Just One Evil Act

by Elizabeth George

  She went to a filing cabinet and brought out a manila folder. She returned to her desk. She handed it to him wordlessly, and he knew that whatever was within it was something he wasn’t going to want to see. He could tell that much from her expression, which seemed caught in the undecided no-man’s-land between hardness and compassion. The hardness came from the set of her jaw. The compassion came from her eyes.

  She sat again. He put on his reading glasses and opened the folder. It contained a series of documents. They were official activities reports, but the activities they documented were unofficial in the extreme. Every out-of-line and off-the-record move Barbara Havers had made since the earlier time of being put to work as a member of John Stewart’s team was contained in the report of activities. Stewart had continued this surveillance of her after Isabelle had reassigned her. He had assigned two detective constables to shadow Havers, to check on her work or the lack thereof, to confirm the reasons for her every absence from the Yard. He’d verified details about her mother’s life in Greenford at the home of Florence Magentry. He’d identified every person with whom she met: Mitchell Corsico, the family of Taymullah Azhar, Dwayne Doughty, Emily Cass, Bryan Smythe. The only thing missing was SO12. There was no mention of the airline tickets to Pakistan. Lynley wasn’t sure why this was the case except that as it had to do with Barbara’s actions inside the Met’s actual buildings, perhaps there had been no need to shadow her. Or, he thought, perhaps John Stewart was holding back on this as the pièce de résistance on the off chance that Isabelle decided to do nothing about what his unauthorised investigation had revealed.

  Lynley handed the report back when he’d finished it. He said the only thing he could. “You and I both know you’re going to have to do something about him, Isabelle. That he’d be using the Met’s manpower to conduct his own investigation . . . It’s outrageous and we both know that. Did any of this”—with what he hoped was a dismissive gesture at Stewart’s paperwork—“get in the way of Barbara’s completion of whatever John assigned her to do? If not, then what does it matter that she did this as well?”

  Her gaze upon him was perfectly even and quintessentially Isabelle. She looked at him unspeaking for a good thirty seconds in which she kept her gaze on him before she said quietly, “Tommy.”

  He had to break the look. He didn’t want to hear what she had to say and he certainly didn’t want to know what she might ask of him.

  She said, “You know that Barbara’s completion of John’s assignments isn’t the point. Nor is the when and how of her completing them. You know that what occurred just now among the three of us says it all. I know you know that. In what we do, there’s no place for a sin of omission, no matter who’s involved.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to do what needs to be done.”

  He wanted to plead, which told him how far he himself had waded into the river into which Barbara Havers had dived headlong. But he did not do so. Instead he said, “Will you give me a few days to deal with this? To try to sort things out?”

  “Do you actually suppose there’s something to sort at this point? More important, do you really think there’s something exculpatory that will come out of the sorting?”

  “There probably isn’t, but I’m asking all the same.”

  She picked up the folder and tapped the papers within it neatly so that they were aligned. She handed it to him and said, “Very well. This is your copy. I’ve another. Do what you must.”

  SOUTH HACKNEY

  LONDON

  He was caught between anger and sorrow, in the land of others’ expectations of him. He asked himself what sort of person he seemed to be to other people and in particular to his longtime partner Barbara Havers. She clearly expected him to hold his tongue, to take her part, to be the breathing personification of like-a-bridge-over-troubled-water in her life, no matter what she did or how far out of order she took herself. This expectation on her part angered him: not only that she would have it but that he would have—through his own past actions—somehow schooled her into having it. And what, he wondered, did that say about him as an officer of the Met?

  More, what did the information contained within John Stewart’s report say about Barbara, and what was he to do with what it said? He needed to think about this and to consider it from every angle, and he couldn’t do so standing in the corridor at the door to Isabelle’s office, so he took himself down to the underground car park—avoiding conversation with everyone on his way—and he climbed into the Healey Elliott. There, he opened the manila folder and read every word of the damning information inside and tried like the devil to think what it meant beyond what DI Stewart wanted it to show, which was Barbara’s normal means of doing business, with her the living embodiment of going her own way whenever the inclination came upon her.

