Just One Evil Act

by Elizabeth George

  Di Massimo was nowhere. But a handsome, dark-haired man stood directly behind Hadiyyah, and although his gaze, like everyone else’s, was on the poodle and its master, he was reaching for something inside his jacket. Two pictures along they saw what it was. By enlarging it, they had a better image to deal with. It appeared to be a greeting card of some kind, on its front a depiction of the universal yellow smiley face. There was no photo showing exactly what he’d done with the card. There was, however, a picture of Hadiyyah bending to the accordion player’s basket and putting something in it with her right hand while, in her left, she held something that could have been the card from the earlier photo.

  And then . . . nothing more. There were other pictures of the accordion player, of the dancing dog, and of the crowd in attendance. But Hadiyyah was not in them. Nor was the man.

  “It could be nothing,” Lo Bianco said, stepping away from the monitor and going to look out of the window, which faced not only Viale Cavour but also the restless journalists gathered there.

  “Do you believe that?” Lynley asked him.

  Lo Bianco looked at him. “I do not,” he said.

  BOW

  LONDON

  Winston hadn’t jumped on the rolling wagon of Barbara’s intentions immediately. She didn’t understand why until they finally reached Bow and had parked in front of Bangla Halal Grocers, where a sign offered Bangladeshi King Size Fish and two men in long white robes and tatted headgear gazed upon Barbara’s old Mini with undisguised suspicion. There, Winston didn’t unfold himself from the sagging seat at once, as Barbara had expected of him, considering the discomfort in which he’d had to ride all the way from Victoria. Instead, he said to her, “You got to be told something, Barb. He’s checkin your story.”

  So caught up was she in trying to decide how she was going to make Doughty pay for his investigative crimes against her that she thought at first he meant the Bow detective. But when he went on, she understood that Winston was passing along information that had come to him via Dorothea Harriman, and this information had nothing to do with Dwayne Doughty and his questionable ethics.

  “Dee says he asked her to look into where your mum was taken when she fell. She says he asked her would she do it on the sly. If no A-and-E has a record of her and no ambulance company has a record of transportin her, he’s goin to use it against you. Tha’s the story Dee had.”

  Barbara swore. “Why didn’t she come to me? At least I could’ve rung Mrs. Flo to cook up a story.”

  “’Spect Dee’s that worried ’bout her own job, Barb. He sees her talkin to you, he even gets word she’s talked to you, we both know what he’s goin to think. She’s bidin her time before she gets on it—the ambulance and A-and-E business—but he’s goin to be lookin for some answers soon and she’s goin to have to tell him something. And when she tells him whatever she tells him, you know ’s well as I do that he’s goin to take steps to confirm.”

  Barbara thunked her head against the driver’s window. How to proceed was the question. She answered it by saying, “Hang on, then,” to Winston, and by making a phone call to Florence Magentry in Greenford. That good woman was going to have to lie for her, she was going to have to do so convincingly, and Barbara could see no way around it.

  “Oh my dear, my dear,” she said hesitantly when Barbara laid out the facts for her via mobile as Winston looked on, frowning. “I will, of course, if you think I must. A fall, an ambulance, the casualty ward . . . ? Of course, of course. But, Barbara, may I say . . . ?”

  Barbara girded herself for protest. She wanted to declare that she had no choice, that she had to protect herself, that if she did not do so she would not be able to keep her mother in the secure and caring place of lodging that Mrs. Flo provided because she’d be without a job. But she said, “Yeah. Go on,” and she waited for Mrs. Flo to say what she needed to say.

  It was, “Sometimes, my dear, if we tempt fate this way . . . It’s not a good thing, is it? What I’m trying to say is that declaring something like this—a fall, broken bones, an ambulance, casualty—”

  Barbara had never taken her mother’s carer to be superstitious, so she said, “You’re saying that wishing makes things so? Well, I’m not wishing. I’m just saying. And if I don’t ‘say’ something, I’m up to my neck . . . Look, a secretary from the Met will ring you, Mrs. Flo. Then a DI called Stewart’ll ring you as well. You just need to tell them both that yes, Mum fell, and yes, an ambulance took her to casualty, and that’s all you know since you rang me and I got onto all the rest.” That would, she thought, buy her time to sort this mess out.

