Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

connection existed and would always exist between Angelina and the Pakistani man. And Mura would have to come to terms with that.
    LUCCA
    TUSCANY
    It was later than usual when Salvatore made his evening climb to the top of the tower. Mamma had had what she’d decided was an altercation in the
macelleria
while doing her shopping for this night’s dinner, and that altercation—apparently with a tourist woman who did not understand that when Signora Lo Bianco entered the shop, everyone else stepped back out of respect for her age—had to be discussed from every angle.
    “
Sì, sì
,” Salvatore murmured throughout this recitation of the woes of Mamma’s day. He shook his head and looked appropriately outraged, and at the first opportunity, he climbed to the roof to enjoy his nightly
caffè corretto
, the sight of evening falling upon his city with its citizens taking their daily
passeggiata
arm in arm in the streets, and, most important, the silence that went with all of this, high above everything.
    The silence did not last long, however. Into it, his mobile phone rang. He took it from his pocket, saw the caller, and cursed. If this involved another drive to Barga, he would refuse.
    “So?” the
magistrato
barked at Salvatore’s
pronto
. “
Mi dica, Topo
.”
    Salvatore knew what Fanucci wished to be told: everything that had occurred with this police detective from England. He told the public minister what he felt was sufficient to satisfy him. He added the new intriguing detail of Signora Upman’s additional lover in London: Esteban Castro. She either liked them foreign or she liked them hot-blooded, he told Fanucci.
    “
Puttana
” was Fanucci’s evaluation of her.
    Well, times have changed, was what Salvatore wanted to say to Fanucci. Women were not necessarily loose because they took lovers. But, indeed, were he to say this to Fanucci, the truth was that he’d be doing so only to arouse the man’s ire. For he himself did not believe that it was the way of the world today for women to string along more than one lover at a time, married or otherwise. That Angelina Upman, perhaps, made a habit of doing so was a curious new bit of information about her. Salvatore was more than willing to share this information with Fanucci because, if nothing else, it spared him from having to go in the direction of Michelangelo Di Massimo and his bleached yellow hair.
    “So, he chases her? This Esteban Castro?” Fanucci said. “He follows her to Lucca. He plans his revenge. She leaves him for another and he does not accept this and he plans how to show her suffering equal to what she has caused him,
vero
?”
    The idea was ludicrous, but what difference did that make? At least it wasn’t additional nonsense about the Casparia youth. Salvatore murmured, “
Forse, forse,
Piero
.” But they must move with caution, he said. They would see soon enough because this English detective would phone London and see about tracking down this lover of Angelina Upman. He would be useful that way, Ispettore Lynley.
    There was silence as Fanucci evaluated this. Salvatore heard in the background someone speaking to Fanucci. A woman’s voice. It would not be his wife but rather the long-suffering housekeeper.
Vai
, Fanucci barked at her, his way of lovingly telling her that her performance between the sheets of his bed would not be necessary on this evening.
    Then, into the phone, the
magistrato
announced the main reason for his call to Salvatore: a special report for the
telegiornale
had been arranged. He, Fanucci, had made these arrangements. They would film this report at the home of the missing girl’s mother, and it would end with an appeal from this child’s parents: We love our precious little one and we want her back. Please, please return her to us.
    If the mamma wept, that would be useful, Fanucci told him. Television cameras liked weeping women in situations when children went missing, no?
    And when would this television filming occur? Salvatore enquired.
    Two days hence, Fanucci told him. He himself and not Salvatore would do the speaking for the Italian police.
    “
Certo, certo
,” Salvatore murmured with a sly smile at Fanucci’s eternal self-importance. The presence on television screens throughout Italy of Piero Fanucci would, of course, strike fear into the hearts of all malefactors.

23 April
    CHALK FARM
    LONDON
    M itchell Corsico had wasted no time. He had a reputation as a reporter who didn’t let grass