Just One Evil Act

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Lynley went to the questura once he and Taymullah Azhar parted at Pensione Giardino. This police building sat outside the city wall, not far from Porta San Pietro, an easy walk from anywhere within the medieval centre of the town. The colour of apricots, it was an imposing Romanesque building given to sobriety and solidity, located a short distance from the train station. Police and other judicial officials came and went from it, and while Lynley’s entrance garnered him curious looks, he was taken quickly enough to Chief Inspector Salvatore Lo Bianco’s office.

Salvatore Lo Bianco had been brought fully into the picture about Lynley’s assignment to the case, he discovered. Clearly, the Italian wasn’t pleased about this. A stiff smile of welcome indicated where he stood on the matter of a Scotland Yard copper showing up on his patch, but he was far too polite to let anything other than perfectly—and rather cool—good manners indicate his displeasure.

He was quite a small man, Lynley topping him by at least ten inches. His salt-and-pepper hair was thinning at the crown, and he was swarthy of complexion with the scars of adolescent acne pitting his cheeks. But he was a man who’d obviously learned to make the most of his physical assets, for he was trim, athletic-looking, and beautifully suited. His hands looked as if they were manicured weekly.

“Piacere,” he said to Lynley, although Lynley doubted the other man was at all pleased to make his acquaintance and he couldn’t blame him. “Parla italiano, si?”

Lynley said yes, as long as the person speaking to him didn’t talk like someone describing the action at a horse race. To this, Lo Bianco smiled. He gestured to a chair.

He offered caffe . . . macchiato? americano? Lynley demurred. He then offered te caldo. After all, Lynley was a mad Englishman, no?, and everyone knew the English drank tea by the gallon. Lynley smiled and said he required nothing. He went on to tell Lo Bianco he’d met Taymullah Azhar at the pensione where they both were staying. He had yet to meet with the missing girl’s mother. He hoped the chief inspector would facilitate that.

Lo Bianco nodded. He eyed Lynley and seemed to take the measure of him. Lynley hadn’t failed to note that while he was seated, Lo Bianco had remained standing. He wasn’t bothered by this. He was in foreign territory in more ways than one, and both of them knew it.

“This thing that you do,” Lo Bianco said in Italian from in front of a filing cabinet where he had positioned himself. “This liaison with the family. It suggests to us—especially to the public minister, I must tell you—that the British police think we do not work well here in Italy. As police, I mean.”

Lynley hastened to reassure the chief inspector. His presence, he told him, was largely a political move on the part of the Met. The UK tabloids had begun to cover the story of the little girl’s disappearance. In particular, a rather base tabloid—if the chief inspector knew what he meant—was giving the Met a proper caning about the matter. Tabloids in general were not so much interested in the regulations of policing between countries as they were in stirring up trouble. To avoid this, he had been sent to Italy, but it was not his intention to get in Chief Inspector Lo Bianco’s way. If he could be of assistance, of course, he would be happy to offer himself in the investigation. But the chief inspector should be assured that his sole purpose was to serve the family in whatever way he could.

“As it happens, I’m acquainted with the child’s father,” he said. He didn’t add that one of his colleagues was more than merely acquainted with Taymullah Azhar.

Lo Bianco watched him closely as he spoke. He nodded and seemed appeased by all of this. He said knowingly, “Ah, your UK tabloids,” in a fashion that indicated Italy did not itself suffer from the same sort of gutter journalism that went on in England, but then he relented and said, “Here, too,” and he went to his desk, where, from a briefcase, he brought out a paper called Prima Voce. Its front page, Lynley saw, bore the headline Dov’e la bambina? It also featured a picture of a man kneeling in the street somewhere in Lucca, his head bent and a hand-lettered sign reading Ho fame in his hands. For a crazy moment, Lynley thought this was a form of strange Italian punishment akin to being held in the stocks for public ridicule. But the man turned out to be the only person of interest the police had come up with: an inveterate drug user called Carlo Casparia who had seen Hadiyyah on the morning of her disappearance. He’d been in for questioning twice, the second time at the request of il Pubblico Ministero himself. This man, Piero Fanucci, had become convinced that Carlo was involved in the child’s disappearance.

“Perche?”

“At first because of the drugs themselves and his need to purchase more. Now because he has not been in the mercato to beg since the girl disappeared.” Lo Bianco produced a philosophical expression. “Il Pubblico Ministero? He thinks this is an indication of guilt.”

“And you?”

Lo Bianco smiled, seeming pleased at having been read by his fellow detective. “I think Carlo does not wish to be further harassed by the police and, until this matter is settled, will not return to the mercato where he can be easily picked up for more questions. But you see, it is an important matter to the magistrato—and to the public—that progress be made. And this questioning of Carlo, it looks like progress. You will see that for yourself, I think.”

What he meant by this last statement became clear when Lo Bianco suggested Lynley meet the public minister. He was in Piazza Napoleone—“Piazza Grande, we call it,” he said—which was not far, but they would drive. “The privilege of the police,” he said, for few vehicles were allowed within the city’s wall, where most people either walked, rode bicycles, or took the tiny buses that scooted along with virtually no sound.

In Piazza Grande, they entered an enormous palazzo converted—like the vast majority of such buildings in Italy—into a use far removed from its original one. They climbed a wide stairway to the offices of Piero Fanucci. They were shown into his office without ado by a secretary whose surprised “Di nuovo, Salvatore?” indicated this was not Lo Bianco’s first visit to the magistrate that day.

Piero Fanucci, the public minister in charge of the investigation and, as was customary in Italy, the man who would ultimately prosecute the case, did not look up from the work upon which he was intent when Lo Bianco and Lynley entered. Lynley recognised this move for what it was, and when Lo Bianco shot him a look, he lifted one shoulder an inch. It was not necessary, this gesture told Lo Bianco, that he be welcomed to Italy with open arms.

“Magistrato,” Lo Bianco said, “this is the Scotland Yard officer, Thomas Lynley.”

Fanucci made a noise somewhere between his nose and his throat. He shuffled papers. He signed two documents. He punched a button on his phone and barked at his secretary. In a moment she entered and removed from in front of him several manila folders, replacing them with others. He began to look through them. Lo Bianco bristled.

“Basta, Piero,” Lo Bianco said. “Sono occupato, eh? ”

At this declaration, Piero Fanucci looked up. Clearly, he was not in a mood to care particularly about how busy the chief inspector might be. He said, “Anch’io, Topo,” and in response Lynley saw the chief inspector’s jaw set, either at being called “mouse” by the public minister or at the man’s lack of cooperation. Then Fanucci directed his gaze at Lynley. He was ugly beyond measure, and he spoke without the slightest attempt to ensure that Lynley understood his Italian, which was heavily accented, dropping endings off the words in the manner of the southern part of the country. Lynley picked up the gist more by the man’s tone than anything else. Either because he felt it or because he found it useful, outrage was what Fanucci projected.

“So the British police believe we need a liaison with the missing girl’s family,” he said, more or less. “This is absurd. We are keeping the family fully informed. We have a suspect. It is a matter of one or two more interrogations before he directs us to this child.”

Lynley said, as he had said to Lo Bianco, “It’s merely a matter of public pressure in England, generated by our press. The relationship between our police and our journalists is an uneasy one, Signor Fanucci. Mistakes have been made in the past: unsafe convictions, overturned imprisonments based on poor investigations, revelations of