Just One Evil Act

by Elizabeth George

  Garibaldi said, “It is a matter of family.” He spoke at length to Salvatore as Daniele Bruno listened anxiously. Salvatore looked interested and then spoke at length in return to Garibaldi. Barbara wanted to bang their heads together. Time was passing, they needed to get the ball rolling, and she needed to know what the bloody hell was going on.

  It turned out, according to Garibaldi, that Bruno’s main concern was not that he might end up being tossed into a gaol cell. It seemed he would welcome that rather than have his brothers discover what he had done. For his brothers would report to their father. Their father would, perforce, inform their mamma. And in short order, their mamma would lay down the law of a punishment that appeared to consist of Bruno, his wife, and their children no longer being welcome for a Sunday lunch experienced with aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, and a cast of what sounded like hundreds. Reassurances were thus desperately required, but Salvatore either could not or would not give them. Salvatore’s refusal to calm Bruno’s fears had to be discussed from every angle. It took a teeth-gnashing half hour before they could move on.

  Bruno then became insistent that Salvatore understand what had occurred with Lorenzo Mura. Lorenzo had told him that he required the E. coli to perform some tests associated with his vineyard, and Daniele Bruno had believed him when he’d claimed the impossibility of coming by the E. coli in any other way. Lorenzo said it was to do with the wine, Bruno said. Right, Barbara thought. Like how fast do I need to have Azhar tossing this back in a glass of wine in order to make certain the bacteria was still viable?

  Finally, all points of discussion were exhausted. They decamped to one of the interview rooms, where Bruno stripped off his shirt, exposing an impressive chest. A technician joined them and another lengthy conversation ensued. Garibaldi told Barbara that his client was being informed exactly how the wire would work.

  Barbara found herself caring less and less about the minutiae of the discussion as she cared more and more about how much time it all was taking. She wondered where Mitchell Corsico was and what means she could employ to keep him from sending off to London his story about Azhar if noon rolled round and she hadn’t delivered names and places to him. She could ring him and give him a pack of lies, she reckoned, but Mitchell wouldn’t take that in his stride when the real facts became known.

  The door opened to the interview room as the final touches were being put to wiring up Daniele Bruno. A woman whom Barbara recognised as Ottavia Schwartz entered and spoke to Salvatore.

  Barbara heard Upman being said by the policewoman. She cried, “What’s going on?” but she received no answer as Salvatore abruptly left the room.

  Rocco Garibaldi filled her in. The parents of Angelina Upman were in Reception, demanding to speak with Chief Inspector Lo Bianco. They were insisting that something be done about the disappearance of their granddaughter from Fattoria di Santa Zita. Apparently, she had left in the company of an Englishwoman, Garibaldi said. The Upmans were there to declare her missing.

  LUCCA

  TUSCANY

  Since it was made clear to Salvatore that the Upmans had no Italian, a translator was going to be required. Ottavia Schwartz—with her normal high degree of competence—had put out the call for one, but it took more than twenty minutes for her to arrive in Salvatore’s office. In the meantime, the Upmans had been left to cool their heels in Reception. They were not happy to be kept waiting, a fact that Signor Upman’s appearance made clear, although, at first, Salvatore thought the Englishman’s white-to-the-lips face presaged illness brought on by the flight to Italy. This turned out not to be the case. The pale complexion came from the man’s fury, which he was only too happy to share with Salvatore.

  Introductions had barely been made by Giuditta Di Fazio when Signor Upman launched into a diatribe. Giuditta had impressive skills in languages, but even she was hard-pressed to keep up with the man’s words.

  “Is this how you incompetent layabouts deal with people who’ve come to report a missing child?” Upman demanded. “First she is kidnapped. Then her mother is murdered by her father. Then she goes missing from the only home she’s known in this infernal country. What is it going to take for someone to handle this bloody situation? Do I need to bring in the British ambassador? Because, believe me, I will do that. I have the ability. I have the connections. I want this child found and I want her found now. And do not bloody wait for the translation from Miss Big Tits over there because you know exactly why I’m here and what I want.”

