Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

“Daughter’s a potential for ballet,” Castro said to her, in reference to Barbara. “She wanted a look.”

Dahlia nodded. Her gaze took in Barbara but it seemed to be without speculation. She gave a hesitant smile directed at them both and then went back to her work with the nation’s future ballerinas. Castro led the way back to his own studio. He closed the door and said, “Her body functions only as a ballerina’s. Nor is she interested in its functioning as anything other than a ballerina’s.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning she ceased being a woman some time ago. That’s largely why Angelina and I became involved.”

“Are there other reasons, then?”

“Have you met her?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know. She’s lovely. She’s passionate. She’s alive. That’s very appealing. Now what the hell is going on and why are you here?”

“Have you been out of the country in the last month?”

“Of course not. I’m in the middle of choreographing Wind in the Willows . How could I possibly leave? And let me repeat: What the hell is going on?”

“No quick trip for a weekend in the sun somewhere?”

“Like where? Spain? Portugal?”

“Italy.”

“Of course not.”

“What about the wife?”

“Dahlia’s doing Giselle with the Royal Ballet. And she’s got her classes here. She has no time for anything other than soaking her feet at home when she isn’t working. So the answer is no and no again and I’m not saying another word until you tell me what the hell is going on, understand?” To emphasise this point, he got to his feet. He strode into the centre of the room and stood there with his arms crossed on his chest and his legs spread. Very manly pose, Barbara thought. She wondered if it was deliberate, full of the knowledge, perhaps, of how to use what he had.

She said, “Angelina Upman’s daughter was snatched from a marketplace in Lucca, Italy.”

Castro stared at her. His mind appeared to be coming to terms with this and with what it meant that the police had come calling upon him. He said, “And what? D’you think I did it? I don’t know her daughter. I never met her daughter. Why the hell would I want to snatch her?”

“Everything has to be checked out, which means everyone whose life touches Angelina’s has to be checked out. I know she dropped you without a word, just disappeared from your life. You might have taken a bit of offence at that. You might have wanted to do something to smack her round a bit—figuratively speaking. You might have wanted to play mind games with her the way she played mind games with you.”

He laughed shortly. “That’s going nowhere, Sergeant . . . ?” He paused.

“Havers,” she said. “Detective Sergeant, actually.”

“Havers,” he said. “Detective Sergeant, actually. She didn’t play mind games. She was here, she was gone, that was it.”

“And you didn’t wonder where she’d gone off to?”

“I didn’t have the right to wonder. I knew that and she knew I knew it. Our rules were simple: I wasn’t going to leave Dahlia for her. She wasn’t going to leave Azhar for me. She’d disappeared once before for a year, but then she’d returned and she and I more or less resumed meeting. I’ve assumed this is the same sort of thing.”

“You mean you’ve reckoned she’ll be back.”

“That’s how it was in the past.”

“So you knew all along about Azhar? During the entire time you were involved with her?” It was germane to nothing, but Barbara had to know, although she would have preferred it if it made no difference to her.

“I knew. We didn’t lie to each other.”

“And Lorenzo Mura, her other lover? What about him? Did you know about him?”

To this, Castro said nothing. He walked back to the chair on which he’d been sitting. He dropped into it and gave a sharp bark of a laugh. He shook his head. Barbara got the point. He said, “So she was . . . what? Fucking all three of us?”

“It’s looking that way.”

“I didn’t know. But I’m not surprised.”

“Why not?”

He rubbed his hands through his hair. He squeezed a handful of it as if this would drive more blood to his brain. He said, “It’s this. Some women are driven by excitement. Angelina’s one of them. To settle into life with one man? Where’s the excitement in that?”

“She appears to be with one bloke now, though: Lorenzo Mura in Italy.”

“ Appears is the operative word, Sergeant. She appeared to Azhar to be with Azhar. Now she appears to him to be with this Italian.”

Barbara thought about this in light of her knowledge of Angelina. The woman she knew was a consummate actress. She herself had been completely taken in by Angelina’s air of friendliness and her spurious interest in Barbara’s own life. Was it out of the question, then, that she’d managed to bamboozle everyone else around her as well? While Barbara couldn’t quite get her mind round the idea of having it off with three blokes at once, she had to admit that anything was possible. She herself would worry about mistakenly shrieking the wrong name in the height of passion. On the other hand, heights of passion weren’t regular occurrences in her life.

She said to Castro, “How long did your affair with Angelina last?”

“Is that important?”

“Matter of curiosity, I suppose.”

He glanced at her and then away. “I don’t know. A few years? Two or three? It was always off and on.”

“How often did you meet when it was ‘on’?”

“Generally twice a week. Sometimes three.”

“Where?”

Another glance. He gave her a speculative head to toe. “What does it matter?”

“Another point of curiosity. Love to know how the other half lives, if you wouldn’t mind telling me.”

He looked away, his gaze settling across the room where he was reflected in the mirror. “Anywhere,” he said. “In the back of cars, in a taxi, here in the studio, backstage in a West End theatre, at my place, at her place, at a particular lap dancing club.”

“That must have been interesting,” Barbara commented.

“She liked risk. Once we did it in the pedestrian tunnel to Greenwich. She was creative, and I liked that about her. Passion drives her. And what drives passion is excitement and secrecy. That’s who she is. That’s how she is.”

“Seems to me that she’s the sort of woman a bloke would want to hang on to, then,” Barbara noted. “You know what I mean, I expect. Any time, any place, dressed, undressed, standing, sitting, kneeling, whatever. Don’t blokes get off on that kind of thing?”

“Some do.”

“And are you ‘some’?”

“I’m Latin, Sergeant. What do you think?”

“I think it would be tough to replace her,” Barbara pointed out, “once she was gone. Could have been a real heartbreaker for you.”

“No one replaces Angelina,” he said. “And like I told you, I expect her to be back.”

“Even now?”

“With her in Italy?”

“With her living with Lorenzo Mura.”

“I don’t know.” He looked at his watch and got to his feet, ready to resume rehearsal. “I suppose I should be glad it lasted as long as it did,” he added. “Come to think of it, so should Mura.”

HOXTON

LONDON

Bathsheba Ward was next on Barbara’s list. Since the wily cow had lied to her about her sister—and this was looking more and more like a bloody family trait, wasn’t it?—Barbara was determined to show her no pity. She was also determined to give DI Stewart and Detective Superintendent Ardery no further ammunition to fire upon her. For both of these reasons, she rose in what for her were the wee hours of the morning and headed to Hoxton. She bought a takeaway coffee on her way and used it to wash down a gratifyingly extra-large bacon butty. She was more than ready to take on the world when she arrived in Nuttall Street, where Bathsheba and her husband Hugo Ward lived in a flat on a very nicely kept estate of buildings fashioned from London brick.