Marinelli turned to me. “Avvocato Guerrieri, can you explain the relevance of this question to the thema probandum?”

“The witness testified at the original trial. Her testimony was undervalued, almost to the point of being declared false, basically for two reasons. The first was that she is the mother of the accused, and therefore her testimony would not be credible until proved otherwise. I won’t linger for the moment on the weakness of this argument, I’ll leave that for my closing statement. What interests us now is the second argument. It was the assistant prosecutor at the original trial who introduced the question of the witness’s criminal record. It was partly because of that record that the court declared the witness unreliable. The argument, in very broad terms, was this: the witness was charged with obstructing justice and only escaped the charge thanks to the amnesty of 1990. This, according to the ruling, suggested an inclination to obstruct the course of justice and therefore the unreliability of her testimony. The witness was not asked to explain the events that led to these proceedings, and the ruling not to proceed, produced in court by the prosecution, mentions only the charges and the non-existence of grounds for acquittal. So today it’s vital we understand what events these were if we want to evaluate the correctness of the judges’ ruling.”

Marinelli glanced through the papers in the case file, exchanged a few words in a low voice with the associate judge, then again addressed me.

“Very well, Avvocato Guerrieri, you may continue. But let’s not hold a trial now on the charge of aiding and abetting.”

“Of course, Your Honour, I just need to elicit the witness’s version of events to ascertain how well that ruling holds up. So, Signora Delle Foglie, let’s go back to the point where we were interrupted. Can you tell us what you remember of the 206events that gave rise to the charges of aiding and abetting and of resisting an officer of the law?”

“Yes. I was with a group of friends on a beach, near Torre Canne. We’d spent all day by the sea, it was hot and we’d decided to stay there until after the sun went down.”

“What were you doing?”

“The usual things people did on a summer evening in those days. Eating, drinking. Smoking.”

“What were you smoking?”

“Some cigarettes, some grass. Or maybe it was hashish.”

“Did the composition of the group remain the same throughout, or were there people who left and people who arrived?”

“There were people who left and people who arrived.”

And where had I been that evening? I knew I would never be able to remember, and for a moment my mind wandered, thinking of all the things in the past that had disappeared.

“How many of you were there, more or less?”

“I don’t remember exactly. Ten or so, maybe.”