Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

“I’m claiming nothing here. I’m merely asking you to follow the dance steps because you know the music. You aren’t stupid, despite what you might feel towards our brooding professor. He had her snatched, and when the time was right, he was going to take her to Pakistan and disappear.”

“He’s a bloody professor of—”

“And bloody professors don’t commit crimes? Is that what you want to tell me? Dear sergeant, you and I both know that crimes are not the especial province of the unwashed masses. And you and I both know that if this particular professor took his daughter to Pakistan, the door of possibility of Mummy’s getting her back would be slammed for years, locked with a key, and Angelina would be left banging on it till her fists were bloody. Trying to get a kid from the kid’s father in Pakistan? The kid’s Pakistani father? The kid’s Muslim father? Exactly how many rights do you think a mere Englishwoman would have, if she was even able to find him in the first place?”

Barbara felt the persuasive truth of all this, but accepting that truth . . . ? She knew there was another explanation. She also knew that to sit in the office and to argue the cause of that explanation to Doughty was a useless endeavour. Only a conversation with Azhar was going to shed light on everything. Doughty was as dirty as the inside of a Hoover. That was the truth that she had to cling to.

It was as if he’d read her mind, though, when Doughty next spoke. “The professor is dirty, Sergeant Havers,” he said. He pushed away from his desk and returned the memory stick to his filing cabinet, which he then locked. He turned back to Barbara and held out his wrists in mock surrender. “Now . . . You can cart me off to the nick, and I can go through this all again for whoever’s interested in listening. Or you can start building a case where it’s meant to be built: right in the professor’s front garden.”

VICTORIA

LONDON

Lynley arrived in London by early afternoon, weathering a crowded flight from Pisa in which he’d suffered his six-foot-two-inch frame being jackknifed into the middle seat with a rosary-saying nun on one side of him and an overweight businessman with a very large newspaper on the other. Prior to leaving the vicinity of Lucca, he’d had a final word with Angelina Upman. She confirmed every detail of Azhar’s story on the subject of their parting on the previous night. Forgiveness was the theme of what had passed between them, as were future arrangements for Hadiyyah so that she could continue to be part of the London life of the father she adored. Only Lorenzo Mura was opposed to these plans. He didn’t like Azhar, he didn’t trust Azhar, and Angelina was a fool to consider allowing Azhar access to her daughter.

“Darling, she’s Hari’s daughter as well” did not soothe Mura. He stormed from the room breathing the fire of angry Italian into the air. Angelina sighed. “It’s not going to be easy,” she told Lynley, “but I want to do what’s right for us all.”

In her presence, Lynley had given thought to the toll this entire affair had taken upon Angelina. He reckoned she was normally a beautiful woman, but the circumstances she’d been caught in had temporarily robbed her of her looks, leaving her gaunt, lank-haired, and hollow-eyed. She needed to recover and she needed to do so as quickly as possible to safeguard the life she carried within her. He wanted to tell her this, but she would know it already. So he said to her, merely, “Be well,” and he departed.

In London, he went directly to the Yard. There, he met with Isabelle Ardery to make his report to her. It was a good result, culminating in the safe return of Hadiyyah Upman to her mother. The affair was in the hands of the Italian police now, and on the Lucca end of things, there was nothing more to be done as the public minister would determine what to do with the evidence uncovered by Chief Inspector Salvatore Lo Bianco and whoever followed him as head of the case.

“The investigation was taken away from him yesterday,” Lynley explained. “He and the public minister didn’t see eye to eye on things, as it happened.”

Isabelle picked up a phone, saying to him, “Let’s have Barbara’s report, then,” and she summoned Barbara to join them.

Lynley sighed and shook his head inwardly when he saw the sergeant’s appearance. Her hair was still a chopped-up mess, and she’d returned to a manner of dress certain to set Isabelle’s teeth on edge. At least on this day, she’d eschewed a slogan-embossed tee-shirt in favour of a jersey. Its zigzag horizontal pattern of neon colours, however, did nothing to enhance her charms. Her trousers—baggy at the seat and the knees—looked like something her grandmother had discarded.

He glanced at Isabelle. She looked at Havers, looked at him, and admirably controlled herself. She said, “Sergeant,” and indicated a seat.

Barbara shot Lynley a look that he couldn’t read, although she seemed to think she was being called onto the carpet for something. He couldn’t blame her for that. Rarely was she summoned into a superior’s office for any other thing. He said, “I’ve just brought the guv up-to-date on Italy,” and Isabelle said, “As to the London end of things, Sergeant . . . ?”

Havers looked relieved. She said by way of introduction, “Way I see it, guv, things’re going to come down to one slimy bloke’s word against another slimy bloke’s word.” She balanced the ankle of a red-trainer-shod foot on her knee and displayed a length of white sock printed with cupcakes. Lynley heard Isabelle’s sigh. Havers went on. Doughty, she told them, did not deny employing one Pisan called Michelangelo Di Massimo in an attempt to trace Hadiyyah and her mother. He claimed he had done so on behalf of Azhar, and that was the extent of what he’d done. He said that whatever money flowed from a London bank to an Italian bank—into the account of Di Massimo—was merely in payment for this service. But it proved to be a service that had gained him nothing, according to Doughty. Di Massimo had declared that the trail went dead early on. Havers said, “I reckon we have to decide which one of these blokes is the real liar. Since Di Massimo’s got the Italian cops on his back, could be we should just wait and see what comes of that.”

Isabelle hadn’t won her position as detective superintendent by failing to see where the net of an investigation had one or two gaping holes. She said, “At what point did Taymullah Azhar learn the name of this Italian private investigator, Sergeant?”

To which Havers’s reply was, “Never, guv, as far as I know. At least not before the inspector here sussed things out with the Italian coppers. And that’s really the crux of the matter, isn’t it?” Before Isabelle could answer, Havers continued with “SO12’s been onto Azhar, by the way. He’s clean.”

“SO12?” Lynley and Isabelle said simultaneously. Isabelle continued. “What have SO12 to do with things, Sergeant?”

Havers explained that she’d been intent on exploring every single avenue and—“Let’s admit it, guv, since you just brought him up, one of those avenues was Azhar”—she’d had a talk with Chief Inspector Harry Streener to see if his team had been looking into Azhar for any reason. Azhar had been in Berlin at the time of the kidnapping, and that didn’t look good, so she had figured if there was anything questionable going on, SO12 would have found it. “Azhar’s a microbiologist, guv. Azhar’s Muslim. Azhar’s Pakistani. To the SO12 blokes . . . You know how they are. I reckoned if there was anything to be turned up about him, they would have done the spadework.”

But there had been nothing, Havers said. Her conclusion was the same as DI Lynley’s. This entire mess was better left in the hands of the Italian police.