Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

who’d been at the
fattoria
, purportedly to purchase a donkey foal. A thick envelope had passed between this man and Lorenzo, and this was the payment, Lorenzo had claimed. But the British detective had begun to wonder about this exchange. What was the Mura family’s financial situation? What was Lorenzo’s own? And what could that mean?
    Salvatore could see where Lynley was heading with this line of thought. For what Lorenzo Mura wished to do with his family’s old villa, vast amounts of money would be required. His extended family were fairly wealthy—they had always been so—but he himself was not. Would they leap to assist him if the young child of his lover was endangered and a ransom demand was made? Perhaps. But no ransom demand had been made, which suggested there was no involvement on Lorenzo’s part in the disappearance of Angelina’s daughter.
    “Yet there might be reasons other than money that he would wish for Hadiyyah’s removal from her mother’s life,” Lynley noted.
    “That would make the man a monster.”
    “I’ve seen monsters aplenty in my time and I expect you have as well,” Lynley said.
    “I have not entirely removed Lorenzo Mura from my thoughts,” Salvatore admitted. “Perhaps it is time for us—you and I—to speak with Carlo Casparia. Piero has had him ‘imagine’ how this crime was committed. Perhaps he can ‘imagine’ more about that day in the
mercato
when the child disappeared.”
    He told the Englishman that he would come for him at the inner city gate where they had met before. At the moment, he was at the
cimitero comunale
, he explained, paying monthly respects to his papà’s grave. “In an hour,
Ispettore
?” he said to Lynley.
    “
Aspetterò
,” Lynley told him. He would meet Salvatore at the gate.
    And so he was waiting. Salvatore fetched Lynley at Porta di Borgo, where the detective was reading
Prima Voce
again. Carlo Casparia was all over the front page another time. His family had been located in Padova. Much was being made of their estrangement from their only son. This would keep
Prima Voce
busy for at least two days, printing stories of Carlo’s fall from favour. Meantime, Salvatore thought, the police could get work done without concern that the tabloid might get too close to what they were doing.
    He stopped briefly at the
questura
to fetch the laptop upon which were loaded all of the photographs taken by the American tourist and her daughter who had been in the
mercato
when the child disappeared. Then he and Lynley took themselves to the prison in which the hapless young man was being held. For once a confession was obtained from a suspect or once he was formally charged with a crime, he was whisked to prison, where he remained unless the Tribunal of Reexamination determined he could be released pending trial. Since Carlo’s release depended upon having a suitable place to go—and clearly the abandoned stables in the Parco Fluviale would not qualify—his home would be the prison cell in which he currently languished. All of this Salvatore explained to Lynley as they drove to see the young man. When they arrived at the prison, however, it was to learn that Carlo was in the hospital ward. As it turned out, he wasn’t taking well to the sudden absence of drugs from his system. He was taking the cure in the worst possible way, and no particular sympathy was being extended in his direction.
    Thus Salvatore and Lynley found the young man in a cheerless place of narrow beds. There the patients either were restrained by one ankle to the iron footboards or were too ill to care about attempting to effect an escape by overcoming the male nurses and single doctor who were on duty.
    Carlo Casparia was of this latter group, a figure huddled into the foetal position beneath a white sheet topped with a thin blue blanket. He was shivering and staring sightlessly at nothing. His lips were raw, his face was unshaven, and his ginger hair had been shorn from his head. A rank smell came from him.
    “
Non so, Ispettore
,” Lynley murmured uncertainly.
    Salvatore agreed. He, too, didn’t know what possible good this was going to do or even if Carlo would be able to hear them and respond. But it was an avenue, and it needed to be explored.
    “
Ciao
, Carlo.” He drew a straight-backed steel chair over to the bed as Lynley fetched another. Salvatore eased a hospital tray over and set up his laptop on it. “
Ti voglio far vedere alcune foto,
amico
,” he