Gianrico Carofiglio - Reasonable Doubts

All right, I said, we could have a coffee, the judges wouldn’t be here for another fifteen or twenty minutes.

We left the courtroom and as we walked towards the bar, I noticed a man following a few yards behind us. I turned to look at him, wondering who he was.

“Don’t worry, Guerrieri. He’s my driver. He’s keeping his distance because he knows we have to talk and he’s very discreet. He knows the score.”

As he said these last words – he knows the score – the inflexion of his voice changed significantly. From that moment on, I started to take notice of the carabinieri dotted around the courthouse. The fact that there were so many of them reassured me. A little, anyway.

“All courthouses are the same. The same chaos, the same smell, the same faces. Right, Guerrieri?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it.”

We reached the basement, made our way through the peak-hour crowds, and had our coffees. Macri paid and we went out again. The man who knew the score was still behind us.

“Guerrieri, let me tell you this again. I think we got off on the wrong foot in that phone call. I said some things I shouldn’t have said to a colleague. You’re only doing your job. So am I, come to that.”

I nodded, wondering where he was going with this.

“Since you’re doing your job, I don’t want to give you any trouble. But you shouldn’t give me any either.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, the hearing is starting, what kind of things do you need to ask me?”

I shouldn’t have answered him. I should have said he’d find out soon enough. Once he was on the witness stand. Instead, I told him I needed to clarify certain points about how his relationship with Paolicelli had started. I realized I was being almost apologetic, and I didn’t like that at all.

I felt like an idiot.

He looked suddenly intense, in a way that was hardly warranted by my unremarkable answer. He pretended to think about what he was going to say and then, still walking, took my arm.

“Listen to me, Guerrieri. Obviously I’ll only answer questions that don’t force me to violate lawyer-client confidentiality. There are some I won’t be able to answer at all, but you know that, right? But that’s not the important thing. There are people who want to take care of Paolicelli. Forget about whether he’s innocent or guilty. He’s in prison, and he’s going to stay there for a while, even though you’re working very hard on his behalf. Which is good, it does you credit. It means you’re a real professional.”

He stopped for a moment to look me in the face. To see if I was taking in what he was saying. I don’t know if he got the impression from my face that I was following him, but he continued anyway.

“He has a wife-a beautiful wife, I don’t know if you’ve met her – and a daughter. He’s in trouble and needs help. He needs money. He’s bound to get a decent reduction on his sentence on appeal, you’ll see. Then in a few years he’ll get time off for good behaviour. But in all that time, a bit of financial help – real financial help – wouldn’t go amiss, right?”

“No, it wouldn’t go amiss,” I answered involuntarily.

He smiled, turning his head slightly towards me. That answer must have given him the idea that we were starting to understand each other. At last. I was someone who knew the ways of the world, who knew the score.

“Good. Naturally it’s something you and I have to talk about. Right now, we have to talk about it and sort it out. Don’t think I’ve come empty-handed.” So saying, he touched his jacket where the inside pocket was. “And of course we won’t forget you. All the work you’ve done, the time you’ve put in on this case. And don’t forget, these people – the ones I’m talking about, who want to take care of our client – often need lawyers. Good lawyers like you. A sound professional can make a lot of money from certain clients. Obviously you know what I’m talking about, right?”

He kept saying: right? It may have had an implied question mark, but it wasn’t a question.

Questions came flooding through my mind, uncontrollably. How much easier it would be. Money for him, obviously money for me. How much money do you have in that jacket? How much money can a sound professional like me make? I couldn’t block out these obscene questions. Paolicelli inside for a few years. A few more years.

Me outside.

Natsu and the little girl outside, with me.

Someone who knows the score. The phrase came back to me. But it no longer referred to Macri’s henchman. It was the new definition of Guido Guerrieri, the good lawyer. Ready to sell a client for money, love and the crumbs of a life he hadn’t been able to make for himself.

Ready to steal another man’s life.

It lasted a few seconds, I think. Maybe a little more.

I’ve rarely, if ever, felt such self-disgust.

Macri noticed that something was wrong. I was standing there, a strange expression on my face, without answering his question.

“I’ve made myself clear, right?”

I told him he’d made himself very clear, yes. Then for a few moments I searched for an appropriate one-liner, but couldn’t find one. So I just said that we’d consider his generous offer if the original sentence was upheld.

Thinking about it now, maybe that was an appropriate one-liner. He stopped and looked at me, questioningly. He was trying to understand. If I was stupid, if I was making idiotic wisecracks, if I was mad.

He couldn’t figure it out from my face, and when he started speaking again, his tone had changed. “Very funny. But since the hearing is about to start, I think we ought to talk seriously. I have here with me-”

“You’re right, the hearing is about to start. I have to be in court.”

I made as if to turn, but he put his big hand on my arm to hold me back. I noticed the man who knew the score taking a few steps towards us. I moved my arm away and looked him in the eyes.

“Be careful, Guerrieri.”

“Careful about what?”

“This is a game in which people can get badly hurt.”

I was calm now. “That’s more like it,” I replied in a low voice, almost a whisper. “I like you better this way. The role suits you.”

“Be careful,” he repeated, “or I’ll destroy you.”

I’d been waiting my whole life for someone – someone like him – to use that line on me. “Just try,” I replied.

Then I turned and walked towards the courtroom.

Mechanically, I greeted the assistant prosecutor – the giant squid again – and then, after putting on my robe and sitting down, I kept my eyes obstinately fixed on the judges’ bench. I kept them fixed there when the judges hadn’t yet come in and kept them fixed there – on the wood of the bench, not on the judges – even when they had entered and the hearing had started. I didn’t turn round.

I wondered what the various shades of the wood were called. I wondered what had caused the black stains where the grains crossed. I wasn’t thinking about anything else. I imagine it was a kind of mental self-defence. I was emptying my mind, and keeping it empty, to hold back the fear.

Like in boxing. The only thing in my life which has always provided me with pearls of wisdom, meaningful images, metaphors.

I broke off for just a few seconds, to wave back at Paolicelli, who had waved to me as the escort brought him into the courtroom. Then I turned back to the patterns of the wood on the judges’ bench.

I was concentrating so hard on the grains of the wood that I didn’t hear Judge Mirenghi. Or rather, I was in such a trance that I heard his voice in the distance, as if it was something that didn’t concern me.