Just One Evil Act

26 April

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Prima Voce had what went for the full story, Salvatore saw. That morning’s paper carried a feature on page one, complete with a photograph of Carlo Casparia—his face and bright, tangled hair covered by a jacket—being escorted between two grim-faced uniformed policemen. They would take him from the questura to the prison where he would be held in preventive detention during the rest of the investigation. A second photograph featured Piero Fanucci, triumphantly announcing that they at last had their confession from the malefactor, and he was now indagato: formally named as principal suspect. The whereabouts of the child would be forthcoming, he had told the tabloid confidently.

No journalist questioned any of this. No one asked if the unfortunate Carlo had requested or been given an avvocato to sit at his side and advise him of his limited legal rights. Especially nothing was asked about the confession that Fanucci had prised from the homeless man or about the means by which Fanucci had got that confession. Neither the newspapers nor the telegiornale brought up anything other than the coup of a case having been resolved. They all knew quite well that to do anything else would put them in danger of being accused of diffamazione a mezzo stampa, and it was up to il Pubblico Ministero himself to decide if such defamation by the press had occurred.

Lo Bianco explained all this to DI Lynley when the Englishman appeared in his office. Obviously, he was going to have to speak to the parents of the little girl as soon as possible, and he wanted to have his facts in order. He’d brought with him a copy of Prima Voce. He’d also brought the question about why he hadn’t been rung immediately once a confession was in hand. He sounded doubtful about the entire subject of Carlo Casparia and his guilt, however. Lo Bianco wasn’t surprised by this. Detective Inspector Lynley did not appear to be a fool.

Lynley indicated the tabloid when he said, “Is this information reliable, Chief Inspector? The parents might well have seen it, and they’ll have questions. First and foremost will be what this bloke’s said about Hadiyyah: where he took her and where she is. May I ask how”—he hesitated tellingly—“this confession came about?”

Salvatore had to be careful with what he said. Fanucci had ears and eyes in every corner of the questura, and any explanation he gave the Scotland Yard DI about either il Pubblico Ministero or the Italian laws governing both the press and criminal investigations could be misinterpreted and used against him if he didn’t proceed with maximum caution. For this reason, he took Lynley from the questura altogether, and together they walked the distance to the Lucca train station not far away. Across the street from the station was a café. He led the other officer to its bar, ordered two cappuccini and two dolci. He waited till they were set in front of them before he faced Lynley and, leaning against the bar with a look round the café to make sure there were no other officials present, he began to talk.

Twenty hours without rest or a lawyer present, with no food and only occasional water, had been enough to convince Carlo Casparia that his interests would best be served by telling the truth, he explained to Lynley. And if there were gaps within his memory of the events surrounding the child’s disappearance, that was no real problem. For after twenty hours with il Pubblico Ministero and other hand-picked interrogators, exhaustion and hunger crept into one’s mind, stimulating one to imagine—aloud, of course—what could adequately fill the blanks in one’s memory. From this combination of imagination and reality, then, a complete story of the crime’s commission emerged. That it was small part fact and large part fantasy was of no concern to il Pubblico Ministero. A confession was what mattered to him since only a confession mattered to the press.

“I was afraid of that,” Lynley admitted. “With due respect, it is a decidedly odd way to proceed. In my country—”

“Sì, sì. Lo so,” Salvatore said. “Your prosecutors do not involve themselves in an investigation. But you are in my country now, and so you will learn that often we must allow certain things to play out so that other things—unknown to the magistrato—can play out as well.”

Salvatore waited to see if Lynley would follow what he was hinting at. Lynley observed him for a long moment as a group of tourists entered the café. They were loud and aggressive, and Salvatore winced at the hardness of their language. Two of them went to the bar and ordered in English. Americans, he thought with resignation. They always believed the entire world spoke their language.

Lynley said, “What, then, actually comprised the confession of Carlo Casparia? The parents will want to know this, and for that matter, I’d like to know it as well.”

Salvatore told him how Fanucci envisioned the crime, based upon the drug addict’s words, dutifully committed to paper. It was simple enough, according to il Pubblico Ministero: Carlo is at the mercato in his usual position with Ho fame hanging round his neck. The little girl sees this, and she gives him her banana. He sees her innocence, and in her innocence, he also sees an opportunity. He follows her as she leaves the mercato, heading in the direction of Viale Agostino Marti.

