Gianrico Carofiglio - A Walk in the Dark

Marinella looked at me, even more scared than before. The expression on my face, the tone in which I’d spoken, hadn’t been pleasant. She nodded, looking like someone talking to a dangerous madman, someone who’d rather be somewhere else and hopes it will all be over really soon.

Caldarola took off his glasses – he was long-sighted – and looked towards Delissanti and Scianatico.

“Now then, at today’s hearing, we are due to hear the examination of the defendant. Does he confirm his intention to undergo this examination?”

“Yes, Your Honour, the defendant confirms his willingness to testify.”

Scianatico stood up resolutely, and within a second had covered the distance between the defence bench and the witness stand. Caldarola read out the ritual caution. Scianatico had the right not to answer, but proceedings would still follow their course. If he agreed to answer, his statements might be used against him, and so on, and so forth.

“So do you confirm that you wish to answer?”

“Yes, Your Honour.”

“In that case, counsel for the defence may proceed with the examination.”

The early stages of the examination were fairly tedious. Delissanti asked Scianatico to tell the court when he had met Martina, and in what circumstances, how their relationship had started, that kind of thing. Scianatico replied in an almost affable tone, as if trying to give the impression that he didn’t bear a grudge against Martina, in spite of all the harm she had so unjustly done him. A role they had rehearsed over and over in Delissanti’s office. For sure.

At a certain point he broke off in the middle of an answer. For a moment, I saw his eyes move towards the entrance to the courtroom, I saw him wince slightly, I saw that damnably smug expression of his crack just a little.

Martina and Claudia had arrived. They sat down behind me, and I turned and greeted them. Martina, following the instructions I had given her the day before when she had come to my office, handed me a package in such a way that nobody in the courtroom could fail to notice. In such a way that Scianatico, above all, couldn’t fail to notice.

From the shape and size, it was clear the package contained a videocassette.

Delissanti was forced to repeat his last question.

“I repeat, Professor Scianatico, can you tell us when, and for what reason, your relationship with Signorina Fumai started to break down?”

“No… I can’t pinpoint a particular moment. Little by little Martina’s – that is, Signorina Fumai’s behaviour changed.”

“Can you tell us in what way her behaviour changed?”

“Mood swings. Increasingly sudden and increasingly frequent. Verbal attacks, alternating with bouts of weeping and depression. On a couple of occasions she even tried to attack me physically. She was beside herself. I had the impression-”

“Objection, Your Honour. The defendant is about to express a personal opinion, which, as we all know, is not allowed.”

Caldarola told Scianatico to avoid personal opinions and stick to the facts.

“Tell us what happened when Signorina Fumai was having one of her attacks.”

“Mostly, she shouted. She said I didn’t understand her problems and being with me would make her ill again.”

“Excuse me if I interrupt. She said that she would become ill again? To what illness was she alluding?”

“She was alluding to her psychiatric problems.”

“Go on. Continue telling us what happened during these attacks.”

“As I’ve already said, she shouted a lot, wept hysterically, tried to hit me and… oh yes, then she accused me of having lovers. It wasn’t true, of course. But she was jealous. Pathologically jealous.”

“It isn’t true,” I heard Martina whispering behind my back. “The bastard. It isn’t true.”

“… increasingly often, she told me I’d pay for it. Sooner or later, one way or the other.”

“Was it during one of these arguments, in front of a number of mutual friends, that you used the words ‘you’re a compulsive liar, you’re unbalanced, you’re unreliable and you’re a danger to yourself and others’?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I lost my temper as well. I shouldn’t have said those things in front of other people. The sad thing is, they were true.”

“Let’s try to analyse these words, which you would have preferred not to have said in front of other people, but which you couldn’t hold back. Why did you say she was unreliable and a danger?”

“She’d have these violent tempers. On two occasions she attacked me. On others she went so far as to mutilate herself.”

“Why did you tell her she was a compulsive liar?”

“She made things up. I don’t like to say this, in spite of what she did to me. But she made up the most incredible stories. That time in particular, she told me she knew for a fact that I was having an affair with a lady who was there that night at our friends’ house. It wasn’t true, but there was no way to make her see reason. She told me she wanted to leave, I told her not to behave like a child, not to make a scene, but the situation soon degenerated.”

I had to resist the temptation to turn to Martina.

“Did you ever threaten Signorina Fumai?”

“Never. Absolutely not.”

“Did you ever use physical violence against her, during or after the period when you lived together?”

“Never of my own accord. It’s true that on two occasions when she attacked me I had to defend myself, to stop her, try to neutralize her. Those were the two times she had to have emergency treatment. I hasten to add that I took her to hospital myself. And I took her to hospital on another occasion too. After she’d mutilated herself particularly badly. As I said, it was a habit of hers.”

“Could you tell us exactly what form this self-mutilation took?”

“I can’t remember exactly. Certainly when she lost her temper during arguments, because she couldn’t get her own way, she’d slap herself, even punch herself in the face.”

“After you stopped living together, did you have any contact with Signorina Fumai?”

“Yes. I called her many times on the phone. A couple of times I also tried to speak to her in person.”

“On these occasions, either on the phone or in person, did you ever threaten Signorina Fumai?”

“Absolutely not. I was… I feel embarrassed saying it, but the thing is, I was still in love with her. I was trying to convince her that we should get back together. Apart from anything else, I was very worried that her mental condition might deteriorate and she might do something rash. I mean self-mutilation or worse. I thought that if we could get back together we might be able to patch things up and help her to solve her problems.”

It was a moving story. A real tear-jerker. The son of a bitch should have been an actor.

“In conclusion, Professor Scianatico, you are aware of the charges against you. Did you in fact commit any of the acts attributed to you in those charges?”

Before answering, Scianatico gave a kind of bitter smile. A smile that meant, more or less, that people and the world in general were bad and ungrateful. That was why he was here, being tried unjustly for things he had not done. But he was a good person, so he didn’t feel any resentment towards the person responsible. Who, apart from anything else, was a poor unbalanced woman.

“As I’ve said, we had two small fights during the time we were living together. Apart from that, as I’ve also said, I did make a lot of phone calls, some of them at night, to try to convince her that we should get back together. As for everything else, no, of course not. None of it is true.”

Of course not. He couldn’t deny the phone calls, because there were records. The madwoman had made up the rest out of her destructive delusions.