Just One Evil Act

by Elizabeth George

  An old farmhouse was under renovation, and so, it seemed, was the villa when she finally came to it. It sat at the top of a sloping lawn, and scaffolding covered the sides of it. On the roof swarmed half a dozen men. They were in the process of removing its tiles, which they were tossing to the ground three floors below them. This was a noisy business, accompanied by enormous clouds of dust as well as a great deal of shouting in Italian. Over the shouting music played at a volume sufficient for most of Tuscany to hear quite easily. It was old rock ’n’ roll sung in English: Chuck Berry was asking Maybellene why she couldn’t be true.

  One of the workers clocked her approach, for which she was grateful since she didn’t think she’d be capable of outshouting Chuck. This man waved and disappeared from view for a moment. Into his place stepped Lorenzo Mura.

  He stood, backlit by the afternoon sun, arms akimbo, as Barbara approached the villa. She wondered if he would recognise her from their meeting in London the previous month. Apparently he did because he descended the rickety scaffolding quickly and, in her opinion, with insufficient care. By the time she reached the area in front of the building’s great loggia, he was coming round the side of the place and his expression didn’t indicate that the red carpet was about to be unrolled.

  He spoke first, saying, “Why are you here?”

  She took a moment before she replied. He looked about as bad as Azhar, she thought. Sleepless nights, too much daytime labour, insufficient food, forcing himself to move forward through every day, grief . . . These would take the stuffing out of any man. But so would a bout with E. coli, she thought. He looked shaky, and his colour was pasty. The port wine stain on his face appeared deeply purple.

  She said to him, “Have you been ill, Mr. Mura?”

  “My woman and our child are in a cimitero five days,” he said. “How you think me to look?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “For what’s happened, I’m sorry.”

  “There is no sorry for this,” he replied. “What want you here?”

  “I’ve come for Hadiyyah,” she told him. “It’s her father’s wish that—”

  He swiped the air with a chopping motion of his hand that stopped her words. He said, “Do not. There are things we not know. One of them is Hadiyyah’s father. Angelina said Azhar but me she tells it can be another.” And taking a moment to register the expression on Barbara’s face at this bit of news, he added, “You did not know. It is among many things you do not know. Taymullah Azhar was not the . . .” He looked for the word. He settled on “the solo man when he and Angelina first become lovers.”

  “I know Angelina slept round like a ten-quid tart, but I expect that’s not exactly where you’d like this conversation to head. Past actions tend to indicate future actions, if you know what I mean, Mr. Mura.”

  Colour swept his face.

  Barbara said, “So that knife cuts in both directions, doesn’t it? You hooked yourself up with a woman with a colourful past, and for all we know till the day she died she had a colourful present as well. Now, I expect you’d like Azhar to doubt Hadiyyah is his, and I expect Angelina would’ve liked that also, all the better to keep her from him. But you and I both know what a DNA test can prove and, believe me, I c’n arrange for one as fast as you can ring up your solicitor and try to stop me. Are we clear on this?”

  “He wants Hadiyyah, he comes for her himself. When he’s able to come, certo. Meantime—”

  “In the meantime, you have a British subject in your digs, and I’m here to collect her.”

  “I telephone her grandparents to come for her.”

  “And her grandparents are going to do what? Cooperate with that idea? Fly over, scoop her up in their arms, and take her home to a bedroom they’ve just redecorated in her honour? That’s not bloody likely. Believe me, Lorenzo, they’d never even seen Hadiyyah before Angelina died, if they saw her then. Did they come to the funeral? Yes? It was probably to dance on Angelina’s grave, that’s how much of a nothing she was to them once she got herself involved with Azhar. They’d’ve seen her death as her finally receiving what she deserved for getting herself pregnant by a Pakistani Muslim in the first place. I’d like to see Hadiyyah now.”

  Mura’s face had darkened to nearly the colour of his port wine birthmark during Barbara’s speech. But he seemed unwilling to argue further. After all, he had work to do on the crumbling villa, and his hanging on to Hadiyyah was only intended to thrust the sword deeper into Azhar’s chest, as was handing her over to her grandparents.

