Doctored Evidence Read Online Free PDF Page B

café and tried to talk to her, but she was too upset to think clearly. She was in tears for much of the time we were there. She said the woman had locked her out, that her clothing and things were inside. But she had her passport with her. She said she never went anywhere without it.’
    â€˜It was false,’ Scarpa declared.
    â€˜I don’t see what difference that makes,’ Signora Gismondi shot back. ‘It would have got her out of Italy and back to Romania.’ Rashness and anger made her add, ‘It certainly proved sufficient to get her in.’ Hearing her own anger, she paused, imposed calm at least upon her voice, and said, ‘That’s all she wanted to do, go home to her family.’
    â€˜You seem to have managed very wellwithout her speaking any Italian, Signora,’ Scarpa said.
    Signora Gismondi bit back her response and said, ‘There was very little for her to say: “
basta
”, “
vado
”, “
treno
”, “
famiglia
”, “
Bucaresti
”, “
Signora cattiva
”.’ As soon as she heard herself say it, she regretted that last.
    â€˜So you say you took her to the train?’
    â€˜I don’t only say it, Lieutenant. I declare it. It is true. I took her to the station and helped her buy a ticket and a seat reservation.’
    â€˜And this woman with a false passport who you saywas locked out of the house, she just happened to be walking around with enough money on her to pay for a ticket to
Bucaresti
?’ he asked, in a crass imitation of her own pronunciation of the word.
    â€˜I bought her ticket,’ Signora Gismondi declared.
    â€˜What?’ Scarpa asked, as though she’d confessed to madness.
    â€˜I bought her ticket. And I gave her some money.’
    â€˜How much?’ Scarpa said.
    â€˜I don’t know. Six or seven hundred Euros.’
    â€˜You’re asking me to believe you don’t even know how much you gave her?’
    â€˜It’s the truth.’
    â€˜How is it the truth? You saw her there and you just snapped your fingers in the air and seven hundred Euros floated into your hand, and you thought how nice it would be to give them to the Romanian woman, seeing as she was locked out of the house and had nowhere to go?’
    Signora Gismondi’s voice was steel. ‘I was on my way back from the bank, where I had just cashed a cheque sent to me by a client. I had the money in my purse, and when she told me she wanted to go back to Bucharest, I asked her if she’d been paid.’ She looked across at Scarpa, as if to ask him to understand. She saw no evidence that he was capable, but she went on nevertheless. ‘She said she didn’t care about that; she just wanted to get home.’ She paused, suddenly embarrassed to confess to such weakness to this man. ‘So I gave her some money.’ His look changed and she saw his contempt for her weakness, her gullibility. ‘She’d been there for months, and the woman locked her out without giving her what she owed her or letting her come back in to get her things.’ It came to her to ask him what he expected her to do in a situation like that, but she thought better of it and said, ‘I couldn’t let her work for months and get no money.’ She chose to say no more.
    â€˜Then what?’ he asked.
    â€˜I asked her what she was going to do, and as I told you, she said all she wanted to do was go home. She had calmed down by then and stopped crying, so I said I’d go to the station with her and find out about the trains. She said she thought there was a train for Zagreb around noon.’ It seemed simple enough to her, all of this. ‘So that’s what we did, went to the station.’
    â€˜And her train ticket, you claim you paid forthat, too?’ he asked, intent on plumbing the full depths of her gullibility.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜And then?’
    â€˜And then I went