Just One Evil Act

by Elizabeth George

  Hearing this, she’d thought back frantically. When it came to Doughty and his merry crew, she’d been more than careful with what she’d reported to Lynley while he’d been acting as liaison officer. And when it came to Smythe, Lynley knew nothing at all. She’d covered her tracks by making absolutely sure she saw to the work assigned to her by John Stewart, and even if the ground was shaky when it came to everything she’d declared about her mum, it wasn’t as if that ground was going to crumble beneath her. No, she had to move forward and stick to the plan and get Azhar cleared of this mess.

  “Find the genius we need or do it yourself, Bryan” was her parting remark to the man in South Hackney. She wasn’t about to let Azhar go down for kidnapping.

  That final thought was fixed inside her head as she careened home. She sent a message of thanks heavenward when she saw that Azhar’s car was in the driveway next to the house. She sent a second message heavenward when she blasted out of her own car—parked behind his to block him although she wouldn’t admit that to herself—when she went through the gate and saw that the French windows of the ground-floor flat were open to the pleasant day.

  She hurried over to the flat. At the doors, she called out his name. He came from the bedroom as if materialising out of shadow. One look at his face and she knew he’d been told. Lynley had promised her he would make no attempt to reach Azhar, but he’d also informed her that the Italians would probably contact him. Or perhaps Lorenzo Mura would. But in any case, it was likely that he already knew.

  “Inspector Lo Bianco only phoned me as a courtesy” was how Lynley had put it.

  “Did he say anything about Hadiyyah?” Barbara had asked.

  “Only that she remains with Mura for now.”

  “For God’s sake, how did it happen?” she demanded. “This isn’t the sodding nineteenth century. Women don’t just die of morning sickness.”

  “Everyone’s in agreement on that.”

  “Which means?”

  “There’ll be an autopsy.”

  Now, confronted with Taymullah Azhar, Barbara said, “Bloody hell, Azhar. What happened to her?”

  He came to her and without a thought she took him into her arms. He was wooden. He said, “She would not listen. Lorenzo wanted her to remain in hospital, but she would not agree to that. She thought she knew best when she didn’t know at all.”

  “How is Hadiyyah? Have you spoken to Hadiyyah?” She released him and gazed into his face. “Who phoned you with the news? Lorenzo?”

  He shook his head. “Her father.”

  “Oh my God.” Barbara could only imagine how the conversation with Angelina’s father might have gone. Probably along the lines of “She’s dead, you bloody bastard, and since it’s down to you that she ever took herself to Italy in the first place, I hope you choke on the sodding champagne you’re going to want to swill.”

  “But what happened to her?” Barbara led Azhar to the sitting room, where she urged him onto the sofa and sat at his side. He seemed a combination of still stunned from the news and trying to come to terms with it. She put her hand on his arm, raised it to his shoulder.

  “Kidney failure,” he said.

  “How the hell is that possible? Why the hell wouldn’t the doctors have known? There would have been signs, wouldn’t there? There would have to be signs.”

  “I do not know. Her pregnancy was difficult, evidently. It had been so when she carried Hadiyyah as well. When things worsened for her, she thought she’d eaten something bad. But then she recovered—or she said she’d recovered—but I think perhaps . . . This was due to Hadiyyah.”

  “Her illness?”

  “Her wanting to leave hospital. Her insisting upon that. How could she stay there when Hadiyyah was missing and when Hadiyyah—and not Angelina—was what was more important? So by the time she had Hadiyyah back unharmed and by the time she became ill once again, it was too late. She was more ill than anyone suspected.” He looked at her. His eyes seemed hollow. “This is all I know, Barbara.”

  “Have you spoken to Hadiyyah?”

  “I rang at once. He would not allow it.”

  “Who? You mean Lorenzo? That’s bloody insane. What right has he to keep you from . . .” Her voice drifted off, and her throat grew so tight as the logical question rose to her lips unbidden. “Azhar, what’s to happen to Hadiyyah? What’s going on?”

  “Angelina’s parents are going to Italy. Bathsheba as well. They’re on their way now, I expect.”

  “And you?”

  “I was packing when I heard your voice.”

  LUCCA

  TUSCANY

  Nicodemo Triglia wasn’t concerned about the sudden death of Angelina Upman other than as the misfortune it was. His brief was the kidnapping of the woman’s daughter, and Nicodemo was a man who stuck to his brief like a fly in a pool of honey. Unless he was told there was a connection between two events, he assumed there was none. Salvatore knew this about the man. Nicodemo’s tunnel vision was legendary, which made him useful to il Pubblico Ministero and maddening for anyone else who had to work with him. But in this instance, that tunnel vision was going to be of benefit to Salvatore.

  For safety’s sake, he was meeting with Cinzia Ruocco in a neutral environment. Piazza San Michele was littered with cafés facing the white Chiesa di San Michele in Foro, and on this particular day its vicinity was enhanced by a clothing and dry goods market that had been set up on the church’s south side. So the piazza was crowded both with visitors to Lucca and with Lucchese searching for bargains among the cheap clothes. His meeting with Cinzia would thus be unnoticed, which was important to Salvatore.

