Just One Evil Act (84 page)

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.