  From the first Barbara had been on the wrong end of things when it came to Hadiyyah’s disappearance in Italy. Like his personal snout inside the Met, she’d given the story to Mitchell Corsico and The Source. She’d done so in order to force Isabelle’s hand because she herself wanted to be in Italy, and he had to ask himself what this said about Barbara. Was it an indication of her love for Hadiyyah? Her love for Azhar? Or, more difficult to face, was it an indication of her own involvement in the child’s kidnapping for some reason that, as yet, he did not clearly see? And what in God’s name did it mean that in Isabelle’s presence she said nothing about those tickets to Pakistan? She was protecting Azhar, of course, and there could be only one reason for this, a reason that went far beyond whether Barbara loved the man or not: She was doing it because he needed protecting in this matter of his daughter’s kidnapping, obviously. But wasn’t the truth that he himself—Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley—had also said not a word to Isabelle about those tickets to Pakistan? So if Barbara was protecting Azhar for whatever reason, wasn’t the truth that he was protecting Barbara?

  He forced his mind away from the whys and wherefores, and he directed it to the immediate problem: Stewart’s report and the evidence it contained. Among the other information that Barbara had omitted in Isabelle’s office was her visit to South Hackney, to someone that Stewart’s man had identified as Bryan Smythe. An address was included, the time and length of her call upon him, and her call upon Dwayne Doughty in Bow immediately upon the conclusion of her dealings with Smythe. It seemed, then, that Smythe was the logical place to begin. But Lynley had to admit to himself that the thought of beginning what could well end with Barbara’s sacking from the Met produced in him such a heaviness of spirit that it invaded his body as well, making the very effort of pushing his key into the Healey Elliott’s ignition a matter of will that he did not know if he possessed. How had they come to this moment? he wondered. Barbara, he thought, what in God’s holy name have you done?

  He couldn’t bear to consider the answer to that question, so he started the car and he left the Yard and he took himself to South Hackney with as little thinking as possible involved, listening instead to Radio 4 and an amusing wordplay programme in which various celebrities matched wits with each other. It was a poor substitute for what he really wanted—which was total liberation from thought itself—but it did the trick for now.

  He found the street in which Bryan Smythe lived without any trouble. It wasn’t a thoroughfare the salubrious nature of which encouraged him to park his car. Indeed, it was insalubrious in the extreme, but there was nothing for it but to guide the Healey Elliott to the kerb and to hope for the best.

  What he concluded from Barbara’s actions on the day that she had called upon Smythe was that, whoever the bloke was, he was also involved in this business of Hadiyyah, Azhar, and Italy. He could see no other reason that Barbara would come to call upon the man and then go from him directly to Dwayne Doughty. So his expectation of Smythe was that the man would stonewall, and he was going to have to come up with a way to break through whatever barri
ers Smythe put up once he opened the front door upon Lynley’s knock upon it.

  Smythe was nondescript, completely ordinary save for his dandruff, which was mightily impressive. Lynley had not seen such dandruff since he’d been at Eton and Snow-on-the-Mountain Treadaway had been his history master.

  He took out his warrant card and introduced himself. Smythe looked from the police ID to Lynley to the police ID to Lynley again. He said nothing, but his jaw hardened. He looked beyond Lynley to the street. Lynley told him he’d like a word. Smythe said he was busy, but he sounded . . . Was that anger in his tone?

  Lynley said, “This won’t take long, Mr. Smythe. If I might come in . . . ?”

  “No, you may not” would have been the wise answer, followed by Smythe’s closing the door, striding to the phone, and ringing his solicitor. Even “What’s this about, then?” might have been the reasonable response of an innocent person. As would any indication that something untoward might have happened in the neighbourhood and here was an officer of the Met to ask him questions about it. But none of that was forthcoming from Smythe because no one guilty of something ever thought of the list of replies that an innocent person might make when faced unexpectedly with a policeman on his doorstep.

