Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

What Barbara knew was that Isabelle Ardery could not prove that Barbara herself was behind the story. Every person in the department despised Mitchell Corsico from the time he’d been embedded with them during an investigation of serial killings. No one wanted to touch him with a barge pole, which was what made him so useful to Barbara.

She laid the paper carefully back on Ardery’s desk. She said just as carefully, “Seems to me it was bound to come out, guv.”

“Oh, is that how you see it?” Ardery was standing at the bank of windows with her arms crossed beneath her breasts, and it came to Barbara how tall she was—more than six feet when she had her shoes on—and how she used her height to intimidate. Her posture was a straight edge and, as she was dressed in a pencil skirt and a fine silk blouse, it was no large problem for Barbara to see the shape she was in. This shape was also meant to intimidate, so Barbara decided not to be intimidated. The woman had, after all, a fatal flaw and he was standing there in the office with them.

She glanced at Lynley. He was looking sombre. He said, “It’s not a good situation any way you look at it, guv.”

“It’s not a ‘good situation’ because the sergeant here has made it so.”

“Guv, how can you possibly say—”

Barbara’s protest was cut off abruptly when Ardery said, “You’re assigned to it. You’re leaving for Italy tomorrow. You’re given leave to make your preparations.” She wasn’t, however, looking at Barbara when she made the declaration.

Barbara said, “But I know the family, guv! And the inspector’s already dealing with an investigation. You can’t send him—”

“Are you questioning me?” Ardery snapped. “Are you actually presuming that the result of this”—with gesture at the tabloid—“would be some sort of imprimatur on my part, including a blessing as you skip off to Italy, on some all-expenses-paid jaunt? Do you actually think I’m so easily manipulated, Sergeant?”

“I’m not saying . . . I’m only—”

“Barbara.” Lynley’s voice was quiet. It served as both warning and solace, and clearly the superintendent heard this as well because she said, “Do not dare to take her side in this matter, Thomas. You know as well as I that she’s behind this story, and the fact that she’s not at this moment filing memos at a nick on the Isle of Dogs is owing only to a lack of proof that she and this . . . this Corsico person are inside each other’s pocket.”

“I’m not taking anyone’s side,” Lynley said calmly.

“And don’t you take that infuriating tone with me,” she snapped. “You’re thinking appeasement, and I won’t be appeased. I want this Italy thing handled, I want it finished, and I want you back here at work in London before I know you’re missing. Is that clear?”

Barbara saw a muscle work in Lynley’s jaw. Definitely, this wasn’t the tone of the pillow talk he and Ardery had once engaged in. He said, “You do know I’m working on—”

“It’s been reassigned to John Stewart.”

“But he’s already working on another case,” Barbara protested.

“And he has your capable assistance, doesn’t he, Sergeant?” Ardery said. “So you’ll be rather busy from this moment on. Now, get out of this office and get your next assignment from him because at this point he has enough to keep you occupied and out of trouble indefinitely. For which, by the way, you ought to get down on your knees and thank God. So leave us. And don’t let me catch sight of you doing anything but seeing to what DI Stewart decides you’re actually capable of doing.”

Barbara opened her mouth to protest. Lynley shot her a look. It wasn’t the least bit friendly, for like it or not, the deed was done. At her machinations, he was going to Italy. At her machinations, she was going nowhere.

BELGRAVIA

LONDON

Lynley waited until he got home to ring Daidre Trahair. He found the vet still at the Bristol Zoo, discussing with a team of assistants the problems attendant to anaesthetising an ageing male lion for the purpose of removing three of his teeth.

“He’s eighteen,” she told Lynley. “In lion years . . . Well, one must consider the condition of his heart and his lungs. It’s always delicate when you anaesthetise an animal that large anyway.”

“I suppose you can’t just ask him to say ‘Ah’ and administer novocaine,” Lynley commented.

“One would wish,” she said. Then, “Unfortunately, I’m set to do this on Wednesday, Thomas. So I’m afraid I’ll not be in London again this month.”

Lynley wasn’t happy with this news as her bimonthly roller derby matches had become more an anticipated event than an amusing diversion in the last few months. Still, he said, “As to that . . .” And he gave her his news. He was off to Italy as a result of Barbara Havers’s fruitless effort to insert herself into a Tuscan investigation. “I’ll be setting off in the morning. So please forge ahead with your feline dental work with complete impunity.”

“Ah.” There was a pause. In the background he could hear a man’s voice call out, “You coming with us, Dai, or meeting us there?”

She said to him in reply, “Hang on. I’ll be along in a moment,” and then into the phone to Lynley, “You’ll be gone a while, then?”

“I’ve no idea, actually.” He waited for a disappointed “Oh, I see” upon which he could hang one or two hopes. Instead she said, “What sort of investigation is it?”

“Kidnapping,” he said. “A nine-year-old British girl.”

“That’s dreadful.”

“Barbara knows the family.”

“Lord. No wonder she wanted to go.”

Lynley didn’t really want to hear any justification for Barbara Havers’s behaviour, especially as he was the one who appeared to be paying the price for it. He said, “Perhaps. Nonetheless, I could have done without being sent over to mediate between the parents and the Italian police.”

“Will that be your job?”

“It’s likely.”

“Should I wish you good luck? I’m not sure of the proper form.”

“It hardly matters,” but what he wanted to say was, “You might tell me you’ll miss me,” although he had an idea this might not be the case.

“When do you leave for Italy, then?”

“As soon as I can arrange the details. Or Charlie can, actually. He’s working on it now.”

“Ah. I see. Well.” Still there was no disappointment in her words or her tone, despite his wish to hear this from her. He tried to come up with a reason for this that avoided the cold reality of her simply not being disappointed at all.

He said, “Daidre . . .” and then wasn’t sure where else to go with the conversation.

She said, “Hmm?”

“I suppose I should let you be off, then. Sounds as if you’ve got something on this afternoon.”

“Darts tournament,” she said. “After work. Down the local pub. Well, not local to my home but local to the zoo.”

Her home was a place he had not seen. He tried to make nothing of this, but he knew better than to do so. “You plan to scour the floor with your opponents, I daresay. I recall how wily you are when it comes to darts.”

“You fell into my scheme,” she replied lightly. “As I recall, you and I had a bet, with the loser doing the washing up after dinner. No worries in this instance, though. There’s no washing up to be done and my opponent knows we’re evenly matched.”

He wanted to ask who her opponent was, but he couldn’t bring himself to be so pathetic. So he said, “I hope to see you when I’m back from Italy.”

“Do ring me when you return.”

That was that. He rang off and stood looking at the phone. He was in the drawing room of his home in Eaton Terrace, a formal room with pale-green walls and creamy woodwork, with a gilt-framed portrait of his paternal great-grandmother hanging above the fireplace. Dressed in white in an impressionistic rose garden, she stood in profile, a study in Edwardian lace and Edwardian good manners, and she seemed to gaze into a distance that she wished to encourage him to see. Look elsewhere, Thomas, she was saying to him.