Just One Evil Act il-18

by Elizabeth George

  “There’s an explanation. I’m going to find it.”

  “I can’t let you decide—”

  She grabbed his arm fiercely. “I need to talk to Azhar. Give me time to talk to Azhar.”

  “You’re walking on the wrong side in this. The consequences are going to come down on your head like the wrath of God. How can you expect me—”

  “Just let me talk to him, sir. There’s going to be an explanation. He’ll be back soon. A day. Two or three at the most. He has students at work in his lab at University College. He has courses to teach. He’s not going to hang round Italy waiting for July to roll round. He can’t do that. Just give me a chance to talk to him. If there’s no explanation he can offer for those tickets and when he bought them and all the rest, I’ll tell the guv about them and I’ll give her my conclusions. I swear to God I’ll do that. If you’ll give me the time.”

  Lynley gazed at the raw appeal on her face. He knew what he was meant to do: report the entire twisted mess at once and let the inevitable gear itself up to happen. But years of partnership lay between him and what he was meant to do. So he sighed deeply and said, “Very well, Barbara.”

  She breathed, “Thank you, Inspector.”

  “I don’t want to regret this,” he told her. “So once you’ve spoken to Azhar, you’re to speak to me straightaway. Are we clear on this?”

  “We’re absolutely clear.”

  He nodded, got to his feet, and left her nursing the rest of her coffee.

  There was absolutely nothing he liked about the situation. Everything was screaming Taymullah Azhar’s involvement. Since Barbara had withheld the information about those tickets to Pakistan, it stood to reason that there were other damning details she was withholding as well. He now knew she was in love with Azhar. She would never admit the fact to herself, but her relationship with the Pakistani professor went far beyond her friendship with his daughter, and it had been heading in that direction from the first. Could he rationally expect her to turn against the Pakistani man if his involvement turned out to be more than a father’s desperate search for his child? Would he himself have turned against Helen had he discovered something questionable that she had done? More to the point, would he turn against Havers now?

  He cursed at the web this entire investigation had become. Barbara needed to march into Isabelle’s office, reveal everything, and throw herself upon the superintendent’s mercy. She had to take the bitter medicine Isabelle would then dole out to her. But he knew that Havers would never do it.

  His mobile rang. For a moment he allowed himself to think that Barbara had seen sense. She’d thought rationally as she’d finished her coffee, and here she was to announce that she’d reconsidered.

  But a glance at his phone told him it wasn’t Barbara phoning at all. It was Daidre Trahair.

  “This is a pleasant surprise,” he told her in answering the mobile’s ring.

  “Where are you?”

  “Ringing for the lift as it happens.”

  “Does that mean a lift in Italy or somewhere else?”

  “It means London.”

  “Ah. Lovely. You’re back.”

  “Only just now. I flew in from Pisa late this morning and came directly to the Met.”

  “How is it that you coppers put things, then? Did you have a ‘good result’?”

  “We did.” The lift doors opened, but he waved it off, not wanting to chance losing the signal. He gave Daidre a few details about Hadiyyah’s safe return to the arms of her parents. He didn’t tell her about SO12, Pakistan, or Barbara’s perilous situation.

  She said, “You must be enormously relieved to have it turn out so well. She’s safe, she’s healthy, her parents are . . . what?”

  “Certainly not reconciled to each other, but in acceptance of the reality that they must share her. Admittedly, it’s not the best situation for a nine-year-old, shuttling between parents in two different countries, but it’s how things must be.”

  “This is how it is for so many children, isn’t it, Tommy? I mean, going between two parents.”

  “You’re right, of course. More and more, it’s the way of the world.”

  “You sound . . . not quite as relieved as I’d think you’d be.”

  He smiled at this. She had read him astutely, and he found, unexpectedly, that he liked that fact. He said, “I suppose that I’m not. Or perhaps I’m merely tired.”

  “Too tired for a glass of wine?”

