Just One Evil Act (16 page)

“And the ports?” The child’s father asked the question. The mother translated, unnecessarily in this case.

“Ports are being checked.” He didn’t tell them what anyone with a basic knowledge of geography knew. How many ports and accessible beaches were there in a narrow country with a coastline of thousands of kilometres? If someone had smuggled the child out of Italy via the sea, she was lost to them. “But there is a chance—every chance—that your Hadiyyah is still in Italy,” he told them. “Possibly she is still in the province. This is how you must think, please.”

The signora’s eyes shone with tears, but she blinked quickly and did not shed them. She said, “How many days is it usually, Inspector, before . . . something . . . some kind of clue? . . . is found.” She did not, of course, wish to say “before a body is found.” None of them wished to say that despite all of them probably thinking it.

He explained to her as best he could the complexity of the area in which they lived. Not only were the Tuscan hills nearby, but beyond them the Apuan Alps rose like threats. Within both these places were hundreds of villages, hamlets, villas, farms, cottages, retreats, caves, churches, convents, monasteries, and grottoes. The child could be literally anywhere, he told them. Until they had a sighting, a clue, a memory shaken from someone’s busy life, they were playing a waiting game.

Angelina
Upman’s tears fell then. She accompanied them with not the slightest drama. They merely leaked out of her eyes and down her cheeks, and she did nothing to blot them away. The professor
moved his chair closer to hers. He put his hand on her arm.

Salvatore told them about Carlo Casparia to give them a small hope to hold on to. The drug addict had been questioned and would be questioned again, he said. They were still trying to excavate something from the wasteland that was his brain. At first he had seemed a possible candidate to have orchestrated an abduction, Salvatore explained. But as there was no ransom demanded by anyone . . . ? He paused questioningly.

“
Sì
, no ransom,” Angelina Upman affirmed in a whisper.

. . . Then they had to assume he was not involved. He could, of course, have taken the child and handed her over to someone else for payment. But this suggested a degree of planning and an ability to go unnoticed in the
mercato
that did not seem possible for Carlo. He was as well known as the accordion player to whom their daughter had given money. Had he led the child off somewhere, one of the
venditori
would have seen this.

Into this explanation that Salvatore was giving, Lorenzo Mura finally arrived. He deposited an athletic bag on the floor and brought a chair to the table. His eyes took in the proximity of the London professor to the signora. His glance lingered on the other man’s hand, still on the signora’s arm. Taymullah Azhar removed it, but he did not change the position of his chair. Mura said, “
Cara
,” to Angelina Upman and kissed the top of her head.

Salvatore did not like the fact that Mura’s practice, coaching, or game of
calcio
had taken precedence over this meeting. Thus, he merely went on. Should Lorenzo Mura wish to be updated at this point, someone else was going to have to do it. He said, “So this, you see, would have been out of character in Carlo. We seek someone for whom the taking of a child is
in
character. This has led us to the paedophiles we have under surveillance and to those we suspect of being paedophiles.”

“So?” Lorenzo was the one to ask the question. He did it abruptly, the way one would expect of someone from such a distinguished family. They would assume the police would jump to their bidding in the manner in which the police had done during the years of their immense wealth. Salvatore did not like this, but he understood it. Nonetheless, he did not intend to be cowed.

He ignored Mura’s question and said to the parents of the missing girl, “As it happens, my daughter is acquainted with your Hadiyyah, although I did not know this until my Bianca saw the posters in town. They attend the Dante Alighieri school together. They have, it seems, spoken many times since your daughter joined Bianca’s class. She told me something that has caused me to wonder if perhaps it is not an abduction that we are looking upon.”

The parents said nothing. Mura frowned. They were, clearly, all thinking the same thing. If the police weren’t considering the child’s disappearance an abduction, then the police were considering it a runaway. Or a murder. There was no other alternative.

“Your little one told my Bianca much about you,” Salvatore said, this time to the professor alone. He waited patiently for the signora to translate. “She said that you had written in emails that you would visit her at Christmas and then at Easter.”