  Barbara said to Mura, “So . . . are you and I finished here, Mr. Mura?”

  Mura’s expression indicated that he would have liked to spit on her shoes, but instead he turned and headed into the villa. He didn’t go up one of the curving stairways to the loggia, though. Instead, he ducked beneath a mass of honeysuckle that arched over a weathered door at ground level. Barbara followed him.

  She was surprised at the condition of the place, considering Angelina Upman had lived within it. The villa was decrepit, a relic from the distant past, and when she saw its wreck of a kitchen—so dimly lit that its higher calling clearly was to be turned into a dungeon—she reflected on how Angelina’s first move upon returning to Azhar the previous year had been to redecorate his flat to her own standards. She’d not bothered with that here. Nor, it seemed, had she bothered to clean the place. Dust, grime, cobwebs, and mould appeared to define it.

  Barbara followed Lorenzo Mura through several rooms, all of which seemed part of the kitchen. Eventually, they climbed a stone stairway and emerged into some kind of huge reception room with enormous glass doors opened onto the loggia. This room was, like the kitchen below, dimly lit. Unlike the kitchen, it was relatively grime free. Its walls and ceiling were heavily frescoed, but these decorations were hard to make out after their exposure to several hundred years of candle smoke.

  In this room, Lorenzo called Hadiyyah’s name. Barbara yelled, “Hey, kiddo, look who’s come calling!” In reply, footsteps clattered along some kind of corridor up above them. They came storming in Barbara’s direction, and a small body hurtled into the room and, more important, into Barbara’s arms.

  Hadiyyah said the best thing possible. “Where’s my dad?” she cried. “Barbara, I want my dad!”

  Barbara cast Lorenzo Mura a look that said, So he’s not her father, eh?, but she spoke to Hadiyyah. “And your dad wants you. He’s not here just now, and he’s not in Lucca, but he’s sent me for you. Want to come along, or are you happier staying with Lorenzo? He tells me your granddad and grandma’re coming to fetch you. You c’n wait for them, if that’s what you’d like to do.”

  “I want to be with Dad,” she said. “I want to go home. I want to go with you.”

  “Right. Well. We can make that happen. Your dad’s got a few things he’s sorting out, but you c’n stay with me till he’s finished up. Let’s get you packed. Want me to help you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes. Help me. Do.” She tugged at Barbara’s hand. She dragged her in the direction from which she’d come.

  Barbara followed her, but not without a glance at Mura. He was watching them steadily, his face expressionless. Before she and Hadiyyah were out of the room, he’d turned on his heel and left them to it.

  Upstairs, Barbara saw that at least Hadiyyah’s bedroom had been made pleasant and modern. It even had a small colour television, and on this television Angelina Upman and Taymullah Azhar were speaking into the camera together. There was a voice-over in Italian, but Barbara recognised the location of the filming: They sat under the wisteria arbour in front of the winery in the company of the ugliest man Barbara had ever seen, his face covered with warts as if a witch had cursed him.

  “Mummy” was Hadiyyah’s explanation of what she was watching. She said it softly, a single word that exposed the pain and confusion in which the little girl doubtless found herself. She crossed the room t
o the television and fiddled with the player beneath it. From this she brought out a DVD. She said, “I like to watch Mummy,” in a very small voice. “She’s talking about me. She and Dad are talking. Lorenzo gave it to me. I like to watch Mummy and Dad together.”

  The wish of every child whose parents are at odds, Barbara thought.

  BOW

  LONDON

  It was quite late in the day, but Lynley took a chance that Doughty would still be at his place of employment. His time in Azhar’s lab had uncovered a detail that might prove crucial to Salvatore’s investigation into Angelina Upman’s death, and his hope was that a bit of chivvying the detective would go some distance to garner his cooperation in the matter of Hadiyyah’s kidnapping. For Doughty faced considerable jeopardy. He’d had Bryan Smythe lay trails in all directions to stymie the Italian police, but some earlier trails led directly back to his own door. Fighting extradition to Italy to face charges of kidnapping—among other charges—was going to prove costly for Mr. Doughty. Lynley was betting that Doughty didn’t want to go through that.

