Just One Evil Act

addict, him of the Ho fame sign. Salvatore had brought the youth once into the questura for a formal interrogation, but Fanucci was pressing for another. This would be, he’d instructed Salvatore, a more serious one, a lengthier one, one designed to “encourage” the unfortunate’s memory . . . such as it was.

Salvatore had been avoiding this. While Fanucci believed drug addicts capable of anything to support their habit, Salvatore did not. In the case of this particular drug addict, Carlo Casparia had been occupying that same spot at the entrance to Porta San Jacopo for the past six years without incident, a disgrace to his family but a menace to no one but himself.

He said, “Piero, there is nothing more to be learned from this man Carlo. Believe me, his brain is too addled to have planned a kidnapping.”

“Planned?” Fanucci repeated. “Topo, why do you say this was planned? He saw her, and he took her.”

And then? Salvatore thought. He produced an expression on his face that he hoped projected that question without having to ask it directly.

“It could be,” Fanucci said, “that we have a crime of opportunity, my friend. Can you not see that? He has told you that he saw the child, no? He was not so brain-addled that he forgot that. So why this one child in his memory, Topo? Why not another? Why did Carlo remember a child at all?”

“She gave him food, Magistrato. A banana.”

“Bah! What she gave him was a promise.”

“Come?”

“The promise of money. Must I spell it out for you what happens once he takes the child?”

“There has been no demand for ransom.”

“Why should there be ransom when so many other opportunities exist to make money off an innocent girl?” Fanucci counted them off on the fingers of his six-fingered hand. “She is bundled into the back of a car and bundled out of the country, Topo. She is sold into the sex trade somewhere. She is made into a household slave. She is handed over to a paedophile with a clever basement into which she is stuffed. She is given to a satanic worship group for sacrifice. She is made a rich Arab’s plaything.”

“All of which, Piero, would beg for planning, no?”

“None of which, Topo, we will ever learn until you question Carlo again. You must see to this without delay. I wish to read it in your next report to me. Tell me how else you intend to spend your time, little man, if not with this and in this direction?”

In answer to the insulting question, Salvatore first asked his blood to cool. Then he chose a significant detail that had arisen from the posters and handbills round the central part of town. He’d received two phone calls from two hotels in Lucca, one within the city’s wall and one from Arancio, not far from the road to Montecatini. A man had come by, in possession of a picture of the missing child in the company of a nice-looking woman, presumably her mother. The man had been looking for them, and he’d left a card with the hotel receptionists. Unfortunately, the card in both cases had been tossed away.

Fanucci swore at the stupidity of women. Salvatore didn’t bother to tell him that in both cases the receptionists had been men. What he did tell him was that this individual had been seeking the girl at least a month earlier or perhaps six weeks. That, he said, was the limit of what they knew.

“Who was this man?” Fanucci demanded. “What did he look like, at least?”

Salvatore shook his head. Trying to get a local receptionist to remember what someone looked like a month or six weeks or eight weeks after having seen the individual only once and probably for less than a minute . . . ? He extended his hands, palms up, empty. It could have been anyone, Magistrato.

“And this is all you know? This is all you have?” Fanucci demanded.

“With regard to this person seeking the woman and the girl, purtroppo, it is,” Salvatore lied. And when Fanucci would have begun a tedious lecture about Salvatore’s general incompetence or a diatribe ending with a threat to replace him, Salvatore threw the magistrate a bone.

He shared the fact of the emails that had gone from the child Hadiyyah and her father. “He’s here in Lucca now,” Salvatore said. “This is something that must be explored.”

“A London father who writes emails to his daughter residing in Italy?” Fanucci scoffed. “How is this important?”

“There are broken promises about visits he intended to make here,” Salvatore said. “Broken visits, broken hearts, and runaway children. It is a possibility that must be explored.” He looked at his watch. “I meet with these people—the parents together—in forty minutes.”

“After which you’ll report . . . ”

“Sempre,” Salvatore said. He would report something, he told himself. Just enough to keep il Pubblico Ministero satisfied that things were moving along under his idiotic direction. “So, my friend, if there is nothing else . . . ?” He got to his feet.

“As it happens, we are not finished,” Fanucci said. A smile touched his mouth without touching his eyes. Power still lay within his hands, and Salvatore saw he’d been outmanoeuvred again.

He sat. He looked as unruffled as he could. “E allora?” he said.

“The British embassy has phoned,” Fanucci told him. There was a tinge of pleasure in the tone he used, and Salvatore knew at once that the infuriating man had saved the best for last. He said nothing in reply. It was the least he could do to attain revenge. “The English police are sending a Scotland Yard detective.” Piero jerked his head at the television, at the recording they’d watched. “It seems they have no choice after the publicity.”

Salvatore swore. This was not a development he’d anticipated. Nor was it a development he liked.

“He’ll stay out of the way,” Fanucci told him. “His purpose, I’m told, will be to liaise between the investigation and the girl’s mother.”

Salvatore swore again. Not only would he now have to attend to the demands of il Pubblico Ministero but he’d also have to do the same for a Scotland Yard officer. More exasperating calls upon his time.

“Who is this officer?” he asked in resignation.

“Thomas Lynley is his name. That’s all I know. Except for one detail you should keep in mind.” Fanucci paused for dramatic effect and, as their encounter had gone on quite long enough, Salvatore played along with him for once.

“What’s the detail?” he asked wearily.

“He speaks Italian,” Fanucci said.

“How well?”

“Well enough, I understand. Stai attento, Topo.”

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Salvatore chose Cafe di Simo as their meeting place. In other circumstances, he might have met the parents of the missing child in the questura, but his preference generally was to save the questura for purposes of intimidation. He wished to see the parents as much at ease as he could possibly make them, and requiring them to come to the questura with its hustle, bustle, and inescapable police presence would not effect the degree of calm he wanted in them. Cafe di Simo, on the other hand, was rich in history, atmosphere, and delectable items from its pasticceria. It spoke not of suspicion but of comfort: a cappuccino or caffe macchiato for each of them, a plate of cantucci to be shared among all of them, and a quiet chat in the soothing side room with its panelled walls, small tables, and bright white floor.

They did not come together, the mother and the father. She arrived alone, without her partner Lorenzo Mura, and the professor arrived three minutes later. Salvatore placed the order for their drinks at the bar and, piatto di biscotti in hand, led them to the back of the cafe, where a doorway gave onto the interior room and where, conveniently, no one else was sitting at present. Salvatore intended to keep things that way.

“Signor Mura?” was how he politely asked about the signora’s partner. Odd, he thought, that Mura was not with her. In their earlier meetings, he’d hovered about like the woman’s guardian angel.