Thus, during a pause in a trial in which we were fellow counsels for the defence, spake Avvocato Cesare Patrono. A Prince of the Forum. Mason and Millionaire.

I had heard him express that idea about a hundred times since the new code of criminal procedure had come into force in 1989.

It was to be understood that others couldn’t do it. Other lawyers – certainly not him – and especially the public prosecutors.

Patrono liked to speak ill of everything and everyone. In conversations in the corridors – but even in court – he loved to humiliate his colleagues and, most of all, he loved to intimidate and embarrass magistrates.

For some unknown reason he had a liking for me. He was always cordial towards me and occasionally had me assist him in the defence, which was big business, from a financial standpoint.

He had just finished expressing his views on the current criminal procedure when there emerged from the courtroom, still wearing her robe, Alessandra Mantovani, Assistant Public Prosecutor.

She hailed from Verona, and had asked to be transferred to Bari to join her lover. Behind her in Verona she had left a rich husband and a very comfortable life.

As soon as she had moved to Bari her lover had left her. He explained that he needed his freedom, that things between them had gone well up to that point thanks to the distance, which prevented boredom and routine. That he needed time to think things over. In short, the whole classic load of shit.

Alessandra Mantovani had found herself in Bari, alone, with her bridges burnt behind her. She had stayed on without a murmur.

I liked her a lot. She was everything a good public prosecutor ought to be, or a good policeman, which comes to more or less the same thing.

In the first place she was intelligent and honest. Then she didn’t like crooks – of any sort – but she didn’t spend her time eating her heart out at the thought that most of them would get off scot-free. Above all, when she was wrong she was up to admitting it, without argument.

We had become friends, or something like it. Enough to lunch together sometimes, and occasionally tell each other something of our personal histories. Not enough for anything more to happen between us, even if our presumed affair was one of the many bits of gossip that did the rounds of the courthouse.

Patrono detested La Mantovani. Because she was a woman, because she was an investigating magistrate, because she was more intelligent and tougher than he was. Even though, naturally, he would never have admitted it.

“Here, Signora,” – he called all women magistrates Signora, not Dottoressa or Judge, to make them nervous and unsettle them – “come and listen to this story. It’s the latest, really a peach.”

La Mantovani stepped nearer and looked him in the eye, tilted her head to one side and said not a word. A slight nod – yes, go on and try to tell your story – and the ghost of a smile. It was not a warm smile. The mouth had moved but the eyes were utterly still. And cold.

Patrono told his story. It wasn’t the latest, or even very recent.

It was the story of a young man of good family talking to a friend and telling him how he is about to marry an ex-prostitute. The youngster explains to his friend that his fiancée’s ex-profession is no problem as far as he is concerned. No problem either are his fiancée’s parents, who are drug pushers, thieves and pimps. Everything therefore seems hunky-dory, but the lad confides to his friend that he has one really big worry.

“What’s that?” asks the friend.

How’s he going to tell the bride’s parents that his father is a magistrate?

Patrono had his snigger all to himself. Personally, I was embarrassed.

“I’ve got a rather good one too. About animals,” said La Mantovani. “Snake and Fox are wandering in the woods. At a certain point it starts to rain and they both take shelter in an underground tunnel, going in at opposite ends. They begin making their way along the tunnel, where it’s pitch dark, getting nearer and nearer each other until they meet. They actually bump into each other.

“The tunnel is very narrow and there’s very little room for them to pass. In fact, for one to pass the other has to flatten himself against the wall, in other words give way.

“But neither of them is willing to give way and so they start to quarrel.

“ ‘Move over and let me pass.’

“ ‘Move over yourself.’

“ ‘Who d’you think you are?’

“‘Who are you anyway?’

“ ‘You tell me first.’

“ ‘No, my dear, you tell me first who you are.’ And so on and so forth.

“In short, the situation seems to have reached an impasse and the two of them don’t know how to get out of it, partly because neither wants to take the initiative of attacking the other, not knowing who he is up against.

“Fox then has an idea. ‘Listen, it’s no use going on quarrelling, because that way we’ll be in here all day. Let’s have a game to solve the problem. I’ll stay still and you touch me and try to guess who I am. Then you stay still, and I’ll touch you and try to guess who you are. Whoever finds out the identity of the other wins and can pass first. What d’you think of that?’

“ ‘It’s an idea,’ says Snake. ‘I agree, but I have first guess.’

“So Snake, moving sinuously, starts touching Fox.

“ ‘Now then, what long, pointed ears you have, what a sharp muzzle, what soft fur, what a bushy tail ... You must be Fox!’

“Fox is rather miffed, but has to admit that the other has got him.

“ ‘However, now it’s my turn, because if I guess right we’ll be even and we’ll have to find another way of deciding who goes first.’

“And he starts to touch Snake, who in the meanwhile has stretched out on the floor of the tunnel.

“ ‘What a small head you have, you don’t have any ears, you’re long and slimy ... And you have no balls!

“ ‘You wouldn’t by any chance be a lawyer?’ ”

I lowered my eyelids and laughed to myself. Patrono tried to laugh too, but failed. He came out with a sarcastic cackle and tried to say something, but nothing equal to the occasion occurred to him. He didn’t know how to lose.

La Mantovani took off her robe, said she was going to her office, that we’d all be meeting when the hearing resumed and went her way.

Every so often, a real man, I thought.