Just One Evil Act

18 May

LUCCA

TUSCANY

The ringing of her mobile phone awakened Barbara. She grabbed it up quickly and glanced at the other bed in the room. Hadiyyah was sleeping peacefully, her hair tumbling on the pillow around her. Barbara gave a look at the incoming number and sighed.

“Mitchell,” she said by way of greeting.

“Why’re you whispering?” was his hello.

“Because I don’t want to wake Hadiyyah, and what the bloody hell time is it?”

“Early.”

“I twigged.”

“I knew you were quick. Get outside. We’ve things to discuss.”

“Where the hell are you?”

“Where I always am: across the piazza at the café, which, by the way, is not yet open and I could do with a coffee. So if Signora Vallera wouldn’t be crushed by the thought of your stealing out into the dawn with a cup for me—”

“We’re not in the pensione, Mitchell.”

“What? Barb, if you’ve scarpered, there’s going to be hell—”

“Untwist them. We’re still in Lucca. But really, you can’t think I’d still be at the pensione with Hadiyyah’s grandparents about to show their mugs in town.”

“Well, they’re here. Tucked up in the San Luca Palace Hotel, by the way.”

“How d’you know?”

“It’s my job to know. Fact is, it’s my job to know all sorts of things, which is one of the many reasons I suggest you trot over here to the piazza . . . No, better yet. I need a coffee. I’ll meet you in Piazza del Carmine in twenty minutes. That should give you enough time to perform your morning toilette.”

“Mitchell, I have no clue where Piazza whatever-you-called-it is.”

“Del Carmine, Barb. And isn’t that why you’re a cop? To suss things out? Well, do a little sussing.”

“And if I don’t wish to accommodate you?”

“Then I just hit send.”

Barbara felt the grip of pain in her stomach. She said, “All right.”

“Wise decision.” He ended the call.

She dressed in a hurry. She looked at the time. Not even six in the morning but there was mercy in that. No one in Torre Lo Bianco appeared to be stirring.

Shoes in hand, she began a slow descent of the stairs. She worried that there might be something complicated about getting out of the tower, but it turned out to be a straightforward affair. Major key in the lock, but it rotated without a sound. She was out in the narrow street soon enough, wondering what direction she should take to find Piazza del Carmine.

She set off arbitrarily, just seeking another human presence in the cool early morning. She found it in the persons of an unshaven father-and-son duo trundling two large wooden carts of vegetables along a narrow path between a church and a walled garden. She said to them, lifting her shoulders quizzically and looking hopeful, “Piazza del Carmine?”

They looked at each other. “Mi segua,” the older one of them said. He gave the jerk of the head that Barbara was beginning to recognise as the Italian nonverbal for come along with me. She followed them. She wished she’d thought of breadcrumbs to find her way back to the tower at the end of whatever happened with Mitch Corsico, but there was no help for that now.

It wasn’t long before she found herself in the assigned meeting place, a less-than-scenic piazza that accommodated a disreputable-looking restaurant, an unopened supermarket, and a large mildewed white building of indeterminate age with Mercato Centrale across the front of it. This was where Barbara’s companions were themselves heading and after tossing “Piazza del Carmine,” over his shoulder, the younger of the men trundled his cart of vegetable boxes inside the place, followed by his companion, followed by Barbara.

She found Mitch Corsico without any trouble. She just tracked the scent of coffee to the far side of the space and there he was, leaning on a narrow counter built into a wall, a few feet away from an enterprising African adolescent selling takeaway coffee from a shopping trolley.

Corsico saluted her with his cardboard cup, saying, “I knew you had the right stuff.”

She scowled and went for some coffee herself. It teetered just north of utterly undrinkable, but times were desperate. She took it to where Corsico was standing, after throwing a few coins into the African’s palm and hoping they would do.

“And . . . ?” she said to Corsico.

“And the question is why didn’t you phone?”

Barbara thought for a moment, wondering how far she could push this. She said, “Look, Mitchell. When there’s something to phone you about, I’ll phone you.”

He evaluated the expression on her face, but he didn’t go for it, fondly shaking his head at her. “Doesn’t work that way,” he said and slurped his coffee. He turned his laptop so that she could see the screen. Grieving Parents of Dead Mum Speak of Abandonment and Loss was his title of the piece. She didn’t need to read far into it to see that he’d scored an interview with the Upmans. They’d employed their hatchets on Azhar: as a father and as the man who’d “ruined” their daughter like a villain from a Thomas Hardy novel.

“How the hell did you get them to talk?” she asked him, the only thing she could think of as her mind raced with possible ways to appease him.

“Had a chinwag with Lorenzo at the fattoria yesterday. They showed up while I was there.”

“Lucky,” she said.

“It had nothing to do with luck. So where did Lo Bianco stow you?”

She narrowed her eyes in response but said nothing.

He took this on board. He gave a martyred sigh. He said, “You shouldn’t have let him settle your account with Signora Vallera. She gets up early, by the way. A knock on the door and there she was, and dove means where in their lingo. Ispettore was clear enough to me. And where you and I come from, one and one still make two. What I expect at this point is that the Upmans will be seriously chuffed to know the inspector pulled you and Hadiyyah out of the pensione. But I also expect you’d rather I didn’t trot over to the San Luca Palace Hotel and interrupt their brekkers to give them the word.” He fiddled with the keys on his laptop, and Barbara saw him access his email, although she didn’t have a clue how he’d done it from this location. A few manoeuvres and he’d attached the Grieving Parents story to a message to his editor and his finger was hovering one click away from send. “Now, do we still have a deal or do we not, mate? Because as I’ve tried to explain to you ad nauseam, I’ve got to keep the beast fed or it’s going to eat me.”

“All right, all right,” she told him. “Yes, it was E. coli. Yes, it was intended for murder or at least for a very serious illness. I c’n confirm it came from that place I told you about: DARBA Italia. They make and test medical equipment, including incubators of the sort that breed bacteria for laboratories to study. One of the bacteria they have on site is E. coli, and it was handed over to Mura. The bloke who did it—”

“Name, Barb.”

“Not yet, Mitch.”

He pointed a warning finger at her. “That’s not how we’re going to play this.”

“Forget it, Mitchell. He’s agreed to wear a wire, and if I give you his name and you use it, the entire investigation goes straight to hell.”

“You can trust me,” he said.

“I trust you like I trust my hair to stop growing.”