  He had been informed of the sudden death of Angelina Upman by Lorenzo Mura in the late evening of the previous day. The man had turned up at Torre Lo Bianco—it was hardly a secret where Salvatore lived—and had charged up the stairs to the very top of the tower when Salvatore’s mamma had pointed the way. Salvatore was enjoying his regular evening’s caffè corretto when pounding footsteps on the stairs to his aerie caused him to turn from his view of the city.

  Mura was a man deranged. At first, Salvatore had no idea what he was talking about. When he cried out, “She’s dead! Do something! He killed her!” and raised his hands to beat upon his temples as he wept, Salvatore had only stared at him in incomprehension. His first horrified thought was of the child.

  He said, “What? How?”

  Lorenzo crossed the tower to him and grabbed his arm in a grip that crushed his sinews right to the bone. “He did it to her. He would stop at nothing to have the child back. Do you not see? I know he has done this.”

  At that, Salvatore knew what he should have known the moment Lorenzo had come into his view. He was speaking of Angelina. Somehow Angelina Upman had died, and Mura’s grief was unmanning him.

  But how was it even possible that the woman had died? he asked himself. To Lorenzo, he said, “Si sieda, signore,” and he led him to one of the wooden benches that sided the large square planter in the centre of the roof. “Mi dica,” he murmured, and he waited for Lorenzo to calm himself enough to tell him what had happened.

  She had become weak, Mura told him. She had become lethargic. She could not eat. She would not move from the loggia. She kept declaring she would soon enough be well. She kept promising that she needed only to regain her strength after the terrible ordeal when Hadiyyah had been missing. And then she could not be awakened from an afternoon pisolino. An ambulance was called. She died the next morning.

  “He did this to her,” Lorenzo cried. “Do something, for the love of God.”

  “But, Signor Mura,” Salvatore had said, “how could anyone be involved in this, let alone the professor? He is in London. He has been there for days. Tell me what the doctors are saying.”

  “What does it matter what they say? He fed her something, he gave her something, he poisoned her, he poisoned
our water, it all took time so that she would die after his departure to London.”

  “But, Signor Mura—”

  “No!” Mura shouted. “Mi senta! Mi senta! He pretends to reach peace with Angelina. This is easy for him because already he has killed her and what he’s given her resides within her, waiting . . . just waiting . . . And when he’s gone, she dies and this is what happened, and you must do something.”

  So Salvatore promised he would explore what had happened. Cinzia Ruocco was his first step. A sudden death such as this . . . There would be an autopsy. Angelina Upman had been under the care of a doctor, sì, but this care had been for her pregnancy and that doctor certainly would sign no certificate declaring that one of his patients had died of pregnancy. So he would meet with and speak to Cinzia Ruocco, the medical examiner.

  Now, Salvatore stood when he saw Cinzia approaching through the crowded piazza. God, he thought in his usual response to the sight of her, such a beautiful woman to be carving up bodies, such a heart beating within her magnificent chest. She was the kind of woman willing to mar her own beauty and then to display the result of that marring for all to see, as she did now. She wore a sleeveless dress so the scars from the acid she’d poured down her arm were fully displayed. These had spared her from the marriage that her father had insisted she make in Naples. She never spoke of this, but Salvatore had looked into her past and her family’s connection to the Camorra. It had been a simple matter to learn that Cinzia Ruocco allowed no person other than herself to dictate her fate.

  Salvatore raised a hand so that she would see him. She nodded briskly and strode to join him, oblivious to those whose stares went from the perfection of her face and her figure to the terrible disfigurement of her arm. She’d spared her hand when she’d used the acid. She had been desperate when she’d done it, but she’d never been a fool.

  “Grazie per avermi incontrato,” Salvatore told her. She was busy and to take time from her schedule to meet him here in the piazza was an act of friendship he would remember.

  She sat and took his offered cigarette. He lit it for her, lit one for himself, and raised his chin at a waiter lingering by the door that led into the café’s interior with its display of baked goods. When the waiter advanced upon them, Cinzia glanced at her watch and ordered a cappuccino. Salvatore requested another caffè macchiato. He shook his head at the offer of un dolce. Cinzia did the same.

  She leaned back in her chair and gazed at the piazza. Across from them beneath a loggia, a guitarist, a violinist, and an accordionist were setting up shop for the day. Next to them, a venditore dei fiori did likewise, filling buckets with bouquets.

  “Lorenzo Mura came to see me last evening,” Salvatore told her. “Che cos’è successo?”

  Cinzia drew in on her cigarette. Like a woman of fifty years in the past, she made cigarette smoking look glamorous. She needed to give it up, as did he. They would both die of it if they were not careful. She said, “Ah. Signora Upman, no? Her kidneys failed, Salvatore. They were failing all along, but because of the pregnancy . . .” She flicked ash expertly from the cigarette. “Doctors don’t know it all. We put our faith in them when often we should listen to what our bodies are telling us instead. Her doctor heard from her some symptoms: vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration. A bit of spoiled food, he decided, along with the morning sickness, was at the root of the problem. She was in a delicate state anyway—susceptible to illness, eh?—so perhaps a bug of some sort had easy access to her system. Give her much fluid, take a family history from her, do a few tests, and in the meantime, just for safety’s sake, treat her with a course of antibiotics.” Again she drew in on her cigarette. Again she tapped it on an ashtray at the table’s centre, and she added, “I suspect he killed her.”

