Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

the all’s well, soon to be tagged by an
arrivederci
. He had none of those and now he knew why. None of them had happened in the first place.
    “I don’t know” was the answer he received to his question of “What the hell is going on?” when he placed the call.
    “What d’you mean you ‘don’t know’?” was his subsequent demand. “You’re paid to know. You’re paid to make things happen.”
    “I set everything in motion as requested. But the plan went foul somewhere and I don’t know where.”
    “How in God’s name can you not know where?”
    There was a silence. Doughty listened intently. For a moment, he thought he’d lost the connection and he nearly rang off to redial the number. But then the other said, “I couldn’t risk it. Not the way you wanted it done. Using the
mercato
? I’d have been remembered.”
    “The
mercato
came from you, not from me, you sodding fool. It didn’t need to be the
mercato
. It could have been anywhere: the school, a park, on an outing, at the farm.”
    “None of that matters. What you do not understand is . . .” A pause and then, “No, you will
not
blame me. You wished her found, and I found her. I gave you the name. I gave you the place and its location. It was your idea to snatch her, not mine. Had you told me in advance that this was your intention, I never would have come . . . how do you say? . . . onto the train with you.”
    “You liked the idea of money well enough when I first found you, you bastard.”
    “You will think what you will think, my friend. But the fact that the police have not made progress in finding her tells me my plan was right.
Giusto
, we say.”
    Doughty felt a cold wind dive into his underwear when he heard
my plan
. There was supposed to be only one plan.
His
plan. Get the girl, stow her, and wait for his word to move her. That there was another plan which he’d not been told about made it nearly impossible for Doughty to speak. But he managed, “You’re after the Muras’ money, aren’t you? That’s been your scheme from the first.”
    “
Pazzo
” was the reply. “You listen like a jealous housewife.”
    “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
    “It means the cops have found me,
sciocco
. It means that had I not developed a plan different from yours, I would now be sitting in a gaol cell waiting for
il Pubblico Ministero
to decide how to deal with me. I am not in a gaol cell for the very reason you wish to berate me: I had a plan. You wished her taken. I arranged her taken.
Capisce?
”
    Doughty twigged the man’s meaning. “Someone
else
. . . ? Are you mad? Who took her? What did he do with her? Is it even a
he
or did you use some poor Italian grandmother in need of cash? How about an Albanian immigrant? Or an African? Or a bloody Romanian gypsy, for that matter? Did you even
know
who you were tagging to do this job? Or was it someone you picked up off the street?”
    “These insults of yours . . . They get us nowhere.”
    “I want that kid!”
    “I, too, am of the same mind, although I suspect for different reasons. I put things in motion as I told you. Something has happened, and I do not know what. She was being fetched to put an end to this matter, but the . . . the messenger sent to fetch her . . . This is what I do not know.”
    “What? Exactly
what
don’t you know?”
    “It was a . . .
come si dice?
A caution,” he said. “No. A
pre
caution. It seemed wise for me not to know where she was being kept, so that if the police traced me—which, as I’ve told you, they did—I could give them nothing of substance no matter how long they decided to question me.”
    “So for all you know,” Doughty said, “she could be dead. This . . . this
messenger
of yours might have snatched her and killed her. She might have not been a cooperative victim of your garden kidnapping on the street, and she might well have raised a ruckus. He could have stuffed her into the boot of his car for all you know and she might have suffocated and there he was with a dead body on his hands.”
    “This did not happen. It would not have happened.”
    “How the hell do you know that?”
    “My selection of . . . this messenger, let us call him . . . was carefully done. He has known from the first that complete payment for his services depends entirely on the condition of the child and on her safety at all times.”
    “So where is he? Where is she? What’s happened?”
    “This is what I’m now attempting to