Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

on his glasses, opened it, and read.
    John Stewart had been on top of the call upon Bryan Smythe made by Havers and Azhar. He’d merely not had a chance to hand it over to Isabelle when Lynley and she had met earlier with the sergeant. When Lynley asked the superintendent why she had not yet turned Barbara over to CIB, her steady reply of “I’m waiting to see how far this reaches” told him that his own actions would be scrutinised as well.
    “Isabelle, I admit that I’m trying to find excuses for her” was what he told the superintendent.
    “Looking for reasons is understandable, Tommy. Looking for excuses is not. I expect you see the difference between the two.”
    He returned Stewart’s report to her, saying, “And as for John . . . his reasons? His excuses? What are you planning to do about him?”
    “John’s well in hand. You’re not to concern yourself with John.”
    He could hardly believe what she was saying since it had to mean she’d actually
set
DI Stewart to the task of watching Havers closely and noting her movements. If that was the case, Isabelle was giving Barbara rope. She also was telling him not to wrest that rope from Barbara’s grasp only to wrap it round his own neck.
    All that was wanted to finish Barbara off was Lynley’s own report on the full contents of the conversation he’d had with Bryan Smythe. For although Stewart knew where Barbara had gone and when she’d gone there and with whom, what he had not known from the first was what she was up to. Only Lynley himself—and Barbara—knew that.
    Early in the morning, he went into the garden behind his house. His place was laid for breakfast, his newspapers were on the dining room table precisely angled from his fork, and the scent of bread toasting under Charlie Denton’s watchful eye was emanating from the kitchen. But he walked to the window, looked out on the bright spring day, and saw how beautifully the roses were blooming. He went outside to look them over, aware that in the time since Helen’s death, he’d not once ventured out into the garden she’d loved. Nor, he realised, had anyone else.
    Among the rose bushes he found a pail. Within it pruned branches from the plants leaned. Hooked over the pail’s side was a small pair of secateurs, rusty now from being exposed to the weather for more than a year. The bushes themselves told the tale of why the pail, its contents, and the secateurs had been left out here for so long. Helen had been in the midst of pruning them when she’d been murdered.
    Lynley thought of how he’d watched her once from the window of his library above stairs. He’d gone to join her in the garden and even now her words came to him, spoken in her typical self-deprecating, droll fashion.
Tommy darling, I do think this might be the
only
useful activity I could possibly become adept at
.
There’s something so satisfying about grubbing round in the dirt. I think it takes one back to one’s roots.
And then she thought about what she’d said and laughed.
What a terrible pun. It was completely unintentional.
    He’d offered to help her, but she wouldn’t let him.
Don’t please rob me of my one opportunity to excel at something.
    He smiled now at the thought of her. Then he was struck by how the thought of Helen had for the first time not been accompanied by searing pain.
    A door opened behind him. He turned to see Denton opening it for Barbara Havers. Seeing her, Lynley glanced at his watch. It was seven twenty-eight in the morning. What on earth was she doing in Belgravia? he wondered.
    She crossed the lawn to him. She looked horrible. Not only was she more thrown together than usual, but she also seemed to have spent an entire night without sleep. She said to him, “They have Azhar.”
    He blinked. “Who?”
    “The cops in Lucca. They’ve taken his passport. He’s being detained. He doesn’t know why.”
    “Is he being questioned about something?”
    “Not yet. He just can’t leave Italy. He doesn’t know what’s going on.
I
don’t know what’s going on. So how do I help him? I didn’t know what else to do. I don’t speak Italian. I don’t know their game. I don’t know what’s happened.” She took three paces along the flowerbeds before she swung round and said abruptly, “C’n you ring them, sir? C’n you find out what’s happening?”
    “If they’re detaining him, it’s obviously because they’ve got questions about—”
    “Look. Right. Whatever. I know.