Just One Evil Act

by Elizabeth George

  Barbara felt only dread when he rang off, but the dread didn’t stop her. “What?” she asked. “What?”

  “It appears to be E. coli,” he said.

  Food contamination? she thought. Food? She said, “How the bloody hell did she die of food poisoning in this day and age? How does anyone die of food poisoning now?”

  “Evidently, it was an enormously virulent strain, and the doctors didn’t recognise what it was because she reported being ill earlier due to her pregnancy. That’s what they initially thought they were still dealing with: a more serious version of morning sickness. Once they believed they had that sorted, they did other tests and those were all negative.”

  “What sort of tests?”

  “Cancers, colitis, other diseases. Colon and bowel. There was nothing, so they assumed she’d picked up a bug of some sort, as people do. They gave her a course of antibiotics as a precaution. And that’s what killed her.”

  “Antibiotics killed her? But you said E. coli . . . ?”

  “It was both. Evidently with E. coli—at least with this strain of it, as far as I can tell from what Salvatore said—antibiotics cause a toxin to be produced. Shiga, it’s called. It finishes off the kidneys. By the time the doctors realised from Angelina’s symptoms that her kidneys were going, it was too late to save her.”

  “Bloody hell.” Barbara took this all in, and what seeped slowly into her consciousness was the fact that her body was relaxing for the first time in twelve hours and her mind was chanting, Thank God, thank God, thank God, thank God. Food poisoning ultimately leading to death, as unfortunate as it was, did not mean . . . what she did not want it to mean.

  She said, “It’s over, then.”

  Lynley gazed at her long before he said, “Unfortunately, it isn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “No one else is ill.”

  “But that’s good, isn’t it? They dodged the—”

  “No one, Barbara. Anywhere. Not at Fattoria di Santa Zita—that’s the land Lorenzo Mura owns—not in any surrounding village, and not anywhere in Lucca. No one, as I said. Anywhere. Not in Tuscany. Nor in the rest of Italy. Which is one of the reasons the doctors didn’t recognise what they were dealing with immediately.”

  “Should I be following this?”

  “When E. coli’s involved, it’s generally referred to as a breakout. Do you see what I mean?”

  “I see that this was an isolated case. But like I said, that’s good, isn’t it? That means . . .” And then she indeed saw what it meant, as clearly as she saw Lynley regarding her. Her mouth went dry. She said, “But they’d be checking everywhere for the source, right? They’d have to do that to prevent anyone else from getting infected. They’d be looking at everything Angelina ate and . . . Are there animals at this fattoria place?”

  “Donkeys and cows, yes.”

  “Could the E. coli have come from them? I mean, don’t animals pass this stuff on in some way? Aren’t we talking about . . . you know . . .”

  “Evidently cattle are a reservoir for the bacteria, and it passes through their system. Yes. But I don’t believe there will be evidence of E. coli at Fattoria di Santa Zita, Barbara. Neither does Salvatore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because no one else who ate there is ill. Hadiyyah, Lorenzo, even Azhar in the immediate days after Hadiyyah was found.”

  “So maybe it’s . . . Does it incubate or something?”

  “I’m vague on the details, but the point is someone there would have fallen ill by now.”

  “Okay. Let’s say she went for a walk. Let’s say she got too near to a cow. Or let’s say she . . . P’rhaps she got it somewhere else. In town. At the marketplace. Visiting a friend. Picking something up off the road.” But even Barbara could hear the desperation in her voice, so she knew Lynley would clock it, as well.

  “We go back to no one else being ill, Barbara. We go back to the strain itself.”

  “What about the strain?”

  “According to Salvatore”—with a nod at his mobile phone lying by his plate—“they’ve never seen anything like it. It’s to do with the virulence. A strain this virulent can take out an entire population before they identify its source. But that population falls ill quickly, in a matter of days. The health authorities become involved, and they begin looking at anyone else who might have seen a doctor or ended up in casualty with similar symptoms. But as I said, no one else has been ill. Not before Angelina. Not after Angelina.”

