Just One Evil Act

19 May

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Barbara rose before half past five. She dressed and sat on the edge of her bed. She watched Hadiyyah sleeping, innocent of the knowledge of the change that now had to come to her life.

One did not orchestrate an international kidnapping and simply walk away from that kidnapping’s fallout. Within a few hours, Azhar was going to be free to return to London with his child, but once the full story came out, the hell that would follow would ruin him financially, personally, and professionally. Interpol would see to that. Italian prosecution would see to that. Extradition would see to that. A London investigation would see to that. And the Upman family would see to that.

What Barbara knew she had to do was to get to work on the problem and do it quickly. She had little enough time to see to things properly, and she needed Aldo Greco to help her.

She’d rung him late on the previous day. She told him what she needed. He’d already been informed of Lorenzo Mura’s arrest and of Azhar’s being in the clear of all charges related to the death of Angelina Upman, so when she suggested that it was imperative to little Hadiyyah’s mental and psychological state—“The kid’s been through the emotional wringer, eh?” was how she put it—that she be reunited with her father quickly, he was on board at once.

Unfortunately, he explained, he had to be in court in the morning. But he would ring Ispetorre Lo Bianco immediately and make the appropriate arrangements.

She said, “C’n you ask him . . . I’d like to . . . Well, he and I are a bit on the outs—”

“Come? The ‘outs’?”

“We’ve had a difference of opinion. It’s a language thing. I’ve had a bloody hard time making myself understood. But I’d like to be able to speak to Azhar before he sees Hadiyyah. Everything that’s gone on? It’s rattled her, and he needs to know before he sees her, to prepare himself, eh? He doesn’t speak Italian either, so Salvatore can’t tell him and as you’ve got to be in court . . .”

“Ah, capisco. This I will handle as well.”

Which he had done in short order, clearly a man who had no back burner on the cooktop of his professional life. Within thirty minutes, it had all been arranged. Azhar would be ready for release in the morning, Salvatore would himself drive to the prison to fetch him, he would take Barbara along with him, and Barbara would be given the time to speak to Azhar privately so as to prepare him for his daughter’s state.

Hadiyyah’s state, of course, was perfectly fine. There was much about what had occurred that she did not yet understand, and there would be much for her to process in the time to come. But like so many children, she was in and of the moment in which she lived. Salvatore’s mother had been a boon in the care of her. As long as Hadiyyah liked to learn Italian cooking and was quick about memorising the scores of Catholic saints whose holy cards Signora Lo Bianco presented to her, all was well.

Barbara went out for a walk. She rang Mitchell Corsico. She had hopes he’d had second thoughts, hanging on to the idea of the reunion story—Father and Kidnapped Daughter Together at Last!—as bigger than the one he’d written with Dwayne Doughty’s information. But even as she gave thought to the hope, she knew it was an unreasonable one. International kidnapping scandals would always trump tender reunions between fathers and their children. Combine that scandal with Barbara’s own participation in the crimes that had gone down . . . One couldn’t have hopes.

Once again Mitchell said, “Sorry, Barb. What could I do? But listen, you need to look at the story. You won’t be able to score a copy of the paper here in Lucca ’less you find a newsagent with English papers. But if you look online—”

Once again, she ended the call, cutting him off midsentence. She’d learned all that she needed to learn. The project now was to get to Azhar.

She could tell that Salvatore no longer trusted her, but as a man with a daughter Hadiyyah’s age, he was going to want to do what was right for the child. Barbara didn’t know what Aldo Greco said to the Chief Inspector, but whatever it had been, it worked. Before they each went off to their respective bedrooms in Torre Lo Bianco on the previous evening, he’d set the time for their departure to fetch Azhar back to Lucca, and he was as good as his word when it came to her accompanying him.

They were silent on the route, for what else could they be in a situation in which neither of them spoke the other’s language. Barbara could tell she’d dealt a real blow to the Italian, and more than anything she wanted him to understand why she’d done as she had done.

