Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

at all. You’re going to take her to Pakistan and you’re bloody well going to disappear with her because that’s the only hope you have of getting Hadiyyah permanently. And once you knew that Angelina had taken up with another man, you
wanted
her permanently. You’ve family in Pakistan. Don’t tell me you don’t. And as far as getting employment there . . . ? For a man like you . . . ? A man with your education and background . . . ?”
    Nothing from him. Not a change in expression, not a shifting in his chair, not a shuffling of his feet beneath the table. She thought she saw a pulse in the vein on his temple, but she also thought she saw it only because she wanted to see something in place of the nothing that she was seeing as she spoke.
    “Tell me, Azhar. You goddamn bloody hell tell me what those tickets to Pakistan mean. Because Inspector Lynley knows about them, and he also knows the arrangement you and Angelina have: that Hadiyyah will come to you for her holidays and the first one begins in July.”
    He shifted his gaze at last. It moved to the tiny fireplace across the room. He said, “Yes.”
    “Yes to what?”
    “That was what I was going to do.”
    “And you still intend to do it, don’t you? You’ve got the tickets, and when she comes to you, she’ll have her passport because she’ll be coming from Italy. After a few days here to reassure her and everyone else that peace reigns between you and Angelina, off you’ll go. And there’s no way in hell that Angelina will be able to get her back. Not for years. Not for bloody decades.”
    He looked at her then. His eyes were startled. He said, “No, no. You are not listening to me. I said that Pakistan
was
what I intended. It is not what I now intend. There is no need. We will share her, and both of us—Angelina and I—will make this work.”
    Barbara stared at him. Finally, she felt something. It was incredulity and it was sweeping into her with the force of a polluted effluent pouring into a river. She couldn’t speak. She didn’t know the words.
    He said, “Barbara, what else was I to do? You see this. I know you must see this. She is all I have. My family here is lost to me. You have seen this yourself. I could not lose her when I have lost so much already.”
    “I can’t let you disappear with Hadiyyah into Pakistan. I won’t do that.”
    “I will not. I will
not
. I thought I would. I intended to do it. But now, I will not, and I swear this to you.”
    “And I’m supposed to believe you? After everything that’s passed? Do you think that’s reasonable?”
    “I beg you,” he said. “I give you my word. When I bought those tickets . . . You must understand how I saw Angelina at that time. She had betrayed me. She had disappeared with my child. I’d had no way of knowing where they had gone or if I would ever be able to find them. I’d had no way of knowing if I would ever see Hadiyyah again. I swore to myself in November that if I could find her, I would make a way never to lose her again. Pakistan was that way. But it is not the way now. We have made our peace. It is not perfect, but it cannot be perfect. We will share Hadiyyah and I will see her on her holidays and whenever else I like. Should she wish to return here when she is of age, she will do so. I will be her father and she my daughter and this is how it will be.”
    “But not if the Italian coppers track you down,” Barbara told him. “Don’t you see that?”
    His fingers closed over the packet of Players on the table between them, but he did not take another one. He said, “They must not track me down. They must not make any further connections.”
    “Di Massimo’s not planning to take the fall for this alone. He’s given them Doughty. And when it comes down to it, Doughty’s going to give them you.”
    “Then we must stop him,” Azhar said simply.
    For a crazy moment, Barbara thought he was suggesting murder. For a crazier moment, she considered the likelihood of his having meddled with the car that had sent Roberto Squali to his death. At that point, anything was beginning to seem possible when it came to Azhar. But then he spoke.
    “Barbara, I beg you from the fullness of my heart to help me. I may have committed an act of evil. But this act in the end brought about vast good, not only for me but also for my daughter. You must see that. This man Bryan Smythe . . . If he has removed all traces of connection between Mr. Doughty and the Italian