Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

how to put the full stops where they belong.”
    He said nothing at first. His expression was hard, his eyes flinty. He looked from Barbara to Azhar to Barbara and he said to her, “How many more of you are there?”
    Azhar stirred next to her, but Barbara put her hand on his arm. She said, “Bryan, we’re not here to discuss—”
    “No. I want to know. How many more dirty cops’re going to crawl out of the woodwork if I cooperate with you? And don’t please tell me you’re the only one. Your sort doesn’t exist alone.”
    Barbara felt Azhar glance in her direction. For her part, she was surprised at how Smythe’s words stung. It wasn’t the first time he’d accused her of being dirty, but the fact was that this time, he was speaking the truth. That she was dirtying herself in the cause of a larger good, however, was not something she wished to debate with the man. So she said to him, “This is a one-time operation. It’s about Azhar, it’s about his daughter, and after that, it’s about us being gone from your life.”
    “I’m expected to believe that?”
    “I don’t see that you have a choice.” She waited as he thought things over. Birds were chirping pleasantly from the ornamental cherry trees in the garden, and within the pool a goldfish surfaced in the hope of feeding time’s approach. She said, “My grip’s better than yours is, mate. Face up to it and we’re out of here and you c’n go back to your breakfast and those ladies’ arses.”
    “Grip,” he repeated.
    “On the whatsies. We’re all hanging on to each other’s, let’s face it. But just now I’ve got the better hold. You know it. I know it. Let’s have your fail-safe data so Azhar and I c’n get on with things.”
    “You’re heading for Doughty next,” he said.
    “Bob’s definitely your uncle, mate.”
    BOW
    LONDON
    “This is too much, Barbara” were Azhar’s first words. He’d said nothing at all during their encounter with Bryan Smythe, but once they were in Barbara’s car and heading over to Doughty’s office, he pressed fingers to his forehead as if trying to contain the pain in his head. “I am so sorry,” he said. “And now this. I cannot—”
    “Hang on.” She lit a fag and handed him the packet. “We’re in it now, so it’s not the time to lose your nerve.”
    “This is not a matter of nerve.” He took a cigarette and lit it, but after one drag on it, he threw it out of the window in disgust. “This is a matter of what you are doing because of me. Because of my decisions. And I . . . Silent like a miserable statue in that man’s garden. I despise myself.”
    “Let’s stick with the facts as we know them. Angelina took Hadiyyah. You wanted her back. The wrong involved here started with her.”
    “Do you think that matters? Do you think that
will
matter should the details of this morning excursion of ours come to light?”
    “Details won’t come to light. Everyone’s at risk. That’s our guarantee.”
    “I should not have . . . I cannot . . . I must stand like a man and tell the truth and—”
    “And what? Go to gaol? Spend some time in a prison learning how to say ‘Touch me there and I’ll cut off your hand’ in Italian?”
    “They would have to extradite me first and then—”
    “Oh, too right, mate. And while you’re waiting to be extradited, Angelina is going to be doing what? Sending Hadiyyah for pleasant, extended visits with the man who arranged her kidnapping and—oh, by the way—also bought one-way tickets to Pakistan for himself and her?”
    He was silent, and she glanced at him. His face was anguished. “All of this is down to me,” he said. “No matter how Angelina has behaved in the past, the first sin was mine. I wanted her.”
    At first, Barbara thought he was talking about the daughter he and Angelina had created. But when he went on, she saw that was not what he meant at all.
    “How wrong could it be, I asked myself, to want a lovely young woman in my bed? Just once. Or twice. Three times, perhaps. Because, after all, Nafeeza is heavy with child and wishes to be left in peace until she delivers and as a man, I have my needs and there she is, so lovely, so fragile, so . . . so English.”
    “You’re human,” Barbara said, although the words did not come easily to her.
    “I saw her at that table at University College, and I thought, What a particularly lovely English girl she is. But I also thought what Middle Eastern men—men like me—are