He saw her as on the take, no doubt. Anyone would. Police all over the world were dirty—not all of them, of course, but there were enough—and he would have little reason to think she was anything other than an inside source for the worst tabloid in London. That this wasn’t the case . . . How could she explain? Really, who would believe her in any language? She said to him again, “I bloody wish you spoke decent English, Salvatore. You think I betrayed you, but it wasn’t meant as betrayal and it wasn’t intended as a personal blow to you. Truth is . . . I bloody like you, mate. And now . . . with what happens next . . . ? That’s not going to be a personal blow either. But it’ll look like it. It’ll sodding look like I used you only to betray you again. I won’t mean it that way. Believe me, I won’t. God, I hope you’ll be able to understand someday. I mean, I c’n tell I’ve lost your trust and whatever good opinion you might’ve had about me and believe me I c’n see it in your face when you look at me. And I’m so bloody sorry about that, but I didn’t have a choice. I’ve never had a choice. At least not one that I could ever see.”

He glanced at her as he drove. They were on the autostrada and traffic was heavy with commuters, with lorries, and with tourist coaches heading to their next glorious Tuscan destination. He said her name in a very kind tone which, for a moment, made her think she had his forgiveness and his understanding. But then he said, “Mi dispiace ma non capisco. E comunque . . . parla inglese troppo velocemente.”

She had enough Italian at this point to understand that much. She’d heard it from him often enough. She said, “Mi dispiace as well, mate.” She turned to the window and watched the Italian scenery whizzing by: leafy vineyards, wonderful old farms, orchards of olive trees climbing hillsides, mountain villages in the distance, all of it crowned with a cloudless azure sky. Paradise, she thought. And then she added wryly, Lost.

Arrangements had been made in advance at the prison where Azhar was being held. He was ready when they arrived, not a prisoner in a boiler suit any longer but a gentleman scientist in his white shirt and trousers, released into the company of the policeman who had investigated him and the policewoman who was his most determined friend. Ispettore Lo Bianco kept a respectful distance as Barbara and Azhar greeted each other.

She spoke to the Pakistani man quietly, walking him ahead of Salvatore, linking her arm with his in a manner that would demonstrate warm friendship, leaning towards him, saying, “Listen, Azhar. It’s not how it looks, this thing. I mean your being released. It’s not how it looks.”

He looked at her quickly, his dark eyes confused.

She said, “It’s not over.” Quickly, she told him about Corsico’s story, which would be in The Source that morning. Doughty, she told him, had given Corsico everything in order to save his own neck. Names, dates, places, money exchanging hands, Internet hacking, the entire enchilada of information. She’d tried to stop the bloody journalist from writing the story, she said. She’d begged. She’d pleaded. She’d reasoned. And she’d failed.

Azhar said, “What does this mean?”

“You know. Azhar. You know. The Italian journalists are going to pick up on the story sometime today. Once they do, there’ll be a bloody big hue and cry. Someone is going to pursue the facts, and if it isn’t Salvatore, it’ll be some other detective who gets assigned. You’ll be detained again and I’ve burnt too many bridges with Salvatore to be able to help you.”

“But at the end of the day . . . Barbara, they will see how little choice I had once Angelina left London and hid Hadiyyah from me. They will show compassion. They will—”

“Listen to me.” She tightened her grip on his arm. “The Upmans are here in Lucca. They went to the questura yesterday and they’re bloody well going to go there today. They want Hadiyyah turned over to them. Salvatore held them off, but once the kidnapping story hits the papers here . . . And that’s supposing the Upmans haven’t already been rung up by Bathsheba from London telling them about the story in The Source, at which point, believe me, they’ll demand Hadiyyah because what kind of dad kidnaps his own kid and stows her in a convent with a madwoman who thinks she’s a nun, eh?”

“I did not intend—”

“D’you think they care what you intended? They hate you, mate, and you and I know it and they’ll go for custody of her just because they hate you, and they’ll bloody get it. Who cares that she means nothing to them? It’s you they’re after.”

He was silent. Barbara glanced at Salvatore, who was speaking into his mobile, still a respectful distance from them. She knew how little time they had. Their conversation had already gone on too long for a woman who was only supposed to be passing along information about the state of her friend’s beloved child.

She said, “You can’t go back to London. And you can’t stay here. You’re cooked either way.”

His lips barely moved as he said, “What then do I do?”

“Again, Azhar, I think you know. You’ve not got a choice.” She waited for him to take this in, and she saw on his face that he had done so, for he blinked hard and she thought she saw on his lashes the brilliance of unshed tears. She said, although she felt as if the pain of doing so might actually drive a sword through her heart, “You still have family there, Azhar. They’ll welcome her. They’ll welcome you. She speaks the language. Or at least she’s been learning it. You’ve seen to that.”

“She won’t understand,” he said in an agonised voice. “How can I do this to her after what she has been through?”

