Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

Her throat got tight. She murmured, “Is Azhar . . . ? Has something . . . ?”

Mrs. Silver turned to her. She read something on Barbara’s face. She said, “She’s come back, Barbara. She’s not alone. Something’s happened and she’s brought the police to sort it out.”

CHALK FARM

LONDON

“She” could have only one meaning. Angelina Upman had returned. Barbara dug in her chaotic shoulder bag and brought out her warrant card. It was the one thing that would gain her access to Azhar’s flat, no matter who was in charge inside.

She worked her way through the rest of her neighbours. She entered the picket gate and crossed the lawn. The shouting became intelligible as she approached the French windows. It was easy to recognise Angelina’s voice.

“Make him tell you!” She was screaming at someone. “It’s Pakistan! He’s put her there. She’s with his family. You’re a monster! To do this to your own daughter .”

And then Azhar’s voice, in a panic, “How can you say . . . ?”

Then a foreigner, a heavy accent, “Why you no make to arrest this man?”

Barbara entered to a scene in which everyone seemed frozen into position: Two uniformed constables had placed themselves between Taymullah Azhar and Angelina Upman. Her face looked painted with the mascara that had raccooned her eyes, and her features were pinched. The man with her was handsome, looking like someone who could pose for the sculpture of an athlete. His hair was curly and thick, his shoulders broad, his chest like a trunk. His fists were clenched as if he would punch Azhar could he only reach him. One of the constables was preventing this, holding him back as Azhar and Angelina shouted at each other.

Azhar was the first to see Barbara. His face had been worn for months, but now it looked worse. He’d been running on empty since their final conversation with Dwayne Doughty, taking on more graduate students, attending every conference that would take him as far from Chalk Farm as he could get. He’d returned from another one—this time in Berlin—only the night before, stopping by her bungalow to ask if there had been anything . . . any message . . . any word . . . ? It was his regular question upon returning. Her answer had always been the same.

Angelina turned when she saw Azhar’s expression alter. So did the man with her. In doing so, he fully exposed his face. It had a port wine birthmark like the mark upon Cain, extending from his right ear onto his cheek. It was the only thing that marred his beauty.

The constable holding back this man spoke. “Madam, you’ll have to leave.”

Barbara flipped him her warrant card. “DS Havers,” she said. “I live in the back. What’s happened? C’n I help?”

“It’s Hadiyyah” was all that Azhar managed to say.

“He’s taken my child,” Angelina cried. “He’s kidnapped Hadiyyah. He has her somewhere. Do you understand? Oh, of course you do. You’ve bloody well helped him, haven’t you?”

Barbara tried to take this in. Helped who do what? was what she wondered.

“Tell me where she is!” Angelina shouted. “You goddamn bloody well tell me where she is!”

“Angelina, what happened?” Barbara asked. “Listen to me. I don’t know what’s going on.”

The story came from all directions. When the constables understood that Barbara was a friend of the family and not there from the Met, they attempted to escort her from the premises, but at that point both Angelina and Azhar wanted her to stay, each for their own reasons, although those reasons went unspoken other than Angelina crying, “She needs to bloody hear this, she does,” and Azhar saying, “Barbara knows my daughter very well.”

“Your daughter, your daughter,” Angelina snarled. “You’re no father to a child you would treat like this.”

She’d been taken from a market in Lucca, Italy, Barbara discovered. This had happened two days previously. She’d been there with Lorenzo—the man in the flat with Angelina and obviously, to Barbara, Angelina’s new lover—as they had done their weekly shop. She was to wait where she always waited, where a musician played, but she hadn’t been there when Lorenzo arrived and he hadn’t thought to search for her.

“Why not?” Barbara asked.

“What difference does it make?” Angelina demanded. “We know what happened. We know who took her. She would never walk off with a stranger, anywhere. And no one could possibly have carried her off in the middle of a market in front of hundreds of people. She would have screamed. She would have fought. You’ve taken her, Hari, and as God is my witness, I’m going to—”

“ Cara ,” Lorenzo said, “ non devi .” He moved to her. “ La troveremo ,” he said. “ Te lo prometto .” At this she began to weep. Azhar took a step towards her.

“Angelina,” he said, “you must listen to me. So much depends—”

“I don’t believe you!” she cried.

“Did you phone the police in Lucca?” Barbara asked her.

“Of course I phoned them! What do you think I am? I phoned them, they came, they searched, they’re still searching. And what are they finding? Nothing . A nine-year-old gone without a trace. And he has her. Because no one else could have taken her. Make him tell me where she is .” This last she directed to the constables. They looked to Barbara as if for some sort of help.

What Barbara wanted to say was, “He supposedly took her like you took her? Like you told Azhar where she was?” But instead she turned to Angelina’s companion. “Tell me exactly what happened,” she said. “Why didn’t you look for her when she wasn’t where you expected her to be?”

“Are you accusing him ?” Angelina cried.

“If Hadiyyah’s missing—”

“ If? What d’you think this is?”

“Angelina, please,” Barbara said. “If Hadiyyah’s missing, there’s no time to waste. I need to know what happened from start to finish.” And to Lorenzo, “Why didn’t you look for her at once?”

“Because of my sister,” he said. And when Angelina protested the fact that he was even replying when they all knew who’d taken her daughter, he said, “ Per favore, cara ,” in a gentle voice. “ Vorrei dire qualcosa, va bene? ” Then, in the limited English he possessed, he explained. “My sister live near this mercato . There we go always after, to her house. When Hadiyyah I miss from this place, I think she go there. To play.”

“Why would you think that?” Barbara asked.

“ Mio nipote . . .” He looked to Angelina for help.

“His nephew is there,” she said. “Hadiyyah and the boy play together.”

Across the room Azhar closed his eyes. “All these months,” he said. And for the first time since his child had gone missing, Barbara saw the man’s lips struggle with the effort not to weep.

“I finish with making shop,” Lorenzo said. “I think I see Hadiyyah when I go to the house.”

“She knew how to get there?” Barbara asked.

“There she go many times to play, sì . Angelina come to the mercato then, and—”

“From where?”

“Piazzale—”

“I mean what was she doing? What were you doing, Angelina?”

“Are you now accusing me —”

“Of course not. Where were you? What did you see? How long were you gone?”

She was doing her yoga, as it turned out. She went regularly to a class in the town.

“She come to the mercato , we meet like always, we go to my sister. Hadiyyah is not there.”

They’d thought at first she’d become lost somewhere in the large market. Or, perhaps, she’d become distracted on her way to the musician and now was back there in the market waiting for them in her usual place near Porta San Jacopo. They returned, this time with Lorenzo’s sister and her husband, and the four of them had begun to search.