Just One Evil Act

officers selling information . . . Oftentimes when the tabloids speak, the higher-ups react. That’s the case here, I’m afraid.”

Fanucci steepled his fingers beneath his chin. He had, Lynley saw, an adventitious finger on his right hand. It was hard not to look at, considering the position in which the public minister—doubtless deliberately—had placed them. “We have not that situation here,” Fanucci declared. “Our journalists do not determine our movements.”

“You’re very lucky in this,” Lynley said with all seriousness. “Were that only the case at home.”

Fanucci scrutinised Lynley, taking in everything from the cut of his clothes to the cut of his hair to the adolescent scar that marred his upper lip. “You will, I hope, remain out of our way in this matter,” he said. “We do things differently here in Italy. Here il Pubblico Ministero from the first involves himself in the investigation. He does not depend solely upon the police to present him with a case tied in ribbons.”

Lynley didn’t comment on the oddity of a system that, on the surface, appeared to have no checks and balances. He merely told the public minister that he understood how things proceeded and, if necessary, he would make certain that the parents of the missing girl also understood since they would, perforce, be used to a rather different system of law and justice.

“Good.” Fanucci waved his hand in an off-with-you-then motion that gave the advantage to his sixth finger. They were being dismissed but not before he said to Lo Bianco, “What more do you have on this business of the hotels, Topo?”

“Nothing as yet,” Lo Bianco said.

“Get something today,” Fanucci instructed him.

“Centamente” was Lo Bianco’s evenly spoken reply, but once again that tightening of his jaw demonstrated how he felt about being so directed. He made no further remarks until they were out of the palazzo and standing in the enormous piazza. Chestnut trees newly in leaf lined two sides of this, and in its centre a group of boys were elbowing each other, shouting to one another as they kicked a football in the direction of a carousel.

Lynley said to him, “Interesting gentleman, il Pubblico Ministero.”

Lo Bianco snorted. “He is who he is.”

“May I ask: What did he mean about the hotels?”

Lo Bianco shot him a look but then explained: a stranger coming to enquire about this same missing girl and her mother.

“Before her disappearance or after?” Lynley asked.

“Before.” It was, Lo Bianco told him, six or eight weeks earlier. When the girl disappeared and her photo was shown in the newspapers and on posters round Lucca, a few hotels and pensioni reported a man who had been seeking either her or her mother. He had, Lo Bianco said, pictures of them both. The receptionists and the pensioni owners all agreed upon that. They all, interestingly enough, agreed upon the man himself. Indeed, they remembered him quite clearly and were able to provide Lo Bianco with an adequate description of the fellow.

“From eight weeks ago?” Lynley asked. “Why are their memories so clear?”

“Because of who it was who came to ask about this child.”

“You know? They knew?”

“Not his name, of course. They did not know his name. But his description? That would not be so easy to forget. His name is Michelangelo Di Massimo, and he comes from Pisa.”

“Why was someone from Pisa looking for Hadiyyah and her mother?” Lynley asked, more of himself than of Lo Bianco.

“That is a most interesting question, no?” Lo Bianco said. “I am working on an answer to it. When I have it, then it will be time to have some words with Signor Di Massimo. Until then, I know where he is.” Lo Bianco shot him a look, shot another look at the palazzo behind them, and smiled briefly.

Lynley read in both the smile and those glances something that told him much about the man. “You haven’t told Signor Fanucci this, have you?” he said. “Why not?”

“Because the magistrato would have him dragged from Pisa to our questura. He would grill him for six or seven hours, a day, three days, four. He would threaten him, not feed him, give him no water, give him no sleep, and then ask him to ‘imagine, if he would’ how this abduction of the child occurred. And then he would charge him based on what it was he ‘imagined.’”

“Charge him with what?” Lynley asked.

“Chissa?” he said. Who knows. “Anything to keep the journalists supplied with details showing the case is well in hand. Despite his words to you, this is often his way.” He began walking towards the police car and he said over his shoulder to Lynley, “Would you like to have a look at this man, this Michelangelo Di Massimo, Ispettore?”

“I would indeed,” Lynley told him.

PISA

TUSCANY

Lynley hadn’t known that catching a glimpse of Michelangelo Di Massimo was going to involve a lengthy drive to Pisa. When it became obvious by their entrance onto the autostrada that this was the case, he wondered about Lo Bianco’s motives.

Lo Bianco took them to a playing field on the north side of il centro. There, a training session of football was going on. At least three dozen men were on the field, engaged in dribbling towards a goal.

At the edge of the field, Lo Bianco stopped the police car. He got out, as did Lynley, but he did not approach the players. Instead, he leaned against the car and removed from his jacket pocket a packet of cigarettes. He offered one to Lynley, to which Lynley demurred. He took one himself, keeping his gaze fixed on the players on the field as he lit up. He watched the action, but said nothing at all. Clearly, he was waiting for some sort of reaction from Lynley, something that would indicate that the English policeman had passed a test which had nothing at all to do with his knowledge of the rules of football.

Lynley gave his own attention to the field and the players upon it. In the way of many things Italian, on the surface the practice session appeared to be a largely disorganised affair. But as he watched, matters began to take on more clarity, especially when he noted a single individual who appeared to be attempting to direct a lot of the action.

This man was difficult not to notice. For his hair was bleached to a colour somewhere on the spectrum between yellow and orange, and it presented a stark contrast to the rest of him, upon which black hair grew like a pelt. Chest, back, arms, and legs. A five o’clock shadow that doubtless appeared at one in the afternoon. Given this and the general swarthiness of his complexion, it was hardly credible that he’d bleached the hair on his head, but this fact certainly went a long way to explain why several hotels and pensioni had remembered him as the person who’d come asking about Hadiyyah and her mother.

Lynley said, “Ah. I see. Michelangelo Di Massimo, no?”

“Ecco l’uomo,” Lo Bianco acknowledged. This said, he jerked his head at the police car. They began the journey back to Lucca.

Lynley wondered why the chief inspector had gone to this trouble of driving all the way to Pisa. Surely, a brief search on a computer at the questura would have produced an adequate photo of Di Massimo. That Lo Bianco had chosen not to use the Internet for this purpose suggested that there was more than one reason he wished Lynley to see Di Massimo in person and that reason had only partly to do with having an opportunity to observe the startling contrast between the hair on his body and the hair on his head.

Things became clear when their route back to Lucca did not take them at once to the questura but rather to the boulevard that followed the course of Lucca’s great wall on the outside of it. From this viale, they accessed another street that led out of the town and, as it turned out, gave them access to a lane leading into the Parco Fluviale. This was a long but rather narrow community park—a place for walking, running, cycling—that followed the course of the River Serchio. Perhaps a quarter of a mile along the way, an area of gravel offered parking for no more than three cars, with two picnic tables sitting beneath great holm oaks and a tiny skateboard park just beyond. There was an open space of