Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

wished so. No matter the evidence to the contrary, he had refused to believe that Peter was involved, and as things turned out, he wasn’t. So that could indeed be the case just now between Barbara Havers and Taymullah Azhar. Except they wouldn’t learn if Azhar was indeed innocent of all things should she suppress evidence, would they? Which was what it had come down to with Peter. Only by forcing Peter through the process of being a suspect had he been entirely cleared. It had nearly destroyed his own relationship with Peter to keep his hands off what was going on, but he had done so. And this was what Barbara needed to do.
    Lynley chose not to wait like a coward for Isabelle to call him to account. When he saw her coming towards him in the corridor, he inclined his head towards her office. Did she have a moment? Yes, she did.
    She closed the door. She put distance between them by means of her desk. He accepted this as a declaration of the difference in their positions. He drew a chair up, and he told her what he knew.
    He didn’t spare her any of the details he’d managed to uncover about Dwayne Doughty, Bryan Smythe, Taymullah Azhar, the kidnapping of Hadiyyah Upman, the death of Angelina Upman, and Barbara Havers. Isabelle listened. She didn’t make notes and she didn’t ask questions. It was only when he got to the plane tickets to Pakistan and Barbara’s knowledge of them that she gave any reaction at all. And then, her reaction was to go pale.
    She said only, “And you’re certain of the dates? The purchase date and the flight date, Tommy?” Before he could reply, she went on. “Never mind. Of course you’re certain. John Stewart wouldn’t have known about those tickets, of course. If Barbara discovered them in-house—through SO12—he’d have no reason to wonder what she was doing in talking to those blokes. She hadn’t left the building, after all. She might even just have phoned up SO12 and called in a favour from someone, mightn’t she?”
    “It’s possible,” he said. “And as she was working on a case, more or less, they wouldn’t question her needing to know something from them, especially since they’d already cleared Azhar of all terrorist concerns.”
    “What a bloody mess.” Isabelle sat there thoughtfully, looking not at him but not at anything else either. Her eyes seemed fixed on something in the distance. He reckoned what she was looking at was her own future. She said, “She’s met with the reporter again.”
    “Corsico?”
    “They met in Leicester Square. He’s in Italy now, so we can assume he’s on Barbara’s business.”
    “How do you know? Not the Leicester Square part, but the rest?”
    She nodded towards the closed door, towards what lay beyond it in the building. “John, of course. He’s not given up. He has her leaking information to the press, disobeying direct orders, conducting her own mini-investigation on matters occurring in another country. Where’s that place along the river, Tommy, the spot that pirates got hanged and the tide washed over them?”
    “Execution Dock?” he said. “There’s probably more legend to that than reality.”
    “No matter. That’s where John would like to see her. Figuratively or otherwise. He won’t stop till it happens.”
    Lynley could sense the despair that the superintendent was feeling. He felt it himself but in far less measure. She’d managed to hold DI Stewart at bay by telling him she was taking on board every detail that he provided her. But if she didn’t act upon those details soon, he would go above her head to the assistant commissioner. Sir David Hillier wouldn’t look with kindness upon the facts as presented by Stewart. When he turned from those facts to assign to someone responsibility for how they were handled, that person was going to be Isabelle herself. She had to act and soon.
    He said, “Where’s Barbara now?”
    “She’s asked to go to Italy. I denied the request. I told her to get back to work. I’ve still not received her final report on this Dwayne Doughty person, whatever that report is going to look like. Obviously, I can’t put her back on John’s team and Philip Hale doesn’t need her at the moment. Did you not see her when you came in?”
    He shook his head.
    “Has she not phoned you?”
    “She hasn’t,” he said.
    Isabelle was thoughtful for a moment before she asked, “Has she a passport, Tommy?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “God. What a cock-up.” She looked