The Measure of Time

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  “Yes. I’d gone shooting with a friend in a quarry. A few days earlier, I don’t know how many days.”

  “That’s what you said in court. Nobody was able to question you because these were statements and you weren’t examined. But if we want to make use of this fact at the appeal hearing we need something more. The ruling says there’s absolutely no possibility of confirming this information, so it’s completely irrelevant. They’re not wrong.”

  “I don’t know what else I could say.”

  “Well, for example, you could tell me right now who you went shooting with, who the gun belonged to, what kind of gun it was, where this quarry is, and then we’ll decide what use to make of the information.”

  “The quarry is near Trani. The gun was a 7.65 calibre and it wasn’t mine.”

  I took a deep breath to overcome my irritation. “Who did you go shooting with?”

  He looked away, massaged his shoulder again and shook his head. “I don’t want to say. He’s a friend of mine. If I say who he is I’ll get him in trouble.”

  “Look, Cardace, let’s clarify a few simple concepts. I’m not the kind of lawyer who wants to know everything about his client’s life. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, the less I know the better. Some things, though, are useful to know if a defence has any chance at all of succeeding. If things stay as they were at the original trial, if we don’t bring in some new evidence that allows us to call seriously into question the narrative that’s at the basis of the ruling, you can be sure they’ll confirm that original verdict. Did you read the ruling?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, since you strike me as a bright young man” – a bright young man? Why the hell are you talking like that, Guerrieri? I thought in a flash – “you’ll have realized that it’s well thought out and persuasive. To attempt to attack a ruling like that we need something concrete, not vague tales without any indication of places, people or circumstances.”

  He was looking at me, again with the obtuse expression he’d had at the beginning of the interview. He shook his head in silence.

  It occurred to me that this expression had been studied and practised at length, however unconsciously, just to make whoever he was speaking to feel nervous. Even when it wasn’t a good idea to make the person he was speaking to feel nervous. The silence lasted a couple of minutes. Then I told myself that, for many reasons, now was not the time to insist. I’d be talking just to satisfy my bruised ego. Which made it a very bad idea. It’s always a bad idea to satisfy your ego, and very bad when you have to convince somebody, especially if serious consequences may follow from whether or not you convince them. Knowing when to keep quiet is an essential talent. Few things so wrong-foot a person who’s trying to provoke you as a neutral and therefore indecipherable silence. This type of silence sends a very clear message that the provocation hasn’t succeeded.

  Leaving at that moment was the most appropriate thing to do, even though keeping quiet cost me quite a bit of effort.

  “It’s up to you. In that case, we’re done for today. We’ll meet again in a few days, at the hearing.”

  As I imagined, he looked disoriented. “But what happens at the hearing? Does the trial start immediately?”

  “No,” I said, putting my papers back in my bag and getting to my feet. “I’ll ask for an extension in order to evaluate the possibility of adding new grounds to the appeal drawn up by Costamagna’s people, and above all to have more time to submit evidence. The possibility of our succeeding in this depends on many factors. The main one is whatever information you have and can tell us.”

  I shook his hand and said goodbye.

  It wasn’t Smaldino who saw me out, back through corridors, bays, gates and bolts – he must have finished his shift. It was a tough-looking young officer with bulging muscles and a shark tattooed on his neck, just under his high tapered hair.

  Lorenza

  Verio came to pick me up with a friend of his I didn’t know, a guy named Antonello, who succeeded in the not very easy enterprise of immediately striking me as irredeemably unpleasant.

  The party was in a large apartment in an old block in the Corso Sonnino area. The host was a professor of theoretical philosophy, not especially well known for his contribution to the history of thought, but rather famous in the city for his affairs with female students with unquestionable physical virtues.

  As Verio had promised, there were indeed a lot of people. They were all talking at the same time, producing a kind of low-level din. I knew almost nobody.

  The apartment was full of books; they were everywhere, even in the bathroom and the kitchen. Our host was sitting in an armchair in a corner of the living room. On his knees was a girl equipped with a decidedly competitive chest; they were exchanging a joint of remarkable proportions. He was about fifty at the time – not much younger than my father.

  In a room at the end of the corridor somebody was singing, somebody playing the guitar.

  Verio and Antonello had immediately abandoned me, so I decided to grab something to eat and go and listen to the music. If I didn’t find anyone – male or female – to make friends with within half an hour, I would leave. And I doubt anyone would have noticed.

  The boy who was playing the guitar and the girl who was singing were on a sofa; around them, amid all the books, people were sitting on a rug on the ground or on chairs and stools. It was not the classic situation of an intimate party. It was more like a show, with two performers and an audience.

  When I walked in they were doing Neil Young’s “Harvest”. The girl had a steady, slightly raucous voice; she came across as professional. She was looking at her hands and didn’t get a single word wrong. She had long, elegant black eyelashes, very thick wavy hair and a face that had something old-fashioned about it, with a look in her eyes that was halfway between melancholy and arrogance.

