Just One Evil Act il-18

by Elizabeth George

  Purtroppo, no had been Salvatore’s reply. For surely the telegiornalista knew that the kidnapping case had been handed over to Nicodemo Triglia some weeks ago? So Salvatore had no place in any pursuit of this new information.

  Did he know, then, where Taymullah Azhar and his daughter had gone? For the telegiornalista had learned that Azhar had been released from the prison where he’d been held, released into the care of Salvatore Lo Bianco and the English detective who’d accompanied him. Barbara Havers was her name. Where had Ispettore Lo Bianco taken them?

  Here, of course, Salvatore had said. The professore had collected his passport and had departed, as was his right.

  Departed? For where?

  “Non lo so,” Salvatore had told him. For he had been most careful about this. Wherever they were going, he did not wish to know. Their fate was out of his hands now, and he intended to keep it that way.

  When at last Piero Fanucci returned from pranzo, he appeared to be fully recovered from whatever concerns he might have had during his conversation with the Casparia family’s team of avvocati. Salvatore gave idle thought to the idea that a half liter of wine probably had gone far to allay those concerns, but he nonetheless welcomed Piero’s expansive greeting and he followed the magistrato into his office.

  He was there to speak only about the death of Angelina Upman and the guilt of Lorenzo Mura. In the interview room at the questura, Mura had confessed brokenly to everything. With Daniele Bruno’s assistance and his willingness to testify at whatever trial would follow the events associated with his meeting with Mura at the Parco Fluviale, it seemed to Salvatore that the investigation was now complete. Mura did not intend his woman to die, he explained to the magistrato. He did not intend her even to drink the wine that contained the bacteria. He’d meant it for the Pakistani man who’d come to assist in the search for their child. He had not known that, as a Muslim, Taymullah Azhar did not drink wine.

  Piero said at the conclusion of Salvatore’s remarks, “It is all circumstantial, what you give to me, no?”

  It was, of course. But the circumstances were damning, Salvatore said. “Still, I leave it to you and to your wisdom, Magistrato, to decide how you wish to prosecute Signor Mura. You have been right about so many things, and I trust whatever decision you make once you have familiarised yourself with all the reports.” These were in the folders that Salvatore carried. He handed them over, and Piero Fanucci placed them on the stack of other folders waiting for his perusal. Salvatore added, “The Mura family . . .”

  “What of them?”

  “They have hired an avvocato from Rome. It is my understanding that he will wish to strike a bargain with you.”

  “Bah,” Piero said dismissively. “Romans.”

  Salvatore made a formal little bow, just an inclination of the head to indicate his acceptance of Piero’s opinion of any lawyer who might come from Rome, that centre and hotbed of political scandal. He said farewell, then, and turned to leave. “Salvatore,” Piero said, which stopped him. He waited politely while Piero gathered his thoughts. He was unsurprised when the other man said, “Our little spat in the Orto Botanico . . . I deeply regret my loss of control, Topo.”

  “These things happen when passions run high,” Salvatore told him. “I assure you that, on my part, it is all forgotten.”

  “On mine as well, then. Ci vediamo?”

  “Ci vediamo, d’accordo,” Salvatore agreed.

  He left the office. A brief passeggiata was in order, he decided, so he took a little detour instead of heading directly to the questura. He wandered in the opposite direction, telling himself the day and the exercise would do him good. That his exercise took him to Piazza dei Cocomeri was of no import. That in the piazza was a very large newspaper kiosk was purely coincidental. That the giornalaio sold newspapers in English, French, and German as well as Italian was merely an intriguing discovery. He did not yet have that day’s edition of The Source, however. The British newspapers generally arrived by late afternoon, flown over to Pisa and transported from the airport. If the ispettore wished a copy to be held for him, this could be easily arranged.

  Salvatore said yes, he would like a copy of that particular paper. He handed over his money, nodded at the giornalaio, and went on his way. Certo, he could have used the Internet to see that morning’s edition of the tabloid. But he’d always liked the feeling of an actual newspaper beneath his fingers. And if he had no English sufficient to read what was in the pages of this tabloid, what did it matter? He could find someone to translate it for him. Eventually, he decided, he would do so.

