Just One Evil Act il-18

by Elizabeth George

  No, Barbara thought. No, no, no.

  She said, and she tried to sound determined, “You’re heading in the wrong direction. This is a woman who had more than one lover at a time. She had Azhar and another bloke while she was living with Azhar here in London. And then she had Lorenzo Mura as well. Three lovers at once. She left Azhar for Lorenzo Mura and I’m telling you that it’s a fairly sure thing she picked up someone over there once the fires burnt low with Mura. That’s who she was.”

  “You’re slithering all over the map, Barb. You can’t be trying to tell me this bird had a former lover with access to E. coli and a current lover with access as well. How d’you expect that ship to get out of port? And you’re contradicting yourself anyway. This is either a grand Italian cover-up or it’s cold-blooded murder, but it isn’t both.”

  She was as out of ideas as she was out of steam. She was reduced to saying the one thing she knew had no chance at all of winning him to her thoughts. She said, “Mitchell, please.”

  He said pleasantly, “At the end of the day, this is going to be a very big story, so I s’pose I have to thank you, Barb. I give it another twenty-four hours before they arrest him. They call that indagato here. The coppers turn their eyes on you as the principal suspect and the news goes out and you’re indagato. Taking his passport was the first step. That’s the second. So you put me on to a very big story, Barb. Rod might even increase my expense account to include a plate of spaghetti Bolognese.”

  “You’ll destroy him if you start speculating about him in the press. You know that, right? You’ve already done the Love Rat Dad piece. Wasn’t that enough? You’ve got nothing but circumstantial rubbish to build a story on.”

  “True enough,” he said. “But circumstantial rubbish is our bread and butter. You knew that when you brought me on board.”

  VICTORIA

  LONDON

  Barbara forced herself to eat. She even went for something with more nutritional validity than her usual fare. In place of a strawberry Pop-Tart, she opted for a soft-boiled egg and brown toast. She gave in to jam, but that was it. She felt virtuous for five minutes until she sicked up the entire mess.

  Luckily that happened before she left Chalk Farm for the Met. She was forced to change her tee-shirt and scrub her teeth and mouth three times. But none of that resulted in her being late for work, which she reckoned counted in her favour.

  She tried not to smoke en route. She failed. She tried to divert her mind with chat from Radio 4. She failed. Twice she came close to finding herself on the responsibility end of a roadway crash. She self-talked and tried to get her breath even and her heart beating normally. She failed there as well.

  She had two fags in the underground car park, the first to still her nerves and the second to build her courage. What she was attempting to come to terms with was having saved Azhar from a kidnapping charge only to have him charged with murder. In the realm of pyrrhic victories, she reckoned she’d just been crowned its bloody empress.

  And where was Hadiyyah? What in God’s name had been done with Hadiyyah if Azhar was spending hours on the grill in gaol?

  She’d rung his mobile: twice before she left her bungalow in Chalk Farm, once on her way to Victoria Street, and a final time in the underground car park. No reply told her he was probably back at the questura, as Mitch had predicted. What she couldn’t understand was why he had not rung to tell her what was going on.

  She couldn’t work out what this meant except that he didn’t want her to know he was being questioned in the first place. He’d already deceived her about his participation in Hadiyyah’s kidnapping. It wasn’t inconceivable that he’d not wanted her to know he was being questioned about Angelina’s death.

  What she didn’t want to toss round in her mind was whether she ought to be concluding that he was involved. Instead, she concentrated on Hadiyyah and on the state of fear and confusion the little girl had to be in. Her young life was in shambles. In six short months, she’d gone through more than most children endure in a lifetime. After being snatched from her father and taken to Italy, after being kidnapped and held for days at an obscure location in the Italian Alps, after losing her mother . . . now her father was under suspicion for murder? How was she to navigate this? How was she to navigate it alone?

