Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

Stewart’s thin lips creased themselves into a smile. But it vanished soon enough when Ardery went on. “And you,” she said to him, “are an officer in charge of a robbery and murder enquiry so act like an officer in charge of a robbery and murder enquiry. Which, I’d like to remind you, John, means that you assign your people in a manner that utilises their talents and does not appease your need for . . . for whatever the hell it is that you apparently need. Am I being clear?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She picked up the phone, punched in a few numbers, and said in dismissal, “Now for God’s sake get out of here and get back to work.”

They did the first but paused short of the second. In the corridor, DI Stewart grabbed Barbara’s arm. At his touch, she felt a surge of outrage steam through her veins and she was moments from applying her knee to a place on his body where he’d long remember the encounter. She said, “You bloody get your hand off me or I’ll have you charged with—”

“You listen to me, you bleeding bovine,” he whispered. “Your move in there was clever as hell. But I’m holding cards you don’t even know about, and when I want to use them, I will. Understand that and act at your own peril, Sergeant Havers.”

“Oh my God, you knot up my knickers,” Barbara said.

She walked away, but her mind was like an arguing Greek chorus in her head. Part of it was shrieking to beware, to take heed, to walk the straight and narrow before it was too late. The other part was planning her next move and that part was quickly subdividing itself into the half dozen next moves that were possible.

Into this mental embroilment, Dorothea Harriman called Barbara’s name. Barbara turned to see the departmental secretary cradling a telephone receiver in her hand. She said, “You’re wanted at once down below.”

Barbara cursed quietly. What now? she thought. Down below meant Reception. She had a visitor and was intended to go fetch him. She said, “Who the hell . . . ?” to Dorothea.

“Reception says it’s someone in a costume.”

“A costume ?”

“Dressed like a cowboy?” Then Dorothea seemed to twig because Mitchell Corsico had been inside the Met offices before. Her cornflower-blue eyes got round as she said, “Detective Sergeant, it must be that bloke who was embedded—” But Barbara stopped her as fast as she could.

“I’m on it,” she told Dorothea, and with a nod at the phone, “Tell them I’m on my way down, okay?”

Dorothea nodded, but Barbara had no intention of heading down to Reception to be seen in the company of Mitchell Corsico. So she ducked into the stairwell a short distance down the corridor, and she took out her mobile and punched in Corsico’s number. When he answered, she was brevity itself. “Get out of here. You and I are finished.”

“I’ve rung you eight or nine times” was his response. “No reply, no reply? Tsk, tsk, tsk, Barb. I thought a personal appearance in Victoria Street was in order.”

“What’s in order is for you to sod off,” Barbara hissed.

“You and I need a word.”

“Not going to happen.”

“I think it is. So I can remain down here and ask every Tom, Dick, and Sherlock who passes by to fetch you—introducing myself to them along the way, of course—or you can come down and we can have a quick chat. What’s it going to be?”

Barbara shut her eyes hard, in the hope that this would allow her to think. She had to get rid of the journalist, she couldn’t be seen with him, she was a bloody fool for having used him in the first place, if anyone knew she’d been his snout in this matter of Hadiyyah and her family . . . So she had to get him clear away from the Met, and there was only one way short of killing the bugger.

She said, “Go to the post office.”

“What the fuck? Are you hearing me at all, Sergeant? Do you know the damage I could do if you don’t—”

“Stop being a wanker for thirty seconds. The post office is directly across the street, all right? Go over there and I’ll meet you. It’s either that or you and I are finished because if I’m seen with you . . . You do get the point, don’t you, since you’re using it to threaten me in the first place?”

“I’m not threatening you.”

“And I’m your great-grandmother. Now are you going across the street or are we going to argue the finer points of blackmail: emotional, professional, monetary, or otherwise?”

“All right,” he agreed. “The post office. And I hope you show, Barb. If you don’t . . . Well, you won’t much like what comes next.”

“I’m giving you five minutes,” she told him.

“That,” he said, “is all I need.”

Barbara rang off and considered her options. There were very few in the aftermath of her meeting with Stewart and Ardery. She rubbed her forehead and looked at her watch. Five minutes, she thought. Dorothea could surely cover her for the time it would take to get to the post office, have a word with Corsico, and get back to John Stewart’s incident room.

She gave the departmental secretary the word.

“You’re in the ladies’,” Dorothea said cooperatively. “Female troubles, and do you need chapter and verse on what they are, Detective Inspector Stewart?”

“Ta, Dee.” Barbara hurried for the lifts and made for Reception and, from there, out of the building.

Corsico was just inside the post office doors. Barbara didn’t wait for him to reveal the purpose of his call upon her. Instead, she marched up to him, grabbed him by the arm, and jerked him over to a vending machine selling postage stamps.

“Right,” she said. “Here I am at your beck and call, and this is happening once and once only. What do you want? This is our swan song, Mitchell, so make it good.”

“I’m not here to argue.” He glanced down at her hand, still gripping his arm. She released her hold on him and he took a moment to brush his fingers against the suede of his fringed jacket where she’d left an imprint.

“Great,” she said. “Nice. Brilliant. So let’s make this good-bye and we can part sadder but wiser with our love unfulfilled.”

“Actually, that can’t happen quite yet.”

“And why would that be?”

“Because I want two interviews.”

“I don’t bloody care what you want after the Love Rat Dad story, Mitchell.”

“Oh, I think you need to care. And I think you will. P’rhaps not at this precise moment, but soon.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What’re you on about?”

He had a rucksack with him, and from this he pulled out the digital camera she’d seen round his neck at Sayyid’s comprehensive. It wasn’t a palm-size suitable-for-tourist-snaps job, either. It was, instead, a professional model with a large viewing screen. He clicked it on, scrolled, and came up with what he wanted. He turned the camera so that Barbara could see what he’d photographed.

On the screen was the brouhaha that had occurred in front of Sayyid’s school. The boy and his grandfather were in a tangle, with Barbara and Nafeeza trying to separate them. Mitchell clicked from this to another photo, with Barbara hustling them all into the car. In a third, she was talking through the vehicle’s open window to Nafeeza, and in the background the secondary comprehensive was clearly visible. So were the date and the time on each of the photos, comprising the very moments Barbara was putatively on her way to her mother’s bedside after her tragic fall.

“What I’m thinking,” Mitchell said, “is that Met Officer Involved with Love Rat Dad has a very nice ring to it. It’s a follow-up story that opens up worlds of additional possibilities, don’t you think?”