“You don’t have a choice. And you’ll be there for her. You’ll ease her way. You’ll see to it her life there is an extraordinary one. And she’ll adjust, Azhar. She’ll have aunts and uncles. She’ll have cousins. It will be okay.”

“How can I—”

Barbara cut in, choosing to interpret the rest of his question in the only way possible now. She said, “Salvatore has your passports, probably locked away in the questura. He’ll hand them over, and you and Hadiyyah and I will head to the airport. Fond farewells to him and all the rest. He may take us there, but he won’t stay to see where we go or even if we depart. I’ll go to London. You’ll go . . . wherever you can go to get a flight to Lahore. Just out of Italy. Paris? Frankfurt? Stockholm? It doesn’t matter as long as it’s not London. You’ll do what you have to do at this point because it’s the only thing left. And you know it, Azhar. You bloody know it.”

He looked at her. She saw his dark eyes fill with tears. He said, “And you, Barbara? What about you?”

“Me?” She tried to sound lighthearted. “I’ll face the music back in London. I’ve done it before, and I’ll survive. Facing the music is what I do best.”

LUCCA

TUSCANY

First was Torre Lo Bianco, where Hadiyyah leapt into her father’s arms and buried her face in his neck. He held her close. She said, “Barbara told me you were helping Salvatore. Did you help him a lot? What did you do?”

Azhar cleared his throat roughly. He smoothed back wisps of her hair and said with a smile, “Many, many things did I do. But it is time for us to go now, khushi. Can you thank the signora and Inspector Lo Bianco for taking such good care of you while I was away?”

She did so. She hugged Salvatore’s mamma, who kissed her, got teary, and called her bella bambina, and she hugged Salvatore who said “Niente, niente” as she thanked him. She asked them both to tell Bianca and Marco arrivederci, and she said to Barbara, “D’you get to come home as well?”

Barbara told her that indeed she did, and in very short order, they’d taken their bags to where Salvatore had left his car and they were on their way to the questura. At every moment, Barbara looked for some sign that Mitch Corsico’s page-one story had somehow broken in Italy. She also looked for the Upmans on every street corner and behind every bush as they coursed the route along the viale outside the town wall.

At the questura, things moved rapidly and Barbara was immensely grateful for this. Passports were returned to Azhar, Hadiyyah was left in the company of Ottavia Schwartz, and the buxom translator was called in so that Azhar might hear Salvatore’s explanation of how Angelina Upman had come to die of ingesting a devastating strain of E. coli. He covered his mouth with his hand as he listened, and the pain in his eyes was evident. He pointed out that, had he been the one to drink the affected wine, it was likely he would have survived the subsequent illness. But because it had been Angelina who’d drunk it, Angelina who was already unwell with her pregnancy, things had been misinterpreted by her doctors until it was far too late. “I wished her no ill,” he concluded. “I would have you know that, Inspector.”

“Plenty of ill was wished towards you, Azhar,” Barbara put in. “And I wager you wouldn’t have gone to hospital had you got ill. You would’ve thought you’d picked up a bug: on the flight, in the water, whatever, eh? You’d’ve got over the first bout with this stuff, but then the next step would’ve been a worse bout and losing your kidneys and probably dying as well. Lorenzo might not have known all that, but it wasn’t important to him. Making you suffer was what he had in mind, with the hope that making you suffer would lead to making you gone from Angelina’s life.”

Salvatore listened to the translation of all this. Barbara cast a look in his direction, saw once again the solemnity of his expression, but also read the great kindness in his eyes. She knew that there was one more thing that had to be said in advance of Corsico’s damning kidnapping story breaking in the Italian papers.

She said to Azhar, “C’n you give me a moment with . . .” And she nodded in Salvatore’s direction.

He said of course, that he would go to Hadiyyah, that they would be waiting, and he left her alone with Salvatore and the translator to whom Barbara said, “Please tell him I’m sorry. Tell him, please, it was nothing personal, anything I did. It wasn’t meant as a betrayal or as using him or anything like that, although I bloody well know it looked that way. Tell him . . . See, I have this London journalist on my back—he’s the cowboy bloke Salvatore saw?—and he was here to help me help Azhar. See, Azhar’s my neighbour back in London and when Angelina took Hadiyyah from him, he was . . . Salvatore, he was so broken. And I couldn’t leave him like that, broken. Hadiyyah’s really all he has left in England in the way of family so I had to help him. And all of this . . . everything that’s gone on? Can you tell him it was all part of helping Azhar? That’s all, really. Because, see, this journalist has another story that he’s running and . . . that’s all that I can say, really. That’s all. That and I hope he understands.”

