Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

and to those we suspect of being paedophiles.”
    “So?” Lorenzo was the one to ask the question. He did it abruptly, the way one would expect of someone from such a distinguished family. They would assume the police would jump to their bidding in the manner in which the police had done during the years of their immense wealth. Salvatore did not like this, but he understood it. Nonetheless, he did not intend to be cowed.
    He ignored Mura’s question and said to the parents of the missing girl, “As it happens, my daughter is acquainted with your Hadiyyah, although I did not know this until my Bianca saw the posters in town. They attend the Dante Alighieri school together. They have, it seems, spoken many times since your daughter joined Bianca’s class. She told me something that has caused me to wonder if perhaps it is not an abduction that we are looking upon.”
    The parents said nothing. Mura frowned. They were, clearly, all thinking the same thing. If the police weren’t considering the child’s disappearance an abduction, then the police were considering it a runaway. Or a murder. There was no other alternative.
    “Your little one told my Bianca much about you,” Salvatore said, this time to the professor alone. He waited patiently for the signora to translate. “She said that you had written in emails that you would visit her at Christmas and then at Easter.”
    The professor’s strangled cry stopped Salvatore from going on. The signora raised a hand to her mouth. Mura looked from his lover to the father of her child, his eyes narrowing in speculation, as the professor said, “I did not . . . Emails?” and the situation became immediately more complex.
    Salvatore said, “
Sì.
You wrote no emails to Hadiyyah?”
    The professor, stricken, said, “I did not know . . . When Angelina left me, there was no word where they had gone. I had no way to . . . Her laptop was left behind. I had no idea . . .” He spoke with such difficulty that Salvatore knew every word he said was the absolute truth. “Angelina . . .” The professor looked at her. “Angelina . . .” It seemed the only thing he could say.
    “I had to.” She breathed the words rather than said them. “Hari. You would have . . . I didn’t know how else . . . If she’d had no word from you, she would have wanted . . . She would have wondered. She adores you and it was the only way . . .”
    Salvatore sat back in his chair and examined the signora. His English was just good enough to pick up the gist. He examined the professor. He looked at Mura. He could see that Mura was in the dark about this matter, but he—Salvatore—was quickly putting together pieces that he did not like. “There were no real emails,” he clarified. “These emails that Hadiyyah received . . . You wrote them, Signora?”
    She shook her head. She lowered it so her face was partially obscured by her hair, and she said, “My sister. I told her what to say.”
    “Bathsheba?” the professor asked. “
Bathsheba
wrote emails, Angelina? Pretending? And yet when we spoke to her . . . when we spoke to your parents . . . all of them said . . .” One of his two hands clenched into a fist. “Hadiyyah believed the emails, didn’t she? You set the address to be authentically English. So she would have no doubt, no questions,” he finally said. “So she would think I wrote to her, making promises that I did not keep.”
    “Hari, I’m
sorry
.” The signora’s tears fell copiously now. A broken story came from her lips. This story was about her sister, the aversion she felt—and the family felt—for this man from Pakistan, her willingness to assist Angelina in escaping and hiding away from him, the communication between the two women, how everything from last November until this moment had come to pass, except, of course, the abduction of the child.
    The signora’s head was in her hands as she spoke. “I’m so sorry” was her conclusion.
    The professor looked at her long. To Salvatore, it seemed that he went inside himself to find some inner quality that would allow him to bring forth what, in the same position, Salvatore could not possibly have produced. “It’s done, Angelina,” the professor said. He spoke with astounding dignity. “I cannot pretend to understand. I never will understand. Your hatred of me? This . . . what you have done . . . Hadiyyah’s safety is what is important now.”
    “I
don’t
hate you!” the signora wept. “It’s that