greet them.

“Do you know them?” I said, nodding towards the glass door behind which the judges had just disappeared.

“Ciccolella and Longo? I know who they are, but I wouldn’t say I know them. I once had to testify in court before Ciccolella, but it was all over pretty quickly.”

“A few days ago, I was in a lift with Ciccolella. There were also two trainees and that female lawyer who always dresses as if she’s on her way to a Chinese New Year party.”

Tancredi laughed. He knew immediately who I was talking about. “Nardulli.”

“That’s right, Nardulli. She’s weird but she’s a good person, I find her almost endearing. She defends all kinds of hopeless cases for free.”

“True. Whenever we need a public defender and can’t find anyone, she always shows willing, even when there’s no money in it for her. So what happened?”

“The lift reaches the ground floor and I step aside to let her pass – she was the only woman there. She’s just about to get out, tottering on those ridiculous heels, when Ciccolella barges past her, almost knocking her down, then looks at her for a few seconds and cries Avvocato! in an angry tone, as if to say: you should have moved aside, you shouldn’t even have tried to go before me. I’m a judge, in case you didn’t know. Then he turns and walks off without saying goodbye to anyone.”

“Nice man.”

“He did it on purpose, barging into her like that. I felt really bad. I should have intervened, told him that was no way to behave, that he’d been rude. But of course I didn’t. Just brooded over it later. In the office, they saw me talking to myself at least three times that day. That’s happening increasingly often.”

“Your clients know you’re crazy anyway. What came out of these broodings of yours? Is ‘broodings’ even a word?”

“I don’t think so.”

A police car drew up, and two suspicious-looking guys got out, greeted Tancredi, who replied with a nod, and went inside.

“I was thinking how different it was before,” I resumed, “how there wasn’t that rudeness, that level of vulgarity when I started, more than twenty years ago. I seemed to remember that relations in the profession were less brutal, less… yes, vulgar’s the word. Then I stopped and pinched myself. I told myself I was going soft, doing what I’d always found pathetic in other people.”

“Feeling nostalgic?”

“That’s right. Feeling nostalgia for the past as if it were a golden age. Missing your own youth even though when you were in the middle of it you thought everything was terrible. You know the opening of that novel by Paul Nizan: ‘I was twenty. I won’t allow anyone to say that these are the best years of our lives.’”

“I know the quotation, but I haven’t read the book. What did you say the author’s name was?”

“Paul Nizan, a French writer.”

I shifted a little, sliding along the wall so as to get the sun on my face. I looked for the most comfortable position I could find to support myself and half-closed my eyes.

“Sometimes I think about when I used to imagine what would happen to me in the future. Travel, graduation, marriage, my first hearing at the Supreme Court, a whole lot of things. Those moments when I imagined the future seem very close to me. Whereas the things I imagined that really happened appear very far away. My future is sunk in the past.”

“I’ve heard clearer explanations.”

“But you understand, don’t you?”

“Only because of my superior intelligence.” He also moved his face into the sun and took a couple of puffs on his cigar.

“How would you describe the smell of a cigar?” I asked him.

“Don’t tell me it bothers you. I’m constantly reducing my circle of friends through incompatibility: my incompatibility with their intolerance towards cigars.”

“It doesn’t bother me. Not too much, anyway.” Tancredi lifted his hand to his face and passed it the wrong way over the short beard he’d had for a few months now. “Experts say that the smell – or as they put it, the aroma – of a cigar is a mixture of wet leather, pepper, an old brandy keg and seasoned wood. I’ve heard this so many times, I’ve ended up convinced I’m also aware of these smells. Apart from the old brandy keg, of course. I’ve never seen one or smelt one.”

“Pepper, seasoned wood, brandy keg, leather…”

“Wet leather.”

“Wet leather… That kind of thing. Like the descriptions you get from wine waiters. I always feel like an idiot when I’m having dinner and someone says things like: a fruity feel, a hint of chocolate and liquorice, tannins. I drink wine, but I can’t taste these things.”

“Haven’t you ever smoked cigars?”

“Never. You may remember I smoked cigarettes for many years. Then nothing. Never cigars, never a pipe, thank God.”