  VICTORIA

  LONDON

  Isabelle Ardery’s third meeting with the assistant commissioner took place at three o’clock. Lynley learned about it in the usual way. Prior to that meeting, Dorothea Harriman informed him sotto voce, there had been a flurry of phone calls from CIB1, followed by a lengthy encounter in Isabelle’s office with one of the deputy assistant commissioners. To Lynley’s question of which one of the DACs had met with Ardery, Dorothea lowered her voice even more. It was the one in charge of police personnel management, she told him. She’d tried to sort out what was going on, but all she could report was that Detective Superintendent Ardery had asked for a copy of the Police Act yesterday afternoon.

  Lynley heard all this with a sinking heart. Sacking a policeman or -woman was an inordinately difficult manoeuvre. It wasn’t a matter of saying, “Right, you’re gone. Clear out your desk” because from a remark such as that, a lawsuit would follow as the night the day. So Isabelle had been necessarily careful in building her case, and although it pained him to know this, Lynley found that he couldn’t blame her.

  He rang Barbara’s mobile. If nothing else, he could at least prepare her for what was to befall her when she returned to London. But he got no answer, and so he left a simple message for her to ring him at once. Then, after five minutes of waiting, he rang Salvatore Lo Bianco.

  He was trying to get in contact with Sergeant Havers, he told the Italian man. Was she with him? Did he know where she was? She wasn’t answering her mobile and—

  “I suspect she is on an airplane,” Salvatore told him. “She left Lucca at midday with the professore and little Hadiyyah.”

  “Returning to London?”

  “Where else, my friend?” Salvatore said. “We are at a conclusion here. To the magistrato I gave my report this afternoon.”

  “What will he be pursuing, Salvatore?”

  “To this, I confess I do not know. The case of Signora Upman’s death ends with Signor Mura. As to the kidnapping of little Hadiyyah . . . ? That was taken from me long ago, as we both know. It, too, is in the hands of the magistrato. And Piero . . . ? Ah, Piero goes his own way in things. I have learned not to attempt to direct him.”

  That was the extent of Salvatore’s information. Lynley had the distinct feeling that there was more going on than Salvatore was willing to say via phone. But whatever it was, it was going to have to stay in Italy until such a time that Lynley travelled to Lucca again.

  A phone call from Dorothea Harriman supervened upon his conversation with Salvatore Lo Bianco. DI John Stewart was in conference with the detective superintendent now. He had taken a copy of a tabloid into the meeting, Detective Inspector Lynley. Harriman thought it was The Source, but she couldn’t be sure.

  Lynley rang Barbara Havers another time. Another time, it was her voice mail he heard. Just a surly “This is Havers. Leave a message,” in an impatient tone. He told her to ring him as soon as possible. He added, “Salvatore tells me you’re on a flight to London. We do need to talk before you come in to the Met, Barbara.” More than that, he wouldn’t say. But he hoped she sensed the urgency in his tone.

  For an hour afterwards, he was weak-stomached. He recognised this not only as completely unlike him but also as an indication of how little he could do at this point to stop the concrete ball from rolling down the ice slope on which it had been perched. When his desk phone rang at last,
he snatched it up.

  “Barbara,” he said.

  “Me.” It was Dorothea. “Coast is clear. Detective Inspector Stewart has just left her office. He’s looking grim.”

  “With triumph?”

  “Couldn’t say, Detective Inspector Lynley. Raised voices for a moment or two in there, but that was it. She’s alone now. I thought you might like to know.”

  He went to Isabelle at once. On his way, he met John Stewart in the corridor. As Harriman had indicated earlier, the other DI carried a tabloid with him. He had it rolled into a tube, and when Lynley nodded at him and began to pass by, Stewart stopped him. It was a sharp move in which he slapped the rolled tabloid against Lynley’s chest. He moved in far too close, and when he spoke, Lynley could smell the acrid scent of his breath. He felt rising in himself the inclination to shove the other man against the wall by means of his hand on Stewart’s throat, but he quelled this inclination and said, “Is there a problem, John?”

