Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

For what it’s worth, I’ve told him to ring the embassy. And to get a solicitor, just in case. I’ve
told
him that. But there must be something more I c’n do. And you
know
these blokes and you c’n speak Italian and you c’n at least . . .” She punched a fist into her palm. “Please, sir. Please. It’s why I’ve come from Chalk Farm. It’s why I couldn’t wait till you got to work. Please.”
    He said, “Come with me,” and took her to the house. Inside the dining room, he saw that Denton was already laying another place for breakfast. Lynley thanked him, poured two cups of coffee, and told Barbara to serve herself some eggs and bacon from the sideboard.
    “Already eaten,” she said.
    “What?” he asked.
    “Chocolate Pop-Tart and a fag.” She cocked her head at the sideboard and added, “Anything nutritious’ll probably put my system into shock.”
    “Humour me,” he told her. “I don’t wish to eat alone.”
    “Sir, please . . . I need you to . . .”
    “I’m completely aware of that, Barbara,” he said steadily.
    Reluctantly, she spooned herself some scrambled eggs. She added to this two rashers of bacon. She got into the spirit of things with four mushrooms and a piece of toast. He followed her lead and then joined her at the table.
    She said with a nod to his newspapers, “How d’you read three bloody broadsheets every morning, for God’s sake?”
    “I take the news from
The Times
and the editorials from
The
Guardian
and
The
Independent.
”
    “Seeking balance in life?”
    “I find it’s wise to do so. The overuse of adverbs in journalism these days is becoming something of a distraction, though. I don’t like to be told what to think, even surreptitiously.”
    They locked eyes at this. She broke away first, scooping up some of her scrambled eggs and piling them up on a portion torn from her toast. She chewed quite a bit. Swallowing, however, did not appear easy for her.
    Lynley said, “Before I make the call to Inspector Lo Bianco, Barbara . . . ?” He waited for her gaze to meet his. “Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything I need to know?”
    She shook her head.
    “You’re certain?” he said.
    “Far ’s I know,” she told him.
    So be it, he thought.
    BELGRAVIA
    LONDON
    For the first time in her life, Barbara Havers cursed the fact that she had no language other than English. While it was true that she’d had moments of desire to learn a foreign tongue—most of them having to do with understanding what the cook at her local curry house was really yelling about the lamb
rogan josh
before he slopped it into a takeaway container—for the great majority of her life she’d had no need of one. She had a passport, but she’d never used it to go anywhere a foreign tongue was spoken. She’d never used it at all, in fact. She only had it on the off chance that a heretofore unknown Prince Charming might show up unexpectedly in her life and wish to take her on a luxury Mediterranean holiday in the sun.
    But now, watching Lynley as he spoke to Chief Inspector Lo Bianco in Lucca, she tried to pick up anything she could. She listened hard for words she might recognise. She tried to read his face. From the words, she only picked up names: Azhar, Lorenzo Mura, Santa Zita—whoever the hell that was—and Fanucci. She thought she also heard Michelangelo Di Massimo mentioned as well as
information
,
hospital
, and
factory
, for some reason. Most of what she learned came from Lynley’s face, which grew graver as the conversation continued.
    He finally said, “
Chiaro, Salvatore
.
Grazie mille. Ciao
,” which told her the conversation was ending.
    Barbara felt only dread when he rang off, but the dread didn’t stop her. “What?” she asked. “
What?
”
    “It appears to be
E. coli
,” he said.
    Food contamination? she thought.
Food?
She said, “How the bloody hell did she die of food poisoning in this day and age? How does
anyone
die of food poisoning now?”
    “Evidently, it was an enormously virulent strain, and the doctors didn’t recognise what it was because she reported being ill earlier due to her pregnancy. That’s what they initially thought they were still dealing with: a more serious version of morning sickness. Once they believed they had that sorted, they did other tests and those were all negative.”
    “What sort of tests?”
    “Cancers, colitis, other diseases. Colon and bowel. There was nothing, so they assumed she’d picked up a bug