Involuntary Witness

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  I made an effort to conceal my irritation.

  “Well then, Abdou, let us get things straight between us. I am your lawyer. You appointed me yourself” – I produced the telegram that had arrived from the prison the previous day and waved it about for a moment – “and I am here to help you, or to try to do so. For this I need your assistance. Otherwise I can do nothing. Do you follow me?”

  Until then he had been bent slightly forward, looking at the table. Before answering, he straightened up and looked me in the face.

  “I only sent that telegram because Abajaje told me to. Maybe you will try to do something, like the other lawyer, or maybe not. But I’ll stay here whatever happens. When the trial comes up I’ll be found guilty. We all know that. Abajaje thinks you are different from the other lawyer and really can do something. I don’t believe it.”

  “Listen to me, Abdou,” I said, forcing myself again to keep my voice calm, “if you cut yourself and the wound is deep and bleeds a lot, what do you do?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “You go to a doctor and have it stitched up, don’t you? You don’t know how to stitch a wound because you’re not a doctor.”

  This seemed to me an appropriate metaphor to explain to him that there are times when one simply has to avail oneself of a specialist, and that in this case the specialist was me.

  “I know how to put in stitches because I was an army nurse during military service.”

  At that point I gave up trying to appear calm. It was obviously useless.

  “Listen here and listen carefully. Listen very carefully indeed, because if you give me another crappy answer like that I’ll walk out of here, call your woman, give her back the money – what there is of it – and you can find yourself another lawyer. Otherwise the court will appoint a counsel who won’t do a damn thing for you unless you pay him. And he probably won’t do anything even if you do pay him, seeing what you can afford. Obviously, if you are behaving in this idiotic manner because you really did kill that boy and want to pay for it, well, all the more reason for me to drop the matter ...”

  Silence.

  Then, for the first time since we had been together in that room, Abdou Thiam looked at me as if I really existed. In a low voice, he spoke.

  “I didn’t kill Ciccio. He was my friend.”

  I held still briefly, to regain my balance.

  It was as if I had hurled myself bodily at a door in an attempt to burst through, and someone on the other side had calmly opened it. I took a deep breath and had a hankering for a cigarette. I drew a soft packet from my coat pocket and offered it to Abdou. He said nothing, but took one and waited for me to light it for him. Then I lit my own.

  “All right, Abdou. I’ll have to read the prosecution’s documents, but first I must have a clear picture of everything you remember about those days. Can we begin to talk about them?”

  He was silent a while before nodding.

  “When did you learn about the boy’s disappearance?”

  He took a long drag at the cigarette before replying.

  “I learned that the boy had disappeared when they arrested me.”

  “Do you remember what you did on the day the boy disappeared?”

  “I went to Naples to pick up my supplies. I said this when they questioned me. I mean, I said I’d been to Naples, but I didn’t say I had been to buy handbags, so as not to make trouble for the people who sold me them.”

  “You went there alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you get back from Naples?”

  “In the afternoon, the evening. I don’t remember exactly.”

  “And the next day?”

  “I don’t remember. I went to some beach but I don’t remember which.”

  “Do you remember anyone you met? I mean both on 5 August and on the following morning. Someone who might remember having seen you and whom we can call as a witness.”

  “Where were you that morning, Avvocato?”

  I was in the shit, was the answer I would have liked to give. I was in the shit also the morning before and the morning after. I’m pretty much still in it. Just a little bit less.

  This was of no interest to Abdou, however, and I said nothing. I rubbed my forehead, then passed a hand across my face and finally lit another cigarette.

  “OK. You’re right. It isn’t easy to remember an afternoon, a morning or a day that’s just the same as so many others. However, we have to make an effort to reconstruct those days. Now would you like to tell me something about the boy? You knew him?”

  “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 discothèques 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 swearwords: 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 th
an 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.