Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

that a rest for forty-five seconds. They also don’t have
Love Rat Mum Who Took Off with Her Kid in the First Place Now Up the Spout with Yet Another Bloke’s Kid
. Trust me on this. They don’t have that story.”
    There was silence at the other end. In it, Barbara could almost hear the wheels of speculation turning in Corsico’s head. Because of those wheels and what they might come up with, she went on.
    “You like that one, Mitchell? It’s gold and it’s true. Now, the bloody story’s in Italy where it’s been all along and I’ve given you something no one else has. You can use it, abuse it, or lose it, okay? As for me, I’ve got other things to do.”
    Then she rang off. Doing this was a risk. Corsico could easily call the bluff of her bravado and run with his story, whose picture on the front page of the paper would call into question how she’d got herself over to Ilford in the first place in the middle of her workday. With John Stewart scrutinising her every move, this was something so far less than desirable that Barbara knew she was in no small part mad to risk alienating Corsico by cutting him off. But she had things to do and none of them were related to dancing to the journalist’s tune just now.
    She’d talked to Lynley. She knew an arrest had been made, but she also knew from his description of things in Lucca that this arrest of one Carlo Casparia was based mostly on the fantasy of the public prosecutor. Lynley had explained to her how investigations proceeded in Italy—with the public prosecutor madly up to his eyeballs in the enquiry almost from the get-go—and he’d also told her that the chief inspector had ideas in conflict with the public prosecutor who headed the investigation, so “Chief Inspector Lo Bianco and I are walking rather carefully over here,” he said. This, she knew, was code for “We’re following our own leads in the matter.” These apparently had to do with Lorenzo Mura, a red convertible, a playing field in a park, and a set of photographs taken by a tourist in the
mercato
from which Hadiyyah had disappeared. Lynley didn’t say how these things related to each other, but the fact that he and the chief inspector in Italy were not satisfied with the arrest told her that there was still fertile ground to be explored both there and in London and she needed to see about exploring it.
    In this, Isabelle Ardery inadvertently helped out. Since she’d instructed DI Stewart to give Barbara assignments that reflected her rank as a detective sergeant, he’d had no choice but to put her back out in the street with a suitable action assigned to her, one relating to either of the two investigations that he was supposed to be conducting. That the DI wasn’t happy with this turn of events was evident in his surly manner of making the day’s assignments. That he intended to dog Barbara, despite Ardery’s instructions, was evident when he continued watching her like a bird of prey in search of a meal.
    She had phone calls to make before she set out on her given activities, and Stewart placed himself close enough to her to hear every word of them. It was only luck that Corsico had rung her while she was making a purchase at one of the vending machines in the stairwell, Barbara realised.
    She made three phone calls to set up the three interviews she’d been directed by Stewart to conduct. She made a show of taking down times and addresses, and she made more of a show of using the Internet to plot a route from one interview to the next that used her time in an efficacious manner. Then she gathered her notebook and her bag, and she headed out. Luckily Winston Nkata was still at his desk, so she stopped there, flipped open her notebook ostentatiously, and made a show of noting Winston’s replies to her questions.
    These were simple enough. She’d asked him to check on Azhar’s Berlin alibi because she knew she couldn’t risk further censure from Stewart for checking on it herself. So what had he managed to glean? she asked Winston. Was Azhar as good as his word? Had Doughty been telling her the truth when he’d pursued the Berlin story?
    “’S good, Barb,” Winston told her sotto voce. He made a show of pulling out a manila folder, flipping it open, and looking down upon its contents with a studious frown. Barbara glanced to see what he was using as the “evidence” under discussion. Insurance papers for his car, it appeared. “It all checks out square,” he