The professor’s strangled cry stopped Salvatore from going on. The signora
raised a hand to her mouth. Mura looked from his lover to the father of her child, his eyes narrowing in speculation, as the professor said, “I did not . . . Emails?” and the situation became immediately more complex.

Salvatore said, “
Sì.
You wrote no emails to Hadiyyah?”

The professor, stricken, said, “I did not know . . . When Angelina left me, there was no word where they had gone. I had no way to . . . Her laptop was left behind. I had no idea . . .” He spoke with such difficulty that Salvatore knew every word he said was the absolute truth. “Angelina . . .” The professor looked at her. “Angelina . . .” It seemed the only thing he could say.

“I had to.” She breathed the words rather than said them. “Hari. You would have . . . I didn’t know how else . . . If she’d had no word from you, she would have wanted . . . She would have wondered. She adores you and it was the only way . . .”

Salvatore sat back in his chair and examined the signora. His English was just good enough to pick up the gist. He examined the professor. He looked at Mura. He could see that Mura was in the dark about this matter, but he—Salvatore—was quickly putting together pieces that he did not like. “There were no real emails,” he clarified. “These emails that Hadiyyah received . . . You wrote them, Signora?”

She shook her head. She lowered it so her face was partially obscured by her hair, and she said, “My sister. I told her what to say.”

“Bathsheba?” the professor asked. “
Bathsheba
wrote emails, Angelina? Pretending? And yet when we spoke to her . . . when we spoke to your parents . . . all of them said . . .” One of his two hands clenched into a fist. “Hadiyyah believed the emails, didn’t she? You set the address to be authentically English. So she would have no doubt, no questions,” he finally said. “So she would think I wrote to her, making promises that I did not keep.”

“Hari, I’m
sorry
.” The signora’s tears fell copiously now. A broken story came from her lips. This story was about her sister, the aversion she felt—and the family felt—for this man from Pakistan, her willingness to assist Angelina in escaping and hiding away from him, the communication between the two women, how everything from last November until this moment had come to pass, except, of course, the abduction of the child.

The signora’s head was in her hands as she spoke. “I’m so sorry” was her conclusion.

The professor looked at her long. To Salvatore, it seemed that he went inside himself to find some inner quality that would allow him to bring forth what, in the same position, Salvatore could not possibly have produced. “It’s done, Angelina,” the professor said. He spoke with astounding dignity. “I cannot pretend to understand. I never will understand. Your hatred of me? This . . . what you have done . . . Hadiyyah’s safety is what is important now.”

“I
don’t
hate you!” the signora wept. “It’s that you don’t understand me, that you never understood me, that I tried and tried and couldn’t make you see—”

The professor put his hand on her arm once again. “Perhaps we failed each other,” he said. “But that is of no importance now. Only Hadiyyah. Angelina, hear me. Only Hadiyyah.”

Sudden movement from Lorenzo Mura caused Salvatore to glance his way. The man’s port wine birthmark would always make the rest of his skin look pale by comparison, but Salvatore did not miss the angry flush that climbed from his neck and the muscle in his jaw that moved as he ground his teeth together. He leaned forward quickly. Just as quickly—perhaps sensing Salvatore’s gaze upon him—he returned to his original position. Salvatore noted this. There were things about this man, he thought, that bore looking into as well.

He said to the parents, “You will want to know that the British police have become involved in this matter. A Scotland Yard detective arrives today.”

“Barbara Havers?” The professor said the name in such hope that Salvatore was loath to disappoint him.

“It is a man,” he said. “Thomas Lynley is his name.”

The professor touched his former partner’s shoulder. He left it there. “I know this man, Angelina,” he said. “He will help find Hadiyyah. This is very good news.”

Salvatore doubted that. He thought it best to tell them that the detective’s purpose would only be to keep them informed of what was happening with the investigation. But before he had a chance to say this, Lorenzo Mura was on his feet.

“
Andiamo
,” he said abruptly to Angelina, jerking her chair away from the table. He nodded a farewell to Salvatore. The professor he ignored altogether.

