Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

Like most people, she’d seen only what she wanted to see in Angelina Upman, and she’d ignored everything from red flags to speed bumps. Meantime, Angelina had seduced Azhar back to her bed. She’d seduced her daughter into abject devotion. She’d seduced Barbara into unwitting conspiracy through garnering her cooperative silence about everything having to do with Angelina herself. And this—her disappearance with her daughter in tow—was the result.

Barbara got dressed in the bathroom. In the mirror she saw how terrible she looked, especially her hair. Her head bore great bald patches in spots, and in other spots the remains of what had been an expensive Knightsbridge hairstyle sprang out of her scalp like so many weeds waiting to be pulled from a garden. The only answer to what she’d done to herself was going to be to shave her head completely, but she didn’t have time to do that just then. She came out of the bathroom and rooted for a ski cap in her chest of drawers. She put this on and together she and Lynley returned to the front of the house.

Everything was as she’d left it in Azhar’s flat. The only difference was that instead of sitting staring at nothing, Azhar was walking aimlessly through the rooms. When, hollow-eyed, he looked in their direction, Barbara said to him, “Azhar, I’ve brought DI Lynley from the Met.”

He’d just emerged from Hadiyyah’s bedroom. He was clutching the little girl’s stuffed giraffe to his chest. He said to Lynley, “She’s taken her.”

“Barbara’s told me.”

“There’s nothing to be done.”

Barbara said, “There’s always something to be done. We’re going to find her, Azhar.”

She felt Lynley shoot her a look. It told her that she was making promises that neither he nor she could keep. But that was not how Barbara saw the situation. If they couldn’t help this man, she thought, then what was the point of being cops?

Lynley said, “May we sit?”

Azhar said yes, yes, of course, and they went into the sitting room. It was still fresh from Angelina’s redecoration of it. Barbara saw it now as she should have seen it when Angelina unveiled it to her: like something from a magazine, perfectly put together but otherwise devoid of anyone’s personality.

Azhar said as they sat, “I telephoned her parents once you left.”

“Where are they?” she asked.

“Dulwich. They wished not to speak to me, of course. I am the ruination of one of their two children. So they will not contaminate themselves through any effort to be of assistance.”

“Lovely couple,” Barbara noted.

“They know nothing,” Azhar said.

“Can you be sure of that?” Lynley asked.

“From what they said and who they are, yes. They know nothing about Angelina and, what’s more, they do not want to know. They said she made her bed a decade ago and if she doesn’t like the smell of the sheets, it’s not down to them to do anything about that.”

“There’s another child, though?” Lynley said, and when Azhar looked confused and Barbara asked, “What?” he clarified with, “You said you were the ruination of one of their two children. Who is the other and might Angelina be with this person?”

“Bathsheba,” Azhar said. “Angelina’s sister. I know only her name but have never met her.”

“Might Angelina and Hadiyyah be with her?”

“They have no love for each other as I gather these things,” Azhar said. “So I doubt it.”

“No love for each other according to Angelina?” Barbara asked sharply. The implication was clear to both Lynley and Azhar.

“When people are desperate,” Lynley said to the man, “when they plan something like this—because it would have taken some planning, Azhar—old grudges are often put to rest. Did you ring the sister? Do you have the number?”

“I know only her name. Bathsheba Ward. I know nothing else. I’m sorry.”

“Not a problem,” Barbara said. “Bathsheba Ward gives us something to start with. It gives us a place to—”

“Barbara, you are being kind,” Azhar said. “As are you”—this to Lynley—“to come here in the dead of night. But I know the reality of my situation.”

Barbara said hotly, “I told you we’ll find her, Azhar. We will .”

Azhar observed her with his calm, dark eyes. He looked at Lynley. His expression acted as acknowledgement of something Barbara didn’t want to admit and certainly didn’t want him to have to face.

Lynley said, “Barbara’s told me there’s no divorce involved between you and Angelina.”

“As we were not married, there is no divorce. And because there was no divorce between me and my wife—my legal wife—Angelina did not identify me as Hadiyyah’s father. Which was, of course, her right. I accepted this as one of the outcomes of not divorcing Nafeeza.”

“Where is Nafeeza?” he asked.

“Ilford. Nafeeza and the children live with my parents.”

“Could Angelina have gone to them?”

“She has no idea where they live, what their names are, anything about them.”

“Could they have come here, then? Could they have tracked her down, perhaps? Could they have wooed her out there?”

“For what purpose?”

“Perhaps to harm her?”

Barbara could see how this was entirely possible. She said, “Azhar, that could be it. She could have been taken. This could look like something it isn’t at all. They could have come for her and taken Hadiyyah as well. They could have packed everything. They could have forced her to make that call to me.”

“Did she sound like someone under duress in the phone message, Barbara?” Lynley asked her.

Of course, she had not. She’d sounded just as she’d always sounded, which was perfectly pleasant and completely open to friendship. “She could have been acting,” Barbara said, although even she could hear how desperate she sounded. “She fooled me for months. She fooled Azhar. She fooled her own daughter. But maybe she wasn’t fooling at all. Maybe she never intended to leave. Maybe they came for her out of the blue and they’ve taken her somewhere and she had to leave that message and they forced her to sound—”

“You can’t have it both ways,” Lynley said, although his voice was kind.

“He is right,” Azhar said. “If she was forced to make a phone call, if she was taken from here—she and Hadiyyah—against her will, she would have said something in that phone call to you. She would have left a sign. There would be some indication, but there is not. There is nothing. And what she did leave—Hadiyyah’s school uniform, her laptop, that little giraffe—this was to tell me that they are not returning.” His eyes grew red-rimmed.

Barbara swung to Lynley. He was, she had long known, the most compassionate cop on the force and quite possibly the most compassionate man she’d ever met. But she could see upon his face that what he felt—beyond sympathy for Azhar—was knowledge of the truth in front of them. She said to him, “Sir. Sir .”

He said, “Aside from checking with the families, Barbara . . . She’s the mother. She’s broken no law. There’s no divorce with a judge’s decree and a custody ruling that she’s defying.”

“A private enquiry, then,” Barbara said. “If we can do nothing, then a private detective can.”

“Where am I to find such a person?” Azhar asked her.

“I can be that person,” Barbara told him.

VICTORIA

LONDON

Absolutely not” was how Acting Detective Superintendent Isabelle Ardery greeted Barbara’s request for time off. She went on from this to demand an immediate explanation for the headgear Barbara happened to be wearing. This was a knitted cap of the sort skiers wore, complete with pompom on the top. On the fashion side of things, it scored a zero. On the police side of things, it was into negative numbers. For prior to its ruin, Barbara’s hair had been cut and styled upon the strongest recommendation of the acting detective superintendent herself, and since her strongest recommendation was first cousin to an order, Barbara had complied. Thus, its ruin smacked of defiance, which was exactly how Isabelle Ardery was going to see it.