  I sat down on a stool at the back. When they finished, everyone clapped and the girl – not a young girl, she was older than me – thanked them with a couple of small bows. It was then that our eyes met. I thought – it’s one of the things I remember most clearly – that I would like to get to know her and spend my life with her. Immediately afterwards it struck me that neither of these two things would happen, certainly not the latter, and that upset me.

  Unaware, or maybe aware, of my torment, she whispered something to the guitarist. He nodded, retuned his guitar and started whistling – a structured, melodious whistle – the intro to “Heart of Gold”. The girl sang and every now and again raised her eyes to me, cutting the air between us.

  When they finished that, too, we clapped again; she again whispered something to the guitarist, he put down his guitar, and it was clear that the show was over.

  Even before I could grasp what was happening, I saw her coming towards me.

  “And who are you?”

  “I sometimes wonder that myself,” I replied, hoping I hadn’t mistaken the tone. But there wasn’t much choice. I could hardly state my particulars: I’m Guido Guerrieri, twenty-four years old (but almost twenty-five), a law graduate, a trainee prosecutor, I don’t know what I’ll do when I’m grown up and I don’t even know if I want to grow up.

  “Ah, a philosopher. Very good. Are you a student of our host?”

  “You mean where girls are concerned?”

  She laughed. “Why don’t you go and get me a glass of wine?”

  I stood up too quickly, went to get the wine (a whole bottle, just opened, so as not to be forced to interrupt the conversation again), and when I returned I found her on the sofa. She patted her hand on the cushion next to her, as you do with children or animals. I poured the wine and sat down obediently.

  “I don’t yet know your name.”

  “Guido.”

  “I had a boyfriend named Guido. He was quite forgettable. But maybe I shouldn’t let that prejudice me.”

  “Guido’s a cover name. I can’t tell you my real name, it’s classified.”

  “So
you’re witty too, Guido.”

  I’d have liked to ask her what that “too” meant, but she didn’t give me time.

  “What do you do in life? Please don’t tell me you’re about to graduate with a thesis on the relationship between Kierkegaard and the philosophy of Jaspers, or something like that. I don’t think I could bear it.”

  “I already graduated, with a thesis on criminal neglect. I think that’s even less bearable. If you like, I can leave right now.”

  “Oh my God, are you a lawyer? How did you end up here?”

  We continued chatting and drinking and smoking. We finished the bottle and grabbed another. Which is why from a certain point onwards my memories become vague. I couldn’t testify with any reliability as to what I said and what she said. Partly because I was distracted by her proximity, her barely perceptible perfume, the contact established every now and again, apparently casually, between our bodies.

  I do remember, though, that she laughed a lot and that I thought it was a laugh that spelled trouble, and that I wanted to get in trouble, as soon as possible.

  After a while she looked at her watch, said she was late, that it was possible she was expected somewhere else.

  Before I could reply she stood up, gave me a kiss on the lips, actually a lingering one, and left.

  I didn’t know what to do. I was already drunk and thought seriously that I should continue drinking. The party ended and somebody scooped me up from the sofa and took me home. Maybe Verio and Antonello, but I couldn’t swear to it.

  I spent a disturbed night, about which I’d rather not go into details. The following morning, I couldn’t stand on my feet. I called the office and said I was ill and would have to stay home that day.

  8

  Judge Marinelli was not known as a great jurist, let alone a tireless worker.

  He smoked a pipe. That was one of the few things that could be said about him with any certainty. He always had one in his hand as he wandered the corridors of the courthouse, and there was a rack full of them in his office, as if to avoid the risk of not being able to choose a different pipe for every smoke.

  Pipe smoking and its rituals have never attracted me, but I must admit there was a pleasant smell of tobacco in the room. You just needed to be careful not to get too close to Marinelli, to avoid his breath.

  When I put my head round his door he was sitting at his desk. Obviously with a pipe in his hand. He told me to come in. The way he acted, the way he spoke, the way he conducted hearings displayed all the superciliousness of someone who’s convinced he is the legitimate holder of an absolute power but likes to show a magnanimous, almost sympathetic face. In all that he said, did and wrote – including his rulings – there was a hint of condescension. And so it was in a condescending tone that he motioned me to sit down in one of the two fake leather armchairs facing him.

  As a start, I pretended to be interested in his pipes.

  “There are always more of them,” I said, just to say something.

  “Have you seen the new one?” he said enthusiastically, as if talking about a newly born grandchild. He pointed to one in the middle of the rack. To me there was nothing remarkable about it, but he told me he’d gone all the way to London to buy it from a specialist shop. I smiled without making any comment. I didn’t want to run the risk of letting him see what I really thought of someone who could make a journey from Bari to London just to purchase a pipe.

  “So, Avvocato Guerrieri, tell me, what’s the reason for your visit?”

  “Before anything else, thank you for finding the time to see me.”

  He made a gesture of magnanimous, regal casualness.