  “I still don’t see how that’s such a bad thing. I don’t see why Azhar’s been detained unless . . .” Again that steady gaze upon her. She read the grim nature of it, but she read something else, and she wanted more than anything in her life not to be able to understand that look. She said lightly, “Oh, I see. They’re keeping Azhar in Lucca because they don’t want him to pass it on to someone else, I expect. If he’s got it in him—like dormant or something—and he brings it back to London . . . I mean, he could be a modern-day Typhoid Mary, eh?”

  The look on Lynley’s face was unchanging. He said, “It doesn’t work that way. It’s not a virus. It’s a bacteria. It’s—if you will—a microbe. A quite dangerous microbe. You do see where this is leading, don’t you?”

  She felt her face going numb. “No. I . . . I don’t, actually.” All the time, however, her brain was pounding inside her skull, a chant of Oh my God, Oh my God.

  Lynley said, “If no source can be found at the fattoria itself or in the food supply that Angelina had access to both there and in Lucca and anywhere else she might have gone and if she remains the sole person infected, then where this all leads is to someone putting his hands on a virulent strain of the bacteria and putting it into Angelina’s system. Through her food is the most obvious means.”

  “But why would someone . . . ?”

  “Because someone wanted her dangerously ill. Someone wanted her dead. You and I both know that’s where all this is leading, Barbara. That’s why Azhar has been asked to turn in his passport.”

  “You can’t possibly think that Azhar . . . How the bloody hell was he supposed to do it?”

  “I think we also both know the answer to that.”

  She pushed away from the table although she wasn’t sure where she was intending to go. She said, “He has to be told. He’s under suspicion. He has to be told.”

  “I expect he knows already.”

  “Then I’ve got to . . . We’ve got to . . .” She brought her knuckles to her mouth. She considered everything: from the moment Angelina Upman had taken her daughter from London the previous November to where they were now with Angelina dead. She refused to believe what was lying in front of her like a dead dog on the path she was hiking. She said, “No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I have to—”

  “Listen to me, Barbara. What you have to do now is to take yourself out of this at once. If you don’t do that, I can’t help you. Frankly, I don’t think I can help you as it is although I’m trying.”

  “What’s that s’posed to mean?”

  Lynley leaned forward. “You can’t think Isabelle is unaware of what’s been going on, of what you’ve been up to, of whom you’ve seen, of where you’ve been. She knows it all, Barbara. And if you don’t begin walking the straight and narrow this very moment—here, now, and right in this room—the jeopardy you’ll be facing could cost you everything. Am I being clear? Do you understand?”

  “Azhar didn’t kill her. He had no reason because they’d made peace and they were going to share Hadiyyah and . . .” It was Lynley’s face that cut off her words. Even beyond what she herself knew about Azhar and about what he’d done to bring about his daughter’s kidnapping and to position himself to be there in Italy when she was “found,” it was the compassionate sympathy in Lynley’s face that did her in. All she could say was “Really. He co
uldn’t.”

  “If that’s the case,” Lynley replied, “Salvatore Lo Bianco will sort it all out.”

  “And in the meantime . . . What the bloody hell do you suggest I do?”

  “I’ve made the suggestion: get back to work.”

  “That’s what you would do?”

  “Yes,” he said steadily. “In your position, that’s what I would do.”

  She knew he was lying when he said it, though. For the one thing Thomas Lynley would never do was desert a friend.

  LUCCA

  TUSCANY

  Salvatore Lo Bianco received the request for a meeting not from il Pubblico Ministero himself but from Piero Fanucci’s secretary. She rang his mobile and brusquely instructed him to go to the Orto Botanico, where he would find the magistrato waiting for him. “He wishes to have a private word with you, Ispettore,” was how she put it. “Now?” was how Salvatore responded. “Sì, adesso,” she replied. Signor Fanucci had arrived at work that morning in something of a state, and a few phone calls both made and received by him had heightened that state. It was her suggestion that Ispettore Lo Bianco leave at once for the botanical gardens.