  A teenage girl was in Doughty’s office when Lynley got there. She turned out to be the detective’s niece, having a work experience day for an assignment from her comprehensive. She could have chosen to spend a workday with one of her parents, she revealed to Lynley, but her mum was a San sister and her dad was an estate agent and a day with either of them was destined to be b-o-r-i-n-g. That was before she knew that a day with Uncle Dwayne would be even worse. She thought he carried a gun and engaged in shoot-outs and fist-fights with villains in assorted alleys replete with wooden crates and wheelie bins. Turned out he occupied his time sitting outside a William Hill betting shop where some excessively stupid husband of an even more excessively stupid and jealous wife was spending hours and days making useless wagers instead of having an affair, which was what his wife thought and which, mind you, would’ve been a lot more interesting.

  “Ah” was Lynley’s response to all this. “And is Mr. Doughty about?”

  “Next door,” she said obscurely. “With Em.”

  Em, Lynley thought. This was a name that had not yet come up. He nodded thanks to the girl, who returned—with a mighty sigh—to the typing she’d been doing. He went next door.

  Doughty was in conversation with an attractive, male-dressed woman. It didn’t appear intense as Doughty was casually leaning against the sill of a window overlooking the Roman Road and Em was facing him in a desk chair, one mannishly clad foot on a computer table. She swung in her chair when Doughty said, “Who are you?” to Lynley.

  Lynley showed his identification and introduced himself. He noted the lack of recognition in Doughty’s expression. He also noted Em’s guarded look. From this he reckoned Bryan Smythe had not revealed to either of them that he had had a recent visit from New Scotland Yard. This could make things easier, Lynley thought.

  He began with the purpose of his late-afternoon call. He was, he told him, there to talk to the private investigator about his interactions with a woman called Barbara Havers.

  Doughty replied with “My cases are confidential, Inspector.”

  “Until the CPS becomes involved,” Lynley noted.

  “What, exactly, are you talking about?”

  “An internal police investigation,” Lynley told him, “into the activities of Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers. I’m assuming that you knew she was a Met officer when you met her, but perhaps you didn’t. In any case, you can cooperate with me now or wait for the court order for your records. I’d suggest cooperation as it’s less messy that way, but it’s up to you.”

  Doughty remained without expression. Em—who turned out to be called in full Emily Cass—glanced at her fingernails and brushed her right hand over her left as if unnecessarily ridding it of dust. Was the name familiar to either of them? Lynley enquired politely when they said nothing. He repeated it: Barbara Havers.

  Doughty, he discovered, was a fairly quick thinker. He said to Em Cass, “Barbara Havers. Emily, could she be the woman who came to see us last winter? She was only here twice, but if you could check . . .”

  To which Em Cass said to him cautiously, “Are you sure about the name? D’you have a time period? C’n you refresh . . . ?”—also a wise response.

  He said, “Two people came to see us about a little girl whose mum had disappeared with her. A Muslim man and a rather dishevelled woman. I think the woman might have been called Something Havers. This would have been late in the year. November? December? You should have it in our files.” He nodded at her computer.

  She played along, and after a moment perusing her computer’s monitor, she said, “I’ve got it here. You’re right, Dwayne . . . Taymullah Azhar was his name. A woman called Barbara Havers came with him.” She mispronounced Azhar’s name. Nice touch, Lynley thought.

  Doughty corrected the pronunciation and carried on with the performance. “They did come about his daughter, as I recall. It was her mum who’d snatched her, yes?”

  More reading of the monitor and Lynley allowed this. It was rather fascinating to see how they were going to play the situation, so he let them have as much rope as they wanted. After a moment, she said, “Yes. We traced them to Italy—to Pisa, as it happens—but that was as far as we went. This was last December. It says here that you advised the man—Mr. Azhar—to find an Italian detective who could assist. Or an English detective who spoke Italian. Whichever worked for them.”

