Just One Evil Act

“Why, my friend?”

“An Italian crime would be the reason for our request for a court order. Frankly, that would be difficult to get a judge to move on. I think it might be easier to break one of the principals over here. I’ve spoken to one of them—a bloke called Bryan Smythe. I can speak to the other, Doughty, if you’d like.”

He would welcome that, Salvatore told him. Now as to this unusual officer from the Met . . . ?

“She’s a good cop,” Lynley said truthfully.

“She wishes access to the professor.” Lo Bianco explained Havers’s reasoning behind her request.

“It makes sense,” Lynley said, “unless it’s your wish to increase the pressure on Azhar by keeping him in the dark about his daughter: where she is, how she is, and what she’s doing.”

Lo Bianco was silent for a moment. He finally said, “It would be useful, si. But while a confession based on pressure would be acceptable in some quarters—”

“To il Pubblico Ministero, you mean,” Lynley said.

“It is how he operates, vero. And while he would accept a confession that grew from a man’s desperation, I feel . . . somewhat reluctant. I cannot say why.”

Probably because of Havers, Lynley thought. She had a way of skittering between bullying people and manoeuvring people that he occasionally admired. He said nothing but made understanding noises at his end.

Lo Bianco said, “There is something . . . When she spoke to me, there is a feeling I had.”

“What sort of feeling?”

“She comes as a liaison officer to see to the welfare of the child, but she asks many questions and offers opinions about the case against Taymullah Azhar.”

“Ah,” Lynley said. “That’s standard procedure for Barbara Havers, Salvatore. There isn’t a topic on earth that she wouldn’t have an opinion about.”

“I see. This helps me, my friend. Because her questions and her comments were suggesting to me more than merely professional interest.”

Dangerous ground, Lynley thought. He said untruthfully, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Nor am I, exactly. But there is an intensity about her . . . She wanted to argue certain points relating to the professor’s arrest. Coincidences, she called them. Circumstantial evidence at best, she said. Now, it is not that her declarations have influenced me, my friend. But I find the intensity of her interest unusual in someone who is here in Italy only to see to the care of a child.”

This was the juncture at which, Lynley knew, he ought to be telling Salvatore Lo Bianco about Barbara’s relationship with Azhar and his daughter, not to mention about the unauthorised nature of her jaunt to Italy. But he understood that, if he did so, the Italian would prevent her access to the Pakistani man. It was likely that he also would deny her any contact with Hadiyyah. That seemed unfair, especially to a child who was no doubt feeling both frightened and abandoned. So he told Lo Bianco that Barbara’s intensity of interest in the case he was building probably had to do with her inquisitive nature. He’d worked with Barbara many times, he reported to the Italian. Her habit of arguing, playing devil’s advocate, seeking other routes, looking at matters from all directions . . . ? This was merely who she was as an officer of the Met.

In a shift of topic, he quickly went on to tell Salvatore that he would pay a call upon Dwayne Doughty. “Perhaps I can sew up one part of the kidnapping investigation, at least,” he said.

“Piero Fanucci will not like anything that detracts from how he sees that case,” Salvatore told him.

“Why do I expect that will give you a lot of pleasure?” Lynley asked.

Salvatore laughed. They rang off. Lynley continued on his way to Bloomsbury.

At Taymullah Azhar’s laboratory, he showed his identification to a white-coated research technician who introduced himself with the bicultural name of Bhaskar Goldbloom, clearly the offspring of a Hindi mother and a Jewish father. The technician had been seated at a computer when Lynley entered the lab, one of eight people who were at present working in the complex of rooms. None of the researchers had been informed about the arrest in Italy of their laboratory’s leading professor, Lynley found. He brought Goldbloom slowly into the picture by means of introducing the reason for his unexpected call at the lab.

He would like, he told the research technician, to be shown everything in the lab. He would need the identification and the stated purpose of every item. He would need to know and to see all the strains of bacteria both in storage and undergoing experimentation.

Bhaskar Goldbloom didn’t embrace the idea of a detailed tour. Instead, he pointed out pleasantly that, as far as he knew, Detective Inspector Lynley would need a search warrant for that sort of thing.

Lynley was prepared for this response. It was, after all, reasonable and wise. He pointed out to Goldbloom that he could indeed go through channels in order to obtain the appropriate warrant, but his assumption had been that no member of Azhar’s lab would really want a team of policemen to come inside and mess things about. “Which,” he added, “I’d like to assure you they’d have no compunction at all about doing.”

Goldbloom thought this one over. He said, at the end of his thinking, that he would need to phone Professor Azhar to obtain his permission. And this was the point at which Lynley informed Goldbloom and, through him, everyone else of Azhar’s perilous situation in Italy: under arrest for a murder by means of a bacteria and currently unavailable by phone.

This changed the complexion of things at once. Goldbloom said he would cooperate with Lynley. He added, “How many hours do you have, Inspector?” in a sardonic tone. “Because this is going to take a while.”

SOLLICCIANO

TUSCANY

When the phone call came through from Chief Inspector Lo Bianco, Barbara Havers and Mitchell Corsico were cooling their heels at a pavement table outside of a cafe in Corso Giuseppe Garibaldi where, at the moment, an outdoor market was offering a dazzling variety of foodstuffs from several dozen colourful stalls. They were imbibing the national beverage of Italy, a viscous liquid that was dubbed coffee—or at least caffe— but which only three cubes of sugar and a dousing with milk made remotely drinkable. Mitch had insisted that Barbara at least try the stuff. “If you’re going to be in Italy, for God’s sake, you c’n at least get behind the culture, Barb” was the way he had put it. She’d groused but cooperated. Once she’d had a shot of the mixture, she reckoned she’d be awake for the next eight days.

When her mobile rang, giving her the news that Lo Bianco had arranged things so that she could see Azhar, she gave Mitchell Corsico the thumbs-up. He said, “Yes!” but he was less than pleased when she told him that she alone had been given access to the prisoner. Mitchell called foul, and she couldn’t blame him. He needed a story for The Source, he needed it fast, and Azhar was the story.

She said to him, “Mitchell, Azhar’s yours the moment we spring him. The exclusive interview, the picture, Hadiyyah sitting on his lap and looking winsome, the whole plate of ravioli. It’s yours, but it can’t happen till we get him out of there.”

“Look, you got me over here with a tale of—”

“Everything I’ve told you has been true, yes? You don’t see anyone coming after your neck for spreading lies, do you? So have some patience. We get him out of prison, and he’s going to be grateful. Grateful, he’s going to give you an interview.”

Corsico didn’t like the set-up, but he could hardly complain. Barbara’s position as a police officer had got her inside to see Lo Bianco in the first place. He knew this and had to live with it. Just as she had to live with whatever he came up with as story material at the end of the day.

Azhar was being held at a prison, the customary lodging place for someone who’d been charged with murder. It was miles from Lucca, which necessitated another terrifying race on the autostrada, but they made good time and Lo Bianco had phoned ahead with instructions. It was not visiting hours. It was not a visiting day. But the police had access when they wanted access. In very short order once they arrived at the place, Barbara was ushered into a private interview room which, she suspected, was not generally used when family members came calling upon the incarcerated. She’d left behind her bag and everything in it in Reception. She was searched and wanded. She was thoroughly questioned and summarily photographed.

Now in the centre of the room, she sat at its only table. This was fastened to the floor, as were its accompanying chairs. There was a large and grisly-looking crucifix fitted onto the wall, and Barbara wondered if this constituted a means of eavesdropping on what went on in the room. Microphones and cameras were so tiny