Just One Evil Act il-18

by Elizabeth George

  “Don’t be ridiculous. If Angelina was stupid enough to involve herself with a Muslim—”

  “And several other blokes at the same time, as it happens,” Barbara told her. “Did she tell you that? Or did she just tell you that she’d seen the light and had to get away from the ‘filthy Paki.’ That’s what your dad called him, by the way. What did you call him?”

  But Bathsheba was looking at her oddly, Barbara saw. She was looking like a woman who’d just had a bit of a surprise sprung upon her. Barbara went back over what she’d just said to sort out what this surprise might have been, and she excavated it quickly enough in the idea of Angelina’s other involvements. She said, “Esteban Castro was one of her lovers. So was a bloke called Lorenzo Mura. She’s with him now. Lorenzo. That’s where she was going. She told you that, didn’t she? No? You didn’t know it? How could you not know it? You told me yourself that she’d probably be with a man.”

  Bathsheba didn’t reply. Barbara thought about this. She thought about twins and how these particular twins had grown up hating the whole idea of twinship. She considered how hating the idea of twinship could morph into hating the other twin herself. If that was the case—that Bathsheba indeed hated Angelina—then it stood to reason that she would help her only if she saw Angelina’s flight as worsening her position in life and not helping it. And if Angelina had known this . . .

  “She didn’t tell you about Lorenzo Mura, did she?” Barbara said. “Or about Esteban Castro either. Neither of whom, by the way, is the least little bit like your Hugo out there.” With a tilt of her head, she indicated the rest of the flat beyond the door.

  Bathsheba stiffened. “Exactly what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Come on, Bathsheba,” Barbara said. “Angelina’s had a string of drop-dead men from the get-go. Look Castro up on the Internet if you don’t believe me. Look up Azhar and check out how he’s come along in the last ten years. And now she’s got Lorenzo Mura, who looks like someone Michelangelo would have sculpted. While you’ve got poor Hugo with that Adam’s apple the size of Yorkshire and a face like—”

  She surged to her feet. “That’s enough!” she shouted.

  “And he’s getting old fast, I expect. Which means sex isn’t what it used to be. Meanwhile your sister—”

  “I want you out of here this instant!” Bathsheba said.

  “—is getting her field plowed regularly. With a lot of skill. One man after the next and sometimes three at once—think of that, three!—and she doesn’t care whether they marry her or not. Did you know that? She doesn’t care.” Barbara had no idea about this last point, but she did know the likelihood that Bathsheba’s marriage was the only card she held that gave her the edge over her twin. She concluded with, “You didn’t know any of that, though, did you? You wouldn’t have lifted a hand to help her leave Azhar if you’d had a clue she was really running to another man. This one’s not married, by the way. But I expect that’ll change soon enough.”

  “Get out of here,” Bathsheba said. “Bloody get out.”

  “She uses everyone, Bathsheba,” Barbara told her. “Too bad you didn’t know it at the time.”

  FATTORIA DI SANTA ZITA

  TUSCANY

  The film crew had been at Lorenzo Mura’s home for an hour by the time Lynley arrived in the company of both Chief Inspector Lo Bianco and the public minister Fanucci. Fanucci hadn’t been enthusiastic about Lynley’s attendance, but when Lo Bianco pointed out to him that the reassuring presence of the liaison officer from the British police might go far to keep the parents of the missing girl calm, Fanucci acquiesced to Lynley’s going along. He would, of course, remain in the background at all times, Fanucci said pointedly.

  “Certo, certo,” Lo Bianco muttered. No one wanted to hear the opinion of the British police in this matter of the missing child, Magistrato.

  At Fattoria di Santa Zita, they were welcomed by the telecronista, a sveltely dressed young woman who looked as if she’d come to television journalism via the catwalks of Milan so beautifully turned out was she. Bustling round with lights, cables, cameras, and makeup were the rest of the crew from the television news. They were unloading a van and readying an area in front of the old barn where Lorenzo Mura made his wine. There, a table of bread, cheese, biscuits, and fruit had been hospitably laid on for the crew. A table and chairs had also been set up on a terrace, wide stones overhung with wisteria coming into bloom. There had evidently been much discussion about this: the telecronista loving the location for its suggestion of springtime delicacy and the lighting man hating it for the complications it created in having to deal with shadows at the same time as he maintained the colour of the hanging blooms.