It felt good leaning against that wall, with that sense you’re cleansing your soul that only certain spring days are capable of reawakening. How good it would be, I thought, to go somewhere in the country, lay a blanket on the grass, read, eat sandwiches, close my eyes and listen to the murmurs of nature.

“Do you want to hear a story?”

He made a gesture with his hand as if to say: sure, go ahead.

“A month ago I had some tests done. Routine stuff, my doctor says it’s fine to do them every two or three years. A few days after taking the samples the doctor called me – I’d just finished a hearing and was on my way out of here – and told me he had to talk to me. There was something too neutral in his tone. I didn’t like it at all. I asked him if anything was wrong and he replied that it’d be better if I came to see him. So I went to his clinic, not in a very calm state of mind.”

“What did he tell you?”

“He’s a friend, he was very ill at ease. He told me some of the results were slightly skewed, but that there are often false alarms in this kind of check-up, so we ought to repeat the tests immediately before starting to get worried. But if the results were confirmed, I’d need an appointment with a haematologist. I asked him if he could please be a bit more specific, and as I said that I realized I’d put my hands on his desk because they’d started to shake badly.”

“And what did he say?” Tancredi asked in a thin voice.

“He beat about the bush a bit more, then told me it might be a form of leukaemia. There are many different kinds, he said, and many can be cured nowadays. But it was pointless to say anything until we’d repeated the tests.”

Tancredi didn’t move a muscle, seemed almost to have stopped breathing.

“We redid the samples. He assured me he would talk to the lab to make sure the results came back within a day. He called me next morning, about eight. He couldn’t find the right words, all he could think of was: Congratulations. ‘I told you there are often false alarms. Actually not so often, I exaggerated a bit, but it does happen. Fortunately, it’s what happened this time. Go out tonight and raise a toast to your second birthday.’ He also said a few more things, but by now his voice had become distant and I didn’t hear them properly. In any case I don’t remember. It was one of the most unreal situations I’ve ever been in.”

I heard the sound of the breath being expelled by Tancredi. “So everything’s OK?”

“Yes.”

“Fucking hell. For a day you thought you had leukaemia?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I thought about it, but I was ashamed.”

“Ashamed? To call a friend? You need a psychiatrist, not a haematologist. What does that mean?”

“I felt inferior. Suddenly I’d ended up on the side where the sick people are, while the healthy people, those who carry on with their normal lives, who eat, drink, work, travel, make love, make plans, were on the other side, the one I’d just been excluded from. I felt inferior and I was ashamed. I know it may seem strange, but that’s the way it was.”

Tancredi took a deep breath and screwed up his eyes. He made an angry grimace and shook his head as if dismissing a thought. “It can’t have been easy,” he said at last.

“I don’t know. I can’t somehow define my memory of it. It was a day when I was suspended over a void. It was fear, more than anything. As if the fear was throbbing inside me. The actual thought that in a short while, not in some remote, abstract future, you’ll cease to exist. The world will cease to exist. I remembered what a friend of mine – Emilio – said when he told me about the illness and death of his wife at the age of thirty-four. You think about the walks you didn’t take, about the times when you were stingy with your affections. It isn’t just the fear of death, it’s the fact that you wish you hadn’t wasted your time. Then there were moments of perfect calm. As if I’d already got used to it, as if I’d accepted my fate and was able to observe it in a detached way. Something that concerned another person. And there were moments when I thought I mustn’t give up, that I should fight, beat the disease, whatever it was. A lot of people have done that. Those were the hardest moments, if you understand what I mean.”

“You didn’t think about what the doctor had said, that it might have been a mistake in the tests?”

“Not even for a second. I forbade myself from doing that. I think it struck me as a cowardly thought, a way to postpone acknowledging what was happening to me. I’m not the kind of person who wins the lottery, I think I told myself.”

“And how did you spend the day?”

“That’s the other strange thing. I worked, I went to the gym, I went to bed early, I even fell asleep almost immediately, and I don’t remember what I dreamt about. But then I woke up again at four in the morning. I opened my eyes and felt an anxiety I’d never felt before. Like a blanket of metal. I got up, I had to get up because I could feel the panic starting. I went out in the dark, I walked for hours, day broke and the streets started to fill with people, and in the end the doctor’s call came.”

“You must have gone crazy with happiness.”

