Just One Evil Act

British police in this matter of the missing child, Magistrato.

At Fattoria di Santa Zita, they were welcomed by the telecronista, a sveltely dressed young woman who looked as if she’d come to television journalism via the catwalks of Milan so beautifully turned out was she. Bustling round with lights, cables, cameras, and makeup were the rest of the crew from the television news. They were unloading a van and readying an area in front of the old barn where Lorenzo Mura made his wine. There, a table of bread, cheese, biscuits, and fruit had been hospitably laid on for the crew. A table and chairs had also been set up on a terrace, wide stones overhung with wisteria coming into bloom. There had evidently been much discussion about this: the telecronista loving the location for its suggestion of springtime delicacy and the lighting man hating it for the complications it created in having to deal with shadows at the same time as he maintained the colour of the hanging blooms.

Fanucci strode to the location and gave it his approval. No one had asked for this, and no one apparently cared when he gave it. He said a few sharp words to a hapless young woman with a makeup case. She scurried off, returned with a third chair for the table. He sat here, apparently not intending to move from that point forward, and he indicated to her with an abrupt gesture that she was to see to his face with her powder and brushes. She did so, although it remained to be seen what she would make of his facial warts.

In the meantime, establishing shots were being taken by the cameraman: the vineyards falling off down the hillside, the donkeys grazing in a paddock beneath ancient olive trees, a few cattle down by a stream at the bottom of the hill, the many farm buildings. During this, the telecronista saw to her makeup in a hand mirror and applied a coat of spray to her hair. She finally said, “Sono pronta a cominciare,” to indicate her readiness to begin. But obviously, nothing was going to happen until Fanucci gave his nod of approval.

While they were waiting for this to happen, Angelina Upman came out of the winery. Lorenzo Mura was with her, speaking quietly. Taymullah Azhar followed, keeping his distance. Lorenzo seated Angelina at the table with Fanucci, and he bent to her and continued speaking. She looked much more fragile than on the previous day, and Lynley wondered if she was managing to eat or to sleep at all. He wondered the same about Azhar, who didn’t look much better than the mother of his child.

Fanucci didn’t speak to either one of them. Nor did he speak to Mura. His interests apparently lay only in the filming of the report for the nightly newscast. Anything that needed to be communicated from the police to the parents could come, apparently, from Lo Bianco or from Lynley. It seemed this included sympathy for their situation.

After Fanucci examined himself in the makeup artist’s mirror, they were given his approval to begin. The telecronista did her part first, reciting the salient details of Hadiyyah’s disappearance in the rapid-fire Italian that everyone on television in the country seemed to employ. She did so with one of the olive groves as her background. It was wisely chosen, serving as a nice contrast to the rust-coloured suit she wore.

Lynley didn’t try to follow her reportage, aside from listening for names. Instead, he watched the interactions among Lorenzo, Angelina, and Azhar.

Men were by nature territorial, Lynley thought, and Angelina was the territory upon which each of these men had staked a claim. It was interesting to Lynley to see how each of them demonstrated this: Lorenzo by standing behind Angelina’s chair, his hands on her shoulders, and Azhar by ignoring the other man entirely and folding a handkerchief into Angelina’s hands should she need it when the time arrived for them to make their appeal to the television viewers.

When the telecronista had completed her introduction to the piece, the scene shifted. The cameraman moved to the winery, where lights had already been set up. After a few words with the telecronista, he focused his lens on Fanucci.

Fanucci’s was, it seemed, the fire-and-brimstone section of the report. His speech was as rapid-fire as had been the telecronista’s, but Lynley caught enough to know that it was filled with threats and imprecations. The malefactor would be found and when he was . . . They had a person of interest to whom they were speaking and he would reveal . . . Anyone who was found to know anything that they had not yet transmitted to the police . . . The law did not sleep . . . The police did not sleep . . . If anything further happened to this child . . .

Next to him, Lynley heard Lo Bianco sigh. He took a packet of chewing gum from his jacket pocket, offering it first to Lynley, who demurred. With a piece for himself, Lo Bianco walked away. Fanucci in action, it seemed, was more than he could bear to watch.

When the public minister had completed his remarks, he jerked his head to indicate that the story was now to move to Angelina Upman and Taymullah Azhar. He rose from the table and walked to position himself behind the cameraman. There he stood like a prophet of doom.

The first movement came from Lorenzo Mura, who took himself out of the picture. There was no need to confuse the viewing public. It was enough for people to know that in front of them on their television screens were the parents of the missing girl. To throw in the complications of Angelina Upman’s private life here in Italy seemed unnecessary. On the other hand, thought Lynley, seeing Lorenzo Mura on the screen might jog another kind of memory in the mind of a viewer. He walked over to Lo Bianco to suggest this to the chief inspector. Lo Bianco heard him out and didn’t disagree.

Taymullah Azhar and Angelina Upman made their appeal. They did so in English—Azhar, of course, having no Italian—and it would be translated with a voice-over recording in advance of the night’s broadcast. What they said was simple. It was what any parent in the same situation would have said: Please give our daughter back to us. Please don’t hurt her. We love her. We will do anything to have her returned unharmed.

Lynley saw Fanucci snort at the we will do anything, which—although spoken in English—he evidently understood. Clearly, then, the public minister judged it ill-advised to throw an offer like that into the vast maw of an unidentified television audience. There were people out there who well might lead the parents on a merry chase when they heard such an offer: “Hand over a bundle of ransom money and watch us run you into the ground with false information about your child.” Fanucci strode over to Lo Bianco’s other side and said something to him tersely. Lo Bianco looked noncommittal.

Finally, it was over. At the table, Azhar said something quietly to Angelina, his hand on her wrist. Angelina pressed his handkerchief to her eyes, and he brushed her hair off her cheek. The cameraman caught this tender gesture on tape at the direction of the telecronista. Lorenzo Mura saw it all, scowled, and left them to each other.

He went into the winery, where Lynley assumed he would remain in something of a temper until everyone was gone. But he was wrong. Instead, Lorenzo emerged with a tray of wineglasses containing his own Chianti, along with a plate bearing slices of cake. In what Lynley thought of as a quintessentially Italian moment, he distributed wine as well as cake to everyone there.

“Grazie” was murmured as was “Salute.” Wine was sipped or it was tossed back in a gulp or two. Cake was eaten. People seemed meditative, their thoughts on the child and where she might be and how she might be.

Only Azhar and Angelina neither ate nor drank, Angelina because she had been given no wine and she pushed the plate of cake aside with a shudder, and Azhar because as a Muslim he did not drink at all and the sight of the cake seemed to dishearten him.

He glanced at the others, seemed to note the wineglasses in everyone’s hand, and moved his own to Angelina, saying to her, “Do you wish, Angelina . . . ?”

She glanced—was it warily? Lynley wondered—at Lorenzo who, with the tray, was crossing the farmyard to Fanucci, Lo Bianco, and himself. She said, “Yes. Yes. I think I could do with some. Thank you, Hari,” and she took up the glass and drank with the others.

Lorenzo turned. His gaze went to the table where his lover and her erstwhile lover sat. He took in the instant of Angelina’s drinking the wine and he cried out, “Angelina, smettila!” And then in English, “No! You know you must not.”

They looked at each other across the farmyard. Angelina seemed frozen into place. Lynley sorted through what Mura had been trying to say to her: She wasn’t to drink and she knew why.

No one said anything for a moment. Then Angelina finally spoke. She said, “One glass won’t hurt, Renzo. It’s