“But why would she be heading there?” Lynley asked.

Salvatore waved off the question. “A mere detail that does not interest Piero Fanucci, my friend.”

He went on with the rest of the crime as Fanucci envisioned it: Carlo snatches the little girl somewhere along the route. He stashes her at some stables where he has slept rough since first coming to Lucca when his parents tossed him out of their Padova home. There he holds her until he can find someone to whom he can hand her off for money. This money he uses to feed his drug habit. You will note he stopped begging at the mercato after her disappearance, no? Certo, he has no need for drug money at the moment and now we know why. Mark my words well. When this monster runs out of money, he will turn to begging at the mercato once again.

As far as il Pubblico Ministero was concerned, Salvatore explained, everything was neatly in place to mark Carlo Casparia as culpable: His motive was and would always be the acquisition of money for drugs. Everyone knew that Ho fame indicated the vagrant’s hunger for cocaine, marijuana, heroin, methamphetamine, or whatever other substance he was shoving regularly into his system. His means were as obvious as being able to rise to his feet and follow the little girl once she generously and innocently handed over her banana to assuage his supposed hunger. The mercato itself was his opportunity. It was, as always, crowded with both shoppers and tourists. Just as no one had noticed the child being snatched from the vicinity of the accordion player—which, of course, we now know didn’t happen anyway—so also no one had noticed Casparia taking her by the arm and guiding her away.

To all of this, the Englishman remained silent, but his face was sombre. He stirred his cappuccino. So far, he’d not tasted it, so intently had he been listening to Salvatore’s tale. Now, he drank it straight down, and he broke his dolce into two pieces although he ate neither. “Forgive me for not entirely understanding how you proceed when this sort of conclusion is arrived at,” he said. “Has the public minister any evidence that supports this man’s confession or his own picture of the crime? Does he need any evidence?”

“Sì, sì, sì,” Salvatore told him. The magistrato’s instructions—coming fast on the heels of Casparia’s confession—were now being followed.

“And they are?” Lynley enquired politely.

The stables where Carlo Casparia had been living rough for so long were now being sorted out by a group of scenes-of-crime officers. They would be looking for evidence of the child’s being held there for whatever period was necessary before Carlo decided what to do with her.

“Where are these stables, exactly?” Lynley asked.

They were in the Parco Fluviale, Salvatore told him. He had been intending to head there when Lynley arrived at the questura. Would the Englishman like to accompany him to see the scene?

He would indeed, Lynley told him.

It was only a brief ride round the enormous city wall to reach the quartiere of Borgo Giannotti. There, from beyond its main street with its line of busy shops, one ultimately gained access to the parco. During this ride, Lynley asked the questions that Salvatore had been anticipating as he told the tale of Carlo Casparia’s recent confession.

What about the red car? the detective enquired. What did il Pubblico Ministero think about it? And was it the magistrato’s opinion that Casparia had given Hadiyyah over to the owner of the car, who then took Hadiyyah into the hills? And if the date on which this red car, the man, and the child had been sighted was the actual day on which Hadiyyah had gone missing . . . didn’t it then follow that Carlo Casparia would have had to know all along to whom he was going to deliver the child? Didn’t this suggest quite a degree of planning on his part? Did Signor Fanucci envision Casparia as capable of this? Did Salvatore himself envision this?

“As to the red convertible car,” Salvatore said with an approving glance at Lynley, “the magistrato knows nothing of this car. Even as you and I go to the parco to ensure his will is being carried out, one of my officers is driving into the Alps with the man who saw that car. They will attempt to identify the point at which he saw it. A search will then be conducted of the immediate area of the lay-by where the car was parked. If nothing is found, every lay-by between the village where the mother of our witness lives and the start of that road into the Alps will be searched.”

“Without the magistrate’s knowledge?”

“Sometimes,” Salvatore said, “Piero doesn’t know what’s good for Piero. I must help him realise this in the best way I can.”

LUCCA

TUSCANY

The stables in the Parco Fluviale stood perhaps a mile along the lane that skirted the springtime rush of the River Serchio and coursed through the southern section of the park. They comprised a derelict set of buildings, long unused for their intended purpose, and out in front of them a faded sign giving the costs of horse hiring had been the victim of ill-talented graffiti artists and hunters looking to practise their shooting on its surface.

