Gianrico Carofiglio - A Walk in the Dark

I resisted the impulse to ask him what Martina’s psychiatric problems were. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“There’s no evidence against my client. Just her word, and you’ll soon realize what that’s worth in court. This case should never have come to trial. It should have been dismissed by now. So let’s avoid making waves, which would only be pointless and damaging. Look, Guerrieri, I’m not saying anything. Check it out yourself, get the information you need, and then tell me if I’m talking rubbish. Then we’ll have another word. You’ll end up thanking me.”

He broke off, but resumed almost immediately, as if he’d just remembered something.

“Oh, and don’t worry about your fees. Find a way to get out of the case, and whatever you’re owed for the work you’ve already done, we’ll take care of it. You’re a good lawyer. More than that, you’re a smart fellow. Don’t do anything stupid when you don’t have to. This is just a petty squabble between a misguided fool and an unbalanced girl. It’s not worth it.”

Without waiting for my reply, he said goodbye and hung up. The first time it happened, one summer morning, I was nine. My mother had gone to work. He had stayed at home with me and my sister, who was three years younger. He was at home because he’d been fired from his job. We were at home because the summer holidays had started, but we had nowhere to go. Except for the yard of the apartment block where we lived. I remember it as being very hot. But now I’m not so sure it was as hot as all that. We were in the yard, my sister and I and the other kids. It’s odd. I remember we were playing football and I’d just scored a goal. He appeared on the balcony and called me. He was in beige shorts and a white vest. He told me to come up, he needed something. I asked if I could finish playing and he told me to come up for five minutes and then I could go back down. I told the other kids I’d be right back and ran up the two flights of stairs that led to our flat. There were no lifts in those blocks. I reached the landing and found the door ajar. When I went in, I heard him call me from their bedroom at the end of the corridor. The door of that room was also ajar. Inside, the bed was unmade. The room stank of cigarettes. He was lying with his legs wide open, and he told me to come closer. Because he had something to tell me, he said. I was nine years old.

After Delissanti’s phone call, I told Maria Teresa I didn’t want to be disturbed for the next ten minutes. I always felt a bit stupid telling my secretary I didn’t want to be disturbed, for any reason, but sometimes it was necessary. I put my feet up on the desk, crossed my hands behind my head, and closed my eyes.

An old method, when I start to feel panicky and don’t know what to do.

I opened my eyes again about ten minutes later, looked through my papers, found the sheet with the mobile number, and called Sister Claudia. The phone rang about ten times without any answer and in the end I pressed the red button to end the call.

I wondered what to do next. When I call a mobile phone and there’s no answer, I always have the unpleasant sensation that they’ve done it on purpose. I mean, they’ve seen the number, realized it’s me, and are deliberately not answering. Because they don’t want to talk to me. A throwback to my childhood insecurities, I suppose.

My mobile rang. It was Sister Claudia. Clearly, if she was calling me back a few seconds after my call, she hadn’t deliberately avoided answering.

“Hello?”

“I had a call from this number. Who is that?”

“Avvocato Guerrieri.”

A puzzled silence.

I said I needed to talk to her. Without Martina being present. It was quite urgent. Could she come to my office, maybe this afternoon?

No, she couldn’t come this afternoon, she had to stay at the refuge. None of her assistants was there and she couldn’t leave the place unattended. Some of the girls were under house arrest and someone always had to be there, in case the police or carabinieri checked. How about tomorrow morning? Same thing tomorrow morning. But what was the problem? No problem. Or rather, there were a few problems, but I wanted to talk about them in person, not over the phone.

I don’t know what made me think of it, but I told her I could come to the refuge myself, tomorrow morning, as I didn’t have to be in court.

A long silence followed, and I realized I’d put my foot in it. The location of the refuge was a secret, Tancredi had said. With my spontaneous – and quite unprofessional – suggestion, I’d put Sister Claudia in a difficult position. She could either tell me we couldn’t meet at the refuge, because I wasn’t allowed there, and even though the fault was mine she’d be forced to say something unpleasant. Or, reluctantly, in order not to offend me, she could tell me to come.

Or she’d give me a good excuse, which was probably the best solution.

“All right, I’ll see you here.” She said it calmly, like someone who’s weighed up the situation and has decided to be more trusting. Then she told me how to get there. It was outside the city, and her directions were so elaborate as to verge on the paranoid.

I set out at ten o’clock the next morning. What with the city traffic and the wrong turnings I took once I was out in the country, the journey lasted nearly an hour. I’d put The Ghost of Tom Joad in the CD player when I left. By the time I got there, the disc had finished and I’d just started listening to it again. Before my eyes, the dirt road along which I was slowly advancing became confused with nocturnal images of the American highways, populated by desperadoes. Shelter line stretchin’ round the corner

Welcome to the new world order

Families sleepin’ in their cars in the Southwest

No hope no job no peace no rest.

At last, I came to a rusty gate, held closed with a rusty chain and a huge padlock. There was no entry phone, so I gave her a ring on her mobile to come and open up for me. Soon after, I saw her coming round a bend in the avenue, between rows of shabby-looking pines. She opened the gate, and gestured me beyond the bend and the trees, towards where she’d come from, where there was space to park. Then she carefully closed the gate and padlock, while I drove along the avenue of beaten earth, keeping an eye on her in the rear-view mirror.

I had only just parked behind the house – which was actually a farmhouse – and was getting out of the car when I saw Sister Claudia coming back.

We entered the farmhouse. It smelled clean, a mixture of unscented soap and something else, something herbal that I couldn’t put a name to. We were in a large room, with a stone fireplace opposite the entrance, a table in the middle, doors on the sides. Sister Claudia opened one of them and made way for me. We went along a corridor, at the end of which there was a kind of square box room, with three doors on each of its sides. Behind one of these doors was Sister Claudia’s office. It was a spacious room, with an old desk of light-coloured wood, a computer, a telephone, a fax machine. A bulky old stereo unit, with a turntable. Two small black leather armchairs, both quite old, with cracks everywhere. An acoustic guitar, propped up in a corner. A very slight smell of sandalwood incense.

And there were shelves of books and discs. The shelves were full but tidy. I managed to glance at them just enough to read a few titles in English. Why They Kill was one of them. Patterns of Criminal Homicide another. I wondered what that was all about, and why a nun would read that kind of book.

No crucifixes on the walls, or at least I didn’t see any. Certainly there weren’t any behind the desk. There was a poster there, with a sentence printed in joined-up letters, in imitation of a child’s handwriting.