Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

question. Let me think.” But she found it was nearly impossible to do so because every thought led her to one place only and that was a place in which Dwayne Doughty had cut a deal with someone to save his own neck and had provided the necessary information pointing to Azhar’s involvement in his daughter’s kidnapping. Or perhaps Di Massimo had done so, although, according to Azhar, he’d never spoken to the man. Or perhaps it was Smythe, with a backup to his backup sent by express to the Italian police. Or . . . God only knew because the real point was that without his passport, Azhar was stuck in Lucca at the mercy of the coppers. “They’ve not questioned you, have they?” she asked him. “Azhar, if they want to ask you questions, you must find a solicitor at once. D’you understand? Don’t say a sodding word to those people without a solicitor sitting next to you.”
    “They have not even asked to question me. But, Barbara, I fear that perhaps Mr. Doughty . . . or one of his associates . . . Someone must have told the inspector something to make him begin to think that I . . .” He was silent for a moment and then, quietly, “Oh God, I should have let it all go.”
    “Let what go? Let your own daughter go? How the bloody hell were you supposed to do that, eh? Angelina
took
her. She disappeared. You did what you had to do to find her.”
    “It fell apart, Barbara. This is what I fear.”
    She couldn’t tell him his fears were unreasonable. Yet unless the Italians had sent someone from Italy to talk to Doughty or unless Smythe somehow had contacted them, the only person who could have told them anything would have been Di Massimo. And according to Azhar, he’d engaged in no communication with the Italian detective at all, all of that being done by Doughty with every trail removed by Bryan Smythe. So it was likely that the Italian cops had something more, something different beyond information they would have gleaned from an interrogation of Di Massimo. She had to find out what that was. Until she discovered it, they could plan no further.
    She said to Azhar, “You listen to me. First thing tomorrow, you ring the embassy. Then you ring for a solicitor.”
    “But if he asks me to come to the
questura
. . . and what of Hadiyyah? Barbara, what of Hadiyyah? I am not innocent in this matter. Had I not arranged to have her taken—”
    “Just stay where you are and wait till you hear from me.”
    “What will you do? From London, Barbara, what
can
you do?”
    “I c’n get the information we need. Without that, we’re wandering in the dark.”
    “If you could have seen how they looked upon us,” he murmured. “Not only upon me but upon Hadiyyah.”
    “Who? The coppers?”
    “The Upmans. That I am worse than nothing to these people is something I can bear. It is as it has always been. But Hadiyyah . . . They looked at her as if she carried a disease, some deformity of body . . . She is a child. She is innocent. And these people—”
    “Set them aside, Azhar,” Barbara cut in. “Don’t think about them. Promise me that. I’ll be in touch.”
    They rang off. Barbara spent the rest of the evening and far into the night sitting at the table in her tiny kitchen, smoking one fag after another, and trying to work out what she could do that did not involve anyone other than herself. She knew this was a pointless activity, but she engaged in it anyway till she had to admit there was only one action she could take next.

12 May
    BELGRAVIA
    LONDON
    T he fact that Isabelle Ardery had made no move to deal with Barbara Havers suggested to Lynley that she was either giving him the time he had asked for to try to sort out what Barbara had been up to or she was herself building a case against Barbara that would give her the result she’d been looking for since first encountering the sergeant as a difficult member of her team. Isabelle was someone who wanted things to run smoothly, and it couldn’t be argued that Barbara lent to the machinery of a police investigation the constant oil of her cooperation.
    Isabelle had, of course, asked for a report from him. He told her of his conversation with Bryan Smythe, but he made no mention of either the airline tickets to Lahore or what Barbara Havers had asked Smythe to do. He left out the information that she had gone to see Smythe in the company of Azhar as well. This proved to be a misstep on his part.
    Isabelle slid the report across her desk to him. He put