“I won’t use the name till you say the word.”

“Not going to happen and that’s how it is. You write your story. You leave blanks or whatever else you want to leave where the names should go. Once we have what we need from the wire, I give you the names and then you hit send. That’s how it has to be because there’s too much on the line.”

He thought about this for a moment, slurping his coffee another time. Around them Mercato Centrale was starting to heat up with activity as more vendors arrived and organised themselves in something of a ring round the place. The coffee-selling business began to be brisk.

Corsico finally said, “Problem is . . . I don’t trust you not to go sour on me. I think some kind of guarantee . . .”

She nodded at his laptop and said, “You’ve got your guarantee right there. I don’t do what you want when you want it, you just hit send.”

“Send this, you mean?” He clicked and the story was on its way to his editor. “Whoops,” he said solemnly. “There it goes, Barb.”

“And there goes our deal,” she told him.

“I don’t think so.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because of this.” He did a bit more expert manoeuvring and revealed another story he’d been writing. This one’s proposed headline was Dad Was Behind It, and when Barbara read through it quickly, her teeth seemed to grind of their own volition.

He’d got to Doughty. Or Doughty had got to him. Or perhaps it was Emily Cass or Bryan Smythe, but she reckoned on Doughty. He’d given Mitch Corsico line and level, A to Z, the whole bleeding alpha to omega on Azhar, on Barbara, on Hadiyyah’s disappearance, and on her subsequent kidnapping in Italy. He’d given him names and dates and places. He had, in effect, pointed a loaded gun at Azhar. He’d also put an end to her career.

Barbara discovered that one couldn’t actually think when one’s heart was leaping about like a wounded kangaroo. She raised her eyes from the laptop’s screen and simply had nothing to say other than, “You can’t do this.”

Mitch said, “Alas and alack,” in a tone so speciously solemn that she wanted to punch him. Then this tone altered and the words were stone. He glanced at his watch. “Midday should do it, don’t you think?”

She said, “Noon? What’re you talking about?” although she had a fairly good idea.

“I’m talking about how much time you have before this baby rockets off into cyberspace, Barb.”

“I can’t guarantee—”

He waggled a finger at her. “But I can,” he said.

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Barbara named it a miracle that she found her way back to Torre Lo Bianco, although she didn’t do it without several wrong turns. But as things developed, the tower was well known to the citizens of Lucca because of its rooftop garden, and it seemed that many of them used it as some sort of landmark. Everyone she asked knew where it was, although the directions to get there—always in Italian—seemed more complicated each time she enquired about them. It took her an hour to locate it. By the time she arrived, everyone in the tower was in the kitchen.

Salvatore was at his coffee, Hadiyyah was at a mug of hot chocolate, and Mamma was at a stack of what looked like demented tarot cards, which she was laying out in front of Hadiyyah. Barbara looked at these as a way of avoiding Salvatore’s speculative gaze. Mamma was presenting one that depicted a robe-clad woman holding a tray that contained a pair of eyeballs, presumably hers if the blood on her face was anything to go by. Above this, other cards had been arranged: a bloke being crucified upside down, another chained to a pillar and sprouting arrows, a youngish man in a vat with a fire lit beneath it.

Barbara said, “Bloody hell! What’s going on?”

Hadiyyah said happily, “Nonna is teaching me ’bout the saints.”

“Could she possibly choose less bloody ones?”

“I don’t think there are any,” Hadiyyah confided. “At least not so far. Nonna says that what’s brilliant is you c’n always tell who the saint is by what’s going on in the picture ’cause it shows what happened to them. See, this is St. Peter on the upside-down cross, and this is St. Sebastian with the arrows and this”—she tapped the young man in the vat—“is St. John the ’Vangelist ’cause nothing they did to him killed him and look how God up here is sending gold rain down to put out the fire.”

“Guarda, guarda,” Mamma said to Hadiyyah, tapping yet another card, on which a young woman tied to a stake was being consumed by eager flames.

“St. Joan of Arc,” Barbara said.

Mamma looked delighted. “Brava, Barbara!” she cried.

“How’d you know?” asked Hadiyyah, equally delighted.

“Because us Brits killed her,” Barbara said. And since there was no further way to avoid it, she smiled at Salvatore and said, “Morning.”

He said, “’Giorno, Barbara.” He’d already risen politely, and he indicated an Italian coffeemaker that sat on a burner of the old stove. On the worktop next to this, an array of breakfast foods was spread out. Barbara said, “Cake for breakfast?” to him. “I could start liking this place.”

Hadiyyah said, “It’s a breakfast torta, Barbara.”

Mamma said, “Una torta, sì. Va bene, Hadiyyah,” and she smoothed her hand fondly on Hadiyyah’s hair. To her son she said, “Una bambina dolce” to which Salvatore said, “Sì, sì,” but he seemed preoccupied.

When he presented Barbara with her coffee, he said something which Hadiyyah translated as, “Salvatore wants to know where you were,” as she was presented with another saint’s card, which Mamma announced as a depiction of San Rocco.

Barbara made walking motions with her fingers against the tabletop. “Out for a morning walk,” she told him.

“Ho fatto una passeggiata,” Hadiyyah said. “That’s how you say it.”

“Right. Oh fat-o una passa—whatever.”

“Ah. E dov’è andata?”

“An’ where did you go?” Hadiyyah translated.

“I got bloody well lost. Tell him I’m lucky I didn’t end up in Pisa.”

When Hadiyyah passed this along to Salvatore, the inspector smiled. But Barbara could see it didn’t touch his eyes, and she steeled herself for whatever was coming next. This turned out to be Salvatore’s mobile, which chimed. He looked at it and said, “Ispettore Lynley.”

She pressed a finger to her lips, asking Salvatore in this way to keep mum on her whereabouts. He nodded cooperatively.

He said with a smile, “Pronto, Tommaso,” into the mobile. But after a moment, his face altered. He glanced at Barbara, and he left the room.

VICTORIA

LONDON

Not having heard from Barbara Havers felt to Lynley distinctly like a case of no news being good news, although he knew how unlikely this was. So he was unsurprised when the relative ease he was feeling ended shortly after his arrival at work. Winston Nkata related that there was no connection to Italy that he could find among Angelina Upman’s family and associates aside from the fact that her parents were evidently now in Lucca, and shortly thereafter DI John Stewart accosted him in the corridor and handed over a copy of The Source.

