Just One Evil Act

Azhar. We, not you. We. And I’d like to hold on to my job.”

She pulled to the kerb and let the Mini idle. They were round the corner from Doughty’s office, parked near a primary school where the happy noise of children running about a schoolyard came to them through the open windows of the car. They listened to this in silence for a moment. Barbara shut off the Mini’s ignition and said, “Are we on the same page, Azhar?”

At first he did not answer. Like her, he listened to the children. Like her, he was also probably thinking of his own child, perhaps of all his children. He raised his head and closed his eyes briefly. He finally said firmly, “Yes. Yes. All right,” and together they climbed out of the car.

Doughty wasn’t in his office. They found him, however, in the office next door, where Em Cass was set up. She’d obviously just arrived at work since she was wearing running clothes, trainers, and a sweatband round her head, and at first it looked from his position as if Doughty was taking in the fragrance of her armpits since he was sitting at her table of computers and she was bent forward across him to use the mouse. She was saying, “No. The hotel records indicate—” But she straightened, ceasing her words abruptly, when Barbara pushed open the door. Doughty turned and said, “What the hell . . . You’re out of order walking in unannounced.”

Barbara said, “I think that’s a social nicety we can all wave farewell to at this point, Dwayne.”

“You can go wait in my office,” he said. “And you can thank your stars I don’t toss you and the professor back down the stairs you just tramped up.”

“We will all speak together,” Azhar said. “Either in your office or in this office but in either case now.”

Doughty rose from his chair. “Where’d your manners take themselves off to? I don’t take orders from people who aren’t employing me.”

“Got that in a biscuit box, Dwayne.” Barbara brought out of her pocket Bryan Smythe’s memory sticks and dangled them from her fingertips. “But I expect you take orders from someone who’s hanging on to these trying to decide which department at the Met is going to be happiest to see them. They’re on loan, by the way. Bryan handed them over.”

There was a moment of tight, evaluative silence among them. From below in the street, the sound of Bedlovers’ protective grille being raised came to them like the noise of a castle’s portcullis. Someone coughed, hacked, and spit with the force of a minor explosion. Em Cass grimaced at the sound. Obviously, a woman who disapproved of life’s indelicacies, Barbara thought. That was a very good thing, she reckoned, since they were well in the midst of one of them.

“Are we going to talk or are we going to stand here staring at each other?” Barbara asked.

Doughty said, “I know a bluff when I’m looking at one.”

“Not in this case, mate. You c’n ring Bryan if you like. Like I said, these’re on loan from him. He feels a bit like you do when it comes to the Bill. Anything to clear one’s house of the coppers.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Em Cass said. “Christ, Dwayne. I don’t know why I ever listen to you and your plans and your I’ve-got-everything-under-control. I should have done a runner when I was packed.”

Barbara liked even more the fact that, along with her delicacies, Emily Cass also appeared to be someone who preferred that her line of employment not lead her in the direction of arrest. This of course begged the question: What was she doing working as a blagger for Dwayne Doughty in the first place? But economic times were tough. Perhaps it had been that or becoming a barista.

She said, “Let’s decamp to your office, Dwayne. Without the filming this time, ’f you don’t mind. You come, too, Emily. It’s roomier, there’re chairs, and someone might go weak at the knees.” She made a sweeping gesture to the doorway. She was gratified to see Emily the first person through it. Doughty followed her, giving Barbara a withering glance and ignoring Azhar altogether.

Inside his own office, Doughty removed the hidden camera, placed it in a drawer, and positioned himself behind his desk. Barbara wanted to guffaw at this final I’m-in-charge move. She sat, Emily went to the window and leaned against its sill, and Azhar took the other chair. Doughty said, “It wouldn’t take all those memory sticks, in case you’re actually thinking Bryan isn’t having you for a fool.”

“When I said everything, I meant everything,” Barbara replied. “I’ve got his entire system here, Dwayne. Not just you but everyone else. My fail-safe position, if you’d like to call it that. Sometimes people need a little urging when it comes to cooperating, I find. Now what I wonder is how much urging you’re going to need.”

“To do what, exactly?”

“To hand over your fail-safe position—”

“In your bloody dreams.”

“—and to assure us you’ve seen the light of salvation and it’s called Di Massimo.”

“What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

Emily Cass stirred. “I expect it’s a good idea to hear her out.”

“Oh, you expect that, do you? Did you expect that when you gave her Smythe? Which, by the way, is the only way she could have dug him out of whatever molehill he happens to operate from and don’t think I haven’t worked that one out.”

“Let’s not start pointing fingers,” Barbara said. “It wastes my time and I’ve wasted enough of it already dealing with you lot. Now we can get down to business or, like I said, I can—”

“Sod you,” Dwayne told her. “Sod the professor.”

Barbara looked at Emily. “He always this stupid?”

“He’s a man,” Emily said in reply. “Go on. Pretend he’s not here.”

“I want him on board.”

“He is. He won’t tell you that, but he is.”

Barbara turned to Azhar. “How did Di Massimo come into this mess?”

“Mr. Doughty found him,” he said, telling her what she already knew and what had been established between them on their long night of planning. “He said that we needed a detective in Italy who spoke English, and Mr. Di Massimo was that detective.”

“How often did you speak to him?”

“To Mr. Di Massimo? Never.”

“How often did you contact him by email?”

“Never.”

“How did he get paid?”

“Through Mr. Doughty. I paid him and he transferred the money to Italy.”

“Keeping some for himself, you reckon?”

“Are you bloody accusing—”

“Relax, mate,” Barbara told Doughty. “You employed a subcontractor. You took your cut. It’s the way of the world.” She held up the memory sticks another time and she said to Azhar, “What d’you reckon these’re going to show, then?”

“The movement of money, among other things. From my bank account to Mr. Doughty’s to Mr. Di Massimo’s. Internet activities: emails and searches. Telephone records. Mobile records. Credit card records.”

“So what you’re saying,” she said to Azhar, “is that over there in Italy, at this very moment while Michelangelo Di Massimo is being the canary on matters having to do with the snatching of Hadiyyah, what I’ve got here in my grubby hands is proof that the bloke is telling the truth.”

Azhar nodded. “It does appear that way, Barbara.”

She turned to Doughty. “The point being that the interests of everyone—that would include you, Dwayne— would best be served if we took a solid look at where we ought to be applying our talents, such as they are.”

He opened his mouth, but she cut him off before he could speak.

“And,” she said, “I’d suggest you think that one over before you reply. We’ve got Di Massimo, but we’ve also got a dead bloke called Squali and all the information he may have left behind, which I reckon is plentiful. Now, do we climb into the boat and plug its holes and float it together, mate, or do we let it sink on its bloody own?”

Doughty examined her before he shoved his chair back and opened the drawer in which he kept his own fail-safe memory stick.

“You and your sodding metaphors,” he replied.

VICTORIA

LONDON