A crime scene van was parked on a narrow gravel access road into the stable area, and Lo Bianco pulled next to the police tape that marked the site as inaccessible to the few journalists who had already received word that some kind of action was happening in the parco. Lo Bianco muttered when he saw them. He ignored their demands of “Che cosa succede? ” and took Lynley into the immediate vicinity of Carlo Casparia’s home away from home.

At the moment, the activity was centred on a single stable backed by a tree-studded berm. This was situated behind a line of tangled shrubbery, most of which appeared to be wild roses coming into bloom, and it comprised a line of some dozen stalls with tall doors hanging open to display the disreputable contents within. Obviously, the entire place had been used as a dosshouse for ages by any number of people, and contained within it was so much rubbish that sorting through it all for a sign of a particular little girl’s presence was going to take weeks. Filthy mattresses lay everywhere. Used hypodermic needles, limp condoms, and discarded takeaway food containers were scattered on the ground. Plastic cartons, old clothing, and mildewed blankets formed mounds in corners, while carrier bags filled with rotting food sent into the air a foul miasma, which had attracted vast clouds of flies and gnats.

Within all of this detritus moved two crime scene officers. “Come va?” Lo Bianco called out.

One lowered his mask and answered, “Merda!” The other said nothing but shook his head. It seemed, thought Lynley, that they knew their occupation was going to be a useless one.

Lo Bianco said to Lynley, “Come with me, Ispettore. There is something more to see in this place,” and he walked to the back of the stables, where a faint trail through the tall wild grass and wildflowers led up the berm and between two chestnut trees.

Here, Lynley saw, a path had been created by dog walkers, cyclists, runners, and, perhaps, families out for a passeggiata on long summer evenings. It was well worn, and it followed along the top of the berm in both directions, mimicking the route of the lane through the parco as well as the course of the river. Lo Bianco began to walk along it. In less than one hundred yards, he broke to the left, descended another berm, crossed a wooded area thick with sycamores, alders, and beeches, and came out on the edge of a playing field.

Lynley saw at once where they were. Across the field lay a patch of gravel suitable as a small car park. To the right of this two picnic tables rested beneath the trees. In front of them and across a path was the playing field, divided by more concrete paths along which saplings grew. Far to the west of all this stood a café in which, he assumed, the parents of the children who came to this place to be coached by Lorenzo Mura might wait, enjoying refreshments as they watched their budding football players undertaking another session with the man in order to improve their skills.

Lynley looked at Lo Bianco. The chief inspector, he saw, was not the fool of Piero Fanucci, no matter what the magistrato might think in the matter.

“I wonder,” Lynley said, indicating the playing field, “if Signor Casparia might be able to ‘imagine’ something more, Chief Inspector?”

“What would this be?” Lo Bianco asked.

“We have, after all,” Lynley said, “only Lorenzo Mura’s word for it that Hadiyyah was taken from the market that day. You must have thought of that at some point.”

Lo Bianco smiled slightly. “This would be one of the reasons why I have had my own suspicions about Signor Mura,” he replied.

“Would you mind if I talked to him? About more, I mean, than merely explaining the nature of Carlo Casparia’s ‘confession.’”

“I mind not in the least,” Lo Bianco said. “Nel frattempo, I shall be looking at the other calciatori on his team. One of them may drive a red convertible. This would, I think, be interesting to know.”

PISA

TUSCANY

As far as he was concerned, meeting anywhere near Campo dei Miracoli was lunacy since there were dozens of other places where they could have met unnoticed in the city. But it was to Campo dei Miracoli that he’d been summoned, so he went to that site of tourism run amok. He worked his way through what seemed like five hundred people taking photographs of their mates pretending to hold up the tower, and he crossed between the Duomo and the Baptistery to the cimitero behind its high and forbidding walls. He went to the room he’d been instructed to find: where several of the location’s affreschi had been moved after their restoration. No one would be there, he’d been assured. If, when the tour buses stopped and debouched their passengers at the gates to Piazza dei Miracoli, the gitanti were given forty minutes to scurry about and have their photographs taken before being carted off to the next site on their list, they weren’t about to seek out the cemetery. With its half-demolished affreschi and its one decent sculpture of a woman in repose, this place would be deserted, and they would be safe from scrutiny here.

Safe from scrutiny they needed to be, he thought sardonically, considering what his employer looked like. For never had vanity led a man to such stupidity in the area of his personal appearance as it had led Michelangelo Di Massimo.

