Reasonable Doubts by Gianrico Carofiglio Page A

dilemmas, even more so in this case than in others - no effort, nothing to study. Nothing.
    And into these reflections there crept, like some quick-moving, repulsive little animal creeping into the well-scrubbed kitchen of a house in the country, the idea that if things went that way, Paolicelli would be in prison for quite a long time.
    And I’d know how to make use of that time.
    “What is it?” he asked me as I held out the photo.
    “Take a look at it and tell me if you know this man or if you’ve ever seen him.”
    He looked at it for a long time, but, from the way he started to shake his head imperceptibly, I realized that my investigation was already over. The shaking became more marked and at last he looked up at me and gave me back the photo.
    “Never seen him. Or if I have, I’ve forgotten. Who is he?”
    I was tempted to reply that, since he didn’t know him, it didn’t matter. But I didn’t do that.
    “He’s a criminal. A top-level drug trafficker. At least the police suspect he is, though they’ve never been able to pin anything on him. He was on board the same ferry as you. My suspicion was that he had something to do with what happened to you.”
    “What do you mean, your suspicion was ? Don’t you still suspect him?”
    It was an intelligent question, and I gave a stupid answer.
    “You didn’t recognize him.”
    “What does that mean? I didn’t see who put the drugs in my car. How could I recognize him? If there’s a reason to suspect this character had something to do with my case, what difference does it make if I don’t recognize him?”
    His reply annoyed me. I had to make an effort to restrain the impulse to give him a curt answer, to the effect that I was the lawyer and he was the client. I was the professional and he was the prisoner. I had to make an effort not to pay him back for the fact that he was right.
    “Theoretically, it shouldn’t make any difference. But in practice, even though we may suspect this man, we have no pretext to present this suspicion in court if you don’t recognize him. If you can’t say that you noticed this man hanging around your car, for example. Or that he was unusually interested in you, in when you’d be going back—”
    I broke off abruptly, realizing that what I was saying could be taken as a suggestion. I could be telling him that if he said these things, whether they were true or not, there was a glimmer of hope. It could be construed as an incitement to invent a false story, to pretend that he recognized him.
    “In other words, you didn’t see him, you don’t know him, and I can’t stand up in front of the appeal court judges and say, please acquit Signor Paolicelli because a man suspected by the police of being a criminal, a trafficker, was travelling on the same ferry.”
    “And what difference would it make if I recognized him?”
    I shook my head. He was right again. It didn’t make a damned bit of difference. I was starting to realize how stupid, amateurish and childish I had been to embark on an investigation like this without knowing in which direction
I was going. An old marshal in the carabinieri once told me that the secret of success in an investigation lies in knowing what the real objective is. If you go into it blindly, you don’t achieve anything and may even make things worse.
    I felt very tired. “I don’t know. It was worth a try. If you’d recognized the man it might have given me something to work on. I don’t even know how we could have worked on it, but this way I don’t see any prospects.”
    “Show the photo to my wife. Maybe she noticed some detail that escaped me.”
    Right, once again. In theory.
    I would show the photo to Natsu but, for some reason, I was certain she wouldn’t recognize him. I was certain this whole thing would come to nothing and that Paolicelli would come to a bad end.
    I saw all this clearly, and felt like someone watching from a safe vantage point as someone else drowns. Like