Just One Evil Act

by Elizabeth George

  “What’s next? Who d’you talk to? Where d’you go? Are the cops there handling things? Are they letting you—”

  “Do my job?” he interrupted pointedly. “Such as it is, yes. And, believe me, it’s going to be limited. Now is there anything else?”

  “S’pose not,” she said.

  “Then we’ll speak later,” he told her and rang off, leaving her to wonder if he actually meant it.

  She shoved her mobile in her bag. She’d made the call from the Met canteen, where the only option to keep her nerves in check had been consuming a muffin the size of Gibraltar. She’d gobbled it down like a stray dog keeping a handout secret from the rest of the pack. She’d washed it on its way with huge gulps of tepid coffee. When this didn’t work to calm her savage breast—she should have tried music, she admitted—then she’d given in to phoning Italy. But there was no satisfaction available from Lynley, she realised. So she faced either eating a second muffin or coming up with something else to soothe herself.

  She hadn’t heard from Dwayne Doughty. She told herself that the reason for this had to do with her having employed him for less than twenty-four hours. But a voice within her demanded to know how long it could possibly take for the man to make certain Taymullah Azhar had indeed been in Berlin during the time his daughter had gone missing from Lucca. She herself could have done it in an hour or two of tracing his movements and confirming all reports of his presence. And she would have done it, using the Met’s resources, had she wished to risk another blot on her copybook. But with Superintendent Ardery’s eyes upon her and DI Stewart doubtless making daily reports on the level of her cooperation as part of his team, she had to be careful. Whatever she did, she had to do it on her time and without the resources of the Met.

  Luckily her mobile phone wasn’t one of the Met’s resources. She couldn’t be faulted for using it while taking a break. Nor, she reckoned, could she be faulted for using it while making a visit to the ladies’ in order to answer a pressing call from nature.

  She went there next. Carefully, she checked to see all the stalls were empty. She punched in Mitchell Corsico’s number.

  “Brilliant job” was what she told him when he barked his greeting with a harried “Corsico,” designed to illustrate how busy a man he was down there in the journalistic gutters.

  “Who’s this?” he asked.

  “Postman’s Park,” she told him. “Watts Memorial. I wore fuchsia, you wore Stetson. Are you going to Italy?”

  “I wish.”

  “What? The story’s not big enough for you lot?”

  “Well, she isn’t dead, is she?”

  “Bloody hell! You lot are a sodding group of—”

  “Save it. It’s not me making this decision. What d’you think? I have that kind of power? So unless you’ve got something more to give me . . . I mean aside from the Ilford end of things, which the higher-ups are beginning to like for a few more front pages.”

  Barbara went icy. “What Ilford business? What’re you on about, Mitch?”

  “What I’m ‘on about’ is the other dimensions of the story. What I’m ‘on about’ is your convenient failure to mention your own involvement in what’s going on.”

  “What the hell? What kind of involvement?”

  “The kind that ended up with you in a street brawl with Professor Azhar’s parents. Let me tell you, mate, this whole ‘abandoned second family in Ilford’ part of the story has given it legs over here.”

  Barbara’s iciness rendered her nearly incapable of rational thought. All she was able to say in reply to this was “You can’t go that way. There’s a kid. Her life’s on the line. You have to—”

  “That,” Corsico told her, “would be your part of the equation. My part is the story. My part is readership. So while the kidnapping of a cute kid sells papers—you won’t get an argument from me on that score—the kidnapping of a cute kid whose dad has a secret second family willing to talk—”

  “They’re not a secret. And they won’t be willing.”

  “Tell that to the kid. Sayyid.”

  Barbara thought frantically. She had to keep him from thrusting upon Azhar the humiliation of a public exposé of his tortuous personal life. She could only imagine how it would play out in The Source should Mitchell Corsico score an interview with Azhar’s son. It was unthinkable that this might happen, not only because of Azhar himself but also because of Hadiyyah. Focus needed to be maintained on her, on her abduction, on the search, on the Italians themselves, on whatever was going on in Italy.

