“Certainly I knew him. Since last year. That is, ever since I worked that beach.”
“Do you remember when it was you last saw him?”
“No. Not exactly. But I saw him every time I went to that beach. He was always with either his grandparents or his mother. Occasionally with an aunt and uncle.”
“Have you ever seen him near his grandparents’ house, or anywhere other than the beach? Have you ever visited his grandparents’ house?”
“I don’t even know where his grandparents’ house is, and I’ve only seen the boy on that beach.”
“The owner of the Bar Maracaibo says that he saw you on the afternoon the boy disappeared, that you didn’t have your bag of goods, and that you were heading towards the grandparents’ house.”
“I don’t know which house that is,” he repeated irritably, “and that afternoon I didn’t go to Monopoli. When I got back from Naples, I stayed in Bari. I don’t remember what I did but I didn’t go to Monopoli.”
With an angry movement he seized the packet of cigarettes and matches, still on the table, and lit up again.
I let him take a few puffs in peace, then went on.
“How did you come to have a photograph of the boy at home?”
“It was Ciccio who wanted to give me that photo. An uncle of his, I think, had a Polaroid and took several photos at the beach. The boy gave me one of them. We were friends. Every time I passed I stopped to talk to him. He wanted to know about Africa, about the animals, if I’d ever seen any lions. That sort of thing. I was happy when he gave me the photo because we were friends. What’s more, at home I had masses of photos, lots of them of people on the beach, because I am friends with lots of clients. The carabinieri took only that one. It’s plain that this way it looks like evidence against me. Why didn’t they take all the photos? Why did they take only a few books? I didn’t have only children’s books. I have manuals, history books, books on psychology, but they took only the children’s books. Obviously this makes me out to be a maniac. What’s the word? A paedophile.”
“Did you tell these things to the magistrate?”
“Avvocato, do you know the state I was in when they took me before the magistrate? I couldn’t breathe from the beating I’d taken, I was deaf in one ear. First I was beaten up by the carabinieri, then I was beaten up by the warders as soon as I got to prison. In fact, it was the warders who told me it was much better for me to say nothing to the magistrate. Then the lawyer told me I mustn’t answer questions, as there was a risk it would only complicate matters, and I’d already made a mistake by answering the public prosecutor. He needed to study the documents carefully first. So I went before the magistrate and told him I didn’t want to reply. But even when I did answer, it made no difference, because the magistrate took no notice of what I said. In any case, I stayed in prison.”
I waited a second or two before speaking again.
“Where are all your things, the ones you mentioned, the books, the photos, everything?”
“I don’t know. They cleared out my room and the landlord has let it to someone else. You’ll have to ask Abajaje.”
We were silent for a few minutes, with me trying to sort out the information I had received, him I don’t know where.
Then I spoke again.
“All right, that’s enough for today. Tomorrow, or rather on Monday, I’ll go to the prosecutor’s office and see when we can make a copy of the documents. Then I’ll study them, and as soon as I’ve got my ideas a bit clearer I’ll come back and see you and we’ll try to organize a defence strategy that makes sense…”
I left the sentence in the air, as if there were something to be added to it.
Abdou noticed, and gave me a faintly questioning look. Then he nodded. He hesitated a moment, but he was the first to hold out his hand and shake mine. His grasp differed slightly, only slightly, from the one of an hour before.
Then I opened the door and called the warder who was to take him back to his cell, in the special section reserved for rapists, child abusers and those who had turned state’s evidence. All of them subjects who wouldn’t have lasted long in the company of the other prisoners.
I picked up the cigarette packet and realized it was empty.
9
On Monday I woke up at about half-past five. As usual.
In the early days I’d tried to stay in bed, hoping to get back to sleep. But I did not get back to sleep, and ended up wrapped in sad and obsessive thoughts.
I therefore realized that it was better not to stay in bed, and to content myself with four or five hours of sleep. When things went well.
So I acquired the habit of getting up as soon as I woke. I would do some exercises, have a shower, shave, make breakfast, tidy the apartment. In short, I spent a good hour and a half managing to think about practically nothing.
Then I would go out and there would be the daylight, and I’d take a long walk. This too helped me not to think.
And so I did that morning. I got to the office at about eight, glanced at my memo pad and put it into my briefcase along with a few pens, some official forms, my mobile. I scribbled a note to my secretary and left it on her desk.
Then I set out for the law courts. Getting up so early and arriving so early at the law courts had certain advantages. The offices were practically deserted, so it was possible to get through chancellery matters more quickly.
I had a hearing that morning, but first I had to go and talk to Prosecutor Cervellati. The public prosecutor engaged on Abdou’s case.
He was not exactly the most congenial man of law in the judiciary offices.
He was neither tall nor short. Not thin, but not exactly fat. His paunch was in any case always covered, summer and winter alike, with a horrible brown waist-coat. Thick glasses, very little hair, and what there was of it always a shade too long, grey jackets, grey socks, grey complexion.
On one occasion a friendly female colleague of mine, speaking of Cervellati, called him “a man in a singlet”. I asked her what she meant and she explained that this was a category of human being that she had come up with herself.
