Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

him into the position in which he found himself.
    “It’s called the Holy Face,” Azhar said to Lynley quietly as Lynley joined him next to one of the Duomo’s pillars. “It’s supposed to . . .” He cleared his throat. “Signora Vallera told me of it.”
    Lynley glanced at the other man. Here was anguish, he thought, a mental and spiritual crucifixion. He wanted to put an end to Azhar’s suffering. But there was a limit to what he could tell him while so much of what they needed to know was still floating out there, waiting to be discovered.
    “She said,” Azhar murmured, “that the Holy Face works miracles for people, but this is something I find I cannot believe. How can a piece of wood—no matter how lovingly carved—do anything for anyone, Inspector Lynley? And yet, here I am, standing in front of it, ready to ask it for my daughter. And yet unable to ask for anything because to ask such a thing of a piece of wood . . . This means to me that hope is gone.”
    “I don’t think that’s the case,” Lynley told him.
    Azhar looked at him. Lynley saw how dark the skin beneath his eyes had become, acting as a stark contrast to the whites of his eyes, which were themselves sketched with red. Every day that Lynley had been in Italy, the man had looked worse than the day before. “Which part of it?” Azhar asked him. “The wood performing a miracle or the hope?”
    “Both,” he said. “Either.”
    “You’ve learned something,” Azhar guessed. “You would not have come otherwise.”
    “I’d prefer to speak to you with Angelina.” And when he saw the momentary terror of every parent whose child is missing shoot across Azhar’s face, Lynley went on. “It’s neither good nor bad,” he said hastily. “It’s just a development. Will you come with me?”
    They set off for the hospital. It was outside the great wall of Lucca, but they went on foot as the route was not overly long and their use of the wall itself for part of the walk—sheltered by the great trees upon it—made the way both pleasant and shorter. They descended from one of the diamond-shaped
baluardi
, and from that point they made their way to Via dell’Ospedale.
    When they reached the hospital, they were in time to see Lorenzo Mura and Angelina Upman together leaving the place. Angelina was in a wheelchair being pushed by an attendant. Grim-faced, Lorenzo walked at her side. He caught sight of Lynley and Azhar approaching, and he spoke to the attendant, who halted.
    At least, Lynley thought, this appeared to be a piece of good news: Angelina sufficiently well to return to her home. She was very pale, but that was the extent of things.
    When she saw Lynley and Azhar approaching her together, she pressed herself back in the wheelchair as if she could stop whatever news was coming. Lynley understood at once. He and Azhar arriving as one to see her . . . She would be terrified that the worst had occurred.
    He said hastily, “It’s information only, Ms. Upman,” and he saw her swallow convulsively.
    Lorenzo was the one to speak. “She wishes it. Me, I do not.”
    For an insane moment, Lynley thought he was referring to her daughter’s death at the hands of a kidnapper. But when Lorenzo went on, his meaning became clear.
    “She says she is better. This I do not believe.”
    Apparently, she’d checked herself out of the hospital. She had good reason, she said. The chance of infection in a hospital was greater than the benefit of being under the care of nursing staff for what amounted to morning sickness. At least, this was Angelina’s belief, and she turned to her former lover for corroboration, saying, “Hari, will you explain to him how dangerous it is for me to stay here any longer?”
    Azhar didn’t look like a man ready to embrace a position as intermediary between the mother of his child and the father of her next child, but he was a microbiologist, after all, and he did know something about the transmission of sickness and disease. He said, “There are risks everywhere, Angelina. While there is truth in what you say—”
    “
Capisci?
” she cut in, speaking to Lorenzo.
    “—there is also truth in the dangers of illnesses associated with pregnancy if you don’t attend to them.”
    “Well, I have attended to them,” she said. “I’m keeping food down now—”
    “
Solo minestra
,” Lorenzo muttered.
    “Soup is something,” Angelina told him. “And I’ve no other symptoms any longer.”
    “She does