  She said, “All right. I see your point. But there’s something you might want to know about our end of things. I mean the Met’s end of things.”

  “And that would be what?”

  “That would be DI Lynley.” She hated to do it, but she had no other choice that she could see. “DI Lynley’s gone over. He’s the liaison officer.”

  Silence at Mitchell Corsico’s end. Barbara could almost hear the wheels turning in his mind. He’d been angling for an interview with the inspector since the moment Lynley’s wife had been murdered on the front steps of their home. Pregnant, just returned from shopping, looking for her keys to unlock her front door. Accosted by a kid with a gun who’d shot her for the fun of it and rendered her brain-dead. With the inspector left in the position of having to decide to take her off the machines keeping their baby alive. If Corsico wanted a story that would go the distance, Lynley was the story. Both of them knew it.

  She said, “The press office here’ll be making the announcement, but you can make it in advance, if you want. And you know what this means, I expect. He’ll be liaising with the parents, but he’ll have to talk to the press and answer their questions. The press means you. And answering questions means an interview. The interview, Mitch.”

  “I see where you’re heading. I won’t lie about it, Barb. Lynley’s a bloody decent angle and he always will be. But the fish I’m frying—”

  “Lynley is the story.” Barbara heard her voice rise with impatience and urgency. “Mention Lynley’s name to your higher-ups and you’re on the next plane to Italy.” Which, she added, was where she needed him: pursuing the story there, feeding details to his editor here, whipping up in the UK reading public a frenzy about what was being done to find an appealing little British girl.

  “And I will,” Corsico said. “No worries on that score. But first things first, and the first is the kid.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to—”

  “I don’t mean the kid Hadiyyah,” he cut in. “I mean the other. Sayyid.”

  “Mitch, don’t—”

  “Thanks for the tip on Lynley, though.” He ended the call.

  VICTORIA

  LONDON

  Barbara cursed and headed for the door. She had to stop Corsico from getting to Azhar’s family in Ilford, and there weren’t a lot of options jumping into her mind on how to do this. She reckoned Nafeeza would remain mute on all matters concerning her husband. But his son, Sayyid, was a wild card in the family deck.

  She swung the door open, her mind febrile. She walked directly into Winston Nkata. The black man didn’t pretend he was just passing by. Instead, he jerked his head towards the interior of the ladies’ toilet. In case she was dim on his intentions, he stepped past her, grabbing her arm on the way inside.

  She said, “Whoops. You lost? Gents is just down the corridor, Winnie.”

  Nkata was not amused. She could tell by the manner in which his enunciation altered from careful Africa-via-the-Caribbean to South-Brixton-on-the-street.

  He said in a harsh whisper, “You gone off your nut? Bloody lucky Stewart tole me to follow you, innit. Someone else ’n you back in uniform tomorrow.”

  She decided that playing dumb was her best course. She said, “What? Win, what’re you talking about?”

  “I’m talkin ’bout your job,�
�� he said. “I’m talkin ’bout losin it. They find out you made yourself a snout for The Source ’n you back in uniform. Worse, you done. You finished, innit. And don’t be so thick to think there i’n’t people in the department’d be happy as hell to see that happen, Barb.”

  She went for offended. “A snout?” she hissed. “That’s what you think? I’m a snout for The Source? I’m not a snout. Not theirs and not anyone’s.”

  “That so? You just gave them DI Lynley. I heard you, Barb. Now you goin to tell me you gave up Lynley to someone other than that same bloke wrote the story ’bout Hadiyyah? You think I’m stupid enough to go for that? You’re on the phone with Corsico, Barb, and one look at your mobile records’s goin to show that. Not to mention your bank account, innit.”

  “What?” Now she was offended. “You think I’m taking money to do this?”

  “I don’ know why the hell you’re doin it. I don’t care why the hell you’re doin it. And you bes’ believe me when I say no one else’s goin to care ’bout the why of it either.”

