Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

Lynley watched him go. He gazed at the tabloid’s page-one story once he was alone. It was vintage material from The Source : The good guys wore white. The bad guys wore black. No one wore grey. In this case, both Taymullah Azhar and Lorenzo Mura were the bad guys for reasons having to do with the death of Angelina Upman (Azhar) and with keeping Hadiyyah from her father (Mura). Of course, since Azhar was in prison at the moment, put there by Inspector Salvatore Lo Bianco (white), who was in charge of the investigation into the death of Angelina Upman, the child had to be domiciled somewhere and the villa in which she had lived with her mother and Mura (pictures on page three) had seemed reasonable until other arrangements could be made. But hers was now the face of sadness, abandonment, and the desperate need to recover from the crimes that had been committed against her, and nothing was being done about that. She was now alone and in the hands of a foreign government (very black), and when was the Foreign Secretary (white but moving towards black very quickly) going to step in and demand that the child be returned to London where she belonged?

Much space was taken up with the recap of what had happened to Hadiyyah since the previous November. Interestingly, though, there was no mention of anyone from New Scotland Yard being sent there to liaise for the troubled child.

That, Lynley knew, was a telling detail. The tale it told was one of collusion between the journalist who had written the story and Barbara Havers. For if he named her, he named his source, and he wasn’t fool enough to do that. Yet Barbara was the only way he could have located Hadiyyah. And only through Barbara’s cooperation could he ever have managed to get a picture of the child.

This article, Lynley knew, put the lie to everything Barbara Havers had said about her interactions with Corsico. She wouldn’t be the first cop to have been exposed as on the take from a tabloid. In recent years, cops on the take had become just another part of the landscape of what was a growing national scandal involving the gutter press. But in combination with every other black mark against her, this was going to finish her.

He went to Isabelle’s office. The fact that she’d requested CIB1’s involvement was an indication of her confidence in the case she was building against Barbara. But there had to be a chance that this tabloid article could be painted another way.

He tossed his copy of The Source into the nearest rubbish bin. He knew this was only a temporary measure since, as John Stewart had pointed out, there were more available just up the street. A few steps over to St. James’s Park Station and any one of half a dozen or more tabloids could be purchased. Stewart had probably already popped out to buy one. He’d see to it that Isabelle was apprised of the page-one story, and he’d do it soon.

Isabelle’s office door stood open, but she wasn’t inside. Dorothea Harriman, however, was. She was in the midst of arranging a stack of files on the superintendent’s desk. When she saw Lynley, she said merely, “Tower Block.”

“How long?”

“It’s just gone an hour.”

“Did he phone her or did she phone him?”

“Neither. It was a scheduled meeting.”

“CIB1?”

Harriman looked regretful.

“Blast,” he said. “Did she take anything with her?”

“She had a tabloid,” Dorothea said.

Lynley nodded and headed back to his office. There he placed his call to Salvatore Lo Bianco. If Barbara had indeed gone bad, then he owed it to his Italian colleague to warn him.

When Lo Bianco answered, he was still at home. Chattering in Italian was going on in the background. This faded as Salvatore stepped out of the room to speak to Lynley.

The Italian brought Lynley up-to-date on everything: his call upon DARBA Italia, his discoveries there, his subsequent interviews with Daniele Bruno, the E. coli connection between Bruno and Lorenzo Mura. “We have an agreement, his lawyer and I. He will wear a wire,” Salvatore told him. “In this way I believe we will have a resolution this very day.”

Lynley said, “And the child? She’s with Barbara Havers?”

“She is well and she is with Barbara.”

“Salvatore, tell me. This is an odd sort of question, but can you tell me . . . is Barbara in Lucca alone?”

“How do you mean?”

“Have you seen her in the company of anyone?”

“I know she has been in the company of Aldo Greco. He is the lawyer of Taymullah Azhar.”

“I’m speaking of an Englishman,” Lynley said. “He might be dressed like a cowboy, actually.”

There was a pause before Salvatore chuckled. “A strange question, my friend,” he said. “Why do you ask this, Tommaso?”

“Because he’s a tabloid journalist from London and he’s written a story that indicates to me he’s there in Lucca.”

“But why would Barbara be in the company of a tabloid journalist?” Salvatore asked, not unreasonably. “And what is this tabloid?”

“It’s called The Source ,” Lynley said, and at that point he found that he could go no further with the information. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Salvatore about the picture of Hadiyyah at the window of Pensione Giardino , and more than that, he couldn’t bring himself to tell Salvatore what this meant. Obviously, the Italian could seek out a copy of The Source himself, either online or from a giornalaio selling UK tabloids for purchase by English speakers. If Salvatore did that, he could put together the pieces, but chances were still that he might put them together in an order that didn’t make Barbara look bad. So Lynley said, “He’s called Mitchell Corsico. Barbara’s acquainted with him, as are the rest of us here in London. If she hasn’t seen him, you might warn Barbara of his presence when you next see her.”

Salvatore didn’t ask why Lynley simply didn’t ring Barbara and pass on the information. He said instead, “And he looks like a cowboy?”

“He wears a cowboy kit. I’ve no idea why.”

Salvatore chuckled another time. “I shall pass this information to Barbara when I meet with her today. But I myself have not seen such a person as this. A cowboy in Lucca? No, no. I would remember had I seen him.”

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Barbara tried not to feel as if she were carrying a ticking time bomb in her shoulder bag. She tried to act as if everything were business-as-usual and the business was getting Daniele Bruno set up with a wire. But as she and Salvatore set off for the questura , she could think only of the hands of the clock, moving relentlessly in the direction of midday and Mitchell Corsico’s hitting send.

She could hardly protest when Salvatore suggested they walk to his office, and in other circumstances she might actually have enjoyed the stroll. For the day was fine, church bells were still ringing all over town, shops were just coming to life, the fragrance of pastries was in the air, and the cafés were serving morning espressos to people heading out for the day. Students and workers passed on bicycles, and the blinging of their bells acted as punctuation to the greetings that the riders tossed at one another. It was like being in the middle of a bloody Italian film, Barbara thought. She half expected someone to yell, “Cut and print.”

Salvatore seemed changed. His mood of morning good cheer had altered to one of studied solemnity. Since Lynley had phoned him, Barbara reckoned it had to do with whatever the London DI had related. But with Salvatore’s limited English and her own nonexistent Italian, there was no way for her to discover exactly what it was that Lynley had said. She could have rung him and asked him directly, but she had a feeling that would not serve her well. So as they walked, she cast worried gazes in Salvatore’s direction.