Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

hair a
cascata
castana
: waves of darkness shot through with red in the sunlight, falling to her waist and asking for fingers to caress it and hands to brush it and someone—like Domenica—to tame it beneath the springtime sun.
    The child had darted first to the great fountain that shot rainbows into the crystalline air. It was a large circular pool on the lawn, midway between the great villa gates and the loggia that gave way to the enormous front doors. She had dashed next to the loggia itself, where the ancient sculptures in their curved embrasures still shockingly represented the antique Roman gods. She cried out a word that Domenica—from the window of her lodging above the barn—could not understand in the distance between them. She turned in a whirl of her beautiful hair and called out in the direction from which she’d come.
    Domenica had seen him, then. He’d walked onto the grounds in that way of his that she’d known from the time of their shared adolescence. He struts, said her girlfriends. He is danger incarnate, said her aunts. He is our nephew and we give him shelter as we must, said her father. So it had begun. And when he walked between the gates of Villa Rivelli with his smoky gaze fixed on the child ahead of him, Domenica’s heart had leapt high in her chest and the thorns of her garments had dug in deeply and she had known not only what she wanted—what she
still
wanted—but also what was meant to be. Almost ten years of punishment at her own hands, and had God forgiven? Was this her sign?
    “This you must do for me” had not been spoken from the mouth of God, but how did God really speak unless it was through his servants?
    The child had skipped to him and had looked up and had spoken, and in the distance Domenica had watched him tenderly cup the girl’s head and nod and touch her forehead. And then with his hand on her shoulder, he’d turned her from the enormous villa and he’d gently guided her on the path of amber
sassolini
and walked its curve to the old camellia hedge where an arch gave way to an expanse of beaten earth upon which the stone barn rose. Seeing him with the child like this, Domenica had felt the first stirring of hope.
    From within, she had heard their footsteps on the stairs. She’d gone to meet them. The door was open, for the day was warm, and streamers of brightly coloured plastic kept the flies without and the fragrance of baking bread within. When she’d parted the streamers, she’d looked upon them both: the man and child. He stood with his hands upon her shoulders. She stood with an upturned face lit with anticipation.
    “
Aspettami qui
,” he had said. He was speaking to the child, and she nodded to indicate she understood. “
Tornerò
,” he added. She was to wait in this place. He would return.
    “
Quando?
” she asked. “
Perché Lei ha detto
—”
    “
Presto
,” he said. He gestured then to Domenica, silent before them with bowed head and heart a beating boulder within her chest. “Suor Domenica Giustina,” he said although his tone was not one of respect. “
Rimarrai qui alle cure della suora, sì? Capisci, carina?
” And the child had nodded. She understood. She would remain here with Sister Domenica Giustina, to whom she had just been introduced.
    Domenica did not know the child’s name. She was not given it and she dared not ask, for she was not worthy of the information yet. So she called her Carina, and the child accepted this graciously.
    Now, she and the child were among the vegetables, nascent in April but soon to produce. They were weeding in the pleasant warmth of the day. They hummed separate tunes and periodically glanced up at each other and smiled.
    Carina had been there less than a week, but it seemed that she had been with Domenica always. She spoke little. Although Domenica often heard her among the goats, chatting to them, she communicated only in words or phrases or simple sentences to Domenica. Many times Domenica did not understand her at all. Many times Carina did not understand Domenica. But they worked in harmony, and they ate in harmony, and when the day ended they slept in harmony as well.
    Only in prayer did they differ. Carina did not kneel before the crucifix. Nor did she use her beads although Domenica had pressed into her hands a rosary carved from the pits of cherries. She’d hung it round her neck in a sacrilegious
collana
that Domenica had removed hastily and pressed back into her hands with the