The Collini Case by von Schirach Ferdinand

Author:von Schirach, Ferdinand
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780718159221
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2012-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

12

For the first five days of the trial, the court heard evidence from witnesses of the crime and statements from expert witnesses. The presiding judge was well prepared. She asked her questions in a thorough, experienced way, and seemed impartial. There were no surprises; the witnesses repeated exactly what they had already told the police. Senior Public Prosecutor Reimers had hardly any questions, but sometimes enlarged on a point.

Mattinger dominated the trial. The forensic pathologist was called as the first expert witness. Mattinger asked Professor Wagenstett about the angles of the gunshots, the entry and exit wounds, the marks left by Collini’s shoe, the intervals between kicks, the kicking itself, and got the professor to explain all the details as illustrated by the photographs. Leinen saw that the two lay judges were sickened by the pictures taken at the autopsy, which would surely linger in their memory. Mattinger asked questions in plain language that everyone could understand. Whenever Wagenstett used a technical medical expression, he asked for a translation, and if the forensic pathologist had none, Mattinger got him to describe what he was saying in simple words. After two hours everyone in the courtroom had a mental picture of a brutal thug forcing a defenceless old man to his knees and shooting him in the head from behind. Mattinger had not once raised his voice; he made no sweeping gestures. The old lawyer sat quietly in his place, asked straightforward questions and looked composed. He was relying on the images in the minds of everyone listening.

After five days it seemed that the rest of the trial would be mere routine. The presiding judge continued to be friendly, the court reporter with the ponytail glanced at Leinen with increasing sympathy. The interest of the press flagged; fewer journalists came to the courtroom every day. It was generally agreed in the newspapers that Collini could only be a lunatic. On the sixth day one of the lay judges, both of whom happened to be women, fell ill with a bad attack of flu, and the presiding judge adjourned the trial for ten days.

Leinen realized that he was losing the case. He had spent every evening sitting in his chambers, looking through the files. For the hundredth time, he had read the witness statements, the account of the autopsy, the reports of expert witnesses and the comments of the police detectives. The crime-scene photographs hung on his office walls; he had stared at them daily and found nothing. It was the same today. Around ten in the evening he switched off his desk lamp. He watched his cigarette smoulder and go out in the ashtray, and could smell the singed filter. Mattinger had said he should think; the answers were always somewhere in the files, you just had to read them correctly. But how, Leinen wondered, do you defend a man who doesn’t want to defend himself?

It occurred to him that he had forgotten to call his father today and wish him a happy birthday.

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