Just One Evil Act

by Elizabeth George

  She’d left him in the café down the street from the questura, across the road from the railway station, and the last thing she’d needed was Salvatore Lo Bianco putting his hooded gaze upon the UK’s version of the Lone Ranger sans mask. Because of the distance and the crowds of people milling about, she knew she’d be able to make her escape from the questura without Mitchell becoming wise to her whereabouts. But if he discovered she’d done this, there would be hell to pay.

  She had to use half-truths. While Salvatore went for a vehicle in the car park next to the questura, she rang Corsico.

  “We’ve got a potential source for the E. coli,” she told him. “I’m heading there now.”

  “Hang the hell on. You and I had an agreement. I’m not letting you—”

  “You’ll get the story, Mitch, and you’ll get it first. But ’f you show up now and want to play tagalong, Salvatore’s going to want to know who you are. And believe me, that’ll be tough to explain. He trusts me, and we need to keep things that way. He finds I’m leaking to the press, we’re done for.”

  “It’s Salvatore now? What the hell’s going on?”

  “Oh for God’s bloody sake. He’s a colleague. We’re heading for a place called DARBA Italia, and that’s all I know just now. It’s here in Lucca, and ’f you ask me, it’s the source of the E. coli and that’s where Lorenzo Mura got it.”

  “If it’s here in Lucca, it could also be where the professor got it,” Corsico pointed out. “He was here in April looking for the kid. All he had to do was waltz over to this place and make the buy.”

  “Oh, too right. Are you trying to tell me that Azhar—a man who speaks no Italian, by the way—swanned over to DARBA Italia with euros in hand and said, ‘How much for a test tube of the worst bacteria you lot have going? I’ll need something I don’t grow in my own lab, so all forms of Strep are off the table.’ And then what, Mitch? One of their salesmen tap-danced into the place where they keep this stuff—Quality Control, maybe?—and nicked a little bacteria without anyone noticing? Don’t be a fool. This stuff is going to be controlled. It can take out an entire population, for the love of God.”

  “So why the hell are you going there? Because what you just said—save not speaking Italian—applies to Lorenzo Mura as well. And while we’re talking about this whole bloody mess, how the hell do you know they have E. coli in the first place?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why we’re paying them a visit.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “I’m sitting here waiting for a story, Barb.”

  “You’ve got your piece on Hadiyyah. Go with that.”

  “Rod’s not chuffed. He says page five. He says Professor Falsely Imprisoned is the only path to page one. Thing is, of course, from what you just told me it sounds like the falsely part of the headline might not be needed.”

  “I’ve told you how—”

  “I got you the television film. What’s the payoff for me?”

  Salvatore Lo Bianco pulled to the kerb and leaned over to push open the passenger door. Barbara said, “It’s coming. I swear I’ll keep you in the loop. I’ve given you DARBA Italia. Ask your Italian journalist mates to take things from there.”

  “And give them the story ahead of me? Come on, Barb—”

  “It’s the best I can do.” She ended the call and got into the car. She nodded to Salvatore and said, “Let’s go.”

  “Andiamo,” he told her with a smile.

  “Back at you, mate,” she replied.

  VICTORIA

  LONDON

  Isabelle Ardery’s meeting with the assistant commissioner had lasted two hours. Lynley had this information from the most reliable source: David Hillier’s secretary. It didn’t come to him directly, though. The conduit was the redoubtable Dorothea Harriman. Dorothea cultivated sources of information the way farmers cultivate crops. She had informants within the Met, the Home Office, and the Houses of Parliament. So she knew from Judi MacIntosh the length of the meeting between Hillier and Ardery and she knew it had been tense. She also knew that present at the meeting had been two blokes from CIB. She didn’t know their names—“I did try, Detective Inspector Lynley”—but the only details she had managed to unearth were that the blokes had come from one of the two arms of the Complaints Investigation Bureau, and that arm was CIB1. Lynley received this titbit with a frisson of apprehension. CIB1 dealt with internal complaints. CIB1 dealt with internal discipline.