  While Giuditta put Signor Upman’s words into Italian, his wife kept her gaze on the floor. She clutched her handbag. She murmured only, “Darling, darling,” when her husband launched into his second harangue.

  “Someone who doesn’t even speak English is in charge of investigating crimes against British nationals? Incredible. English . . . the most widely spoken language in the world . . . and you don’t speak it? God in heaven—”

  “Please, Humphrey.” From her tone, it was clear that she was embarrassed by her husband and not cowed by the man. She said to Salvatore, “Forgive my husband. He’s unused to travel and he was . . .” She appeared to seek an excuse and settled upon “He was unable to eat a proper breakfast. We’ve come for our granddaughter Hadiyyah, to take her home to England until whatever is going on here is resolved. We went to Fattoria di Santa Zita first, but Lorenzo told us she left in the company of an Englishwoman. She’s called Barbara, but he can’t recall her surname, just that he previously met her with Taymullah Azhar. From what he said . . . I believe she came with Azhar to see us last year, looking for Angelina. We ask only—”

  Upman swung on his wife. “You think grovelling will get you what you want? You listen to me. You were desperate to dash over here and now we’ve dashed over here and now you get to bloody shut up and let me handle things.”

  Mrs. Upman’s face flushed with anger. She said to him, “You’re not getting us closer to Hadiyyah.”

  “Oh, I’ll get you close to Hadiyyah soon enough.”

  Through all of this, Giuditta Di Fazio murmured, making the conversation clear for Salvatore. He narrowed his eyes at the Englishman and wondered if a little time alone in one of the interview rooms might cool him off. He said to Giuditta, “Tell them their journey has been premature. As we are now learning, Hadiyyah’s father is innocent in everything pertaining to the death of her mother. More than that, I cannot say, but the professor will be released from custody within a few hours. He would, of course, not be pleased to learn that, during his detainment, his child was handed off to people who came in off the street to claim her. This is not the way we do things in Italy.”

  Upman’s face went rigid. “‘Came in off the street’? How dare you! Are you suggesting we hopped on a plane and came here out of the blue to . . . to do what? Kidnap a child who is by all rights ours?”

  “I do not suggest you mean to kidnap her as you yourself have indicated that you only wish to take her to England until this matter is resolved. I tell you in return that it has been resolved as far as Professore Azhar is concerned. So while you have been very good-hearted to come to Italy—may I assume that Signor Mura sent for you?—I tell you now that the trip was not necessary. The professore is innocent in all ways related to my investigation into the death of the mother of Hadiyyah. He will be released this very day.”

  “And I,” Upman said, “do not mean to suggest that I care about that Paki’s guilt or innocence.”

  His wife said his name sharply, placing her hand on his arm.

  He shook her off and swung on her. “You bloody shut up, for God’s sake.” And to Salvatore, “Now you have a choice. You either tell me where that brat of Angelina’s gone off to, or you face an international incident that’s going to singe your eyebrows right off your face.”

  Salvatore sought to control his temper, although he knew his face was reflecting what he felt. English people, he’d thought, were s
upposed to be calm, supposed to be reserved, supposed to be rational. Of course, there were always the football hooligans, whose reputations preceded them wherever they went, but this man did not have the appearance of a football hooligan. What was wrong with him? A medical condition eating away at his brain and his manners simultaneously? He said, “I understand you well, signore. But I have no knowledge of where this Englishwoman . . . What did you call her?”

  “Barbara,” Mrs. Upman said. “I can’t recall her surname and neither can Lorenzo but surely someone must know where she is. People have to register when they stay at hotels. Our own passports were taken and our identities noted, so it can’t be impossible to find her.”