Salvatore listened to the translation, which came nearly as rapidly as Barbara herself was speaking. He didn’t look at the translator, though. He remained as he had been before, with his gaze on Barbara’s face.

At the end, there was silence. Barbara found that she couldn’t blame him for not replying and, indeed, that she didn’t actually want him to reply. For he was going to want to hunt her down and strangle her when he finally discovered what her next move had been, so to have his forgiveness in advance of betraying him another time . . . ? She didn’t know how she could contend with that anyway.

She said, “So I’ll say thanks and good-bye. We c’n take a taxi to the airport or—”

Salvatore interrupted. He spoke quietly and with what sounded like either kindness or resignation. She waited until he had finished and then said to the translator, “What?”

“The ispettore says that it has been a pleasure to know you,” the translator replied.

“He said more than that. He went on a bit. What else did he say?”

“He said that he will arrange your transport to the airport.”

She nodded. But then she felt compelled to add, “That’s it, then?”

The translator looked at Salvatore and then back at Barbara. A soft smile curved her lips. “No. Ispettore Lo Bianco has said that any man on earth would find himself lucky to have had in his life such a friend as you.”

Barbara wasn’t prepared. She felt the claw of emotion at her throat. She finally was able to say, “Ta. Thank you. Grazie, Salvatore. Grazie and ciao.”

“Niente,” Salvatore said. “Arrivederci, Barbara Havers.”

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Salvatore waited, patiently as always, in the anteroom of Piero Fanucci’s office. This time, though, it was not because Piero was forcing him to wait or because someone was being berated by il Pubblico Ministero inside his inner sanctum. Rather, it was because Piero had not yet returned from his lunch. He’d taken it later than usual, Salvatore had discovered, because of a lengthy meeting with three avvocati representing the family of Carlo Casparia. They had come on the not small matter of false arrest, false imprisonment, interrogations without an avvocato present, coerced confessions, and dragging the family name through the mud. Unless these issues were resolved to the satisfaction of la famiglia Casparia, il Pubblico Ministero was going to face an investigation into his investigation and have no doubt about that.

Il drago had evidently done his usual bit upon hearing this unveiled threat. He’d breathed the roaring flames of segreto investigativo at the placid lawyers. He was under no obligation to tell them anything, he declared. Judicial secrecy ruled the day, not their pitiful claims on behalf of the Casparias.

At this, the avvocati were not impressed. If that was how he wished to proceed, they informed the magistrato, so be it. They left the rest of their remarks hanging in the air. He would be hearing again from them soon.

All of this Salvatore had from Piero’s secretary. She’d been present to take notes, which she was more than happy to share with him. It was her intention to outlive Piero in her position as secretary. Her hope had long been that outliving Piero meant watching him be summarily dismissed from his job. That looked highly probable now.

Salvatore evaluated all the information as he waited. He put it onto the scales in which he had been weighing his next move since the departure of Barbara Havers and her London neighbours. He had felt unaccountably sad to see the dishevelled British woman depart. He knew he should have remained furious at her, but he’d found that fury was not among the feelings he had. Instead, he’d felt compelled to take her part. So when the Upmans arrived at the questura later that morning, he’d dealt with them by not dealing with them at all. Their granddaughter was with her father, he told them through the translator. As far as he knew, they both were now gone from Italy. He could be of no help to the signore and the signora. He could not assist them in wresting Hadiyyah from the custody of her father. “Mi dispiace e ciao,” he said to them. If they cared to know more—especially in regards to their daughter Angelina—they might wish to speak to Aldo Greco, whose English was superb. Or, if they had no wish to learn the truth about Angelina’s death, then they, too, could return to London. There, and not here, they could take up the matter of who would have custody of little Hadiyyah.

Signor Upman’s subsequent mouth-frothing had done little to move Salvatore. He left the man standing alongside his wife in Reception, where Salvatore had met them.

Then had come the phone call from the telegiornalista who had supplied Barbara Havers and the cowboy from London with the film taken on the day that Lorenzo Mura had placed the tainted glass of wine in front of Taymullah Azhar. This man spoke of a story breaking this very morning in a London giornale, one that had come to him firsthand from the reporter whose work it was in a tabloid called The Source. It involved the careful plan to kidnap Hadiyyah, one that had her father as its engineer. Names, dates, exchanges of money, alibis created, individuals hired . . . Was Ispettore Lo Bianco going to pursue this? the telegiornalista enquired.

