Just One Evil Act

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Aldo Greco turned out to be a courtly-looking man along the lines of his fellow Lucchese Giacomo Puccini but without the moustache. He had the same soulful eyes and the same thick dark hair touched at the temples with silver strands. His olive skin bore not a single crease. He could have been anywhere between twenty-five and fifty. He looked like a film star.

Barbara could tell he thought that she and Mitch Corsico were a very odd match, but he was too polite to make any comment aside from Piacere—whatever the hell that meant—when she introduced herself and her companion to the solicitor.

Greco asked them to sit and offered them refreshments. Barbara demurred. Mitch said a coffee wouldn’t go down half bad. Greco nodded and asked his secretary to see to this, which she did efficiently. Mitchell was presented with a thimble of liquid so black it might have been used motor oil. He was apparently familiar with this, Barbara thought, because he put a sugar cube between his teeth and tossed the mess back.

Greco was guarded with them once they’d covered the bases of general courtesy. He had no real idea who Barbara was, after all. She could have been anyone—to whit, she could have been a journalist—claiming to know Azhar. Azhar had not mentioned her to the solicitor, and this presented a problem for Greco, who was bound by ethics and probably otherwise loath to give out even the most superficial detail associated with his client’s arrest.

She showed him her police ID. This impressed him only marginally. She mentioned DI Lynley, who’d preceded her to town as liaison officer in the matter of Hadiyyah’s kidnapping, but this achieved a solemn nod and nothing else. She finally remembered that tucked inside her purse was a school photo of Hadiyyah that the little girl had given to her at the start of Michaelmas term back in London. On the back of it she’d written Barbara’s name, Friends 4ever, her own name, and a line of x’s and o’s. Barbara said, “When I heard that Azhar was in and out of the questura, I knew I had to come because Hadiyyah has no relatives in Italy. And her mum’s family in England . . . Well, Angelina was estranged from them. What I was thinking is that if anything more happened . . . I mean, she’s been through hell, hasn’t she?”

Greco examined the photo Barbara had handed him. He didn’t look convinced till she hit upon her mobile phone. Upon it, she found an old message from Azhar, thankfully undeleted. She handed the mobile over to the solicitor, who listened and finally seemed convinced enough of her friendship with the man to give her the barest of details.

She would understand, would she not?, that his client had not authorised him to speak to her and therefore certain limits had to apply to what he said. Yes, yes, Barbara told him, and she prayed that Corsico had the good sense not to pull a reporter’s notebook from the pocket of his trousers and start scribbling in it.

First, Greco told her, Hadiyyah had been returned to Fattoria di Santa Zita, the home of Lorenzo Mura, where she had been living with her mother prior to her mother’s death. This was not a permanent arrangement, naturally. Her relatives in London had been notified by Mura of the child’s father’s arrest. Were they on their way to fetch her? Barbara asked. If that was the case, she told herself, time was of the essence, for if the Upmans got their hands on Hadiyyah, they would make sure, purely out of spite, that Azhar never saw her again.

“This I do not know,” Greco said. “The police made the arrangements to deliver her to Signor Mura. I did not.”

“Azhar wouldn’t have given the coppers the name of any Upman to fetch Hadiyyah,” Barbara told the solicitor. “He would have given them my name.”

Greco looked thoughtful as he nodded. “This could be the case, certo,” he said. “But the police would want a blood relative of the little girl to come for her, as there is no evidence that the professor is actually her father. You see the difficulty in fulfilling whatever desires he might have in the matter, no?”

What Barbara saw was that she needed to know where Fattoria di Santa Zita was. She glanced at Mitchell. He had his reporter’s face on: perfectly blank. She knew this meant he was committing everything to memory. There might be a benefit to having him on her team.

She said, “What’s the evidence against him? There has to be evidence. I mean, if someone’s come up with the charge of murder, they have to list the evidence, don’t they?”

“In due course,” Greco said. He steepled his fingers in front of his chest and used them a bit as a pointer as he explained to her how the justice system worked in Italy. Thus far, Taymullah Azhar was indagato, his name entered into the judicial records as a suspect. He’d been served with the paperwork that indicated this—“We call this avviso di garanzia,” Greco said—and the details of the charges had yet to be revealed. They would be in time, certo, but for the moment an order of segreto investigativo prevented their revelation. At this point, only carefully placed leaks in the newspapers were providing information.

Barbara listened to this and at the end of it said, “But you must know something, Mr. Greco.”

“As of now, I know only that there is concern about a conference that the professor attended in April. There is also concern about his profession. At this conference were microbiologists from around the world—”

“I know about the conference.”

“Then you will see how it looks that Professore Azhar attended. And then, shortly thereafter his child’s mother died from an organism that could have been obtained—”

“No one can think Azhar traipsed round Europe with a petri dish of E. coli hidden in his armpit.”

“Please?” Greco looked confused.

“The armpit bit,” Mitchell Corsico murmured.

Barbara said, “Sorry. What I mean is that the entire scenario—how this was supposed to play out?—it’s stupid. Not to mention so unlikely that . . . Look. I need to get in to talk to this copper. Lo Bianco. That’s who it is, right? You c’n arrange for me to see him, can’t you? I work with DI Lynley in London, and Lo Bianco will know his name. He doesn’t need to know I’m a family friend. Just tell him I work with Lynley.”

“I can make a phone call,” Greco told her. “But he speaks virtually no English.”

“No problem,” Barbara said. “You c’n go with me, can’t you?”

“Si, si,” he said. “I could do this. But you must consider that Ispettore Lo Bianco is not likely to speak to you frankly if I am present. And I assume you wish him to speak frankly, no?”

“Right. Of course. But, bloody hell, doesn’t he have to tell you—”

“Things are different here, signora—” He stopped and corrected himself with “Scusi. Sergeant. Things are different here when an investigation is ongoing.”

“But when there’s an arrest . . .”

“It is much the same.”

“Bloody hell, Mr. Greco, this is circumstantial evidence. Azhar went to a conference, and someone died a month later of a microorganism that he himself doesn’t even study.”

“Someone who had taken his child from him died. Someone who had hidden that child’s whereabouts for many months. This, as you know, does not look good.”

And it would look worse, Barbara reckoned, if Azhar’s part in Hadiyyah’s kidnapping became known. She said, “You can’t convict someone on circumstantial evidence.”

Greco looked astonished. “On the contrary, Sergeant. Here, people are convicted for much less every day.”

LUCCA

TUSCANY

It was without surprise that Salvatore Lo Bianco received the news that another representative from New Scotland Yard had appeared in Lucca. He had expected someone from London to show up once he’d arrested Taymullah Azhar. The word would have gone out to the British embassy via Aldo Greco, and the information would have filtered inevitably from the British embassy to the Metropolitan police. This was doubly the case because, once the arrest had been made, an English child was left without an English carer. Someone had to deal with that as she was no relation of Lorenzo Mura’s and Mura was merely sheltering her until other arrangements could be