  “Look, Winnie. You and I both know that someone’s got to keep this story alive. That’s the only way The Source is going to send a reporter over to Italy. And only a British reporter in Italy is going to keep the pressure on the Met so that Lynley stays in place till this gets resolved. Plus a British reporter raises the stakes for the Italian reporters to keep the pressure on the Italian police. That’s how it works. Pressure gets results and you know that.”

  “What I know,” he said, and he was calmer now, so he was back to the gentle Caribbean from his mother that had always so influenced his way of talking, “is that no one’s goin to take your side, Barb. This comes out, and you’re on your own. You got to know that. You got no one here.”

  “Oh, thanks very much, Winston. It’s always good to know who one’s friends are.”

  “I mean no one with the power to step in,” Winston said.

  He meant Lynley, of course. For Lynley was the only officer who would risk stepping onto the pitch if it came down to having to defend the wicket of Barbara’s ill-conceived decision to involve The Source. And he was the only officer to do this not so much because he was devoted to Barbara as because he didn’t need his employment at the Met so he didn’t care about alienating their superiors.

  “So you see,” Winston said, apparently reading realisation on Barbara’s face. “You’re walkin on the wrong side in this, Barb. That bloke Corsico? He’d throw your mum under a bus ’f it meant a story. He’d throw his own mum ’f that’d help.”

  “That can’t matter,” Barbara told him. “And I c’n handle Corsico, Winston.” She tried to move past him to get to the door. He stopped her easily enough since he towered above her.

  “No one ‘handles’ a tabloid, Barb. You don’t know that now, you learn it soon enough.”

  ILFORD

  GREATER LONDON

  There were not a lot of avenues available to Barbara when it came to the chess game of managing what Mitchell Corsico wrote about. But in the case of his intention to talk to the boy Sayyid there appeared to be only one. She phoned Azhar. She reached him on a bad connection in the hills of Tuscany. They did not speak long. From him she learned what she already knew: that Lynley had arrived and that he and the inspector had spoken prior to Azhar’s making his way into the hills to continue posting pictures of Hadiyyah in the villages to the north of Lucca.

  “Sayyid’s comprehensive?” Azhar said when she asked the name of the school. “Why do you need this, Barbara?”

  She hated to tell him, but she didn’t see the alternative: The Source was considering the boy as just that, a source for the kind of “human interest” story so beloved to its readers.

  Azhar gave her the name of the school at once. “For his own sake . . .” His voice was urgent. “You know what the tabloid will make of him, Barbara.”

  She knew well. She knew because she read the bloody rag herself. It was like mental candyfloss and she’d been addicted to the stuff for years. She thanked Azhar and told him she would keep him in the picture of what happened with his son.

  The more difficult project was getting away from the Met. She couldn’t risk waiting for the end of her workday. Knowing Corsico, by the time that arrived, he would already have buttonholed the boy and given him the outlet he was looking for to unload his grievances against his father. She had to leave Victoria, and she had to do it now. She merely needed a decent excuse. Her mum provided it.

  Barbara went to DI Stewart. On the whiteboard, he was jotting brief notations about the day’s actions. She didn’t bother to look for her own. She knew Stewart. No matter her expertise in anything, he’d keep her there in the building and under his thumb transcribing reports, just to drive her as mad as possible.

  “Sir,” she said, although the word felt like a rock on her tongue. “I’ve just had a call from Greenford.” She tried to sound anxiety-ridden about it, which wasn’t too far from the truth. She was anxious. Just not about her mum.

  Stewart didn’t look away from the whiteboard. He was, it appeared, giving crucial attention to the legibility of his cursive. “Have you indeed?” he said in a tone that demonstrated the extent of his ennui when it came to all things Barbara Havers. She wanted to bite his ears off.

  “My mum’s taken a fall. She’s in casualty, sir. I’m going to need to—”

  “Where, exactly?”

  “In the home where she—”

  “I mean casualty, Sergeant. Which hospital? Where is she?”

