Gianrico Carofiglio - A Walk in the Dark

I went back to the photocopies Alessandra Mantovani had given me. The stalker is a predator who acts in such a way as to cause emotional distress and arouse a reasonable fear of being killed or suffering physical abuse. It is difficult to imagine the intensity of the fear and anguish felt by the victim. The terror is so intense and so constant that it is often beyond the understanding of anyone not directly involved.

And so on.

I started to feel a healthy sense of anger.

So I closed the file, put aside the photocopies, and started to write out the civil action.

Margherita had gone to Milan for two days on business.

So I went straight back to my apartment, with the idea of training for half an hour. Since I’d half moved to Margherita’s, I’d created a gym corner in my own apartment, with dumbbells and a punch bag.

Sometimes I managed to go to a real gym, to skip rope, hit the punch bag, fight a few rounds. And get a few punches in the face from younger men who were a lot faster than me these days. At other times, if it was too late, if I didn’t have the time or the inclination to get my bag ready and go to the gym, I’d train alone at home.

I was just about to get in my tracksuit when it struck me that it was too late this evening even to train at home. Besides, I was almost satisfied with my work – which didn’t happen often – and so I didn’t have a sense of guilt, which was what usually got me pounding that punch bag.

So I decided to make dinner. Since being with Margherita, and spending so much time in her apartment, I’d made sure my fridge and my larder were always well stocked. Nor before, but now, always.

I realize it may seem absurd, but that’s how it is. Maybe it was my way of reassuring myself that I’d kept my independence. Maybe simply being with Margherita had made me pay more attention to details, in other words, to the things that really mattered.

Whatever the reason, my fridge and larder were full. In addition, I’d actually learned to cook. Even that, I think, was linked to Margherita. I wouldn’t be able to say exactly how, but it was linked to her.

So I took off my jacket and shoes and went into the kitchen to check I had the ingredients for what I had in mind. Cannellini beans, rosemary, a couple of small onions, botargo. And spaghetti. That was all.

Before starting, I went to choose some music. I spent a while looking through my collection, then chose Angelo Branduardi’s settings of poetry by Yeats. I went back to the kitchen as the music was starting.

I put on water to boil for the pasta and salted it almost immediately. A habit of mine, because if I don’t do it straight away I forget and the pasta comes out tasting bland.

I cleaned the small onions, sliced them and put them in the frying pan to cook with some oil and the rosemary. After four or five minutes I added the beans and a pinch of pepper. I left them to fry, and lowered half a pound of spaghetti into the boiling water. I drained it five minutes later, because I like pasta very hard, and tossed it in the frying pan with the seasoning. After putting it on the plate – it spilled over the edge a bit – I sprinkled it abundantly (more than was recommended in the recipe) with the botargo.

It was almost midnight by the time I started eating. I drank half a bottle of a fourteen-proof Sicilian white. I’d tried it in a wine shop two months before, and bought two cases of it the following day.

When I’d finished, I took a book from the pile of my latest purchases, still unread, which I kept on the floor next to the sofa.

It was a Penguin edition of My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell, brother of the more famous – and much more boring – Laurence Durrell. It was a book I’d read, in Italian, many years before. Well written, intelligent, and above all very funny. Funny as few books are.

I’d recently decided to brush up on my English – when I was younger, I’d spoken it quite well – and so I’d started to buy books by American and English authors in the original language.

I lay down on the sofa and started reading and, almost simultaneously, laughing out loud without restraint.

Without being aware of it, I went straight from laughter to sleep.

A lovely, effortless, serene sleep, full of childlike dreams.

Uninterrupted, until the following morning.

When I went to the clerk of the court’s office to lodge the civil action, I had the impression the official responsible for receiving documents looked at me in a strange way.

As I left, I wondered if he had noticed which case I was bringing a civil action in, and if that was the reason he’d looked at me that way. I wondered if that particular clerk of the court had connections with Scianatico’s father, or with Delissanti. Then I told myself that maybe I was becoming paranoid and let it go.

That afternoon, I had a call at the office from Delissanti. Now at least I knew I wasn’t becoming paranoid. The clerk of the court must have called him less than a minute after saying goodbye to me.

Part of Delissanti’s professional success was based on his shrewd handling of relations with clerks of the court, assistants, bailiffs. Christmas and Easter presents for everyone. Special presents – sometimes very special, it was said in the corridors – for some people, where necessary.

He didn’t waste time beating about the bush.

“I hear you’re representing that Fumai girl in a civil action.”

“News travels fast. I suppose you have a little bug in the clerk of the court’s office.”

The clerk of the court was a small, thin man. But Delissanti didn’t catch the double meaning. Or if he did catch it, he didn’t think it was very witty.

“Obviously you realize who the defendant is.”

“Let me see… yes, Signor… no, Doctor Gianluca Scianatico, born in Bari…”

I was annoyed by the phone call, and I wanted to provoke him. I succeeded.

“Guerrieri, let’s not be childish. You know he’s Judge Scianatico’s son.”

“Yes. I hope you didn’t phone me just to tell me that.”

“No. I phoned to tell you you’re getting involved in something you don’t understand, something that’s going to cause a lot of trouble.”

Silence at my end of the line. I wanted to see how far he would go.

A few seconds passed, and he regained control. He probably thought it wasn’t the right time to say anything too compromising.

“Listen, Guerrieri, I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings between us. I’d just like to explain to you the spirit in which I’m phoning you.”

All right, I thought. Explain it to me, fatso.

“You know the Fumai girl is unbalanced, psychologically speaking, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said. She’s someone who’s been in mental hospitals with serious problems. She’s someone who’s still in therapy, under psychiatric observation. That’s what I mean.”

Now he was the one to enjoy a pause, and my silence this time was because I was stunned. When he thought maybe he’d waited long enough, he started speaking again. In the tone of someone who has the situation under control now.

“In other words, we’d like to try to avoid situations we might come to regret. The girl isn’t well. She’s had serious problems. Young Scianatico was very stupid to take her into his home, but then the relationship finished and the girl made up this whole incredible story. And that other woman, who’s a fanatical oldstyle feminist” – he meant Alessandra Mantovani – “has taken it as gospel truth. Obviously, I’ve talked to her, but it was no use; knowing her type I should have expected it.”