“That’s the strangest aspect of it all. For a few seconds, maybe a few minutes, I did actually feel… happy? Yes, I’d say happy. After that, though, it turned into a feeling I’d never have imagined.”

I tried to explain it, but it wasn’t easy. I’d felt fragile. It had occurred to me that although it hadn’t happened this time, it might happen in a few months, a few years. It had turned into a fear different from the one I’d felt the day before. One was a sharp pain, the other a limp fever. Both humiliating, in different ways. When the doctor had phoned to tell me that the first tests were wrong, I’d thought the clocks had been turned back and my life would resume just where it had left off. But it wasn’t like that. My life had changed, irreversibly, after those twenty-four hours.

“Since then, over the past few weeks, I’ve asked myself all kinds of questions, some of them about my work. Whether I want to carry on doing it and for how much longer. Things like that.”

Tancredi seemed about to say something, but couldn’t find anything appropriate. He relit his cigar and blew yet another dense grey little cloud up into the air. I decided it was time to drop the subject of my medical tests and my existential dilemmas.

“Why are you in court today?”

“I have an appointment with a magistrate from the Prosecutor’s Department, one of the few I still like working with. How about you?”

“A hearing in the second division court.”

“What kind of trial?”

“A young guy accused of sexual assault.”

He looked at me in surprise. The reason was obvious. I don’t normally take on that kind of case. I’m not judgemental, but I really don’t feel up to defending people who might have committed an offence like that. I wouldn’t feel comfortable and I wouldn’t be able to guarantee an adequate defence. Don’t get me wrong: a little bit of discomfort is indispensable to doing any job that’s – how shall I put it? – morally sensitive. It’s a good thing. But an excess of discomfort – the kind I’d felt the only time I’d defended a rapist – isn’t good. Best to let it go. Tancredi knew my views, that’s why he was puzzled.

“The guy’s innocent.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“No, really. Come to the hearing, if you don’t believe me.”

Tancredi didn’t reply. He was looking at a point behind my back.

“Your partner’s here.”

I turned towards the courthouse gates and saw Consuelo hurrying towards us with her leather handbag and her elegantly clumsy stride.

“Good morning, Inspector,” Consuelo said to Tancredi, with a smile that stood out against her dark skin.

“Avvocato Favia,” Tancredi replied with a slight bow.

Consuelo Favia is Peruvian, born in some remote village in the Andes, but she’s also Italian, the adopted daughter of a friend of mine. Years earlier she had come to me to learn the profession and now she was a partner in the practice. One of the few criminal lawyers I’d agree to be defended by.

“Shall we go in, boss?”

“Let’s go. Bye, Carmelo.”

Tancredi waited until Consuelo had gone into the courthouse and couldn’t hear him. “Guido?”

“Yes.”

“The next time you scare me like that, I’ll shoot you.”

2

The presiding judge, a dignified, elderly man named Basile, finished adjourning the previous trial and called ours.

Consuelo and I were ready at the bench to the left of the judges, both in our robes. When she’d put on hers, a slight smell of amber had wafted through the air. Having got through the introductory formalities, Basile turned to us.

“The trial of Antonio Bronzino has come to us after being deferred by the previous court. Much of the testimony – I’d even go so far as to say all of it – was heard by that court. I ask both parties, counsel for the defence in particular, if they consent to admit that testimony today.”

That’s the way it works. The code of criminal procedure says that the verdict must be given by the same judges who took part in the original trial, in other words, those who heard the witnesses. Theoretically, if trials lasted a few days or a few weeks, that would be only right and proper. But as they usually last several months or even years, this rule can be a serious problem. If even just one of the three judges who hear the case is transferred – something that happens quite frequently – there has to be a retrial. Unless, that is, the defendant and his counsel agree to admit the testimony given before the previous court. Often, this doesn’t happen. Defence lawyers aren’t always cooperative, and having a retrial means gaining time (some would say: wasting time, but they would be accused of scant regard for the rights of the individual), especially for guilty defendants who hope that the statute of limitations will come into play. That’s not the way I like to work.

I stood up and addressed the judges.