  Smythe stepped back from the door and indicated with an impatient jerk of his head that Lynley could enter. Inside, Lynley saw, was an impressive collection of Rothko-esque paintings along with various other objets d’art. Not exactly what one expected to find in a South Hackney sitting room. Parts of the borough were on a galloping course towards gentrification, but Smythe’s home was extreme. As was the fact that he appeared to own an entire row of the terrace in which his house stood and had bashed his way from one house to the next in order to fashion a showplace of all of them.

  He had money by the lorryful. But from what? Lynley doubted its source was on the up-and-up. He said to Smythe, “Your name has come up, Mr. Smythe, in an investigation into the kidnapping of a child in Italy.”

  Smythe said at once and nearly by rote, “I know nothing about a kidnapping of any child in Italy.” His Adam’s apple, however, jumped in a rather revealing fashion.

  “You don’t read the newspapers?”

  “From time to time. Not recently, as I’ve been rather busy.”

  “Doing?”

  “What I do.”

  “Which is?”

  “Confidential.”

  “Related to someone called Dwayne Doughty?”

  Smythe said nothing, but he looked round as if with the wish that he could do something to move Lynley’s attention off him and onto one of his art pieces. He was, at that precise instant, probably bitterly regretting admitting Lynley into his house. He’d done it to look less guilty as if with the belief that a show of reluctant cooperation on his part would mean something other than having very little sense.

  Lynley said, “Mr. Doughty is connected to this Italian kidnapping. You’re connected to Mr. Doughty. Since your work is”—with a gesture to acknowledge the room itself and its art collection—“quite obviously profitable, it leads me in the direction of believing that it also violates any number of laws.”

  Unaccountably, then, and contrary to Lynley’s expectations of him, Smythe muttered, “Jesus Bloody Christ.”

  Lynley raised an eyebrow expectantly. Calling upon the Saviour wasn’t the reaction he’d thought he might get. Nor was what came next from the man.

  “I don’t know who you are, but let’s get this straight. I don’t bribe cops, no matter what you think.”

  “How very good to know,” Lynley replied, “as I’m not here to be bribed. But I expect you see how the suggestion on your part doesn’t actually clarify your connection to Mr. Doughty, although it does leap in the direction of admitting you’re operating something here that’s illegal.”

  Smythe seemed to be evaluating this for some reason. The reason became marginally clear when he said, “Did she give you my name?”

  “She?”

  “We both know who I mean. You’re from the Met. You’re a cop. So is she. And I’m not stupid.”

  Not entirely, Lynley thought. He had to be speaking about Havers, so another connection was made. He said, “Mr. Smythe, what I know is that an officer of the Met came to see you and, after her call upon you, went directly to the office of a private investigator called Dwayne Doughty who was—earlier in the year—engaged in a search for a British child kidnapped in Italy. This same Mr. Doughty has been named by a man under arrest in Italy for his own involvement in the kidnapping. Now, the Smythe-to-Doughty business asks for conclusions to be drawn, and that’s my job. It also asks whether there might be Smythe-to-Doughty-to-bloke-under-arrest-in-Italy conclusions to be drawn as well, which is also my job. I can happily draw those conclusions or you can clarify. Frankly, I don’t know what we have here unless you tell me.” And when Smythe’s expression bordered on the complacent at the end of these remarks, Lynley added, “So I suggest you enlighten me lest the report I give to my guv indicates that a more thorough investigation of you is necessary.”

  “I’ve told you. I work for Doughty occasionally. The work’s confidential.”

  “A broad idea would be fine.”

  “I compile information on cases he’s working on. I pass the information to him.”

  “What’s the nature of the information?”