  When Barbara reached her desk, she checked for messages. She saw that she was under the watchful eye of John Stewart as usual, but that couldn’t be helped. Finding nothing that gave her a clue about Italy and Azhar, she went to see Detective Superintendent Ardery. There was only one way to move forward, she reckoned, and she was going to need Ardery’s blessing to do it.

  She rang Azhar’s mobile a final time. She even rang the pensione where he was staying, only to discover that the woman who picked up the call spoke not a single word of English. She was great with her Italian, though. Once she heard Barbara’s voice and Taymullah Azhar, she was off like a jackrabbit, flooding the airwaves with a recitation that could have been anything from a recipe for minestrone to a declamation on the state of the world. Who bloody knew? Barbara finally rang off on her and then there was nothing for it but to go in search of Superintendent Ardery.

  She thought of taking DI Lynley with her, in the hope that he might be able to soften up the superintendent with a display of careful reasoning. However, not only was Lynley not yet in for the day—why the bloody hell not? she wondered—but she also had to admit to herself that she couldn’t rely upon him to be in her corner. Too much water had passed under that bridge in the past few weeks.

  When Dorothea Harriman turned from her keyboard at the sound of her name, Barbara clocked her expression immediately. Dee’s gaze took in the tee-shirt Barbara had quickly donned after sicking up her breakfast, and Barbara could tell that, while Dee might have been mildly amused by its declaration of Heavily Medicated for Your Safety, chances were very good that Isabelle Ardery was not going to be. Barbara cursed silently. She’d grabbed the tee-shirt without considering anything other than getting herself to the Met as quickly as she could without splashes of vomit on her chest. She should have read the slogan, she should have selected more wisely, she should have dressed in a suit. Or a skirt. Or something. She had not, and so she was starting out on her saunter into Ardery’s territory on one hell of a wrong foot.

  Briefly, she considered asking Dee to exchange tops with her. Ludicrous prospect, she decided. Even picturing the young woman decked out in a slogan-bearing tee-shirt was itself an impossibility. So she merely asked if the guv was available. Before Dee could answer, Barbara heard Isabelle Ardery’s voice.

  “Of course I’m in agreement that they oughtn’t come to town by train, alone,” she was saying, “but I didn’t mean alone, Bob. Is there any reason that Sandra can’t accompany them? I’ll be at the station. She can hand them over to me and take the return train to Kent. I’ll do the same at the end of the visit.”

  Barbara looked at Dee. Dee mouthed ex-husband. The guv was negotiating time with her twin sons, in the custody of the ex for reasons of breathing the fine air of Kent. Or so Ardery claimed when anyone enquired why her children didn’t live in London with their mum. Which very few people had the nerve to do. Well, this didn’t look like a good time to approach the superintendent, but that couldn’t be helped. Barbara lurked outside her superior’s office till she heard Ardery say, “All right. The following weekend, then. I think by now that I’ve proved myself, don’t you? . . . Bob, please don’t be unreasonable . . . Will you at least talk to Sandra about this? Or I can do so . . . Yes . . . Very well.”

  That was it, the conversation’s conclusion making it difficult to know which way the wind of Ardery’s mood was going to be blowing. But Barbara had no choice, so she went ahead when Dee Harriman gave her the nod. She got a look at Ardery’s face as she entered, though, and she reckoned at once that things weren’t going to go swimmingly for her.

  Ardery sat with her fist clenched to her teeth, giving a living illustration of the term white-knu
ckled. She was definitely white-knuckling something, and Barbara reckoned it was probably rage as the superintendent was taking deep breaths and her eyes were closed. Good moment to decamp, Barbara thought, but Hadiyyah’s well-being hung in the balance. So she cleared her throat and said, “Guv? Dee told me you could see me for a minute.”

  Ardery’s eyes opened. She lowered her fist, and Barbara saw that her nails had deeply indented her palms. She reckoned the other woman’s blood was pounding. She wished she’d waited for Lynley’s tempering influence.

  Ardery said, “What is it, Sergeant?” and the tone of her voice indicated that mentioning the overheard phone call would be a very bad idea.