“We consent, Your Honour. Our only motion is to reexamine the injured party, who is apparently present and could therefore be heard immediately. This is not in any way a dilatory motion. In the previous phases of the trial, the defendant was unable to present his defence. The events in question go back several years. Despite Signor Bronzino having gone abroad to work, the summonses were sent to his former residence, and he was unaware of the proceedings until last January. We do not question the fact that those proceedings were carried out correctly. We do not do so because we are not interested in technicalities, nor are we interested in postponements. We want the trial to continue immediately. That is why our only motion is to proceed with the examination of the offended party. The defendant is not present because he is working abroad, as I said. Believing as we do that his presence is not indispensable, we ask for this examination, and it is highly likely that we will rest our case on the outcome of the injured party’s testimony.”

A few years earlier, our client had met a girl at a party, they started going out together and definitely had sexual relations. There was no doubt about this, nobody denied it. It was on the nature of those relations – whether or not they were consensual – that opinions differed. The girl (Marilisa, she was called, I don’t know why the name had stuck with me) had lodged a complaint against him, claiming that he had assaulted her. Bronzino had been arrested on the basis of these statements and held in custody for a few weeks. Then the judge must have realized that something wasn’t quite right about the accusation and had released him. A couple of years later, however, there had been a petition for remand. The prosecutor who was dealing with the case, not exactly a lover of hard work, must have thought that filling out a petition for remand was less of a bother than writing a well-argued motion for the case to be closed.

In the meantime, Bronzino, convinced that there would be no further proceedings against him following his release, had moved to Germany. Within a short time, he had been declared a defaulter and was remanded for one of those surreal proceedings that are sometimes seen in our courthouses. The so-called defence had been entrusted to court-appointed lawyers who, from one hearing to the next and one postponement to the next, had put in appearances without ever contributing, for the obvious reason that none of them knew anything about the case.

None of the witnesses had been cross-examined, not even the key witness, the presumed injured party, Marilisa Di Cosmo.

When Bronzino, on his return to Italy, had received a boxful of mail that had accumulated at his old address, informing him of the proceedings, he had come to me.

Things weren’t looking too good for him after the previous hearings. There was the injured party’s testimony, there was a medical certificate confirming the existence of abrasions compatible with sexual assault, there were statements from the victim’s then partner, who had been the first to hear about what had happened when she had returned home in a distressed state. Above all, there had been no real activity on the part of the defence. As things stood, the trial could easily end with a guilty verdict, and the minimum sentence for sexual assault is five years.

*

When I had finished speaking, the presiding judge turned first right, then left, to look at the associate judges. They were two demure-looking women – one with hair tied in a ponytail, the other with hair gathered in a bun kept in place by a chopstick – wearing the expressions of people who would have preferred to be somewhere else. It’s the kind of expression that’s almost a professional disease for those who’ve been associate judges for too long. It seems like interesting work, and to an extent it is. For a few months, if you get the right trials. But sitting there three times a week, for years on end, listening to witnesses, defence lawyers, prosecutors and defendants (each category produces its fair amount of nonsense or worse), without saying a word out loud (the only person who opens his mouth is the presiding judge) would be enough to fry anyone’s brains. I’d have gone crazy.

Anyway, as I was saying, the judge exchanged rapid glances with his associates to see if they had any observations to make. Both barely moved their heads. That meant no, they had no observations, and yes, they were fine with my motion.

“Prosecutor?”

Assistant Prosecutor Castroni was a very polite person, a nice man in his way, disinclined to get caught up in legal subtleties. He got to his feet and said that he had no observations, no particular motion to make, and no objection to the injured party being examined.

“Very well, then, we have said that the witness is present. Let’s hear her,” the presiding judge said to the bailiff, who went into the witness room and emerged a few moments later with an attractive young woman. Attractive but with something dull about her bearing and features. A tall, shapely, dull brunette.

She looked around almost furtively, like a scared animal ready to attack in self-defence. The kind of witness – actually, the kind of person – you have to be particularly careful with. Only when she realized that the defendant wasn’t in court did she seem to relax a little.

