Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

tiny crucifix nested among the beads, with the corpus facing upward so that she could see and not be mistaken about its use. But when she still did not use it for prayer, when she could neither mouth the words nor their responses at Domenica’s side in their morning, noontime, and evening devotions, she understood that Carina lacked the one thing necessary to eternal life. This was a sign from God.
    Domenica rose from kneeling among the burgeoning peppers. She pressed her hands into the small of her back, and the thorns questioned her with the pain of their injection into her flesh. Surely, they asked, it was time for their removal now that Carina’s presence suggested that she had been forgiven by God? But no, she decided. Not yet. There was work to be done.
    Carina rose also. She looked at the cloudless sky, not fierce as it would be in summer but pleasant and warm. Behind her, clothing hung on a line to dry: the garments of the little girl she was. She’d brought nothing with her aside from what she’d had on her back, so now she wore the white linen of an angel, and through it her child’s form was like a wraith with the spindly legs of a foal and the matchstick arms of a sapling tree. Domenica had fashioned two such garments for her. When winter arrived, she would fashion more.
    She gestured to Carina.
Vieni
, she said. Come with me. She left the garden and waited to see that the child shut its gate behind her and checked—as she had seen Domenica do—to ensure that its latch was fixed.
    Domenica led Carina to the arched opening in the camellia hedge that gave them admittance to the immediate area around the villa. The child loved this place and, as long as Domenica could watch her, she spent two hours each day exploring it. She loved the
peschiera
with its hungry goldfish that Domenica allowed her to feed. She danced round the fish pool’s rectangular length, and at its western end, she perched on the wall that overlooked the perfect pathways and parterres of the
giardino
below. Once, Domenica had taken her there, among the flowers in their precise arrangements, and they’d stolen a look at the Grotta dei Venti, its cavelike shelter of shells and mortar exhaling cool air onto them, seeming like the breath of the lichenous statues that stood on pedestals within.
    Today, though, she took her to another place, not of the grounds but of the villa itself. For on its eastern side, steps led down to a pair of great green doors and within these doors lay the cellars of the villa, vast and mysterious and disused for the past one hundred years. Time was the cellars housed wine, and the ancient barrels and casks spoke of this use. There were dozens of them, dust-covered and bound to one another by the webs of a century’s spiders. Among them, the terracotta urns that once held olive oil were black with mould and the wooden presses that had created that oil bore the rust of disuse upon their gears and a fine down of grime along the metal courses and the spout from which
l’oro di Lucca
had once seeped with delicious abundance.
    There was much to explore in the cellar: vaulted ceilings where the black mould grew, uneven floors of stone and tiles, ladders balanced against huge casks, enormous sieves lying in a forgotten pile, a fireplace with the ashes of long-ago fires still dormant within it. The smells were rich and varied. The sounds were hushed: just the cries of the birds outside, the sound of a goat bleating, the rhythm of water dripping, and above them the faintest vocal music as if the angels of heaven were singing.
    “
Senti,
Carina
,” Domenica whispered, a finger at her lips.
    The child did so. When she caught the disembodied singing, she said, “
Angeli?
Siamo in cielo?
”
    Domenica smiled to think that this place could ever be mistaken for heaven. She said, “
Non angeli, Carina. Ma quasi, quasi.
”
    “
Allora fantasmi?
”
    And Domenica smiled. There were no ghosts here. But she said, “
Forse. Questo luogo è molto antico. Forse qui ci sono fantasmi
.”
    She had never seen one, though. For if ghosts wandered the cellars of the Villa Rivelli, they did not haunt her. Only her conscience did that.
    She allowed Carina some moments to discover that this place held no danger to her. Then she beckoned her to follow. There was more within these dim, damp rooms, and its promise was Domenica’s salvation.
    There was faint light. It came from windows at the villa’s base. They were obscured by