Reasonable Doubts (26 page)

“The assistant prosecutor says, quite rightly, that the new evidence that has emerged during this appeal hearing is not incompatible with this story.”

I glanced at Montaruli before I continued.

“But now let’s see what other story it is possible to tell on the basis of the evidence we have.

“A family spends a week’s holiday in Montenegro. At night their car stays in the hotel car park and - in case it needs to be moved - the keys are left with the porter. The night before they are due to leave someone takes those keys.

“Someone who knows that Paolicelli and his wife are going back to Italy the next day, in that same car.

“This someone, with his accomplices, strips the bodyshell from Paolicelli’s car - his wife’s car, to be more precise - and fills it with drugs. Then they put everything back where it was, the car and the keys. It’s a good way to carry out an extremely lucrative operation with the minimum of risk. An operation set up by an organized group, which goes about things in a highly professional way, involving a division of roles and tasks. One of these tasks must be to check that everything goes well on the journey, to follow the unwitting courier and make sure the drugs are retrieved once they are in Italy. This retrieval probably to be carried out through a targeted theft of the car itself.

“At the border post in Bari, something goes wrong. The customs police find the drugs and arrest Paolicelli, who makes a confession without a lawyer being present-a confession which is therefore completely unusable - with the sole purpose of avoiding his wife being arrested.

“Immediately after the arrest, someone, in circumstances which are bizarre to say the least, suggests to Paolicelli’s wife that she appoint a lawyer from Rome. This lawyer has previously had a nasty brush with the justice system himself, in which he was arrested, charged and then acquitted for the offence of criminal conspiracy to traffic drugs. This same lawyer has a private relationship, the nature of which is unclear, with a man who - as Macrì himself says - has also been charged with drug trafficking. By a curious coincidence, this man was travelling on the same ferry as Paolicelli.

“Of course it could be, as the prosecutor hypothesizes, that Paolicelli and this man were accomplices in the illegal operation.

“I must point out, however, that there exists at least one important piece of evidence which contradicts this hypothesis. The file contains printouts of the defendant’s mobile phone records, and those of his wife, during the week immediately prior to the arrest. They were acquired, quite correctly, in an attempt to identify possible accomplices, but when they were examined nothing significant emerged. There weren’t many calls that week, almost all of them between Paolicelli and his wife, and none to numbers in Montenegro. And none to any phone users related to Romanazzi. If the customs police had found any, they would surely have highlighted it, given that Romanazzi had previously been charged with drug offences. Instead, the note that was sent to the Prosecutor’s Department with these printouts simply states that nothing significant emerged from an examination of the phone records.

“We can therefore explain the presence of Romanazzi on board that ferry by saying that he was there to keep a close watch, without any risk to himself, on the transporting of the drugs by the unwitting Paolicelli, and to make sure that the next phase, the retrieval of the drugs, went well.

“And it could be that it was in fact Romanazzi who suggested to Paolicelli’s wife, through a go-between, that she appoint Macrì.

“Why would he do that? To follow as closely as possible, through a person he trusted completely, the development of proceedings. To make sure that Paolicelli didn’t tell the investigators anything that might compromise the organization, for example anything about the hotel in Montenegro, the person with whom he left the keys, and so on. Indeed, Macrì advises Paolicelli to exercise his right to remain silent and the whole process goes through without the defendant
making a single statement, apart from the false confession he made immediately after the arrest.

“Let us also remember that when the sequestration order on the car is lifted-a car which is the property of Paolicelli’s wife - Macrì is anxious to go personally and pick up the car from the police pound.

“What lawyer does something like that? And why does he do it? As a rule, as we all know, the lawyer gets the sequestration order lifted and then the client is the one who goes to pick up the car.

“Macrì acts in a very unusual way, for which we must find a reasonable explanation, even if only a hypothetical one. Isn’t it possible that there was something in the car which the investigators had not found and which those responsible for the illegal operation had a major interest in retrieving? More drugs, perhaps. Or else a GPS tracker that had been planted in the car at the same time as the drugs. I’m sure you know what a GPS tracker is.”

Of course I was sure they
didn’t
know.

“A GPS tracker is a satellite signaller. It’s used as an anti-theft device in luxury cars, and is also used by the police to keep track of the cars of suspects under investigation. With a GPS it’s possible, from a long distance, to track down the location of a car to within a few yards. And it’s all done using mobile phone networks. If the device installed in the car is found, then it’s possible to trace those phones. Do I need to add anything more? Is it really absurd to hypothesize that the gang which planted the drugs in Paolicelli’s car also installed a GPS tracker to be on the safe side, and the customs police did not find it? Is it absurd to hypothesize that Macrì personally collected the car in order to retrieve any remaining drugs and that compromising device? That
device which, if found by the investigators, would have made it possible for the police to trace the traffickers’ phones? How else can we explain the actions of a lawyer who not only gets the sequestration order lifted, which is perfectly normal, but also goes personally to collect the car, which is quite abnormal?”

At this point I had to resist the impulse to turn round and see who was still in the courtroom. To check if there were any unknown or suspicious-looking faces. Anyone sent by Macrì to keep an eye on what I was saying, to see just how stupid I’d been and how great a risk I liked to take. To anyone listening, it must have seemed a purely technical pause, the kind you use to keep people’s attention.

Obviously, I didn’t turn round. But when I resumed, I still felt an unpleasant undercurrent, a sense of unease. A creeping fear.

“Is it a fanciful story? Perhaps, in the sense that it’s the result of a series of reasonable hypotheses. Is it an absurd story? Certainly not. Above all, it is a story which - at least as far as the transporting of drugs in the ways we are hypothesizing is concerned - has already been told in the past, in other investigations. There have been other cases in which our investigators and those of other countries have discovered similar illegal operations involving the transporting of narcotics by the same means.