  Stewart’s voice was a hiss. “You think you were discreet, the two of you. You think no one knew you were fucking her, don’t you? We’re going to see about that one, you and I. This isn’t over, Tommy.”

  Lynley felt his muscles go so tight that the only release for the energy that made them that way would have been to throw Stewart to the floor and throttle him. But there was too much at stake here, and the truth of the matter was that he hadn’t the slightest idea what was actually going on. So he said, “I beg your pardon?”

  “That’s right, mate,” Stewart sneered. “You go all public school on me. That’s just what I would expect of you. Now get out of my way or—”

  “John, I believe you’re in my way,” Lynley said quietly. He took the tabloid from the other man’s hand, where still it pressed against his own chest. “Thank you for this, however. A little light reading over dinner tonight.”

  “You piece of shit. The two of you. The three of you. All of you directly up to the top.” This said, Stewart pushed past him.

  Lynley went on his way, but as he did so, he opened the tabloid to see the front page. Mitchell Corsico’s by-line was no surprise. Neither was the headline Kidnap Dad Behind It All. He didn’t need to read the article to see that he had been outplayed by Dwayne Doughty. The private investigator was a master, he realised, the mouse who could wrest the cheese from the trap without even coming close to the neck snap that would kill him.

  When he got to Dorothea Harriman, he nodded at Isabelle’s closed door. She said she would check and she spoke into her phone. Would the detective superintendent be available to see Detective Inspector Lynley? she enquired. She listened for a moment and then told Lynley to give his superior five minutes.

  The five minutes that passed stretched to ten and then fifteen before Isabelle opened her office door. She said, “Come in, Tommy. Close the door behind you,” and when he’d done so, she gave a tremendous sigh. She gestured to her mobile and said, “It shouldn’t take such an effort to plan a holiday to the Highlands. Bob wants to argue that it’s ‘out of the country’ and as he has custody, et cetera, et cetera. Is it any wonder I took to drink?” And when he shot her a look, she said, “I’m joking, Tommy.”

  She went to her desk and dropped into her chair. Uncharacteristically, she removed her simple necklace, dropped it on the desk, and rubbed the back of her neck. “Pinched nerve,” she told him. “Stress, I think. Well, it’s been a rough time.”

  “I saw John in the corridor.”

  “Ah. Well. He was taken aback. Who can blame him? He wasn’t to know he was being looked into, but honestly, what else could the man have been expecting?”

  Lynley watched her. Her face was nothing if not completely what it ought to be. He said, “I’m not sure I understand.”

  She continued to see to the tight muscles in her neck. “I wasn’t sure how it would work out, of course, once I assigned her to him and then reassigned her elsewhere, but I did think his antipathy towards both of us would do him in, which of course it did. She ran him on a merry chase all over London, and he ran after her. Doubtless there’s some fox-hunting metaphor that a man of your background might come up with—”

  “I don’t hunt,” he told her. “Well, once, but once was quite enough for me.”

  “Hmm. Yes. I suppose that’s in order, isn’t it? I daresay you’ve always been a traitor to your class.” She smiled at him. “How are you, Tommy?” she asked. “You’ve seemed . . . lighter these days. Have you met someone?”

  “Isabelle, what’s going on, exactly? Hillier, CIB1, the DAC from police personnel management . . .”

  “John Stewart’s been transferred, Tommy,” she said. “I thought you understood what I was talking about.” She returned her necklace to her neck and rebuttoned her blouse. She said, “Barbara’s brief was to suss him out. She would misuse her time left, right, and centre, and we would see if he misused his authority by setting up an unauthorised investigation of her. Of course, that’s exactly what he did as his reports to me proved from the very first. Naturally, ridding ourselves of the man entirely is a virtual impossibility, but CIB1, Hillier, and personnel management came to believe that a spate in Sheffield might be just the ticket for John. To learn how to operate effectively within the confines of a hierarchy, I mean.”

  The release he felt was enormous. So was the gratitude. He said, “Isabelle . . .”

