Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

“You did know, as I recall,” he said mildly. “You told me she was a cop and you turned out to be correct. But none of that matters just now. Things are in hand. The girl will be found. And no crime was committed by you or by me. Which, I might add, is something you should hold close to your heart.”

“Di Massimo gave them your name,” she protested. “What’s to stop him from giving them everything else?”

He shrugged. There was some truth in what she said, but he was holding on to his confidence in money being not only the root of all evil but also the oil that kept machines rolling on. He said, “ Plausible deniability , Em. That’s our watchword.”

“ Plausible deniability ,” she repeated. “That’s two words, Dwayne.”

“Merely an insignificant detail,” he said.

LUCCA

TUSCANY

P rima Voce had what went for the full story, Salvatore saw. That morning’s paper carried a feature on page one, complete with a photograph of Carlo Casparia—his face and bright, tangled hair covered by a jacket—being escorted between two grim-faced uniformed policemen. They would take him from the questura to the prison where he would be held in preventive detention during the rest of the investigation. A second photograph featured Piero Fanucci, triumphantly announcing that they at last had their confession from the malefactor, and he was now indagato : formally named as principal suspect. The whereabouts of the child would be forthcoming, he had told the tabloid confidently.

No journalist questioned any of this. No one asked if the unfortunate Carlo had requested or been given an avvocato to sit at his side and advise him of his limited legal rights. Especially nothing was asked about the confession that Fanucci had prised from the homeless man or about the means by which Fanucci had got that confession. Neither the newspapers nor the telegiornale brought up anything other than the coup of a case having been resolved. They all knew quite well that to do anything else would put them in danger of being accused of diffamazione a mezzo stampa , and it was up to il Pubblico Ministero himself to decide if such defamation by the press had occurred.

Lo Bianco explained all this to DI Lynley when the Englishman appeared in his office. Obviously, he was going to have to speak to the parents of the little girl as soon as possible, and he wanted to have his facts in order. He’d brought with him a copy of Prima Voce . He’d also brought the question about why he hadn’t been rung immediately once a confession was in hand. He sounded doubtful about the entire subject of Carlo Casparia and his guilt, however. Lo Bianco wasn’t surprised by this. Detective Inspector Lynley did not appear to be a fool.

Lynley indicated the tabloid when he said, “Is this information reliable, Chief Inspector? The parents might well have seen it, and they’ll have questions. First and foremost will be what this bloke’s said about Hadiyyah: where he took her and where she is. May I ask how”—he hesitated tellingly—“this confession came about?”

Salvatore had to be careful with what he said. Fanucci had ears and eyes in every corner of the questura , and any explanation he gave the Scotland Yard DI about either il Pubblico Ministero or the Italian laws governing both the press and criminal investigations could be misinterpreted and used against him if he didn’t proceed with maximum caution. For this reason, he took Lynley from the questura altogether, and together they walked the distance to the Lucca train station not far away. Across the street from the station was a café. He led the other officer to its bar, ordered two cappuccini and two dolci . He waited till they were set in front of them before he faced Lynley and, leaning against the bar with a look round the café to make sure there were no other officials present, he began to talk.

Twenty hours without rest or a lawyer present, with no food and only occasional water, had been enough to convince Carlo Casparia that his interests would best be served by telling the truth, he explained to Lynley. And if there were gaps within his memory of the events surrounding the child’s disappearance, that was no real problem. For after twenty hours with il Pubblico Ministero and other hand-picked interrogators, exhaustion and hunger crept into one’s mind, stimulating one to imagine—aloud, of course—what could adequately fill the blanks in one’s memory. From this combination of imagination and reality, then, a complete story of the crime’s commission emerged. That it was small part fact and large part fantasy was of no concern to il Pubblico Ministero . A confession was what mattered to him since only a confession mattered to the press.

“I was afraid of that,” Lynley admitted. “With due respect, it is a decidedly odd way to proceed. In my country—”

“ Sì, sì. Lo so ,” Salvatore said. “Your prosecutors do not involve themselves in an investigation. But you are in my country now, and so you will learn that often we must allow certain things to play out so that other things—unknown to the magistrato —can play out as well.”

Salvatore waited to see if Lynley would follow what he was hinting at. Lynley observed him for a long moment as a group of tourists entered the café. They were loud and aggressive, and Salvatore winced at the hardness of their language. Two of them went to the bar and ordered in English. Americans, he thought with resignation. They always believed the entire world spoke their language.

Lynley said, “What, then, actually comprised the confession of Carlo Casparia? The parents will want to know this, and for that matter, I’d like to know it as well.”

Salvatore told him how Fanucci envisioned the crime, based upon the drug addict’s words, dutifully committed to paper. It was simple enough, according to il Pubblico Ministero : Carlo is at the mercato in his usual position with Ho fame hanging round his neck. The little girl sees this, and she gives him her banana. He sees her innocence, and in her innocence, he also sees an opportunity. He follows her as she leaves the mercato , heading in the direction of Viale Agostino Marti.

“But why would she be heading there?” Lynley asked.

Salvatore waved off the question. “A mere detail that does not interest Piero Fanucci, my friend.”

He went on with the rest of the crime as Fanucci envisioned it: Carlo snatches the little girl somewhere along the route. He stashes her at some stables where he has slept rough since first coming to Lucca when his parents tossed him out of their Padova home. There he holds her until he can find someone to whom he can hand her off for money. This money he uses to feed his drug habit. You will note he stopped begging at the mercato after her disappearance, no ? Certo , he has no need for drug money at the moment and now we know why. Mark my words well. When this monster runs out of money, he will turn to begging at the mercato once again.

As far as il Pubblico Ministero was concerned, Salvatore explained, everything was neatly in place to mark Carlo Casparia as culpable: His motive was and would always be the acquisition of money for drugs. Everyone knew that Ho fame indicated the vagrant’s hunger for cocaine, marijuana, heroin, methamphetamine, or whatever other substance he was shoving regularly into his system. His means were as obvious as being able to rise to his feet and follow the little girl once she generously and innocently handed over her banana to assuage his supposed hunger. The mercato itself was his opportunity. It was, as always, crowded with both shoppers and tourists. Just as no one had noticed the child being snatched from the vicinity of the accordion player—which, of course, we now know didn’t happen anyway—so also no one had noticed Casparia taking her by the arm and guiding her away.