Elizabeth George - Just One Evil Act

The real issue for Barbara, of course, wasn’t a story in The Source about her “relationship” with Azhar but rather the evidence that she had both lied to her superior officers and disobeyed their orders. But Mitchell Corsico didn’t know this, and Barbara was determined to keep him from finding out. She said, “So . . . what? All I see is an officer from the Met breaking up a family row. What do you see, Mitchell?”

“I see Sayyid telling me that this ‘officer from the Met’ is his father’s extra little bit on the side. I see a score of follow-up interviews coming from every quarter, or at least the quarter relating to Chalk Farm and everyone in residence at a conversion in Eton Villas.”

“You actually want to embarrass yourself like that? You don’t have proof of anything, and I swear to God: You run a story like that and the next person you’ll hear from is my solicitor.”

“For what? Just quoting a furious young boy who hates his dad? Come along, Barb, you know the score. Facts are interesting, but innuendo is what gives a story its charm. Involved is the operative word in the headline. It can mean anything. The reader will decide exactly what all the comings and goings between your two abodes actually mean. You didn’t mention that to me, naughty you. I hadn’t a clue you actually knew these people, let alone that you live within lip-locking distance of Love Rat Dad.”

Barbara thought feverishly about how to handle the reporter at this point. Temporising seemed the only possibility available to her other than caving in to his demands. If she caved in, though, she knew he had her by the throat. So stalling for time was the only direction in which she could turn.

She said, attempting to sound defeated, “Who d’you want to interview?”

“That’s my girl,” he said.

“I am not —”

“Yes, yes. Whatever,” he agreed. “I want one heart-to-heart with Nafeeza. And then a follow-up with Taymullah Azhar.”

Barbara knew that Nafeeza would have her tongue ripped out before she’d talk to any reporter. She also knew that Mitchell Corsico was mad as a hallucinating monkey eating plastic bananas if he thought Azhar was going to submit himself to the scrutiny of The Source . But the fact that there appeared to be no end to the reporter’s self-delusion could, she saw, be used to her advantage for at least a day. So she said, “I’ll have to speak to both of them. This will take time.”

“Twenty-four hours,” he told her.

“It’ll take longer, Mitchell,” Barbara argued. “Azhar’s in Italy, and if you think Nafeeza’s going to come round quickly to the idea of spilling her guts to you—”

“That’s what I have to offer,” he said. “Twenty-four hours. After that, it’s the Met and the Love Rat Dad. Your choice, Barb.”

CHALK FARM

LONDON

So she had to make a move. Barbara knew there was no point to making an attempt to convince Nafeeza that talking to The Source was in her best interests. Not only was it not in her best interests to say a single word to anyone representing that piece-of-rubbish-in-newspaper’s-clothing, it was also Barbara’s own use of the tabloid that had started them all down this road to public humiliation in the first place. To take on more of the mantle of responsibility for what The Source was doing to the abandoned family and would next do to the abandoned family should Nafeeza talk to them was something that Barbara wasn’t about to do.

That left her with Azhar, with convincing Azhar to talk to Corsico in order to defend himself from the attack upon him as the Love Rat Dad who’d deserted wife and children. She would then have to persuade Corsico to accept this compromise of a single interview as the best she could do. She thought she could manage this manoeuvre if she explained to Azhar that her job was virtually on the line. The only question for her was whether she could live with herself after she had done so.

She hadn’t spoken to Azhar since learning from Dwayne Doughty that all of the information collected by the investigator and his assistant regarding Angelina Upman’s whereabouts had been handed over to him in January. If this was true, it held up to doubt everything the Pakistani professor had said and done from that point forward. And if everything he had said and done from that point forward was one variation or another on a lie, then Barbara wasn’t sure what she would do about that fact or to whom she would give that information.

The only answer seemed to be food. When she arrived home, she gobbled down a double takeaway portion of haddock and chips and followed this with treacle tart and a side of Victoria sponge. She quaffed a bottle of lager as she ate and finished off her meal with a cup of instant coffee. Accompanying this, she dipped into a packet of salt-and-vinegar crisps, after which a virtuous apple assured her that her arteries would be thoroughly cleansed if she munched upon it hard and long enough.

Then, no longer could she put off the phone call to Italy without putting herself into some sort of caloric stupor. She lit a fag and punched in Azhar’s number. She’d never dreaded a phone call so much in her life. She was going to have to tell him everything: from the Love Rat Dad story to the claims made by the private investigator. In neither instance did she see that she had any choice.

She wasn’t prepared for where she found Azhar when she rang his mobile. He was at the hospital in Lucca. Angelina, he told her, had been taken there both at the insistence of Lorenzo Mura and the advice of Inspector Lynley. She’d been ill for two days with a variety of worrying symptoms that she believed were related to the morning sickness she’d been experiencing, but her condition had worsened and both Mura and Lynley were convinced this could be an indication of something more serious.

Barbara hated where her thoughts went immediately upon hearing this news: to how the information could best be used to appease Mitchell Corsico. A story about the mother of the kidnapped child in Italy being admitted into hospital in an emergency situation . . . possibly on the brink of losing her unborn child . . . overwrought and making herself ill because of the kidnapping of her daughter . . . desperate for the Italian police to do something— anything —to find her while all the time they were sitting round drinking copious amounts of vino . . . That story was a real gem, wasn’t it? That exposé was certain to tug at heartstrings. Of course, it depended upon the journalist and the readers of The Source having hearts in the first place, but surely it was better than a front-page piece in which Azhar answered pointed questions from Corsico and ended up throwing even more mud on his own reputation. She said, trying not to sound too hopeful, “What d’you mean, ‘not right with the pregnancy’?”

“Her symptoms are, according to Mr. Mura, severe and worrying,” Azhar told her. “The doctors here are concerned. Dehydration, vomiting, diarrhea.”

“Sounds like flu. Maybe a virus? Or that super-serious kind of morning sickness?”

“She’s very weak. It was Inspector Lynley who rang me with the news. I came at once to see if there was . . . I do not know why I came.”

Barbara knew why he’d taken himself to the hospital. He loved the woman and had always done so. Despite her sins against him and especially the sin of removing from him the daughter he lived for, there was something that remained strong between them. Barbara didn’t understand this kind of bond between people, and she reckoned she never would.

“Have you seen her?” she asked. “Is she . . . I don’t know. Is she conscious? Is she in pain? What?”

“I have not yet seen her. Lorenzo . . .” He paused, seemed to think, then changed tack. “She might be having tests just now. There are a few specialists she’s seeing, I believe. This could all be related to the stress of Hadiyyah as well as to the pregnancy . . . I know very little at this point, Barbara. I hope to learn more if I remain here.”