  “Sì, sì,” Salvatore said. “She can be found. But only if her surname is known. A Christian name only? This is not enough. I have no knowledge of where this woman Barbara might be. Nor have I knowledge of why she has taken Hadiyyah from Signor Mura. He did not report this to me or to my colleagues, and as that is the case—”

  “She’s done it because the Paki told her to do it,” Mr. Upman snapped. “She does everything she does because of the Paki. You can bet she’s been spreading her legs for him since Angelina left him last year. He’s the sort who doesn’t let grass grow, and just because she’s an ugly cow, it doesn’t mean—”

  “Basta!” Salvatore declared. “I have no knowledge of this woman. File a missing person’s report and have done with it. We are finished here.”

  He left the office, his blood on the boil. He stopped for a caffè on his way back to Daniele Bruno. It wasn’t likely that espresso would do much to settle his nerves—quite the contrary—but he wanted a moment to think and he couldn’t come up with another way to achieve this.

  At this second instance of lying to someone about Barbara Havers, Salvatore had to pause. And then he had to ask himself why he was pausing when any man exhibiting rational behaviour would at this juncture toss her out of the questura on her ear. For she was clearly trouble incarnate, which he didn’t need to be associated with, since he was already himself navigating very difficult political waters. So then he had to ask himself what he was doing, hiding this woman in his own home while claiming not to know where she was. And he also had to ask himself why in his conversation with DI Lynley, he had claimed ignorance of her association with a cowboy journalist whom he—Salvatore Lo Bianco—had seen with his very own eyes. In addition to this, there was now her intimacy with Taymullah Azhar to consider. Upman was a madman, certo, but hadn’t Salvatore seen from the very first that there was something more than neighbourly concern in Barbara’s journey from London?

  So he couldn’t trust her. But he wanted to trust her. And he didn’t know what this meant.

  Salvatore downed the rest of his caffè. He headed back in the direction of the interview room where Daniele Bruno waited with his solicitor. He was rounding the corner to reach this room when before him, he saw its door open. Barbara Havers emerged and there was something in her manner . . .

  Salvatore stepped back to hide himself. When he looked again, she was entering the ladies’ bagno. She was also removing a mobile phone from her bag.

  LUCCA

  TUSCANY

  Her insides were jangling as the minutes stretched into half an hour and then three-quarters. Although Daniele Bruno was fully wired, when the wire was tested as they waited for the return of Salvatore, it was discovered that the unit placed upon Bruno was faulty and another had to be fetched. Barbara watched the clock, saw the minutes draining away at what seemed like double the normal pace, and knew she was going to have to do something.

  Mitchell Corsico wasn’t going to wait. He had a story that was hotter than any he’d previously filed. Unless she could get him a better one, he was going to send it to London no matter how many people it harmed. She had to stop him or to reason with him or to threaten him or to . . . to do something and she didn’t know what. But ringing him was a first step, so three-quarters of an hour into their wait for Salvatore’s return, she excused herself and headed for the ladies’.

  She ducked inside and looked into each of the three stalls before locking herself into the last one and ringing the London journalist. She said, “Things are taking longer than I thought.”

  He said laconically, “Oh, too right, Barb.”

  “I’m not lying to you, and I’m not stalling. The damn Upmans showed up here and—”

  “I saw them.”

  “Bloody hell, Mitchell. Where are you? You’ve got to stay out of sight. Salvatore’s already got a scent about you—”

  “It’s your job to do something about that.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Listen to me. We’ve got this bloke set up with a wire.”

  “Name?”

  “I’ve already told you I can’t give you a name. If this first try doesn’t get an admission from Mura, then we’ll need another go at him. Just now it’s one bloke’s word against the other bloke’s word and there’s no case that can be built out of that.”

  “No good, Barb. I have a story needing to be sent to Rodney.”

  “You’ll get the story as soon as I have it. Listen to me, Mitchell. You can be there for Azhar’s release. You c’n get a shot of him being reunited with Hadiyyah. You’ll have the whole thing exclusively. But you have to wait.”

  “I have other things exclusively as well,” he pointed out.

  “You use that and we’re finished, Mitchell.”

  “I use it, darling, and so are you. So you have to ask yourself if that’s the way you want this to play out.”