Purtroppo, no had been Salvatore’s reply. For surely the telegiornalista knew that the kidnapping case had been handed over to Nicodemo Triglia some weeks ago? So Salvatore had no place in any pursuit of this new information.

Did he know, then, where Taymullah Azhar and his daughter had gone? For the telegiornalista had learned that Azhar had been released from the prison where he’d been held, released into the care of Salvatore Lo Bianco and the English detective who’d accompanied him. Barbara Havers was her name. Where had Ispettore Lo Bianco taken them?

Here, of course, Salvatore had said. The professore had collected his passport and had departed, as was his right.

Departed? For where?

“Non lo so,” Salvatore had told him. For he had been most careful about this. Wherever they were going, he did not wish to know. Their fate was out of his hands now, and he intended to keep it that way.

When at last Piero Fanucci returned from pranzo, he appeared to be fully recovered from whatever concerns he might have had during his conversation with the Casparia family’s team of avvocati. Salvatore gave idle thought to the idea that a half liter of wine probably had gone far to allay those concerns, but he nonetheless welcomed Piero’s expansive greeting and he followed the magistrato into his office.

He was there to speak only about the death of Angelina Upman and the guilt of Lorenzo Mura. In the interview room at the questura, Mura had confessed brokenly to everything. With Daniele Bruno’s assistance and his willingness to testify at whatever trial would follow the events associated with his meeting with Mura at the Parco Fluviale, it seemed to Salvatore that the investigation was now complete. Mura did not intend his woman to die, he explained to the magistrato. He did not intend her even to drink the wine that contained the bacteria. He’d meant it for the Pakistani man who’d come to assist in the search for their child. He had not known that, as a Muslim, Taymullah Azhar did not drink wine.

Piero said at the conclusion of Salvatore’s remarks, “It is all circumstantial, what you give to me, no?”

It was, of course. But the circumstances were damning, Salvatore said. “Still, I leave it to you and to your wisdom, Magistrato, to decide how you wish to prosecute Signor Mura. You have been right about so many things, and I trust whatever decision you make once you have familiarised yourself with all the reports.” These were in the folders that Salvatore carried. He handed them over, and Piero Fanucci placed them on the stack of other folders waiting for his perusal. Salvatore added, “The Mura family . . .”

“What of them?”

“They have hired an avvocato from Rome. It is my understanding that he will wish to strike a bargain with you.”

“Bah,” Piero said dismissively. “Romans.”

Salvatore made a formal little bow, just an inclination of the head to indicate his acceptance of Piero’s opinion of any lawyer who might come from Rome, that centre and hotbed of political scandal. He said farewell, then, and turned to leave. “Salvatore,” Piero said, which stopped him. He waited politely while Piero gathered his thoughts. He was unsurprised when the other man said, “Our little spat in the Orto Botanico . . . I deeply regret my loss of control, Topo.”

“These things happen when passions run high,” Salvatore told him. “I assure you that, on my part, it is all forgotten.”

“On mine as well, then. Ci vediamo?”

“Ci vediamo, d’accordo,” Salvatore agreed.

He left the office. A brief passeggiata was in order, he decided, so he took a little detour instead of heading directly to the questura. He wandered in the opposite direction, telling himself the day and the exercise would do him good. That his exercise took him to Piazza dei Cocomeri was of no import. That in the piazza was a very large newspaper kiosk was purely coincidental. That the giornalaio sold newspapers in English, French, and German as well as Italian was merely an intriguing discovery. He did not yet have that day’s edition of The Source, however. The British newspapers generally arrived by late afternoon, flown over to Pisa and transported from the airport. If the ispettore wished a copy to be held for him, this could be easily arranged.

Salvatore said yes, he would like a copy of that particular paper. He handed over his money, nodded at the giornalaio, and went on his way. Certo, he could have used the Internet to see that morning’s edition of the tabloid. But he’d always liked the feeling of an actual newspaper beneath his fingers. And if he had no English sufficient to read what was in the pages of this tabloid, what did it matter? He could find someone to translate it for him. Eventually, he decided, he would do so.

