Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

“Mitch, don’t—”

“Thanks for the tip on Lynley, though.” He ended the call.

VICTORIA

LONDON

Barbara cursed and headed for the door. She had to stop Corsico from getting to Azhar’s family in Ilford, and there weren’t a lot of options jumping into her mind on how to do this. She reckoned Nafeeza would remain mute on all matters concerning her husband. But his son, Sayyid, was a wild card in the family deck.

She swung the door open, her mind febrile. She walked directly into Winston Nkata. The black man didn’t pretend he was just passing by. Instead, he jerked his head towards the interior of the ladies’ toilet. In case she was dim on his intentions, he stepped past her, grabbing her arm on the way inside.

She said, “Whoops. You lost? Gents is just down the corridor, Winnie.”

Nkata was not amused. She could tell by the manner in which his enunciation altered from careful Africa-via-the-Caribbean to South-Brixton-on-the-street.

He said in a harsh whisper, “You gone off your nut? Bloody lucky Stewart tole me to follow you, innit. Someone else ’n you back in uniform tomorrow.”

She decided that playing dumb was her best course. She said, “What? Win, what’re you talking about?”

“I’m talkin ’bout your job,” he said. “I’m talkin ’bout losin it. They find out you made yourself a snout for The Source ’n you back in uniform. Worse, you done. You finished, innit. And don’t be so thick to think there i’n’t people in the department’d be happy as hell to see that happen, Barb.”

She went for offended. “A snout ?” she hissed. “That’s what you think? I’m a snout for The Source ? I’m not a snout. Not theirs and not anyone’s.”

“That so? You just gave them DI Lynley. I heard you, Barb. Now you goin to tell me you gave up Lynley to someone other than that same bloke wrote the story ’bout Hadiyyah? You think I’m stupid enough to go for that? You’re on the phone with Corsico, Barb, and one look at your mobile records’s goin to show that. Not to mention your bank account, innit.”

“ What? ” Now she was offended. “You think I’m taking money to do this?”

“I don’ know why the hell you’re doin it. I don’t care why the hell you’re doin it. And you bes’ believe me when I say no one else’s goin to care ’bout the why of it either.”

“Look, Winnie. You and I both know that someone’s got to keep this story alive. That’s the only way The Source is going to send a reporter over to Italy. And only a British reporter in Italy is going to keep the pressure on the Met so that Lynley stays in place till this gets resolved. Plus a British reporter raises the stakes for the Italian reporters to keep the pressure on the Italian police. That’s how it works. Pressure gets results and you know that.”

“What I know,” he said, and he was calmer now, so he was back to the gentle Caribbean from his mother that had always so influenced his way of talking, “is that no one’s goin to take your side, Barb. This comes out, and you’re on your own. You got to know that. You got no one here.”

“Oh, thanks very much, Winston. It’s always good to know who one’s friends are.”

“I mean no one with the power to step in,” Winston said.

He meant Lynley, of course. For Lynley was the only officer who would risk stepping onto the pitch if it came down to having to defend the wicket of Barbara’s ill-conceived decision to involve The Source . And he was the only officer to do this not so much because he was devoted to Barbara as because he didn’t need his employment at the Met so he didn’t care about alienating their superiors.

“So you see,” Winston said, apparently reading realisation on Barbara’s face. “You’re walkin on the wrong side in this, Barb. That bloke Corsico? He’d throw your mum under a bus ’f it meant a story. He’d throw his own mum ’f that’d help.”

“That can’t matter,” Barbara told him. “And I c’n handle Corsico, Winston.” She tried to move past him to get to the door. He stopped her easily enough since he towered above her.

“No one ‘handles’ a tabloid, Barb. You don’t know that now, you learn it soon enough.”

ILFORD

GREATER LONDON

There were not a lot of avenues available to Barbara when it came to the chess game of managing what Mitchell Corsico wrote about. But in the case of his intention to talk to the boy Sayyid there appeared to be only one. She phoned Azhar. She reached him on a bad connection in the hills of Tuscany. They did not speak long. From him she learned what she already knew: that Lynley had arrived and that he and the inspector had spoken prior to Azhar’s making his way into the hills to continue posting pictures of Hadiyyah in the villages to the north of Lucca.

“Sayyid’s comprehensive?” Azhar said when she asked the name of the school. “Why do you need this, Barbara?”

She hated to tell him, but she didn’t see the alternative: The Source was considering the boy as just that, a source for the kind of “human interest” story so beloved to its readers.

Azhar gave her the name of the school at once. “For his own sake . . .” His voice was urgent. “You know what the tabloid will make of him, Barbara.”

She knew well. She knew because she read the bloody rag herself. It was like mental candyfloss and she’d been addicted to the stuff for years. She thanked Azhar and told him she would keep him in the picture of what happened with his son.

The more difficult project was getting away from the Met. She couldn’t risk waiting for the end of her workday. Knowing Corsico, by the time that arrived, he would already have buttonholed the boy and given him the outlet he was looking for to unload his grievances against his father. She had to leave Victoria, and she had to do it now. She merely needed a decent excuse. Her mum provided it.

Barbara went to DI Stewart. On the whiteboard, he was jotting brief notations about the day’s actions. She didn’t bother to look for her own. She knew Stewart. No matter her expertise in anything, he’d keep her there in the building and under his thumb transcribing reports, just to drive her as mad as possible.

“Sir,” she said, although the word felt like a rock on her tongue. “I’ve just had a call from Greenford.” She tried to sound anxiety-ridden about it, which wasn’t too far from the truth. She was anxious. Just not about her mum.

Stewart didn’t look away from the whiteboard. He was, it appeared, giving crucial attention to the legibility of his cursive. “Have you indeed?” he said in a tone that demonstrated the extent of his ennui when it came to all things Barbara Havers. She wanted to bite his ears off.

“My mum’s taken a fall. She’s in casualty, sir. I’m going to need to—”

“Where, exactly?”

“In the home where she—”

“I mean casualty, Sergeant. Which hospital? Where is she?”

Barbara knew the game on that one. If she named a hospital, he’d ring the casualty department and make sure her mother was there. She said, “Don’t know yet, sir. I was planning to ring from the car.”

“Ring whom?”

“Lady who runs the home. She phoned me after nine-nine-nine. She didn’t know yet where they were going to take her.”

DI Stewart seemed to measure this on his potential-for-bollocks meter. He looked at her. “I’ll want to know,” he said. “The department will, of course, wish to send flowers.”

“Let you know soon ’s I find out,” she told him. She grabbed her shoulder bag, said, “Ta, sir,” and avoided looking at Winston Nkata. He avoided looking at her as well. He didn’t need a potential-for-bollocks meter. But at least he said nothing. He would be her friend in this one matter.