Just One Evil Act

“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 . . .

Barbara minded not in the least. Her intention was to grab Nafeeza and paint a proper picture for her about Mitch Corsico’s intentions just in case Mrs. Croak hadn’t done so. She had to be made to understand that, no matter how appealing it might sound to unburden oneself and one’s grievances in a public forum, The Source could not that forum be. “No tabloid journalist is your friend,” she would say.

So she waited outside. Thus she was in position when Nafeeza and Azhar’s father showed up. Thus she was in position when Mitch Corsico showed up as well.

Luckily Nafeeza arrived at the school first. She and Azhar’s father came hustling towards the main doors, and they saw Barbara simultaneously. Nafeeza said with great dignity, “Thank you, Sergeant. We are in your debt,” and Azhar’s father nodded at her.

“Don’t let anyone get to him,” Barbara said as they went inside. “It’ll turn out bad. Try to explain this to him.”

“We understand. We will.”

Then they were gone. Then Corsico arrived.

Barbara saw him take up a lurking position across the street from the school at a newsagent’s shop. He clocked her at once, cocked his ridiculous Stetson at her, and crossed his arms on his chest beneath the digital camera that hung round his neck. His expression said that she’d checked his king but shouldn’t feel exactly triumphant about it.

Barbara looked away from him. All she needed to do was to get Sayyid, his mum, and his granddad to their car. All she needed to do was to have a word with the boy in order to underscore the dangers he faced if he gave in to his inclination to abuse his dad in the press. The fact that Sayyid wouldn’t see the opportunity as dangerous had to be dealt with. Barbara doubted that it was going to be enough for his mum and his grandfather merely to instruct him to hold his tongue.

After ten minutes of waiting, the main door to the comprehensive opened once again. Barbara had been lingering near the pavement, at the side of an urn planted with a sad-looking holly bush. She came forward as the three others approached. In her peripheral vision, she saw Corsico take a step into the quiet street.

She said quickly, “Nafeeza, the reporter’s just there in the cowboy get-up. He’s got a camera. Sayyid, that’s who you need to keep clear of. He means to—”

“You!” Sayyid snarled. And to his mother, “You didn’t say that his whore . . . You didn’t tell me that his whore was the one—”

“Sayyid!” his mother said. “This woman is not your father’s—”

“You’re so bloody stupid! Both of you are stupid!”

His grandfather grabbed onto him and said something in Urdu. He began to strong-arm him towards a battered Golf.

“I’ll talk to whoever I want to talk to!” Sayyid declared. “You,” to Barbara, “you fucking whore. You keep away from me. Keep away from us. Go back to my father’s bed and suck his cock like you want to.”

Nafeeza slapped him so hard his head snapped to one side. He began to shout. “I’ll talk to anyone I want! I’ll tell the truth. About her. About him. About what they do when they’re alone because I know, I know, I know what he’s like and what she’s like and—”

His grandfather punched him. He began to roar in Urdu. Over his roaring, Nafeeza cried out and grabbed onto him. He shook her off and hit Sayyid again. Blood spurted from the boy’s nose to speckle the front of his neat white shirt.

“Bloody hell,” Barbara said. She dashed forward to free the teenager from his grandfather’s clutches.

Dog’s dinner was what she thought about the mess. What Corsico thought she reckoned she’d be seeing sooner or later on the front page of The Source.