  The superintendent didn’t offer to share the content of her meeting. Lynley tried to learn something useful from her, but her quick and firm “Don’t let’s go there, Tommy” told him that things were in motion and the nature of those things was as serious as he’d earlier concluded they might be when she’d phoned Hillier and asked for a meeting.

  So he was deeply thoughtful when he took a surprising and welcome phone call from Daidre Trahair. She’d come to town to look for a flat, she told him. Would he like to meet her for lunch in Marylebone?

  He said, “You’ve taken the job? That’s brilliant, Daidre.”

  “They’ve a silverback gorilla that’s quite won my heart,” she said. “It’s love on my part, but I can’t say how he feels just yet.”

  “Time will tell.”

  “It always does, doesn’t it?”

  They met in Marylebone High Street, where he found her waiting inside a tiny restaurant at a very small table tucked into a corner. He knew his face lit up when she raised her head from studying the menu and saw him. She smiled in return and lifted a hand in hello.

  He kissed her and thought how completely normal it felt to be doing so. He said, “Have Boadicea’s Broads gone into permanent mourning?”

  She said, “Let’s say that my stock isn’t very high with them at the moment.”

  “The Electric Magic, on the other hand, must be breaking out the bubbly.”

  “One can only hope.”

  He sat and gazed at her. “It’s very good to see you. I needed a tonic, and it seems you’re it.”

  She cocked her head, examined him, and said, “I must say it. You’re a tonic as well.”

  “For . . . ?”

  “The grim process of looking at flats. Until I sell up in Bristol, I’m beginning to think I’ll be sleeping upright in someone’s broom closet.”

  “There are solutions to that,” he told her.

  “I wasn’t hinting at your spare room.”

  “Ah. My loss.”

  “Not entirely, Tommy.”

  At that, he felt his heart pound harder a few times, but he said nothing. Instead he smiled, took up the menu, asked what she was having, and gave their orders to a waiter hovering nearby expectantly. He asked her how long she was in town. She said four days and this was the third. He asked her why she hadn’t phoned sooner. She said the business of finding a flat, of meeting people at the zoo, of seeing what was needed to organise her offices and labs, of speaking with the various keepers about problems they were encountering with the animals . . . It had all taken up so much of her time. But how lovely it was to see him now.

  This, he thought, would have to suffice. Perhaps it was enough to feel how engaged he became in her presence, as the rest of the day faded into insignificance.

  Unfortunately, that engagement in her presence did not last long. As their starters were set before them, his mobile rang. He glanced at it and saw, heart sinking, that it was Havers. He said to Daidre, “I’m sorry. I’ll have to take this call.”

  “I need your help” was Havers’s first remark.

  “You need more than what I can provide. Isabelle’s had a meeting with two blokes from CIB.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Have you entirely lost your mind?”

  “I know you’re cheesed off. But Salvatore and I are onto something over here, and what I nee
d from you is a piece of information. One little piece of information, Inspector.”

  “Coming from which side of the law?”

  “It’s completely legitimate.”

  “Unlike virtually everything else you’ve done.”

  “All right. Agreed. I get it, sir. You need to scourge me and the only thing wanting is a pillar. We c’n see to that when I get back. Meantime, like I said, I just need one piece of information.”

  “Which is what, exactly?” He glanced at Daidre. She’d tucked into her starter. He rolled his eyes expressively.

  “The Upmans are on their way to Italy. They’re coming to fetch Hadiyyah. I need to prevent that. If they get their mitts on her, they’ll keep her from Azhar.”

  “Barbara, if you’re heading in the direction of my intercepting—”

  “I know you can’t stop them, sir. I just need to know if they’re on their way now to fetch Hadiyyah. I need to know what flight they’re on and which of them is coming. It would also help to know the airport. It might be the parents coming—they’re called Ruth-Jane and Humphrey—or it might be Bathsheba Ward, the sister. If you ring the airlines and check the flight manifests . . . You know you can do this. Or you can get SO12 to do it. That’s it. That’s all I need. And it’s not for my own sake. It’s not even for Azhar’s. It’s for Hadiyyah’s sake. Please.”

