Just One Evil Act (20 page)

Lynley didn’t comment on the oddity of a system that, on the surface, appeared to have no checks and balances. He merely told the public minister that he understood how things proceeded and, if necessary, he would make certain that the parents of the missing girl also understood since they would, perforce, be used to a rather different system of law and justice.

“Good.” Fanucci waved his hand in an off-with-you-then motion that gave the advantage to his sixth finger. They were being dismissed but not before he said to Lo Bianco, “What more do you have on this business of the hotels, Topo?”

“Nothing as yet,” Lo Bianco said.

“Get something today,” Fanucci instructed him.

“
Centamente
” was Lo Bianco’s evenly spoken reply, but once again that tightening of his jaw demonstrated how he felt about being so directed. He made no further remarks until they were out of the
palazzo
and standing in the enormous piazza
.
Chestnut trees newly in leaf lined two sides of this, and in its centre a group of boys were elbowing each other, shouting to one another as they kicked a football in the direction of a carousel.

Lynley said to him, “Interesting gentleman,
il Pubblico Ministero
.”

Lo Bianco snorted. “He is who he is.”

“May I ask: What did he mean about the hotels?”

Lo Bianco shot him a look but then explained: a stranger coming to enquire about this same missing girl and her mother.

“Before her disappearance or after?” Lynley asked.

“Before.” It was, Lo Bianco told him, six or eight weeks earlier. When the girl disappeared and her photo was shown in the newspapers and on posters round Lucca, a few hotels and
pensioni
reported a man who had been seeking either her or her mother. He had, Lo Bianco said, pictures of them both. The receptionists and the
pensioni
owners all agreed upon that. They all, interestingly enough, agreed upon the man himself. Indeed, they remembered him quite clearly and were able to provide Lo Bianco with an adequate description of the fellow.

“From eight weeks ago?” Lynley asked. “Why are their memories so clear?”

“Because of who it was who came to ask about this child.”

“You know? They knew?”

“Not his name, of course. They did not know his name. But his description? That would not be so easy to forget. His name is Michelangelo Di Massimo, and he comes from Pisa.”

“Why was someone from Pisa looking for Hadiyyah and her mother?” Lynley asked, more of himself than of Lo Bianco.

“That is a most interesting question, no?” Lo Bianco said. “I am working on an answer to it. When I have it, then it will be time to have some words with Signor Di Massimo. Until then, I know where he is.” Lo Bianco shot him a look, shot another look at the
palazzo
behind them, and smiled briefly.

Lynley read in both the smile and those glances something that told him much about the man. “You haven’t told Signor Fanucci this, have you?” he said. “Why not?”

“Because the
magistrato
would have him dragged from Pisa to our
questura
. He would grill him for six or seven hours, a day, three days, four. He would threaten him, not feed him, give him no water, give him no sleep, and then ask him to ‘imagine, if he would’ how this abduction of the child occurred. And then he would charge him based on what it was he ‘imagined.’”

“Charge him with what?” Lynley asked.

“
Chissà?
” he said. Who knows. “Anything to keep the journalists supplied with details showing the case is well in hand. Despite his words to you, this is often his way.” He began walking towards the police car and he said over his shoulder to Lynley, “Would you like to have a look at this man, this Michelangelo Di Massimo,
Ispettore
?”

“I would indeed,” Lynley told him.

PISA

TUSCANY

Lynley hadn’t known that catching a glimpse of Michelangelo Di Massimo was going to involve a lengthy drive to Pisa. When it became obvious by their entrance onto the
autostrada
that this was the case, he wondered about Lo Bianco’s motives.

Lo Bianco took them to a playing field on the north side of
il centro
. There, a training session of football was going on. At least three dozen men were on the field, engaged in dribbling towards a goal.

At the edge of the field, Lo Bianco stopped the police car. He got out, as did Lynley, but he did not approach the players. Instead, he leaned against the car and removed from his jacket pocket a packet of cigarettes. He offered one to Lynley, to which Lynley demurred. He took one himself, keeping his gaze fixed on the players on the field as he lit up. He watched the action, but said nothing at all. Clearly, he was waiting for some sort of reaction from Lynley, something that would indicate that the English policeman had passed a test which had nothing at all to do with his knowledge of the rules of football.