On page one of the tabloid was a very large and extremely soulful picture of Hadiyyah Upman gazing out of a window, below which were arrayed a large collection of highly recognisable succulents. The picture was accompanied by a story headlined When Will She Come Home? This story was attached to the by-line Mitchell Corsico. In combination with the photo, this revealed the absolute worst. For there was only one way that Mitchell Corsico could have worked out where Hadiyyah had been stowed by Barbara Havers. Lynley knew this, and so did Stewart.

The other DI made this point clear when he said, “What’s it to be, Tommy? Do I give this to the guv or do you? If you want my opinion on the subject, she’s been in bed with The Source God only knows how long. Years, probably. She’s been on the take as a snout and now she’s finished.”

Lynley said, “You carry your aversions too openly, John. I’d advise you to back off.”

Stewart’s lips formed a sneer that was as amused as it was all-knowing. “Would you indeed?” he said. “Right. Well, I suppose you would.” He glanced in the direction of Isabelle Ardery’s office to indicate the subject of his next point. “She’s met with CIB1, Tommy. The word’s out on that.”

Lynley said calmly, “Then obviously your sources are far better than mine.” Tapping the tabloid against his palm, he concluded with “May I keep this, John?”

“Many more where that came from, mate. Just in case it doesn’t end up on . . . on Isabelle’s desk.” He winked and sauntered off, his step quite jaunty. They were down to the last set, and he was determined to win the match.

Lynley watched him go. He gazed at the tabloid’s page-one story once he was alone. It was vintage material from The Source: The good guys wore white. The bad guys wore black. No one wore grey. In this case, both Taymullah Azhar and Lorenzo Mura were the bad guys for reasons having to do with the death of Angelina Upman (Azhar) and with keeping Hadiyyah from her father (Mura). Of course, since Azhar was in prison at the moment, put there by Inspector Salvatore Lo Bianco (white), who was in charge of the investigation into the death of Angelina Upman, the child had to be domiciled somewhere and the villa in which she had lived with her mother and Mura (pictures on page three) had seemed reasonable until other arrangements could be made. But hers was now the face of sadness, abandonment, and the desperate need to recover from the crimes that had been committed against her, and nothing was being done about that. She was now alone and in the hands of a foreign government (very black), and when was the Foreign Secretary (white but moving towards black very quickly) going to step in and demand that the child be returned to London where she belonged?

Much space was taken up with the recap of what had happened to Hadiyyah since the previous November. Interestingly, though, there was no mention of anyone from New Scotland Yard being sent there to liaise for the troubled child.

That, Lynley knew, was a telling detail. The tale it told was one of collusion between the journalist who had written the story and Barbara Havers. For if he named her, he named his source, and he wasn’t fool enough to do that. Yet Barbara was the only way he could have located Hadiyyah. And only through Barbara’s cooperation could he ever have managed to get a picture of the child.

This article, Lynley knew, put the lie to everything Barbara Havers had said about her interactions with Corsico. She wouldn’t be the first cop to have been exposed as on the take from a tabloid. In recent years, cops on the take had become just another part of the landscape of what was a growing national scandal involving the gutter press. But in combination with every other black mark against her, this was going to finish her.

He went to Isabelle’s office. The fact that she’d requested CIB1’s involvement was an indication of her confidence in the case she was building against Barbara. But there had to be a chance that this tabloid article could be painted another way.

He tossed his copy of The Source into the nearest rubbish bin. He knew this was only a temporary measure since, as John Stewart had pointed out, there were more available just up the street. A few steps over to St. James’s Park Station and any one of half a dozen or more tabloids could be purchased. Stewart had probably already popped out to buy one. He’d see to it that Isabelle was apprised of the page-one story, and he’d do it soon.

Isabelle’s office door stood open, but she wasn’t inside. Dorothea Harriman, however, was. She was in the midst of arranging a stack of files on the superintendent’s desk. When she saw Lynley, she said merely, “Tower Block.”

“How long?”

“It’s just gone an hour.”

“Did he phone her or did she phone him?”

“Neither. It was a scheduled meeting.”

“CIB1?”

Harriman looked regretful.

“Blast,” he said. “Did she take anything with her?”

“She had a tabloid,” Dorothea said.

Lynley nodded and headed back to his office. There he placed his call to Salvatore Lo Bianco. If Barbara had indeed gone bad, then he owed it to his Italian colleague to warn him.

When Lo Bianco answered, he was still at home. Chattering in Italian was going on in the background. This faded as Salvatore stepped out of the room to speak to Lynley.

The Italian brought Lynley up-to-date on everything: his call upon DARBA Italia, his discoveries there, his subsequent interviews with Daniele Bruno, the E. coli connection between Bruno and Lorenzo Mura. “We have an agreement, his lawyer and I. He will wear a wire,” Salvatore told him. “In this way I believe we will have a resolution this very day.”

Lynley said, “And the child? She’s with Barbara Havers?”

“She is well and she is with Barbara.”

“Salvatore, tell me. This is an odd sort of question, but can you tell me . . . is Barbara in Lucca alone?”

“How do you mean?”

“Have you seen her in the company of anyone?”

“I know she has been in the company of Aldo Greco. He is the lawyer of Taymullah Azhar.”

“I’m speaking of an Englishman,” Lynley said. “He might be dressed like a cowboy, actually.”

There was a pause before Salvatore chuckled. “A strange question, my friend,” he said. “Why do you ask this, Tommaso?”

“Because he’s a tabloid journalist from London and he’s written a story that indicates to me he’s there in Lucca.”

“But why would Barbara be in the company of a tabloid journalist?” Salvatore asked, not unreasonably. “And what is this tabloid?”

“It’s called The Source,” Lynley said, and at that point he found that he could go no further with the information. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Salvatore about the picture of Hadiyyah at the window of Pensione Giardino, and more than that, he couldn’t bring himself to tell Salvatore what this meant. Obviously, the Italian could seek out a copy of The Source himself, either online or from a giornalaio selling UK tabloids for purchase by English speakers. If Salvatore did that, he could put together the pieces, but chances were still that he might put them together in an order that didn’t make Barbara look bad. So Lynley said, “He’s called Mitchell Corsico. Barbara’s acquainted with him, as are the rest of us here in London. If she hasn’t seen him, you might warn Barbara of his presence when you next see her.”

Salvatore didn’t ask why Lynley simply didn’t ring Barbara and pass on the information. He said instead, “And he looks like a cowboy?”

