Just One Evil Act

by Elizabeth George

  He said, “Why would you be telling me? That’s what I’m wondering.”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Bloody hell, Mitchell. You know E. coli comes from food, don’t you? Contaminated food.”

  “So she ate something bad.”

  “We’re not talking about a single vinegar crisp, mate. We’re talking about a supply of food. Who knows what? Spinach, broccoli, minced beef, tinned tomatoes, lettuce. For all I know it got baked into her lasagna. But the point is, if the word gets out, that whole industry in Italy takes a hit to the solar plexus. A whole section of their economy—”

  “You can’t be suggesting there’s a lasagna industry.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “So maybe she had a burger somewhere and a worker went to the loo and didn’t wash his hands before stacking on the tomatoes?” He shifted his weight from one cowboy-booted foot to the other and pushed his Stetson farther back on his head. He was garnering one or two curious glances from people who looked to be seeking whatever violin case or other receptacle in which they were supposed to deposit appreciative ten-pence pieces for his costuming, but there weren’t many of those since, in Leicester Square, far more interesting sights existed than the one presented by a London man in a cowboy get-up. “And anyway, the fact that only one person died . . . That pretty much supports the idea, doesn’t it? One person, one burger, one bad tomato.”

  “With this bloke, whoever he was, and assuming they even serve burgers in Lucca, Italy—”

  “Christ. You know what I mean. The burger’s an example. Say it was a salad. What about that salad with tomatoes and that Italian cheese and whatever that green crap is they put on it? That leafy bit.”

  “I look like I would know that, Mitchell? Come on, I’m giving you a significant heads-up on a story that’s going to break in Italy at any moment, only you now have the edge because, believe me, the cops and the health blokes over there aren’t about to release it and cause a stampede away from Italian products.”

  “So you say.” But he wasn’t a fool. “Why’re you into this anyway, Barb? This got to do with . . . ? Where’s our Love Rat Dad these days?”

  There was no way she wanted him anywhere near Azhar. She said, “Haven’t spoken to him. He went to Lucca for the funeral. I expect he’s back now. Or still there with the kid, getting her packed. Who the bloody hell knows? Listen, you can do what you want with this story, mate. I think it’s gold. You think it’s lead? Fine, don’t run it. There’re other papers who’d be happy to—”

  “I didn’t say that, did I? I just don’t want this to be another bomb like the other.”

  “What d’you mean, ‘bomb’?”

  “Well, let’s face it, Barb, the kid was found.”

  Barbara stared at the man. She wanted so badly to punch his Adam’s apple that her fingernails clawed at the skin of her palms. She said slowly as her blood pounded so hard in her head that she thought she would soon see stars, “Too right, Mitch. That was a blow for your lot. So much better to have had a corpse. Mutilated, too. That would move those copies right off the newsstand.”

  “I’m only saying . . . Look, this is an ugly business. You know that. Fact is, you and I wouldn’t be talking in the first place if you thought it was anything else.”

  “If we’re talking ugly, Italian cops and Italian politicos in bed with each other is bloody ugly. That’s your story, at the cost of an Englishwoman’s life with more lives in jeopardy. You can take it or leave it to another rag. Decision is yours.”

  She turned and began to stride towards Charing Cross Road. She would walk the distance back to New Scotland Yard. She needed the time to cool off, she reckoned.

  WAPPING

  LONDON

  Dwayne Doughty had lots of ideas on the subject of how Emily Cass afforded her flat in Wapping High Street but he decided not to pursue them. He could tell, however, that Bryan Smythe was mentally listing the potential sources of income allowing her to occupy a second-floor conversion in a Grade II–listed warehouse overlooking the Thames. She couldn’t possibly own it, Smythe was thinking. Therefore she had it on let. But the cost would be enormous. She couldn’t pay it on her own. There was a man involved then, depend upon it. She was—gasp!—a kept woman. Or someone’s live-in lover, more likely. In exchange for sexual favours accomplished in the astounding athletic positions of which a woman in her physical condition was capable, she domiciled herself within brick walls, exposed beams and pipes, and mod cons of stainless steel. It was a subject worthy of some considerable teeth gnashing. Doughty reckoned Smythe’s poor molars would be worn to the nubs by the end of their confab.

