“Obviously Iacopo knew that.”
“Yes.”
So I had discovered that Iacopo was innocent, something I’d been convinced of for a while. And yet I had also defended him using a false testimony. A false alibi.
“I had no choice,” Lorenza resumed. “I had no idea how you’d react and I couldn’t take the risk that you might not take the case, or that you’d take it but stop me going on the stand and giving that testimony.”
There are moments when everything turns upside down, when the coordinates all change abruptly and the brain takes paths that are hard to interpret. Just one question came to my lips. A rather incongruous one, to be honest.
“When did you vow to quit smoking?”
“Just before the appeal hearing. When I saw what you were all doing, the investigations and all the rest, and I thought maybe you’d succeed in getting Iacopo acquitted.”
“So why didn’t you tell yourself: I’ll quit smoking if Iacopo is acquitted?”
A brief laugh escaped her. Actually not much more than a gasp. “I know it’s an absurd argument, but which of these arguments isn’t? I knew you’d get him acquitted. But I also wanted him to be innocent and I wanted to know he was innocent. I didn’t want to waste a wish.”
I thought of going to get a cigarette from the rubbish bin and lighting it. I didn’t.
“You mentioned coffee.”
She shook herself as if from a kind of torpor. “Of course. I’ll make it right away.”
She filled the pot and we waited in a suspended silence for the coffee to rise. Lorenza poured it into two brown cups, the kind that were used in cafes all those years ago and, still in silence, we drank it.
“I have to go now.”
“Guido…”
“Iacopo will be out in a few weeks maximum. I’ll let you know from the office when we have more specific news. I assume you’ll go to the prison to give him the news, so I won’t need to.”
“Guido, listen…”
“I’m going. I’m glad your son’s getting out. I’m really glad. Personal disappointment is just a detail, one of many. And details aren’t important.”
It isn’t true; details are important. But I didn’t say this.
She hugged me at the door of the apartment. She held me tight and I smelt her smell and felt her thin body up against mine. I responded to the hug, thinking that we had never had such intimate contact all those years before.
In the street, I realized the wind had swept away almost all the clouds of the past few days. I felt like smiling.
It was turning into a bright spring morning.
About the Author
Award-winning, best-selling novelist Gianrico Carofiglio was born in Bari in 1961 and worked for many years as a prosecutor specializing in organized crime. He was appointed advisor of the anti-Mafia committee in the Italian parliament in 2007 and served as a senator from 2008 to 2013. Carofiglio is best known for the Guido Guerrieri crime series: Involuntary Witness, A Walk in the Dark, Reasonable Doubts, Temporary Perfections, A Fine Line and The Measure of Time, all six published by Bitter Lemon Press. His other novels include The Silence of the Wave and The Cold Summer. Carofiglio’s books have sold more than six million copies and have been translated all over the world.
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM
BITTER LEMON PRESS
BY GIANRICO CAROFIGLIO:
the guido guerrieri series
Involuntary Witness
A Walk in the Dark
Reasonable Doubts
Temporary Perfections
A Fine Line
other
The Silence of the Wave
The Cold Summer
Copyright
BITTER LEMON PRESS
First published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by
Bitter Lemon Press, 47 Wilmington Square, London WC1X 0ET
www.bitterlemonpress.com
First published in Italian as La misura del tempo by Giulio Einaudi editore, 2019
© Gianrico Carofiglio, 2019
English translation © Howard Curtis, 2021
This edition published by arrangement with
Rosaria Carpinelli Consulenze Editoriali srl.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher
The moral rights of the author and the translator have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978–1–913394–48–6
eBook USC ISBN: 978–1–913394–49–3
eBook ROW ISBN: 978–1–913394–50–9
Typeset by Tetragon, London
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
The Measure of Time Page 24