“He wears a cowboy kit. I’ve no idea why.”

Salvatore chuckled another time. “I shall pass this information to Barbara when I meet with her today. But I myself have not seen such a person as this. A cowboy in Lucca? No, no. I would remember had I seen him.”

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Barbara tried not to feel as if she were carrying a ticking time bomb in her shoulder bag. She tried to act as if everything were business-as-usual and the business was getting Daniele Bruno set up with a wire. But as she and Salvatore set off for the questura, she could think only of the hands of the clock, moving relentlessly in the direction of midday and Mitchell Corsico’s hitting send.

She could hardly protest when Salvatore suggested they walk to his office, and in other circumstances she might actually have enjoyed the stroll. For the day was fine, church bells were still ringing all over town, shops were just coming to life, the fragrance of pastries was in the air, and the cafés were serving morning espressos to people heading out for the day. Students and workers passed on bicycles, and the blinging of their bells acted as punctuation to the greetings that the riders tossed at one another. It was like being in the middle of a bloody Italian film, Barbara thought. She half expected someone to yell, “Cut and print.”

Salvatore seemed changed. His mood of morning good cheer had altered to one of studied solemnity. Since Lynley had phoned him, Barbara reckoned it had to do with whatever the London DI had related. But with Salvatore’s limited English and her own nonexistent Italian, there was no way for her to discover exactly what it was that Lynley had said. She could have rung him and asked him directly, but she had a feeling that would not serve her well. So as they walked, she cast worried gazes in Salvatore’s direction.

When they reached the questura, she was relieved to see that a white van was parked just at the entrance. That it was not only unmolested but also blocking traffic heading in the direction of the train station suggested that it was not a delivery transport for some product despite the unintelligible Italian scrolled artfully along its side. Barbara reckoned this was going to be the means of picking up whatever Daniele Bruno was able to transmit via the wire he would wear, and when Salvatore slapped his hand against the back door of the vehicle, she saw that she was not incorrect.

A uniformed officer opened the door, headphones on head. He and Salvatore exchanged a few words, at the conclusion of which Salvatore said, “Va bene,” and proceeded into the questura.

Daniele Bruno and his solicitor were waiting. More intense and incomprehensible Italian was exchanged. Rocco Garibaldi graciously translated the high points for Barbara: His client wished to know how he was supposed to cajole Lorenzo Mura into admitting his guilt.

It seemed to Barbara that more was going on with Bruno than the man’s merely wanting a little bout of how-to from Salvatore. The man was sweating profusely—enough to make her think he was probably going to short out the wire they put on him—and he looked struck by half a dozen fears growing from more than his ability to act whatever part Salvatore wished him to play. She said to Signor Garibaldi, “What else?”

Garibaldi said, “It is a matter of family.” He spoke at length to Salvatore as Daniele Bruno listened anxiously. Salvatore looked interested and then spoke at length in return to Garibaldi. Barbara wanted to bang their heads together. Time was passing, they needed to get the ball rolling, and she needed to know what the bloody hell was going on.

It turned out, according to Garibaldi, that Bruno’s main concern was not that he might end up being tossed into a gaol cell. It seemed he would welcome that rather than have his brothers discover what he had done. For his brothers would report to their father. Their father would, perforce, inform their mamma. And in short order, their mamma would lay down the law of a punishment that appeared to consist of Bruno, his wife, and their children no longer being welcome for a Sunday lunch experienced with aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, and a cast of what sounded like hundreds. Reassurances were thus desperately required, but Salvatore either could not or would not give them. Salvatore’s refusal to calm Bruno’s fears had to be discussed from every angle. It took a teeth-gnashing half hour before they could move on.

Bruno then became insistent that Salvatore understand what had occurred with Lorenzo Mura. Lorenzo had told him that he required the E. coli to perform some tests associated with his vineyard, and Daniele Bruno had believed him when he’d claimed the impossibility of coming by the E. coli in any other way. Lorenzo said it was to do with the wine, Bruno said. Right, Barbara thought. Like how fast do I need to have Azhar tossing this back in a glass of wine in order to make certain the bacteria was still viable?

Finally, all points of discussion were exhausted. They decamped to one of the interview rooms, where Bruno stripped off his shirt, exposing an impressive chest. A technician joined them and another lengthy conversation ensued. Garibaldi told Barbara that his client was being informed exactly how the wire would work.

Barbara found herself caring less and less about the minutiae of the discussion as she cared more and more about how much time it all was taking. She wondered where Mitchell Corsico was and what means she could employ to keep him from sending off to London his story about Azhar if noon rolled round and she hadn’t delivered names and places to him. She could ring him and give him a pack of lies, she reckoned, but Mitchell wouldn’t take that in his stride when the real facts became known.

The door opened to the interview room as the final touches were being put to wiring up Daniele Bruno. A woman whom Barbara recognised as Ottavia Schwartz entered and spoke to Salvatore.

Barbara heard Upman being said by the policewoman. She cried, “What’s going on?” but she received no answer as Salvatore abruptly left the room.

Rocco Garibaldi filled her in. The parents of Angelina Upman were in Reception, demanding to speak with Chief Inspector Lo Bianco. They were insisting that something be done about the disappearance of their granddaughter from Fattoria di Santa Zita. Apparently, she had left in the company of an Englishwoman, Garibaldi said. The Upmans were there to declare her missing.

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Since it was made clear to Salvatore that the Upmans had no Italian, a translator was going to be required. Ottavia Schwartz—with her normal high degree of competence—had put out the call for one, but it took more than twenty minutes for her to arrive in Salvatore’s office. In the meantime, the Upmans had been left to cool their heels in Reception. They were not happy to be kept waiting, a fact that Signor Upman’s appearance made clear, although, at first, Salvatore thought the Englishman’s white-to-the-lips face presaged illness brought on by the flight to Italy. This turned out not to be the case. The pale complexion came from the man’s fury, which he was only too happy to share with Salvatore.

Introductions had barely been made by Giuditta Di Fazio when Signor Upman launched into a diatribe. Giuditta had impressive skills in languages, but even she was hard-pressed to keep up with the man’s words.