  They were meeting in Wapping at Emily’s suggestion. With what they were up to, she had insisted, they could no longer risk any location where the cops had shown their faces and might do so again or any other location in a public place. That left her flat. Hence their presence in a conversation grouping of low-slung leather furniture surrounding an even lower glass-topped coffee table, all of it overlooking the river. She’d placed a stainless steel coffee service on this, along with cups and a plate of bakery items supplied by Bryan. He—Dwayne—was enjoying an apricot-filled croissant and meditating on how to score an apple tart next, knowing that Emily wasn’t about to touch any of it.

  Dwayne was also aware of the fact that Emily’s insistence upon meeting elsewhere had to do with the disintegrating nature of the little trinity of malefactors that they comprised. She wouldn’t trust him not to document their every word in some fashion in his office, and she wouldn’t trust Bryan Smythe not to do the same in his palace in South Hackney. Here in Wapping she had some semblance of control. Dwayne had decided to give her that.

  Their purpose in meeting was to make certain they were all on the same page, in the same loop, and dancing the same dance when it came to what they had begun referring to as the Italian Job. Much of what was being done was being done by Bryan, so he had the floor. Despite being miles away from anyone who would have been remotely interested in what they had to say to one another, the three of them hunched round the coffee table, speaking in murmurs and looking at what documents Bryan had generated in order to spot any weaknesses in them.

  What Bryan Smythe had created, with the participation of hackers and insiders whom he knew by the dozens, was the necessary trail, which illustrated the veracity in the claims Doughty had made and was continuing to make about one Michelangelo Di Massimo. Thus, for their delectation, he was presenting to them the invoices that showed all the payments that had been made to Di Massimo for his ostensibly brief search for Angelina Upman and her daughter in Pisa, Italy. Additionally, however, they were examining the documents that would allegedly prove that—having reported his failure to find the missing people while all the time knowing where they were—Di Massimo had begun moving sums of money from his own account to Roberto Squali’s account in supposed payment for Squali’s planning and kidnapping of the child. Thus actual bank transactions from London to Pisa proved that Doughty had been paying small amounts for Di Massimo’s expenses—petrol, mileage, meals, et cetera—and for his hourly billing, while Smythe-created bank transactions from Pisa to Lucca looked as if Di Massimo had been paying large amounts to Squali for something questionable about which, alas and despite anything Di Massimo might be saying, Doughty knew nothing at all. Bryan had gone so far as to create the receipts as well.

  The reliability of this information, of course, depended upon the Italian coppers not delving into too many layers of the British banking system or any British system, for that matter. For of course there were backups, counter-backups, and massive storage systems in hundreds of locations. But Doughty et al. were depending upon the general incompetence and known corruptibility of all Mediterranean countries when it came to complicated legal, political, and technological issues. This, they reckoned, would allow the te
am of Cass-Smythe-Doughty to carry the day.

  The Di Massimo Problem of the Italian Job massaged into a form that the Italian police were likely to swallow, what remained was the DS Barbara Havers Problem. The infuriating woman still had in her possession the backups that could sink all of them, and because of this, she had to be dealt with. This was more difficult but not impossible: Sums matching what Di Massimo had transferred to Squali were shown to have been earlier wired from the account of one Barbara Havers to the account of Michelangelo Di Massimo. And sums matching this amount were shown to have been wired from the account of Taymullah Azhar to the account of Barbara Havers in advance of that movement. Thus, Barbara Havers would soon discover that she was now complicit in the kidnapping of Hadiyyah Upman.

  Wasn’t techno-wizardry incredible, mate?