  “I’m here to talk about the Cardace appeal. The Gaglione murder. The hearing is in ten days’ time, and there’s a problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “The defence at the original trial was entrusted to Avvocato Costamagna.” I’d thought of saying “the late lamented Avvocato Costamagna”, but I just couldn’t do it. “The trial took place at a time when he was already in bad health and the effects of the illness were having an effect on his professional activities. I don’t know if you’ve had time to read the ruling and the trial transcripts.” I was almost certain he’d never even looked at the case file. His degree of attachment to his work was expressed in visual terms by his very tidy, very clear desk, without a single sheet of paper on it.

  “I did glance at it,” he replied evasively, “but I still have to examine everything carefully.” Precisely. He was waiting for the summary from his associate judge at the beginning of the appeal hearing. He probably wouldn’t even open the case file. “Have you been appointed by the accused?”

  “Yes, Your Honour. I took the case only a few days ago, when the date for presenting new grounds for appeal and for submitting new evidence was already due.” I leaned a little more towards him, across the desk, assuming a conspiratorial air. “May I speak very frankly, Your Honour?”

  He frowned and now, in an equal and opposite movement, leaned towards me and looked me in the eyes. I imagine that to anyone watching we’d have looked like two characters in a farce. “Of course,” he replied, nodding.

  “When you do take a look at the proceedings, you’ll realize that the quality of the defence accorded the accused, Signor Cardace, at the original trial didn’t live up to the standards to which poor Avvocato Costamagna had accustomed us. In his last couple of years, he wasn’t as clear-headed as he had been, and it’s possible that not everything that could and should have been done was done. On this basis, as you can well imagine, I need a few days to prepare and, above all, to evaluate the possibility of formulating requests.”

  I paused, in case he wanted to cut in. He didn’t. Basically, he just wanted to avoid problems.

  “Obviously, I’d prefer not to make explicit or official what I’ve just told you about Avvocato Costamagna’s difficulties in the last years of his work, and unfortunately of his life, but what we’re talking about here is the requirement to safeguard the right to a defence. I repeat, I’d rather not go into details, let alone make these doubts public, but the problem does exist.”

  “So what would you like to do?”

  “I’ll do whichever of the various possible options you suggest, Your Honour. I can present you with a written request to extend the time limit, before the hearing; I can ask you for a simple prior adjournment of the hearing, which should also extend the time limit as under article 585, final paragraph; or else, if we want to avoid problems of notification, we can proceed with the hearing and, in the preliminary phase, I can ask you for an extension. I’ve come to ask you which of these solutions you find preferable, and I’ll act accordingly.”

  Marinelli cleared his throat and turned his pipe around in his hands, looking at it pensively. “Avvocato Costamagna was a friend of mine,” he said, “as well as a cousin of my wife’s. I wouldn’t want his professional memory to be tarnished by the revelation of any difficulties he may have had in the final part of his career and his life.”

  “I completely agree.”

  “So I’d rather your demands were satisfied without a pointless strepitus fori.”

  “I have only two requirements, one of a more formal character – for the extension to be granted – and the other more substantial: I need the court to be flexible about the requests I’m going to make. Reading the file, you’ll see that at the original trial the defence produced hardly any evidence that might have helped the accused and didn’t even cross-examine the witnesses for the prosecution. Not to beat about the bush: in the appeal, I need to be able to do both these things which were completely neglected at the trial.”

  Marinelli put his pipe down on the leather folder he had in front of him, then again cleared his throat to give authority to what he was about to say and to emphasize that this was a kindly concession.

  “Very well, Avvocato, here’s what we’ll do. Don’t present any written requests. We’ll see each other at the hearing, and at
that point you’ll ask for an extension of the time limit. We’ll grant you a month. That’ll give you time to formulate any additional grounds and your requests for submitting evidence. Which will be evaluated leniently.”

  “Thank you, Your Honour.”

  “They’ll be evaluated leniently,” Marinelli went on, “as long as you don’t exaggerate, of course. This is still an appeal, not the original trial.”

  “Of course.”

  9

  That evening, Annapaola and Tancredi and I went out for dinner together. Consuelo never joins us for these meetings outside office hours. She has a husband and a daughter and after work stays strictly with them.

  We chose a restaurant called Il piede di porco.

  The owner is a man named Orazio, a former specialist in robbing bank vaults and armoured cars. Orazio learned to cook – quite well – in prison, where he spent a number of years.

  After having – as they say – paid his debt to society, he worked as a chef in various places around Italy. Then he returned to Bari and opened a restaurant of his own. He cooks the vegetables he grows in his own kitchen garden and the fish brought to him by his fishermen friends – some of whom are former colleagues from the old days. In spite of the name, no meat is eaten at Il piede di porco – The Pig’s Trotter – on principle.

  Tancredi once told me that robbers are the category of criminal with the highest reoffending rate. No sooner do they leave prison, even after long periods of detention, than they start all over again. They need the adrenaline that comes from dangerous acts; they rob for the pleasure of the sporting gesture, more even than for the money. Orazio seems to be an exception to the rule; to satisfy his need for adrenaline, he’s taken up free climbing. It isn’t clear, says Tancredi, if he deliberately replaced one thing with another, but from every indicator it appears that he’s stayed clean.