“Is this how you incompetent layabouts deal with people who’ve come to report a missing child?” Upman demanded. “First she is kidnapped. Then her mother is murdered by her father. Then she goes missing from the only home she’s known in this infernal country. What is it going to take for someone to handle this bloody situation? Do I need to bring in the British ambassador? Because, believe me, I will do that. I have the ability. I have the connections. I want this child found and I want her found now. And do not bloody wait for the translation from Miss Big Tits over there because you know exactly why I’m here and what I want.”

While Giuditta put Signor Upman’s words into Italian, his wife kept her gaze on the floor. She clutched her handbag. She murmured only, “Darling, darling,” when her husband launched into his second harangue.

“Someone who doesn’t even speak English is in charge of investigating crimes against British nationals? Incredible. English . . . the most widely spoken language in the world . . . and you don’t speak it? God in heaven—”

“Please, Humphrey.” From her tone, it was clear that she was embarrassed by her husband and not cowed by the man. She said to Salvatore, “Forgive my husband. He’s unused to travel and he was . . .” She appeared to seek an excuse and settled upon “He was unable to eat a proper breakfast. We’ve come for our granddaughter Hadiyyah, to take her home to England until whatever is going on here is resolved. We went to Fattoria di Santa Zita first, but Lorenzo told us she left in the company of an Englishwoman. She’s called Barbara, but he can’t recall her surname, just that he previously met her with Taymullah Azhar. From what he said . . . I believe she came with Azhar to see us last year, looking for Angelina. We ask only—”

Upman swung on his wife. “You think grovelling will get you what you want? You listen to me. You were desperate to dash over here and now we’ve dashed over here and now you get to bloody shut up and let me handle things.”

Mrs. Upman’s face flushed with anger. She said to him, “You’re not getting us closer to Hadiyyah.”

“Oh, I’ll get you close to Hadiyyah soon enough.”

Through all of this, Giuditta Di Fazio murmured, making the conversation clear for Salvatore. He narrowed his eyes at the Englishman and wondered if a little time alone in one of the interview rooms might cool him off. He said to Giuditta, “Tell them their journey has been premature. As we are now learning, Hadiyyah’s father is innocent in everything pertaining to the death of her mother. More than that, I cannot say, but the professor will be released from custody within a few hours. He would, of course, not be pleased to learn that, during his detainment, his child was handed off to people who came in off the street to claim her. This is not the way we do things in Italy.”

Upman’s face went rigid. “‘Came in off the street’? How dare you! Are you suggesting we hopped on a plane and came here out of the blue to . . . to do what? Kidnap a child who is by all rights ours?”

“I do not suggest you mean to kidnap her as you yourself have indicated that you only wish to take her to England until this matter is resolved. I tell you in return that it has been resolved as far as Professore Azhar is concerned. So while you have been very good-hearted to come to Italy—may I assume that Signor Mura sent for you?—I tell you now that the trip was not necessary. The professore is innocent in all ways related to my investigation into the death of the mother of Hadiyyah. He will be released this very day.”

“And I,” Upman said, “do not mean to suggest that I care about that Paki’s guilt or innocence.”

His wife said his name sharply, placing her hand on his arm.

He shook her off and swung on her. “You bloody shut up, for God’s sake.” And to Salvatore, “Now you have a choice. You either tell me where that brat of Angelina’s gone off to, or you face an international incident that’s going to singe your eyebrows right off your face.”

Salvatore sought to control his temper, although he knew his face was reflecting what he felt. English people, he’d thought, were supposed to be calm, supposed to be reserved, supposed to be rational. Of course, there were always the football hooligans, whose reputations preceded them wherever they went, but this man did not have the appearance of a football hooligan. What was wrong with him? A medical condition eating away at his brain and his manners simultaneously? He said, “I understand you well, signore. But I have no knowledge of where this Englishwoman . . . What did you call her?”

“Barbara,” Mrs. Upman said. “I can’t recall her surname and neither can Lorenzo but surely someone must know where she is. People have to register when they stay at hotels. Our own passports were taken and our identities noted, so it can’t be impossible to find her.”

“Sì, sì,” Salvatore said. “She can be found. But only if her surname is known. A Christian name only? This is not enough. I have no knowledge of where this woman Barbara might be. Nor have I knowledge of why she has taken Hadiyyah from Signor Mura. He did not report this to me or to my colleagues, and as that is the case—”

“She’s done it because the Paki told her to do it,” Mr. Upman snapped. “She does everything she does because of the Paki. You can bet she’s been spreading her legs for him since Angelina left him last year. He’s the sort who doesn’t let grass grow, and just because she’s an ugly cow, it doesn’t mean—”

“Basta!” Salvatore declared. “I have no knowledge of this woman. File a missing person’s report and have done with it. We are finished here.”

He left the office, his blood on the boil. He stopped for a caffè on his way back to Daniele Bruno. It wasn’t likely that espresso would do much to settle his nerves—quite the contrary—but he wanted a moment to think and he couldn’t come up with another way to achieve this.

At this second instance of lying to someone about Barbara Havers, Salvatore had to pause. And then he had to ask himself why he was pausing when any man exhibiting rational behaviour would at this juncture toss her out of the questura on her ear. For she was clearly trouble incarnate, which he didn’t need to be associated with, since he was already himself navigating very difficult political waters. So then he had to ask himself what he was doing, hiding this woman in his own home while claiming not to know where she was. And he also had to ask himself why in his conversation with DI Lynley, he had claimed ignorance of her association with a cowboy journalist whom he—Salvatore Lo Bianco—had seen with his very own eyes. In addition to this, there was now her intimacy with Taymullah Azhar to consider. Upman was a madman, certo, but hadn’t Salvatore seen from the very first that there was something more than neighbourly concern in Barbara’s journey from London?

So he couldn’t trust her. But he wanted to trust her. And he didn’t know what this meant.

Salvatore downed the rest of his caffè. He headed back in the direction of the interview room where Daniele Bruno waited with his solicitor. He was rounding the corner to reach this room when before him, he saw its door open. Barbara Havers emerged and there was something in her manner . . .

Salvatore stepped back to hide himself. When he looked again, she was entering the ladies’ bagno. She was also removing a mobile phone from her bag.

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Her insides were jangling as the minutes stretched into half an hour and then three-quarters. Although Daniele Bruno was fully wired, when the wire was tested as they waited for the return of Salvatore, it was discovered that the unit placed upon Bruno was faulty and another had to be fetched. Barbara watched the clock, saw the minutes draining away at what seemed like double the normal pace, and knew she was going to have to do something.