Di Massimo was already there, waiting. As promised, he was the only person in the room with the restored affreschi, and from a bench in the centre of the room he was studying one of them—or at least pretending to do so—with a guidebook opened on his knee and a pair of half-moon reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. The professorial air they lent him was completely at odds with the rest of him: the bleached yellow hair, the black leather jacket, the leather pantaloni, the stiff black boots. No one would mistake him for a professor of anything or even for a student of anything. But then, no one would mistake him for what he was, either.

There was no point to hiding his approach, so he did nothing to stifle the sharp tap of his footsteps on the marble floor. He lowered himself onto the bench next to Di Massimo, and he gazed upon the fresco to which the other man was giving his rapt attention. He saw that Di Massimo was fixed upon his namesake. Sword in hand, Michael the Archangel was either driving someone out of paradise—at least he reckoned it was paradise—or he was welcoming someone into paradise. Who really cared? For he simply couldn’t work out what all the shouting was about when it came to the rescued affreschi in this place. They were faded and worn and in spots whatever they depicted was barely visible.

He wanted a cigarette. Either that or a woman. But the thought of women took him directly back to his wallow in the dirt with his half-mad cousin and he preferred not to think about that.

He couldn’t fathom what got into him whenever he saw Domenica. She’d been pretty enough once, but that time was long past and still when she was in his presence, he wanted to possess her, to show her . . . something. And what did that say about him, that he still wanted the madwoman after all this time?

Next to him on the bench, Michelangelo Di Massimo stirred. He snapped his guidebook closed and deposited it into a rucksack at his feet. From this he took a folded newspaper. He said, “The British police are now involved. Prima Voce has the story. There’s been a television appeal. You saw it?”

Of course he had not. In the evening when the telegiornale was broadcast, he was at his regular job at Ristorante Maestoso, unavailable to the television news. During his days, he was preoccupied with seducing the commesse in the fancier shops and boutiques in town in order to talk them into ringing up a pair of socks for him while they bagged a fine linen shirt instead. Thus he had no time for television or tabloids. Whatever he knew about this matter of searching for the missing child, he knew only from Di Massimo.

Di Massimo passed the copy of Prima Voce over to him. He scanned the story. Scotland Yard, a detective inspector in Lucca to act as liaison with the parents of the girl, more information about those parents, dismissive remarks about British policing from that idiot Fanucci, and a carefully worded statement from Chief Inspector Lo Bianco indicating cooperation between the two police forces. There was an accompanying photo of the English detective in conversation with Lo Bianco. They were in front of the questura in Lucca, Lo Bianco’s arms crossed on his chest and his head lowered as he listened to something the Englishman was saying to him.

He passed the tabloid back to Di Massimo. He felt rather irritated with him. He hated having his time wasted, and if he’d had to come from the centre of town to Campo dei Miracoli merely to see something that he could have seen by stopping at the nearest giornalaio and purchasing a copy of the newspaper, he was going to be more irritated still. Thus he gestured rudely at the paper and said, “Allora?” in a way that indicated his impatience. To underscore this, he got up and paced the distance to the farthest wall. “This cannot be a surprise to you, Michelangelo. She’s missing. She’s a child. She’s gone without a trace. She’s British.” The implication was obvious: Of course the English coppers were going to stick their fingers into this pie he and Di Massimo were baking. Had Di Massimo expected something less?

“Not the point,” Di Massimo said. “Sit down. I don’t want to raise my voice.”

He waited till his order had been complied with before he went on. “This man and Lo Bianco . . . they came to my calcio practice the other day.”

He felt a sudden shift in his equilibrium. “And they talked to you?” he asked.

Di Massimo shook his head. “They thought—I expect—that I did not see them. But this”—he tapped the side of his nose—“has a talent for knowing when the cops are present. They came, and they watched. Less than five minutes. Then they were gone.”

He felt a momentary surge of relief and said, “So you do not know—”

“Aspetti.” Di Massimo went on to say that the two men had come to see him on the previous day, interrupting his appointment with his parrucchiere in the midst of having his blond locks maintained.

“Merda!” This was the worst possible news. “How in God’s name did they find you?” he demanded. “First at calcio and then this other? How the hell did they find you?”

“How does not matter,” Di Massimo said.

