Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

don’t you?”
    She felt her face going numb. “No. I . . . I don’t, actually.” All the time, however, her brain was pounding inside her skull, a chant of Oh my God, Oh my God.
    Lynley said, “If no source can be found at the
fattoria
itself or in the food supply that Angelina had access to both there and in Lucca and anywhere else she might have gone and if she remains the sole person infected, then where this all leads is to someone putting his hands on a virulent strain of the bacteria and putting it into Angelina’s system. Through her food is the most obvious means.”
    “But why would someone . . . ?”
    “Because someone wanted her dangerously ill. Someone wanted her dead. You and I both know that’s where all this is leading, Barbara. That’s why Azhar has been asked to turn in his passport.”
    “You can’t possibly think that Azhar . . . How the bloody hell was he supposed to do it?”
    “I think we also both know the answer to that.”
    She pushed away from the table although she wasn’t sure where she was intending to go. She said, “He has to be told. He’s under suspicion. He has to be told.”
    “I expect he knows already.”
    “Then I’ve got to . . . We’ve got to . . .” She brought her knuckles to her mouth. She considered everything: from the moment Angelina Upman had taken her daughter from London the previous November to where they were now with Angelina dead. She refused to believe what was lying in front of her like a dead dog on the path she was hiking. She said, “No.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “I have to—”
    “Listen to me, Barbara. What you have to do now is to take yourself out of this at once. If you don’t do that, I can’t help you. Frankly, I don’t think I can help you as it is although I’m trying.”
    “What’s that s’posed to mean?”
    Lynley leaned forward. “You can’t think Isabelle is unaware of what’s been going on, of what you’ve been up to, of whom you’ve seen, of where you’ve been. She knows it all, Barbara. And if you don’t begin walking the straight and narrow this very moment—here, now, and right in this room—the jeopardy you’ll be facing could cost you everything. Am I being clear? Do you understand?”
    “Azhar didn’t kill her. He had no reason because they’d made peace and they were going to share Hadiyyah and . . .” It was Lynley’s face that cut off her words. Even beyond what she herself knew about Azhar and about what he’d done to bring about his daughter’s kidnapping and to position himself to be there in Italy when she was “found,” it was the compassionate sympathy in Lynley’s face that did her in. All she could say was “Really. He couldn’t.”
    “If that’s the case,” Lynley replied, “Salvatore Lo Bianco will sort it all out.”
    “And in the meantime . . . What the bloody hell do you suggest I do?”
    “I’ve made the suggestion: get back to work.”
    “That’s what you would do?”
    “Yes,” he said steadily. “In your position, that’s what I would do.”
    She knew he was lying when he said it, though. For the one thing Thomas Lynley would never do was desert a friend.
    LUCCA
    TUSCANY
    Salvatore Lo Bianco received the request for a meeting not from
il Pubblico Ministero
himself but from Piero Fanucci’s secretary. She rang his mobile and brusquely instructed him to go to the Orto Botanico
,
where he would find the
magistrato
waiting for him. “He wishes to have a private word with you,
Ispettore
,” was how she put it. “Now?” was how Salvatore responded. “
Sì
,
adesso
,” she replied. Signor Fanucci had arrived at work that morning in something of a state, and a few phone calls both made and received by him had heightened that state. It was her suggestion that Ispettore Lo Bianco leave at once for the botanical gardens.
    Salvatore swore but he cooperated. The fact that phone calls had been made by Fanucci and received by him suggested he was on the trail of something. The fact that he had followed these phone calls with a demand for Salvatore’s presence suggested he was on the trail of what Salvatore himself was up to.
    The botanical gardens were inside the wall of the old city, on its southeast edge. In the month of May, they were flourishing, and where flowers had been planted, they were gloriously abloom. Very few people were within the garden’s walls, however. At this hour, the Lucchese were themselves at work, while tourists generally stuck to