Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

schooled to think of particularly lovely English girls, of all English girls: They are not like our women, their clothing alone illustrates how easy they are with their chastity, and these things that rob them of their virtue mean very little to them. So I sat with her. I asked her if I could join her at her table, and as I did so, I knew exactly what I wanted from her. What I did not think was that the wanting would increase, the ‘must have’ would dominate, and I would bring ruin upon my world. And now I am set upon the same course, but the world to be ruined is going to be yours. How, then, do I live with that?”
    “You live with that by knowing that this is
my
decision,” she told him. “We have another half hour to live through, and then we’re through it, all right? We have Bryan where we want him and all that’s left is putting Doughty into line behind him. But that’s only going to happen if you
believe
it’s possible because if you don’t—if you go into that office broadcasting on your face that the only end reachable is the one with you sitting in the dock in a Lucca courtroom—we’re finished, Azhar. We, not you. We. And I’d like to hold on to my job.”
    She pulled to the kerb and let the Mini idle. They were round the corner from Doughty’s office, parked near a primary school where the happy noise of children running about a schoolyard came to them through the open windows of the car. They listened to this in silence for a moment. Barbara shut off the Mini’s ignition and said, “Are we on the same page, Azhar?”
    At first he did not answer. Like her, he listened to the children. Like her, he was also probably thinking of his own child, perhaps of all his children. He raised his head and closed his eyes briefly. He finally said firmly, “Yes. Yes. All right,” and together they climbed out of the car.
    Doughty wasn’t in his office. They found him, however, in the office next door, where Em Cass was set up. She’d obviously just arrived at work since she was wearing running clothes, trainers, and a sweatband round her head, and at first it looked from his position as if Doughty was taking in the fragrance of her armpits since he was sitting at her table of computers and she was bent forward across him to use the mouse. She was saying, “No. The hotel records indicate—” But she straightened, ceasing her words abruptly, when Barbara pushed open the door. Doughty turned and said, “What the hell . . . You’re out of order walking in unannounced.”
    Barbara said, “I think that’s a social nicety we can all wave farewell to at this point, Dwayne.”
    “You can go wait in my office,” he said. “And you can thank your stars I don’t toss you and the professor back down the stairs you just tramped up.”
    “We will all speak together,” Azhar said. “Either in your office or in this office but in either case now.”
    Doughty rose from his chair. “Where’d
your
manners take themselves off to? I don’t take orders from people who aren’t employing me.”
    “Got that in a biscuit box, Dwayne.” Barbara brought out of her pocket Bryan Smythe’s memory sticks and dangled them from her fingertips. “But I expect you take orders from someone who’s hanging on to these trying to decide which department at the Met is going to be happiest to see them. They’re on loan, by the way. Bryan handed them over.”
    There was a moment of tight, evaluative silence among them. From below in the street, the sound of Bedlovers’ protective grille being raised came to them like the noise of a castle’s portcullis. Someone coughed, hacked, and spit with the force of a minor explosion. Em Cass grimaced at the sound. Obviously, a woman who disapproved of life’s indelicacies, Barbara thought. That was a very good thing, she reckoned, since they were well in the midst of one of them.
    “Are we going to talk or are we going to stand here staring at each other?” Barbara asked.
    Doughty said, “I know a bluff when I’m looking at one.”
    “Not in this case, mate. You c’n ring Bryan if you like. Like I said, these’re on loan from him. He feels a bit like you do when it comes to the Bill.
Anything
to clear one’s house of the coppers.”
    “She’s telling the truth,” Em Cass said. “Christ, Dwayne. I don’t know why I ever listen to you and your plans and your I’ve-got-everything-under-control. I should have done a runner when I was packed.”
    Barbara liked even