Just One Evil Act il-18

by Elizabeth George

  “They would not take her,” Signor Medici cut in, waving away his wife’s defence of their child. “She lacked the brains. You know this as well as I do, Maria.”

  From all of this, Salvatore attempted to put together the pieces of a puzzle that seemed to be growing by the minute. Domenica was not a nun, then. But she lived in the convent with the other nuns? She was, perhaps, an acolyte of some sort? Perhaps a servant? A cook? A laundress? A seamstress assisting with the manufacture of vestments for the province’s priests?

  Signor Medici barked an unpleasant laugh. All of Salvatore’s suggestions, it appeared, were far more challenging than his figlia stupida could have contended with. She was none of these things. Rather, she was a caretaker on the convent property, and she lived there in rooms above its hovel of a barn. She milked goats, she grew vegetables, and she fancied herself part of the community. She even called herself Sister Domenica Giustina, and she’d created out of table linens from their home here in Lucca a form of nun’s habit that resembled that which the sisters themselves wore.

  During the man’s recitation, his wife began to weep. She looked away from her husband and clasped her hands tightly in her lap. When the man was finished, she turned back to Salvatore and said, “Figlia unica,” which explained something of the grief she felt and the anger harboured by her husband. Domenica was their only child. She’d held her parents’ hopes for the future, which had been dashed as over the years it had become more and more obvious that the girl was not normal.

  Salvatore had to ask the next question, despite their distress at having to speak of Domenica at all. Could Roberto Squali have been heading to the convent where Domenica lived? Had he and Domenica stayed in touch since she’d gone to live there?

  This they did not know. Their nephew and their daughter had been close at one time as adolescents, but that time had passed as Roberto had learned the limits of what Domenica could offer anyone in companionship. This had not taken long and it was to be expected. Indeed, Domenica’s life had largely been defined by abridged relationships with people who came to understand that what appeared to be a deeply spiritual nature was, in reality, an inability to exist in the world as it was.

  All of this Salvatore gleaned, but none of it could eliminate the possibility of Roberto Squali’s driving his convertible into the mountains in order to see his cousin. It would be a piece of luck if a visit to the convent had been his intention. No matter her simplicity, there was a very good chance that Sister Domenica Giustina could tell them something about what had happened to the English girl.

  VILLA RIVELLI

  TUSCANY

  Domenica went to seek Carina. For the past three days the child had avoided her. During Domenica’s praying and fasting, she’d heard Carina moving about in the rooms above the barn, and she’d felt the child’s presence as she’d watched and waited for Sister Domenica Giustina to understand what had to be done next. Now she would be somewhere on the grounds of the Villa Rivelli. Sister Domenica Giustina felt secure in the knowledge that God would lead her to Carina without trouble.

  And so it was. As if guided by the angel Gabriel, Sister Domenica Giustina made her way to the sunken giardino with its splashing fountains. Carina wasn’t in sight, but that was of no account. For at the far end of the garden, the Grotta dei Venti stood. This grotta offered a chamber of stone and shell along with four marble statues from whose feet water flowed continuously into a channel from a spring far below. This made the air within the grotto cool and inviting in the heat of the day. And here it was that Sister Domenica Giustina saw the little girl, as if waiting for her.

  She was sitting on the stone floor of the place, her knees drawn up to her chin and her thin arms holding her legs in place. She was tucked into the deepest cool shadows, and as Sister Domenica Giustina entered the grotto, she saw the child shrink away.

  “Vieni, Carina,” she said softly to the child, extending her hand. “Vieni con me.”

  The girl looked up, her face like a haunted thing. She began to speak, but the words she used were not in Italian, so Sister Domenica Giustina understood from them only a few words. “I want my mummy,” Carina said. “I want my dad. I was s’posed to see him and where is he and I want him and I don’t want to be here anymore and I’mscaredandIwantmydadnownownow!”

  Dad was the word Sister Domenica Giustina caught among the rush of language. She said, “Tuo padre, Carina?”

