Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

of the immediate area of the lay-by where the car was parked. If nothing is found, every lay-by between the village where the mother of our witness lives and the start of that road into the Alps will be searched.”
    “Without the magistrate’s knowledge?”
    “Sometimes,” Salvatore said, “Piero doesn’t know what’s good for Piero. I must help him realise this in the best way I can.”
    LUCCA
    TUSCANY
    The stables in the Parco Fluviale stood perhaps a mile along the lane that skirted the springtime rush of the River Serchio and coursed through the southern section of the park. They comprised a derelict set of buildings, long unused for their intended purpose, and out in front of them a faded sign giving the costs of horse hiring had been the victim of ill-talented graffiti artists and hunters looking to practise their shooting on its surface.
    A crime scene van was parked on a narrow gravel access road into the stable area, and Lo Bianco pulled next to the police tape that marked the site as inaccessible to the few journalists who had already received word that some kind of action was happening in the
parco
. Lo Bianco muttered when he saw them. He ignored their demands of “
Che cosa succede?
” and took Lynley into the immediate vicinity of Carlo Casparia’s home away from home.
    At the moment, the activity was centred on a single stable backed by a tree-studded berm. This was situated behind a line of tangled shrubbery, most of which appeared to be wild roses coming into bloom, and it comprised a line of some dozen stalls with tall doors hanging open to display the disreputable contents within. Obviously, the entire place had been used as a dosshouse for ages by any number of people, and contained within it was so much rubbish that sorting through it all for a sign of a particular little girl’s presence was going to take weeks. Filthy mattresses lay everywhere. Used hypodermic needles, limp condoms, and discarded takeaway food containers were scattered on the ground. Plastic cartons, old clothing, and mildewed blankets formed mounds in corners, while carrier bags filled with rotting food sent into the air a foul miasma, which had attracted vast clouds of flies and gnats.
    Within all of this detritus moved two crime scene officers. “
Come va?
” Lo Bianco called out.
    One lowered his mask and answered, “
Merda!
” The other said nothing but shook his head. It seemed, thought Lynley, that they knew their occupation was going to be a useless one.
    Lo Bianco said to Lynley, “Come with me,
Ispettore
. There is something more to see in this place,” and he walked to the back of the stables, where a faint trail through the tall wild grass and wildflowers led up the berm and between two chestnut trees.
    Here, Lynley saw, a path had been created by dog walkers, cyclists, runners, and, perhaps, families out for a
passeggiata
on long summer evenings. It was well worn, and it followed along the top of the berm in both directions, mimicking the route of the lane through the
parco
as well as the course of the river. Lo Bianco began to walk along it. In less than one hundred yards, he broke to the left, descended another berm, crossed a wooded area thick with sycamores, alders, and beeches, and came out on the edge of a playing field.
    Lynley saw at once where they were. Across the field lay a patch of gravel suitable as a small car park. To the right of this two picnic tables rested beneath the trees. In front of them and across a path was the playing field, divided by more concrete paths along which saplings grew. Far to the west of all this stood a café in which, he assumed, the parents of the children who came to this place to be coached by Lorenzo Mura might wait, enjoying refreshments as they watched their budding football players undertaking another session with the man in order to improve their skills.
    Lynley looked at Lo Bianco. The chief inspector, he saw, was not the fool of Piero Fanucci, no matter what the
magistrato
might think in the matter.
    “I wonder,” Lynley said, indicating the playing field, “if Signor Casparia might be able to ‘imagine’ something more, Chief Inspector?”
    “What would this be?” Lo Bianco asked.
    “We have, after all,” Lynley said, “only Lorenzo Mura’s word for it that Hadiyyah was taken from the market that day. You must have thought of that at some point.”
    Lo Bianco smiled slightly. “This would be one of the reasons why I have had my own