Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

to cause them further distress about a man leading a child into the woods until the police knew if this was, indeed, a relevant piece to the puzzle. Meantime, he said, he wanted an officer looking into all the car hire agencies from Pisa to Lucca. If a red convertible had been hired by someone, he wanted to know who, he wanted to know when, and he wanted to know for how long. And not a word about any of this,
chiaro
? he said. The last thing he wanted was Fanucci getting hold of the information and leaking it to the press.
    PISA
    TUSCANY
    Salvatore decided that it was time to have a word with Michelangelo Di Massimo. He also decided that the presence of New Scotland Yard, in addition to his own presence, might go some distance towards rattling the man. Since he’d been in Lucca looking for Angelina Upman and her daughter, he was the best lead they had. While it was true that he rode a motorcycle—a powerful Ducati, according to the records that Salvatore had dipped into—there was nothing to stop him from borrowing a vehicle from another, nor was there anything to stop him from hiring one for a single day to take him first into Lucca and then into the Apuan Alps.
    He rang DI Lynley and then fetched him at Porta di Borgo, one of the surviving gates of the internal, older walls that had once encircled the town. The London man had walked the short distance from the
anfiteatro
. He was waiting just outside the arch, flipping through the pages of
Prima Voce.
He slid into the passenger’s seat and said in his careful Italian, “The tabloids are choosing your drug addict, it seems.”
    Salvatore chuckled. “They must choose someone. It is their way.”
    “Or, if they don’t have a suspect, they go after the police, yes?” Lynley said.
    Salvatore glanced in his direction and smiled. “They will do what they will do,” he said.
    “May I ask: Is someone leaking to the papers?”
    “
Come un rubinetto che perde acqua
,” Salvatore told him. “But this faucet’s dripping has them well occupied. Their concentration on Carlo keeps them away from what we’re doing and what we know.”
    “What’s made you decide to talk to him now?” Lynley asked, in reference to Michelangelo Di Massimo.
    Salvatore made the turn that would take them to Piazza Santa Maria del Borgo. It was crowded here, as usual, a combination of
parcheggio
for tour buses and milling tourist groups trying to orient themselves in the town as the bright sunlight fell upon their shoulders. At the piazza’s north side, Porta Santa Maria gave Salvatore access to the
viale
that encircled the town. They would take this roadway to navigate quickly round the wall and glide over to the
autostrada
.
    He told Lynley about the reported sighting in the Apuan Alps: a red convertible, a child, a man, their heading into the woods together. Lynley said astutely, “And this man . . . was he blond?”
    Salvatore said, “This we do not know from the sighting.”
    “But it would seem . . .” Lynley looked doubtful. “With someone looking as Di Massimo looks, that would have been noticed certainly?”
    “Who knows what will be remembered from one moment to the next, eh,
Ispettore
?” Salvatore said. “You may be right and our journey to Pisa may be for nothing, but the facts remain: He was looking for them in Lucca and he plays football for Pisa, so we have a possible connection between him and Mura. If that means something, it is time we learned what. I have a feeling about this Di Massimo.”
    He didn’t tell the London man the rest of what he knew about Di Massimo just then. But there were reasons beyond the man’s ridiculous blond hair that Salvatore knew who the Pisan was.
    Michelangelo Di Massimo had an office along the river in Pisa, walking distance from Campo dei Miracoli as well as from the university. There were people who found this section of the city reminiscent of Venice, but Salvatore had never been able to see it. The only things Venice and this part of Pisa had in common were water and ancient
palazzi
. In Pisa, the first was sluggish and unclean, and the second were uninspiring. No one, he thought, would be writing poetry about Pisa’s riverside anytime soon.
    When they reached the building that held Di Massimo’s home and office—which were one and the same—there was no answer when Salvatore rang the bell. But at the tobacconist two doors away, they discovered that the Pisan was having his regular hair appointment. They would find