  “I need to go to Italy.” Barbara winced inwardly at the way it sounded. She’d blurted it out instead of what she’d planned to do, which was to lead Ardery gently through all the facts so that being given leave to go to Italy would be the natural conclusion of the tale she would tell. But that had gone by the wayside as she’d opened her mouth. Urgency demanded an immediate response.

  “What?” Ardery said. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t heard Barbara’s announcement, though. It was as if she couldn’t believe it and by making Barbara repeat it, she would be forcing her subordinate to hear how ridiculous her expectations were.

  Barbara said again, “I need to go to Italy, guv.” She added, “To Tuscany. To Lucca. Hadiyyah Upman’s been left alone there, her dad’s been questioned for the last two days, he has no family he can rely on, and I’m the only person Hadiyyah trusts. After what’s happened, I mean.”

  Ardery listened to this without expression. When Barbara had finished, the superintendent took a manila file from her desk. She laid it out in front of her. Barbara saw something written on its tab, but she couldn’t make out what it was. What she could make out was the paperwork inside. There was quite a stack of it, and included among it were clippings from newspapers. She thought at first that the guv meant to review what had happened to Hadiyyah or to look up information that would tell her what was going on with Azhar. But she took neither action. Instead, she gazed at Barbara levelly. She said, “That’s absolutely out of the question.”

  Barbara swallowed. She presented the facts. Angelina Upman’s unexpected death; E. coli; a possible cover-up by the Italian police, the Italian health officials, and the Italian media; Azhar’s passport in the possession of the coppers; Azhar’s solicitor; daylong interviews at the questura; Hadiyyah alone and afraid, kidnapped first, held in the Alps second, mother dead third, father under the cops’ microscope for the last two days fourth. Hadiyyah needed to be cared for until this situation was settled. Or she needed to be returned to London in the event—God forbid—that it wasn’t settled today. The child had no one in Italy save her father and—

  “This isn’t a British affair.”

  Barbara’s mouth gaped. “These are British subjects!”

  “And there’s a system in place that comes to their aid in foreign countries. It’s called the embassy.”

  “The embassy only gave him a list of solicitors. They said that when someone gets into trouble with the law—”

  “This is an Italian matter, and the Italians will handle it.”

  “By doing what? Putting Hadiyyah into care? Swallowing her up into the system? Handing her over to some . . . some . . . some workhouse?”

  “We’re not living inside a Charles Dickens novel, Sergeant.”

  “Orphanage, then. Holding tank. Dormitory. Convent. Guv, she’s nine years old. She has no one. Only her dad.”

  “She has family here in London and they’ll be notified. And I expect her mother’s lover will be notified as well. The lover will take her in till the family can fetch her.”

  “They hate her! She’s not even a person to them. Guv, for God’s sake, she’s been through enough.”

  “You’re getting hysterical.”

  “She needs me.”

  “No one needs you, Sergeant.” And then as if she’d seen Barbara recoil as from a blow, “What I mean is that your presence isn’t necessary and I won’t authorise it. The Italians are well equipped to handle this, and they will do so. Now if that’s all, I’ve work to do and I expect you’re in the same position.”

  “I can’t just stand by and—”

  “Sergeant, if you wish to argue this matter further, I suggest you have a think first. I also suggest that you begin your think with a few considerations about a gentleman called Mitchell Corsico as well as The Source and about what you might be able to learn from past history. Cops have climbed into bed with reporters in the past. The results have been less than pleasant. Not for the reporters, of course. Scandal is their stock in trade. But for the cops? Hear me well, Barbara, because I mean it: I suggest you consider your own recent history and what it has to tell you about your future if you don’t sort yourself out at once. Now is there anything further?”

  “No,” Barbara said. There was no point to additional conversation with the guv. The only point was getting herself to Italy, which she fully intended to do.