  Fanucci strode to the location and gave it his approval. No one had asked for this, and no one apparently cared when he gave it. He said a few sharp words to a hapless young woman with a makeup case. She scurried off, returned with a third chair for the table. He sat here, apparently not intending to move from that point forward, and he indicated to her with an abrupt gesture that she was to see to his face with her powder and brushes. She did so, although it remained to be seen what she would make of his facial warts.

  In the meantime, establishing shots were being taken by the cameraman: the vineyards falling off down the hillside, the donkeys grazing in a paddock beneath ancient olive trees, a few cattle down by a stream at the bottom of the hill, the many farm buildings. During this, the telecronista saw to her makeup in a hand mirror and applied a coat of spray to her hair. She finally said, “Sono pronta a cominciare,” to indicate her readiness to begin. But obviously, nothing was going to happen until Fanucci gave his nod of approval.

  While they were waiting for this to happen, Angelina Upman came out of the winery. Lorenzo Mura was with her, speaking quietly. Taymullah Azhar followed, keeping his distance. Lorenzo seated Angelina at the table with Fanucci, and he bent to her and continued speaking. She looked much more fragile than on the previous day, and Lynley wondered if she was managing to eat or to sleep at all. He wondered the same about Azhar, who didn’t look much better than the mother of his child.

  Fanucci didn’t speak to either one of them. Nor did he speak to Mura. His interests apparently lay only in the filming of the report for the nightly newscast. Anything that needed to be communicated from the police to the parents could come, apparently, from Lo Bianco or from Lynley. It seemed this included sympathy for their situation.

  After Fanucci examined himself in the makeup artist’s mirror, they were given his approval to begin. The telecronista did her part first, reciting the salient details of Hadiyyah’s disappearance in the rapid-fire Italian that everyone on television in the country seemed to employ. She did so with one of the olive groves as her background. It was wisely chosen, serving as a nice contrast to the rust-coloured suit she wore.

  Lynley didn’t try to follow her reportage, aside from listening for names. Instead, he watched the interactions among Lorenzo, Angelina, and Azhar.

  Men were by nature territorial, Lynley thought, and Angelina was the territory upon which each of these men had staked a claim. It was interesting to Lynley to see how each of them demonstrated this: Lorenzo by standing behind Angelina’s chair, his hands on her shoulders, and Azhar by ignoring the other man entirely and folding a handkerchief into Angelina’s hands should she need it when the time arrived for them to make their appeal to the television viewers.

  When the telecronista had completed her introduction to the piece, the scene shifted. The cameraman moved to the winery, where lights had already been set up. After a few words with the telecronista, he focused his lens on Fanucci.

  Fanucci’s was, it seemed, the fire-and-brimstone section of the report. His speech was as rapid-fire as had been the telecronista’s, but Lynley caught enough to know that it was filled with threats and imprecations. The malefactor would be found and when he was . . . They had a person of interest to whom they were speaking and he would reveal . . . Anyone who was foun
d to know anything that they had not yet transmitted to the police . . . The law did not sleep . . . The police did not sleep . . . If anything further happened to this child . . .

  Next to him, Lynley heard Lo Bianco sigh. He took a packet of chewing gum from his jacket pocket, offering it first to Lynley, who demurred. With a piece for himself, Lo Bianco walked away. Fanucci in action, it seemed, was more than he could bear to watch.

  When the public minister had completed his remarks, he jerked his head to indicate that the story was now to move to Angelina Upman and Taymullah Azhar. He rose from the table and walked to position himself behind the cameraman. There he stood like a prophet of doom.

