Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

“But ridding their lives of Azhar would not have made his own position with Angelina secure,” Salvatore pointed out.

Barbara listened to the translation, then said, “Sure, but he wasn’t thinking like that. He wasn’t looking at the big picture of If Not Azhar, Then Who Else Might She Leave Me For? He just wanted Azhar gone and he was doing it the best way he knew: make him good and ill and hope he keels over and there’s an end to the problem. Salvatore, when people are jealous, they don’t think straight. They just want the object of their jealousy gone. Or ruined. Or devastated. Or what ever . But what did Lorenzo Mura have? The return of the rejected lover, Hadiyyah’s dad back in Hadiyyah’s life, Hadiyyah’s dad back in Angelina’s life.”

“Men survive that sort of thing all the time.”

“But those men aren’t entangled with Angelina.”

Salvatore considered this. It was plausible, he thought. But it was only plausible . There still existed the biggest sticking point: the E. coli itself. If what the sergeant was saying was true, how had Lorenzo come to put his hands upon it? And not just E. coli but a deadly strain of it.

He spoke to the detective sergeant about this: about the how of the E. coli ’s acquisition. She listened but could offer him no advice. They—along with Giuditta—meditated in silence upon this thorny issue. Then Giorgio Simione came into Salvatore’s office.

For a moment, Salvatore blinked at him in absolute incomprehension. He’d given him an assignment, but he couldn’t recall what it was, even when Giorgio said helpfully, “DARBA, Ispettore .”

Salvatore said, “ Come? ” and repeated the word. When Giorgio said, “DARBA Italia,” Salvatore recalled.

“It’s here in Lucca,” Giorgio told him. “It’s on the route to Montecatini.”

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Mitchell Corsico had to be dealt with first. He’d done her an enormous favour in getting the entire, unedited television news film via one of the contacts he’d made with the Italian journalists. He was going to want the payoff for this, and he was going to need to pass along a juicy and otherwise significant detail to the Italian who’d helped him in the first place. Quid pro quo and all that. So Barbara had to tell him something, and she had to make sure it was something good.

When she understood from the translator that Salvatore’s intention was an unannounced call upon DARBA Italia, she fully intended to accompany him there. But she couldn’t have Mitch Corsico tagging along with them. She and Salvatore needed time to pin down their information. What they didn’t need was any of it leaking to the press.

She’d left him in the café down the street from the questura , across the road from the railway station, and the last thing she’d needed was Salvatore Lo Bianco putting his hooded gaze upon the UK’s version of the Lone Ranger sans mask. Because of the distance and the crowds of people milling about, she knew she’d be able to make her escape from the questura without Mitchell becoming wise to her whereabouts. But if he discovered she’d done this, there would be hell to pay.

She had to use half-truths. While Salvatore went for a vehicle in the car park next to the questura , she rang Corsico.

“We’ve got a potential source for the E. coli ,” she told him. “I’m heading there now.”

“Hang the hell on. You and I had an agreement. I’m not letting you—”

“You’ll get the story, Mitch, and you’ll get it first. But ’f you show up now and want to play tagalong, Salvatore’s going to want to know who you are. And believe me, that’ll be tough to explain. He trusts me, and we need to keep things that way. He finds I’m leaking to the press, we’re done for.”

“It’s Salvatore now? What the hell’s going on?”

“Oh for God’s bloody sake. He’s a colleague. We’re heading for a place called DARBA Italia, and that’s all I know just now. It’s here in Lucca, and ’f you ask me, it’s the source of the E. coli and that’s where Lorenzo Mura got it.”

“If it’s here in Lucca, it could also be where the professor got it,” Corsico pointed out. “He was here in April looking for the kid. All he had to do was waltz over to this place and make the buy.”

“Oh, too right. Are you trying to tell me that Azhar—a man who speaks no Italian, by the way—swanned over to DARBA Italia with euros in hand and said, ‘How much for a test tube of the worst bacteria you lot have going? I’ll need something I don’t grow in my own lab, so all forms of Strep are off the table.’ And then what, Mitch? One of their salesmen tap-danced into the place where they keep this stuff—Quality Control, maybe?—and nicked a little bacteria without anyone noticing? Don’t be a fool. This stuff is going to be controlled. It can take out an entire population, for the love of God.”

“So why the hell are you going there? Because what you just said—save not speaking Italian—applies to Lorenzo Mura as well. And while we’re talking about this whole bloody mess, how the hell do you know they have E. coli in the first place?”

“I don’t know. That’s why we’re paying them a visit.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“I’m sitting here waiting for a story, Barb.”

“You’ve got your piece on Hadiyyah. Go with that.”

“Rod’s not chuffed. He says page five. He says Professor Falsely Imprisoned is the only path to page one. Thing is, of course, from what you just told me it sounds like the falsely part of the headline might not be needed.”

“I’ve told you how—”

“I got you the television film. What’s the payoff for me?”

Salvatore Lo Bianco pulled to the kerb and leaned over to push open the passenger door. Barbara said, “It’s coming. I swear I’ll keep you in the loop. I’ve given you DARBA Italia. Ask your Italian journalist mates to take things from there.”

“And give them the story ahead of me? Come on, Barb—”

“It’s the best I can do.” She ended the call and got into the car. She nodded to Salvatore and said, “Let’s go.”

“ Andiamo ,” he told her with a smile.

“Back at you, mate,” she replied.

VICTORIA

LONDON

Isabelle Ardery’s meeting with the assistant commissioner had lasted two hours. Lynley had this information from the most reliable source: David Hillier’s secretary. It didn’t come to him directly, though. The conduit was the redoubtable Dorothea Harriman. Dorothea cultivated sources of information the way farmers cultivate crops. She had informants within the Met, the Home Office, and the Houses of Parliament. So she knew from Judi MacIntosh the length of the meeting between Hillier and Ardery and she knew it had been tense. She also knew that present at the meeting had been two blokes from CIB. She didn’t know their names—“I did try, Detective Inspector Lynley”—but the only details she had managed to unearth were that the blokes had come from one of the two arms of the Complaints Investigation Bureau, and that arm was CIB1. Lynley received this titbit with a frisson of apprehension. CIB1 dealt with internal complaints. CIB1 dealt with internal discipline.

The superintendent didn’t offer to share the content of her meeting. Lynley tried to learn something useful from her, but her quick and firm “Don’t let’s go there, Tommy” told him that things were in motion and the nature of those things was as serious as he’d earlier concluded they might be when she’d phoned Hillier and asked for a meeting.

So he was deeply thoughtful when he took a surprising and welcome phone call from Daidre Trahair. She’d come to town to look for a flat, she told him. Would he like to meet her for lunch in Marylebone?