Just One Evil Act

flowers carried by Primavera having been chopped in half at some time in the past. There were three floors to the villa and a cellar as well, and there were rows of windows, all of them shuttered.

After a moment of looking all this over, Inspector Lynley nodded. He glanced at Salvatore and said, “As you said, in England, we have places not unlike this: old distinguished homes belonging to old, distinguished families. They are at once a burden and a privilege. It is easy to understand why Signor Mura would wish to save this place.”

Salvatore took the inspector at his word. He himself knew there were great houses aplenty in Lynley’s country. Whether Lynley himself actually understood the passion of the Italians for their family homes . . . ? That was another matter, of course.

He drove them along the lawn on the gravel that encircled it. He parked near the steps up to the first floor of the place. Between these two sets of stairs, wisteria grew abundantly on the front of the building, nearly hiding another doorway, this one leading into the piano terra of the home. As they got out of the car, this smaller doorway opened, and Angelina Upman came out from what Salvatore knew was the part of the house where the kitchen and the other quotidian rooms were situated. She looked far worse than she had looked earlier that day. Lorenzo had not been exaggerating the truth of the matter. She was very thin, and beneath her eyes the flesh looked bruised.

At once, she became emotional at the sight of the English policeman. Her eyes altered from dull to luminous with tears. She said in English, “Thank you, thank you for coming, Inspector Lynley.” To Salvatore she said in Italian, “I must speak English with this man, for my own Italian is not quite . . . It will be easier for me. You understand why I must speak English, Chief Inspector?”

“Certo,” Salvatore said. His own English was somewhat serviceable, as she knew. If they spoke slowly, he would be able to follow what they said.

“Grazie,” she said to him. “Please come inside.”

So they entered into the bowels of the place where the light was dim and the atmosphere sombre. It was odd to Salvatore that she had chosen to lead them here. The soggiorno on the primo piano would have been more pleasant. The loggia outside also would have been welcoming. But she seemed to prefer the darkness and the shadows, which would make her less easy to read, of course.

Another interesting detail, Salvatore thought. Indeed, in this matter of the missing child, there were interesting details aplenty.

FATTORIA DI SANTA ZITA

TUSCANY

Angelina took them into a cavernous kitchen within the villa, a room that was hovering between centuries. It was outfitted with both the conveniences of a cooker and refrigerator and the curiosities of an enormous wood- burning oven, a vast fireplace, and a large stone sink in which one could bathe two Alsatians simultaneously. At the room’s centre, a scarred table held a pile of newspapers, magazines, daily crockery, and faded kitchen linens, and at this table Lynley and Lo Bianco sat while Angelina brought to them a bottle of the wine produced there on the farm, along with cheese, fruit, Italian meats, and some freshly baked bread. She poured them each a glass of Chianti but had none herself, choosing water instead.

When she sat, she took up one of the linen table napkins and held it like a form of talisman. She repeated what she had said upon greeting Lynley: “Thank you so much for coming, Inspector.”

“It’s mostly Barbara’s doing,” Lynley told her. “Frankly, she may have gone a bit too far this time to get her way in matters, but that remains to be seen. Hadiyyah’s quite important to her.”

Angelina pressed her lips together for a moment. “I did a terrible thing. I know that. But what I can’t accept is that this—what’s happened to Hadiyyah—is to be my punishment. Because if that’s the case . . .” Her fingers tightened on the piece of linen she held.

Lo Bianco made a noise in his throat that seemed to indicate his understanding of the concept: that there was always a connection between the forms of temporal punishment one suffered and the crimes of the heart one committed against other people. To Lynley’s way of thinking, this was a less than useful way of looking at what had happened.

He said, “I’d try not to think like that. It’s normal—believe me, I do understand—but it’s not helpful.” He smiled at her kindly and added, “‘That way madness lies’ is a good way to put it. Madness—clouded thinking, if you will—isn’t useful to anyone just now.”

“It’s been a week,” she said. “Can you tell me what it means that it’s been a week without a sign or a word? There’s been no request for a ransom and Renzo’s family would pay. I know they would. And people are kidnapped for ransoms in this country. All over the world they’re kidnapped for ransoms. Aren’t they? Isn’t it true? I’ve been trying to discover how many children are kidnapped in Italy every year. See—” Here she dug into the pile of newspapers and magazines and brought out information she’d printed from the Internet. “I’ve been looking and searching and trying to see how long it usually is before kidnappers . . . before there’s something to tell the parents . . .” She fell into silence. In this silence, tears tracked down her cheeks.

Lynley glanced at Lo Bianco. As police they both knew that Angelina was grasping at straws, that in this day kidnapping for ransom was far less likely than kidnapping for sale, for sex, for sick recreational murder, especially when it came to the disappearance of a child. Lo Bianco’s fingers rose and fell against the base of his wineglass. It was a gesture saying, Tell her what you will at this point as it is important only to give her a moment’s peace of mind.

“I wouldn’t disagree,” Lynley told her carefully. “But the more important point now is to go back and consider what happened on the day she disappeared: where you were, where Signor Mura was, where Hadiyyah was, who was around her, who might have seen something but as of yet not come forward because they’re not even aware that they did see something . . .”

“We were all doing what we always do,” Angelina murmured numbly.

“Which is, you see, an important detail,” Lynley reassured her. “It tells the police that, if you’re creatures of habit, someone could have seen this over time and planned how and where to abduct her. It tells the police that, perhaps, this was no crime of opportunity but something considered from every angle. It also explains why no one might have noticed anything because what would have been taken into account by Hadiyyah’s abductor would be exactly that: how to carry this child off without anyone noticing.”

Angelina pressed the table napkin beneath her eyes. She nodded and said, “I see that. I do,” and she rapidly told Lynley how they’d organised the day on which Hadiyyah had disappeared: She had gone to her yoga class, Lorenzo and Hadiyyah had gone into the street market, Hadiyyah had skipped ahead as always to look at the colourful stalls and eventually to listen to the accordion player, and it was there that they all would meet to walk to the home of Lorenzo’s sister for lunch. They did this without variation on their market day in Lucca. Anyone who knew them—or who watched them and waited for an opportunity—would have learned this.

Lynley nodded. He’d heard most of this already from Lo Bianco, but he could see that it gave Angelina a sense of hope being kept alive to give him the information. Across the table from him, Lo Bianco listened to this repetition of details with apparent patience. When Angelina was finished, he said to Lynley, “Con permesso . . . ?” and leaned forward to ask a few questions of his own. He did so in somewhat battered English.

“I ask a question not to ask before, signora. How was Hadiyyah with Signor Mura? All this time away from her papa. How was she with your lover?”

“She was fine with Lorenzo,” Angelina said. “She likes Lorenzo.”

“This you are certain?” Lo Bianco said.

“Of course I am,” Angelina told him. “Making certain . . . It was one of the reasons . . .” She gave a glance to Lynley, then looked back at Lo Bianco. “That’s one of the reasons my sister created the emails. I thought if Hadiyyah heard from Hari, if she thought at first that this was just a visit we were making to Italy, if over time she came to believe her father wasn’t going to come for her . . .”

“Emails?” Lynley asked.

Lo Bianco quickly explained in Italian: that Angelina’s sister had manufactured emails putatively from the