  The first movement came from Lorenzo Mura, who took himself out of the picture. There was no need to confuse the viewing public. It was enough for people to know that in front of them on their television screens were the parents of the missing girl. To throw in the complications of Angelina Upman’s private life here in Italy seemed unnecessary. On the other hand, thought Lynley, seeing Lorenzo Mura on the screen might jog another kind of memory in the mind of a viewer. He walked over to Lo Bianco to suggest this to the chief inspector. Lo Bianco heard him out and didn’t disagree.

  Taymullah Azhar and Angelina Upman made their appeal. They did so in English—Azhar, of course, having no Italian—and it would be translated with a voice-over recording in advance of the night’s broadcast. What they said was simple. It was what any parent in the same situation would have said: Please give our daughter back to us. Please don’t hurt her. We love her. We will do anything to have her returned unharmed.

  Lynley saw Fanucci snort at the we will do anything, which—although spoken in English—he evidently understood. Clearly, then, the public minister judged it ill-advised to throw an offer like that into the vast maw of an unidentified television audience. There were people out there who well might lead the parents on a merry chase when they heard such an offer: “Hand over a bundle of ransom money and watch us run you into the ground with false information about your child.” Fanucci strode over to Lo Bianco’s other side and said something to him tersely. Lo Bianco looked noncommittal.

  Finally, it was over. At the table, Azhar said something quietly to Angelina, his hand on her wrist. Angelina pressed his handkerchief to her eyes, and he brushed her hair off her cheek. The cameraman caught this tender gesture on tape at the direction of the telecronista. Lorenzo Mura saw it all, scowled, and left them to each other.

  He went into the winery, where Lynley assumed he would remain in something of a temper until everyone was gone. But he was wrong. Instead, Lorenzo emerged with a tray of wineglasses containing his own Chianti, along with a plate bearing slices of cake. In what Lynley thought of as a quintessentially Italian moment, he distributed wine as well as cake to everyone there.

  “Grazie” was murmured as was “Salute.” Wine was sipped or it was tossed back in a gulp or two. Cake was eaten. People seemed meditative, their thoughts on the child and where she might be and how she might be.

  Only Azhar and Angelina neither ate nor drank, Angelina because she had been given no wine and she pushed the plate of cake aside with a shudder, and Azhar because as a Muslim he did not drink at all and the sight of the cake seemed to dishearten him.

  He glanced at the others, seemed to note the wineglasses in everyone’s hand, and moved his own to Angelina, saying to her, “Do you wish, Angelina . . . ?”

  She glanced—was it warily? Lynley wondered—at Lorenzo who, with the tray, was crossing the farmyard to Fanucci, Lo Bianco, and himself. She said, “Yes. Yes. I think I could do with some. Thank you, Hari,” and she took up the glass and drank with the others.

  Lorenzo turned. His gaze went to the table where his lover and her erstwhile lover sat. He took in the instant of Angelina’s drinking the wine and he cried out, “Angelina, smettila!” And then in English, “No! You know you must not.”

  They looked at each other across the farmyard. Angelina seemed frozen into place. Lynley sorted through what Mura had been trying to say to her: She wasn’t to drink and she knew why.

  No one said anything for a moment. Then Angelina finally spoke. She said, “One glass won’t hurt, Renzo. It’s fine.” Clearly, she was willing her lover to say nothing more. Just as clearly he wasn’t going to remain silent in the face of what she was apparently doing.

  He said, “No! During this time especially, it is bad. You know this.”

  And everything changed in that instant. Utter stillness fell among them. No one moved. Into this a rooster crowed suddenly and as if in response, a burst of pigeons took to the sky from the winery’s roof.

  Lynley looked from Lorenzo to Angelina to Azhar. During this time especially did, of course, have more than one meaning: During this time especially when your child is missing, it is bad to drink, for you need to have your wits about you. During this time especially when you can neither eat nor sleep, wine will go to your head too quickly. During this time especially in the presence of these people who will be watching every move that you make, it is best to remain completely sober. There were many possibilities here. But the expression on Angelina’s face said that the most wrenching of the possibilities was the one that had automatically brought the words to Lorenzo’s lips. He’d said them without thinking and there could be, realistically, only one reason: During this time especially when you are carrying a child, you must not drink.

