Just One Evil Act (21 page)

He said, “The Muras,
Ispettore
, they are an ancient family here in Lucca. They were merchants of silk, very rich, and this place in the hills was their summer home. It has been theirs—the summer home of the Mura family—for . . . I would say three hundred years, perhaps? The older brother of Lorenzo did not wish to have it pass to him. He lives in Milano and practises psychiatry there and for him this place was a burden. The sister of Lorenzo lives within the city wall of Lucca and she, too, found the old place a burden. So it fell to Lorenzo to keep it, to sell it, or to make something of it . . .” Salvatore indicated the land and its emerging buildings. “You will see,” he said. “I think it is not so much different in your own country with these ancient places.”

They swung past a barn that Lorenzo had converted into a winery and tasting room. Here, he bottled both the complex Chianti and the simpler Sangiovese for which the
fattoria
was known. Beyond it, a farmhouse was undergoing reconstruction for its future as an accommodation for travellers interested in staying in an
agriturismo
. And then, beyond this, two rusting gates stood open in an enormous and wildly overgrown hedge. Salvatore drove through these gates, a route that took them up to the villa that had long been part of the Mura family’s history. This building, too, was undergoing work. Scaffolding was being constructed on its sides.

He allowed Lynley a moment to take the villa in, idling the police car on the gravel driveway that swept up to the structure. It was an impressive sight, especially if one did not look too closely at all the spots in which the poor place was about to crumble into pieces. Two sets of stairs—perfectly proportioned on the front of the building—led up to a loggia where a jumble of outdoor furniture stood scattered about as if someone kept moving it to follow the sunlight. A door—its panels painted in faded depictions of the
cinghiali
that roamed the hills—was set at the precise centre of the loggia, and on either side of it old sculptures depicted the seasons in human form, with
Inverno
,
unfortunately, having lost his poor head and the basket of flowers carried by
Primavera
having been chopped in half at some time in the past. There were three floors to the villa and a cellar as well, and there were rows of windows, all of them shuttered.

After a moment of looking all this over, Inspector Lynley nodded. He glanced at Salvatore and said, “As you said, in England, we have places not unlike this: old distinguished homes belonging to old, distinguished families. They are at once a burden and a privilege. It is easy to understand why Signor Mura would wish to save this place.”

Salvatore took the inspector at his word. He himself knew there were great houses aplenty in Lynley’s country. Whether Lynley himself actually understood the passion of the Italians for their family homes . . . ? That was another matter, of course.

He drove them along the lawn on the gravel that encircled it. He parked near the steps up to the first floor of the place. Between these two sets of stairs, wisteria grew abundantly on the front of the building, nearly hiding another doorway, this one leading into the
piano terra
of the home. As they got out of the car, this smaller doorway opened, and Angelina Upman came out from what Salvatore knew was the part of the house where the kitchen and the other quotidian rooms were situated. She looked far worse than she had looked earlier that day. Lorenzo had not been exaggerating the truth of the matter. She was very thin, and beneath her eyes the flesh looked bruised.

At once, she became emotional at the sight of the English policeman. Her eyes altered from dull to luminous with tears. She said in English, “Thank you, thank you for coming, Inspector Lynley.” To Salvatore she said in Italian, “I must speak English with this man, for my own Italian is not quite . . . It will be easier for me. You understand why I must speak English, Chief Inspector?”

“
Certo
,” Salvatore said. His own English was somewhat serviceable, as she knew. If they spoke slowly, he would be able to follow what they said.

“
Grazie
,” she said to him. “Please come inside.”

So they entered into the bowels of the place where the light was dim and the atmosphere sombre. It was odd to Salvatore that she had chosen to lead them here. The
soggiorno
on the
primo piano
would have been more pleasant. The loggia outside also would have been welcoming. But she seemed to prefer the darkness and the shadows, which would make her less easy to read, of course.

Another interesting detail, Salvatore thought. Indeed, in this matter of the missing child, there were interesting details aplenty.

