Gianrico Carofiglio - Reasonable Doubts

“Yes, travelled together.”

“I don’t think-”

“Have you ever been in Bari with Signor Romanazzi?”

“In Bari?”

Another counter-question, to gain time. Weren’t you supposed to be destroying me, you son of a bitch?

“Have you ever stayed at the Hotel Lighthouse with your client Luca Romanazzi?”

“I’ve been in Bari several times, not just when I was defending Paolicelli, and I think I may have stayed at the hotel you mentioned. But not with Romanazzi.”

As he finished answering, the raincoat slipped from his arm and fell to the floor. He bent to pick it up and I noticed that his movements weren’t as agile as before.

“You know we can easily check the hotel register and find out if your client, Signor Romanazzi, spent the night in that hotel at the same time you were there.”

“You can check whatever you like. I don’t know if Romanazzi was in the hotel when I was there, but we didn’t go there together.”

He didn’t even believe it himself. He was like one of those boxers who keep raising their arms mechanically, driven by nothing but instinct. They’re no longer parrying, they’re taking punches all over, and they’re on the verge of going down.

“Would it surprise you to learn that, not just on one, but on two occasions, you and Signor Romanazzi spent the same night in the same hotel, the Lighthouse?”

“Your Honour” – he had raised his voice, but it wasn’t very firm – “I don’t know what Avvocato Guerrieri is talking about. I’d really like to know where he got this information from, if it was acquired legally and-”

I interrupted him. “Your Honour, I don’t have to tell the court that the defence is allowed to carry out investigations. And this is material covered by lawyer-client confidentiality. In any case, to avoid any misunderstandings, the question now is not: How did Avvocato Guerrieri come by this information? The question is: Is this information true or not?”

I looked Mirenghi in the face, waiting to continue.

“Go on, Avvocato Guerrieri.”

“Thank you, Your Honour. So, to sum up: you deny coming to Bari with Signor Romanazzi on two occasions and spending the night, on both occasions, at the Hotel Lighthouse.”

“It could have been a coincidence-”

“It could have been a coincidence that on two occasions when you came to Bari and spent the night at the Lighthouse, Signor Romanazzi was also staying there.”

It must have sounded ridiculous even to him, hearing it said aloud like that. So he didn’t say anything, just held his hands open.

“And can you confirm to us that you didn’t know Signor Romanazzi was on board the ferry on which the defendant Paolicelli travelled before he was arrested?”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“So you don’t know that Signor Romanazzi, on returning from Montenegro, spent the night in Bari, once again – as chance would have it – at the Hotel Lighthouse?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I let his last words hang in the air. As if I had been about to ask another question. I kept him dangling for a few seconds, expecting another blow. I savoured the moment, all by myself. Because I knew that the fight was over, but I was the only person in the courtroom who did.

I’ll destroy you.

Just try.

I wondered if Natsu was still in the courtroom and had seen it all. I suddenly remembered her perfume and her smooth skin, and it made me feel dizzy.

“Thank you, Your Honour. I have no other questions.”

Mirenghi asked the prosecutor if he had any questions for the witness. He said no, thank you, he didn’t have any.

“You may go, Avvocato Macri.”

Macri stood up, said goodbye, and walked out without looking at me. Without looking at anyone.

The atmosphere in the courtroom was electric. There was an energy in the air that you sometimes feel when a hearing comes off its pre-ordained rails and travels to unexpected places. It only happens every now and again, and when it does everyone notices.

Even Russo had noticed, maybe even the assistant prosecutor.

“Are there any other requests, before we declare the hearing closed?”

I got slowly to my feet. “Yes, Your Honour. Following the examination of the witness Macri, I wish to request that certain documents be admitted in evidence. For reasons I don’t think it is necessary to explain, I ask for the admission of Luca Romanazzi’s police file, a copy of the passenger list from the ferry on which my client Fabio Paolicelli travelled, and a copy of the register of the Hotel Lighthouse for the years 2002 and 2003.”

Mirenghi exchanged a few words with the other two judges. He was speaking under his breath, but I could hear him asking the other two if they should retire to their chamber to come to a decision about my request. I didn’t hear what the others said, but they didn’t retire. Instead, he dictated a brief ruling in which he accepted my requests and adjourned the hearing for another week, to allow time for those documents to be obtained and for closing arguments to be prepared.

That week passed very quickly. Before I knew it, it was nearly over.

The day before the hearing, as I was looking through the papers and trying to jot down an outline of what I was going to say in my closing argument, a strange, incongruous thought came into my head. I had the idea that time was a spring inside me that had been squeezed as far as it would go and was now at last to be released. And it would project me somewhere unknown.

I wondered what this image that had appeared so suddenly, so mysteriously and so vividly in my head could possibly mean, and couldn’t find an answer.

At eight o’clock that evening Natsu came to the office. Just a flying visit to say hello and to find out how my preparations for next day were going, she said.

“You look tired. Worn out.”

“Do you mean I’m less handsome than usual?”

A not very good attempt to be witty.

“You’re even more handsome this way,” she replied, seriously. She was about to add something else but then decided it was better not to. “Do you still have a lot of work to do?”

“Yes, I do. We’re on a knife-edge. There are several arguments I could use, and the problem is to select the right ones. The ones that will sway the judges. In an appeal like this it’s not at all clear what those arguments are.”

“What are the possibilities of an acquittal?”

Ah, yes, that was just the question I needed, with my closing argument still to be written, and these incomprehensible, slightly unsettling images popping into my head.

There are cases in which you know for certain that the client will be found guilty, and your work is just a question of damage limitation. There are others in which you know for certain that he will be acquitted however good or bad your work was, and would be acquitted even if he didn’t have a lawyer at all. In these cases your job is to make the client believe that acquittal depends on your amazing skills, in order to justify your fee.

In all other cases it’s better, much better, not to risk making predictions.

“It’s hard to say. The odds certainly aren’t on our side.”

“Sixty to forty against? Seventy to thirty?”

Let’s say ninety to ten. Being optimistic.

“Yes, I’d say seventy to thirty is a realistic forecast.”

Maybe she believed me, maybe she didn’t. From her face there was no way of knowing.

“May I smoke?”

“Go ahead. But on your way out, tell Maria Teresa it was you. Because of the smell, you know. Ever since I quit, she’s been checking up on me like a Salvation Army officer.”

She gave a hint of a smile, then lit her cigarette and smoked half of it before she spoke again.