  13 May

  LUCCA

  TUSCANY

  Bah! was Salvatore’s reaction when the packet of information from London arrived on his desk. It was—merda!—entirely in English. But Salvatore recognised the name repeated on nearly every sheet: Michelangelo Di Massimo.

  Salvatore knew he was meant to turn this material over to Nicodemo Triglia. Nicodemo was, after all, in charge of all matters relating to the kidnapping enquiry. As it was, though, he decided to hold on to it until he better understood its contents. For this, he needed an English speaker who had nothing to gain from reporting Salvatore Lo Bianco’s activities to il Pubblico Ministero for personal gain. That left out everyone associated with the police. Remaining, once again, was Birgit.

  His ex-wife would not allow him at her house, she told him briskly when he phoned. He couldn’t blame her. Just as she had no wish for Bianca and Marco to see his beaten face, so also did he not wish it. They agreed to meet across the street from Scuola Dante Alighieri. There, a children’s park contained benches for their parents as well as swings, slides, roundabouts, and such, and Birgit would wait for him on one of those benches. He was to make certain that their children were fully enclosed in the embrace of the scuola before he arrived, chiaro?

  Chiaro, he assured her.

  He found her on the bench farthest from the school, shaded by a large sycamore tree. Nearby, two women with toddlers in pushchairs sat on opposite ends of a bench in the pleasant sunlight, smoking and speaking on their mobile phones. Their children dozed in the warm morning air.

  Salvatore walked to join his ex-wife. He eased himself onto the bench. He’d wrapped his chest tightly with elastic bandages, and while they did something for the pain in his ribs, they constricted his movement and made his breathing shallow.

  “How is it?” she asked. “You look even worse.” She shook a cigarette from a pack and offered him one. He thought the taste would be nice and the nicotine nicer. But he didn’t believe his lungs could handle the experience.

  “It’s the bruising,” he replied. “It has to go purple first, then yellow. I’m fine.”

  She tutted. “You should have reported him, Salvatore.”

  “To whom? To himself?”

  She lit her cigarette. “Then you should beat him senseless when you have the chance. What’s Marco to think if his own father won’t defend himself when he is set upon?”

  There was no good answer to this question, and after their years of marriage, Salvatore liked to think he was wise enough not to engage Birgit in these sorts of vague philosophical debates. So from a manila envelope he took the report and he handed it to her. He understood the bank statements, the receipts, and the telephone records, of course, he informed Birgit. It was the larger reports he needed her help in translating.

  “You need to work on your English,” she told him with a scowl. “How you’ve got this far without more than one language . . . And don’t tell me that at least you have French, Salvatore. I remember rescuing you from trying to speak to the waiters in Nice.” She began to read.

  For some minutes she did this in silence. He watched one of the toddlers struggling to get out of his pushchair as the poor child’s mother continued her chat on her mobile phone. The other woman had ended her conversation, but she’d promptly begun texting and her child went ignored. Salvatore sighed and silently cursed modern life.

  Birgit flicked ash from her cigarette, flipped the page, continued reading, made a few hmphs, gave a few nods, and looked up at him. “This is all from a man called Dwayne Doughty,” she said, inclining her head at the document, “sent to you as directed by an officer of New Scotland Yard. This Doughty gives you an account of hiring Michelangelo Di Massimo to assist in the finding of a London woman who disappeared with her daughter. He tracked them himself to Pisa airport by means of their ticket purchases and through information provided by the border agents in England. He asked Michelangelo Di Massimo to take it from there and Michelangelo made the attempt. He describes the various methods this Michelangelo used and, as proof of this, he sends you also copies of his bills for services and costs incurred. He says that having checked with trains, with taxis, with private car companies, and with the buses—both touring buses and city buses—Signor Di Massimo claimed to have found no trace of the woman beyond the airport. All of the car hire agencies, too, showed no trace of her having picked up a hire car, either at the airport or in Pisa. What’s known is that she landed at Galileo with her daughter and then disappeared. According to Signor Doughty, his conclusion—Michelangelo Di Massimo’s—was that the woman and girl had been fetched by a private party and taken somewhere. This is what he told the London detective in his reports and the London detective tells you that he relayed this information to the child’s father, along with Signor Di Massimo’s name and details. He says it is his belief that all arrangements from that point were made between these two men privately as he had nothing more to do with the matter.”

