Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

these bacteria that are part of the testing of the equipments,
vero
? And you have no need to answer this, Signor Bruno, because my colleague has already ascertained this. He named all the bacteria for her. He was curious, naturally, about our questions. He said there are many controls in place that guard these substances so that they cannot be abused. Do you know what he means by that, signore? Me, I think it means that employees cannot put their hands upon these substances. Nor would they want to, eh? They are too dangerous, what is contained in the testing area. Exposed to them, someone could fall ill. At the extreme, someone could even die.”
    Bruno’s forehead had begun to shine, and his lips had begun to dry. Salvatore imagined how thirsty he must be. Once again he offered something to drink. Bruno shook his head, one shake like a tremor seizing his brain.
    “But one of the Bruno brothers . . . He comes and goes, and if he carefully takes some of the more dangerous bacteria, there is no one to notice. Perhaps he does it after hours. Perhaps early in the morning. And even if he is seen in Alessandro Bruno’s department, no one thinks about it because he is often there. The brothers live in and out of each other’s pockets, eh? So no one would think about his appearance in a place where he does not belong because he does belong there, because he belongs everywhere, because that is how things are at DARBA Italia. So for him to take this bacteria—and let us say his choice was . . . well, let us say
E. coli
—no one would notice. And he would be wise and not take all of it. And since it is in the incubator to reproduce itself, no?, whatever he takes will soon enough be replaced.”
    Bruno lifted a hand to his mouth and squeezed his lips between thumb and fingers.
    Salvatore said, “It was meant to look like a natural death. Indeed, he could not be sure death would even be the consequence although he was willing to try nearly anything, I expect. When there is so much hate—”
    “He did not hate her,” Bruno said. “He loved her. She was . . . She did not die as you think she died. She had not been well. There were such difficulties with her pregnancy. She had been in hospital. She had been—”
    “And yet the autopsy does not lie, signore
.
And a single terrible case like this one . . . ? A single case of
E. coli
does not happen, unless of course, it is deliberate.”
    “He loved her! I did not know . . .”
    “No? What did he tell you he needed this bacteria for?”
    Bruno said, “You have proof of nothing. And I say nothing more to you.”
    “This is, of course, your choice.” Salvatore opened the folders he’d asked for. He showed Daniele Bruno the photos of himself in earnest conversation with Lorenzo Mura. He showed him the autopsy report. He showed him the pictures of Angelina’s dead body. He said, “You must ask yourself if a woman who carries a child should die a painful death for any reason.”
    “He loved her,” Daniele Bruno repeated. “And this—what you have—is evidence of nothing.”
    “Just circumstances,
sì
. This I know,” Salvatore said. “Without a confession from someone, all I can lay before the
magistrato
is a set of circumstances that look suspicious but prove nothing. And yet, the
magistrato
is not a man who quails in the face of mere circumstances. You may not know this about Piero Fanucci, but you will.”
    “I want my lawyer here,” Daniele Bruno said. “I say nothing more to you without my lawyer.”
    Which, as it happened, was fine with Salvatore. He had Daniele Bruno where he wanted him. For the first time Piero Fanucci’s reputation for prosecuting based on virtually no evidence was actually a boon.
    LUCCA
    TUSCANY
    Daniele Bruno’s solicitor spoke English. He spoke, in fact, exactly like an American and with an American accent as well. He was called Rocco Garibaldi, and he’d learned the language from watching old American films. He’d only been in the US once, he told Barbara, laying over in Los Angeles for two days en route to Australia. He’d gone to Hollywood, he’d seen the imprints in cement of the hands and feet of long-dead movie stars, he’d read the names on the Walk of Fame . . . But mostly he had practised his language in order to see how well he’d done learning it.
    Perfectly well, Barbara reckoned. The man sounded like a mixture of Henry Fonda and Humphrey Bogart. Obviously, he favoured the old black-and-whites.
    After an