The judge asked her to read the formula of commitment. It used to be called the oath, the sentence witnesses had to recite before making their statement. When I started work as a lawyer, before the new – now old – code for criminal procedure was approved, the oath still existed. I know it by heart: “Conscious of the responsibility that with this oath I assume before God, if a believer, and before men, I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

There was a perfect balance between drama and farce in the rising cadence of that admonition that lent itself to being mangled in the most surreal ways. My favourite one was when people, nervous at being in court, asked for the formula to be repeated and then swore that they would tell anything but the truth. Which of course is what happens in most testimony, irrespective of the witness’s good faith.

Then, with the new code that was introduced in 1989, it was considered that taking an oath was somewhat inelegant and ill-suited to a secular State, and the law introduced a formula of commitment, which goes like this: “Conscious of the moral and legal responsibility I assume with my testimony, I commit myself to tell the whole truth and not to conceal anything of which I have knowledge.” More correct, certainly, but much less poetic.

This was what our witness recited, reading from a dirty laminated card.

Judge Basile made her give her particulars – the most pointless of obligations, given that these particulars were already on at least six or seven documents in the case file – and at last gave the prosecutor the floor.

“Thank you, Your Honour,” Castroni said. “Signora, do you remember already giving evidence in court some months… or rather, about a year ago?”

The young woman nodded.

“You must answer yes, for the record.”

“Yes.”

“You do remember. Good. Do you remember what you said on that occasion?”

She sniffed before replying. She seemed very ill at ease. “More or less, yes.”

“In any case, you told the truth on that occasion?”

“Yes.”

“Your Honour, I have no other questions. We have a full record of the previous hearing.”

“Wow, he really exerted himself,” Consuelo whispered in my ear.

“In that case,” the judge said, “defence counsel may proceed with their cross-examination.”

Consuelo stood up, adjusted her robe over her shoulders – again giving off that slight scent of amber – and turned to the witness with a smile. Consuelo’s smile can be deceptive. She looks good-natured, with a face like a small, friendly rodent in a cartoon. If you look more closely, however, you notice a much less reassuring gleam in her eyes. Consuelo is a good lawyer, someone of almost embarrassing rectitude, but above all she’s someone you really don’t want to quarrel with.

“Good morning, Signora, I’m Avvocato Favia. Together with Avvocato Guerrieri, I represent Signor Bronzino. I need to ask you a few questions, but I’ll try to be brief. Do you feel up to answering?”

The young woman stared at her with a somewhat dazed expression, then looked around in search of help, as if trying to make sense of the situation. You don’t expect a girl from the Andes to be a criminal lawyer in Bari, so looks of surprise are the norm. Consuelo is used to it, but it’s going to be like that for a while longer.

“Signora, please answer Avvocato Favia,” the judge said in an understanding tone.

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry.”

Consuelo glanced at her notes. She didn’t need to, but we all make pointless gestures when we have to start something, or finish it. “Could you tell us when and on what occasion you met the defendant?”

“We met at a party. I went with a friend of mine.”

“When was this party?”

“I don’t remember, it was years ago.”

“So you can’t answer?”

“No, how could I possibly remember?”

“No problem. After meeting the defendant at that party… By the way, whose party was it?”

“I don’t know, I told you I went with a friend of mine. She was the one who knew the host.”

“So you didn’t know the host?”

“No, what’s so strange about that?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry. What kind of party was it?”

Castroni stood up. “Objection, Your Honour, the witness is being asked to make a value judgement. That makes the question inadmissible, quite apart from the fact that it’s completely irrelevant.”

“All right, Avvocato,” Basile said, “let’s forget about what kind of party it was, unless there’s a specific reason to go further into this aspect of the matter. If there is, please tell us.”

“Your Honour, knowing the context in which the defendant and the injured party met may help us to understand the beginning of their relationship. But I’ll drop the question, it isn’t essential. So, Signora, after meeting the defendant at this party, did you have occasion to meet him again?”

“Yes.”

“Just once, or several times?”

“I think I already said, he sometimes dropped by the office—”

“You mean your place of work?”

“Yes.”

“Did he ever invite you out? For a coffee, for example, an aperitif, dinner?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever accept any of his invitations, apart from the evening with which this trial is concerned?”

“That evening I only agreed to go for a walk.”

“Before that evening did you ever accept any invitations, walks or otherwise?”

“Just once, a coffee at a café near the office.”

Consuelo paused, turned to look at me, we exchanged knowing looks, and I stood up as she sat down. It was my turn.

