Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

When they arrived at the hospital in Lucca, Angelina Upman rushed at the car. She flung open the rear door and grabbed her daughter, crying her name. She looked terrible, everything from her difficult pregnancy to her anxiety about her child having taken a grievous toll upon her. But at the moment, the only thing of import was Hadiyyah. Angelina cried, “Oh my God! Thank you, thank you!” and she ran frantic hands over Hadiyyah from head to toe, a desperate search for any possible injuries.

For her part, Hadiyyah only said, “Mummy,” and “I want to go home ,” and then she saw her father.

Azhar was approaching from the hospital doors with Lorenzo Mura following him. Hadiyyah cried out, “Dad! Dad!” and the Pakistani man broke into a sprint. When he reached Angelina and his daughter, he swept both of them into his arms. They formed a tight unit of three, and Azhar bent to kiss Hadiyyah’s head. He pressed his lips to Angelina’s as well. “The best of all conclusions,” he said. And to Lynley and Lo Bianco as they got out of the car, “Thank you, thank you.”

Lo Bianco murmured again that this was his job: to reach a successful conclusion to a bad situation. For his part, Lynley made no reply. He was, instead, watching Lorenzo Mura and trying to determine what it meant that his expression was black and his eyes mirrored fury.

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Lynley was not long in the dark on this matter. While Angelina accompanied her daughter to be examined by one of the doctors in casualty, Lynley and Lo Bianco remained with Lorenzo and Azhar. They found a sheltered corner of the waiting room, where they could speak in private, and here the two police officers explained not only what had happened in the mercato on the day that Hadiyyah had disappeared but also where she had been taken and by whom and for what reason.

“He has done this!” was Lorenzo’s reaction the moment that the police had reached the conclusion of the story. In case they didn’t know to whom he was referring, Lorenzo went on, indicating Azhar with a jerk of his head in the Pakistani man’s direction. “Can you not see he has done this?”

Azhar’s dark eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean?”

“ You have done this to her. To Angelina. To Hadiyyah. To me . You found her and you want her suffering—”

“ Signore, Signore ,” Lo Bianco said. His voice was calm and conciliatory. “ Non c’è la prova di tutto ciò . Non deve— ”

“ Non sa niente! ” Lorenzo hissed. And what followed was Italian so rapid-fire that Lynley could follow none of it. What he did understand was Lo Bianco’s statement about proof: There was nothing to indicate that Azhar had been involved in this matter. He also understood that there might be, that the London connection between Michelangelo Di Massimo and the private investigator Dwayne Doughty did not look good. But this was a matter about which Lorenzo Mura knew nothing. At the moment he was operating on nerves alone, and God knew his had been strung out for weeks.

Azhar was silent, his face immobile. He watched the heated conversation between Lo Bianco and Mura, and he did not ask for a translation. In part, Lynley could tell, no translation was necessary. The murderous looks Lorenzo was shooting the Pakistani man were enough indication that something accusatory was being said.

Angelina approached them at this point, Hadiyyah’s hand in hers. Lynley could tell she took in the situation with a single glance, because she stopped and bent to her daughter. She smoothed her hair, took her to a nearby chair that was well within her sight, parked her there with a kiss on the top of her head, and came to join the men.

“How is Hadiyyah?” Azhar asked at once.

“Oh, he asks this now,” Lorenzo scoffed. “ Vaffanculo! Mostro! Vaffanculo! ”

Angelina blanched, which was something to see as she had virtually no colour in her face to begin with. She said, “What’s going on?”

“How is Hadiyyah?” Azhar repeated. “Angelina . . .”

She turned to him. Her face was soft. “She’s well. There was no . . . She’s unhurt, Hari.”

“May I . . .” He nodded at his daughter, who watched them with her great dark eyes so solemn and confused.

“Of course you may,” Angelina said. “She’s your daughter.”

Azhar nodded, even managing a small and formal bow. He strode across to Hadiyyah and she jumped from her chair. He swung her up and into his arms, and the child buried her face in his neck. Angelina watched this, as did everyone.

“ Serpente ,” Lorenzo hissed at Angelina, indicating Azhar with a scornful jerk of his head in the Pakistani’s direction. “ L’uomo è un serpente , cara. ”

She turned to him. She examined him in a way that suggested she was only seeing Lorenzo Mura for the very first time. She said, “Renzo, my God. What are you saying?”

“ L’ha fatto ,” he said. “ L’ha fatto. L’ha fatto. ”

“He did what?” she asked.

“ Tutto, tutto! ”

“He did nothing . He did nothing at all. He’s been here to help find her; he’s made himself available to the police, to us; he’s suffered every bit as much as I have suffered and you can not , Lorenzo, no matter how you feel and what you want, accuse him of anything but loving Hadiyyah. Chiaro , Lorenzo? Do you understand?”

The Italian’s face had flooded with colour. One hand knotted into a fist. “ Non è finito ” was what he said.

VICTORIA

LONDON

Barbara was in the midst of planning out her next confrontation with Dwayne Doughty when the call from Lynley came. She was at her desk, she was reorganising her notes, and she was ignoring the baleful glares from John Stewart that the DI was firing at her from across the room. He’d not stopped his ceaseless observation of her despite being warned off by their guv. He seemed to be turning his mania for ruining her into a form of religion.

“We have her, Barbara” was how Lynley began. “We’ve found her. She’s fine. You can set your mind at rest.”

Barbara was unprepared for the explosion of emotion inside of her. She said past something that occluded her throat, “You have Hadiyyah?”

They indeed had Hadiyyah, Lynley told her. He spoke of a place called Villa Rivelli, of a young woman who thought herself a Dominican nun, of the same young woman’s delusions about having the care of Hadiyyah placed into her hands, and of an aborted “baptism” of Hadiyyah that had frightened the child enough to raise the alarm and gain the notice of the Mother Superior inside the cloistered convent. When he was finished, all Barbara could say was “Bloody hell, bloody hell. Thank you, thank you, sir.”

“Thanks go to Chief Inspector Lo Bianco.”

“How’s . . .” Barbara thought how to phrase it.

Lynley kindly intercepted her question. “Azhar’s fine. Angelina is a little worse for wear. But she and Azhar have made their peace, evidently, so all’s well that ends well, I daresay.”

“Peace?” Barbara asked.

Lynley explained the scene at Lucca’s hospital, where Hadiyyah was taken after her rescue from the convent. Post a number of accusations from Lorenzo Mura on the matter of Azhar’s putative involvement in Hadiyyah’s disappearance, Angelina and her former lover were able to reach a rapprochement with each other. For her part, Angelina had admitted to doing Azhar a grave injustice in leading him to believe she’d returned to him while all the time planning the disappearance of his daughter. For his part, Azhar asked forgiveness for having been unwilling from the first to give Angelina what she had so wanted: marriage or a sibling for their daughter. He’d said that he was wrong in this. He said he understood that it was too late for them now—for Angelina and himself—but he hoped that she could forgive him as he fully, wholeheartedly, and freely forgave her.