Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

concentrating my efforts on those likely to have abducted the girl. As Mura himself was not one of my suspects—”
    “And your others have told you what, Salvatore? Do you keep other things from me as you have kept the Mura family’s involvement with this child a secret?”
    “It was not a secret, as I have said.”
    “And when they phone me demanding answers—these Muras—asking for updates, wanting names of suspects and details of the investigation and I do not even know their connection to this girl . . . what then, Topo?”
    Salvatore had no answer for this. His objective had been to keep
il Pubblico Ministero
as much at a distance from this case as he could. Fanucci was an inveterate meddler. Knowing what to tell him and when to tell him was an art that Salvatore had still not perfected. He said, “
Mi dispiace
, Piero. I was not thinking. This sort of lapse”—he indicated the copy of
Prima Voce—
“it will not happen again.”
    “To make sure of this, Topo . . . ,” Fanucci said and then made a pretence of considering his disciplinary options when Salvatore knew quite well that he had chosen one and planned it out in advance. “You shall give me daily reports, I think.”
    Salvatore had to protest. “But so often there is nothing new to tell. And then other days, there is so little time in which to fashion a report.”
    “Ah, but you will manage it, won’t you? Because, Salvatore, I do not wish to learn anything more about this investigation by dipping my nose into
Prima Voce
.
Capisci
, Topo?”
    What choice did he have? None at all. “
Capisco, Magistrato
,” he said.
    “
Bene
. Now. We go over this case together, you and I. You tell me everything. Every detail.”
    “Now, Piero?” Salvatore asked, for truly the hour was growing late.
    “Now, my friend. For now that your wife has left you, what else have you to do, eh?”

19 April
    VILLA RIVELLI
    TUSCANY
    S he was a sinner. She was a woman who had promised God the gift of her person if He would grant her a single prayer. He had done so, and now she was here, in the simple handmade cotton of summer and the rough wool of winter, where she had been for nearly ten years. She kept her breasts bound tightly against temptation. The thorns of the rose bushes within her care she tediously removed from stems of the plants, and these she fixed within the undergarments she wore. The resulting pain was constant, but it was required. For one did not pray for a sin, be cursed with its granting, and then go untouched to the end of one’s days.
    She lived simply. Above the barn into which she herded goats for milking, her rooms were small and plain. A bedroom furnished with a single hard bed, a chest, and a prie-dieu with a crucifix above it, and the rest of her lodgings merely a kitchen and a tiny bath. But her needs were few. Chickens, a vegetable garden, and fruit trees provided food. The occasional fish, flour, bread, cow’s milk, and
formaggio
came from the villa, and this she received in exchange for the care that she took of the villa’s grounds. For its inhabitants never left the place. No matter the season or the weather, there they remained within the walls of Villa Rivelli. And so she had lived, year after year.
    She wanted to believe that God’s grace would come upon her at some time. But as the years passed, it had begun to seem that a different truth lay at the heart of the matter: Sometimes our temporal suffering is not enough. Nor will it ever be.
    He had said to her, “God’s will isn’t something we can anticipate when we pray, Domenica.
Capisci?
” And she had nodded. For how could she not understand this simple tenet of her faith when his eyes spoke of the sin she’d committed, not only against God and against her family but against him most of all?
    She had reached to touch him then, only wanting to curve her hand on the warm flesh of his cheek and to feel the plane of a cheekbone that gave his face its handsome structure. But his lips formed a sneer of distaste, so she dropped her hand to her side and lowered her eyes. Sinner and sinned against. This was who they were to each other. He would never forgive her. She could not blame him.
    Then he had brought the child to her. The girl had skipped between the great gates of the Villa Rivelli, and her astonishment at the wonder of the place was ablaze upon her pretty face. She was dark like Domenica herself, with eyes the colour of
caffè
, skin the colour of
noci
, and