Lynley gave his own attention to the field and the players upon it. In the way of many things Italian, on the surface the practice session appeared to be a largely disorganised affair. But as he watched, matters began to take on more clarity, especially when he noted a single individual who appeared to be attempting to direct a lot of the action.

This man was difficult not to notice. For his hair was bleached to a colour somewhere on the spectrum between yellow and orange, and it presented a stark contrast to the rest of him, upon which black hair grew like a pelt. Chest, back, arms, and legs. A five o’clock shadow that doubtless appeared at one in the afternoon. Given this and the general swarthiness of his complexion, it was hardly credible that he’d bleached the hair on his head, but this fact certainly went a long way to explain why several hotels and
pensioni
had remembered him as the person who’d come asking about Hadiyyah and her mother.

Lynley said, “Ah. I see. Michelangelo Di Massimo, no?”

“
Ecco l’uomo
,” Lo Bianco acknowledged. This said, he jerked his head at the police car. They began the journey back to Lucca.

Lynley wondered why the chief inspector had gone to this trouble of driving all the way to Pisa. Surely, a brief search on a computer at the
questura
would have produced an adequate photo of Di Massimo. That Lo Bianco had chosen not to use the Internet for this purpose suggested that there was more than one reason he wished Lynley to see Di Massimo in person and that reason had only partly to do with having an opportunity to observe the startling contrast between the hair on his body and the hair on his head.

Things became clear when their route back to Lucca did not take them at once to the
questura
but rather to the boulevard that followed the course of Lucca’s great wall on the outside of it. From this
viale
, they accessed another street that led out of the town and, as it turned out, gave them access to a lane leading into the Parco Fluviale. This was a long but rather narrow community park—a place for walking, running, cycling—that followed the course of the River Serchio. Perhaps a quarter of a mile along the way, an area of gravel offered parking for no more than three cars, with two picnic tables sitting beneath great holm oaks and a tiny skateboard park just beyond. There was an open space of grass as well, largely triangular in shape and marked on its boundaries by juvenile poplars. In this small
campo
, a group of young boys round ten years old were kicking footballs towards temporary goalposts.

Here in the gravel area, Lo Bianco stopped his car. He gazed out at this makeshift practice field. Lynley followed his gaze and saw that among the children, a man stood to one side, dressed in athletic clothes, a whistle round his neck. This he blew upon and then he shouted. He stopped the action. He started it once again.

Rather than merely watch what was happening on the playing field, however, this time Lo Bianco honked the car’s horn twice before opening his door. The man on the field looked in their direction. He said something to the boys and then jogged across to the police car as Lo Bianco and Lynley got out of it.

He, too, was a man whose appearance would be difficult to forget, Lynley noted. Not because of his hair, however, but because of a port wine birthmark on his face. It wasn’t overly large, comprising an area of flesh from his ear into his cheek the approximate size and shape of a child’s fist, but it was enough to make him remarkable, especially as the birthmark marred what otherwise would have been a startlingly handsome face.

“
Salve.
” He nodded at Lo Bianco. “
Che cos’è successo?
” He sounded anxious as he no doubt would be. The sudden appearance of the police at his football practice session would indicate to him that something had occurred.

But Lo Bianco shook his head. He introduced the man to Lynley. This was Lorenzo Mura, Lynley discovered. He recognised the name as being that of the lover of Angelina Upman.

Lo Bianco made very quick work of telling Mura that Lynley spoke Italian fairly well, which of course could have been code for “watch what you say in front of him.” He went on to explain Lynley’s purpose in being sent to Italy, which, apparently, he’d already revealed to Mura. “The liaison officer we have been expecting” was how he put it. “He will want to meet Signora
Upman as soon as possible.”

