“Good afternoon, Avvocato.”
“Good afternoon. Please sit down.”
I found my own voice a bit over-emphatic, and that made me feel uncomfortable.
This time Natsu took off her coat, sat down, and even smiled a little. The same perfume as last time already hung in the air.
“I’m pleased you’ve accepted the case. Fabio was really keen on getting you. He says that in prison…”
I felt a slight irritation. I didn’t want her to continue. I didn’t want her to tell me how much faith Fabio Rayban had in me. I didn’t want her to remind me that I had decided to defend him for a reason he wouldn’t like and I couldn’t confess. So I made a gesture with my hand, as if to say, forget about that, I’m modest, I don’t like compliments. The gesture was a lie: I actually like compliments a lot.
“As I said, it’s just the way I work. I always like to look through the papers first to make sure there isn’t any reason for me not to take on a case.”
Why was I still talking such bullshit?
To put on airs, obviously. To play a part. To make myself look good. I was behaving like a schoolboy.
“What did you think when you read the file?”
“Pretty much what I’d thought before. This is a very difficult situation. Even supposing-”
I broke off, but too late. I was about to say, even supposing your husband is telling the truth – and supposing doesn’t mean conceding – proving it, or at least creating a reasonable doubt, will be extremely difficult. I broke off because I didn’t want to reawaken her more than reasonable doubts. But she understood.
“You mean: even supposing Fabio’s story is true?”
I nodded, lowering my eyes. It seemed as if she wanted to say something else, but whatever it was she obviously decided not to say it. So it was up to me to continue.
“To try and get an acquittal, we’d have to prove that the drugs weren’t your husband’s. Or at the very least present arguments to the court that cast doubt on the idea that the drugs were your husband’s.”
“That means we would have to discover who planted them.”
“Precisely. And as the whole thing happened in Montenegro a year and a half ago, I’m sure you realize-”
“That there’s nothing we can do. Is that it?”
Well, I replied, it was true that there wasn’t a lot we could do. But we could try to reconstruct, in as much detail as possible, what had happened in the days immediately prior to her husband being arrested. I told her, in a nutshell, what Tancredi had suggested – making it seem as if everything was my idea. I spoke in the tones of someone who’s used to this kind of investigation. As if all this was quite normal in my line of work.
When I’d finished explaining my plans for the investigation, she seemed impressed.
Damn, I was clearly someone who knew his stuff.
She asked if I wanted to start reconstructing the facts right now with her. I told her I preferred to talk to her husband first: I would visit him the next day, and then we two could meet before the end of the week.
She said that was fine. She asked me about the advance, I mentioned a figure, and when she took out a chequebook I asked her to see my secretary about that side of things. We princes of the bar don’t dirty our hands with money or cheques.
That was all for the moment.
When she had gone I felt quite good, like someone who’s made a good impression on the right person. I studiously avoided thinking about the implications of that.
9
Now I needed information about this Macri.
The first thing I did was switch on my computer, go to the website of the bar association of Rome, and type in his name. What came up was the small amount of information most bar associations provide. Born in 1965, Macri had been a member of the Rome association for just over three years and had previously been a member of the association in Reggio Calabria. His office was in a street with an unusual name. And it didn’t have a phone. Where the contact details should have been, there was only a mobile number. Strange, I thought. A lawyer’s office without a phone. I made a mental note of the fact. It might mean something.
I’d have to turn to some of my Roman friends if I wanted to find out more. So I went through the list of my so-called friends in Rome. It wasn’t a long list.
There were a couple of colleagues I’d sometimes joined forces with for appeals to the Supreme Court or other proceedings that had gone through the Roman courts. To call them friends would have been an exaggeration. There was a journalist who had worked in Bari for some years on the legal column of La Repubblica. He was a pleasant guy, and we’d sometimes had a coffee or an aperitif together, but we’d never been more than casual acquaintances. And if I called him and asked him for information about Macri, there was always the danger I’d arouse his professional curiosity.
There remained my old friend from university, Andrea Colaianni, an assistant prosecutor in the regional anti-Mafia department in Rome. The only person I could turn to without any hassle and who might be able to give me the information I needed.
I looked in my mobile’s phonebook and found his number. For a few minutes I stared at the coloured screen. How long was it since Colaianni and I had last spoken? It must have been years. We’d run into each other once in the street in Bari when he was visiting his parents. We’d exchanged a few words and I’d had the impression that our friendship, like so many others, was over. Now I was phoning him – assuming the number was still valid. What would he think? What should I say to him? Should I chat for a while to observe the social conventions before I asked him for help?
I’ve always had major problems with telephones and telephone calls. What if he was annoyed? He might be in the middle of interrogating someone, or busy in some other way. Besides, magistrates – even if they’re your friends – are unpredictable creatures.
OK. That’s enough.
I pressed the button. Colaianni replied after two rings.
“Guido Guerrieri!” I was surprised he had my number in his phonebook.
“Hi, Andrea. How’s it going?”
“Fine. And you?”
We started chatting. We chatted for at least ten minutes about various things. Family – well, his, at least – work, mutual friends neither of us had seen or heard from for ages. Sport. Did I still box? You’re crazy as ever, Guerrieri.
Finally I told him the reason for my call. I explained everything, briefly. I told him I was groping in the dark, that I didn’t know what to do or what to tell my client. That I needed some information to help me see more clearly. Even if in the end it meant telling my client that the only serious prospect was to plea-bargain.
Colaianni told me he’d never heard of Macri, though in a place like Rome that didn’t mean anything. But he would ask around, and get back to me in a few days.
“But don’t build up your hopes. The likeliest hypothesis is that your client really was transporting those drugs, but hadn’t told his wife. The reason he denies it, despite all the evidence, is because he’s ashamed and doesn’t have the courage to admit it to her.”
Right. I knew that and almost hoped that things really were like that.
It would all be so much simpler.
10
It had to happen sooner or later. I mean: that I would ask myself that question again. It happened quite naturally as I sat waiting for Paolicelli in the lawyers’ room at the prison.
Were the rumours that had circulated in those days true? Was he really one of the people responsible for the death of that young man? Or at the very least, did he belong to the same gang as the killers?