  “IwanttogohomeandIwantmydad.”

  “Padre, sì?” Sister Domenica Giustina clarified. “Vorresti vedere tuo padre?”

  “Voglio andare a casa,” the little girl said, her voice growing stronger. “Voglio andare da mio padre, chiaro?”

  “Ah, sì?” Sister Domenica Giustina said. “Capisco, ma prima devi venire qui.”

  She held out her hand once more. If the child wanted to go to her father’s home, as she said, there were steps to be taken and those steps could not begin in the Grotta dei Venti.

  The child looked at the hand extended to her. Her face wore an expression of doubt. Sister Domenica Giustina smiled softly to encourage her. “Non avere paura,” she told her, for there was indeed no reason to have fear.

  Slowly, then, Carina got to her feet. She put her hand in Sister Domenica Giustina’s. Together, they left the cool confines of the grotto. Together, they climbed the stairs out of the sunken garden and began to approach the great shuttered villa.

  “Ti dobbiamo preparare,” Sister Domenica Giustina murmured to the little girl. For she could not meet with her father unprepared. She had to be ready: sweet and clean and pure. She explained this to the child as she urged her forward, past the villa’s wide and empty loggia, past the sweeping steps that led up to this, round the corner of the building itself, and in the direction of the vast cellars of the place.

  It was on the approach to the steps leading down to the cellars that Carina’s footsteps began to falter. She began to pull back in obvious reluctance. She began to speak words that Sister Domenica Giustina could not hope to understand.

  “Mydadsnottherehe’snotinthecellaryousaidmydadyousaidyouwouldtakemetomydadIwon’tgoIwon’tIwon’tit’sdarkinthereitsmells I’mafraid!”

  Sister Domenica Giustina said, “No, no, no. Non devi . . .” But the child did not understand. She tried to pull away with all the strength she had, but with surpassing strength Sister Domenica Giustina pulled back. “Vieni,” she said. “Devi venire.”

  Down one step, down two, down three. An enormous effort and she had the child within the damp, dank darkness of the cellar.

  But there the little girl began to scream. And the only way to silence her was to drag her far, far inside the rooms of the cellar until she could not be heard by the world outside the forbidding walls of that terrible place.

  LUCCA

  TUSCANY

  Salvatore knew that the possibility of Roberto Squali’s having arranged the kidnapping of the English child on his own was remote. Although his past clearly identified him as a player on the field of illegal activities, there had for years been no hint of scandal or law-breaking on his part. The logical conclusion was that although the child had been with him, she had not come to his attention as a kidnap victim via his own inspiration. The business card of Michelangelo Di Massimo within Squali’s portafoglio suggested that there was a substantial link among the private detective, Squali, and the crime, and Salvatore was intent upon finding it.

  This did not take long for the simple reason that Roberto Squali had done nothing at all to hide the link, so sure had he apparently been of the potential success of the scheme. The records of his telefonino revealed calls made to him by Michelangelo Di Massimo. The records of his bank account showed a significant deposit made into his account—in cash—on the very day of the girl’s disappearance. This deposit far exceeded anything that Roberto Squali had put into his account at any other time. Salvatore was not a betting man, but he found himself willing to wager that an amount identical to Squali’s deposit had left
the account of Michelangelo Di Massimo on the very same day. Salvatore made the necessary arrangements to have those banking records sent to him via the Internet. Then he ordered the Pisan detective to be brought to the questura. There would be no polite visit by the police to Di Massimo’s office or to the salon of his hairdresser or to any other place the man might have established himself. Salvatore wanted Di Massimo intimidated, and he knew how best to effect that reaction.

