Just One Evil Act

by Elizabeth George

  Sudden movement from Lorenzo Mura caused Salvatore to glance his way. The man’s port wine birthmark would always make the rest of his skin look pale by comparison, but Salvatore did not miss the angry flush that climbed from his neck and the muscle in his jaw that moved as he ground his teeth together. He leaned forward quickly. Just as quickly—perhaps sensing Salvatore’s gaze upon him—he returned to his original position. Salvatore noted this. There were things about this man, he thought, that bore looking into as well.

  He said to the parents, “You will want to know that the British police have become involved in this matter. A Scotland Yard detective arrives today.”

  “Barbara Havers?” The professor said the name in such hope that Salvatore was loath to disappoint him.

  “It is a man,” he said. “Thomas Lynley is his name.”

  The professor touched his former partner’s shoulder. He left it there. “I know this man, Angelina,” he said. “He will help find Hadiyyah. This is very good news.”

  Salvatore doubted that. He thought it best to tell them that the detective’s purpose would only be to keep them informed of what was happening with the investigation. But before he had a chance to say this, Lorenzo Mura was on his feet.

  “Andiamo,” he said abruptly to Angelina, jerking her chair away from the table. He nodded a farewell to Salvatore. The professor he ignored altogether.

  LUCCA

  TUSCANY

  Lynley made the drive from Pisa to Lucca with no trouble, well prepared by Charlie Denton with directions, Internet maps, satellite depictions of the town, and car parks marked with mighty red P’s both inside and outside of the city’s huge wall. Charlie had gone so far as to indicate the location of the questura as well, and on the satellite photo he’d pointed out with arrows the Roman amphitheatre where Lynley would find his pensione. He’d booked himself into the same B & B that Taymullah Azhar was using. This, he reckoned, would simplify matters when he needed to speak to the London professor.

  He’d been to Italy innumerable times—in childhood, adolescence, and as an adult—but somehow he’d never been to Lucca. So he was unprepared for the sight of the perfectly kept wall that had long protected the town’s medieval interior, both from marauders and from the occasional floods that its position on the alluvial plain of the River Serchio exposed it to. In many ways Lucca resembled numerous towns and villages he’d seen in Tuscany from his childhood on: with their narrow cobbled streets, their piazzas dominated by churches, and their fountains bubbling with fresh spring water. But in three ways it was different: in its number of churches, its remaining towers, and most of all its distinguishing wall.

  He had to drive around this wall twice before he found the car park Denton had identified as being closest to the amphitheatre, so he was able to take in the towering trees upon it, as well as the statues, the military bulwarks, the parks, and the people on bikes, on rollerblades, in running clothes, and guiding pushchairs. A police car drove at a snail’s pace through them. Another stood parked above one of the many gates that gave access into the oldest part of the town.

  He himself gained entrance through Porta Santa Maria. There he parked, and from there it was a short walk only to reach Piazza dell’ Anfiteatro, an ovoid marking upon the campestral landscape of the town. Lynley had to walk half the circumference of the repurposed amphitheatre to find one of the tunnel-like gallerie that allowed him access to the interior of the place, and once within its precinct, he paused and blinked in the bright sunlight that fell upon the yellow and white buildings inside and upon the stones that constituted the foundation of the piazza. Here there were tourist shops, cafés, apartments, and pensioni. His own was called Pensione Giardino although he suspected the garden of its name comprised only the impressive display of cacti, succulents, and shrubbery arranged in terracotta pots on various surfaces in front of the establishment.

  It took a brief few minutes for Lynley to acquaint himself with the proprietor of the place. She was a young, heavily pregnant woman who introduced herself breathlessly as Cristina Grazia Vallera before she handed him his key, pointed out a claustrophobic breakfast room, and gave him the hours of colazione. That taken care of, she disappeared towards the back of the building, from which the crying of a small child emanated along with the welcome scent of baking bread, leaving him to find his room on his own.