“Signora, do you have a boyfriend, a partner?”

“Not at the moment, I’m single.”

“But at the time when these events happened, you had a partner?”

“Yes.”

“He’s the person who went with you when you lodged a complaint the following morning, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Were you living with this person at the time?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of work does your former partner do?”

“He’s area sales manager for a confectionery company.”

“Was he ever away for a few days?”

“Yes.”

“Often?”

“He was always travelling, almost every day. He’d go from one place to another.”

“Did he usually come back in the evening?”

“Yes, he’d leave in his car in the morning and get home in the evening.”

“And apart from spending all day away, did he sometimes take longer trips which obliged him to spend the night away from home?”

“Yes.”

“How frequently?”

She did not reply immediately, but it wasn’t clear if the hesitation was due to the fact that she was concentrating on the answer or because, for some reason, the question made her uncomfortable.

“I can’t say exactly. A couple of times a month.”

“Ah, by the way, when you went to that party with your friend, do you remember if your partner was away?”

“I don’t know, it was a long time ago.”

“Let me try and help you. Did you ever go out alone when your partner was in the city? Did he mind?”

Marilisa sighed, torn between exasperation and resignation. “I couldn’t really say, it’s a period of my life I’m trying to forget.”

“I’m sorry to be so insistent and to remind you of things you’d prefer to forget, but unfortunately I need an answer. Do you happen to remember if, when you went to that party, your partner was away on business?”

“Maybe yes.”

“Maybe?”

“Yes, yes, I remember, he was away.”

“I’d like now to get a better idea of the timeline. How much time passed between that party and the events that concern us in this trial?”

“I can’t say for certain.”

“Weeks, months?”

“A couple of months.”

“So, since the date of the offence with which the defendant is charged is 3 April, your acquaintance presumably goes back to the beginning of February, or maybe the end of January?”

“I think so, yes.”

“And between that party and the first time you saw each other again, or spoke to each other on the phone, how much time passed?”

“He called me a couple of days later.”

“Where did he call you?”

“How do you mean?”

“On what telephone did he call you?”

“On my mobile.”

“So you’d given him your mobile number?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“He asked me for it.”

“Please don’t take this question the wrong way, but do you give your mobile number to everyone who asks for it?”

I glanced sideways out of the corner of my eye. The prosecutor shifted in his chair. He might have been thinking of objecting, but then decided to wait and see what would happen. Nor did the judge say anything.

“No, no, I mean, it depends—”

“You had only met Signor Bronzino that evening, is that correct?”

“Yes, but what I mean—”

“I assume you felt a particular liking for him, you trusted him.”

She passed her hand over her face. She looked as if she was suffering. I wished I could get this over with as soon as possible.

“Yes, he was… very polite, and besides, he knew my friend.”

“Don’t worry, Signora, you don’t have to justify yourself. I was only asking the question in order to get a clearer idea of the situation. So, Signor Bronzino called you two days after meeting you at the party. I assume there were other calls, other telephone conversations?”

“Yes, he’d phone me and we’d chat.”

“And did you sometimes phone him?”

“I can’t remember. Maybe I did.”

“Maybe you did. When did you meet again?”

“I’m not sure. He told me that he was often in the area where my office was and asked me if I felt like taking a break and coming outside for a coffee. He kept insisting, and one time I accepted.”

“Was that the only time you met, apart from the evening of 3 April?”

“I think so.”

I let those words hang in the air for a few seconds, with their heavy burden of ambiguity.

“Do you know the Hotel Royal in Milan?”

She looked at me in genuine surprise. “No… I don’t think so.”

“Did your partner ever go to Milan on business?”

“Yes, he had meetings there.”

“Do you know which hotel he stayed in when he went to Milan?”

She half closed her eyes, and let several seconds go by before replying. She was trying to understand. “It may have been that one, yes.”

“The Royal?”

“Yes.”

“Did he always go there?”

“I think so.”

“A couple of times a month, as we said before?”

“More or less. Sometimes he went more often.”

“Do you remember if there was a particular day of the week when he went on these business trips to Milan?”

A deep breath. Our eyes met for a few seconds. Then she looked away. “I think it was Monday.”