  He rang DI Lynley in advance of Di Massimo’s arrival. He also rang Piero Fanucci to bring him up to the minute on what he’d discovered and on which direction he was now headed with the case. On the part of Lynley, the conversation was brief: If the chief inspector didn’t mind, the British detective would like to be present for the questioning of this man. On the part of Fanucci, the conversation was quite mad: They had their kidnapper or at least their mastermind in the person of Carlo Casparia, and Salvatore’s instructions had been and still were to find the connection that existed between this Roberto Squali and him. If he couldn’t manage that much . . . Did Fanucci need to see to it that someone else was assigned to this case, or was Topo going to come to his senses and resist the inclination to follow every wild hare that happened to hop by him?

  “For the love of God, Piero” got Salvatore nowhere. So he agreed—as useless as he knew the endeavour would be—to see in what manner he could prove a conspiracy among three men when two of them did not even know of the existence of the third.

  When Lynley arrived at the questura, Salvatore told him of his visit to the home of the Medici family in Via del Fosso. On a map of the province, he showed him the position of the convent as indicated by the parents of Domenica Medici, caretaker of the place. This could be something or it could be nothing, he explained to the Englishman. But the fact that Squali had been headed in the direction of this place where his cousin lived at least suggested her involvement. Once they had hammered down Di Massimo’s part in what had occurred that day in the mercato, the convent was their next logical move.

  Di Massimo’s arrival caused a stir outside among the paparazzi and the reporters who were hanging about the questura on the scent of a new angle to the story. When he saw them, the Pisan detective covered his head—which, considering the appearance of his yellow hair, didn’t seem like a bad idea—but a covered head indicated an unwillingness to be photographed, which naturally provoked the paparazzi into a frenzy of photographing him on the off chance that he was someone of interest.

  Inside the questura, Di Massimo garnered an equal amount of attention. He wore his motorcycle leathers and wraparound sunglasses so dark that his eyes were hidden. His demands for an avvocato were vociferous and angry. Per favore was not part of what he said.

  Salvatore and DI Lynley met him in an interview room. Four uniformed policemen lined along the wall to emphasise the seriousness of the situation. A tape recorder and a video camera were set up to document the proceedings. These began with polite offers of food and drink and a request for the name of Di Massimo’s lawyer so that the man or woman could be sent for immediately to attend upon the needs of the suspect.

  “Indiziato?” Di Massimo repeated at once. “Non ho fatto niente.”

  Salvatore found it interesting that the Pisan made an immediate declaration of innocence rather than asking what crime he was suspected of having committed. Hearing this, he jerked his head at one of the uniforms and the man produced a file of photographs, which Salvatore laid in front of Di Massimo.

  “Here is what we know, Miko,” he explained as he opened the file and began to place the photographs on the table. “This wretched man”—and here he set before the Pisan three photos of Roberto Squali where he had been found, forty-eight hours dead in the open air of the Apuan Alps—“is the same as this man.” And here he showed him two enlargements taken from the tourist photos: Roberto Squali standing behind the missing English girl and Roberto Squali having in his hand a greeting card that appeared to be later in the hand of the girl.

  Di Massimo glanced at these, and as he did so, Salvatore reached over and removed his sunglasses. Di Massimo flinched and demanded them returned. An “un attimo” from Salvatore told him that all things—good, bad, and indifferent—would come quite soon.

  “I do not know this man,” Di Massimo said, folding his leather-clad arms across his chest.

  “You have hardly looked at the pictures, my friend.”

  “I do not need to look more closely to tell you I have no idea who he might be.”

  Salvatore nodded thoughtfully. “Then you will wonder, Michelangelo, why he took so many phone calls from you in the weeks preceding the kidnap of this girl”—he indicated Hadiyyah—“and why he made such a large deposit of cash to his bank account once she went missing. It is a small matter, you know, for us to discover if the amount of this deposit mirrors a withdrawal from your own reserves. That is being arranged, in fact, even as we speak.”

  Michelangelo said nothing, but along his hairline, minuscule drops of perspiration appeared.

  “I’m still waiting for the name of your avvocato, by the way,” Salvatore added graciously. “He will want to advise you on the best manner in which to extricate yourself from the web you’re caught in.”