“It could be objected:
That’s what
you
say, Guerrieri
.

“It’s true, it is what I say, but, if you have any doubts about the existence of such a modus operandi, you still have time, even after you retire to deliberate, to arrange for further evidence to be admitted, for example a statement by the head of the narcotics section of the Bari Flying Squad, or any other officer in a narcotics unit, who will be able to confirm
that this particular criminal practice has indeed been known to take place.”

It was at this point that I glanced at my watch and realized that I had been speaking for an hour. Too long.

I could see from their faces that they were still following me, but I wouldn’t be able to keep their attention much longer. I had to try and bring my speech to a conclusion. I quickly returned to more general topics: the question of method, my interpretation of the evidence as opposed to the assistant prosecutor’s.

“Whenever it is possible to construct a
multiplicity of stories
capable of encompassing all the evidence within a coherent narrative, we must conclude that the evidence is doubtful, that there is no legal certainty, and that therefore we must acquit.

“Needless to say, in this area it is not a question of a competition between the degrees of probability of the various stories. To put it another way: it is not enough for the assistant prosecutor to propose a
more
probable story to win the case.

“In order to win the case, in other words, to make sure that the sentence is upheld, the assistant prosecutor must propose the
only
acceptable story. In other words, the only acceptable explanation of the facts of the case. All the defence has to do is propose a possible explanation.

“I repeat: this is not a contest between degrees of probability. I know perfectly well that the assistant prosecutor’s story is more probable than mine. I know perfectly well that the law of experience on which the assistant prosecutor’s story is based is stronger than mine. But this law of experience is not life. It is, like all laws of experience,
a way of interpreting the facts of life
, an attempt to make sense of them. But life, especially
those areas of life which result in legal proceedings, is more complicated than our attempts to reduce it to classifiable rules and to well-ordered, coherent stories.

“A philosopher has said that facts and actions have no meaning in themselves. The only thing that can mean anything is the narrative we make out of those facts and actions.

“We all of us - and not only in court - construct stories to give meaning to facts which in themselves have none. To try and bring order out of chaos.

“When we get down to it, stories are all that we have.”

I stopped. A thought had suddenly crossed my mind. Who was I saying these things to? Who was I really talking to?

Was I talking to the judges in front of me? Or to Natsu, who was behind me even though I couldn’t see her? Or Paolicelli, who - however things ended up - would never know the meaning of this story? Or was I talking to myself and was everything else -
everything
else - just a pretext?

For a few moments, I thought I knew what it all meant, and I gave a slight, melancholy smile. Just for a few moments. Then that meaning, if I really had found one, disappeared.

I told myself that I had to start speaking again, had to bring my argument to a conclusion. But I didn’t know what else to say. Or rather, I didn’t feel like saying anything. All I wanted was to get out of there.

Still I didn’t speak. I saw a questioning look on the faces of the judges. They were starting to get impatient.

I had to bring my argument to a conclusion.

“Life does not work by selecting the likeliest, most believable or most well-ordered stories. Life isn’t well ordered and doesn’t always tally with the laws of experience. In life there are sudden strokes of good luck and bad luck. You may win the lottery; you may contract a rare, fatal disease.

“Or you may be arrested for something you didn’t do.”

I took a deep breath. I felt as if all the exhaustion in the world had descended on my shoulders.

“The assistant prosecutor and I have told you many things. The kind of things that help us to debate cases and to come to conclusions. The kind of things that help us to justify our arguments and our decisions, to give us the illusion that they are rational arguments and decisions. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t, but that’s not really the most important thing. The most important thing is that at the moment of making the decision you are -
we are
- alone, faced with the question: am I sure this man is guilty?

“We are alone, faced with the question: what is the right thing to do? Not in the abstract, not according to any method or theory, but specifically, in
this
case, in relation to the life of
this
man.”

I had said these last words almost under my breath. I stood there in silence. Pursuing a thought, I think. Perhaps searching for a closing phrase. Or perhaps searching for the meaning of what I had said, and leaving the words to hang in the air.

“Have you finished, Avvocato Guerrieri?” Mirenghi’s tone was polite, almost cautious. As if he had realized something and didn’t want to appear intrusive or tactless.

“Thank you, Your Honour. Yes, I’ve finished.”

He then turned to Paolicelli, who was standing there with his hands together, his head against the bars.

He asked him if he had anything he would like to say before the court retired to deliberate. Paolicelli turned to me, then back to the judges. He seemed to be about to say something. In the end he just shook his head and said no, thank you, Your Honour, he had nothing to say.

It was at that moment, as the judges gathered their papers to retire to their chamber, that I was struck by a feeling that I was hovering between dream and reality.

Had the events of the past four months really happened? Had Natsu and I really made love, twice, in my apartment? Had I walked in the park with Natsu and little Midori, taking unfair advantage of those few minutes to play father, or had I only imagined it? And was the defendant Fabio Paolicelli really the Fabio Rayban I’d been obsessed with during my teenage years? And did it still matter to me to find out the truth about that distant past, supposing there had ever been a truth to find out? On what basis can we say with any certainty that an image in our head is the result of something we’ve actually seen or an act of the imagination? What
really
distinguishes our dreams from our memories?

It lasted a few seconds. When the judges disappeared into their chamber my thoughts went back to normal.

Whatever the word means.

47

That day there were several hearings involving prisoners, in various courtrooms, and not many guards. So the head of the escort had asked Mirenghi for permission to take Paolicelli back down to the holding cells so that he could use his men in other courtrooms. When the judges were ready to give their decision, the clerk of the court would call the head of the escort and Paolicelli would be brought back up to the courtroom for the ruling to be read out.