Mitchell Corsico wasn’t going to wait. He had a story that was hotter than any he’d previously filed. Unless she could get him a better one, he was going to send it to London no matter how many people it harmed. She had to stop him or to reason with him or to threaten him or to . . . to do something and she didn’t know what. But ringing him was a first step, so three-quarters of an hour into their wait for Salvatore’s return, she excused herself and headed for the ladies’.

She ducked inside and looked into each of the three stalls before locking herself into the last one and ringing the London journalist. She said, “Things are taking longer than I thought.”

He said laconically, “Oh, too right, Barb.”

“I’m not lying to you, and I’m not stalling. The damn Upmans showed up here and—”

“I saw them.”

“Bloody hell, Mitchell. Where are you? You’ve got to stay out of sight. Salvatore’s already got a scent about you—”

“It’s your job to do something about that.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Listen to me. We’ve got this bloke set up with a wire.”

“Name?”

“I’ve already told you I can’t give you a name. If this first try doesn’t get an admission from Mura, then we’ll need another go at him. Just now it’s one bloke’s word against the other bloke’s word and there’s no case that can be built out of that.”

“No good, Barb. I have a story needing to be sent to Rodney.”

“You’ll get the story as soon as I have it. Listen to me, Mitchell. You can be there for Azhar’s release. You c’n get a shot of him being reunited with Hadiyyah. You’ll have the whole thing exclusively. But you have to wait.”

“I have other things exclusively as well,” he pointed out.

“You use that and we’re finished, Mitchell.”

“I use it, darling, and so are you. So you have to ask yourself if that’s the way you want this to play out.”

“Of course it isn’t. Whatever else you think, I’m not a bleeding fool.”

“I’m chuffed to hear that, so you’ll understand that, while I personally would love to give you all the time God ever invented to produce the names, the dates, the whatevers and whoevers, in my line of work, time counts for something. Deadlines, Barb. That’s what they’re called. I have them, you don’t.”

She thought furiously. She knew the disaster that would befall not only her but also Azhar if Mitchell Corsico sent off the story he’d crafted from what Dwayne Doughty had given him: Her next job—and only if she happened to be extremely lucky—would probably be sweeping the gutters in Southend-on-Sea while Azhar’s future would consist of facing kidnapping charges or, if he somehow managed to get home before those charges hit the light of day in this country, spending the next few years fighting extradition to Italy.

“Listen to me, Mitchell,” she said. “I’ll give you everything that I can. There’ll be a transcript of what goes down between the bloke we have wired and Lorenzo Mura. I’ll put my hands on that and send it your way. You’ll have your Italian journalist mate do the translation—”

“And give him the exclusive? Not bloody likely.”

“Okay, you’ll have someone else do the translation . . . Aldo Greco, Azhar’s solicitor . . . and then you’ll have the story.”

“Fine. Excellent. Brilliant.”

Barbara thought, Thank God.

But then he added, “Just as long as I have it by noon.”

He rang off on her crying out his name. She cursed him soundly. She thought about throwing her mobile phone into the loo. Instead, she left the stall she’d been occupying.

She opened the door and walked directly into Salvatore.

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Salvatore couldn’t lie to himself about the nature of the phone call that Barbara Havers had just made. He’d heard her say Mitchell and he’d noted the urgency in her tone. Even had that not been the case, the expression on her face would have told him that trusting her had been an error. He reflected briefly on why he felt so afflicted by this betrayal. He decided it was because she was a guest in his home, because she was a fellow cop, and because he’d only just protected her from the loathsome Upmans. He thought, ridiculously, that she owed him something.

She began to babble, regardless of the fact that he couldn’t understand a word she was saying. He could see that she was trying to explain and that she was asking him to find someone who could translate her words for him. He recognised bloody, bleeding, sodding, and hell, and whatever she said was also peppered with Azhar and Hadiyyah and references to London. When he nodded at her mobile and said quietly, “Parlava a un giornalista, nevvero?,” he could see that she perfectly understood what he meant. She said, “Yes, yes, all right, it was a journalist but you’ve got to try to understand because he has information from a bloke in London and it can sink me and it can sink Azhar and Azhar will end up losing everything including Hadiyyah and you need to see for the love of God that he can’t lose Hadiyyah because if he does then he loses everything and why why why don’t you speak English because we could talk this out and I could make you see because I can tell from your face that this is something personal to you like I’ve stabbed you straight in the heart and bloody hell Salvatore bloody bloody bleeding hell.”

None of which he understood as it all came out, to him, as one very long word. He nodded to the door of the ladies’ bagno and said, “Mi segua,” and she followed him back to the interview room where Daniele Bruno was waiting for what came next.

He opened this door, but instead of walking inside, he told Bruno and his avvocato that he had to deal with one small matter before they could proceed. This small matter was taking Barbara Havers to a second interview room, where he asked her to sit by indicating a chair on one side of the table.

“Il Suo telefonino, Barbara,” he said to her. To make sure she understood, he took out his own mobile and pointed to it. She said, “What? Why?” which was clear to him. He merely repeated his request and she handed it over. He could tell she thought he was going to use it to hit a redial on the number she’d rung, but he had no intention of doing that. He knew whom she’d phoned. But as he lived and breathed, she wasn’t going to phone him again. He slipped her mobile into his pocket. She gave a cry that needed no translation. He said to her, “Mi dispiace, Barbara. Deve aspettare qui, in questura adesso.” For he had no idea how she might betray him further. There was no other choice he could see but to detain her in the interview room while the next part of their little drama played out.

She said, “No! No! You’ve got to understand. Salvatore, I had to. He didn’t give me a choice. If I didn’t cooperate . . . You don’t know what he’s holding you don’t know what I’ve done you don’t know how ruined this is going to make me and make Azhar and if that happens then Hadiyyah’s going to end up with those wretched people and I know how they are and what they think and how they feel which is that they don’t even care about her and they sure as bloody hell don’t want her round them and there is no one else because Azhar’s family . . . please, please, please.”

“Mi dispiace,” he repeated. He was indeed sorry. He left her locked carefully in the room.

He returned to Bruno and Rocco Garibaldi. After a negotiated glass of wine to still his nerves, Bruno made the phone call to Lorenzo Mura from a telephone set up to tape their exchange. It was very simple. Bruno said tersely that they needed to meet. The police had been to DARBA Italia. Things were heating up.

