Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

to that.
    “Right. Well. Just asking,” Doughty said. “This sort of thing? No stone left unturned, and no bedsheet unrumpled if you know what I mean.”
    He was adept with the clichés, Barbara thought. She had to give the private investigator that much.
    He went on. “Aside from that laptop, what’s left is your own family,” he told Azhar. “Getting rid of your daughter and her mother in order to persuade you to return to the wife you left.”
    “That would be impossible,” Azhar said.
    “Which part of it? The getting rid part or the returning part?”
    “Either part. We have not spoken for years.”
    “Speaking, mate, isn’t always required.”
    “Nonetheless, I have no wish for them to be brought into this.”
    Barbara looked at Azhar then, for the first time since Doughty had brought up the question of their relationship. She said, “She might have found them, Azhar. She might have tracked them down. She did talk to me about them, one afternoon. She said Hadiyyah would love to meet them. If she
did
find them, if certain arrangements were made . . . It has to be checked out.”
    “It does not have to be checked out.” Azhar’s voice was steely.
    Doughty raised and lowered his hands at this. He said, “That leaves us with the laptop and the mother’s maiden name, then. And I’ve got to tell you, that last probably isn’t going to get us far.” He reached in a drawer and brought out a business card, which he handed over to Azhar. “You ring me in a couple of days, and I’ll tell you where we’ve got with everything. Like I said, it probably won’t be far, but there’s always the slim chance we’ll come up with something. Even if we do, though . . . You know the real problem here is you’ve no rights to anything, yes?”
    “Believe me, that knowledge is engraved on my heart,” Azhar told him.
    BOW
    LONDON
    Doughty went through the same ritual as the first time, once Taymullah Azhar and his companion had left. He found Em Cass in her usual position, watching part of the video feed of Doughty’s meeting with the two others. She was wearing a vintage man’s three-piece suit on this day, and she’d loosened the necktie although the waistcoat was still formally buttoned. On a coat rack in a corner, she’d hung a man’s overcoat and fedora. A black umbrella was tightly furled beneath this.
    To look at Em, which Doughty had to admit that he rather enjoyed doing, one would never guess that her hobby was pulling men in clubs for anonymous sex. It was her practice to time how long it took from the first meaningful glance to the deed itself. So far her record was thirteen minutes. She had been trying to better it for the past two months.
    Doughty had spent considerable energy in an attempt to talk to her about this risky behaviour. Her response to his attempts was always the same: She pooh-poohed it.
His
response to
her
response was always the same as well: “Oh, I’m on board now. You’re twenty-six. I’d forgotten that makes you immortal.”
    Now he said to her, “What d’we have, then?”
    Em said, “She’s covered her tracks well enough. We need that maiden name. The Scotland Yard woman could’ve got it easily enough. Why’d you not want her to?”
    “Because she doesn’t know we know she’s the Met. And . . . other reasons. A feeling I have.”
    “You and your feelings,” Em said.
    “Beyond that, I reckon getting the mother’s maiden would hardly be a problem for you. How’re we getting on with the kid’s laptop?”
    “I’ve been beavering, but much as I hate to say it, I think it’s time to call in Bryan.”
    “I thought you said never again.”
    “I did. It’d be a blessing if you’d find someone else, Dwayne.”
    “He’s the best there is.”
    “There’s got to be a second best out there.” She rolled her chair away from her desk and absentmindedly picked up her keys. There were only three—house, car, office—and it was her habit to twirl them on their ring when she was thinking. Now she didn’t twirl them, though. Instead, she studied the fob on the ring with them: Tweety Bird with a facial expression saying this was one canary who didn’t suffer fools. She said, “What it is . . .”
    “Yeah?” Doughty encouraged her. Em thoughtful was out of the ordinary. She was generally an action female, not a contemplative one. She finally said, “I saw that card trick, Dwayne. What’re you up to?”
    Doughty smiled. “You never cease to amaze. No