  He had no difficulty with this. He climbed the stairs, saw there were four rooms only, and located his at the front of the building, number three. It was warm within, so he opened the metal shutters over the window, then the window itself. He looked out at the piazza below him, where, at its centre, a group of students had positioned themselves in a large circle, facing outward. They were each sketching their own views of the piazza as their teacher moved among them. Thus, he saw Taymullah Azhar the moment the London man came through the galleria and headed for the pensione.

  Lynley watched his progress. He had nothing with him but his devastation, and Lynley knew this feeling, its every nuance. He watched—one step back from the window—until Azhar disappeared beneath him into their shared accommodation.

  Lynley removed his jacket and placed his suitcase upon the bed. In a moment, he heard footsteps on the tiles in the corridor, so he went to the door. When he opened it, Azhar was at the door to his own room, which was next to Lynley’s. He glanced over—as one would do—and Lynley was struck, even in the dim light of the corridor, by how contained the man was, even in his wretchedness.

  “The chief inspector told us you were coming,” Taymullah Azhar said to Lynley, walking over to shake his hand. “I am, Inspector Lynley, so very grateful that you are here. I know how busy a man you are.”

  “Barbara wanted to be sent,” Lynley told him. “Our guv wouldn’t allow it.”

  “I know she must walk a very fine line in all of this.” Azhar used a thin hand to indicate the pensione, but Lynley knew he meant the situation of Hadiyyah’s disappearance. He also knew that the “she” in Azhar’s remarks did not refer to Isabelle Ardery.

  “She does,” he told the London professor.

  “I wish she would not. To have her on my conscience . . . what might happen to her . . . to her employment with the police . . . I do not wish this,” Azhar said frankly.

  “Let go of that burden,” Lynley said. “Over a long acquaintance, I’ve found that Barbara goes her own way in matters that are important to her. Frankly? I wish she wouldn’t. Her heart’s always in the right place, but her wisdom—especially her political wisdom—often takes an ill-advised back seat to her heart.”

  “This I have come to understand.”

  Lynley explained to Azhar what his own position in the investigation would be as long as he remained in Lucca. He was in all respects an outsider, and how much he would be able to assist the Italian police was going to depend entirely upon them and upon the public minister. This man—a magistrate—directed the investigation, Lynley told Azhar. That was how Italian policing was structured.

  “My job is to be a conduit for information.” Lynley went on to tell Azhar how it had come about that the Metropolitan police had decided to send a liaison officer to Lucca at all: because of The Source and what appeared to be Barbara Havers’s leaking information to that rag. “This has made her less than popular with Superintendent Ardery, as you can imagine. Nothing can be proved, of course, as to whether she actually gave them the story. But I have to say that I’m hoping my presence here will also keep Barbara out of any further trouble in London.”

  Azhar took this in, quiet for a moment. “I will hope . . .” But he did not conclude the thought. Instead, he said, “The tabloids here are following the story, as well. I myself do what I can to keep it alive. Because with the tabloids involved . . .” He shrugged sadly.

  “I understand,” Lynley told him. Pressure upon the police was pressure upon the police. No matter where it came from, it produced results.
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  Azhar went on to tell him that he was also carrying handbills to the nearby towns and villages. Rather than endure the agony of waiting for word of anything, he instead had been going out each day and posting these handbills in an ever-widening circumference around Lucca. He brought them from his room and handed one to Lynley. Mostly it comprised a large and very good picture of the little girl, with her name and the word MISSING written in Italian, German, English, and French beneath the photo along with a phone number that Lynley took to be that of the police.

  Lynley was struck by the innocence of Hadiyyah’s expression in the handbill’s photograph and by how much of a child she still was. In the way of the modern world, children were growing up at a younger and younger age, so Hadiyyah could have looked like a miniature Bollywood film star despite her age. Instead, though, the photo showed a little girl with plaited hair tied off in small bows. She wore a crisp school uniform, and she had lively brown eyes and an impish grin. She looked quite small for a nine-year-old, which Azhar confirmed that indeed she was. This meant, of course, that she could have been mistaken for a younger child. Excellent pickings for a paedophile, Lynley thought grimly.