  Barbara knew the game on that one. If she named a hospital, he’d ring the casualty department and make sure her mother was there. She said, “Don’t know yet, sir. I was planning to ring from the car.”

  “Ring whom?”

  “Lady who runs the home. She phoned me after nine-nine-nine. She didn’t know yet where they were going to take her.”

  DI Stewart seemed to measure this on his potential-for-bollocks meter. He looked at her. “I’ll want to know,” he said. “The department will, of course, wish to send flowers.”

  “Let you know soon ’s I find out,” she told him. She grabbed her shoulder bag, said, “Ta, sir,” and avoided looking at Winston Nkata. He avoided looking at her as well. He didn’t need a potential-for-bollocks meter. But at least he said nothing. He would be her friend in this one matter.

  It was a long drive to Ilford, but she made it before the end of the school day. She found the secondary comprehensive, and she had a quick look round the immediate area to make sure Mitchell Corsico wasn’t hiding in a wheelie bin ready to spring out the moment he saw her. The coast appeared relatively clear aside from an ancient woman pushing a nicked shopping trolley along the pavement, so Barbara sprinted inside the building. Her Metropolitan Police ID got her into the head teacher’s office with virtually no delay.

  She told the head teacher—a woman with the unfortunate name of Mrs. Ida Croak, if her desk’s nameplate was to be believed—the truth. A tabloid journalist was on his way to attempt an interview with one of her pupils on the topic of his father’s desertion of the family for another woman. She gave Sayyid’s name. She added, “It’s a smear piece that this bloke has in mind. You know what I mean, I expect: something pretending to be a human interest story while all the time dragging everyone through the mud. I want to stop it from happening, for Sayyid’s own sake, for his mum’s sake, and for the family’s sake.”

  The head teacher looked appropriately concerned but also, it had to be admitted, appropriately confused by Barbara’s advent to her office. She asked the reasonable question. “Why are the Metropolitan police involved?”

  That was, of course, the crux of the matter. Certainly, the Met had no love for The Source, but sending officers out to stop stories from being gathered was hardly within its purview. She said, “It’s a personal favour to the family. You c’n ring Sayyid’s mum and ask her if she’d like me
to carry the boy past the journalist and bring him home to keep him from getting accosted.”

  “The journalist’s here?” She said it as if the Grim Reaper was waiting outside the front doors, scythe at the ready.

  “He will be. I didn’t see him on my way in, but I expect he’ll show up at any moment. He knows I mean to stop him if I can.”

  Mrs. Croak hadn’t climbed to her position as head teacher for nothing. She said, “I’ll need to phone,” and she asked Barbara to wait outside her office.

  Barbara knew that this could also mean Mrs. Croak was phoning the Met as well, checking up on the validity of her warrant card as if she’d come with the intention of snatching Sayyid in order to have her way with him. She could only pray this wasn’t the case. All she needed was Mrs. Croak being rung through to John Stewart or, worse, to Superintendent Ardery. Her nerves were on edge till the head teacher emerged from her office and motioned Barbara to rejoin her within.

  “The mother’s on her way,” she said. “She doesn’t drive, so she’s bringing the boy’s grandfather. They’ll take him home at once.”

  Barbara’s head filled with a mental Oh no!, like the thought balloon of the cartoon character she felt she was fast becoming. Her intention had been to warn Sayyid not to talk to the tabloids—to any tabloids—but after her previous encounter with Azhar’s father, she knew very well that he might turn out to be a most cooperative interviewee only too happy to rubbish Azhar from London to Lahore and back again. She was going to have to reason with him as best she could. That, she knew, was going to be dicey since the last time she’d encountered the man was in the midst of a brawl in front of his own home.

  Barbara said, “D’you mind if I wait, then? I’d like a word . . .”

  Of course, the sergeant could do as she wished, Mrs. Croak told her. If she wouldn’t mind waiting elsewhere, however . . . as one’s schedule was quite busy . . . as one would want to have a private word with Sayyid’s mother upon her arrival . . .