Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

After Fanucci examined himself in the makeup artist’s mirror, they were given his approval to begin. The telecronista did her part first, reciting the salient details of Hadiyyah’s disappearance in the rapid-fire Italian that everyone on television in the country seemed to employ. She did so with one of the olive groves as her background. It was wisely chosen, serving as a nice contrast to the rust-coloured suit she wore.

Lynley didn’t try to follow her reportage, aside from listening for names. Instead, he watched the interactions among Lorenzo, Angelina, and Azhar.

Men were by nature territorial, Lynley thought, and Angelina was the territory upon which each of these men had staked a claim. It was interesting to Lynley to see how each of them demonstrated this: Lorenzo by standing behind Angelina’s chair, his hands on her shoulders, and Azhar by ignoring the other man entirely and folding a handkerchief into Angelina’s hands should she need it when the time arrived for them to make their appeal to the television viewers.

When the telecronista had completed her introduction to the piece, the scene shifted. The cameraman moved to the winery, where lights had already been set up. After a few words with the telecronista , he focused his lens on Fanucci.

Fanucci’s was, it seemed, the fire-and-brimstone section of the report. His speech was as rapid-fire as had been the telecronista ’s, but Lynley caught enough to know that it was filled with threats and imprecations. The malefactor would be found and when he was . . . They had a person of interest to whom they were speaking and he would reveal . . . Anyone who was found to know anything that they had not yet transmitted to the police . . . The law did not sleep . . . The police did not sleep . . . If anything further happened to this child . . .

Next to him, Lynley heard Lo Bianco sigh. He took a packet of chewing gum from his jacket pocket, offering it first to Lynley, who demurred. With a piece for himself, Lo Bianco walked away. Fanucci in action, it seemed, was more than he could bear to watch.

When the public minister had completed his remarks, he jerked his head to indicate that the story was now to move to Angelina Upman and Taymullah Azhar. He rose from the table and walked to position himself behind the cameraman. There he stood like a prophet of doom.

The first movement came from Lorenzo Mura, who took himself out of the picture. There was no need to confuse the viewing public. It was enough for people to know that in front of them on their television screens were the parents of the missing girl. To throw in the complications of Angelina Upman’s private life here in Italy seemed unnecessary. On the other hand, thought Lynley, seeing Lorenzo Mura on the screen might jog another kind of memory in the mind of a viewer. He walked over to Lo Bianco to suggest this to the chief inspector. Lo Bianco heard him out and didn’t disagree.

Taymullah Azhar and Angelina Upman made their appeal. They did so in English—Azhar, of course, having no Italian—and it would be translated with a voice-over recording in advance of the night’s broadcast. What they said was simple. It was what any parent in the same situation would have said: Please give our daughter back to us. Please don’t hurt her. We love her. We will do anything to have her returned unharmed.

Lynley saw Fanucci snort at the we will do anything , which—although spoken in English—he evidently understood. Clearly, then, the public minister judged it ill-advised to throw an offer like that into the vast maw of an unidentified television audience. There were people out there who well might lead the parents on a merry chase when they heard such an offer: “Hand over a bundle of ransom money and watch us run you into the ground with false information about your child.” Fanucci strode over to Lo Bianco’s other side and said something to him tersely. Lo Bianco looked noncommittal.

Finally, it was over. At the table, Azhar said something quietly to Angelina, his hand on her wrist. Angelina pressed his handkerchief to her eyes, and he brushed her hair off her cheek. The cameraman caught this tender gesture on tape at the direction of the telecronista . Lorenzo Mura saw it all, scowled, and left them to each other.

He went into the winery, where Lynley assumed he would remain in something of a temper until everyone was gone. But he was wrong. Instead, Lorenzo emerged with a tray of wineglasses containing his own Chianti, along with a plate bearing slices of cake. In what Lynley thought of as a quintessentially Italian moment, he distributed wine as well as cake to everyone there.

“ Grazie ” was murmured as was “ Salute .” Wine was sipped or it was tossed back in a gulp or two. Cake was eaten. People seemed meditative, their thoughts on the child and where she might be and how she might be.

Only Azhar and Angelina neither ate nor drank, Angelina because she had been given no wine and she pushed the plate of cake aside with a shudder, and Azhar because as a Muslim he did not drink at all and the sight of the cake seemed to dishearten him.

He glanced at the others, seemed to note the wineglasses in everyone’s hand, and moved his own to Angelina, saying to her, “Do you wish, Angelina . . . ?”

She glanced—was it warily? Lynley wondered—at Lorenzo who, with the tray, was crossing the farmyard to Fanucci, Lo Bianco, and himself. She said, “Yes. Yes. I think I could do with some. Thank you, Hari,” and she took up the glass and drank with the others.

Lorenzo turned. His gaze went to the table where his lover and her erstwhile lover sat. He took in the instant of Angelina’s drinking the wine and he cried out, “ Angelina, smettila! ” And then in English, “No! You know you must not .”

They looked at each other across the farmyard. Angelina seemed frozen into place. Lynley sorted through what Mura had been trying to say to her: She wasn’t to drink and she knew why.

No one said anything for a moment. Then Angelina finally spoke. She said, “One glass won’t hurt, Renzo. It’s fine . ” Clearly, she was willing her lover to say nothing more. Just as clearly he wasn’t going to remain silent in the face of what she was apparently doing.

He said, “No! During this time especially, it is bad. You know this.”

And everything changed in that instant. Utter stillness fell among them. No one moved. Into this a rooster crowed suddenly and as if in response, a burst of pigeons took to the sky from the winery’s roof.

Lynley looked from Lorenzo to Angelina to Azhar. During this time especially did, of course, have more than one meaning: During this time especially when your child is missing, it is bad to drink, for you need to have your wits about you. During this time especially when you can neither eat nor sleep, wine will go to your head too quickly. During this time especially in the presence of these people who will be watching every move that you make, it is best to remain completely sober. There were many possibilities here. But the expression on Angelina’s face said that the most wrenching of the possibilities was the one that had automatically brought the words to Lorenzo’s lips. He’d said them without thinking and there could be, realistically, only one reason: During this time especially when you are carrying a child, you must not drink.

Angelina said quietly to Azhar, “You weren’t meant to know, Hari. I didn’t want you to know.” And then desperately, “Oh God, I’m so sorry about everything.”

Azhar didn’t look at her. Nor did he look at Lorenzo. He didn’t, in fact, look at anyone. Rather he stared straight ahead, and there was no expression whatsoever on his face. That alone told Lynley more than any words would have done. No matter how she had devastated him during their relationship, the Pakistani man was unaccountably as much in love with Angelina Upman as he had ever been.