Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

“ Senti, Carina ,” Domenica whispered, a finger at her lips.

The child did so. When she caught the disembodied singing, she said, “ Angeli? Siamo in cielo? ”

Domenica smiled to think that this place could ever be mistaken for heaven. She said, “ Non angeli, Carina. Ma quasi, quasi. ”

“ Allora fantasmi? ”

And Domenica smiled. There were no ghosts here. But she said, “ Forse. Questo luogo è molto antico. Forse qui ci sono fantasmi .”

She had never seen one, though. For if ghosts wandered the cellars of the Villa Rivelli, they did not haunt her. Only her conscience did that.

She allowed Carina some moments to discover that this place held no danger to her. Then she beckoned her to follow. There was more within these dim, damp rooms, and its promise was Domenica’s salvation.

There was faint light. It came from windows at the villa’s base. They were obscured by shrubbery and filthy with having been ignored so long, but enough light came through them to see the passages that led from one vaulted room to another.

The one she sought was deep within the cellar, and their footsteps echoed against the cool walls as they made their way to it. It was entirely different from the rest, lined with barrels but having a harlequin floor, and in this floor’s centre lay a marble pool. From this spot had come the sound of water that they’d heard. It bubbled up from a spring beneath the villa, and it filled the pool and drained from this to a hole in the floor from which it trickled outside to go on its way.

Three marble steps descended into the pool. Along its sides, green mould grew. Its bottom was black. The grout that held the marble in place was dark with mildew, and the air in the room was pungent.

But it was the pool itself that was important to Domenica. She’d never been in it. She’d avoided it because of the mould and the mildew and whatever else might have been living within the water. Now, though, she knew. The word of almighty God had told her.

She gestured to the pool. She removed her sandals. She motioned for the child to do the same. Then she lifted her gown over her head and she laid it carefully on the floor. Just as carefully, she descended the slick marble steps and she entered the pool. She turned back to Carina and gestured again. Fai così , her movements said.

But Carina’s eyes were wide. She remained immobile.

“ Non avere paura ,” Domenica told her. There was nothing to fear in this place.

Carina swung around. Domenica thought she might wish the comfort of privacy to remove the cotton shift she wore, so she hid her face in her hands. But instead of the sound of clothes being removed, there were racing footsteps against the floor as the child retreated.

Domenica lowered her hands swiftly. No one was there except herself, slime on her legs from the water of the pool as she mounted the steps to climb out of it. She looked down to make sure of her footing. She then saw what the child had seen.

Her tightly bound breasts were bleeding. Blood from the swaddling she used on the rest of her body was beginning to drip down her legs. What a sight she had presented to a child who did not know of her sin! She would have to explain in some form or another.

For it was crucial that Carina have no fear.

HOLBORN

LONDON

Barbara Havers had developed a snout among the members of the fourth estate. With him she had a back-scratch sort of relationship that she’d taken care to nurture. Sometimes he provided her with information. Sometimes she did the same for him. Mutual snoutship, as she liked to think of it, was rather unusual in her line of work. But moments arose when a journalist could be useful, and after her conversation with Superintendent Isabelle Ardery, Barbara reckoned she was at such a moment.

The last time she’d met her snout, it had cost her a bundle. Foolishly, she’d suggested lunch and he’d been more than happy to oblige her. She’d ended up having to pay for the lout’s roast beef, Yorkshire pud, and all the et ceteras in exchange for a single name from the bloke.

She wasn’t about to make that mistake twice as she could hardly put “gathering information from a tabloid journalist” down on a convenient expense account. So she made arrangements to meet her snout at the Watts Memorial. This worked out fine because the journalist was covering a trial at the Old Bailey anyway.

It had begun to rain as she’d left the Yard. The downpour increased as she wended her way to Postman’s Park. She found shelter under the green-tiled roof that preserved the Watts Memorial from the ravages of both time and London’s weather, and she lit up a fag beneath a particular memorial celebrating an act of equine heroism in Hyde Park: a runaway carriage in 1869 and the requisite damsel in distress. The death involved was to her rescuer, one William Drake. Alas, Barbara thought, they didn’t make men the way they used to.

And they certainly didn’t make them like Mitchell Corsico. When he appeared from the direction of the Royal Courts of Justice, he was garbed as usual, like an American cowboy. Barbara wondered, also as usual, how he got away with the get-up. Obviously, one’s manner of dress at The Source was not nearly as important as one’s manner of gathering information for the scurrilous tabloid.

She had that in spades, and she intended to give it to Corsico. One way or another, a fire was going to be lit beneath Superintendent Ardery’s Pilates-maintained bum, and Barbara reckoned she’d come up with that way. She’d brought with her photographs that she’d snared from Azhar’s flat that morning. There was one of him. There was one of Hadiyyah. There was one of Angelina Upman. Best of all, there was one of the three of them together making at happy families in the distant past.

Corsico spied her. He clomped through puddles in his pointy-toed boots and beneath the memorial’s roof he removed his Stetson. Barbara half expected him to say, “Howdy, ma’am,” at this, but it turned out he merely wished to remove the excess water from it, which he did. She received most of it against her legs. Good thing, she decided, that she was in trousers. Still, she brushed the water off and eyed him. He said sorry and dropped onto the bench at her side.

“So?” he said.

“Kidnapping.”

“And I should be gobsmacked by this information because . . . ?”

“Kidnapped in Italy.”

“And kidnapped in Italy should send me scurrying for my laptop and an Internet connection why . . . ?”

“The victim’s British.”

Corsico gave her a look. “Okay. I’m moderately interested.”

“She’s nine years old.”

“I’m getting intrigued.”

“She’s bright, personable, and pretty.”

“Aren’t they always?”

“Not like this.” Barbara brought out the first photo, the one of Hadiyyah. Corsico was no fool. He clocked at once that she was mixed race, and one eyebrow rose to indicate Barbara was to proceed with the titillation of his brain cells. She handed over the photo of Angelina Upman, then the one of Azhar, then the happy family together with Hadiyyah in a pushchair at two years old. Everyone, thank God, was suitably attractive.

The Source , Barbara knew as one of its devoted readers, was never going to go front page with anyone—kidnapped, dead, or otherwise—unless that person had a certain look. Hardened criminals with mugs like three-day-old roadkill made the front page if they were arrested for a crime that had taken the tabloid’s fancy. But an ugly kid kidnapped? An ugly woman murdered? A grief-stricken father or husband with a face like a salmon? Not going to happen.

“Kid could be dead,” Barbara pointed out, although she despised herself for having to use the word kid to refer to Hadiyyah, not to mention dead . But Corsico couldn’t be made to know her interest in the case. If he twigged, she knew he’d not cooperate. He’d see at once that he was being used and, story or not, he would walk away. “Kid could be in a Bangkok cathouse,” she added. “Kid could be sold to someone with a cellar in the Belgian countryside. Kid could be in the US by now. Who the hell knows . . . because we bloody well don’t.”