“I’m attempting to cooperate,” he said. “I learned there was a bank account here in London, an account held in the name Bathsheba Ward but in a branch nowhere near her home or her work. I found this curious and did a little . . . work on it. In . . . in time, let’s say, I discovered that funds had been wired from another account, this one in Lucca. I needed someone in Italy to trace that account and to see who was at the other end of this wired money.”
“Michelangelo Di Massimo was your man in Italy, then?”
“He was.” Doughty pushed back from his desk. He went to the filing cabinet, made an adjustment to the artificial plant, and opened a drawer. He riffled through some files till he found what he wanted. He handed it over. It was slim enough, but it contained a copy of the report he’d written. Barbara read this quickly to see it contained the information he’d just supplied her, along with the name, the address, and the email of the private investigator in Pisa whom DI Lynley and the Italian chief inspector had interviewed that day.
Barbara closed the file and handed it back. She had a terrible feeling about what she was going to learn if she asked the next question, but she asked it anyway. “What did you do with this information?” she said.
“I gave it to Professor Azhar,” he told her. “Sergeant, I’ve given him everything from the first.”
“But he said . . .” Barbara’s lips felt stiff. What had he said? Had she misinterpreted his words in some way? She tried to remember, but she was feeling turned round, down the rabbit hole, and out of her league. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked him.
“Because I was working for him, not for you,” Doughty said, not unreasonably. “And when I began working for you, what you asked me to uncover had to do with the professor’s trip to Berlin and nothing else.” He put the folder back and shut the drawer. He turned back to them, but he did not sit. He extended his hands in the universal gesture of look-at-me-I-have-nothing-to-hide. “Sergeant,” he said and then added Winston in his remarks by saying, “Sergeants. I’ve told you the absolute truth at this point, and if you’d care to look through my phone records and my computer files and, yes, even my hard drive, you’re more than welcome to do so. I’ve nothing to hide from you, and I’ve no interest in anything other than getting home to my wife and my dinner. Are we finished here?”
They were, Barbara said. What she didn’t say, however, was that she knew how easily Doughty could have cleared his records, his hard drive, his entire life of suspicion if any of this was in the possession of a computer tech expert with inside contacts at various institutions. And there was virtually nothing she could do about it.
She and Winston left him. They descended the stairs and went into the street, where a short distance away the Roman Cafe was making the seductive offer of kebabs. She said to her colleague, “At least let me buy you dinner, Winnie.”
He nodded and walked thoughtfully at her side. He was deep into something, and she didn’t ask him what it was because she had a feeling she already knew. He confirmed this as they took a table by the window and considered the menu. He looked at it briefly and then spoke to her.
“Got to ask, Barb.”
“What?”
“How well you know him.”
“Doughty? ’Course he could be lying and he probably is because he’s lied already and—”
“Don’t mean Doughty,” Winston told her. “’Spect you know that, eh?”
She did. To her sorrow and misery, she absolutely did. He was asking how well she knew Taymullah Azhar. She’d been asking herself the very same question.
BOW
LONDON
Doughty waited patiently. He knew it wouldn’t be long, and it wasn’t. Em Cass burst into his office not one minute after the cops’ departure. He could tell how much of a lather she was in from the fact that she’d removed both her waistcoat and her tie.
“From the first,” she began. “Goddamn it, Dwayne, from the—”
“It’ll all be over soon,” he cut in. “There’s nothing to worry about. Everyone will go home happy, and you and I will fade into the sunset, ride off on our ponies, whatever.”
“I think you’ve gone mad.” She paced from one side of the office to another. She slapped one hand into the palm of the other.
“Emily,” he said, “go home. Have a change of clothes and go out clubbing. Pull a new man. You’ll feel much better.”
“How can you even suggest . . . You’re an idiot! Now it’s two cops—from the Met, no less—sifting through our unwashed laundry, and you’re suggesting I entertain myself with anonymous sex?”
“It’ll take your mind off whatever your mind’s on. Which, by the way, is an unnecessary bundle of speculations taking you nowhere. We’re clean on this and we’ve been that way since Bryan diddled our computers and phone records.”
“We’re going to gaol,” she said. “If you’re depending on Bryan to hold out once the cops pay a call on him . . . especially that black bloke. Did you see how big he is? Did you bloody see that scar on his face? I know a scar from a knife fight when I see one and so do you. We’ll be in gaol five minutes after that bloke fixes his stare on Bryan Smythe.”
“They don’t know any details about Bryan, and unless you decide to tell them yourself, they won’t ever know any details about Bryan. Because I’m certainly not going to tell them. So it’ll all be down to you.”
“What’re you saying? That I can’t be trusted?”
Doughty looked at her meaningfully. It was his experience that no one could be trusted, but he did like to think otherwise of Emily. Still, he could tell she needed to be mollified in some way because, in her present state, one trip to the nick to spend an hour or so in the company of officers intent upon wringing the truth from her, and she might well crack.
He said carefully, “I trust you with my life, Em. I hope you trust me with yours as well. I hope you trust me enough to listen carefully to what I’m about to say.”
“Which is?”
“It’ll be over soon.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Things are in motion in Italy. The crime is about to be solved, and we’ll be opening the champagne soon enough.”
“Do I have to remind you that we’re not in Italy? Do I have to point out that if you’re depending on this Di Massimo bloke—a man you’ve never even bloody met, for God’s sake—to carry this off without anyone being the wiser . . .” She threw up her hands. “This is more than an Italian situation, Dwayne. It became more than an Italian situation the moment the Met got involved. Which, may I remind you, was the very first instant that woman stepped into your office with the Pakistani, pretending to be an ordinary, ill-dressed heap of a female just here to support her extraordinarily intelligent, well-spoken, nice-looking, and neatly attired male friend. God, I should have known the moment I clapped eyes on them both that the very fact they were even together—”
“You did know, as I recall,” he said mildly. “You told me she was a cop and you turned out to be correct. But none of that matters just now. Things are in hand. The girl will be found. And no crime was committed by you or by me. Which, I might add, is something you should hold close to your heart.”
“Di Massimo gave them your name,” she protested. “What’s to stop him from giving them everything else?”
He shrugged. There was some truth in what she said, but he was holding on to his confidence in money being not only the root of all evil but also the oil that kept machines rolling on. He said, “
“
“Merely an insignificant detail,” he said.
26 April
