A Walk in the Dark by Gianrico Carofiglio Page A

– narrow, slightly bent shoulders, the bewildered look of a small predator – denied everything. It isn’t true, it isn’t true, it isn’t true, he kept repeating, shaking his head, talking in an almost monotonous voice, quite out of place given the situation. He asked to be confronted with the witness. The witness, he said, was wrong and would surely realize his mistake if he could see him face to face. There was something convincing about the dullness and terseness of his defence, and I started to suspect that the police had made a big mistake. And I think the assistant prosecutor who was interrogating him was starting to get the same idea.
    Then came the twist. Two policemen entered the interrogation room. One of them was carrying a small transparent plastic bag, and inside it you could see a big knife, the kind called a Rambo knife, its blade dirty with blood. The two policemen looked like cats who’ve caught a mouse. The one with the bag dangled it in front of the little man’s face.
    “Now you’re really fucked, arsehole. You should
have found this for us yourself. So what about a confession now, eh? There are more prints on this than in all the files in this station. And they’re all yours.”
    It was obvious he’d have liked to underline his words with a pair of well-aimed slaps. But unfortunately he couldn’t – he must have thought – not with a magistrate and a lawyer in the room.
    I don’t remember what happened next. I know the man stopped denying it and confessed soon after. But I don’t remember the exact sequence, what he said, what the public prosecutor asked him, what I said to justify my unnecessary presence. By this point it wasn’t important. But what I do remember is the smell, which soon filled that little room in the station. Covering the stench of smoke – the cold stench of years and the warm stench of a night of interrogations – the smell of the people, the paper, the dust, the dregs of coffee in the plastic cups.
    It was a sharp, obtrusive, slightly obscene smell. And since that night I’ve never mistaken it.
     
     
    Immediately after telling Martina that Scianatico’s lawyer would pry into her most personal problems, I smelled that smell. It wasn’t very strong, but there was no mistaking it. And it wasn’t pleasant. I tried to ignore it as I started giving her instructions on how she should act.
    “As we’ve said, he’ll try to provoke you. So the first rule is: don’t let yourself be provoked. It’s what he wants and we mustn’t give it to him.”
    “How . . . how will he try to provoke me?”
    “Tone of voice, insinuations, aggressive questions.” Before continuing, I paused for a moment. To breathe, and to glance at Sister Claudia. Her face had the lively expression of a statue on Easter Island.

    “References to your problems . . . as I said.”
    “But what have my problems got to do with the trial?”
    Yes, what did they have to do with it? Good question. If you needed a psychiatrist once, does it mean you can’t testify? And what about the lawyer? Can the lawyer do his job? I asked myself before replying, remembering a few distressing fragments of my own past.
    “In theory, and I emphasize, in theory, the fact that a witness has had some . . . behavioural difficulties may be relevant. To assess the admissibility of what he says, to get a better idea of the story behind his statements, and so on. In practice we – I mean both I and the public prosecutor – will be very careful to prevent abuses. But it wouldn’t be a good idea for us to object to every question about your health problems . . .”
    Behavioural difficulties. Health problems. I stopped to think: I was doing some real verbal acrobatics in order not to call a spade a spade.
    “. . . your health problems, because then it might look as if we have something to hide. So my idea is this, if you agree. Let’s play them at their own game. When it’s my turn to question you, I’ll be the first