  “Of course it isn’t. Whatever else you think, I’m not a bleeding fool.”

  “I’m chuffed to hear that, so you’ll understand that, while I personally would love to give you all the time God ever invented to produce the names, the dates, the whatevers and whoevers, in my line of work, time counts for something. Deadlines, Barb. That’s what they’re called. I have them, you don’t.”

  She thought furiously. She knew the disaster that would befall not only her but also Azhar if Mitchell Corsico sent off the story he’d crafted from what Dwayne Doughty had given him: Her next job—and only if she happened to be extremely lucky—would probably be sweeping the gutters in Southend-on-Sea while Azhar’s future would consist of facing kidnapping charges or, if he somehow managed to get home before those charges hit the light of day in this country, spending the next few years fighting extradition to Italy.

  “Listen to me, Mitchell,” she said. “I’ll give you everything that I can. There’ll be a transcript of what goes down between the bloke we have wired and Lorenzo Mura. I’ll put my hands on that and send it your way. You’ll have your Italian journalist mate do the translation—”

  “And give him the exclusive? Not bloody likely.”

  “Okay, you’ll have someone else do the translation . . . Aldo Greco, Azhar’s solicitor . . . and then you’ll have the story.”

  “Fine. Excellent. Brilliant.”

  Barbara thought, Thank God.

  But then he added, “Just as long as I have it by noon.”

  He rang off on her crying out his name. She cursed him soundly. She thought about throwing her mobile phone into the loo. Instead, she left the stall she’d been occupying.

  She opened the door and walked directly into Salvatore.

  LUCCA

  TUSCANY

  Salvatore couldn’t lie to himself about the nature of the phone call that Barbara Havers had just made. He’d heard her say Mitchell and he’d noted the urgency in her tone. Even had that not been the case, the expression on her face would have told him that trusting her had been an error. He reflected briefly on why he felt so afflicted by this betrayal. He decided it was because she was a guest in his home, because she was a fellow cop, and because he’d only just protected her from the loathsome Upmans. He thought, ridiculously, that she owed him something.


  She began to babble, regardless of the fact that he couldn’t understand a word she was saying. He could see that she was trying to explain and that she was asking him to find someone who could translate her words for him. He recognised bloody, bleeding, sodding, and hell, and whatever she said was also peppered with Azhar and Hadiyyah and references to London. When he nodded at her mobile and said quietly, “Parlava a un giornalista, nevvero?,” he could see that she perfectly understood what he meant. She said, “Yes, yes, all right, it was a journalist but you’ve got to try to understand because he has information from a bloke in London and it can sink me and it can sink Azhar and Azhar will end up losing everything including Hadiyyah and you need to see for the love of God that he can’t lose Hadiyyah because if he does then he loses everything and why why why don’t you speak English because we could talk this out and I could make you see because I can tell from your face that this is something personal to you like I’ve stabbed you straight in the heart and bloody hell Salvatore bloody bloody bleeding hell.”

  None of which he understood as it all came out, to him, as one very long word. He nodded to the door of the ladies’ bagno and said, “Mi segua,” and she followed him back to the interview room where Daniele Bruno was waiting for what came next.

  He opened this door, but instead of walking inside, he told Bruno and his avvocato that he had to deal with one small matter before they could proceed. This small matter was taking Barbara Havers to a second interview room, where he asked her to sit by indicating a chair on one side of the table.

  “Il Suo telefonino, Barbara,” he said to her. To make sure she understood, he took out his own mobile and pointed to it. She said, “What? Why?” which was clear to him. He merely repeated his request and she handed it over. He could tell she thought he was going to use it to hit a redial on the number she’d rung, but he had no intention of doing that. He knew whom she’d phoned. But as he lived and breathed, she wasn’t going to phone him again. He slipped her mobile into his pocket. She gave a cry that needed no translation. He said to her, “Mi dispiace, Barbara. Deve aspettare qui, in questura adesso.” For he had no idea how she might betray him further. There was no other choice he could see but to detain her in the interview room while the next part of their little drama played out.