Mura didn’t seem over the moon about either the prospect of Lynley’s meeting Angelina or the fact of Lynley’s assignment as a liaison between the parents of the child—which, of course, would include Taymullah Azhar—and the police. He gave a curt nod and stood waiting for more. When more did not come, he said in English to Lynley, “She has been not well. She remains so. You will make a care in your actions with her, yes? This man, to her he causes grief and upset.”

Lynley glanced at Lo Bianco, at first thinking that “this man” referred to the chief inspector and whatever his investigation was doing to provoke even more anxiety in a woman who had already suffered her only child abducted. But when Mura continued, Lynley saw he wasn’t speaking of his fellow officer but rather of Taymullah Azhar, for he said, “It was not my wish he come to Italy. He is of the past.”

“Yet doubtless deeply worried about his child,” Lynley said.

“
Forse
,” Lorenzo Mura muttered, either in reference to Azhar’s paternity or to his putative concern.

Mura said to Lo Bianco, “
Devo ritornare
 . . .” with a glance afterwards at the children waiting for him on the field.

“
Vada
,” Lo Bianco said and watched Mura jog back to the players.

Mura called for a ball to be kicked in his direction and expertly dribbled it in the direction of the goal while the boys tried to block him. They failed at this and the goalie also failed to block the ball as it soared into the net. Clearly, when it came to football, Lorenzo Mura knew what he was about.

Lynley also knew, then, why he and Lo Bianco had first gone to Pisa for a glimpse of Michelangelo Di Massimo. He said to the chief inspector, “Ah. I see.”

“Interesting, no?” Lo Bianco said. “Our Lorenzo, he plays football for a team here in Lucca as well as gives this private coaching to boys
.
Me, I find this fascinating.” He reached in his jacket and brought out his cigarettes again. “There’s a connection, Inspector,” he said as he politely offered them to Lynley. “Me, I intend to find it.”

FATTORIA DI SANTA ZITA

TUSCANY

Salvatore had been prepared to dislike this British policeman. He knew that the British police held their counterparts in Italy in low esteem. There were reasons for this. They began with what was seen by many as the police failure to control the Camorra in Naples and the Mafia in Palermo. They continued, more locally, with the decades in which
il Mostro di Firenze
had managed to murder young lovers without being apprehended. They reached an international apex, however, with the absolute hash that had been made of the murder of a young British student in Perugia. Indeed, as a result the UK police saw the Mediterraneans as indolent, stupid, and eminently bribable. So when Salvatore had first been told that a British policeman would arrive and, perhaps, monitor his investigation into the disappearance of this little English girl, he had expected to feel upon himself the evaluative eyes of Inspector Lynley’s constant speculation, leading to his equally constant assessments and judgement. Instead, however, Salvatore was seeing that either the man was doing no assessing or judging at the moment—which was hardly likely—or he was capable of masking any conclusions he was drawing, whether they be premature or not. Reluctantly, Salvatore liked this about Lynley. He also liked that the Englishman’s questions were intelligent, his ability to listen was impressive, and his talent for putting facts together quickly was worthy of note. These three characteristics alone nearly made Salvatore forgive the UK officer for being many centimetres taller than he and dressing in an elegantly rumpled and casual manner that suggested mounds of money and self-confidence.

When they left the
calcio
practice, they also left the immediate environs of Lucca, heading in the direction of the nearby hills. It was not a long drive to reach the ancient summer home of the Mura family, for the Tuscan hills began to undulate across the landscape not far north of the Parco Fluviale. Salvatore drove them up into these hills. At this time of year, the land was lush with midspring’s abundant vegetation. Trees bore new leaves the colour of limes, and along the verges wildflowers grew.

The road shot in and out of the sunlight of late afternoon. When they had followed it for some nine kilometres, they reached the dirt lane into Fattoria di Santa Zita, marked by a sign that announced the place and also showed upon it the various functions of the farm by means of depictions of grapes, olive branches hung with fruit, and both a donkey and a cow looking more like those who’d watched over the birth of Jesus than the everyday farm animals that were raised on the Mura land.

Salvatore glanced at Lynley as they rumbled down the lane towards the farm buildings whose terracotta roofs were visible through the trees. He could see the Englishman taking in the environment and evaluating it.