  Up above Bedlovers, Doughty was waiting for her, as she’d phoned him and told him that—all things related to the law considered—it was in his best interests to stay put until she and he had a little confab together. She didn’t mention Winston, and she noted with gratification that Doughty blanched slightly when the impressive black detective followed her into the room and blocked any escape from it. She introduced the two men. Winston meaningfully locked his eyeballs on to Doughty. Barbara then got down to business. The business was money transferred from Lucca to London. The business was hiring a Pisan called Michelangelo Di Massimo.

  “You hired this bloke in January,” she declared. “So let’s start with how you uncovered the information about a money transfer in the first place.”

  “I don’t reveal—”

  “Do not attempt that rubbish with me. You’ve been playing fast and loose from the first, and if you’d like to remain a private investigator and not end up in the local nick, then you’re going to talk.”

  Doughty was sitting behind his desk. He glanced at Winston, who stood at the door. He glanced at a metal filing cabinet, at the artificial plant covering its top surface. That, Barbara reckoned now, had to be where he had a camera that broadcast whatever went on in his office to his colleague in the other room.

  “All right. Another bank account was uncovered,” Doughty finally said.

  “Who uncovered it? How? Who’s your blagger? Because that’s how you did it, isn’t it, and I expect it’s your ‘associate’ Ms. Cass who was ringing round credit card companies and banks pretending to be Angelina. Or her sister. She looked like a bird with as many talents as pores, so sweet-talking someone—”

  “I’m not saying a word about Emily Cass,” he said. “We use various means at our disposal to uncover information.”

  “Computer hacking as well, I expect. That ‘computer expert’ you told us about is someone who breaks and enters computer systems as easily as tumbling locks. And he or she knows someone who knows someone who knows someone else . . . Do you know how much trouble I could put you in, Mr. Doughty?”

  “I’m attempting to cooperate,” he said. “I learned there was a bank account here in London, an account held in the name Bathsheba Ward but in a branch nowhere near her home or her work. I found this curious and did a little . . . work on it. In . . . in time, let’s say, I discovered that funds had been wired from another account, this one in Lucca. I needed someone in Italy to trace that account and to see who was at the other end of this wired money.”

  “Michelangelo Di Massimo was your man in Italy, then?”

  “He was.” Doughty pushed back from his desk. He went to the filing cabinet, made an adjustment to the artificial plant, and opened a drawer. He riffled through some files till he found what he wanted. He handed it over. It was slim enough, but it contained a copy of the report he’d written. Barbara read this quickly to see it contained the information he’d just supplied her, along with the name, the address, and the email of the private investigator in Pisa whom DI Lynley and the Italian chief inspector had interviewed that day.

  Barbara closed the file and handed it back. She had a terrible feeling about what she was going to learn if she asked the next question, but she asked it anyway. “What did you do with this information?” she said.

&
nbsp; “I gave it to Professor Azhar,” he told her. “Sergeant, I’ve given him everything from the first.”

  “But he said . . .” Barbara’s lips felt stiff. What had he said? Had she misinterpreted his words in some way? She tried to remember, but she was feeling turned round, down the rabbit hole, and out of her league. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked him.

  “Because I was working for him, not for you,” Doughty said, not unreasonably. “And when I began working for you, what you asked me to uncover had to do with the professor’s trip to Berlin and nothing else.” He put the folder back and shut the drawer. He turned back to them, but he did not sit. He extended his hands in the universal gesture of look-at-me-I-have-nothing-to-hide. “Sergeant,” he said and then added Winston in his remarks by saying, “Sergeants. I’ve told you the absolute truth at this point, and if you’d care to look through my phone records and my computer files and, yes, even my hard drive, you’re more than welcome to do so. I’ve nothing to hide from you, and I’ve no interest in anything other than getting home to my wife and my dinner. Are we finished here?”