“Of course it matters! If not to you, then to me. If they’re on to you . . . If they’ve found you already . . .” He felt panic rising. “You swore to me enough time had passed. You said that no one would connect you to this matter of the girl.” He thought rapidly, trying to see what other connections were possible for the police to make. For if they’d found Michelangelo Di Massimo within a week of the girl’s disappearance, how much longer would it be till they found him as well? “This has to be taken care of,” he said. “Now. Today. As soon as possible.”

“Which is why you and I are meeting, my friend,” Michelangelo told him. He looked at him levelly. “I find that it’s time. We’re clear on that, yes?”

He nodded once. “I know what to do.”

“Be hasty about doing it, then.”

FATTORIA DI SANTA ZITA

TUSCANY

Lynley wasn’t entirely honest with Lo Bianco about speaking to Lorenzo Mura. He also wanted to talk to Angelina. So with the chief inspector’s blessing on the matter, he drove out to the fattoria. It appeared to be a busy day at the place, with all evidence saying that, one way or another, life had to go on.

Workmen were crawling about the ancient farmhouse that was part of the property, some of them unloading tiles clearly meant for the roof, others of them carrying heavy boards into the structure, still others banging about inside the building with their hammers ringing in the air. At the winery, a young man was within, offering tastes of Lorenzo’s Chianti to five individuals whose bicycles and discarded rucksacks indicated a spring cycling tour through the verdant district. Lorenzo stood at the fence of a paddock not far beyond the tall hedge that separated the old villa from the business end of the fattoria. He was speaking there to a bearded, middle-aged man, and as Lynley approached them, he saw this individual take a white envelope from the back pocket of his jeans and pass it over to Lorenzo Mura.

They exchanged a few more words before the man nodded and walked to a pickup truck that was parked in front of the wrought-iron gates giving access to the driveway up to the villa. He got in this truck and in a moment had made a quick turn around and was heading out of the place. Lynley observed him as he passed. He’d put on dark glasses and the kind of wide-brimmed straw hat that shades one’s face from the sun. It was, thus, impossible to see any particulars of what he looked like aside from his beard, which was dark and thick.

Lynley approached Lorenzo. Within the paddock, he saw, five donkeys stood, a male, two females, and two foals. They were grazing beneath an enormous mulberry tree, their tails swishing to ward off flies, feasting on the fresh, sweet growth of springtime grasses. They were handsome animals, all five of them. They looked well cared for.

Without preamble, Lorenzo told him that raising donkeys for sale was another way that he supported life at Fattoria di Santa Zita. The man who had just left the property had come to purchase one of the foals. A donkey, he said, was always useful to those who lived and made their money off the land.

Lynley didn’t think that the sale of one or two or twenty baby animals was going to go far in supporting everything about this particular fattoria that needed supporting, but instead of mentioning this, he asked about the old farmhouse and the work going on in, on, and around it.

This, Lorenzo told him, was being turned into rooms for letting to tourists who wished to experience life in the countryside by staying at one of Italy’s many agriturismi. Eventually, he added, they would have a swimming pool, terraces for sunbathing, and a tennis court.

“Big plans, then,” Lynley noted pleasantly. Big plans, of course, required big money.

Sì, there would always be plans for the fattoria, Lorenzo told him. And then he shifted gears entirely, saying to Lynley in English, “You must talk to her, Ispettore. Please, you must tell her to allow me to take her to the doctor in Lucca now.”

Lynley frowned. He switched to Italian, asking Mura, “Is Angelina ill?”

“Venga” was Lorenzo’s response, to which he added that Lynley could see for himself up at the villa. “All the day yesterday she has this sickness,” he said. “She keeps nothing inside. Not soup, not bread, not tea, not milk. She tells me not to worry because this is the pregnancy. She reminds me she has not been well from the first day of it. She says to me that this will pass. She says I worry because this is my first child but it is not her first child and I must be patient because she will be well soon enough. But how can I be patient when I see she is ill, when I believe she must visit a doctor, and when she believes she is not ill at all?”

They were walking up the sweeping loop of the villa’s formal drive as Lorenzo spoke. Lynley thought of his late wife’s pregnancy. She, too, had been ill for the first part of it. He, too, had been concerned. He told Lorenzo this, but the Italian man remained unconvinced.

Angelina was on the loggia. She was lying on a chaise longue with a blanket covering her. Next to her, a mosaic-topped metal table held a transparent jug of what appeared to be blood orange juice. A drinking glass stood next to this, but nothing had been poured into it. A plate sat near to this glass, its offering of a circle of biscuits, meat, fruit, and cheese all disregarded save for one very large strawberry out of which a single bite had been taken.