FATTORIA DI SANTA ZITA

TUSCANY

Angelina took them into a cavernous kitchen within the villa, a room that was hovering between centuries. It was outfitted with both the conveniences of a cooker and refrigerator and the curiosities of an enormous wood-burning oven, a vast fireplace, and a large stone sink in which one could bathe two Alsatians simultaneously. At the room’s centre, a scarred table held a pile of newspapers, magazines, daily crockery, and faded kitchen linens, and at this table Lynley and Lo Bianco sat while Angelina brought to them a bottle of the wine produced there on the farm, along with cheese, fruit, Italian meats, and some freshly baked bread. She poured them each a glass of Chianti but had none herself, choosing water instead.

When she sat, she took up one of the linen table napkins and held it like a form of talisman. She repeated what she had said upon greeting Lynley: “Thank you so much for coming, Inspector.”

“It’s mostly Barbara’s doing,” Lynley told her. “Frankly, she may have gone a bit too far this time to get her way in matters, but that remains to be seen. Hadiyyah’s quite important to her.”

Angelina pressed her lips together for a moment. “I did a terrible thing. I know that. But what I can’t accept is that this—what’s happened to Hadiyyah—is to be my punishment. Because if that’s the case . . .” Her fingers tightened on the piece of linen she held.

Lo Bianco made a noise in his throat that seemed to indicate his understanding of the concept: that there was always a connection between the forms of temporal punishment one suffered and the crimes of the heart one committed against other people. To Lynley’s way of thinking, this was a less than useful way of looking at what had happened.

He said, “I’d try not to think like that. It’s normal—believe me, I do understand—but it’s not helpful.” He smiled at her kindly and added, “‘That way madness lies’ is a good way to put it. Madness—clouded thinking, if you will—isn’t useful to anyone just now.”

“It’s been a week,” she said. “Can you tell me what it means that it’s been a week without a sign or a word? There’s been no request for a ransom and Renzo’s family would pay. I know they would. And people
are
kidnapped for ransoms in this country. All over the world they’re kidnapped for ransoms. Aren’t they? Isn’t it true? I’ve been trying to discover how many children are kidnapped in Italy every year. See—” Here she dug into the pile of newspapers and magazines and brought out information she’d printed from the Internet. “I’ve been looking and searching and trying to see how long it usually is before kidnappers . . . before there’s something to tell the parents . . .” She fell into silence. In this silence, tears tracked down her cheeks.

Lynley glanced at Lo Bianco. As police they both knew that Angelina was grasping at straws, that in this day kidnapping for ransom was far less likely than kidnapping for sale, for sex, for sick recreational murder, especially when it came to the disappearance of a child. Lo Bianco’s fingers rose and fell against the base of his wineglass. It was a gesture saying, Tell her what you will at this point as it is important only to give her a moment’s peace of mind.

“I wouldn’t disagree,” Lynley told her carefully. “But the more important point now is to go back and consider what happened on the day she disappeared: where you were, where Signor Mura was, where Hadiyyah was, who was around her, who might have seen something but as of yet not come forward because they’re not even aware that they did see something . . .”

“We were all doing what we always do,” Angelina murmured numbly.

“Which is, you see, an important detail,” Lynley reassured her. “It tells the police that, if you’re creatures of habit, someone could have seen this over time and planned how and where to abduct her. It tells the police that, perhaps, this was no crime of opportunity but something considered from every angle. It also explains why no one might have noticed anything because what would have been taken into account by Hadiyyah’s abductor would be exactly that: how to carry this child off without anyone noticing.”

Angelina pressed the table napkin beneath her eyes. She nodded and said, “I see that. I do,” and she rapidly told Lynley how they’d organised the day on which Hadiyyah had disappeared: She had gone to her yoga class, Lorenzo and Hadiyyah had gone into the street market, Hadiyyah had skipped ahead as always to look at the colourful stalls and eventually to listen to the accordion player, and it was there that they all would meet to walk to the home of Lorenzo’s sister for lunch. They did this without variation on their market day in Lucca. Anyone who knew them—or who watched them and waited for an opportunity—would have learned this.

Lynley nodded. He’d heard most of this already from Lo Bianco, but he could see that it gave Angelina a sense of hope being kept alive to give him the information. Across the table from him, Lo Bianco listened to this repetition of details with apparent patience. When Angelina was finished, he said to Lynley, “
Con permesso . . . ?
” and leaned forward to ask a few questions of his own. He did so in somewhat battered English.

