Just One Evil Act

of them, and more than anything, he understood how unwelcome it was to her ever to have to work with John Stewart. Bless him, bless him, bless him, Barbara thought. She owed him, she would repay him, she would be tireless in getting to the bottom of—

“I want to make something clear to you, Barbara,” the superintendent said. “DI Lynley asked for Winston. He’s the obvious choice as, let’s be frank, he has a good track record of obeying orders while that’s not exactly the case for you. But I’d like to give you the opportunity to prove to me directly that you can do the same. Is there anything you’d like to tell me about your time on John Stewart’s team before you and I move along to what the inspector needs you to do for him?”

Here was the moment to fess up, Barbara thought. But she couldn’t risk telling the superintendent that she’d gone her own way more than once in the past few days. Ardery might well pull her off the assignment she’d just put her on. So she said, “It’s not anyone’s secret that John Stewart and I don’t get along, guv. I try. P’rhaps he tries as well. But we’re chalk and cheese.”

Ardery evaluated this, her gaze evenly on Barbara’s. She finally said, “Right,” in a slow and thoughtful drawl. Then she turned and picked up the topmost report on her desk and handed it over.

“The police in Italy have traced the kidnapping of your friend’s little girl back to London.”

“Dwayne Doughty, right?” Barbara said.

Ardery nodded. “They’ve brought in a bloke in Italy who was evidently operating on Doughty’s direction. He appears to have found the child without apparent difficulty but instead of giving the word to her father, Doughty came up with a scheme to kidnap her. What’s been done with her, the Italian doesn’t know. He claims he was given instructions in bits and pieces: It was, he says, a case of ‘Snatch her and I’ll tell you what happens next.’”

“Bloody pig,” Barbara said. “I took Azhar to meet this bloke, guv, when Hadiyyah’s mum disappeared with her. He seemed to be on the up-and-up. He worked a bit on looking for her, and he finally told us there was no bloody trail and I’m-dead-sorry-I-am and that was that.” Barbara didn’t add anything about Azhar: the Berlin alibi, khushi, or anything else. Least of all did she add the claims Doughty had made when she’d seen him in the Bow Road nick since the superintendent didn’t know she’d seen him in the Bow Road nick, and she didn’t need to know.

Ardery said, “Yes. Well. He’s involved in some way that DI Lynley needs sorted. I’ve been told that there was never a ransom demanded for the child, so my guess is that someone else beyond Doughty is also involved. Phone the inspector if you have more questions.”

“I will,” Barbara said.

Ardery handed over the report she’d received, and she eyed Barbara before giving her the word to go on her way. She said, “I want to learn at the end that you’ve handled every aspect of this situation in a professional manner, Barbara. Anything less than that, and you and I will be having a different sort of conversation. Am I being clear?”

As mountain spring water, Barbara thought. She said, “Yes, guv, you are. I won’t disappoint you.”

Ardery dismissed her. She didn’t look convinced.

BOW

LONDON

Barbara decided that Doughty was not the place to begin. Presented with the facts as they’d apparently been recited by Michelangelo Di Massimo in the police station in Lucca, he would doubtless be able to produce an airtight rationale for all of them. Barbara could even imagine what it would be: I hired the bloke to find her, and he swore he tried every avenue of exploration to no avail. Are you suggesting that it’s down to me that he found her without letting me know? That he planned her kidnapping and handed her over to God only knows who for God only knows what reason and that’s down to me as well? Look, Sergeant, Di Massimo was in a far better position than I to carry this kid off into the hinterlands or wherever the hell he carried her to. I’m supposed to know enough about Italy—where, to be frank, I have never set foot—to have made a kid disappear? And why? For money? Whose money? I don’t know these people. Do any of them even have money?

And on and on Doughty would go, wearing her down with logic, illogic, and everything in between. So she wouldn’t begin with talking to him. Emily Cass seemed a more likely source of information.

Barbara spent some time digging up whatever might be useful in her conversation with the young woman, who turned out to be no intellectual slouch. She held an advanced degree in economics from the University of Chicago, but since attaining that degree, she’d held a string of jobs that suggested personal unsuitability for the world of business or finance: She’d been a security consultant in Afghanistan, a bodyguard to the children of a minor branch of the Saudi royal family, a personal trainer to a Hollywood actress in need of a task master to keep her body beautiful a body beautiful, and an assistant chef on a yacht whose owner was one of the biggest names in British petroleum. She was, literally, all over the map in her employment history. How she’d ended up in the employ of a private investigator was anyone’s guess.

Her record was clean when it came to the law, though, and she’d sprung from a solidly middle-class family whose paterfamilias was a noted ophthalmologist and whose mother was a paediatrician. With three brothers involved in the medical field as well and another a highly successful Formula One driver, she probably wouldn’t want to have her reputation sullied by any activity she might have engaged in that danced on the wrong side of the law. She was, Barbara assured herself, the better bet when it came to having a tete-a-tete with someone bearing a warrant card.

She had no intention of bearding Em Cass in the den of Dwayne Doughty’s place of business. She didn’t want to ring the woman either. Better not to give her time to inform the private investigator that she was going to be questioned. So she positioned herself in a window of the Roman Cafe and Kebab a short distance from Bedlovers, whose upper floor housed Dwayne Doughty’s office. There she waited for Emily Cass to appear.

It took four kebabs and a jacket potato topped with cheese and chili for this to happen. By that point, Barbara was practically a member of the family who ran the establishment. They were looking at her a bit askance—probably considering the nature of the eating disorder the dishevelled woman in the window was suffering from—but they nonetheless accepted her money in exchange for copious amounts of food. They smiled ingratiatingly and also enquired as to her marital status, possibly as a suitable mate for a son who hung about the place with a suspicious dribble of drool escaping from his gaping mouth. Barbara was grateful for the appearance of Em Cass at the end of an extended period within the cafe. She was equally grateful that Emily, who had on running clothes, set off in her direction and not in the opposite, which would have made it impossible—her recent gustatory history considered—for Barbara to catch her up.

Barbara was out of the door in a flash. She was planted on the pavement directly in Emily’s path before the young woman knew what was happening. She was saying, “You and I need to talk” and clamping onto her arm before Emily could either run off or dash back to the office. Barbara hustled her across the street and into the Albert pub—vaguely wondering why there appeared to be a pub called the Albert in every neighbourhood of the capital—where she strong-armed her to a table near a fruit machine with Out of Order hanging prominently upon it.

“Here’s what you need to know,” she told her. “Michelangelo Di Massimo has given you lot up to the Italian police. Now, this might not be a major problem for you since, extradition being what it is, you could be a grandmother before you found yourself standing in front of an Italian magistrate. But— and I like to think of this as the nice bit, Emily—a senior officer from the Met is over there acting as liaison for the family. One more word from him—aside from the several words that sent me here to have this little natter with you—and you’re in trouble of the I-appear-to-need-a-solicitor variety. D’you receive my meaning here, or do I have to spell things out more clearly?”

Emily Cass seemed to make an effort at swallowing. Barbara could hear the gulp from across the table. She idly thought about getting the woman a lager, but she reckoned she wouldn’t need to go to the expense if she gave her a little time to dwell upon the significance of what she intended to say to her next.

“I expect you were more of an adjunct player in what went on. You did your bit of blagging on the phone to get information—it’s what you excel in, and who can blame you for using your talents, eh?—but you did it on someone else’s orders and we both know who that someone else is.”

Emily had been gazing at her steadily, but she allowed her glance to go to the street and then back to