Lynley could understand why the Italian man was worried. Angelina looked weak. She smiled wanly as they crossed the loggia to her. “Inspector Lynley,” she murmured, as she struggled to sit upright. “You’ve caught me napping.” She searched his face. “Has there been word of something?”

Lorenzo strode to the table and inspected its rejected offerings. He said, “Cara, devi mangiare e bere.” He poured orange juice into the glass and pressed it upon her.

“I did try, Renzo.” She indicated the single strawberry with its marking of a minuscule bite taken. “You’re worrying far too much. I’ll be fine with a little bit of rest.” And to Lynley, “Inspector, if there’s something—”

“She must to see a doctor,” Lorenzo said to Lynley. “She will not listen.”

Lynley said, “May I . . . ?” and indicated a wicker chair nearby.

“Of course,” she said. “Please.” And to Lorenzo, “Darling, stop being foolish. I’m not a buttercup. And I’m also not what matters just now. So do be quiet about doctors or leave us to talk because”—she took a breath to steady what she had to say, which she directed to Lynley—“you have word of something, I expect. Please tell me.”

Lynley glanced at Lorenzo, who’d flushed. He had not sat and now he walked to the rear of the loggia, where he stood behind the chaise longue with his arms crossed and his birthmark darkening noticeably.

Briefly, Lynley told Angelina of Carlo Casparia, of the “confession” extricated from the man by the public minister, and of Chief Inspector Lo Bianco’s doubts regarding this confession. He related the details of the search ongoing at the stables. He mentioned a possible sighting that had taken place in the Apuan Alps. He did not speak of a red convertible or of the exact nature of the sighting: a man leading a little girl into the woods. The first was something that needed to be held back from everyone. The second would only result in the woman’s terrified panic.

“The police are looking into this,” he told her in reference to the Alps. “In the meantime, the tabloids . . .” He showed her the front page of Prima Voce. He discovered they had not seen the paper that day as neither of them had been into town to purchase a newspaper and none were delivered to the fattoria. “It’s best, I daresay, to disregard all this. They have only limited information.”

Angelina was silent for a long moment during which the hammer blows from the old farmhouse sounded faintly. She finally said, “What does Hari think?” and behind her Lorenzo let out an exasperated breath. She said to him, “Renzo, please . . .”

“Sì, sì,” Mura said.

“He doesn’t know any of this yet,” Lynley told her, “unless he’s picked up the tabloid somewhere. He was already gone from the pensione when I came down to breakfast.”

“Gone?” This incredulously from Lorenzo.

“I expect he’s still putting up the missing-child handbills. It’s difficult for him—and for all of you, I know—just to be idle and have to wait for information.”

“Inutile,” Lorenzo said.

“Perhaps,” Lynley said. “But I’ve found that sometimes even an act that seems useless turns out to be the single action that breaks a case.”

“He won’t return to London till she’s found.” Angelina looked out at the lawn, although there was nothing on it to hold her attention. She quietly said, “I do so regret what I did. I just wanted to be free of him, but I knew . . . I’m sorry about everything.”

That desire to be free of other people, of life’s complexities, of the past that often clung to one like a ragtag group of mendicant children . . . This led people into the commission of acts that paved the way to remorse. But on the pathway to regret, the corpses of other people’s dreams often lay rotting. It was this that Lynley wished to talk about. But he wished to talk about it to Angelina alone, and not in the presence of her lover.

He said to Lorenzo, “I’d like a few minutes alone with Angelina, if you don’t mind, Signor Mura.”

Mura apparently did mind. He said, “We have no secrets from each other, Angelina and I. What you say to her can be said to me.”

“I understand that,” Lynley said. “But because of our previous conversation—yours and mine . . . ?” Let the man think that what he had to say to Angelina Upman involved her health and getting her to town to see a doctor, Lynley thought. Anything to have the Italian man remove himself for a few minutes of conversation that, he suspected, would only be entirely honest if Mura absented himself from it.

He did so, although with marked reluctance. He bent to Angelina first, and he kissed the top of her head. He said, “Cara,” quietly and then he left the loggia. He headed in the direction of the gates to the drive and the work that was going on beyond the tall hedge that marked off the old villa’s immediate grounds from the rest of the fattoria.

