Just One Evil Act

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.

She said, “No! No! You’ve got to understand. Salvatore, I had to. He didn’t give me a choice. If I didn’t cooperate . . . You don’t know what he’s holding you don’t know what I’ve done you don’t know how ruined this is going to make me and make Azhar and if that happens then Hadiyyah’s going to end up with those wretched people and I know how they are and what they think and how they feel which is that they don’t even care about her and they sure as bloody hell don’t want her round them and there is no one else because Azhar’s family . . . please, please, please.”

“Mi dispiace,” he repeated. He was indeed sorry. He left her locked carefully in the room.

He returned to Bruno and Rocco Garibaldi. After a negotiated glass of wine to still his nerves, Bruno made the phone call to Lorenzo Mura from a telephone set up to tape their exchange. It was very simple. Bruno said tersely that they needed to meet. The police had been to DARBA Italia. Things were heating up.

Lorenzo Mura was hesitant. Daniele Bruno was insistent. They agreed to meet at the location that Salvatore had decided upon, its having the best possibility for an unobstructed view of their encounter as well as an unrestricted taping of their words. The Parco Fluviale in one hour, at the campo where Mura held his soccer clinics. Mura agreed to this and promised to be there. He sounded a little irritated but not suspicious.

Rocco Garibaldi attended them. He and Salvatore rode in the white delivery van, which, Salvatore explained to him, would be parked at the outdoor cafe some one hundred metres from the field Mura used. At this time of year, on a fine day such as this, the cafe would be crowded. Its car park would be filled. A van such as theirs would go unnoticed. Anyone who saw it would merely conclude that its driver had stopped for refreshments.

Daniele Bruno would, of course, drive his own car and leave it in the small parking area beside the campo. He would get out of it and wait at one of the two picnic tables beneath the trees. He would remain visible to Salvatore at all times, walking into the parking area once Lorenzo Mura arrived. Thus he would be monitored from the cafe. Binoculars would be fixed on him lest he decide to do something in silence to warn the other man that he was wired for sound.

As Salvatore and his companions had a far shorter distance to drive to reach the Parco Fluviale, they were there within fifteen minutes. Bruno was put into position, the white van was established in such a way that Bruno remained well within sight, and then, after testing the quality of sound from the wire, they waited the forty minutes that remained.

Mura didn’t show. An additional ten minutes past the appointed hour ticked by. Bruno stood from the picnic table and began to pace. With earphones on, Salvatore could hear his “Merda, merda” with perfect clarity.

Another ten minutes. Bruno declared that the other man was clearly not coming. Salvatore rang his mobile and said, No, my friend. They would continue to wait. At the half-hour point, Lorenzo Mura showed up.

He spoke first as he got out of his car. “What is it that we must talk about that cannot be talked about on the phone?” He sounded sharp, aggrieved. He was not yet worried about the conversation.

Bruno’s response followed the instructions he’d been given. “We must speak of Angelina and how she died, Lorenzo.”

“What is it you’re talking about?”

“The E. coli and how you meant to use it. And what you told me the use would be. I believe you lied to me, Lorenzo. There was no experiment with wine and the vineyards that you had in mind.”

“And this is why you asked me to meet you here?” Lorenzo demanded. “What is it that you think, my friend? And why are you so nervous, Daniele? You sweat like a pig in the heat.” He glanced round the area and for an instant seemed to look directly into Salvatore’s binoculars. But it was impossible that Mura could have seen anything other than a white van parked among many other vehicles some distance away from where he himself