  Salvatore swore but he cooperated. The fact that phone calls had been made by Fanucci and received by him suggested he was on the trail of something. The fact that he had followed these phone calls with a demand for Salvatore’s presence suggested he was on the trail of what Salvatore himself was up to.

  The botanical gardens were inside the wall of the old city, on its southeast edge. In the month of May, they were flourishing, and where flowers had been planted, they were gloriously abloom. Very few people were within the garden’s walls, however. At this hour, the Lucchese were themselves at work, while tourists generally stuck to visiting the churches and palazzi.

  Salvatore found Fanucci admiring a mass of wisteria, which overhung an ancient stone trough that was filled with water lilies. He turned from the sight of branches dipping low with clusters of purple flowers as Salvatore approached him on the gravel path.

  Piero was smoking a thick cigar, newly lit. He regarded Salvatore with an expression that managed to mix personal sorrow with professional anger. The anger, Salvatore thought, was real. The sorrow, he reckoned, was not.

  “Talk to me, Topo” comprised Fanucci’s opening remarks. He flicked some ash from his cigar onto the path. He ground it into the sassolini with his foot. “You and the lovely Cinzia Ruocco have been meeting, no? You have an earnest talk with her in Piazza San Michele, and why do I suspect the two of you discuss matters from which you were told to step away? What has this to do with, Salvatore?”

  Salvatore said, “Of what importance is Cinzia’s speaking with me? If I wish to meet a friend for a caffè—”

  Fanucci held up a minatory finger. “Stai attento,” he snapped.

  Salvatore did not appreciate the threat implied in being spoken to in such a way. He’d had quite enough of Fanucci. He felt his temper rise. He sought to control it. He said, “I see the unfortunate death of this woman Angelina Upman as suspicious. My job is to look at things when they seem suspicious. To me, there is a connection here.”

  “Between what, may I ask?”

  “I think you know.”

  “Between the kidnapping of this woman’s child and her own death? Bah. Che sciocchezza!”

  “If that is the case, then the only fool will be me. So what difference does it make that I speak to Cinzia about how this unfortunate woman died? I would think it pleases you anyway, to have her dead.”

  Fanucci’s face reddened. His lips moved round the cigar and Salvatore could see his teeth clamp down. He, too, was trying to hold on to his temper. It was, he knew, only a matter of moments before one of them let loose.

  “What is that supposed to mean, my friend?” Fanucci asked.

  “It means that now this story of her death takes over the headlines. Poor Mamma of Kidnap Girl Dead in Her Sleep. And this turn of events directs the spotlight away from the kidnapping and away from Carlo Casparia at long last. It means that now you can release poor Carlo back into his life, which—as we both know, Piero—you were going to have to do quite soon anyway.”

  Fanucci’s eyes narrowed. “I know nothing of the sort.”

  “Please, do not think me a stupid man. You and I have been acquainted far too long for that. You know you have been wrong about Carlo. And since you cannot bear to be wrong, you have refused to release him. For then you would have to face scrutiny and commentary in the press, and this is something you cannot abide.”

  “You dare to insult me this way, Salvatore?”

  “The truth is not an insult. It is merely the truth. And to this truth, I would have to add with due respect that, in your position, an inability to face one’s errors is a very dangerous quality to possess.”

  “As is jealousy,” Fanucci snapped. “Professional or personal, it robs a man not only of his dignity but also of his ability to do his job. In all of your thinking and respecting, Salvatore, have you ever once considered this?”

  “Piero, Piero. Do you see how you try to alter our conversation? You wish to make it about me when it should be about you. You have wasted time and resources trying to mould what few facts you had into a case you could build against Carlo. Then when I would not accompany you down this ridiculous path you were determined to walk, you brought in Nicodemo, who would.”

  “And this is how you see things?”

  “Is there another way?”

