Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

unlikely that . . . Look. I need to get in to talk to this copper. Lo Bianco. That’s who it is, right? You c’n arrange for me to see him, can’t you? I work with DI Lynley in London, and Lo Bianco will know his name. He doesn’t need to know I’m a family friend. Just tell him I work with Lynley.”
    “I can make a phone call,” Greco told her. “But he speaks virtually no English.”
    “No problem,” Barbara said. “You c’n go with me, can’t you?”
    “
Sì, sì
,” he said. “I could do this. But you must consider that Ispettore Lo Bianco is not likely to speak to you frankly if I am present. And I assume you wish him to speak frankly, no?”
    “Right. Of course. But, bloody hell, doesn’t he
have
to tell you—”
    “Things are different here, signora—” He stopped and corrected himself with “
Scusi
. Sergeant. Things are different here when an investigation is ongoing.”
    “But when there’s an arrest . . .”
    “It is much the same.”
    “Bloody hell, Mr. Greco, this is
circumstantial
evidence. Azhar went to a conference, and someone died a month later of a microorganism that he himself doesn’t even study.”
    “Someone who had taken his child from him died. Someone who had hidden that child’s whereabouts for many months. This, as you know, does not look good.”
    And it would look worse, Barbara reckoned, if Azhar’s part in Hadiyyah’s kidnapping became known. She said, “You can’t convict someone on circumstantial evidence.”
    Greco looked astonished. “On the contrary, Sergeant. Here, people are convicted for much less every day.”
    LUCCA
    TUSCANY
    It was without surprise that Salvatore Lo Bianco received the news that another representative from New Scotland Yard had appeared in Lucca. He had expected someone from London to show up once he’d arrested Taymullah Azhar. The word would have gone out to the British embassy via Aldo Greco, and the information would have filtered inevitably from the British embassy to the Metropolitan police. This was doubly the case because, once the arrest had been made, an English child was left without an English carer. Someone had to deal with that as she was no relation of Lorenzo Mura’s and Mura was merely sheltering her until other arrangements could be made. So to have a police presence from England on hand did not surprise him. He merely hadn’t expected that person to appear at the
questura
so quickly.
    It wasn’t DI Lynley, which was unfortunate. Not only had Salvatore liked the Englishman, it had also been convenient that Lynley spoke quite decent Italian. Indeed, he found it decidedly odd that the Metropolitan police would send someone to Lucca who didn’t speak Italian. But when Aldo Greco rang him and gave him her name and her details—including her lack of Italian—he agreed to see her. Greco assured him that the officer would bring a translator with her. Her companion—an English cowboy, Greco said—apparently had several contacts in the town, and one of them would see to it that Sergeant Havers was accompanied by a native speaker.
    Salvatore hadn’t thought much about what an English woman detective might look like, so he wasn’t prepared for the woman who came into his office some two hours after the phone call from Greco. When he saw her, he reflected on the fact that, perhaps, he’d been too influenced over the years by British television dramas dubbed into Italian. He’d anticipated, perhaps, someone along the lines of one distinguished and titled actress or another, a little hard round the edges but otherwise leggy, fashionably put together, and attractive. What walked into his office, however, was the antithesis of all this, save for the hard-round-the-edges part. She was short, stout, and garbed in desperately wrinkled beige linen trousers, red trainers, and a partially untucked navy-blue tank top that hung from her plump shoulders. Her hair looked as if she’d put herself into the hands of her gardener who’d done double duty while trimming the hedges outside of her house. Her skin was beautiful—the British were served well by their damp climate, he thought—but it was shiny with perspiration.
    Accompanied by a bookish-looking woman with very large spectacles and very gelled hair, the English detective strode across the office to his desk with so much confidence and so much un-Italian disregard for her personal appearance that, grudgingly, he had to admire her. She held out a hand, which