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Lynley made the drive from Pisa to Lucca with no trouble, well prepared by Charlie Denton with directions, Internet maps, satellite depictions of the town, and car parks marked with mighty red
P
’s
both inside and outside of the city’s huge wall. Charlie had gone so far as to indicate the location of the
questura
as well, and on the satellite photo he’d pointed out with arrows the Roman amphitheatre where Lynley would find his
pensione
. He’d booked himself into the same B & B that Taymullah Azhar was using. This, he reckoned, would simplify matters when he needed to speak to the London professor.

He’d been to Italy innumerable times—in childhood, adolescence, and as an adult—but somehow he’d never been to Lucca. So he was unprepared for the sight of the perfectly kept wall that had long protected the town’s medieval interior, both from marauders and from the occasional floods that its position on the alluvial plain of the River Serchio exposed it to. In many ways Lucca resembled numerous towns and villages he’d seen in Tuscany from his childhood on: with their narrow cobbled streets, their piazzas dominated by churches, and their fountains bubbling with fresh spring water. But in three ways it was different: in its number of churches, its remaining towers, and most of all its distinguishing wall.

He had to drive around this wall twice before he found the car park Denton had identified as being closest to the amphitheatre, so he was able to take in the towering trees upon it, as well as the statues, the military bulwarks, the parks, and the people on bikes, on rollerblades, in running clothes, and guiding pushchairs. A police car drove at a snail’s pace through them. Another stood parked above one of the many gates that gave access into the oldest part of the town.

He himself gained entrance through Porta Santa Maria. There he parked, and from there it was a short walk only to reach Piazza dell’ Anfiteatro, an ovoid marking upon the campestral landscape of the town. Lynley had to walk half the circumference of the repurposed amphitheatre to find one of the tunnel-like
gallerie
that allowed him access to the interior of the place, and once within its precinct, he paused and blinked in the bright sunlight that fell upon the yellow and white buildings inside and upon the stones that constituted the foundation of the piazza
.
Here there were tourist shops, cafés, apartments, and
pensioni
. His own was called Pensione Giardino although he suspected the garden of its name comprised only the impressive display of cacti, succulents, and shrubbery arranged in terracotta pots on various surfaces in front of the establishment.

It took a brief few minutes for Lynley to acquaint himself with the proprietor of the place. She was a young, heavily pregnant woman who introduced herself breathlessly as Cristina Grazia Vallera before she handed him his key, pointed out a claustrophobic breakfast room, and gave him the hours of
colazione.
That taken care of, she disappeared towards the back of the building, from which the crying of a small child emanated along with the welcome scent of baking bread, leaving him to find his room on his own.

He had no difficulty with this. He climbed the stairs, saw there were four rooms only, and located his at the front of the building, number three. It was warm within, so he opened the metal shutters over the window, then the window itself. He looked out at the piazza
below him, where, at its centre, a group of students had positioned themselves in a large circle, facing outward. They were each sketching their own views of the piazza as their teacher moved among them. Thus, he saw Taymullah Azhar the moment the London man came through the
galleria
and headed for the
pensione
.

Lynley watched his progress. He had nothing with him but his devastation, and Lynley knew this feeling, its every nuance. He watched—one step back from the window—until Azhar disappeared beneath him into their shared accommodation.

Lynley removed his jacket and placed his suitcase upon the bed. In a moment, he heard footsteps on the tiles in the corridor, so he went to the door. When he opened it, Azhar was at the door to his own room, which was next to Lynley’s. He glanced over—as one would do—and Lynley was struck, even in the dim light of the corridor, by how contained the man was, even in his wretchedness.

“The chief inspector told us you were coming,” Taymullah Azhar said to Lynley, walking over to shake his hand. “I am, Inspector Lynley, so very grateful that you are here. I know how busy a man you are.”

“Barbara wanted to be sent,” Lynley told him. “Our guv wouldn’t allow it.”

“I know she must walk a very fine line in all of this.” Azhar used a thin hand to indicate the
pensione
, but Lynley knew he meant the situation of Hadiyyah’s disappearance. He also knew that the “she”
in Azhar’s remarks did not refer to Isabelle Ardery.