Angelina turned her head to him by rolling it his way on the headrest of the chaise longue. She said, “What is it, Inspector Lynley? Is it about Hari? I know you can see . . . Renzo has no reason to be jealous of him. I give him no reason, and he has no reason. But the fact that Hari and I have a child . . . It’s created a bond where he’d prefer there be none.”

“I daresay that’s normal,” Lynley said. “He’s uneasy, unsure of where he stands with you.”

“I try to make it clear to him. He’s the one. He’s the . . . the endgame for me. But culturally . . . my past with other men . . . I think that’s what makes it difficult.”

“I have to ask this,” Lynley said, moving his wicker chair closer to her. “I hope you understand. Every avenue regarding Hadiyyah’s disappearance has to be explored, and this is one of them.”

She looked alarmed when she said, “What is it?”

“Your other lovers.”

“What other lovers?”

“Here, in Italy.”

“There are no—”

“Forgive me. It’s a question of the past being a form of prologue, if you understand. My concern is that if you were involved with Esteban Castro while you were also seeing Lorenzo and still living with Azhar . . . I hope you can see how that leads to the assumption that there might be others that you’ve been unwilling to mention in front of Lorenzo.”

Her cheeks flushed with the first colour he’d seen upon them since mounting the steps to the loggia. “What’s this to do with Hadiyyah, Inspector?”

“I think it has more to do with how a man might act to wound you if he discovered he wasn’t your only lover. And that has everything to do with Hadiyyah.”

She met his gaze for a moment so that, he assumed, he could read her face as she spoke. “There are no other lovers, Inspector Lynley. And if you want me to swear to it, I’m happy to do so. There is only Lorenzo.”

He evaluated her statements: the words themselves and the way she spoke them. Her body language suggested she was telling the truth, but a woman accomplished at balancing relationships with three men at once would have to be a skilled actress to do so. That in addition to the fact that when a horse had spots, it was generally impossible to get rid of them, prompted him to say, “What would have changed you, if I may ask?”

“I don’t really know,” she said. “A desire not to repeat the past? A step into adulthood?” She looked down at the blanket that covered her, fingering the well-worn satin that edged it. She said, “Before, I was always searching for something that was out of my reach. Now, I think my reach and my grasp have become the same.”

“What were you reaching for?”

She considered this, her delicate eyebrows drawn together. “A way to be my own person. And I kept expecting this distinct form of me to arrive in the hands of a man. When it didn’t—for how could it possibly?—I found another man. And then another. Two before Hari. Then Hari himself, along with Esteban, and, yes, even Renzo.” She looked at him. “I’ve hurt many people through the years, especially Hari. It’s not something I’m proud of. But it’s who I was.”

“And now?”

“I’m making a life with Renzo. We’re becoming a family. He wants to marry and I want that as well. I wasn’t sure at first, but now I am.”

Lynley considered this: Angelina’s initial uncertainty about Mura and what that uncertainty could have meant to the man and what the man might have done to alter things. He said, “At what point did you become sure of him?”

“I don’t think I understand what you mean.”

“I suppose I mean: Was there a single moment when everything altered for you, when it became clear to you that what you have with Signor Mura was, perhaps, more important than seeking out other men to build—as you’ve said—an identity for you?”

She shook her head slowly, but when she spoke, Lynley saw that she was adept at connecting the dots among his questions. She said, “Renzo loves Hadiyyah and he loves me. And you can’t sit there thinking that he might have arranged something . . . something horrible like this so that he could prove to me . . . or make me certain about him . . . And that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it, Inspector? How could you think it? How could you begin to believe that he would do something to devastate me like this?”

Because it was possible and it was his job, Lynley thought. But more than that, because it would so obviously work to engage her entirely in Mura’s life if Hadiyyah should end up permanently absent.

VILLA RIVELLI

TUSCANY

Sister Domenica Giustina allowed Carina into the giardino. The day was hotter than normal, and the fountains in the garden were enticing to the child. Had she not embraced God’s punishment for her sin of fornication, Sister Domenica Giustina might even have joined the little girl. For with her green cotton trousers rolled up to her knees, Carina was thoroughly enjoying herself. She waded in the largest of the pools, dodged laughing beneath the spray from its fountain, and splashed water in the air to form rainbows all round them. She called out to Sister Domenica Giustina, “Venga! Fa troppo caldo oggi.” But although the day was too hot, Sister Domenica Giustina knew that her suffering could not be lessened even for five minutes in the cool, pleasant water.