  She said, “At any rate, Barbara played her part well. One would almost believe she was seriously out of order. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “Why?” he said quietly. “Isabelle, why? With so much at risk for you . . .”

  She looked at him quizzically. “You’re confusing me, Tommy. I’m not at all sure what you’re talking about. At any rate, it’s not important, I suppose. The crux of the matter is that John’s been dealt with. The coast is clear, as they say, for Barbara’s return and for a private celebration for a job well done.”

  He saw that she was not going to relent. She would have this her way or not at all. He said, “I don’t know what to . . . Isabelle, thank you. I want to say that you won’t regret this, but God knows that’s not likely.”

  She regarded him evenly for a very long moment. For a flash he saw in her face the woman whose body he’d so enjoyed in bed. Then that woman was gone and, he reckoned, she was gone forever. Her next words made this so.

  “It’s guv, Tommy,” she told him quietly. “Or it’s ma’am. Or it’s superintendent. It’s not Isabelle, though. I hope we’re clear on that.”

  20 May

  CHALK FARM

  LONDON

  She hadn’t returned a single call from Lynley. What the fallout was going to be was something she didn’t want to know just yet. So when she’d returned, she’d dragged herself into her bungalow and dumped the contents of her duffel onto the floor. She’d looked at the dismal collection of dirty clothing, and she’d decided that the next step was to lug it all to the launderette. She’d done so, sitting inside the place with its saunalike temperature and its unmistakable odour of mildew. She’d washed and she’d dried and then she’d folded. When it could no longer be avoided, she’d returned home.

  The aloneness of the place seeped inside her skin. Given, she’d been alone for years, but it had been an alone she’d managed to deny through work, through the obligatory visits to her mother’s care home, where the poor woman’s mind was being taken from her by the tablespoonful, and through the unexpected but always welcome interactions with her neighbours. Those neighbours she didn’t want to think about, but when she passed by their flat with its closed and curtained French windows, it was impossible to think of anything else.

  It hadn’t been a wrenching parting at the Pisa airport. That was the stuff of films. Instead, it had been something of a rush in which Azhar acquired tickets for, as things turned out, a flight to Zurich, from where he would begin the process of getting himself and Hadiyyah to Pakistan. This flight was soon to depart, and Barbara worried that, in these days of international terrorists, he woul
d be denied a ticket by virtue of being Muslim, dark-skinned, and seeking to go one way only. But perhaps it was the presence of his charming daughter, clearly thrilled at the idea of a holiday in Switzerland with Dad, that obviated the need for further questions. His documents were in order and so were Hadiyyah’s and that, it seemed, was all that would be required. Meantime, Barbara was arranging her own return to London. Soon enough—far too soon—they were on the other side of passport control and ready to part.

  Barbara said, “Well, right. That’s it,” and she gave Hadiyyah a one-armed hug. She said to her with a heartiness that she made every attempt to seem real, “Bring me a kilo of Swiss chocolate, kiddo. What else do they have for souvenirs? Swiss Army knives, I reckon.”

  “Watches!” Hadiyyah cried. “D’you want a watch as well?”

  “Only if it’s dead pricey.” And then she looked at Azhar. There was nothing to say, and certainly nothing that could be said in front of the little girl. So she said to him with a smile that felt like a rictus, “What an adventure it’s been, eh?”

  He said, “Thank you, Barbara. For what’s gone. For what comes.”

  Unable to speak past the stricture in her throat, she gave him a jaunty salute instead. She managed a “Later, then, mate.” He nodded and that was it.

  She had the key to his flat. Upon her return from the launderette, when there was nothing more for her to do inside her own bungalow, she walked to the front of the villa and across the lawn and let herself inside the place, empty of him, empty of Hadiyyah, but somehow bearing the echo of them both. She wandered its rooms and ended up in the one Azhar had shared with Angelina Upman. Her belongings were gone, of course, but his were not. In the clothes cupboard everything hung neatly: the trousers, the shirts, the jackets, the neckties. On the floor were shoes, arranged in a row. On the shelf were scarves and gloves for winter. On the back of the door were ties. She fingered the jackets and she held them to her face. She could smell him on them.