VICTORIA

LONDON

Isabelle Ardery’s third meeting with the assistant commissioner took place at three o’clock. Lynley learned about it in the usual way. Prior to that meeting, Dorothea Harriman informed him sotto voce, there had been a flurry of phone calls from CIB1, followed by a lengthy encounter in Isabelle’s office with one of the deputy assistant commissioners. To Lynley’s question of which one of the DACs had met with Ardery, Dorothea lowered her voice even more. It was the one in charge of police personnel management, she told him. She’d tried to sort out what was going on, but all she could report was that Detective Superintendent Ardery had asked for a copy of the Police Act yesterday afternoon.

Lynley heard all this with a sinking heart. Sacking a policeman or -woman was an inordinately difficult manoeuvre. It wasn’t a matter of saying, “Right, you’re gone. Clear out your desk” because from a remark such as that, a lawsuit would follow as the night the day. So Isabelle had been necessarily careful in building her case, and although it pained him to know this, Lynley found that he couldn’t blame her.

He rang Barbara’s mobile. If nothing else, he could at least prepare her for what was to befall her when she returned to London. But he got no answer, and so he left a simple message for her to ring him at once. Then, after five minutes of waiting, he rang Salvatore Lo Bianco.

He was trying to get in contact with Sergeant Havers, he told the Italian man. Was she with him? Did he know where she was? She wasn’t answering her mobile and—

“I suspect she is on an airplane,” Salvatore told him. “She left Lucca at midday with the professore and little Hadiyyah.”

“Returning to London?”

“Where else, my friend?” Salvatore said. “We are at a conclusion here. To the magistrato I gave my report this afternoon.”

“What will he be pursuing, Salvatore?”

“To this, I confess I do not know. The case of Signora Upman’s death ends with Signor Mura. As to the kidnapping of little Hadiyyah . . . ? That was taken from me long ago, as we both know. It, too, is in the hands of the magistrato. And Piero . . . ? Ah, Piero goes his own way in things. I have learned not to attempt to direct him.”

That was the extent of Salvatore’s information. Lynley had the distinct feeling that there was more going on than Salvatore was willing to say via phone. But whatever it was, it was going to have to stay in Italy until such a time that Lynley travelled to Lucca again.

A phone call from Dorothea Harriman supervened upon his conversation with Salvatore Lo Bianco. DI John Stewart was in conference with the detective superintendent now. He had taken a copy of a tabloid into the meeting, Detective Inspector Lynley. Harriman thought it was The Source, but she couldn’t be sure.

Lynley rang Barbara Havers another time. Another time, it was her voice mail he heard. Just a surly “This is Havers. Leave a message,” in an impatient tone. He told her to ring him as soon as possible. He added, “Salvatore tells me you’re on a flight to London. We do need to talk before you come in to the Met, Barbara.” More than that, he wouldn’t say. But he hoped she sensed the urgency in his tone.

For an hour afterwards, he was weak-stomached. He recognised this not only as completely unlike him but also as an indication of how little he could do at this point to stop the concrete ball from rolling down the ice slope on which it had been perched. When his desk phone rang at last, he snatched it up.

“Barbara,” he said.

“Me.” It was Dorothea. “Coast is clear. Detective Inspector Stewart has just left her office. He’s looking grim.”

“With triumph?”

“Couldn’t say, Detective Inspector Lynley. Raised voices for a moment or two in there, but that was it. She’s alone now. I thought you might like to know.”

He went to Isabelle at once. On his way, he met John Stewart in the corridor. As Harriman had indicated earlier, the other DI carried a tabloid with him. He had it rolled into a tube, and when Lynley nodded at him and began to pass by, Stewart stopped him. It was a sharp move in which he slapped the rolled tabloid against Lynley’s chest. He moved in far too close, and when he spoke, Lynley could smell the acrid scent of his breath. He felt rising in himself the inclination to shove the other man against the wall by means of his hand on Stewart’s throat, but he quelled this inclination and said, “Is there a problem, John?”

Stewart’s voice was a hiss. “You think you were discreet, the two of you. You think no one knew you were fucking her, don’t you? We’re going to see about that one, you and I. This isn’t over, Tommy.”

Lynley felt his muscles go so tight that the only release for the energy that made them that way would have been to throw Stewart to the floor and throttle him. But there was too much at stake here, and the truth of the matter was that he hadn’t the slightest idea what was actually going on. So he said, “I beg your pardon?”