Lorenzo Mura was hesitant. Daniele Bruno was insistent. They agreed to meet at the location that Salvatore had decided upon, its having the best possibility for an unobstructed view of their encounter as well as an unrestricted taping of their words. The Parco Fluviale in one hour, at the campo where Mura held his soccer clinics. Mura agreed to this and promised to be there. He sounded a little irritated but not suspicious.

Rocco Garibaldi attended them. He and Salvatore rode in the white delivery van, which, Salvatore explained to him, would be parked at the outdoor café some one hundred metres from the field Mura used. At this time of year, on a fine day such as this, the café would be crowded. Its car park would be filled. A van such as theirs would go unnoticed. Anyone who saw it would merely conclude that its driver had stopped for refreshments.

Daniele Bruno would, of course, drive his own car and leave it in the small parking area beside the campo. He would get out of it and wait at one of the two picnic tables beneath the trees. He would remain visible to Salvatore at all times, walking into the parking area once Lorenzo Mura arrived. Thus he would be monitored from the café. Binoculars would be fixed on him lest he decide to do something in silence to warn the other man that he was wired for sound.

As Salvatore and his companions had a far shorter distance to drive to reach the Parco Fluviale, they were there within fifteen minutes. Bruno was put into position, the white van was established in such a way that Bruno remained well within sight, and then, after testing the quality of sound from the wire, they waited the forty minutes that remained.

Mura didn’t show. An additional ten minutes past the appointed hour ticked by. Bruno stood from the picnic table and began to pace. With earphones on, Salvatore could hear his “Merda, merda” with perfect clarity.

Another ten minutes. Bruno declared that the other man was clearly not coming. Salvatore rang his mobile and said, No, my friend. They would continue to wait. At the half-hour point, Lorenzo Mura showed up.

He spoke first as he got out of his car. “What is it that we must talk about that cannot be talked about on the phone?” He sounded sharp, aggrieved. He was not yet worried about the conversation.

Bruno’s response followed the instructions he’d been given. “We must speak of Angelina and how she died, Lorenzo.”

“What is it you’re talking about?”

“The E. coli and how you meant to use it. And what you told me the use would be. I believe you lied to me, Lorenzo. There was no experiment with wine and the vineyards that you had in mind.”

“And this is why you asked me to meet you here?” Lorenzo demanded. “What is it that you think, my friend? And why are you so nervous, Daniele? You sweat like a pig in the heat.” He glanced round the area and for an instant seemed to look directly into Salvatore’s binoculars. But it was impossible that Mura could have seen anything other than a white van parked among many other vehicles some distance away from where he himself stood.

“The police have been to DARBA Italia,” Bruno told him.

Lorenzo glanced at him sharply. “You have told me this. What is your point?”

And now the lie they had all agreed upon. Salvatore prayed that Bruno could carry it off: “Someone saw me take the E. coli,” he said. “It was nothing to him at first. He wasn’t even sure what he saw. He thought nothing at all until the story about Angelina’s death appeared in Prima Voce. And even then he thought little enough till the police showed up.”

Lorenzo said nothing at first. Salvatore watched his face through the binoculars. He lit a cigarette, his eyes narrowing from the smoke of it. He picked a bit of tobacco from his tongue. He said, “Daniele, what is this that you speak of?”

“You know what I speak of. This E. coli, the particular strain of it . . . The police are asking serious questions. If Angelina is dead because of E. coli, if they found it still within her body . . . Lorenzo, what did you do with the bacteria I gave you?”

Salvatore held his breath. So much hung on Mura’s reply. The man finally said, “And this is why I come to meet you all the way from the fattoria? To tell you what I did with a bit of bacteria? I flushed it down the toilet, Daniele. It was not useful to me as I thought it would be . . . an experiment with bacteria and wine . . . so I flushed it away.”

“Then how did Angelina die with E. coli in her system, Lorenzo? This is what the police want no one to know. This E. coli is what killed Angelina. It is what they are withholding from her murderer.”

“What are you saying?” Lorenzo demanded. “I did not kill her. She carried my child. She was to be my wife. If her death was E. coli . . . You know as I do that this is everywhere, this bacteria, Daniele.”

“Some E. coli is everywhere. But not this E. coli. Lorenzo, hear me. The police have been to DARBA Italia—”

“You tell me this already.”

“They speak to Antonio, they speak to Alessandro. They have made a connection and they will want to speak to me soon and I do not know what to tell them, Lorenzo. If I tell them that I gave the E. coli to you—”

“You must not!”

“But I did give it to you, and if I am to lie on your behalf, I must know—”

“You need to know nothing! They can prove nothing. Who saw you give it to me? No one. Who saw what I did with it? No one.”

“I do not wish to be arrested for what I did, my friend. I have a wife. I have children. My family is everything to me.”

“As mine would have been. As it could have been had he not shown up. You talk of family while mine has been destroyed, just as he planned it.”

“Who?”

“The Muslim. The father of Angelina’s daughter. He came to Italy. He intended to have her back. I could see this: the loss of her, the loss of my child because she left me as she had left others and this is something . . .” Lorenzo’s voice cracked.

Daniele Bruno said, “It was for him, no? The E. coli, Lorenzo. It was for the Muslim. To do what? To make him ill? To kill him? What?”

“I do not know.” Lorenzo began to cry. “Just to be rid of him so that she would not look at him, she would not call him by a pet name, she would not allow him to touch her or to care for her while I stood by and had to watch this . . . this thing between them.” He stumbled towards the picnic tables. He fell onto one of the benches and sobbed into his hands.

“Va bene,” Salvatore said, removing his headphones within the white van. He radioed the police cars that waited for his word, farther along the road and deep into the Parco Fluviale. “Adesso andiamo,” he told them. They had enough. It was time to bring Lorenzo Mura to justice.

LUCCA

TUSCANY

He lifted his head the moment he heard the scrape of tyres on the gravel of the parking area. He saw the police cars, and he didn’t wait to catch sight of the white van trundling along Via della Scogliera from the direction of the café. He knew in an instant what had happened. He ran.

He was very fast. A football player, he had remarkable speed and equal endurance. He took off across the campo where he coached his soccer pupils, and before Salvatore was out of the van, he had crossed the field with four uniformed officers in pursuit.

He quickly disappeared into the trees at the far side of the field. He was heading southwest, and on the other side of those trees, Salvatore knew, a steep berm rose, its side heavily grown with grass in this springtime month, with a walking path along its top.

