Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

“They have not even asked to question me. But, Barbara, I fear that perhaps Mr. Doughty . . . or one of his associates . . . Someone must have told the inspector something to make him begin to think that I . . .” He was silent for a moment and then, quietly, “Oh God, I should have let it all go.”

“Let what go? Let your own daughter go? How the bloody hell were you supposed to do that, eh? Angelina took her. She disappeared. You did what you had to do to find her.”

“It fell apart, Barbara. This is what I fear.”

She couldn’t tell him his fears were unreasonable. Yet unless the Italians had sent someone from Italy to talk to Doughty or unless Smythe somehow had contacted them, the only person who could have told them anything would have been Di Massimo. And according to Azhar, he’d engaged in no communication with the Italian detective at all, all of that being done by Doughty with every trail removed by Bryan Smythe. So it was likely that the Italian cops had something more, something different beyond information they would have gleaned from an interrogation of Di Massimo. She had to find out what that was. Until she discovered it, they could plan no further.

She said to Azhar, “You listen to me. First thing tomorrow, you ring the embassy. Then you ring for a solicitor.”

“But if he asks me to come to the questura . . . and what of Hadiyyah? Barbara, what of Hadiyyah? I am not innocent in this matter. Had I not arranged to have her taken—”

“Just stay where you are and wait till you hear from me.”

“What will you do? From London, Barbara, what can you do?”

“I c’n get the information we need. Without that, we’re wandering in the dark.”

“If you could have seen how they looked upon us,” he murmured. “Not only upon me but upon Hadiyyah.”

“Who? The coppers?”

“The Upmans. That I am worse than nothing to these people is something I can bear. It is as it has always been. But Hadiyyah . . . They looked at her as if she carried a disease, some deformity of body . . . She is a child. She is innocent. And these people—”

“Set them aside, Azhar,” Barbara cut in. “Don’t think about them. Promise me that. I’ll be in touch.”

They rang off. Barbara spent the rest of the evening and far into the night sitting at the table in her tiny kitchen, smoking one fag after another, and trying to work out what she could do that did not involve anyone other than herself. She knew this was a pointless activity, but she engaged in it anyway till she had to admit there was only one action she could take next.

BELGRAVIA

LONDON

The fact that Isabelle Ardery had made no move to deal with Barbara Havers suggested to Lynley that she was either giving him the time he had asked for to try to sort out what Barbara had been up to or she was herself building a case against Barbara that would give her the result she’d been looking for since first encountering the sergeant as a difficult member of her team. Isabelle was someone who wanted things to run smoothly, and it couldn’t be argued that Barbara lent to the machinery of a police investigation the constant oil of her cooperation.

Isabelle had, of course, asked for a report from him. He told her of his conversation with Bryan Smythe, but he made no mention of either the airline tickets to Lahore or what Barbara Havers had asked Smythe to do. He left out the information that she had gone to see Smythe in the company of Azhar as well. This proved to be a misstep on his part.

Isabelle slid the report across her desk to him. He put on his glasses, opened it, and read.

John Stewart had been on top of the call upon Bryan Smythe made by Havers and Azhar. He’d merely not had a chance to hand it over to Isabelle when Lynley and she had met earlier with the sergeant. When Lynley asked the superintendent why she had not yet turned Barbara over to CIB, her steady reply of “I’m waiting to see how far this reaches” told him that his own actions would be scrutinised as well.

“Isabelle, I admit that I’m trying to find excuses for her” was what he told the superintendent.

“Looking for reasons is understandable, Tommy. Looking for excuses is not. I expect you see the difference between the two.”

He returned Stewart’s report to her, saying, “And as for John . . . his reasons? His excuses? What are you planning to do about him?”

“John’s well in hand. You’re not to concern yourself with John.”

He could hardly believe what she was saying since it had to mean she’d actually set DI Stewart to the task of watching Havers closely and noting her movements. If that was the case, Isabelle was giving Barbara rope. She also was telling him not to wrest that rope from Barbara’s grasp only to wrap it round his own neck.

All that was wanted to finish Barbara off was Lynley’s own report on the full contents of the conversation he’d had with Bryan Smythe. For although Stewart knew where Barbara had gone and when she’d gone there and with whom, what he had not known from the first was what she was up to. Only Lynley himself—and Barbara—knew that.

Early in the morning, he went into the garden behind his house. His place was laid for breakfast, his newspapers were on the dining room table precisely angled from his fork, and the scent of bread toasting under Charlie Denton’s watchful eye was emanating from the kitchen. But he walked to the window, looked out on the bright spring day, and saw how beautifully the roses were blooming. He went outside to look them over, aware that in the time since Helen’s death, he’d not once ventured out into the garden she’d loved. Nor, he realised, had anyone else.

Among the rose bushes he found a pail. Within it pruned branches from the plants leaned. Hooked over the pail’s side was a small pair of secateurs, rusty now from being exposed to the weather for more than a year. The bushes themselves told the tale of why the pail, its contents, and the secateurs had been left out here for so long. Helen had been in the midst of pruning them when she’d been murdered.

Lynley thought of how he’d watched her once from the window of his library above stairs. He’d gone to join her in the garden and even now her words came to him, spoken in her typical self-deprecating, droll fashion. Tommy darling, I do think this might be the only useful activity I could possibly become adept at . There’s something so satisfying about grubbing round in the dirt. I think it takes one back to one’s roots. And then she thought about what she’d said and laughed. What a terrible pun. It was completely unintentional.

He’d offered to help her, but she wouldn’t let him. Don’t please rob me of my one opportunity to excel at something.

He smiled now at the thought of her. Then he was struck by how the thought of Helen had for the first time not been accompanied by searing pain.

A door opened behind him. He turned to see Denton opening it for Barbara Havers. Seeing her, Lynley glanced at his watch. It was seven twenty-eight in the morning. What on earth was she doing in Belgravia? he wondered.

She crossed the lawn to him. She looked horrible. Not only was she more thrown together than usual, but she also seemed to have spent an entire night without sleep. She said to him, “They have Azhar.”

He blinked. “Who?”

“The cops in Lucca. They’ve taken his passport. He’s being detained. He doesn’t know why.”

“Is he being questioned about something?”

“Not yet. He just can’t leave Italy. He doesn’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what’s going on. So how do I help him? I didn’t know what else to do. I don’t speak Italian. I don’t know their game. I don’t know what’s happened.” She took three paces along the flowerbeds before she swung round and said abruptly, “C’n you ring them, sir? C’n you find out what’s happening?”