  He sighed. He knew Havers would not relent. He said, “Winston’s checking into everyone here associated with Angelina Upman, Barbara. He’s looking for any connection that might point from here to Italy among people she knew. So far, there’s nothing.”

  “And there won’t be, sir. Mura’s our man. He intended Azhar to ingest the E. coli. Salvatore and I are heading to a place called DARBA Italia to prove it.”

  “That’s the incubator company from Azhar’s lab, Barbara. Surely, you can see how this points to—”

  “Right. I can see it. And for the record, Salvatore’s made the same point.”

  “Salvatore? How exactly are you managing to communicate with him?”

  “Lots of hand gestures. Plus he smokes, so I think we’ve bonded. Look, sir, will you sort out the Upmans-on-their-way-to-Italy situation? Will you have SO12 do it? One piece of information. That’s it. Full stop. And it’s not for me. It’s for—”

  “Hadiyyah. Yes, yes. I’ve received your point.”

  “So . . . ?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  He rang off then and looked for a moment not at Daidre but at the wall, where a stylish photograph of cliffs and the sea put him in mind of Cornwall. Daidre, apparently seeing the direction of his gaze, said, “Considering an escape?”

  He glanced back at her and thought about the question. He finally said, “From some things, yes. From others, no.” And he reached across the small table for her hand.

  LUCCA

  TUSCANY

  In the best of all worlds, Barbara thought, Lynley would somehow manage to stop the Upmans before they reached the airport or, at least, before they boarded the plane to Italy. But she didn’t live in the best of all worlds, so she reckoned they were on their way, whoever was coming. What was available to her was the knowledge of their whereabouts and her ability to dodge them when they reached Lucca. They would go first to Fattoria di Santa Zita, where they would presume Hadiyyah was still in residence with Lorenzo Mura. He would tell them she’d been fetched by Barbara. He might reckon Barbara was staying where Azhar had stayed. But he might not.

  In any case, she had only a limited amount of time to get Hadiyyah out of the Pensione Giardino and into a hideaway somewhere. And before she did that, she needed to see what Salvatore managed to uncover at DARBA Italia.

  It didn’t take long to reach the manufacturing concern. They did a quarter’s circumnavigation along the boulevard that skirted Lucca’s wall, and then they took a sharp right and headed out of the town. DARBA Italia was some three miles along the road, tucked off a neatly paved driveway and posted with an elaborate metal sign above double glass doors. There were very few trees in the immediate vicinity and lots of asphalt in the car park, so the heat was intense and it rose in visible waves from the ground. Barbara hustled after Salvatore to get inside the place, praying for air conditioning.

  Naturally, she couldn’t follow a word of the Italian that passed between Salvatore and the receptionist, who was a gloriously handsome Mediterranean youth of about twenty-two: olive skin, masses of wavy hair, lips like a Renaissance putto, and teeth so white they looked painted. Salvatore showed his police ID, gestured to Barbara, and spoke at great length. The receptionist listened, shot a glance at Barbara that dismissed her as quickly as it acknowledged her presence, nodded, said sì and no and forse and un attimo, of which only sì and no were remotely recognisable. Then he picked up his phone and punched in a number. He turned his back, spoke in a hushed voice, and made some sort of arrangement, since his next action was to rise from his chair and tell them they were to follow him. At least, that was what Barbara worked out from his words since Salvatore trailed him into the bowels of the building.

  Things happened far too quickly for Barbara’s liking after that. The receptionist took them to a conference room where a mahogany table in the centre was accompanied by ten leather chairs. He said something to Salvatore about the direttore, which she took to mean that the managing director of DARBA Italia was the person they were going to see. That person showed up perhaps five minutes into their wait. He was beautifully suited and equally well mannered but clearly curious about the police showing up on his professional doorstep.