  Angelina said quietly to Azhar, “You weren’t meant to know, Hari. I didn’t want you to know.” And then desperately, “Oh God, I’m so sorry about everything.”

  Azhar didn’t look at her. Nor did he look at Lorenzo. He didn’t, in fact, look at anyone. Rather he stared straight ahead, and there was no expression whatsoever on his face. That alone told Lynley more than any words would have done. No matter how she had devastated him during their relationship, the Pakistani man was unaccountably as much in love with Angelina Upman as he had ever been.

  LUCCA

  TUSCANY

  “Castro’s a nonstarter” were Barbara Havers’s words to Lynley.

  His words to her were “She’s pregnant, Barbara.”

  To which she said, “Bloody sodding hell. How’s Azhar coping?”

  “He’s difficult to read.” Lynley was careful on this topic. There was little point, he reckoned, in causing Barbara grief should her feelings for the Pakistani man be deeper than she generally pretended. “I’d say the news is a shock.”

  “What about Mura?”

  “Obviously, he knows.”

  “I mean is he happy? Worried? Suspicious?”

  “About what, exactly?”

  She told him what she’d learned about Angelina Upman from her former lover Castro. She passed on his allusion to the fact that there might be yet another lover in Italy, beyond Lorenzo Mura. According to Castro, it was all part of the excitement she seemed to require, Barbara told him. Anyone there who might fill the bill as Angelina’s little bit on the side?

  He’d have to look into it, Lynley told her. Was there anything else he needed to know?

  She said nothing for a few moments, which told him there was something more. He said her name in a way that he knew would tell her it was in her best interests to fess up immediately since he would find out eventually. She revealed to him that The Source had generated another story, this one about Azhar’s desertion of his family in Ilford. She added, “But it’s nothing I can’t control,” which told him volumes about what she’d been up to with the tabloid, despite her protestations on the matter.

  He said, “Barbara . . .”

  She said, “I know, I know. Believe me, Winnie’s given me chapter and verse.”

  “If you persist—”

  “Well, I’ve started something now and I’ve got to stop it, sir.”

  Lynley didn’t know how she could. No one got between the sheets with The Source and emerged with their clothing still ironed. She should have known that. He cursed quietly.

  They rang off
soon after, and he considered her words about Angelina Upman. He would have to look for another lover, someone who wanted her enough to punish her if she wouldn’t leave Mura for him.

  He’d taken the call from Barbara on Lucca’s great wall, where he’d gone to walk its perimeter and to think. He’d chosen a clockwise direction and was midway around it, at the point where a café stood offering refreshments to the scores of people who were also taking exercise up above the medieval town. He decided to stop for a coffee, and he moved towards the tables spread out beneath the leafy trees. He saw that Taymullah Azhar had evidently had the same idea. For the London professor was already at a table with a pot of tea next to him and a newspaper spread out before him.

  It would probably be an English-language paper, since Lynley had already seen them on sale at a kiosk in Piazza dei Cocomeri, which adjoined one of the few uncurving streets in the town. He reckoned it was a local paper for visitors, and so it seemed to be. He gave a quick look at it as he asked Azhar if he could join him. The Grapevine, it was called—more a magazine than a paper—and he saw that either Azhar or the local police had managed to get a story about Hadiyyah’s disappearance into it. Her picture was there, along with the simple headline Missing. This was good, he thought. Every avenue was being used to find her.

  He wondered if Azhar knew that, in London, The Source was exposing the story of his family situation. He said nothing to him about it. Chances were good he was going to be told by someone eventually. Lynley didn’t see the point of that someone being himself.

  Azhar folded the paper and moved his chair to accommodate Lynley’s bringing another to the table. Lynley ordered a coffee, sat, and gazed at the other man. He said, “The television appeal will turn up something. There’ll be dozens of phone calls to the police, and most of them will be rubbish. But one of them, perhaps two or three, will give us something. Meantime, Barbara is continuing to work several angles in England. There’s hope, Azhar.”