Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

The fact was Barbara didn’t at all have that expectation of the Italian police. She barely had that expectation of their own police. So she said, “Brilliant. Yes. Whatever in a teacup. But I need your help, Mr. Doughty, no matter what the Italian rozzers are up to.”

Doughty shot a look at Em Cass. Neither of them said, “What kind of help?” This wasn’t a good sign, but Barbara forged on.

“Look. I know this kid. I know her dad. I need to do something. You get that, yes?”

“Perfectly understandable,” Doughty said.

“What about the UK police, then?” Em Cass fixed her gaze on Barbara, and the blandness of her expression told the tale that Barbara would have preferred to go unspoken.

There was a little silence among them. Across the room, the hen party was heating up. The bride-to-be had mounted the banquette and was squashing her face against the window. She was shouting, “This’s my las’ chance, lads!” with her veil askew and the red L on her back descending to her arse as if it and not she were embarking on matrimony.

“The Met’s sent a DI over to liaise,” Barbara said. “He’s called DI Lynley. He’s going over today.”

“Intriguing that you should be in possession of this bit of knowledge.” Doughty munched on his crisps. He looked at Em Cass. They both looked steadily at Barbara.

She downed some ale. “All right. I could have given you some other name—called myself Julie Blue-eyes or whatever—and I didn’t,” she pointed out. “I knew it would take you less than five minutes to suss out I’m a cop. That has to count for something.”

“I half expect you to say ‘trust me’ next,” Em Cass said dryly.

“I am saying that! I’m not here with a wire in my knickers to play-act desperation and catch you doing something you shouldn’t. I know you lot cross over the line now and then, and I don’t bloody care. Fact is, I want you to cross the line if you need to. I need to find this kid, and I’m asking for your help because my colleague—the DI?—he’s not going to do what you lot can do because he won’t have the resources over there to do it. He’s also not going to be keen on breaking any laws. That’s not who he is.” Implying, of course, that breaking laws was who she was so she’d not be saying word one about any law-breaking that Doughty and Em Cass did.

Nonetheless, Doughty said, “You’ll need someone else. We don’t break—”

“What I’m saying is I don’t care if you break laws or not, Mr. Doughty. Spy on anyone you need to spy on. Go through their rubbish. Hack into their mobiles and their Internet accounts. Take over their email. Pretend to be their mothers. Pretend to be them . I’ve given you more than one angle to pursue and I need you pursuing it. Please.”

They didn’t ask why she wasn’t pursuing it herself, so Barbara didn’t have to tell them the unpalatable truth: that once again and through her own fault, her job was on the line. With Ardery watching her and John Stewart throwing work at her and two cases now his responsibility, her ability to do anything other than keep her nose on the grindstone of her regular employment was not only severely curtailed; it was also virtually nonexistent. Employing Doughty and his assistant was at least something she could do. This meant, at least, that she wouldn’t have to wait for word from Lynley, who probably wasn’t going to keep her in the picture anyway because, she knew, he was displeased with her, because she was the reason he’d been sent out of the country at all.

Doughty sighed. He said, “Emily?” and seemed to defer to his assistant.

She said, “We’ve nothing pressing on at the moment. Just the divorce case and that bloke claiming compensation for the back injury. I suppose there’re a few things we can check. This Germany business would top the list.”

“Azhar didn’t—”

“Hang on.” Doughty pointed a meaningful finger at Barbara. “For starters, you’d be keeping an open mind about everything, Miss . . . Oh, nonsense. May I call you what you are? Detective Sergeant, isn’t it, Em?”

“Is,” Em acknowledged.

“So you’d be wise to prepare yourself for anything, Detective Sergeant. Question is, are you ready for that?”

“For anything?” Barbara clarified.

Doughty nodded.

“Absolutely,” she said.

BOW

LONDON

They walked out of the pub together, but on the pavement they went their separate ways. Dwayne Doughty and Em Cass watched the ill-dressed detective heading towards the Roman Road. When she was out of sight, he and Em ducked back into the pub. This was completely at Emily’s urging.

“This is a bad idea,” she said. “We don’t work for cops, Dwayne. That’s a road to a place we don’t want to go.”

He didn’t entirely disagree with her. But she wasn’t seeing the complete equation. “Checking an alibi in Berlin . . . Child’s play, Emily. And one wants the child to be found, wouldn’t you agree?”

“That can’t be in our hands. There’re all sorts of limitations on what we can do, and with Scotland Yard breathing down our neck—”

“She admitted her position there. She could have lied. That indicates something.”

“It indicates bollocks. She knew we’d check on her the moment she gave her name when she first came to see us with the professor. She’s not stupid, Dwayne.”

“But she is desperate.”

“So she’s in love with him. So she’s in love with the girl.”

“And love, as we know, is quite wonderfully blind.”

“No. You are. You haven’t asked for my vote on the matter, but you’re going to get it. I say no. I say we tell her ta-ta and we wish you the best but there’s nothing we can do to help you. Because that’s the truth. There’s nothing, Dwayne.”

He considered her. Emily rarely spoke with passion. She was far too cool a customer for that. She didn’t command the kingly salary he paid her because she was a woman who ever got caught up in the emotion of the moment. But she was passionate about this, which told him the extent to which she was also worried about it.

“Really, there’s nothing to be concerned about,” he told her. “And this allows us to keep our eyes on the ball. Our job remains what it’s always been: information providers. Whether we provide the information for the coppers or for Joe Ordinary off the street, it’s no matter to us. What people do with what we give them is their business, not ours, once we hand it over.”

“Do you actually think anyone’s likely to believe that?”

He eyed her and smiled his long, slow smile. “Come along, Em. Where’s the trouble in this? I’m happy to listen if you care to point it out.”

“I have. The Metropolitan police. That woman: Sergeant Havers.”

“Who, as you yourself have said, has come to us driven by love. And love, as I myself pointed out, is wonderfully—”

“Blind. All right. Brilliant.” Emily stepped back outside, positioning herself downwind of the smokers. “Where do you want to begin?” she asked Doughty dully. She wasn’t happy, but she was a pro. And she, like him, had bills to pay.

“Thank you, Emily,” he said. “We do this German business as arranged. But in advance and for safety’s sake, we do phone records. A very clean sweep.”

“What about computers?”

He gave her a look. “Going deep with computers means we bring in Bryan.”

She rolled her eyes. “Give me notice so I can vacate the office.”

“I will do. But really, you should just submit to him, Em. Things would go much more swimmingly if you did.”

“You mean he’d do as I say when you need him to do it.”