Just One Evil Act: A Lynley Novel by Elizabeth George

Author:Elizabeth George [George, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780525952961
Amazon: 0525952969
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Published: 2013-10-15T05:00:00+00:00

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Hadiyyah wanted Lynley to sit in the back seat of the police car with her, and he was happy to oblige. Lo Bianco phoned ahead to the hospital in Lucca, and he then notified Angelina Upman and Taymullah Azhar that Hadiyyah had been found at a Dominican convent in the Apuan Alps, that she was alive and well, and that she would be at the hospital within ninety minutes for a general exam. If they would be so good as to meet DI Lynley and himself at this location . . . ?

“Niente, niente,” he murmured into the mobile, an apparent brushing off of copious expressions of gratitude from the other end. “È il mio lavoro, Signora.”

In the back seat, Lynley kept Hadiyyah tucked next to him, which seemed to be her preference. Considering the length of time that she’d been held at Villa Rivelli, she did not appear to be the worse for the experience, at least superficially. Sister Domenica Giustina, as Hadiyyah called Domenica Medici, had taken good care of her. Up until the last few days, the child had apparently had the run of the villa’s grounds. It was only in the end that she had become frightened, Hadiyyah said. It was only when Sister Domenica Giustina took her into the cellar to that mouldy, smelly, creepy chamber with the slippery and slimy marble pool in the floor that she had known the slightest bit of terror.

“You’re a very brave girl,” Lynley said to her. “Most girls your age—most boys as well—would have been frightened from the very start. Why weren’t you, Hadiyyah? Can you tell me? Do you remember how all of this began? What can you tell me?”

She looked up at him. He was struck by how pretty a child she was, everything attractive in both of her parents blending together to form her innocent beauty. Her delicate eyebrows knotted as she heard his questions, though. Her eyes filled with tears, possibly at the realisation that she might well have done something wrong. Every child knew the rules, after all: Don’t go anywhere with a stranger, no matter what that stranger says to you. And both he and Hadiyyah knew that that was what she had done. He said quietly, “There’s no right or wrong here, by the way. There’s just what happened. You know I’m a policeman, of course, and I hope you know that Barbara and I are very good friends, yes?”

She nodded solemnly.

“Brilliant. My job is to find out what happened. That’s it. Nothing else. Can you help me, Hadiyyah?”

She looked down at her lap, “He said my dad was waiting for me. I was in the market with Lorenzo and I was watching the accordion man near the porta and he said ‘Hadiyyah, this is from your father. He is waiting to see you beyond the city wall.’”

“‘This is from your father’?” Lynley repeated. “Did he speak English or Italian to you?”

“English.”

“And what was from your father?”

“A card.”

“Like . . .

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