“Thank you. Now I’d like to bring this document to your attention. It’s a record of calls made to and from the defendant’s mobile phone. To be more specific, the one Signor Bronzino was using at the time of these events. This record shows that there was a call lasting five minutes and twenty-three seconds to a number in Milan late in the evening of 6 March 2006. The number is that of the Royal, the hotel we were just talking about. Do you have any idea why Signor Bronzino should have telephoned that hotel that evening?”

“You should ask him.”

“As it happens, I have asked him, but right now I’m interested in your opinion. Can you answer me? If it’s any help, I can tell you it was a Monday.”

The worst situation for a witness to be in, especially a witness of dubious honesty, is when he or she realizes that something is about to come out, but isn’t sure exactly what and can do nothing about it. She pursed her lips in silence.

“Do you know if the defendant knew your partner?”

“No.”

“You don’t know, or he didn’t know him?”

“He didn’t know him, as far as I know.”

“I ask you the question because it turns out that your partner spent the night of 6 to 7 March 2006 at the Hotel Royal in Milan. So it’s quite likely that he was there when that phone call I told you about occurred. Can you explain that coincidence?”

Castroni tried to object, but didn’t sound very convincing. Even he was starting to realize that something was wrong – very wrong – in this affair. “First of all, this is an inadmissible line of questioning. Questions should be about facts, not speculation. Secondly, I’d like to know how counsel for the defence comes to be in possession of this information.”

Basile looked at him and turned towards me. He didn’t say anything. Castroni’s objection made sense, but it was obvious that the witness would have to answer the question anyway.

“Your Honour, the defence has conducted investigations, strictly according to our legal prerogatives. The ways in which we have used the results of these investigations are fully compatible with the defence’s powers of discretion. I reserve the right to provide documentation, where necessary, at the end of the cross-examination. May I proceed?”

“You may, Avvocato, but try to make it clear where you’re going with this.”

“It will all become clear very soon, Your Honour. Signora, I repeat: that phone call from Signor Bronzino’s mobile to the Hotel Royal coincides with your partner’s stay in Milan, in that very hotel. If you’ll forgive a direct question, could it be that you were the person who made that call?”

The pause that followed was a really long one.

“All right, then, let’s go on to something else. Was your relationship with your partner happy?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you agree about things, or did you quarrel? Did you quarrel often, or just occasionally? Did you have problems?”

“The same as any couple.”

“Did your partner ever hit you?”

I noticed that she was holding the hem of her skirt between the fingers of her left hand and crumpling it convulsively. “Just the occasional slap.”

“Did you ever lodge a complaint following these occasional slaps?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

The judge got in ahead of me and in a sharp tone ordered her to answer.

She seemed to shrink, and I felt sorry for her. “Once I went to the carabinieri, but then I withdrew everything.”

“Can you tell us what you told the carabinieri?”

“That there’d been a quarrel.”

“Did you say that you’d been hit?”

“Yes, but I withdrew—”

“You withdrew everything, yes. What else did you tell the carabinieri?”

“I just wanted him to stop.”

The way she said that made me think of a landslide. No, that’s not right, it made me think of the word landslide. The fragile structure of her testimony, which had held up because nobody up until then had asked her to account for it, was collapsing beneath her like loose earth or clay.

“To stop what?”

“His fits of jealousy. Sometimes he hit me even when I hadn’t done anything.”

“Why did you withdraw everything?”

“He said he would change.”

“And did he?”

“In a way…”

“After the dropping of the complaint, after you withdrew everything, were there other acts of violence?”

She didn’t reply. She was staring into space now, her face very pale, her lips dry and colourless.

“Signora, I’m sorry to insist, but were there other acts of violence?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever need medical attention?”

“Maybe a couple of times.”

“Did you go to accident and emergency?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell the doctors there that your injuries were caused by your partner?”

She shook her head.

“Your Honour, can it be entered in the record that the witness shook her head to indicate no?”

Basile gestured to the stenographer, meaning that she could write what I had asked.

“Would it be correct to say that you were afraid of your partner?”

“Objection, Your Honour,” Castroni said, leaping to his feet. “The witness is being asked for a personal opinion.”

“Objection sustained. Avvocato, let’s try and get to the point.”

