Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

wardrobe. They’d managed a few items and they’d had a good many laughs, and all of that was gone from her life now. Barbara was, as a result, as depressed as Azhar, but she felt she had far less right to the feeling. Hadiyyah wasn’t, after all,
her
daughter although she often felt like something just as important.
    A-rum-pa-pum-pum had tormented Barbara at least seven more times before she found what she was looking for to give to Azhar. Near Bond Street, a group of stalls brightly decorated with fairy lights were offering everything from flowers to hats. Among these, one merchant was selling board games. Among the games was one called Cranium. Barbara picked it up. A game for the brain? she wondered. A game about the brain? A brain being necessary to play the game? Whatever in a basket, Barbara decided. Certainly, it was just the thing for a professor of microbiology. She plunked down her money and made her escape. She was heading back for the tube station when her mobile rang.
    She flipped it open without checking the number. It didn’t much matter to her who was ringing. She was on rota, and in any other circumstances she would have been steeling herself against the possibility that she was being called back to work. But these days, she wasn’t minding work. It was providing her an escape.
    As it was, though, Azhar and not the Met was ringing her. Barbara heard his voice with a rush of pleasure. He could see her car sitting in the driveway, he said. Would she mind if he joined her for a moment’s conversation?
    Damn but she was in Oxford Street, she told him. She was on her way home, though. Was it . . . Had he heard . . . Was there something she should . . . ?
    He said he would wait for her. He himself was at home, having just spoken to Mr. Doughty.
    “And?” Barbara said.
    “We shall speak.” His tone told her the news wouldn’t be good.
    She made decent time back to Eton Villas, a miracle considering she had to use the miserable Northern Line. She was carrying her purchases in the direction of her bungalow when Azhar came out of the ground-floor flat. He walked across to her and politely took two of her shopping bags. She said ta, and she tried to sound cheerful in keeping with the holiday season, but she could see from his face that the conclusion she’d drawn from his tone of voice on the mobile had been correct.
    She said to him, “So what d’you want to drink, then, tea or gin? I’ve got both. It’s a little early for gin but what the hell. If we’re owed, we’re owed.”
    He offered her a smile. “Ah. If only Islam allowed me to drink.”
    “There’s always cheating,” she told him. “But I don’t want to be the one to corrupt you. Tea, then. Strong. I’ll throw in a teacake and let me tell you, I don’t do that for just anyone.”
    “You are far too good to me, Barbara,” he said, but his smile was rote. He’d always been the most courteous of men.
    Inside her small bungalow, Barbara lit the electric fire in the tiny fireplace and removed her coat, her scarf, and her gloves. She was of two minds about her knitted cap, though. Her hair had begun to grow out, but she still looked like someone who’d had recent chemo. Azhar had, from the first, been far too decent to mention the wreck she’d made of her hair. She reckoned he wasn’t about to change course now and query her on the topic of head shaving. So she thought, what the hell, and she tossed the cap along with everything else on the daybed.
    She busied herself with making the tea and popping teacakes beneath the grill in her oven. The fact that she had butter for these and milk for the tea actually made her feel like a domestic goddess. She’d even spent the morning prior to her shopping spree putting her hovel into some kind of order. This allowed Azhar to sit at her table and even gaze into the kitchen area without being assaulted by the sight of her knickers drying on a line above the kitchen sink.
    He didn’t bring her into the picture of his phone call to her till she had a pot of tea on the table, along with mugs, teacakes, and all the et ceteras. Then, maddeningly, he began with small talk about her Christmas shopping, her mother’s health, and Inspector Lynley having to face his first Christmas after the death of his wife. Finally, he told her he’d been to Bow at Dwayne Doughty’s invitation. At first he’d thought the news would be good. He reckoned that Doughty had wished to demonstrate in person how