  SOUTH HACKNEY

  LONDON

  First, however, there were matters to settle with Bryan Smythe. The last time she’d seen him, she’d given him his marching orders. She hadn’t heard from him about having done the work required. She’d phoned him twice with no success. It was time, she reckoned, to jostle his bones with a reminder of what could befall him if she had a word with the appropriate authorities about what he was up to when he sat down daily at his computer.

  She found him at home. He was not, however, at work on anything. Instead he was apparently dressing for going out. He’d done something about the dandruff, praise God, because at least for the moment his shoulders were devoid of the flakes of Maldon sea salt that otherwise had sprinkled his shirts when she’d seen him previously. He was also wearing a jacket and tie. The fact that he came to the door with keys in hand suggested that she’d caught him in the nick of time.

  She didn’t wait to be admitted into his sanctum sanctorum. She said, “I won’t be requiring a cuppa this time,” and she sauntered past him, through his work area and into the garden once again. She chose another spot this time. Knowing the bloke’s habits as she was learning them, she had little doubt that after her last meeting with him in the garden, he’d wired that earlier area for sound.

  At the end of all the fine plantings, she spied a garden shed, disguised with a heavy growth of wisteria in such full bloom that she reckoned he fed it with the ground-up remains of the neighbourhood’s missing pets. She headed in that direction, and he followed her. “Let me ask in advance,” he said to her. “What part of ‘you’re trespassing on private property’ might be too difficult for you to understand?”

  “Where are you with making the changes on the tickets to Pakistan?” she demanded.

  “You can leave or I can phone the local cops.”

  “We both know you’re not about to do that. What’ve you done about those tickets?”

  “I don’t have time to talk about this. I’ve an employment interview to go to.”

  “‘Employment interview,’ is it? What sort of employment does a bloke with your talents come up with?”

  “I’ve been headhunted by a Chinese firm. For tech security. Which is what I do. Which is what I have been doing for the better part of fifteen years. If you must know.”

  “That’s kept you in expensive art in the modern mode, has it?” she asked archly, indicating his house and its collection.

  “Let’s be straight with each other” was his reply. “You’ve done your best to destroy the better part of my career—”

  “Such as it was, although it’s a bit like hearing a cat burglar complaining because someone’s had the bollocks to put a security system on their house. But do go ahead.”

  “So I owe you nothing. And nothing is what I have to offer you.” He glanced at his watch. “Now if there’s nothing more . . . and traffic being what it is . . .”

  “You’re bluffing
, Bryan. I’m holding a better hand than you are, or have you forgotten that? Now what’s been done about those Pakistan tickets?”

  “I told you there was no way to get into SO12’s system, and there’s no way to get into SO12’s system. Surely you’re capable of understanding that.”

  “What I’m also capable of understanding is there are other blokes exactly like you out there in cyberland, and you know each other bloody well. And don’t tell me there’s no one out there who could hop, skip, and jump their way into SO12’s system because on a daily basis these blokes hack into everything from the Ministry of Defence to Inland Revenue to the Royals’ social calendars. So if you haven’t found someone to do the job, it’s because you haven’t asked someone to do the job. And in your position, that’s risky, Bryan. I’m holding your backups. I could sink you in a minute. Have you forgotten that?”

  He shook his head, not an I’ve-not-forgotten movement but one that signalled disbelief. He said, “You can do what you like, but I think, if you do, you’ll find out soon enough that all of us are cooking in the same pot just now. And that would be largely due to you.”

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “First of all, you’ve been bloody stupid to think that Dwayne intends to take the fall for anything. Second of all, if some records can be altered—superficially or otherwise—others can be altered as well. So what I’m suggesting is that you might want to have a think about that one. And when you’ve finished your thinking, you can get on to third of all. Which is, you stupid cow, that you’ve been found out. What’s known is every movement you’ve made, I suspect, but especially the movement that led you to my front door.”

  He turned on his heel at that and headed through the sumptuous spring garden and back towards his house.

  She followed him, saying, “What’s that supposed to mean besides an idle threat?”