  Di Massimo said nothing. Salvatore let him think. The Pisan would have no way of knowing exactly how much information the police had at this point, but the fact that he’d been brought to the questura was going to suggest that his trouble was deep. Since he’d already denied knowing a man to whom he’d made numerous telephone calls, his best move would be to tell the truth. Even if he’d phoned Squali a dozen times without ever having seen the man, the police still had a connection between them and this had to be explained away somehow. Salvatore’s only question was how fast Di Massimo could cook up an explanation that had nothing to do with Hadiyyah’s disappearance. He was betting that anyone who bleached his normally black hair the colour of mais was not someone who was also fast on his intellectual feet.

  It turned out that his surmise was correct. Di Massimo said, “Bene,” on a sigh. And he began to tell his tale.

  He was hired to find the child, as he had earlier admitted when the chief inspector had questioned him, no? He was hired, he found her, and he’d thought no more of the matter once he had reported her whereabouts at Fattoria di Santa Zita in the hills above Lucca. But some weeks later another, altogether different request had been made for his services. And this request was in relation to the very same child.

  “What were these services?” Salvatore asked.

  The orchestration of her kidnapping, he replied baldly. It was up to him to decide where this kidnapping would occur. The key to it, though, had to be the child’s complete lack of fear. So he set about hiring someone to watch the family in order to find if there was anything they did that could serve the purpose of spiriting her away: something that was so much a part of their regular routine that they would never imagine anything untoward could happen to the child in the midst of it and, thus, their guard would be down. The person he hired was Roberto Squali, whom he knew as a cameriere at a restaurant in Pisa.

  The family’s weekly trips to the mercato in Lucca, as reported by Squali, proved to be the event he was looking for. The child’s mother went off to yoga, her lover and her daughter went into the mercato, and there the child and the man separated so that she could watch the accordion player and his poodle. That constituted the perfect moment to snatch her, Di Massimo had concluded, but of course the snatching could not be carried out by someone as memorable in appearance as the Pisan private detective. Hence, he’d instructed Roberto Squali to carry it out.

  “The child appears to have gone with Roberto willingly,” Salvatore said. “She seems to have taken directions from him because she left the mercato on a route she’d never taken before and he followed her. There is a witness to this.”

  Di Massimo nodded. “Again, there was to be no fear. I gave him a word to say to her that would reassure her she had nothing to
worry about.”

  “A word?”

  “Khushi.”

  “What sort of word is this?”

  “A word I myself was given. What it means I do not know.” Di Massimo went on to say that Roberto was to tell Hadiyyah that he had come to take her to her father. He supplied Squali with a greeting card that he had been told her father had written to her. Roberto was to hand her this card and then to say this magic word khushi, which appeared to be some kind of open sesame to garner her complete cooperation. Once he had her in his company, he was to take her to a place that was safe, where she would not feel herself in any danger. There she would stay until the word came to Michelangelo that the child was to be released. With that word would also come the location of her release. He would pass this information along to Roberto Squali, who would fetch the girl, take her to the drop-off point, and leave her there for whatever was going to happen next.

  Salvatore felt a wave of nausea. “What,” he asked evenly, “was to happen next?”

  Di Massimo didn’t know. He only received bits and pieces of the plan when and as he needed to know them. And that was how it had worked from the first.

  “Whose plan was this, then?” Salvatore asked.

  “I’ve already said. A man from London.”

  Lynley stirred in his chair. “Are you saying that from the first, a man from London hired you to kidnap Hadiyyah?”

  Di Massimo shook his head. No, no, and no. As he’d told them before, he had been hired first merely to find the child. It was only after she had been found that he was then later asked to arrange for her kidnapping. He hadn’t wanted to do it—a bambina should never be separated from her mamma, vero? But when he’d been told about how this particular mamma had once abandoned this same child for a year to chase after a lover . . . This was not right, this was not good, this was not the comportamento of a good mamma, no? So he had agreed to snatch the child. For money, of course. Which, by the way, he had not yet received in full. So much for trusting the word of a foreigner.