Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

doing nothing but trying to drop a load of cow manure on me. If you think that’s going to come
close
to convincing me you aren’t in this up to your eyeballs, then you’re bloody wrong. So let’s start again. And believe me, I’ve got hours to spare till we get to the truth.”
    “I’ve told you—”
    “Hours and hours,” she said pleasantly.
    He seemed to think frantically of where to go next with his wild allegations, and he finally said with a snap of his fingers, “
Khushi
, then
.
”
    Barbara drew in a deep breath.
    He said it again. “
Khushi
, Sergeant Havers. Would I say that if I was lying to you? Professor Azhar said this to me: ‘She’ll listen to someone who calls her
khushi
because she’ll know the message is from me.’”
    Barbara’s mouth went dry. She could feel her lips sticking to the front of her teeth.
Happiness
was the definition of the word
khushi
, but it was from the word itself that the impact came. For
khushi
was Azhar’s nickname for his daughter, and Barbara had heard the man say it hundreds of times in the two years that she’d known him.
    She felt as if the chair she was sitting on was sinking into the floor of the room. Doughty’s face got wavy in her vision. She blinked and tried to fight off dizziness.
    The bloody man, she realised, was finally telling her the truth.
    BOW
    LONDON
    Dwayne Doughty knew there was very little time at this point. He was into this mess up to his nostrils, the sweating nerve-strung personification of the best laid plans of mice and men, et cetera. Once he was back out in the street—with his hours at the Bow Road nick just an aftertaste like burnt garlic in his mouth—he made for his office. There were things to be done and he was going to have to use every one of his skills to bring about the result he needed. Failing that, he knew that the barrel-shaped and outstandingly ill-dressed Met officer was completely right: A study of Michelangelo Di Massimo’s phone records and computer files was going to provide trails leading in more than one direction. Since Dwayne could hardly export the talented Bryan Smythe to deal with the Italian phone system and whatever went for the Pisan detective’s technology, he—Dwayne—was going to have to set up a series of offensive manoeuvres.
    In the Roman Road, he pounded up the stairs to his office. He shouted, “Emily!” as he went. Her blagging expertise was going to be required. So was the superlative hacking expertise of Bryan Smythe and every one of his well-placed contacts.
    Emily’s door was open. Two cardboard boxes sat outside her office in the area at the top of the stairs. They were taped and ready . . . but ready for what Dwayne didn’t know until he walked into the room that housed her operation and saw exactly what she intended.
    She’d removed her tailored pinstriped jacket, her waistcoat, and her tie. They all lay across the back of her chair. This chair she’d pushed against the window, the better to access the inside of her desk, her files, her supplies, and everything else that marked her employment.
    She shot him a look in the midst of dumping the contents of a drawer willy-nilly into an open box. “Don’t,” she said.
    “Don’t what? What’re you doing?”
    “Don’t ask me what I’m doing when you can see for yourself. Or don’t play dumb. Or don’t be a fool. How about don’t put us in jeopardy? Take your pick.” She reached for the Sellotape and sealed the box. She heaved it up, heaved herself likewise, and carried the box past him in the doorway. She dumped it on top of the others and returned to her office, where, at a bulletin board, she began pulling down her map of London along with bus schedules, train schedules, a map of the Underground, and—for some reason—a poster of Montacute House and three picture postcards featuring the Cliffs of Moher, Beachy Head, and the Needles on the Isle of Wight.
    “This can’t mean what I think it means,” he said.
    “I don’t get paid enough to be caught up in shit like this. You do. But
I
don’t.”
    “So you’re leaving? Just like that?”
    “Your powers of observation . . . ? Incredible. No wonder you’ve been such a howling success in your chosen line of work.”
    She was folding her maps and making a hash of it, paper maps always being a nightmare to put back into their original, neat form. She wasn’t following the designated folds and creases. It appeared that she couldn’t be bothered to do so,