Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

Street. “Love at first sight,” the private investigator said with a dismissive wave, to which he added after a moment’s thought, “No offence intended. Wasn’t thinking about you and yours,” to Azhar.
    “No offence taken,” Azhar said quietly.
    What Barbara thought was that pinching married men looked to be a family hobby. Interesting that both sisters had gone the same route.
    “Got nothing much more from this Bathsheba other than lip-curling when it came to questions about the sister,” Doughty told them. “No love lost. She gave me fifteen minutes of what she called her ‘valuable time,’ but it took less than ten. She’s either the best liar I’ve come across in twenty years or she doesn’t know a thing about Angelina’s whereabouts.”
    “Nothing else, then?” Barbara said.
    “Not a dust mote.”
    “What about Hadiyyah’s laptop?”
    “Superficially it looks wiped clean.”
    “‘Superficially’?”
    “Computer delving . . . ? These things take time. A certain delicacy . . . knowledge of a few sophisticated programmes? It’s not a case of presto. If it were, we’d have no need of experts. So keep your fingers crossed on that score. The hard drive’s wiped, but there was a reason, and we may still find it.”
    Azhar took a manila folder from his briefcase. He had received Angelina’s credit card billing, he said. Perhaps there was something in it that could be of help? He handed it over to Doughty, who put on a pair of the sort of cheap magnifying spectacles one could buy at Boots. He glanced at it and said, “This Dorchester bit could be something. Not enough for a room, but—”
    “Afternoon tea,” Barbara said. “Angelina took me. Hadiyyah as well. It’s for earlier this month, isn’t it?”
    Doughty nodded. He read further on the credit card billing and named the salon where Barbara had received her ill-fated hair makeover. She explained that that would be where Angelina herself had her hair done by a high-end stylist called Dusty, and Doughty made a note of this, indicating that Dusty would need talking to since Angelina might have altered her hair colour and style prior to her disappearance. Several other entries turned out to be boutiques in the Primrose Hill area, but there were no entries at all after the one for the hair salon, which indicated that Angelina Upman had probably ceased using the card at that point, knowing that to use it would be to leave a trail.
    “Could be she’s got another card altogether. Could be she’s going by another name,” Doughty told them. “She might have arranged for a new passport or identity card. If she’s done that, she’s probably gone the route most people go: using names they can easily get the paperwork on. D’you happen to know her mother’s maiden name?”
    “I do not.” Azhar sounded regretful. There was, after all, so much he did not know about the woman who’d borne his child. “Perhaps, however, I can ring and ask one of her parents . . . ?”
    “I c’n get it,” Barbara said. It would be a simple enough matter coming from the police, after all.
    Doughty said, “No. Let me work on that end of things.” He placed the credit card bill in a folder on which Barbara could see was printed
Upman/Azhar
along with the year. He removed the magnifying reading specs, and he leaned towards them, his gaze going from Azhar to Barbara to Azhar once more. “Got to ask this, and no offence is intended. Did you give her a reason to run off? Let me put it this way. You two seem close. You seem like friends, but in my experience when men and women seem friendly, there’s more going on. There’s probably a fancy term for whatever you two really are to each other, but I don’t know what it is. I guess what I’m asking is, did you two get up to something you shouldn’t’ve and did she walk in on it, find out about it, accost you over it, or what have you?”
    Barbara felt her face go red. Azhar was the one to answer the question. “Of course we did not. Barbara is as much Angelina’s friend as she is mine. She is close to Hadiyyah as well.”
    “Angelina knew there was nothing between you two?”
    Barbara wanted to say, “Just look at me, you idiot,” in response to this, but she found herself uncharacteristically reluctant to speak her mind. Instead she heard Azhar say, “Of course she knew that there could not have been . . .” And
then
what she wanted to say was “Why?” But of course, she knew the answer