  “This immediate area is not so difficult to canvass with the pictures,” Azhar said as Lynley gave the handbill back to him. “But as I move farther away from Lucca and as the towns rise up into the hills . . . Things are more difficult then.”

  From his room’s chest of drawers, he took a map. He explained that he was about to set out for the rest of the day to continue canvassing the area with Hadiyyah’s picture. If Inspector Lynley had the time, he would show him where he had gone so far. Lynley nodded and they descended the stairs. They went out into the piazza, where, across from the pensione, a café offered a handful of small tables and, more important, shade. There they sat and ordered Coca-Cola, after which Azhar opened his map.

  Lynley saw that he’d circled the towns he’d so far visited, and although he himself was familiar with the Tuscan landscape, he allowed Azhar to explain the difficulties he was encountering just going from one point to another in the nearby hills. Lynley could tell Azhar’s mere act of speaking about what he was doing acted to assuage what had to be tremendous anxiety, so he nodded, looked over the map with him, and noted how assiduous Azhar was being in his search for his daughter.

  Finally, though, the London professor ran out of words. So he said what he no doubt had been trying to avoid saying from the first. “It’s been a week, Inspector.” And when Lynley said nothing but merely nodded, Azhar went on. “What do you think? Please tell me the truth. I know how reluctant you might be, but I wish to hear it.”

  Lynley did Azhar the honour of believing that he meant what he said. He looked away from him for a moment, seeing the students at work on their drawings around the piazza, noting the ubiquitous green, shuttered windows protecting interiors of Italian apartments from the sun. A dog barked from somewhere within one of these apartments. From another the sound of piano music drifted. Lynley thought of how to approach the truth. There seemed no other way but to tell it directly.

  “This is different from the kidnapping of a very small child,” he said quietly to Hadiyyah’s father. “A toddler snatched from a pushchair or a baby from its pram? That kind of kidnapping with no request for ransom suggests an intention to keep the child or to pass her along for a purpose that doesn’t involve harming her. An illegal ‘adoption’ perhaps, effected by money. Or just handing the child over to relatives desperate for a little one of their own. But to take a child Hadiyyah’s age—nine years old—suggests something else.”

  Azhar asked no questions. His hands, folded on his map, gripped each other tightly. “There has,” he said quietly, “been no sign of . . . There has been no indication . . .”

  No body was what he meant. “Which is a very good sign.” Lynley did not add how easily hidden in the Tuscan hills or in the Apuan Alps beyond them a body could be. Instead he said, “From this, we can conclude she’s well. Perhaps frightened, but well. We can also conclude that if someone’s intention is to pass Hadiyyah along to someone else, she would have to be hidden away for a time first.”

  “Why is this?”

  Lynley sipped his Coke and poured more from the can into the glass where three ice cubes did their limited best to keep it cold. He said, “It’s not likely a nine-year-old is going to forget her parents, is it? So she has to be held for a period of time until she becomes docile, used to her captivity, and reconciled to it and to her situation. She’s in a foreign country; her ability to speak the language is, perhaps, limited. Within time and in order to survive, she needs to learn to see her captors as her saviours. She needs to learn to depend upon them. But all of this works to our benefit. It puts time on our side and not on theirs.”

  “Yet if she is not to be handed to another family for purposes of adoption,” Azhar pointed out, “then I do not see—”

  Lynley cut him off quickly, to spare him speculations. “She’s young enough to be schooled in any number of things a child might be wanted for, but the point isn’t what those things are so much as it’s she’s alive and must be kept safe and well.” He didn’t add the more horrifying kind of scenario that was possible in this situation of Hadiyyah’s potential imprisonment, however. He didn’t point out that she was the perfect age to be held prisoner for a paedophile’s pleasure: in a basement, in a house with a carefully hidden and even more carefully soundproofed room, in a cellar, in an abandoned building high in the hills. For someone to have taken her so successfully from a market in the middle of the day, someone had to have prepared the abduction. Preparation for abduction also indicated preparation for use. Nothing could have been left to chance. So while time was on their side, the truth of the matter was that circumstances were not.