Forty days of punishment were necessary for what she and her cousin Roberto had done. During this period she would wear the same garments—rank though they were with the smell of him, of her, and of their mating—and she would remove them only to add thorns to the swaddling in which she wrapped her body. Nightly she would examine the wounds, for they had begun to suppurate. But this was good as the leaking pus said that her reparation was acceptable to God. God would inform her when she had done enough, and until He did so through the means of the pus’s disappearance, she must continue on the path she’d chosen to illustrate the depth of her sorrow for her sins against Him.

“Suor Domenica!” the little girl cried, falling to her knees in the water so that it rose up to her waist. “Deve venire! Possiamo pescare. Vuole pescare? Le piace pescare? Venga!”

There were no fish in the water of this fountain, and she was being far too loud. Sister Domenica Giustina recognised this, but she could hardly bear to stifle the child’s pleasure. Still, she understood it was necessary so she said, “Carina, fai troppo rumore,” and held a finger to her lips. She looked towards the great villa to the east of the sunken giardino and this look was to tell the little girl that her noise must not reach the villa’s inhabitants. There were dangers everywhere.

She’d been told from the first to keep the child inside the great stone barn, and she’d disobeyed. When she’d taken him to the villa’s cellar to see the little girl, he’d smiled and spoken kindly to Carina, but Sister Domenica Giustina knew him better than he knew himself and she could see round his eyes that he hadn’t been pleased.

He’d made this clear to her before he left. “What stupid game are you playing at?” he’d hissed. “Keep her inside till I tell you otherwise. Can you get that into your thick skull, Domenica?” And he’d poked at her head sharply to indicate just how thick her skull was. He’d added, “God’s grace, after what you’ve done to me, I would think . . . Cristo, I should leave you to rot.”

She’d tried to explain. The sun and the air were good for children. Carina needed to be out of the damp, dank rooms above the barn, and had she been told to stay inside, she wouldn’t have done so. No child would. Besides, there was no one about in this remote place and even if there had been someone, wasn’t it time they told the world that Carina was theirs?

“Sciocca, sciocca!” had been his reply. He cupped her chin in his hand. His fingers increased the pressure till her whole jaw ached, and finally he threw her to one side. “She stays inside. Do you understand me? No vegetable garden, no cellar, no fish pond, no lawn. She stays inside.”

Domenica said that she understood. But the day was hot and the fountains at the villa were so inviting and the child was so young. It could not hurt, Sister Domenica Giustina decided, to give her an hour to enjoy herself.

Still, she looked about nervously. She decided it would be best to stand guard from above at the edge of the peschiera, so she climbed the stone steps from the sunken garden to the fish pond and she made certain that she and Carina were still alone.

She walked to the spot from which the hillside fell to expose through the trees and the shrubbery the road that twisted into the hills from the valley below. Thus, she saw him. As before he raced up the road in his bright red car. She could hear, even at this distance, the roar from its engine as he changed down gears. He was going too fast, as he always did. There was a distant squeal from his tyres as he took one of the hairpin turns too sharply. He needed to slow, but he never would. He liked the speed.

Between where she stood and where he drove, the air seemed to shimmer in the heat. It made her feel indolent, and although she knew she had to get Carina out of the sunken garden, up to the rooms above the barn, and into dry clothes before his arrival, somehow she couldn’t make herself move.

So it was that she saw it all when it happened. He missed a sudden hairpin turn in the road. Engine roaring and gears changing frantically, he shot through the insubstantial crash barrier. He hung there in the sky for a moment. Then the car disappeared as it dropped and dropped down the side of a cliff into whatever lay below: boulders, gnarled trees, a dried riverbed, another villa tucked away from sight. She did not know. She only saw that he was there one moment, charging into the hills, and then in the next moment he was gone.

She stood there unmoving, waiting for what would come next: perhaps the sound of impact or a fireball shooting into the sky. But nothing happened. It was as if the hand of God had struck her cousin down in an instant, his soul being called into the presence of the Almighty to account, finally, for his sin.

She returned to the sunken garden, standing above it and watching the child below. The sunlight glinted off her lovely hair, and through the spray from the fountain, she looked like someone behind a veil. Seeing her thus, joyful and open and trusting, it was difficult to believe that she, too, bore the stain of sin. But so she did and so that sin had to be dealt with.