assistant prosecutor: You needn’t get upset, signora. I just want you to tell us what you remember. If you can’t remember, you only have to say so.

witness: I’m sorry. I don’t know exactly. More than a year, anyway.

assistant prosecutor: For what reason did you go from a fixed schedule to a flexible schedule?

witness: She’s an old lady, but she’s completely self-sufficient. To be on the safe side, though, her children found a permanent carer, a woman from Moldova. But she – the woman from Moldova, I mean – also has another job, so when she’s not there, or when her children aren’t taking turns to keep their mother company, I go. Actually, it’s almost every day.

assistant prosecutor: Do you know this woman from Moldova?

witness: I meet her when I arrive or when I leave.

assistant prosecutor: When did you first meet?

witness: When she started working for Signora Bonomo.

assistant prosecutor: And when exactly was that?

witness: I couldn’t say exactly.

assistant prosecutor: Then let me ask you a different question. When the events that are the subject of this trial occurred, did you already know this woman from Moldova?

witness: …

assistant prosecutor: Your Honour, can it be entered in the record that the witness is hesitating to answer?48

presiding judge: So entered. Signora, please answer the question. When these events occurred, did you already know this woman from Moldova?

witness: Maybe… I don’t know, maybe yes… I’m not sure.

assistant prosecutor: We can easily check, but I’d like to hear it from you.

witness: Maybe I already knew her.

assistant prosecutor: Does that mean she had already taken up service with the lady at whose house you worked? Or did you first meet before this woman from Moldova started working —

witness: No, no.

assistant prosecutor: No, what?

witness: I didn’t know her before —

assistant prosecutor: So you met her when she took up service?

witness: I assume so.

assistant prosecutor: You assume so?

witness: She’d already taken up service. I remember now.

assistant prosecutor: So you’d already started the flexible schedule you told us about?

witness: No, I definitely had the shift from three to seven.

assistant prosecutor: But you told us it was when the woman from Moldova arrived that you started a flexible schedule.

witness: I wasn’t accurate.

assistant prosecutor: At what time did you get back home that afternoon or evening?

witness: About 7.15, I already said.

assistant prosecutor: How can you be so precise about the time? You told us that you could state with certainty 49that you left the home of the elderly lady you worked for at seven basically because that was the schedule you were on before the woman from Moldova arrived.