Free A Walk in the Dark by Gianrico Carofiglio Page A

said women and their clients and receiving for such services, and more generally for the logistical support provided to this illicit traffic, a percentage of the prostitutes’ income of between ten and twenty per cent . . .
and so on, and so forth.
    Reading the papers carefully, I’d realized that there was an error in the procedure for authorizing the intercepts. I was basing my whole case on that procedural error. If the judge upheld me, the intercepts were inadmissible, and there was hardly any evidence against my client. Certainly not enough for a conviction.
    When the clerk of the court read out her name and Nadia said she was present, the judge looked at her
and was unable to conceal a hint of surprise. With her anthracite-grey tailored suit, her white blouse, her impeccable, sober make-up, the last thing she looked like was a whore. Anyone entering the court and seeing her sitting there, next to me, surrounded by copies of the file, would have thought she was a lawyer. Only much, much prettier than most.
    Once the formalities had been dealt with, the judge gave the public prosecutor the floor. He was a scruffylooking young magistrate, deputizing for the prosecutor who’d carried out the investigations, and he made no attempt to conceal his boredom. I didn’t feel very well disposed towards him.
    He said that the defendant’s guilt emerged clearly from the documents produced at the trial, that a complete reconstruction of the acts committed and the responsibility for them was already contained in the order of application for a custodial sentence, and that the appropriate penalty in such an undoubtedly serious case was three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 2500 euros. End of speech.
    When Nadia heard that request, she half closed her eyes for a second and shook her head, as if dismissing an annoying thought. The judge gave me the floor.
    “Your Honour. We could easily base our defence on merit, examining the results of the investigation point by point and demonstrating that they in no way prove that the defendant has benefited from, or even aided and abetted, another person’s prostitution.”
    That wasn’t true. If you examined the results of the investigation point by point it was very clear that Nadia had indeed “organized, coordinated and managed an unspecified but undoubtedly large number of women dedicated to prostitution”. Exactly.
    But we lawyers have a conditioned reflex. Whatever
the circumstances, our client is innocent, and that’s it. We can’t help ourselves.
    “But the task of a defence counsel,” I went on, “is also that of identifying and pointing out to the judge every aspect of the case, which, from the point of view of the investigation, allows him to save time and reach a decision quickly.”
    And I explained how he could reach a decision quickly and save time. I explained that the intercepts were inadmissible, because there had been no grounds at all for the orders authorizing them. In the case of orders authorizing intercepts, the fact that there are no grounds is an irremediable error. If these intercepts were unusable, I said – and they were unusable – it was not even possible to look at them, and there was nothing against my client except a mountain of conjecture, and so on, and so forth. As I spoke, the judge leafed through the file.
    When I finished, he retired to his chamber and stayed there almost an hour. Then he came out and read out his acquittal, which included the formula: The case is without foundation .
    Bravo, Guerrieri, I said to myself as the judge was reading. Then I made a friendly gesture of farewell to him – we lawyers always make friendly gestures of farewell to judges who acquit our clients – and walked out of the courtroom with Nadia.
    Her cheeks were flushed, like someone who’s been in a very stuffy environment, or someone who’s overexcited. She took out a packet of Marlboro Gold, lit one with a Zippo lighter, and took a couple of greedy