  They were, Barbara said. What she didn’t say, however, was that she knew how easily Doughty could have cleared his records, his hard drive, his entire life of suspicion if any of this was in the possession of a computer tech expert with inside contacts at various institutions. And there was virtually nothing she could do about it.

  She and Winston left him. They descended the stairs and went into the street, where a short distance away the Roman Café was making the seductive offer of kebabs. She said to her colleague, “At least let me buy you dinner, Winnie.”

  He nodded and walked thoughtfully at her side. He was deep into something, and she didn’t ask him what it was because she had a feeling she already knew. He confirmed this as they took a table by the window and considered the menu. He looked at it briefly and then spoke to her.

  “Got to ask, Barb.”

  “What?”

  “How well you know him.”

  “Doughty? ’Course he could be lying and he probably is because he’s lied already and—”

  “Don’t mean Doughty,” Winston told her. “’Spect you know that, eh?”

  She did. To her sorrow and misery, she absolutely did. He was asking how well she knew Taymullah Azhar. She’d been asking herself the very same question.

  BOW

  LONDON

  Doughty waited patiently. He knew it wouldn’t be long, and it wasn’t. Em Cass burst into his office not one minute after the cops’ departure. He could tell how much of a lather she was in from the fact that she’d removed both her waistcoat and her tie.

  “From the first,” she began. “Goddamn it, Dwayne, from the—”

  “It’ll all be over soon,” he cut in. “There’s nothing to worry about. Everyone will go home happy, and you and I will fade into the sunset, ride off on our ponies, whatever.”

  “I think you’ve gone mad.” She paced from one side of the office to another. She slapped one hand into the palm of the other.

  “Emily,” he said, “go home. Have a change of clothes and go out clubbing. Pull a new man. You’ll feel much better.”

  “How can you even suggest . . . You’re an idiot! Now it’s two cops—from the Met, no less—sifting through our unwashed laundry, and you’re suggesting I entertain myself with anonymous sex?”

  “It’ll take your mind off whatever your mind’s on. Which, by the way, is an unnecessary bundle of speculations taking you nowhere. We’re clean on this and we’ve been that way since Bryan diddled our computers and phone records.”

  “We’re going to gaol,” she said. “If you’re depending on Bryan to hold out once the cops pay a call on him . . . especially that black bloke. Did you see how big he is? Did you bloody see that scar on his face? I know a scar from a knife fight when I see one and so do you. We’ll be in gaol five minutes after that bloke fixes his stare on Bryan Smythe.”

  “They don’t know any details about Bryan, and unless you decide to tell them yourself, they won’t ever know any details about Bryan. Because I’m certainly not going to tell them. So it’ll all be down to you.”

  “What’re you saying? That I can’t be trusted?”

  Doughty looked at her meaningfully. It was his experience that no one could be trusted, but he did like to think otherwise of Emily. Still, he could tell she needed to be mollified in some way because, in her present state, one trip to the nick to spend an hour or so in the company of officers intent upon wringing the truth from her, and she might well crack.

  He said carefully, “I trust you with my life, Em. I hope you trust me with yours as well. I hope you trust me enough to listen carefully to what I’m about to say.”

  “Which is?”

  “It’ll be over soon.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Things are in motion in Italy. The crime is about to be solved, and we’ll be opening the champagne soon enough.”

  “Do I have to remind you that we’re not in Italy? Do I have to point out that if you’re depending on this Di Massimo bloke—a man you’ve never even bloody met, for God’s sake—to carry this off without anyone being the wiser . . .” She threw up her hands. “This is more than an Italian situation, Dwayne. It became more than an Italian situation the moment the Met got involved. Which, may I remind you, was the very first instant that woman stepped into your office with the Pakistani, pretending to be an ordinary, ill-dressed heap of a female just here to support her extraordinarily intelligent, well-spoken, nice-looking, and neatly attired male friend. God, I should have known the moment I clapped eyes on them both that the very fact they were even together—”

  “You did know, as I recall,” he said mildly. “You told me she was a cop and you turned out to be correct. But none of that matters just now. Things are in hand. The girl will be found. And no crime was committed by you or by me. Which, I might add, is something you should hold close to your heart.”

