Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

at him as she reached for the phone. She punched in a number and waited for an answer. When it came she said, “Judi, I need to arrange a word with Sir David. Is he in today?” Hillier’s secretary said something on her end of the line, and in a moment Isabelle looked at the diary on her desk. “I’ll be up then,” she told the other woman. She thanked her, rang off, and stared at the phone.
    Lynley said, “There’s more than one way to end this, Isabelle.”
    “Don’t, for God’s sake, tell me how to do my job,” she replied.
    CHALK FARM
    LONDON
    Who the higher-ups were that Bryan Smythe was referring to, Barbara didn’t know. But when she left his house in South Hackney and strode to her car at the end of the street, she learned. Where before she’d been too caught up in her plans, her next steps, and her machinations to be both aware and wary, now she had her eyes open for anything out of place, and she saw it easily enough.
    Clive Cratty, newly minted as a detective constable and eager to prove himself to his immediate supervisor, tried to dodge out of sight behind a white Ford Transit some ten houses along the terrace on the opposite side of the street. But Barbara clocked him and she instantly knew that John Stewart had placed someone on her tail.
    She was furious about this, but she had no time to deal with Stewart or his minions. He was going to do what he was going to do. She had to get herself to Italy.
    Her passport was at home, she needed to throw a few things into a duffel, and she needed a ticket. For this last, she could phone and beg the mercy of an airline, or she could grab her things, head to one of the airports, and hope for the best.
    Since it was still working hours, there was plenty of parking when she reached her home. Even the driveway of the big house was empty, so she made use of it and charged to the back of the old villa to her bungalow. She hustled inside, threw her shoulder bag on what went for the kitchen table, and began to tear her clean knickers from a line above the sink. She balled them up, then turned to go to the wardrobe. That was when she saw Lynley sitting in the armchair next to her daybed. She shrieked and dropped her knickers to the floor.
    “Bloody goddamn hell!” she cried. “How’d you get in?”
    He held up the extra key to her front door. “You need to be more creative with your emergency key,” he said. “That is, if you don’t want to come home sometime and find someone less friendly than I sitting here waiting for you.”
    She gathered her thoughts and her wits along with her knickers, which she scooped from the floor. She said, “I reckoned that under the doormat was too obvious to be obvious. Who would really expect to find a key there?”
    “I don’t think your everyday housebreaker goes in for reverse psychology, Barbara.”
    “You obviously didn’t.” She kept her voice light as she crossed the room.
    “Isabelle knows everything,” he said. “Smythe, Doughty, what you were up to, what they were up to, intimate talks between you and Mitchell Corsico. Everything, Barbara. She rang Hillier before I left her office. She made an appointment to see him. She knows about the tickets to Pakistan as well, so she’s ending this. There was nothing I could do to stop her. I’m sorry.”
    Barbara opened the wardrobe. Stuffed high on a shelf was her duffel, and she pulled this out. She grabbed up clothing without much thought as to the Italian climate, the appropriateness of her choices, or anything else save the haste she needed to employ to get out of England and into Italy as soon as she could. She could feel Lynley watching her, and she waited for him to tell her she was giving in to a foolhardy madness.
    But all he said was, “Don’t do this. Listen to me. Everything you’ve attempted in this business of Hadiyyah’s kidnapping and Angelina’s death has fallen apart. Smythe has admitted it all to me.”
    “There was nothing for that bloke to admit.” But she didn’t feel as confident as she tried to sound.
    “Barbara.” Lynley rose from the chair. He was quite a tall man, over six feet by several inches, and he seemed in that moment to fill the room.
    She tried to ignore him but that was impossible. Still, she continued her chaotic packing. She went to the bathroom and grabbed up everything she thought she might need, from shampoo to deodorant and all points in between. She had no sponge bag for these goodies, so she wrapped