Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

be none.”
    “I daresay that’s normal,” Lynley said. “He’s uneasy, unsure of where he stands with you.”
    “I try to make it clear to him. He’s the one. He’s the . . . the endgame for me. But culturally . . . my past with other men . . . I think that’s what makes it difficult.”
    “I have to ask this,” Lynley said, moving his wicker chair closer to her. “I hope you understand. Every avenue regarding Hadiyyah’s disappearance has to be explored, and this is one of them.”
    She looked alarmed when she said, “What is it?”
    “Your other lovers.”
    “What other lovers?”
    “Here, in Italy.”
    “There are no—”
    “Forgive me. It’s a question of the past being a form of prologue, if you understand. My concern is that if you were involved with Esteban Castro while you were also seeing Lorenzo and still living with Azhar . . . I hope you can see how that leads to the assumption that there might be others that you’ve been unwilling to mention in front of Lorenzo.”
    Her cheeks flushed with the first colour he’d seen upon them since mounting the steps to the loggia. “What’s this to do with Hadiyyah, Inspector?”
    “I think it has more to do with how a man might act to wound you if he discovered he wasn’t your only lover. And that has everything to do with Hadiyyah.”
    She met his gaze for a moment so that, he assumed, he could read her face as she spoke. “There are no other lovers, Inspector Lynley. And if you want me to swear to it, I’m happy to do so. There is only Lorenzo.”
    He evaluated her statements: the words themselves and the way she spoke them. Her body language suggested she was telling the truth, but a woman accomplished at balancing relationships with three men at once would have to be a skilled actress to do so. That in addition to the fact that when a horse had spots, it was generally impossible to get rid of them, prompted him to say, “What would have changed you, if I may ask?”
    “I don’t really know,” she said. “A desire not to repeat the past? A step into adulthood?” She looked down at the blanket that covered her, fingering the well-worn satin that edged it. She said, “Before, I was always searching for something that was out of my reach. Now, I think my reach and my grasp have become the same.”
    “What were you reaching for?”
    She considered this, her delicate eyebrows drawn together. “A way to be my own person. And I kept expecting this distinct form of
me
to arrive in the hands of a man. When it didn’t—for how could it possibly?—I found another man. And then another. Two before Hari. Then Hari himself, along with Esteban, and, yes, even Renzo.” She looked at him. “I’ve hurt many people through the years, especially Hari. It’s not something I’m proud of. But it’s who I was.”
    “And now?”
    “I’m making a life with Renzo. We’re becoming a family. He wants to marry and I want that as well. I wasn’t sure at first, but now I am.”
    Lynley considered this: Angelina’s initial uncertainty about Mura and what that uncertainty could have meant to the man and what the man might have done to alter things. He said, “At what point did you become sure of him?”
    “I don’t think I understand what you mean.”
    “I suppose I mean: Was there a single moment when everything altered for you, when it became clear to you that what you have with Signor Mura was, perhaps, more important than seeking out other men to build—as you’ve said—an identity for you?”
    She shook her head slowly, but when she spoke, Lynley saw that she was adept at connecting the dots among his questions. She said, “Renzo loves Hadiyyah and he loves me. And you can’t sit there thinking that he might have arranged something . . . something horrible like this so that he could prove to me . . . or make me certain about him . . . And that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it, Inspector?
How
could you think it? How could you begin to believe that he would do something to devastate me like this?”
    Because it was possible and it was his job, Lynley thought. But more than that, because it would so obviously work to engage her entirely in Mura’s life if Hadiyyah should end up permanently absent.
    VILLA RIVELLI
    TUSCANY
    Sister Domenica Giustina allowed Carina into the
giardino.
The day was hotter than normal, and the fountains in the garden were enticing to the child. Had she not embraced God’s punishment for her sin of