  “Certo. For your jealousy blinds you to the facts in front of you. It has done so from the moment this little English girl disappeared from the mercato. This has always been your weakness, Topo. This jealousy of yours infects all that you do.”

  “You propose that I am jealous of what?”

  “You are a man broken by his divorce, living back at home with his mamma, no other woman willing to abide you. And we must ask what it must do to your manhood to see someone else—someone like me, so ill formed, so repulsive to look upon—still with women eager to be bedded. Bedded by me, a veritable toad. And on top of that, to have this same toad order your replacement in an investigation because your work was not what it should have been . . . ? How does that feel? How do your colleagues look upon you? What do they think of you as they follow Nicodemo’s orders instead of yours, eh? Little Topo, have you wondered why you cannot step away from this case as you’ve been ordered? Have you asked yourself what you try to prove with all of these actions behind my back?”

  Salvatore understood now why il Pubblico Ministero had wanted this meeting to occur away from his office. Fanucci had a larger plan in mind than merely goading and humiliating Salvatore, and Salvatore could only assume it had to do with saving face in the one way he could.

  He said, “Ah. You are afraid, Piero. Despite what you say, you do see there may indeed be a connection between these events. The child is kidnapped. Then her mother dies. If there’s a connection between these two occurrences, it cannot possibly be a connection having to do with Carlo Casparia, Michelangelo Di Massimo, and Roberto Squali, can it? For Casparia’s in custody, Squali’s dead, and that leaves Michelangelo Di Massimo somehow putting his hands on a dangerous bacteria and also somehow getting Angelina Upman to ingest it without her knowledge. And how, possibly, could that have happened? So if there is a connection, it follows that someone else—”

  “I have said it. There is no connection,” Fanucci said. “They are both unfortunate events but they are unrelated.”

  “As you wish,” Salvatore said. “To believe otherwise . . . This would be a problem for you, sì? But at least the unfortunate Carlo is no longer a problem, Piero, for if you wish it, you can release the information of this death from E. coli to Prima Voce in your usual manner, as a leak. Then the paper will fan the flames of public panic to find the source of this deadly contamination. And while that is happening, you can ease Carlo
out of the prison and by the time the papers have wind of it”—he snapped his fingers—“it has become old news. And hardly worthy of a story on the first page of the paper, eh? Death trumps kidnapping, after all, even if the corpse is not that of the kidnapped individual. You should be thanking me for making this possible, Piero, not quarrelling with me because I spoke to Cinzia Ruocco about how that poor woman actually died.”

  “You are being ordered, here and now, Topo, to stand down from this matter. You are being told to hand over to Nicodemo Triglia every bit of information you possess on anything related to the kidnapping of the English girl and the death of her mother.”

  “So you, too, believe they are related, despite your earlier words, eh? And what do you intend to do about that? Bury the evidence of murder so that you can pursue . . . Who is it you intend to pursue in the kidnapping now? It must be the hapless Di Massimo. He will be made guilty of the kidnapping while the death of the mother will merely be an unfortunate coincidence, a senseless tragedy following her daughter’s safe return. That is how it must be played so that you are not made to appear in the papers what you actually are. Blind, stubborn, lacking in all objectivity, and a fool.”

  That did the job. Fanucci erupted. Il drago could no longer contain himself. He advanced on Salvatore and, when the blow came, it was with some surprise that Salvatore realised how strong the magistrato actually was. He delivered the uppercut with brutal accuracy. Salvatore’s head flew back, his teeth driven into his tongue, and then the second punch hit him. This was a blow to his guts, which readied him for the third punch. This one put him onto the ground. He half expected Fanucci to fall upon him then, so that they would roll in the gravel like two schoolboys. But as it turned out, that might have damaged il Pubblico Ministero’s bespoke suit. So instead, Piero delivered an agonising kick to Salvatore’s kidneys.

  “You.” Piero grunted with each subsequent kick. “Speak. To. Me. In. This. Way.”

  Salvatore could do nothing but protect his head as Piero Fanucci went for the rest of his body. He managed to say, “Basta, Piero!”