Involuntary Witness (7 page)

Melissa gave me a kiss on the corner of my mouth, lingering over it. She smelt of booze, smoke and a strong perfume that reminded me of something. Then she said that she didn’t have much at home and so we’d better go to a bar and buy a few beers.

I wasn’t entirely easy in my mind but I stopped in front of an all-night bar, got out and bought
two
beers. To prevent the situation from degenerating.

She lived in an old block of council flats near the television studios. The sort of building populated by five or six foreigners living in one room, old council tenants (a species on the verge of extinction) and students away from home. Melissa came from Minervino Murge.

The entrance had a very dim bulb that shed no light whatever. Melissa lived on the first floor and the stairs smelt of cat pee.

She opened the door and went in first, with me following her into the darkness. Stuffiness and stale cigarette smoke.

When the light went on I saw I was in a minute
hallway that gave onto a study-cum-bedroom on the left. On the right was a closed door that I took to be the bathroom.

“Where is the kitchen?” was my fatuous thought of the moment. And at the same instant she took me by the hand and led me into the bedroom/study/living room. There was a bed against the wall opposite the door, a desk, books everywhere. Books on shelves, stacks of books on the floor, books on the desk, books scattered here and there. There was an old radio-tape recorder, an ashtray containing two squashed filters, a few empty beer bottles and a nearly empty bottle of J&B whisky.

The books ought to have reassured me.

When I enter a house for the first time I check on whether there are books, if they are few, if they are many, if they are too neatly arranged – which is a bad sign – or if they are all over the place – which is a good sign, and so on.

The books in Melissa’s tiny home should have given me a good impression. But they didn’t.

“Do sit down,” said Melissa, pointing to the bed.

I sat, she opened the beers, handed me one and drank more than half of hers without taking the neck of the bottle from her lips. I took a sip, just to show willing. My brain was searching frantically for an excuse to escape. After all, it was nearly two o’clock in the morning, I had to work the following day, we had had a pleasant evening, we would certainly be seeing each other again, don’t worry I’ll call you, and anyway I’ve got a slight headache. No, there’s nothing the matter except the fact that you’re an alcoholic, a drug addict, probably a nymphomaniac and I want to cry. I’ll call you, really I will.

While I was struggling to think up something less
pathetic, Melissa – who in another single gulp had finished her beer – slipped off her panties (black) from under her skirt.

She didn’t want to waste too much time on preliminaries and other boring formalities. So much was obvious.

And in fact there were no formalities.

I stayed in that place, what with this and that, until nearly daylight.

While she smoked and finished the bottle of whisky she recited the difficulties of living away from home with next to nothing coming from her parents. Of paying the month’s rent, of eating – and of
drinking
, I thought – of buying cigarettes, clothes, paying for the mobile, having the odd evening out. And books, of course. The occasional job – hostess, public relations – hardly ever brought in enough.

That month, for example, she was already late with the rent, had an exam to prepare for, and the landlady waiting for nothing better than an excuse to chuck her out.

If she wouldn’t be offended, I could lend her a little. No, she wouldn’t be offended, but I had to promise that I’d make her pay it back. Of course, don’t worry. No, I haven’t got half a million in cash, but look, here’s 220,000 in my wallet, I’ll keep the twenty just in case. Don’t worry about it, you’ll let me have it back when you can, there’s no hurry. I really must go now, because tomorrow, that is today, I have to work.

She gave me her mobile number. Of course I’ll call you, I said, screwing up the slip of paper in my pocket, wrenching open the door and fleeing like a scalded cat.

Outside was a leaden dawn, a mouse-coloured sky. The puddles were so black they reflected nothing.

My eyes reflected nothing either.

There came to mind a film I had seen a couple of years before,
The Ghost and the Darkness
, a splendid yarn about big-game hunters and lions.

Val Kilmer asks Michael Douglas, “Have you ever failed?”

The reply: “Only in life.”

The next day I changed my sim-card and mobile phone number.

The days that followed that night were not memorable.

About a week passed, then we were notified that the inquiries were concluded.

At eight-thirty next morning I was in Cervellati’s secretariat to request copies of the file. I made the application, they told me that I could have copies within three days and I left the offices prey to pessimism.

On the Friday my secretary called at the public prosecutor’s office, paid the fees, collected the copies and brought them to the office.

I spent Saturday and Sunday reading and re-reading those papers.

I read, smoked, and drank big cups of weak decaffeinated coffee.

I read, smoked, and what I read I didn’t like a bit. Abdou Thiam was in a pretty pickle.

It was even worse than I’d thought when I read the detention order.

It looked like one of those cases without any prospects, in which going to the Assizes could lead only to a pointless massacre.

It looked as if Cervellati was right and that the only way of reducing the damage was to opt for the shortened procedure.

The thing that nailed my client most of all was the testimony of the barman. He had made a statement to the carabinieri the day before Abdou was
arrested. He had been heard again, a few days later, by the public prosecutor in person.

A perfect witness – for the prosecution.

I read and re-read the two reports, on the look-out for any weak points, but I found almost nothing.

That of the carabinieri was a summary report written in the most classic police-station jargon.

 

The evidence given to Cervellati was complete, in the sense that it was recorded and stenotyped. Here the person in possession of the facts did not use improbable expressions such as “the aforesaid commercial premises” or “purchase and consume a coffee”. But the upshot was the same.

 

Abdou’s interrogation by the public prosecutor was little less than catastrophic.

It had taken place at night, in the carabinieri station in Bari, with a defence lawyer appointed by the court.

The report was a summary, without recording or stenotyped record.