  Salvatore speculated upon the information. That it contradicted what Di Massimo was telling the police came as no surprise to him. In a situation like this, it was understandable that the individuals under suspicion would soon enough begin pointing fingers at each other.

  Birgit said, “He also includes records that he has managed to come by, showing amounts of money leaving the bank account of”—she fingered through the papers to find what she was looking for—“Taymullah Azhar and he speculates that they might have entered the account of Signor Di Massimo once his own business with Signor Azhar was concluded. He encourages you to seek this information about Signor Di Massimo’s bank yourself. He points out that while he has no way of knowing what this exchange of money was for, it bears looking into since it suggests that long after his own business with Signor Di Massimo was concluded, Signor Azhar hired him on his own to do something. It was probably to kidnap his daughter, eh?, although he doesn’t say that directly in the report. He says that his own business with Di Massimo ended last December within a few weeks of hiring, and he assures you that all the documents he’s attaching will support that fact. As will, he says, Di Massimo’s bank records if you are able to obtain them.” She handed the report and its appended documents to Salvatore, who returned them to the envelope. She said, “Interesting that he mentions them twice, those banking records of Di Massimo, no? Have you looked at his bank records, Salvatore? You can do that, can’t you?”

  He crossed his arms and leaned back against the bench, stretching his legs with a wince. He said, “Certo. And Di Massimo was paid by this man as he says. But he tells a different story altogether, as you would expect.”

  “But if the bank records that this London man sends and the telephone records and all his invoices and receipts—”

  “Untrustworthy as a puttana’s claim of love, cara. There are too many ways to manipulate information, and the London man believes I do not know this. I suspect that this man would like to engage me in chasing down all of his nonsense”—Salvatore nodded at the report between them—“because that will keep me busy and away from the truth and because, to him, I’m an Italian fool who drink
s too much wine and does not know when someone is leading me by my nose like an ass.”

  “You’re talking nonsense. What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Signor Doughty wishes the door to shut upon this investigation, with Michelangelo behind it and no one else. Or, perhaps, with Michelangelo and the professor behind it. But in either case, with himself uninvolved.”

  “That may well be the truth, no?”

  “It may be.”

  “And even if it is not, even if this London man Doughty directed Signor Di Massimo in the matter of the kidnapping . . . What can you do to him from Lucca? How do you extradite on such speculation? And how do you prove anything anyway?”

  “He assumes in this”—Salvatore indicated the report—“that I have not earlier looked into Michelangelo Di Massimo’s banking records, Birgit. He assumes I have no copy of them. He assumes I would not compare them to what he sends me now. And he does not know that I have this.” He took from his jacket pocket the copy of the card he’d received from Captain Mirenda. He handed it to her.

  She read it, frowned, and handed it back. “What is this khushi?”

  “The name he calls her.”

  “Who?”

  “The child’s father.” And he explained the rest: how it went from Squali to the child and how she had kept it beneath a mattress at Villa Rivelli. Squali, he told her, may have dreamed up the card, but he had certainly not dreamed up khushi. Whoever had written it knew the child’s pet name. And that was a narrow field of people indeed.

  “Is this his handwriting?” Birgit asked.

  “Squali’s?”

  “Her papà’s.”

  “I have little enough to compare to it—just the documents and written remarks at his pensione and I am no expert in the matter of handwriting, of course—but it looks the same to me and when I show it to the professor, I expect his face will tell me the truth. Very few people lie well. I think he will be among those who cannot. Beyond that, it is clear that his daughter believed he wrote it.” Salvatore explained how the card had been used.