Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

shrubbery and filthy with having been ignored so long, but enough light came through them to see the passages that led from one vaulted room to another.
    The one she sought was deep within the cellar, and their footsteps echoed against the cool walls as they made their way to it. It was entirely different from the rest, lined with barrels but having a harlequin floor, and in this floor’s centre lay a marble pool. From this spot had come the sound of water that they’d heard. It bubbled up from a spring beneath the villa, and it filled the pool and drained from this to a hole in the floor from which it trickled outside to go on its way.
    Three marble steps descended into the pool. Along its sides, green mould grew. Its bottom was black. The grout that held the marble in place was dark with mildew, and the air in the room was pungent.
    But it was the pool itself that was important to Domenica. She’d never been in it. She’d avoided it because of the mould and the mildew and whatever else might have been living within the water. Now, though, she knew. The word of almighty God had told her.
    She gestured to the pool. She removed her sandals. She motioned for the child to do the same. Then she lifted her gown over her head and she laid it carefully on the floor. Just as carefully, she descended the slick marble steps and she entered the pool. She turned back to Carina and gestured again.
Fai così
, her movements said.
    But Carina’s eyes were wide. She remained immobile.
    “
Non avere paura
,” Domenica told her. There was nothing to fear in this place.
    Carina swung around. Domenica thought she might wish the comfort of privacy to remove the cotton shift she wore, so she hid her face in her hands. But instead of the sound of clothes being removed, there were racing footsteps against the floor as the child retreated.
    Domenica lowered her hands swiftly. No one was there except herself, slime on her legs from the water of the pool as she mounted the steps to climb out of it. She looked down to make sure of her footing. She then saw what the child had seen.
    Her tightly bound breasts were bleeding. Blood from the swaddling she used on the rest of her body was beginning to drip down her legs. What a sight she had presented to a child who did not know of her sin! She would have to explain in some form or another.
    For it was crucial that Carina have no fear.
    HOLBORN
    LONDON
    Barbara Havers had developed a snout among the members of the fourth estate. With him she had a back-scratch sort of relationship that she’d taken care to nurture. Sometimes he provided her with information. Sometimes she did the same for him. Mutual snoutship, as she liked to think of it, was rather unusual in her line of work. But moments arose when a journalist could be useful, and after her conversation with Superintendent Isabelle Ardery, Barbara reckoned she was at such a moment.
    The last time she’d met her snout, it had cost her a bundle. Foolishly, she’d suggested lunch and he’d been more than happy to oblige her. She’d ended up having to pay for the lout’s roast beef, Yorkshire pud, and all the et ceteras in exchange for a single name from the bloke.
    She wasn’t about to make that mistake twice as she could hardly put “gathering information from a tabloid journalist” down on a convenient expense account. So she made arrangements to meet her snout at the Watts Memorial. This worked out fine because the journalist was covering a trial at the Old Bailey anyway.
    It had begun to rain as she’d left the Yard. The downpour increased as she wended her way to Postman’s Park. She found shelter under the green-tiled roof that preserved the Watts Memorial from the ravages of both time and London’s weather, and she lit up a fag beneath a particular memorial celebrating an act of equine heroism in Hyde Park: a runaway carriage in 1869 and the requisite damsel in distress. The death involved was to her rescuer, one William Drake. Alas, Barbara thought, they didn’t make men the way they used to.
    And they certainly didn’t make them like Mitchell Corsico. When he appeared from the direction of the Royal Courts of Justice, he was garbed as usual, like an American cowboy. Barbara wondered, also as usual, how he got away with the get-up. Obviously, one’s manner of dress at
The Source
was not nearly as important as one’s manner of gathering information for the scurrilous tabloid.
    She had that in spades, and she intended to