Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

say about the Apuan Alps. To convince them that they indeed had to tell him whatever they knew, he saw he had no choice in the matter and told them of Roberto’s possible involvement in a serious crime.
    “
Ma lei, lei
,” the signora murmured to her husband. She grabbed on to his arm as if for some kind of reassurance.
    “
Chi?
” Salvatore demanded. Who was this
she
to whom the signora referred?
    After an agonised glance between them, Signor Medici was the one to speak.
She
was their daughter, Domenica, who resided at a cloistered convent high in the Apuan Alps.
    “A nun?” Salvatore asked.
    No, she was not a nun, the signore told him. She was—and here the man’s lip curled with his disgust—
una
pazza, un’ imbecille, una
—
    “No!” his wife cried. This was not true. She was
not
crazy, she was
not
an imbecile. She was, instead, just a simple girl who wanted and had been denied a life spent in the presence of God and a holy marriage to the Lord Jesus Christ. She wanted prayer. She wanted meditation. She wanted contemplation and silence, and if he did not understand that her deep love of her Catholic religion had created within their daughter a nature both massively spiritual and completely innocent—
    “They would not take her,” Signor Medici cut in, waving away his wife’s defence of their child. “She lacked the brains. You know this as well as I do, Maria.”
    From all of this, Salvatore attempted to put together the pieces of a puzzle that seemed to be growing by the minute. Domenica was not a nun, then. But she lived in the convent with the other nuns? She was, perhaps, an acolyte of some sort? Perhaps a servant? A cook? A laundress? A seamstress assisting with the manufacture of vestments for the province’s priests?
    Signor Medici barked an unpleasant laugh. All of Salvatore’s suggestions, it appeared, were far more challenging than his
figlia stupida
could have contended with. She was none of these things. Rather, she was a caretaker on the convent property, and she lived there in rooms above its hovel of a barn. She milked goats, she grew vegetables, and she fancied herself part of the community. She even called herself Sister Domenica Giustina, and she’d created out of table linens from their home here in Lucca a form of nun’s habit that resembled that which the sisters themselves wore.
    During the man’s recitation, his wife began to weep. She looked away from her husband and clasped her hands tightly in her lap. When the man was finished, she turned back to Salvatore and said, “
Figlia unica
,” which explained something of the grief she felt and the anger harboured by her husband. Domenica was their only child. She’d held her parents’ hopes for the future, which had been dashed as over the years it had become more and more obvious that the girl was not normal.
    Salvatore had to ask the next question, despite their distress at having to speak of Domenica at all. Could Roberto Squali have been heading to the convent where Domenica lived? Had he and Domenica stayed in touch since she’d gone to live there?
    This they did not know. Their nephew and their daughter had been close at one time as adolescents, but that time had passed as Roberto had learned the limits of what Domenica could offer anyone in companionship. This had not taken long and it was to be expected. Indeed, Domenica’s life had largely been defined by abridged relationships with people who came to understand that what appeared to be a deeply spiritual nature was, in reality, an inability to exist in the world as it was.
    All of this Salvatore gleaned, but none of it could eliminate the possibility of Roberto Squali’s driving his convertible into the mountains in order to see his cousin. It would be a piece of luck if a visit to the convent had been his intention. No matter her simplicity, there was a very good chance that Sister Domenica Giustina could tell them something about what had happened to the English girl.
    VILLA RIVELLI
    TUSCANY
    Domenica went to seek Carina. For the past three days the child had avoided her. During Domenica’s praying and fasting, she’d heard Carina moving about in the rooms above the barn, and she’d felt the child’s presence as she’d watched and waited for Sister Domenica Giustina to understand what had to be done next. Now she would be somewhere on the grounds of the Villa Rivelli. Sister Domenica Giustina felt secure in the knowledge that God would lead her