Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

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.