  “Di Massimo gave them your name,” she protested. “What’s to stop him from giving them everything else?”

  He shrugged. There was some truth in what she said, but he was holding on to his confidence in money being not only the root of all evil but also the oil that kept machines rolling on. He said, “Plausible deniability, Em. That’s our watchword.”

  “Plausible deniability,” she repeated. “That’s two words, Dwayne.”

  “Merely an insignificant detail,” he said.

  26 April

  LUCCA

  TUSCANY

  Prima Voce had what went for the full story, Salvatore saw. That morning’s paper carried a feature on page one, complete with a photograph of Carlo Casparia—his face and bright, tangled hair covered by a jacket—being escorted between two grim-faced uniformed policemen. They would take him from the questura to the prison where he would be held in preventive detention during the rest of the investigation. A second photograph featured Piero Fanucci, triumphantly announcing that they at last had their confession from the malefactor, and he was now indagato: formally named as principal suspect. The whereabouts of the child would be forthcoming, he had told the tabloid confidently.

  No journalist questioned any of this. No one asked if the unfortunate Carlo had requested or been given an avvocato to sit at his side and advise him of his limited legal rights. Especially nothing was asked about the confession that Fanucci had prised from the homeless man or about the means by which Fanucci had got that confession. Neither the newspapers nor the telegiornale brought up anything other than the coup of a case having been resolved. They all knew quite well that to do anything else would put them in danger of being accused of diffamazione a mezzo stampa, and it was up to il Pubblico Ministero himself to decide if such defamation by the press had occurred.

  Lo Bianco explained all this to DI Lynley when the Englishman appeared
in his office. Obviously, he was going to have to speak to the parents of the little girl as soon as possible, and he wanted to have his facts in order. He’d brought with him a copy of Prima Voce. He’d also brought the question about why he hadn’t been rung immediately once a confession was in hand. He sounded doubtful about the entire subject of Carlo Casparia and his guilt, however. Lo Bianco wasn’t surprised by this. Detective Inspector Lynley did not appear to be a fool.

  Lynley indicated the tabloid when he said, “Is this information reliable, Chief Inspector? The parents might well have seen it, and they’ll have questions. First and foremost will be what this bloke’s said about Hadiyyah: where he took her and where she is. May I ask how”—he hesitated tellingly—“this confession came about?”

  Salvatore had to be careful with what he said. Fanucci had ears and eyes in every corner of the questura, and any explanation he gave the Scotland Yard DI about either il Pubblico Ministero or the Italian laws governing both the press and criminal investigations could be misinterpreted and used against him if he didn’t proceed with maximum caution. For this reason, he took Lynley from the questura altogether, and together they walked the distance to the Lucca train station not far away. Across the street from the station was a café. He led the other officer to its bar, ordered two cappuccini and two dolci. He waited till they were set in front of them before he faced Lynley and, leaning against the bar with a look round the café to make sure there were no other officials present, he began to talk.

  Twenty hours without rest or a lawyer present, with no food and only occasional water, had been enough to convince Carlo Casparia that his interests would best be served by telling the truth, he explained to Lynley. And if there were gaps within his memory of the events surrounding the child’s disappearance, that was no real problem. For after twenty hours with il Pubblico Ministero and other hand-picked interrogators, exhaustion and hunger crept into one’s mind, stimulating one to imagine—aloud, of course—what could adequately fill the blanks in one’s memory. From this combination of imagination and reality, then, a complete story of the crime’s commission emerged. That it was small part fact and large part fantasy was of no concern to il Pubblico Ministero. A confession was what mattered to him since only a confession mattered to the press.