Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

“ Mi senti? Mi senti? ”

No, she hadn’t been listening. She hadn’t been there. She’d been in the arms of her beloved but now—

He jerked her upright. “ Domenica, dov’è la bambina? ” He barked the words.

She scrambled to her feet. She looked to the earth where, between the rows of fresh young lettuces, the mark of her body flattened the dirt. She gazed at this in confusion. “ Che cos’è successo? ” she murmured, and she looked at him. She said insistently, “ Roberto. Che cos’è successo qui? ”

“ Pazza ,” he responded. “ Sei sempre stata pazza .”

From this, she knew that something had indeed occurred between them. She could feel it in her body, and she could smell it in the air. They’d mated in the dirt like animals, and she’d stained her soul yet another time.

He asked again where the little girl was, and Sister Domenica Giustina felt the pain of this question like a sword piercing her side to take the last of her blood. She said to him, “ Mi hai portato via la bambina già una volta. Non ti permetterò di farlo di nuovo. ”

She repeated herself, insistently this time: He’d taken the child away from her once. He would not do so again.

He lit a cigarette. He tossed the match to one side. He smoked and said, “How can you trust me so little, Domenica? I was young. So were you. We are older now. You have her somewhere. You must take me to her.”

“What will you do?”

“I mean no harm. I want to know she is well. I have clothing for her. Come. I’ll show you. It’s in the car.”

“If it is, you may leave it and go your way.”

“ Cara ,” he murmured. “This I cannot do.” He glanced beyond them where through the magnificent camellia hedge the villa loomed, silent but watchful. “You do not wish me to remain here,” he said. “That would not be good for either of us.”

She understood what he was threatening. He would remain. There would be trouble unless she produced the child.

“Show me the clothing,” she said.

“That is my wish.” He opened the gate and held it for her. As she passed him, he smiled. His fingers lightly touched her neck, and she shuddered at the feeling of his flesh upon her own.

At the car, she saw the bags on the floor. There were two of them. He had not lied. Clothing was folded neatly within them. It was a little girl’s clothing, used but still serviceable.

She looked at him. He said, “I seek her comfort, Domenica. You must learn to trust me again.”

She nodded abruptly. She turned from the car. She said, “ Vieni. ”

She led him through the camellia hedge. At the cellar steps, however, she paused. She looked at her cousin. He smiled, and it was a smile she knew well. Nothing to fear, it said. Innocent, it proclaimed. She had only to believe as she once had done.

She descended. He followed. “ Carina ,” she called quietly. “ Vieni qui. Va tutto bene, Carina ,” and as if in answer, she heard the patter of the little girl’s feet as she emerged from her hiding place among the casks in the second room.

She skipped out to them. The light was dim, but in it Sister Domenica Giustina could see the cobwebs in the child’s dark hair. Her knees were marked from the filthy floor, and her shift bore the soil of generations of the cellar’s disuse.

Her face lit up when she saw who was with Sister Domenica Giustina, and completely unafraid, she danced over to him.

She spoke in English, saying, “Yes! Yes! Have you come to fetch me? Do I get to go home?”

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Being called to the office of il Pubblico Ministero was only slightly less infuriating than having to make the drive to his home in Barga. The second was an insult and designed to be one. The first was merely un’eritema , like an itch on the skin that cannot be scratched. Thus, Salvatore Lo Bianco knew he should have been at least moderately grateful that Fanucci hadn’t waited until evening to direct his appearance once again into the ministerial presence among his cymbidiums. But he was not. For he’d made his daily reports as he’d been instructed, and still Piero edged closer and closer to becoming an intrusive presence in the investigation. Piero was not a stupid man, but his mind was like a prison cell: closed, locked, and with no one in possession of the key.

As a magistrate, Piero knew that the power within an investigation was his, and he liked to play with it. It was he who assigned the lead officer to a case. Thus someone assigned could just as easily be unassigned, and everyone knew it. So when he made a request for one’s presence, one had to comply. Or one had to face the consequences of failing to do so.

So Salvatore took himself to Palazzo Ducale, where Piero Fanucci had a suite of offices as impressive as local revenues could make them. He walked, as the way wasn’t long, for the palazzo stood in Piazza Grande, where a gaggle of tourists gathered near the central statue of the town’s beloved Maria Luisa di Borbone. There they snapped pictures, learned the history associated with the loathsome Elisa Bonaparte, who’d been condemned by her brother to rule in this Italian backwater, and they watched a colourful carousel on the piazza’s south side take laughing children on a trip to nowhere.

Salvatore watched this, also. He took a moment to consider what he wanted to impart to the magistrate. A piece of information had fallen into his lap from a most unexpected source: Salvatore’s own daughter. For she was enrolled in the Scuola Elementare Statale Dante Alighieri here in Lucca. And so, as it happened, was the missing child.

This wasn’t unusual. Children from the area surrounding Lucca often came into town for their education. What was unusual was the amount of information that Bianca had actually managed to glean from the girl.

He hadn’t told Bianca that Hadiyyah Upman was missing. He hadn’t wished to frighten his child. But he also hadn’t been able to prevent her from seeing the flyers that were being posted around the town, and she’d recognised her little schoolmate. Recognising her, she’d told her mother of their acquaintance. Birgit, praise God, had informed Salvatore.

Over a casual but indifferent gelato purchased from the only café on Lucca’s great wall, Salvatore had probed carefully for details. His daughter, it turned out, had assumed that Lorenzo Mura was Hadiyyah’s father, not understanding at first that had that been the case, the child’s Italian probably would have been much better. Hadiyyah had revealed to her that her father was, instead, in London. A professor, she’d said proudly, at a university. She and her mummy were in Italy visiting Mummy’s friend Lorenzo. Dad had intended to come for Christmas, but then he’d had too much work and was supposed to be there at Easter instead. But things had come up once again for him because he was so terribly busy . . . Here’s a picture of him. He’s a scientist. He sends me emails and I write to him and p’rhaps he can come for summer hols . . .

“D’you think her dad came to take her home to London?” Bianca had asked Salvatore, her great dark eyes reflecting a worry that an eight-year-old’s eyes should never reflect.

“Possibly, cara ,” Salvatore had said. “Possibly indeed.”

The question now was whether he was going to share this information with Piero Fanucci. It would, he decided, all depend on how his meeting with the magistrate went.

Fanucci’s secretary was the first person Salvatore encountered when he climbed the great staircase. A long-suffering seventy-year-old, she reminded Salvatore of his own mother. Instead of black, though, she always wore red. She dyed her hair the colour of coal, and she possessed an unattractive moustache that—in the years he had known her—she’d never bothered to remove. She’d maintained her position in the magistrate’s office because she was completely unappealing to Piero, so he hadn’t once molested her. Had she been even marginally attractive to il Pubblico Ministero , she would not have lasted six months, as Fanucci’s career was littered with the spiritual and psychological corpses of the women who’d been victimised by him.