A Walk in the Dark by Gianrico Carofiglio Page B

expression on his face, and his jaws were clenched. The atmosphere was turning leaden.
    “And so, Your Honour, I strongly object to the testimony of the expert witness named by the defence being admitted. At least until there has been a concrete explanation as to what this testimony relates to, and in what way the things to which it may relate have any bearing on this particular case.”
    I seconded the public prosecutor’s objection. Then Delissanti asked to be allowed to speak again. His tone was not as breezy as before.
    “Your Honour, I really can’t understand what the public prosecutor and counsel for the plaintiff are afraid of. Or rather, to be honest, I do understand, but I’d like to avoid squabbles. There are two possibilities here. Either Signorina Martina Fumai doesn’t have any problems of a psychiatric nature, and so there’s no reason to get upset at the prospect of hearing the testimony of a specialist like Professor Genchi. Or else Signorina Fumai does have problems of a psychiatric nature. In which case these problems – to refer to them in deliberately reductive terms – should be brought up, so that we may assess how they affect her ability to testify, and more generally, the reliability of her testimony. And in any case, Your Honour, with the aim of avoiding any further squabbles and kneejerk objections, I am able, as of now, to produce
photocopies of the plaintiff’s medical and psychiatric records.”
    Delissanti picked up a sky-blue folder and waved it vaguely in the judge’s direction. One of his two trainees leaped to his feet, took the folder and placed it on the judge’s bench.
    At that point I stood up and asked to be allowed to speak. “Keep it short,” Caldarola admonished me: he was starting to get impatient.
    “Just a few words, Your Honour.” I heard myself speaking and my voice was tense. “First of all, we would like to know how counsel for the defence came into possession of these photocopies. Or rather, we would first like to examine these photocopies, since Avvocato Delissanti has not had the courtesy to place them at the disposal of either the public prosecutor or myself. As should have been dictated by the rules of courtesy, even before the rules of procedure.”
    Delissanti, who had only just sat down on a chair that barely contained his huge backside, stood up again with surprising agility. His face and neck turned very red. The redness made a strange contrast with the white collar of his shirt, which held his brutal neck like a vice, a neck almost twice the size of mine. He yelled that he would not take lessons in procedure, let alone in courtesy, from anyone. He yelled other things, offensive things I assume, but I didn’t hear them because I too raised my voice, and it didn’t take long for the hearing to be transformed into what’s known as an unholy row.
    It sometimes happens. The so-called halls of justice are rarely a place for gentlemanly debates. Not the ones I’ve been in, anyway. And not Caldarola’s courtroom that morning.
    The outcome was as bad as it could be. At least for
me. The judge said he was forbidding me to speak. I said I would like parity of treatment with counsel for the defence. He cautioned me not to make offensive insinuations and repeated – “for the last time” – that he was forbidding me to speak. I didn’t stop speaking, I didn’t calm down, and I didn’t lower my voice. I knew I was screwing up. But I couldn’t stop. Just like when I was a little child, playing football in the school championship, I’d respond to the stupidest provocations, get into fights, and be regularly sent off.
    The outcome was more or less the same as in those football matches. The judge called a five-minute recess. When he came back in, he didn’t look very friendly. To keep to the rules, he consented to Alessandra and myself consulting Dellisanti’s file. It was a copy of the medical records from a private nursing home in the north, where