Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

town as liaison officer in the matter of Hadiyyah’s kidnapping, but this achieved a solemn nod and nothing else. She finally remembered that tucked inside her purse was a school photo of Hadiyyah that the little girl had given to her at the start of Michaelmas term back in London. On the back of it she’d written Barbara’s name,
Friends 4ever
, her own name, and a line of
x
’s and
o
’s. Barbara said, “When I heard that Azhar was in and out of the
questura
, I knew I had to come because Hadiyyah has no relatives in Italy. And her mum’s family in England . . . Well, Angelina was estranged from them. What I was thinking is that if anything more happened . . . I mean, she’s been through hell, hasn’t she?”
    Greco examined the photo Barbara had handed him. He didn’t look convinced till she hit upon her mobile phone. Upon it, she found an old message from Azhar, thankfully undeleted. She handed the mobile over to the solicitor, who listened and finally seemed convinced enough of her friendship with the man to give her the barest of details.
    She would understand, would she not?, that his client had not authorised him to speak to her and therefore certain limits had to apply to what he said. Yes, yes, Barbara told him, and she prayed that Corsico had the good sense not to pull a reporter’s notebook from the pocket of his trousers and start scribbling in it.
    First, Greco told her, Hadiyyah had been returned to Fattoria di Santa Zita, the home of Lorenzo Mura, where she had been living with her mother prior to her mother’s death. This was not a permanent arrangement, naturally. Her relatives in London had been notified by Mura of the child’s father’s arrest. Were they on their way to fetch her? Barbara asked. If that was the case, she told herself, time was of the essence, for if the Upmans got their hands on Hadiyyah, they would make sure, purely out of spite, that Azhar never saw her again.
    “This I do not know,” Greco said. “The police made the arrangements to deliver her to Signor Mura. I did not.”
    “Azhar wouldn’t have given the coppers the name of any Upman to fetch Hadiyyah,” Barbara told the solicitor. “He would have given them my name.”
    Greco looked thoughtful as he nodded. “This could be the case,
certo
,” he said. “But the police would want a blood relative of the little girl to come for her, as there is no evidence that the professor is actually her father. You see the difficulty in fulfilling whatever desires he might have in the matter, no?”
    What Barbara saw was that she needed to know where Fattoria di Santa Zita was. She glanced at Mitchell. He had his reporter’s face on: perfectly blank. She knew this meant he was committing everything to memory. There might be a benefit to having him on her team.
    She said, “What’s the evidence against him? There has to be evidence. I mean, if someone’s come up with the charge of murder, they have to list the evidence, don’t they?”
    “In due course,” Greco said. He steepled his fingers in front of his chest and used them a bit as a pointer as he explained to her how the justice system worked in Italy. Thus far, Taymullah Azhar was
indagato
, his name entered into the judicial records as a suspect. He’d been served with the paperwork that indicated this—“We call this
avviso di garanzia
,” Greco said—and the details of the charges had yet to be revealed. They would be in time,
certo
, but for the moment an order of
segreto investigativo
prevented their revelation. At this point, only carefully placed leaks in the newspapers were providing information.
    Barbara listened to this and at the end of it said, “But you must know something, Mr. Greco.”
    “As of now, I know only that there is concern about a conference that the professor attended in April. There is also concern about his profession. At this conference were microbiologists from around the world—”
    “I know about the conference.”
    “Then you will see how it looks that Professore Azhar attended. And then, shortly thereafter his child’s mother died from an organism that could have been obtained—”
    “No one can think Azhar traipsed round Europe with a petri dish of
E. coli
hidden in his armpit.”
    “Please?” Greco looked confused.
    “The armpit bit,” Mitchell Corsico murmured.
    Barbara said, “Sorry. What I mean is that the entire scenario—how this was supposed to play out?—it’s stupid. Not to mention so