  “Signor Mura?”

  She eyed him. “I speak of the doctor, Salvatore.”

  He said nothing for a moment as their coffees were placed on their table. The waiter took a quick opportunity to gaze admiringly at Cinzia’s cleavage, and he winked at Salvatore. Salvatore frowned. The waiter departed hastily.

  Salvatore said, “How?”

  “I suspect his treatment did the job. Consider, Salvatore: A pregnant woman goes to hospital. She presents her symptoms to the doctor. She can keep nothing in her system. She is weak, dehydrated. There is blood in her stool and this suggests something more is involved than morning sickness, but no one living with her is ill—an important point, my friend—and no one elsewhere has presented the same symptoms. So an assumption is made and a course of treatment that grows from that assumption is prescribed. In the ordinary way of things, this course of treatment would not kill her. It might not cure her, but it would not kill her. Her condition improves, and she goes home. Yet the sickness returns in double force, in triple force. And then she dies.”

  “Poison?” Salvatore said.

  “Forse,” she replied, but she looked thoughtful. “I suspect, though, it is not the kind of poison we think of when the word itself is said. You see, we consider poison as something introduced: into food, into water, into the air we breathe, into a substance we use in the ordinary course of events in our lives. We do not think of poison as something produced within us because of an error on the part of our doctors, these fallible people in whom we place our trust.”

  “You’re saying that something the doctors did triggered a poison inside her body?”

  Cinzia nodded. “That is what I’m saying.”

  “This is possible, Cinzia?”

  “It is indeed.”

  “Can it be proven? Can it be established for Signor Mura that no one is at fault in this matter? What I mean is that no one poisoned her. Can this be established?”

  She glanced at him as she stubbed out her cigarette. “Ah, Salvatore,” she said. “You misunderstand me. That no one is involved in her death? That this was merely a terrible mistake on the part of her doctors? My friend, that is not what I’m saying at all.”

  11 May

  LUCCA

  TUSCANY

  She was not Catholic but the Mura family had extraordinary influence, so she was given a Catholic funeral and an impressive burial at Cimitero Urbano di Lucca. Salvatore went to the funeral out of respect for the Muras in general and to show Lorenzo in particular that he was indeed looking into the untimely death of the woman he loved and the child she carried. He went to the burial for another reason entirely: to observe the behaviour of every person there. At a great distance from the gravesite, Ottavia Schwartz observed as well. She was tasked with surreptitiously taking photos of everyone present.

  There were three camps of people: the Muras and their friends and associates, the Upmans, and Taymullah Azhar. The Mura contingent was vast, in keeping with the extraordinary size of their family and the length of time they’d held influence in Lucca. The Upmans were a party of four consisting of Angelina’s parents, her sister—an astonishing identical twin of the dead woman—and this sister’s spouse. Taymullah Azhar was a party of two: himself and his daughter. This poor child’s confusion was total, her understanding of what had happened to her mother imperfect. She clung to her father’s waist at the gravesite. Her face was a study in incomprehension. As far as she had known, her mummy had had an upset tummy when she’d lain on a chaise longue on the loggia. She’d drifted into sleep and had not awakened. Then she was dead.

  Salvatore thought of his own Bianca, nearly the same age as Hadiyyah. He prayed as he looked upon this little girl: God forbid that anything should happen to Birgit. How does a nine-year-old child recover from such a loss? he asked himself. And this poor child . . . kidnapped from the mercato, then taken to reside at Villa Rivelli with the half-mad Domenica Medici, and now this . . .

  But that chain of thought led him ineluctably to the Pakistani professor. Salvatore observed Taymullah Azhar’s solemn face. He considered the way in which everything had come about to result in this moment of his d
aughter clinging to his waist. She was returned into his sole care, her remaining parent. There would be no sharing of her required, no to-ing and fro-ing from London for visits that would end all too soon. Was this present situation the terrible synchronicity of random and apparently unrelated events, or was this what it appeared to be: a convenient conclusion to the dispute over possession of a child?

  Lorenzo Mura clearly thought the latter, and he had to be restrained from a graveside confrontation with Azhar. His sister and her husband held him back. “Stronzo!” he cried. “You wanted her dead and now you have it! For God’s sake, someone do something about him!”

  It was an unseemly graveside display, but one not out of keeping with Mura’s nature. He was passionate in the first place. And now as a man who has suddenly lost the woman he loves and the child she carries . . . their future planned out together and then gone in an instant . . . ? The English present at the funeral and gravesite would always practise their stiff upper lips faced with a tragedy such as this. But an Italian? No. A release of grief, a reaction to grief . . . These things were natural. Reticence in the face of these things was what was inhuman. Salvatore only wished that the child of Angelina Upman did not have to witness it or hear what Lorenzo was shouting across the grave at her father.