“Signora, you said you met Bronzino outside your office building, where he was waiting for you, and that you accepted a lift home in his car. Can you tell us what time you left the office?”

“The usual time.”

“And what time might that be?”

“Five.”

“And you found the defendant waiting for you outside your office building?”

“Yes.”

“Your Honour, I have to challenge the witness on the statements she made at the time she lodged her complaint.”

“Go ahead, Avvocato.”

“When you were questioned by the carabinieri the morning after, you stated: ‘I left the office at six and met Antonio Bronzino, who had been pursuing me for some time and was obviously waiting for me.’ You told the carabinieri six, now you’re saying five. Which is the correct time?”

“I don’t know, I don’t remember. If I said six, it must have been six.”

“But when did you usually leave your office?”

“At five.”

“At five. In that case, how did the defendant know that on that particular day you would be leaving at six?”

She was about to reply instinctively, but must have realized the trap concealed in the question. “Maybe I got it wrong. I probably did leave at five.”

“You probably did leave at five. I still have here the records of Signor Bronzino’s mobile phone. That day there was a thirty-three-second call at 5.18. The other number must have been yours, Signora. If you like, I can show you the records.”

She moved her hand in a sign of denial, but it looked more like a gesture of self-defence.

“I point this out because if you met soon after five, it’s hard to figure out why Bronzino should have called you on his mobile at 5.18.”

It wasn’t a real question, it was an explanation of what was happening, intended for the judges.

“Was your partner away on business that day, by any chance?”

“I don’t remember.”

“I put it to you that you had an appointment with Signor Bronzino that day. In other words, that meeting wasn’t a chance one at all.”

“No, I—”

“I put it to you that your partner was due to be away that day, and that when you got home fairly late that evening, you discovered that he hadn’t left.”

She didn’t say anything. It was time to bring this to an end. I turned to the judge.

“Your Honour, if it can be entered in the record that the witness hasn’t answered the last two questions, I’ve finished.”

The judge was just doing as I had asked when the woman spoke again, without warning. Her voice was thin, diaphanous, seeming to come from somewhere else. It was as if her face had dried up in the course of the half-hour she had been in the witness box, as if the skin had stuck to the bones. Occasionally, as if in some terrible time machine, her face looked like an old woman’s.

“I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

Startled by the sound of her voice, the judge broke off, looked at her and asked her if she wanted to add anything. He, too, without realizing it, lowered his voice. But she didn’t say anything else. She was looking somewhere else, outside that courtroom.

3

The judge told Di Cosmo that she could go. He said it in a tone that was meant to be stern, but he couldn’t quite manage it. The sense of unease, of defeat that she conveyed had prevailed over his indignation. I turned to watch her while Basile was saying that we would adjourn for fifteen minutes. It’s something I usually avoid: watching the actors of the drama (or the comedy) as they leave the stage. I was just in time to see her leave the courtroom, as silent and insubstantial as a ghost.

It was only then that I noticed Annapaola in the public seats. The investigation we had relied on for the cross-examination of the witness was hers. Most private detectives are men: retired former police officers or carabinieri. Usually somewhat elderly gentlemen.

Annapaola Doria doesn’t correspond to the stereotype. Firstly, she isn’t a man, and secondly, she isn’t elderly. She’s thirty-seven years old, and has a face like a rebellious schoolgirl, which makes her look younger. Above all, she isn’t an ex-cop. She used to be a freelance crime reporter. A very good one, maybe even too good. She managed to gather information where others had to give up, even though it has to be said that she wasn’t too bothered about journalistic ethics or the criminal code. I had defended her in a number of trials, some for libel and one actually for receiving stolen goods. The Prosecutor’s Department had charged her with obtaining copies of documents relating to a pending criminal case that was still confidential, documents stolen – by persons unknown, as they say – from the clerk of the court’s office, the said clerk having left it unattended because of a sudden urgent need for a cappuccino and a croissant.

According to the Prosecutor’s Department, receiving three copies of improperly obtained documents was equivalent to buying a stolen TV set or jewellery taken in a robbery, and had therefore to be punished with a prison sentence of between two and eight years. A somewhat singular theory, which the judge did not share. Annapaola was acquitted, and I earned myself a few paragraphs in the papers.