“That’s right, mate,” Stewart sneered. “You go all public school on me. That’s just what I would expect of you. Now get out of my way or—”

“John, I believe you’re in my way,” Lynley said quietly. He took the tabloid from the other man’s hand, where still it pressed against his own chest. “Thank you for this, however. A little light reading over dinner tonight.”

“You piece of shit. The two of you. The three of you. All of you directly up to the top.” This said, Stewart pushed past him.

Lynley went on his way, but as he did so, he opened the tabloid to see the front page. Mitchell Corsico’s by-line was no surprise. Neither was the headline Kidnap Dad Behind It All. He didn’t need to read the article to see that he had been outplayed by Dwayne Doughty. The private investigator was a master, he realised, the mouse who could wrest the cheese from the trap without even coming close to the neck snap that would kill him.

When he got to Dorothea Harriman, he nodded at Isabelle’s closed door. She said she would check and she spoke into her phone. Would the detective superintendent be available to see Detective Inspector Lynley? she enquired. She listened for a moment and then told Lynley to give his superior five minutes.

The five minutes that passed stretched to ten and then fifteen before Isabelle opened her office door. She said, “Come in, Tommy. Close the door behind you,” and when he’d done so, she gave a tremendous sigh. She gestured to her mobile and said, “It shouldn’t take such an effort to plan a holiday to the Highlands. Bob wants to argue that it’s ‘out of the country’ and as he has custody, et cetera, et cetera. Is it any wonder I took to drink?” And when he shot her a look, she said, “I’m joking, Tommy.”

She went to her desk and dropped into her chair. Uncharacteristically, she removed her simple necklace, dropped it on the desk, and rubbed the back of her neck. “Pinched nerve,” she told him. “Stress, I think. Well, it’s been a rough time.”

“I saw John in the corridor.”

“Ah. Well. He was taken aback. Who can blame him? He wasn’t to know he was being looked into, but honestly, what else could the man have been expecting?”

Lynley watched her. Her face was nothing if not completely what it ought to be. He said, “I’m not sure I understand.”

She continued to see to the tight muscles in her neck. “I wasn’t sure how it would work out, of course, once I assigned her to him and then reassigned her elsewhere, but I did think his antipathy towards both of us would do him in, which of course it did. She ran him on a merry chase all over London, and he ran after her. Doubtless there’s some fox-hunting metaphor that a man of your background might come up with—”

“I don’t hunt,” he told her. “Well, once, but once was quite enough for me.”

“Hmm. Yes. I suppose that’s in order, isn’t it? I daresay you’ve always been a traitor to your class.” She smiled at him. “How are you, Tommy?” she asked. “You’ve seemed . . . lighter these days. Have you met someone?”

“Isabelle, what’s going on, exactly? Hillier, CIB1, the DAC from police personnel management . . .”

“John Stewart’s been transferred, Tommy,” she said. “I thought you understood what I was talking about.” She returned her necklace to her neck and rebuttoned her blouse. She said, “Barbara’s brief was to suss him out. She would misuse her time left, right, and centre, and we would see if he misused his authority by setting up an unauthorised investigation of her. Of course, that’s exactly what he did as his reports to me proved from the very first. Naturally, ridding ourselves of the man entirely is a virtual impossibility, but CIB1, Hillier, and personnel management came to believe that a spate in Sheffield might be just the ticket for John. To learn how to operate effectively within the confines of a hierarchy, I mean.”

The release he felt was enormous. So was the gratitude. He said, “Isabelle . . .”

She said, “At any rate, Barbara played her part well. One would almost believe she was seriously out of order. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Why?” he said quietly. “Isabelle, why? With so much at risk for you . . .”

She looked at him quizzically. “You’re confusing me, Tommy. I’m not at all sure what you’re talking about. At any rate, it’s not important, I suppose. The crux of the matter is that John’s been dealt with. The coast is clear, as they say, for Barbara’s return and for a private celebration for a job well done.”

He saw that she was not going to relent. She would have this her way or not at all. He said, “I don’t know what to . . . Isabelle, thank you. I want to say that you won’t regret this, but God knows that’s not likely.”

She regarded him evenly for a very long moment. For a flash he saw in her face the woman whose body he’d so enjoyed in bed. Then that woman was gone and, he reckoned, she was gone forever. Her next words made this so.

“It’s guv, Tommy,” she told him quietly. “Or it’s ma’am. Or it’s superintendent. It’s not Isabelle, though. I hope we’re clear on that.”