  She caught only his name: Antonio Bruno. She waited for more. There was very little. Salvatore spoke, and she strained to pick up E. coli from among the flood of Italian that came from him. But nothing in Antonio Bruno’s expression indicated he was listening to a tale of anyone’s death by any substance that DARBA Italia might have provided. After an exchange of seven minutes’ length, the managing director nodded and left them.

  She said to Salvatore, “What? What’s he doing? What’d you tell him?” although she knew it was useless to expect an answer. But her need to know overrode her ability to reason. She said, “Do they have E. coli? Do they know Lorenzo Mura? This has nothing to do with Azhar, does it?”

  To this, Salvatore smiled regretfully and said, “Non La capisco.” Barbara reckoned she knew what that meant.

  The return of Antonio Bruno didn’t clarify anything. He came back to the conference room with a manila envelope, which he handed over to Salvatore. Salvatore thanked him and headed for the door. He said, “Andiamo, Barbara,” and to Antonio Bruno with a courtly little bow, “Grazie mille, Signor Bruno.”

  Barbara waited till they were outside to say, “That’s it? What’s going on? Why’re we leaving? What’d he give you?”

  From all of this, Salvatore seemed to understand the last question, for he handed over the manila envelope, and Barbara opened it. Inside was only a list of employees, organised by each of the company’s departments. Names, addresses, and telephone numbers. There were plenty of them, dozens. Her heart sank when she saw them. She knew, then, that Salvatore Lo Bianco was engaged in the slog of an investigation: He would look into each person listed among the employees of DARBA Italia. But that would take days upon days to accomplish, and they didn’t have days before the Upmans arrived.

  Barbara needed results and she needed them now. She began to consider how best to get them.

  LUCCA

  TUSCANY

  For the first time, Salvatore Lo Bianco thought that the woman from London might actually be correct. He could tell when she began a passionate discourse that she had no idea why they were leaving DARBA Italia so abruptly and he certainly didn’t have the English to tell her. But he managed “Pazienza, Barbara,” and it appeared that she understood. Nothing happened quickly in Italy, he wanted to tell her, save the rapidity with which people spoke
the language and the speed with which they drove their cars. Everything else was a case of piano, piano.

  She was tumbling through words he did not understand. “We don’t have the time, Salvatore. Hadiyyah’s family . . . The Upmans . . . These people . . . If you only understood what they intend to do. They hate Azhar. They’ve always hated him. See, he wouldn’t marry her once he got her pregnant and anyway the fact that he got her pregnant and he’s a Pakistani and they’re . . . God, they’re like something out of the Raj, if you know what I mean. What I’m trying to say is if we—I mean you—have to go through every single one of those names on this list”—she waved the manila folder at him—“by the time we do that, Hadiyyah will be lost to him, to Azhar.”

  He recognised, naturally, the repetition of names: Hadiyyah, the Upmans, and Azhar. He recognised, also, her agitation. But all he could say was “Andiamo, Barbara,” with a gesture at the car that was steaming in the day’s heat.

  She followed him, but she didn’t give up talking despite the many times he said with much regret, “Non La capisco.” He did wish that he spoke her language better—at least enough to tell her not to worry—but when he said, “Non si deve preoccupare,” he could tell she didn’t understand. They were like two inhabitants of Babel.

  He started the car and they were on their way back to the questura when her mobile rang. When she said into it, “Inspector? Thank God,” he reckoned it was Lynley ringing her. From her earlier call to the London detective, he knew she’d asked him about the Upmans. He hoped for her sake that Thomas Lynley had discovered something that would relieve her anxiety.

  That was not the case. She cried out like a wounded animal, saying, “Bloody hell, no! Florence? That’s not far from here, is it? Let me send her to you. Please, sir. I’m begging. They’ll find her. I know it. Mura will tell them I took her and they’ll look for me and how the hell hard will it be for them to find me, eh? They’ll take her away and I won’t be able to stop them and it’ll destroy Azhar. It’ll kill him, Inspector, and he’s been through enough and you know it, you know it.”