I don’t know how it was that she saw me, because she really did seem to be staring at that wall in front of her and I was coming from the side, through the crowd. The fact is, when I was about six yards away from her, she turned her head as if obeying a silent command and immediately stood up with that sinuous, dangerous, predatory movement of hers.
I stopped in front of her, not much more than a foot away. Encroaching into that bubble where nobody else dared enter. I nodded my head in greeting and she responded in the same way.
“What are you doing here?”
For a fraction of a second, I thought I saw something like embarrassment on her face, even a slight blush. It was only a fraction of a second, and maybe I only imagined it. When she spoke, her voice was the way it had been the other times: grey, like the steel of a knife.
“Martina isn’t coming. You told her not to. So I’ve come to see how it goes and then tell her about it.”
I nodded and told her we could go into court. The hearing would be starting soon, and it was a good idea to be there to hear what time our case would be dealt with. As I said it, I realized I hadn’t yet seen Scianatico, or even Delissanti.
19
Sister Claudia sat down behind the rail separating the space intended for the public from that reserved for the lawyers, the defendants, the public prosecutor, the clerk of the court and the judge. In other words, where the trial takes place.
After briefly explaining to her what was about to happen, I went over to the clerk of the court, who was already in his place. In front of him he had two stacks of files: the cases that were due to be dealt with during the hearing.
In theory, at least. In practice, there would be adjournments, annulments, postponements, either at the request of the defence attorneys or else “due to the excessive number of cases in today’s hearing”. In practice, by the end of the hearing, the judge would only have ruled on three or four of the cases at the most.
Caldarola didn’t think it was dignified for a judge to do too much work.
I asked the clerk of the court if I could see the file. I wanted to check the list of prosecution and defence witnesses. I hadn’t submitted a list because I took it for granted that Alessandra Mantovani had indicated all the relevant witnesses.
The clerk of the court gave me the file and I went and sat down on one of the lawyers’ benches. All still empty, despite the crowd outside.
Alessandra, as predicted, had listed all the requisite witnesses. Martina, obviously. The police inspector who had been in charge of the investigation. A couple of girls from Safe Shelter. Martina’s mother. The doctors. No surprises.
The surprises – unpleasant ones – were in the defence list. There were a dozen witnesses, who would testify: (1) as to the relations between Professor Scianatico and the plaintiff Martina Fumai during the period of their cohabitation; (2) in particular, as to what they noticed on occasions during which they frequented the residence of Professor Scianatico and the plaintiff; (3) to the best of their knowledge, as to the physical and mental problems of the plaintiff and the behavioural implications of such problems; (4) as to the reasons known to them for the cessation of cohabitation.
But the real problem wasn’t those witnesses. They were only there to make an impression. The problem was the last name on the list. Professor Genchi, professor of legal medicine and forensic psychiatry. He was listed as an expert witness who would testify “as to the conditions of mental health of the plaintiff in relation to the witness statements and the documents whose admission will be requested, with the purpose of ascertaining the plaintiff’s mental fitness to testify and, in any case, with the purpose of ascertaining the admissibility of said testimony”.
I knew the professor: I had seen him in a lot of trials. He was a man you could trust, not like some of his colleagues, who produce accommodating – and well-paid – evaluations of defendants. Claiming that they have serious mental illnesses, that being ill they absolutely cannot remain in prison and must therefore be transferred as soon as possible to house arrest. Needless to say, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, these gentlemen are as healthy as can be. Needless to say, these expert witnesses are perfectly well aware of that, but with a nice fee in sight they prefer not to make fine distinctions.
Genchi, though, was someone you could trust, someone judges listened to. Quite rightly. He would never lend himself to coming into court and talking nonsense or giving false testimony. Delissanti had chosen someone who would never let his hand be forced to exaggerate his evaluation. Which meant that he must be feeling very confident.
As I was reading, and getting increasingly worried, I felt a presence behind me. I turned and looked up. Alessandra Mantovani, already wearing her robe. She greeted me in a professional manner – Good morning, Avvocato – and I replied in the same way, Good morning, Dottoressa.
Then she went and sat down in her place. Her face was a touch tense. Small lines at the corners of her mouth, her eyes partly closed. I was certain she’d already read Delissanti’s list.
The assistant who was with her placed two dusty folders on her desk, full of files with discoloured covers. A few minutes passed, and at last Delissanti came in, with his usual retinue of secretaries, assistants and trainees. Almost immediately after, the bell sounded to signal the start of the hearing.
They’d arrived virtually at the same time. The defence attorney and the judge.
It had to be a coincidence.
20
The preliminaries did not take too long.
The judge declared the proceedings open and asked the clerk of the court to read the charges – in full, as required by law. In practice, it isn’t usually done. The judge asks the parties, “Shall we take the charges as read?” Then he usually doesn’t even listen to the answer, and carries on. He takes it for granted that nobody is interested in hearing the charges read out, because they already know them perfectly well.
That day, Caldarola didn’t take the charges as read, and so we had to listen to all of them in the nasal voice of Clerk of the Court Filannino from Barletta, with his strong accent. A thin man, with greyish skin, not much hair, and a sad, unpleasant grimace at the corners of his mouth.
I didn’t like that. Caldarola was someone who, more than anything else, liked to get on with things. It was a bad sign that he should waste time on formalities. It must mean something, but I wasn’t sure what.
After the charges had been read out, Caldarola asked the public prosecutor to make her requests for the admission of evidence. Alessandra stood up, her robe dropping perfectly along her body as she did so, without her needing to pull it up over her shoulders. Unlike almost everyone else, including me.
She didn’t speak for very long. Basically, all she said was that she would prove the offences indicated in the charges by means of the witnesses on her list and the documents that would be shown in evidence. From the way she looked at the judge, I realized she was thinking the same thing as me. That something was going on behind our backs.
Then it was my turn, and I said even less. I referred to the public prosecutor’s requests, asked for the defendant to be examined, if he consented, and reserved my observations on the defence’s requests until I had heard them.
“Counsel for the defence.”
Delissanti stood up.
“Thank you, Your Honour. Here we all are, even though we shouldn’t be. The fact is, there are some cases that should never be brought to trial. This is one of them.”
First pause. He turned his head to the bench where Alessandra and I were sitting. Trying to provoke us. Alessandra’s face was devoid of expression: she was looking into space, somewhere behind the judge’s bench.