His officers were no match for the man’s speed. They were going to lose him in very short order. But this was of no import to Salvatore. Once he saw the direction that Mura was taking, he had a very good idea where the man was heading.

He said, “Basta,” more to himself than to anyone else. He turned away, nodded at Daniele Bruno for a job well done, and left him in the hands of his avvocato and the officers within the white van who had taped his words. They would transport him to the questura and to his release. Meantime, Salvatore would take care of Mura.

He commandeered one of the police cars. He headed along Via della Scogliera, northeast along the River Serchio. The river sparkled in the sun of the afternoon. He lowered the window and enjoyed the breeze.

At the entrance to the park, he headed back towards the centre of Lucca. But he did not go as far as the viale circumambient to the ancient wall. Instead, he chose to skirt the neighbourhood of Borgo Giannotti on its north side, coursing down a street where luxurious garden trees sheltered houses hidden behind tall walls. He was held up for two minutes along this route by a large camion carico attempting to manoeuvre into position so as to deliver its load of furniture to the occupants of a newly purchased house. Several impatient drivers behind him applied their car horns to the frustration of having to wait, but he felt no need to do so. When he set off again, he passed Palazetto dello Sport and the large playing field of Campo CONI. At last he reached his destination: the cimitero comunale.

There were cars and bicycles in the main car park, but there was no indication of a burial going on within the tall and silent walls of the cemetery on this day. The gates were open as always, and Salvatore entered them respectfully. He crossed himself at the feet of the guano- and weather-streaked bronze Jesus and Mary. A solemn mausoleum rose behind them forbiddingly, but the statues themselves bore faces at peace.

He paced along the gravel path, where the scent of flowers was a mixed perfume in the air and the sun cast brilliant light upon the marble slabs that topped the gravesites. Across the large quadrangle that he was walking through, tombstones rose as quiet witnesses to his progress towards Lorenzo Mura.

He was where Salvatore had concluded he would be: at the grave of Angelina Upman. He had thrown himself across the patch of dirt that would remain unmarked until her own marble slab covered the site of her burial. In the dry, warm dust that stood in place of this marker, Lorenzo Mura wept.

Salvatore allowed him this time to mourn, and he did not approach him for some minutes. The man’s agony was a terrible thing to behold, but Salvatore beheld it. It was a reminder to him of the price of love and he asked himself if he ever wanted to feel such attachment to a woman again.

Finally, when Mura’s worst weeping had passed, he went to the man. He bent and took his arm in a grip that was firm but was not fierce.

“Venga, signore,” he said to Lorenzo, and Lorenzo rose without protest or question or fight.

Salvatore walked him out of the cemetery and eased him into the car for the short drive to the questura.

LUCCA

TUSCANY

At first, she banged on the door like a bad actress in an even worse television drama. The first time, Ottavia Schwartz came to see if she was in danger or in urgent need of something, and she tried to explain, tried to bully her way past the policewoman, tried to beg, tried to flee. But Ottavia spoke no English, and even if she had done, it was clear she’d had her orders from Salvatore. As had everyone else, it seemed, for no one came in answer to her shouts once Ottavia had again secured the door against her.

All she needed was a mobile phone. She tried to make this understandable to Ottavia by mimicking, by saying telefonino when she finally remembered the word she’d heard used, by begging, by telling her that all she required was the ability to make one simple brief phone call . . . But she achieved nothing.

She was left with watching the time pass. She watched it on a wall clock. She saw it on the inexpensive watch she wore. With the passage of the deadline that Mitchell Corsico had given her, she tried to tell herself that the journalist had only been bluffing. But she knew the story he had was far too huge. It was page-one material and Mitchell wanted to reestablish his place on page one. Every tabloid reporter worth his salt wanted this: a by-line that melted the nerves of anyone whose activities suggested that a reputation-demolishing exposé was in order in the inimitable style of The Source. She’d known that when she’d got involved with the bloke.

So she paced. She had her cigarettes, and she smoked. Someone brought her a panino which she did not eat and a bottle of water which she did not drink. Once a female officer escorted her to the loo. And that was all.

Hours had passed by the time she was released. Salvatore was the one to fetch her. In those hours, much had happened. Lorenzo Mura had been brought to the questura, he had been questioned, he had been processed, and all the details had been taken care of.

“Mi dispiace,” Salvatore told her. His eyes were indescribably sad.

Barbara said, “Yeah. Me too,” and when he handed her her mobile phone, she said, “D’you mind if I . . . ?”

“Vada, Barbara, vada,” he told her.

He left her. He closed the door, but he didn’t lock it. She wondered if the room was wired, figured it was, and stepped out into the corridor. She rang Mitchell Corsico.

It was, of course, too late. Mitch said, “Sorry, Barb, but a bloke’s got to do what a bloke’s—”

She ended the call without listening to the rest. She trudged to Salvatore’s office. He was on the phone with someone called Piero, but when he saw Barbara, he rang off. He stood.

She said, throat tight, “I wish I could make you understand. I didn’t have a choice, see? Because of Hadiyyah. And now . . . things’re going to be worse because of what comes next and I still don’t have a choice. Not really. Not in the ways that are the most important. And you’re not going to understand the way it comes down, Salvatore. You’re going to think once again that I’m betraying you and I s’pose I will be, but what else is there to do? A story—a big one—is going to hit a major tabloid tomorrow morning. It’s going to be about Azhar, about me, about what was planned and who planned it, about hiring certain people to snatch Hadiyyah, about money exchanging hands and records altered and all of this is very bad. Your tabloids are going to pick up on it, and even if they don’t, DI Lynley is going to ring you and tell you the truth. And you see, I can’t let that happen although I’ve already failed to stop the tabloid story from being sent in.” She cleared her throat mightily and said through lips that felt as if they would bleed, “And I’m so sorry because you are one very decent bloke.”

Salvatore listened carefully. She could see the care he was taking to try to sort it all out. But it seemed to her that the only things he picked up on were names: Azhar and Hadiyyah. He spoke about Lorenzo Mura in reply, about Azhar, about Angelina. From this she reckoned he was telling her that Mura had confessed to what she herself had suspected: that Azhar was intended to drink that wine with the E. coli in it. She nodded as he said to her, “Aveva ragione, Barbara Havers. Aveva proprio ragione.”

From this, she supposed he was telling her that she had been right all along. It certainly gave her not a moment’s pleasure.