  His eyes widened. “Where are you? Are you not phoning from Bristol?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Dare I hope . . . ?”

  She laughed. “You sound like Mr. Darcy.”

  “I thought women liked that. Along with those tight trousers.”

  She laughed again. “As it happens, they do.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “I’m in London. On business, of course—”

  “Of the Kickarse Electra kind?”

  “Alas, no. This is business of the veterinarian kind.”

  “Might I ask what a large animal veterinarian is doing in London? Have we a camel at the zoo in need of your expert ministrations?”

  “That brings us back to the glass of wine. If you’ve time this evening, I’ll explain it to you. Have you the time?”

  “Name the place and I’m there.”

  She did so.

  BELSIZE PARK

  LONDON

  The wine bar she suggested was in Regent’s Park Road, north of both Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill. It was situated rather unceremoniously between a newsagent’s and a kitchen shop, but its exterior position was deceptive. Inside, all was candlelight, velvet-draped windows, and linen-covered tables for two.

  As the hour was still early and the place largely unoccupied, he saw Daidre at once. She was seated at a table tucked into a corner, where a painting on the wall either featured a modern look-alike to William Morris’s wife—God, what was her name? he wondered—or there was a Pre-Raphaelite extant that he wasn’t aware of. A light shone brightly upon the piece, giving Daidre sufficient illumination to inspect a set of papers she’d spread on the table. She was also speaking to someone on her mobile.

  He paused before crossing the wine bar to join her, aware of experiencing a decided rush of pleasure at seeing Daidre again. He took a rare opportunity to study her without her knowledge, noting that she was wearing new spectacles—rimless and virtually unnoticeable—and that she was dressed for business in a tailored suit. The scarf she wore bore a mixture of colours that matched her sandy hair and, it was likely, her eyes as well, and it came to him that he and she could actually pass for brother and sister, so similar was their colouring.

  As he approached, he saw other details. She was wearing a simple pendant necklace: its decoration a gold depiction of the wheelhouse of one of the Cornish mines from the area of her birth. She had gold studs in her ears as well, but they and the necklace comprised her only jewellery. Her hair was slightly longer now, reaching below her shoulders, and she was wearing it back from her face and fastened somehow on the back of her head. She was a handsome woman, but not a beautiful one. In a world of thin, young, airbrushed things on the covers of fashion magazines, she would not have garnered a second look.

  She’d already ordered a glass of wine, but it seemed untouched. Instead, she was jotting notes on the margin of her paperwork, and as he reached the table, he heard her say into her mobile, “I’ll send it on to you then, shall I? . . . Hmm, yes. Well, I’ll wait for your word. And thank you, Mark. It’s very good of you.”

  She glanced up then. She smiled at Lynley and held up a just-a-moment finger. She listened again to whatever was being said to her by whoever was on the other end of the mobile, and then, “Indeed. I depend on you,” and she rang off.

  She stood to greet him, saying, “You’ve made it. It’s lovely to see you, Thomas. Thank you for coming.”

  They engaged in air kisses: one cheek, then the other, with nothing touching anyo
ne’s flesh. He asked himself idly where the maddening social nicety had come from.

  He sat and tried not to notice what he noticed: that she quickly put all the paperwork into a large leather bag by the side of her chair, that a faint blush had risen to her cheeks, and that she was wearing something on her lips that made them look soft and glossy. Then it came to him suddenly that he was taking in aspects of Daidre Trahair that he hadn’t taken in, in the presence of a woman, since Helen’s death. Not even with Isabelle had he noted so much. It discomfited him, asking him to identify what it meant.

  He wanted, of course, to ask who Mark was. But instead, he nodded at the large bag on the floor and said, “Work?” as he drew out a chair to sit.

  She said, “Of a sort,” as she sat again herself. “You’re looking well, Thomas. Italy must suit you.”

  “I daresay Italy suits most people,” he told her. “And Tuscany in particular suits everyone, I expect.”