A man in a (metaphorical) singlet is first of all one who, at the height of summer, when it’s 95 degrees in the shade, wears a (real) singlet under his shirt, “because it absorbs the sweat and so I don’t catch my death of cold from all these draughts”. An extreme variant of this category is constituted by those who wear singlets even under a T-shirt.
A man in a singlet has an imitation-leather pouch for his mobile, with a hook to attach it to his belt. In the afternoon he gets home and puts on pyjamas. He keeps his old e-tacs mobile because those are the ones that still work best. He sucks mints to sweeten his breath, uses talcum powder and mouthwash.
Sometimes he has a condom hidden in his wallet, but he never uses it and sooner or later his wife discovers it and gives him hell.
A man in a singlet uses phrases such as: nowadays it’s impossible to park in the centre of town; nowadays the young have no interests except discotheques and video games; I have nothing against homosexuals/ gays/queers/faggots/fairies as long as they leave me alone; if someone is a homosexual/gay/queer/ faggot/fairy, he can do as he pleases but he can’t be a schoolteacher; sincerest condolences; there’s no difference between right and left wing, they’re all thieves; I know when the weather’s going to change because I get a pain in my elbow/knee/ankle/corns; we learn by our mistakes; at the end of the day; I don’t talk behind people’s backs, I say it straight out; only fools work; worse than wetting your bed; don’t dig your grave with your knife and fork; where there’s life there’s hope; it seems like yesterday; I must decide to learn how to use the Internet/go to the gym/go on a diet/get my bicycle going/give up smoking etc., etc., etc.
It goes without saying that a man in a singlet says there are no longer any intermediate seasons and that the dry heat/cold is no problem, it’s not so much the heat/cold, it’s the humidity.
The man in a singlet’s swear
words: oh sugar, shoot, drat it, oh flip, bloomin’ heck, well I’ll be jiggered, ruddy hell, for Pete’s sake, naff off, eff off.
Anyone who knew him would have agreed. Cervellati was a man in a singlet.
One of his few merits was that of being in the office every morning by half-past eight. Unlike almost all his colleagues.
I knocked at his door, heard no invitation to come in, opened the door and looked in.
Cervellati raised his eyes from a tattered dossier on a desk covered with other rather grubby dossiers, codices, files, an ashtray with half a Tuscan cigar that had gone out. As usual the room stank a bit: dust and stale cigar smoke.
“Good morning, Mr Prosecutor,” I said with all the fake affability I could muster.
“Good morning, Avvocato.” He did not ask me to come in. Behind his glasses and the barrier of dossiers his face was devoid of any expression.
I entered the room, asking if I could come in and not expecting an answer, which indeed I never got.
“Mr Prosecutor, I have been appointed by Signor Thiam, whom you will certainly remember-”
“You mean the nigger who killed the boy in Monopoli.”
Evidently he did remember. In a few days’ time he would announce that the preliminary investigations were concluded and I would be able to view the documents and make copies. He had no doubt at all that I would ask for the shortened procedure, which would save time for everyone. Perhaps I had not noticed, by a mere oversight, that the charge did not contain the aggravating circumstances of “the teleological nexus” that could trigger a life sentence. If we opted for the shortened procedure, without those aggravating circumstances, my client could get off with as little as twenty years. If we went to the Assize Court he – Cervellati – would have to include those circumstances in the charge and for Abdou Thiam the door to life imprisonment would stand wide open.
He declared his innocence? So did they all.
He thought of me as a serious person and was sure I would not conceive any wrong ideas, such as going to the Assizes in the absurd hope of getting an acquittal. Abdou Thiam would be found guilty anyway, and a court of judges and jury would tear him to shreds. In any case he – Cervellati – had no intention of wasting weeks or even months in the Assize Court.
The shortened procedure is one of the things which in the trade are known as special procedures. As a rule, when the public prosecutor concludes the inquiries in a murder case he asks the judge for the preliminary hearing to commit the accused for trial.
The preliminary hearing serves to verify whether there are sufficient prerequisites for a trial, which, in the case of murder, falls within the competence of the Court of Assizes, composed of both professional judges and a sworn-in jury. If the judge for the preliminary hearing considers that these prerequisites exist, he orders the committal for trial.
The accused, however, has an opportunity to avoid being sent up to the Court of Assizes and to get himself a simplified trial, and this is the shortened procedure.
At the preliminary hearing he can ask, either directly or through his defending counsel, that the trial be determined within what is called the state of the acts. This means that the judge for the preliminary hearing, basing his judgement on the documents provided by the public prosecutor, decides whether there is sufficient evidence to convict the accused. If he finds that such evidence exists, he finds the accused guilty.
It is a far swifter procedure than a normal trial. No witnesses are heard and, except in rare instances, no new evidence is acquired. The public is not admitted and the case is decided by one judge sitting alone. In short, it is an abbreviated procedure that saves the state a great deal of time and money.
Of course, the accused also has an interest in choosing this kind of trial. If convicted, he has the right to a considerable reduction in his sentence. To put it in a nutshell, the state saves money and the accused saves years in prison.