“I ask a question not to ask before, signora. How was Hadiyyah with Signor
Mura? All this time away from her papà. How was she with your lover?”

“She was fine with Lorenzo,” Angelina said. “She likes Lorenzo.”

“This you are certain?” Lo Bianco said.

“Of course I am,” Angelina told him. “Making certain . . . It was one of the reasons . . .” She gave a glance to Lynley, then looked back at Lo Bianco. “That’s one of the reasons my sister created the emails. I thought if Hadiyyah heard from Hari, if she thought at first that this was just a visit we were making to Italy, if over time she came to believe her father wasn’t going to come for her . . .”

“Emails?” Lynley asked.

Lo Bianco quickly explained in Italian: that Angelina’s sister had manufactured emails putatively from the little girl’s father. In these he promised to come to Italy. In these he broke those promises.

“Was she able to access his email account in some way?” Lynley asked.

“She created a new account for him, through a friend of hers at University College,” Angelina told him. “I told my sister what to say in the emails. She said it.” Angelina turned to Lo Bianco. “So Hadiyyah had no reason to dislike Lorenzo, to think that he was going to stand in place of her father and to realise from this that her life was permanently altered. I made sure of that.”

“Still, there could be . . . It could be the daughter and Signor Mura . . .” Lo Bianco seemed to search for the word.

“Friction?” Lynley said. “There might have been friction between them?”

“There was no friction,” Angelina said. “There is no friction.”

“And Signor Mura, he likes your Hadiyyah?”

Angelina’s jaw loosened. If she could have gone paler than she already was, she would have done so. Lynley could see her taking in Lo Bianco’s question and drawing a conclusion from it. She said, “Renzo loves Hadiyyah. He would do nothing
to harm her, if that’s what you’re thinking. Everything he’s done, everything I’ve done, it’s all been
because
of Hadiyyah. I wanted her back, I was so unhappy, I’d left Hari to be with Renzo here but I couldn’t do it without Hadiyyah, so I returned to Hari for those few months and waited and waited and Lorenzo waited, and it was all for Hadiyyah, because of Hadiyyah, so you can’t say Lorenzo . . .”

Lo Bianco produced the Italian version of tsk, tsk, tsk. Lynley tried to follow Angelina’s story. She’d woven, it seemed, quite a web of deceit to engineer her new life in Italy. This brought up a point of interest for him, one that might have implications from the past that reached into the present.

“When did you meet Signor Mura?” he asked her. “How did you meet him?”

She’d met him in London, she said. She’d been without an umbrella on a day with sudden rain, so she’d ducked for protection into Starbucks.

Lo Bianco made a noise of moderate disgust at this, and Lynley glanced at him. It was Starbucks, however, that was apparently garnering the Italian man’s disapproval and not the fact of Angelina Upman’s meeting someone inside the place.

The coffee house was crowded with other people having the same idea. Angelina purchased a cappuccino for herself and was drinking it on her feet by the window when Lorenzo entered with the same idea in mind: to get out of the rain. They began to chat, as people sometimes do, she explained. He’d come to London for three days’ holiday and the weather was maddening to him. In Tuscany at this time of year, he said, the sun is out, the days are warm, the flowers are blooming . . . You should come to Tuscany and see for yourself, he told her.

She could see that he looked for a wedding ring on her in that casual way that unattached people sometimes do when they meet one another. She did the same to him. She didn’t tell him about Azhar, about Hadiyyah, or about . . . other things. At the end of their time in the Starbucks when the rain had ceased, he handed her his card and said that if she ever came to Tuscany, she was to ring him and he would show her its beauties. And so, eventually, that was what she did. After a row with Hari . . . another row with Hari . . . always the nighttime rows with Hari, spoken in fierce whispers so that Hadiyyah wouldn’t know there were difficulties between her mother and father . . .

“‘Other things’?” was Lynley’s question at the end of her story. In his peripheral vision, he saw Lo Bianco’s sharp nod of approval.