Notification arrived of the ruling granting a pretrial hearing – it was one week away: as I’d foreseen, they hadn’t wasted any time – and the existence of the investigation was revealed by a news agency. That meant it would be picked up by various websites, the TV news and finally, the following morning, the daily papers. There was no way of knowing the source of the press agency item, but evidence pointed to the likelihood that the information had been leaked by somebody involved in the investigation. The clearest proof was that there was no mention of a previous petition for a custody order or its rejection on the grounds of insufficient evidence. As usual, the item was brief and neutral, but the gist of it was clear enough: the head of the appeals division of the Court of Bari was being investigated in Lecce for the crime of judicial corruption. The charge, based on statements by an ex-Mafioso who had turned state’s evidence, was that he had taken fifty thousand euros in return for ruling a prisoner’s release.