This shortened procedure has another advantage. It is ideal when the accused hasn’t much money and cannot afford long hearings, witnesses, experts, examinations and cross-examinations, summings-up, lengthy harangues and so on and so forth.
Opting for the shortened procedure, the accused clearly loses numerous chances of being acquitted, because everything is based on the documents provided by the public prosecutor and the police, who, as a rule, work to get their man, not to let him go.
However, when for the accused the chances of acquittal are few or none even in a normal trial, then the reduced sentence is a really attractive prospect.
From all points of view, therefore, the shortened procedure seemed ideal for Abdou Thiam, who truly had very slim chances of being acquitted.
“Read the indictment and you’ll see that it’s better for all concerned to do it the short way,” concluded Cervellati, dismissing me.
Outside it was raining. A fine, dense, perfectly odious rain.
I was just getting to my feet when Cervellati said it: “Nasty weather, this. I have no trouble with dry cold, perhaps with a fine sunset thrown in. It’s this damp cold that gets into your bones…” He looked at me. I could have said quite a number of things, some of them even amusing from my point of view. Instead I gave a sigh: “It’s the same as with heat, Mr Prosecutor. It’s not so much the heat, it’s the humidity.”
10
After the meeting with Cervellati I attended a hearing and negotiated a settlement for a woman accused of fraudulent bankruptcy.
In point of fact, the woman had nothing to do with the bankruptcy, the insolvency, the firm or the law. The real owner of the firm was her husband, who had already gone bust once and had a record of swindling, embezzlement and indecent behaviour.
He had registered his fertilizer business in his wife’s name, had made her sign masses of promissory notes, had not paid his workers, had not paid his electricity bills, had not paid his telephone bills, but had raided the till.
Naturally the firm had gone bust and the titular owner had been accused of fraudulent bankruptcy. The husband had chivalrously allowed justice to take its course and his wife to be found guilty, albeit with plea-bargaining.
I had been paid the week before, without submitting an invoice. With the money from the till or acquired from goodness knows what other swindle on the part of Signor De Carne.
One of the first things you learn as a criminal lawyer, especially when dealing with types like De Carne, is to get paid in advance.
Obviously you are almost always, or at least very often, paid with money obtained by criminal means.
It shouldn’t really be mentioned, but when you defend a professional pusher who pays you ten, twenty, even thirty million if you manage to get him out of prison, well, you’re bound to have some vague doubt about the source of that money.
If you are defending a man arrested for persistent extortion in complicity with persons unknown, and his friends come to the office and tell you not to worry about the fee, they’ll take care of it, here too you can make a guess that that fee will not be composed of spotlessly clean money.
Let me make it clear that I was no better than the rest of them, even if I did sometimes try to retain a morsel of dignity. Not with types like De Carne, however.
In short, I had in any case been paid in advance with money from an unknown – and dubious – source, I had concluded a decorous plea-bargaining that at least guaranteed the poor woman a suspended sentence, and as far as that morning was concerned I could go home.
I took advantage of a lull in the rain, did my shopping, reached my apartment and had hardly begun to make myself a salad when my mobile rang.
Yes, I was Guido. Of course I remembered her, Melissa. Yes, at dinner with Renato. It had been a very pleasant evening. Liar. No, I didn’t mind that she’d got hold of my mobile number, far from it. Did I know who Acid Steel were? Sorry, I didn’t. Ah, well there was a concert of this Acid Steel lot in Bari this evening. Well, near Bari anyway. Would I like to go along with her? Yes, but what about
tickets? Ah, she had two tickets, in fact two invitations. Fine. Then it’s agreed, tell me your address and I’ll pick you up. You’ll come here? Very well. Ah, you already know where I live. Very good, this evening at eight, yes, don’t worry, I won’t dress like a lawyer. Ciao. Ciao.
I remembered Melissa very well. About ten days previously my friend Renato, a former hippie now working in the art side of advertising, was celebrating his fortieth birthday. Melissa had arrived in the company of a stumpy little chartered accountant wearing black trousers, a black elasticated pullover, a black Armani-style jacket, and black hair long over the ears, non-existent on top.
She had not passed unobserved. Levantine face, five foot eight, quite unsettling curves. Even an apparently intelligent expression.
The accountant thought he had picked an ace that evening. But instead he had the two of spades with clubs as trumps. No sooner had she entered than Melissa was on friendly terms with practically every male at the party.
She had chatted with me too, no more and no less than with the others, it seemed to me. She had shown interest in the fact that I boxed. She had told me that she was studying biology, that she was going to do postgraduate studies in France, that I was a charming fellow, that I didn’t seem like a lawyer at all and that we’d certainly be meeting again.
Then she went on to the next one.
Time was – a year before – when I would have dashed to retrieve her from the jungle of illintentioned males who populated the party. I would have thought up something, given her my mobile number, tried to invent excuses for meeting again as soon as possible. And the inky-cloaked accountant could drop dead. He, however, was actively engaged in knocking back one cocktail after another, so he would soon be dead of cirrhosis anyway.
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