Just One Evil Act

Salvatore twisted Mitch’s hand sharply away from Barbara’s arm, bending the fingers back so far that Corsico yelped. He said, “Jesus. Call Spartacus off, all right?” He took a step back, massaged his fingers, and glared at her.

She said quietly, “Look, Mitchell. All I know is we went to a place where they make equipment for scientists. He talked to the managing director there for less than five minutes, and a list of employees is what we came up with. He’s carrying the list in that envelope he’s holding. And that’s all I know.”

“Am I supposed to get a story out of that?”

“Christ, I’m telling you what I know. When there’s a story, I’ll give it to you but there isn’t a story yet. Now you’ve got to leave and I’ve got to think of some bloody way to explain who you are because, believe me, once he and I”—with a jerk of her head at Salvatore—“walk into the questura, he’s going to fetch a translator and give me a proper grilling and if he twigs that you’re a you-know-what, we are cooked. Both of us. Do you understand what happens then? No breaking story at all, and how’s your mate Rodney going to feel about that?”

Finally, Mitchell Corsico hesitated. His gaze flicked to Salvatore, who was watching with an expression that combined distrust with calculation. Barbara didn’t know what the Italian was thinking, but whatever he was thinking, his face seemed to support what she was claiming. Corsico said to Barbara in an altered tone, “Barb, this better not be bollocks.”

“Would I be that stupid?”

“Oh, I expect you would.” But he backed off, showing upheld empty hands to Salvatore. He said to Barbara, “You answer your mobile when I ring you, mate.”

“If I can, I will.”

He turned on his booted heel and left them, striding towards the cafe near the railway station. Barbara knew he’d wait there for some sort of word. He owed his editor a Big Story in exchange for this jaunt to Italy, and he wasn’t going to rest until he had one.

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Salvatore watched the cowboy walk off, his long strides made seemingly longer by the straight-legged jeans and the boots he wore. They made an odd couple, this man and Barbara Havers, Salvatore thought. But the nature of attraction had always been something of a mystery to him. He could understand why the cowboy might be attracted to Barbara Havers with her expressive face and fine blue eyes. He couldn’t, on the other hand, understand at all what would attract Barbara Havers to him. This would be the Englishman who had first accompanied her to see Aldo Greco, however. The avvocato had spoken of him, using the term her English companion or something very like. Salvatore wondered what that term really meant.

Bah, he thought. He had no time for these considerations, and of what import were they? He had work to do, and it wasn’t for him to work out the details of a couple’s interaction on the street. Enough that the cowboy had taken himself elsewhere so that he could put Barbara Havers into the picture of what was going on.

He knew she was confused. Everything that had happened at DARBA Italia was a source of anxiety for her. She’d expected him to make a clear move that would take them in the direction she wanted to go: an arrest of someone who was not Taymullah Azhar. He was doing that, but he lacked the words to tell her that things were moving along.

Ottavia Schwartz had seen to that. While he was helping Barbara move Hadiyyah and her belongings from the pensione to his mamma’s house, while he and Barbara and the child had been eating their little meal with his mamma, Ottavia had been fulfilling his orders. In a police car, she’d gone with Giorgio Simione to DARBA Italia. She’d returned to the questura with the director of marketing. He was waiting for them now in an interview room, where he’d been—Salvatore consulted his watch—for the last one hundred minutes. A few more wouldn’t hurt.

He took Barbara Havers to his office. He pointed to a chair in front of his desk, and he pulled another over and joined her there. He swept a few articles on the desk to one side, and he laid out the list of employees provided to him by the managing director of DARBA Italia.

She said, “Right. But what’s this doing to help us sort out—”

“Aspetti,” he told her. He pulled from a pen and pencil holder a highlighting marker. He used it to draw her attention to the name of every department head on the list of employees. Bernardo. Roberto. Daniele. Alessandro. Antonio. She frowned at the highlighted names and said, “So? I mean, I see that these blokes run the show and yeah, okay, their last names are all the same so they must be related, but I don’t get why we aren’t—”

He used a red pen to draw a square round the first initial of each name. Then he wrote them out on a sticky pad. Then he unscrambled them into DARBA. “Fratelli,” he said, to which she said, “Brother.” This word he knew and he said, holding up his hand to illustrate what he meant: “Si. Sono fratelli. Con i nomi del padre e dei nonni e zii. Ma aspetti un attimo, Barbara.”

He went to the other side of his desk, where upon a corner lay a stack of files comprising some of the materials he’d amassed on the death of Angelina Upman. From these he pulled out the photographs from the Englishwoman’s funeral and burial. He leafed through them quickly and found the two he wanted.

These he placed on top of the list of employees. “Daniele Bruno,” he told Barbara Havers.

Those fine blue eyes widened as they took in the pictures. In one of them Daniele Bruno was speaking earnestly to Lorenzo Mura, one hand on his shoulder and their heads bent together. In the other, he was merely a member of the squadra di calcio who had attended the funeral to show their support to a fellow player. Barbara Havers gazed at these pictures, then she set them to one side. As Salvatore had assumed she would, she took up the employee list and found Daniele Bruno’s name. He was the director of marketing. Like his brothers, he doubtless came and went from his family’s business with no one wondering where he was going or why.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Barbara Havers cried. She soared to her feet. “You’re a bloody genius, Salvatore! You found the link! This is it! This is how!” And she grabbed his face and kissed him squarely on the mouth.

She seemed as startled as he was that she had done this because an instant afterwards, she backed away. She said, “Christ. Sorry, mate. Sorry, Salvatore. But thank you, thank you. What d’we do next?”

He recognised sorry but nothing else. He said, “Venga,” and indicated the door.

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Daniele Bruno was stowed in the interview room closest to Salvatore’s office. During the time he’d been waiting, he’d managed to fill the space with enough cigarette smoke to asphyxiate a cow.

Salvatore said, “Basta!” as he and Barbara Havers entered. He strode to the table and removed from it a packet of cigarettes and an overfull ashtray. He placed them outside the door. Then he opened a tiny window high on the wall, which did little to remove the fug of smoke but at least acted as mild reassurance that their respiration could continue for a few more minutes without one of them keeling over.

Bruno was in a corner of the room. He seemed to have been pacing the place. He began jabbering about wanting his lawyer the moment Salvatore and Barbara entered. Salvatore saw from the Englishwoman’s face that she hadn’t the first idea what Daniele Bruno was saying.

He considered the request for an avvocato. The presence of a lawyer could actually help them, he decided. But first Signor Bruno needed to be a little more shaken than he was.

“DARBA Italia, signore,” he said to Bruno. He motioned to a chair and sat himself. Barbara Havers did likewise and her gaze went from him to Daniele Bruno to him again. He heard her swallow and he wanted to reassure her. Everything, my friend, is well in hand, he would have said.

Bruno made his request for his lawyer again. He stated that Salvatore could not hold him. He demanded to be allowed to go. Salvatore told him that this would happen soon. He wasn’t under arrest, after all. At least not