  “I’d like to see Tuscany someday,” she said. “I’ve not been.” And in less than a second and most typical of Daidre, “Sorry. That sounds as if I’m begging an invitation.”

  “Perhaps coming from someone else,” he said. “Coming from you, no.”

  “Why not from me?”

  “Because I’ve got the impression that subterfuge isn’t part of your bag of tricks.”

  “Well . . . yes. Admittedly, I have no bag of tricks.”

  “Exactly,” he said.

  “I ought, I suppose. But I’ve never quite had the time to develop tricks. Or to sew the bag for them. Or whatever. Are you having wine, Thomas? I’m drinking the house plonk. When it comes to wine, I’m hopeless. I doubt I could tell the difference between something from Burgundy and something made here in the cellar.” She twirled her wineglass by the stem and frowned. “I appear to be making the most disparaging remarks about myself. I must be nervous.”

  “About?”

  “As I was in complete order a moment ago, I must be feeling nervous with you here.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Another glass of wine, perhaps?”

  “Or two. Honestly, Thomas, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  A waitress came to them, a girl who had the look of a student and the accent of a recent arrival from the Eastern Bloc. He ordered wine for himself—the same plonk that Daidre was drinking—and when the girl took herself off to fetch it, he said, “Whether you’re nervous or not, I’m quite glad you rang me. Not only is it a fine thing to see you again, but frankly, I was in need of a drink.”

  “Work?” she asked.

  “Barbara Havers. I had an encounter with her that disturbed me rather more than I like to be disturbed by Barbara—and believe me she’s been disturbing me in one way or another for years—and getting thoroughly soused seems like a reasonable reaction to the entire mess she’s in. Either that or being diverted by your presence.”

  Daidre took up her own wine but waited till he had been served his. They clinked glasses and drank to each other’s health, whereupon she said, “What sort of mess? It’s not my business, of course, but I’m available to listen should you have a mind to talk about it.”

  “She’s gone her own maddening way in an investigation and not for the first time.”

  “This is a problem?”

  “She’s skirting far too close to ignoring her ethical responsibility as a police officer. It’s a complicated matter. Enough said on the subject. For the moment, I’d like to forget all about it. So tell me, then. What are you doing in London?”

  “Interviewing for a job,” she said. “Regent’s Park. London Zoo.”

  He found himself brightening, sitting up straighter all at once. Regent’s Park, the zoo . . . He had a thousand questions about what it all meant that Daidre Trahair was thinking of making a change from Bristol, but all he could manage was, stupidly, “As veterinarian?”

  She smiled. “It is, more or less, what I do.”

  He shook his head sharply. “Sorry. Stupid of me.”

  She laughed. “Not at all. They might have wanted me to teach the gorillas to play chess or to train the parrots. One never knows.” She took more wine and gazed at him with something that looked to him like fondness. “I was contacted by a head hunter, someone employed by the zoo. I didn’t seek the position out, and I’m not altogether sure I’m interested in it.”

  “Because . . . ?”

  “I’m quite happy in Bristol. And, of course, Bristol is that much closer to Cornwall and I do love my cottage there.”

  “Ah, yes, the cottage,” Lynley said. It was where they had first met, himself an intruder who’d broken a window to get to a phone, herself the owner of the place who’d arrived for a getaway only to find an unknown man tramping mud on her floors.

  “And then, there’s my commitment to Boadicea’s Broads as well as my regular darts tournaments.”

  Lynley lifted an eyebrow at this.

  She laughed and said, “I’m quite serious, Thomas. I take my discretionary time to heart. Besides, the Broads rather depend on me—”

  “A good jammer being difficult to find.”

  “You’re teasing, of course. And I do know that I could join the Electric Magic. But then I’d be skating on occasion against my former teammates, and I don’t know how I feel about that.”

  “These are serious matters,” he said. “I suppose it must come down to the job itself, then. As well as the benefits attached to taking it, should it be offered.”

