Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

but that couldn’t be helped. Finding nothing that gave her a clue about Italy and Azhar, she went to see Detective Superintendent Ardery. There was only one way to move forward, she reckoned, and she was going to need Ardery’s blessing to do it.
    She rang Azhar’s mobile a final time. She even rang the
pensione
where he was staying, only to discover that the woman who picked up the call spoke not a single word of English. She was great with her Italian, though. Once she heard Barbara’s voice and
Taymullah Azhar
, she was off like a jackrabbit, flooding the airwaves with a recitation that could have been anything from a recipe for minestrone to a declamation on the state of the world. Who bloody knew? Barbara finally rang off on her and then there was nothing for it but to go in search of Superintendent Ardery.
    She thought of taking DI Lynley with her, in the hope that he might be able to soften up the superintendent with a display of careful reasoning. However, not only was Lynley not yet in for the day—why the bloody hell
not
? she wondered—but she also had to admit to herself that she couldn’t rely upon him to be in her corner. Too much water had passed under that bridge in the past few weeks.
    When Dorothea Harriman turned from her keyboard at the sound of her name, Barbara clocked her expression immediately. Dee’s gaze took in the tee-shirt Barbara had quickly donned after sicking up her breakfast, and Barbara could tell that, while Dee might have been mildly amused by its declaration of
Heavily Medicated for Your Safety
, chances were very good that Isabelle Ardery was not going to be. Barbara cursed silently. She’d grabbed the tee-shirt without considering anything other than getting herself to the Met as quickly as she could without splashes of vomit on her chest. She should have read the slogan, she should have selected more wisely, she should have dressed in a suit. Or a skirt. Or something. She had not, and so she was starting out on her saunter into Ardery’s territory on one hell of a wrong foot.
    Briefly, she considered asking Dee to exchange tops with her. Ludicrous prospect, she decided. Even picturing the young woman decked out in a slogan-bearing tee-shirt was itself an impossibility. So she merely asked if the guv was available. Before Dee could answer, Barbara heard Isabelle Ardery’s voice.
    “Of course I’m in agreement that they oughtn’t come to town by train, alone,” she was saying, “but I didn’t mean alone, Bob. Is there any reason that Sandra can’t accompany them? I’ll be at the station. She can hand them over to me and take the return train to Kent. I’ll do the same at the end of the visit.”
    Barbara looked at Dee. Dee mouthed
ex-husband
. The guv was negotiating time with her twin sons, in the custody of the ex for reasons of breathing the fine air of Kent. Or so Ardery claimed when anyone enquired why her children didn’t live in London with their mum. Which very few people had the nerve to do. Well, this didn’t look like a good time to approach the superintendent, but that couldn’t be helped. Barbara lurked outside her superior’s office till she heard Ardery say, “All right. The following weekend, then. I think by now that I’ve proved myself, don’t you? . . . Bob, please don’t be unreasonable . . . Will you at least talk to Sandra about this? Or I can do so . . . Yes . . . Very well.”
    That was it, the conversation’s conclusion making it difficult to know which way the wind of Ardery’s mood was going to be blowing. But Barbara had no choice, so she went ahead when Dee Harriman gave her the nod. She got a look at Ardery’s face as she entered, though, and she reckoned at once that things weren’t going to go swimmingly for her.
    Ardery sat with her fist clenched to her teeth, giving a living illustration of the term
white-knuckled
. She was definitely white-knuckling something, and Barbara reckoned it was probably rage as the superintendent was taking deep breaths and her eyes were closed. Good moment to decamp, Barbara thought, but Hadiyyah’s well-being hung in the balance. So she cleared her throat and said, “Guv? Dee told me you could see me for a minute.”
    Ardery’s eyes opened. She lowered her fist, and Barbara saw that her nails had deeply indented her palms. She reckoned the other woman’s blood was pounding. She wished she’d waited for Lynley’s tempering influence.
    Ardery said, “What is it, Sergeant?” and