Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

call. As for the rest of them . . . ? They were having a look round the grounds. It was a beautiful spot on a beautiful day, eh? Such a pity that the ladies who lived here never got to enjoy what it had to offer.
Giardini, fontane, stagni, un bosco
. . . The officer shook his head at the waste of such pleasures.
    “
Dov’è l’ingresso?
” Salvatore asked him. For it didn’t seem conceivable that access to the convent was gained by merely knocking upon the two great front doors. In this, he was right. The superior officer of the two
carabinieri
had gone round the side of the building. Salvatore and Lynley did the same. They found yet another officer stationed outside of a plain door set down a few steps. To him, they showed their identification.
    The police were notoriously territorial in this part of the world. Because there were so many divisions of them, turf wars were common when it came to an investigation. Often the first branch of
polizia
on the scene was the branch that wrested control of an investigation, and this was particularly the case when it came to the
polizia di stato
and the
carabinieri.
But things were much different on this day, Salvatore found. After examining their identification and gazing at them both as if their faces held secret information for him, the officer stepped away from the door. When it came to entering the convent, they could suit themselves.
    They went in through a vast kitchen, which was completely deserted. They climbed a stone stairway, their footsteps echoing between the plastered walls. The stairway took them into a corridor, which was also deserted. This they followed and finally arrived in a chapel, where a candle lit for the Sacrament was the first indication of life in the building since someone from within would have had to light it unless Captain Mirenda had done the honours.
    Four separate corridors led from the chapel, each of them at a corner of the room and one of which they’d just travelled. Salvatore was trying to decide which of the remaining three might lead them to a human presence, when he heard the sound of women’s voices, just a quiet murmur in what otherwise would have been a place of silence and contemplation. Footsteps accompanied these voices. Someone said, “
Certo, certo. Non si preoccupi
.
Ha fatto bene
.”
    Two women emerged from behind a wooden lattice that served to cover the doorway of the corridor nearest the chapel’s altar. One of them wore the habit of a Dominican nun. The other wore the uniform of a
c
arabinieri
captain. The nun halted abruptly, the first of them to catch sight of the two men—both in the clothing of civilians—standing in the convent chapel. She looked behind her for a moment, as if to retreat to safety behind the lattice, and Captain Mirenda spoke sharply.
    “
Chi sono?
” This was, she told them, a cloistered convent. How had they gained entrance?
    Salvatore identified himself and explained who Lynley was. They were there, he said, on the matter of the English girl who had vanished from Lucca, and he felt confident that Captain Mirenda was aware of that case.
    She was, of course. How could she be otherwise since, unlike the nun who’d stepped into the shadows, she did not live in a protected world. But it seemed that she had either been summoned to the convent on another matter entirely, or she had not connected the reason she’d been summoned to anything that had gone before this moment, especially in a
mercato
in Lucca.
    The nun murmured something. In the shadows, her face was hidden.
    Salvatore explained that he and his companion were going to have to speak to the Mother Superior. He went on to say that he knew it was irregular for any of the nuns to meet with an outsider—particularly if that outsider was male—but there was an urgent need since a direct relationship existed between a young woman of the name of Domenica Medici and a man who had taken the little girl from Lucca.
    Captain Mirenda glanced at the other woman. She said, “
Che cosa vorrebbe fare?
”
    Salvatore wanted to tell her that it was not a matter of what the nun wished to do at this point. This was a police matter, and the traditions of the cloister were going to have to be set aside. Where, he enquired, was Domenica Medici? Her parents had indicated she lived in this place. Roberto Squali had died on his way here. Evidence in his car proved the child had been a passenger at some point.
    Captain Mirenda told them to wait in the