  “She’d gone into Pisa airport, hadn’t she? The mum?”

  “That’s what it says.”

  He looked intensely thoughtful for a moment while Lynley waited patiently for more, saying nothing but also giving no sign that he intended to leave them any time soon. Doughty said, “But did we . . . Em, luv, did we find a detective to recommend to them? Seems to me that we may have done.”

  She did some scrolling, did some squinting at the screen, did some glancing in Doughty’s direction for a bit of unspoken direction from him, and did some nodding. “Mass, it says here. Is that the name, Dwayne? An abbreviation perhaps?”

  “I’d have to check.” And to Lynley, “If you wouldn’t mind coming with me . . . ? I’ve got more records in my own office.”

  “Let’s all go, shall we?” Lynley said affably.

  A glance was exchanged between the other two. Doughty said, “Yes, why not?” and led the way.

  His niece was packing up for her departure, a procedure that appeared to involve a magnifying mirror and a massive amount of cosmetics. Doughty made much of bidding her a fond farewell: hugs, kisses, and “best to Mum, darling,” and once she left them, he smiled and said, “Kids,” to no one’s agreement or reply.

  He then said to Lynley, “I’ve got hard copies of some of my cases, so I might have something . . . One plans to write one’s memoirs at some point . . . Memorable cases and the like, if you know what I mean.”

  “Certainly,” Lynley said. “It worked quite well for Dr. Watson, didn’t it?”

  Doughty did not look amused. He opened a filing drawer and riffled through it. He said, “Here. I think we’re in luck,” and he brought out a slim manila folder.

  He flipped from one page to another of the documents within. He pulled on his lower lip and frowned. He said, “Fairly interesting.”

  “Indeed?” Lynley queried.

  “Something apparently got the wind up for me. Couldn’t tell you now what it was, but I did a little looking into the woman—”

  “Barbara Havers, you mean?” Lynley clarified.

  “Turns out that, over time, some money passed from the Pakistani man to her and from her to Italy, to one Michelangelo Di Massimo.”

  “I think that was the name, Dwayne,” Em Cass said. “That’s the Italian detective.”

  Doughty glanced up from his paperwork, saying to Lynley, “It appears that a series of payments flowed from Azhar to Havers to this
Di Massimo, so my guess is that she and the Pakistani employed him for quite some time.”

  “Extraordinary that you should know that, Mr. Doughty,” Lynley pointed out.

  “I’m merely deducing because of the payments.”

  “Actually, I’m not talking about Di Massimo’s employment. I’m talking about the payments themselves, money moving from Azhar to Barbara Havers to Di Massimo. Extraordinary work on your part, in the true sense of the word. May I ask how you uncovered this information?”

  Doughty waved the question aside. “Sorry. Trade secret. Perhaps of larger interest to Scotland Yard might be the fact that payments were made at all. What I can tell you about these two individuals—and this Barbara Havers in particular since she appears to be at the centre of your interest—is that they came to see me in the winter. I gave them what small help I could, I suggested they find an Italian detective, and the rest . . . Well, it is what it is.”

  “And you saw these two people—Taymullah Azhar and Barbara Havers—how many times?”

  He looked at Em Cass. “Was it twice, Em? Once when they came for help in locating the child and once when I had the facts to present to them. Yes?”

  “As far as I know, that was it,” she confirmed.

  “So you wouldn’t know, it seems,” Lynley said, “that Barbara Havers has for quite some time been followed by another detective from the Met.”

  Silence on their part. Clearly, they hadn’t considered this possibility. Lynley waited, a pleasant expression on his face. They said nothing. This being the case, he removed from the breast pocket of his jacket his reading glasses and from an interior pocket, he took out a set of documents that he’d folded and placed there. He unfolded them and began to read John Stewart’s report aloud to the private investigator and his cohort. John had been thorough, in keeping with his compulsive nature and with his animosity towards Barbara Havers. So he had dates, and he had times, and he had places. Lynley read them all.