  They gazed at each other for a moment in which he saw the colour rise appealingly to her cheeks. He liked the look of her when she blushed. He said, “Have you listed them?”

  “What?”

  “The benefits. Or is it early days for that? I assume they’re interviewing other large animal vets as well. It’s an important position, isn’t it?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning they’ve done the interviews. All of the interviews. The initial ones, the secondary ones. The paper screening and checking of documents and references and all of that.”

  “So this is something that’s been going on for a while,” he said.

  “Since early March. That’s when I was first contacted.”

  He frowned. He observed the ruby colour of his wine. He asked himself how he felt about this: that since early March she’d been part of a process that might bring her to London but she’d not told him. He said, “Since early March? You haven’t mentioned it. How am I to take that?”

  Her lips parted.

  He said, “Never mind. Terrible question. My ego was speaking for me. So where are you in the process, then? Tertiary interviews? Who knew so much was involved in vetting a vet, if you’ll pardon the pun. Is it a pun? I don’t quite know. You’re leaving me at sixes and sevens, Daidre.”

  She smiled. “It’s made difficult by—”

  “What is?”

  “My decision. They’ve offered me the job, Thomas.”

  “Have they indeed? That’s wonderful! Isn’t it?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Of course. Moving house is always complicated, and you’ve already listed your other concerns.”

  “Yes. Well.” She took up her wine and drank. Looking for courage? he wondered. She said, “That’s not exactly what I mean by complicated.”

  “Then what?”

  “You, of course. But you know that already, I expect. You’re a complication. You. Here. London.”

  His heart had begun to beat more heavily. He tried for lightness in his response. “It’s a disappointment for me, of course. If you take the job, I won’t have the opportunity of enjoying the personal tour of the zoo in Bristol that you once promised me. But I assure you we’ll be able to soldier on under the burden of my disappointment. Rest your mind on that score.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said.

  “Yes. Of course. I suppose I do.”

  She looked away from him, across the wine bar to where a couple had
just been seated. They reached spontaneously for each other’s hand, twined fingers, and gazed into each other’s eyes across the candlelight. They looked to be somewhere in their twenties. They looked to be somewhere in the first stages of love.

  She said, “You see, I don’t want to see you, Thomas.”

  He felt himself blanch, her words unexpectedly like a blow to him.

  She moved her gaze from the young couple to him, apparently saw something on his face, and said quickly, “No, no. I’ve said that badly. What I mean is that I don’t want to want to see you. There’s too much danger in that for me. There’s . . .” Again she diverted her gaze from him, but this time she put it on the candle’s flame. It guttered as someone new entered the wine bar. Voices called out a greeting to the young lovers at the table. Someone said, “Don’t trust that bastard, Jennie,” and someone else laughed.

  Daidre said, “There’re too many possibilities for pain here. And I promised myself some time ago . . . It’s that I’ve had enough of pain. And I hate saying that to you, of all people, because what you’ve endured and what you’ve somehow come out whole from having endured makes anything I’ve gone through in my little life a very paltry thing and believe me, I know it.”

  It was her honesty that he admired, Lynley realised as she spoke. It was her honesty that he knew he could grow to love. Understanding this, he was in that moment as afraid as she was, and he wanted to tell her this. But instead he said, “Dear Daidre—”

  “God, that sounds like the beginning of the end,” she declared. “Or something very like.”

  He laughed, then. “Not at all,” he said. He considered their predicament from several different angles as he took up his wineglass and drank. He said, “What if you and I screw up our courage and approach the precipice?”

  “What precipice would that be exactly?”

  “The one in which we admit that we care for each other. I care for you. You care for me. Perhaps we’d both rather not since, let’s face it, caring for anyone is a messy business. But it’s happened and if we get it into the air between us, we can decide what, if anything, we’d like to do about it.”

  “We know the truth of things, Thomas,” she said firmly and, he thought, a little fiercely. “I don’t belong in your world. And no one knows that better than you.”