  “Confidential. He’s an investigator. He investigates. He investigates people. I follow trails that they leave and I . . . Let’s say I map those trails, all right?”

  Trails suggested only one thing in this day and age. “Using the Web?” Lynley said.

  Smythe said, “Confidential, I’m afraid.”

  Lynley smiled thinly. “You’re a bit like a priest, then.”

  “Not a bad analogy.”

  “And for Barbara Havers? Are you her priest as well?”

  He looked confused. Clearly, he had not expected the river to course in this direction. “What about her? Obviously, she’s the cop who came to see me and she went from me to Doughty. You already know that. And as to what I told her or what sent her there . . . If I don’t keep my work confidential, Inspector . . . What did you say your name was?”

  “Thomas Lynley.”

  “Inspector Lynley. If I don’t keep my work confidential, I’m out of business. I’m sure you get that, eh? It’s a bit like your own work when you think about it.”

  “As it happens, I’m not interested in what you told her, Mr. Smythe. At least not at present. I’m interested in why she showed up on your doorstep.”

  “Because of Doughty.”

  “He sent her to you?”

  “Hardly.”

  “She came on her own, then. For information, I daresay, since—if you work for Doughty—supplying information is your business. We seem to have come full circle in our conversation and what’s left is for me to repeat the obvious: Gathering information appears to be paying you quite well. From that and the look of your home, I expect what you’re doing can lead you to trouble.”

  “You’ve said this.”

  “As I noted. But your world, Mr. Smythe”—he glanced round the large room—“is about to undergo a seismic shift. Unlike Barbara Havers, I’m not here on my own behest. I’ve been sent, and I expect you can put the pieces together and come up with the reason why. You’re on the Met’s radar. You’re not going to be happy to be there. To use an analogy that I’m certain you’ll understand, you’re living in a house of cards and the wind has now begun to blow.”

  “You’re investigating her, aren’t you?” he said, with dawning understanding. “Not me, not Doughty, but her.”

  Lynley didn’t reply.

  “So if I tell you—”

  Lynley interrupted him. “I’m not here to make deals.”

  “So why should I bloody—”

  “You can do as you lik
e.”

  “What the hell do you want?”

  “The simple truth.”

  “The truth’s not simple.”

  Lynley smiled. “As Oscar himself once said. But let me make it simple. At your own admission you look for trails and create ‘maps’ of them for Dwayne Doughty and, I expect, for others. As this pays you extraordinarily well by the look of your home, I’m going to assume you also ‘uncreate’ maps by removing those trails, an activity for which you charge rather more. Since Barbara Havers was here, I suspect—due to some glaring omissions in her reports to me—that she’s employing you to engage in uncreating and removing. What I need from you is confirmation of this fact. A simple nod of your head.”

  “Or?”

  “‘Or’?”

  “There’s always an or,” he said angrily. “Spit it out for God’s sake.”

  “I’ve mentioned the wind. I think that’s sufficient.”

  “What the hell do you want?”

  “I’ve said—”

  “No! No! There’s always something bloody more with you lot. First it was her and I cooperated. Then it was her and him and I still cooperated. Now it’s you and where the hell is it going to end?”

  “‘Him’?”

  “The bloody Paki, all right? She came alone first. Then she brought him. Now you’re here and for all I know, the bloody Prime Minister is going to show up next.”

  “She was here with Azhar.” That wasn’t in the report and how, Lynley wondered, had John Stewart missed that?

  “Of course she was bloody here with Azhar.”

  “When?”

  “This morning. When d’you think?”

  “What did she want?”

  “My backup system. Every record, all my work. You name it, she wanted it.”

  “That’s all?”

  He looked away. He walked to one of his paintings—this one largely red with a blue stripe at the bottom that bled almost imperceptibly into a purple haze. Smythe gazed on it as if evaluating what would become of it once the appropriate Met officers started swarming round the place. “As I said,” he explained to the painting rather than to Lynley, “she wanted to hire me as well. One job only.”