  Yet there was one hope which could be to their benefit, and it came from Hadiyyah herself. For not everyone behaved as human psychology otherwise indicated she would behave. And there was a relatively simple way to ascertain if Hadiyyah was, potentially, among those people who acted differently from what might otherwise be expected of them in similar circumstances.

  “May I ask,” Lynley said, “how likely is it that Hadiyyah would fight her situation?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Children are often extremely resourceful. Might she raise a ruckus at an opportune moment? Might she draw attention to herself in some way?”

  “In what way?”

  “Behaving other than she’s told to behave. Trying to escape her captivity. Throwing herself into an attack on her captors. Producing a convenient tantrum. Setting a fire. Slashing a vehicle’s tyres. Anything other than being docile.” Anything other, Lynley didn’t add, than being a little girl.

  Azhar seemed to go within himself to find a reply. Church bells rang somewhere in the town, joined by other church bells echoing off the narrow Lucchese streets. A flock of pigeons circled overhead, domesticated homing birds by the close formation they kept in the sky.

  Azhar cleared his throat. “None of those things,” he said to Lynley. “She has not been brought up to be a trouble to anyone. I have—God forgive me—been very careful about that.”

  Lynley nodded. It was, unfortunately, the way of the world. So often little girls—no matter their culture—were taught by their parents and by society to be pliant and sweet. It was little boys who were taught to use their wits and their fists.

  “Inspector Lo Bianco,” Azhar added, “seems to feel there is . . . despite a week . . . there is hope . . . ?”

  “And I agree,” Lynley said. But what he didn’t point out to the other man was that, with no word from kidnappers or anyone else, the hope he was clinging to was fading ever faster.

  VICTORIA

  LONDON

  Barbara Havers put it off as long as possible. Indeed, she tried to restrain herself altogether. But by early afternoon she could no longer wait for her fi
rst report from DI Lynley. So she rang his mobile.

  She knew he was unhappy with her. Any other officer would have kissed her feet for having bulldogged the circumstances of Hadiyyah’s disappearance in such a way that he ended up getting sent to Italy as a liaison officer for the girl’s family. But Lynley had other matters on his mind that went far beyond travelling to Italy at the expense of the Met. He had roller derby matches to attend and Daidre Trahair to . . . to whatever he was attempting to do with the large animal vet.

  When Lynley answered with a single word—“Barbara”—she said in a rush, “I know you’re cheesed off. I’m bloody sorry, sir. You’ve got things on your . . . on your mind or whatever and I’ve put a spanner and I know that.”

  He said, “Ah. As I suspected.”

  She said, “I’m not admitting to anything. But how could anyone who knows her—and her dad and her mum—not want to do something? You see that, don’t you?”

  “Does it actually matter what I see?”

  “I’m sorry. But things’ll wait, won’t it? She’ll wait, won’t she?”

  There was silence. Then he said in that maddening, well-bred fashion of his, “‘Things’? ‘She’?”

  Barbara realised she was heading in the absolutely wrong direction. She said hastily, “Never mind. Not my business at all. Can’t think why I even said . . . except I’m worn out with worry and I can see it’s best that you’re there and I’m here and if I only knew how—”

  “Barbara.”

  “Yeah? What? I mean I know I’m babbling and it’s only because I know you’re cheesed off and you’ve a right to be because I bollocksed things properly this time but it was only because—”

  “Barbara.” He waited on his end for her silence. Then he said, “There’s nothing to report. When there is, I’ll ring you.”

  “Is he . . . ? Are they . . . ?”

  “I’ve not met Angelina Upman. I’ve spoken to Azhar. He’s as well as he can be, under the circumstances.”