Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

least
caffè—
but which only three cubes of sugar and a dousing with milk made remotely drinkable. Mitch had insisted that Barbara at least try the stuff. “If you’re going to be in Italy, for God’s sake, you c’n at least get behind the culture, Barb” was the way he had put it. She’d groused but cooperated. Once she’d had a shot of the mixture, she reckoned she’d be awake for the next eight days.
    When her mobile rang, giving her the news that Lo Bianco had arranged things so that she could see Azhar, she gave Mitchell Corsico the thumbs-up. He said, “Yes!” but he was less than pleased when she told him that she alone had been given access to the prisoner. Mitchell called foul, and she couldn’t blame him. He needed a story for
The Source
, he needed it fast, and Azhar was the story.
    She said to him, “Mitchell, Azhar’s yours the moment we spring him. The exclusive interview, the picture, Hadiyyah sitting on his lap and looking winsome, the whole plate of ravioli. It’s yours, but it can’t happen till we get him out of there.”
    “Look, you got me over here with a tale of—”
    “Everything I’ve told you has been true, yes? You don’t see anyone coming after your neck for spreading lies, do you? So have some patience. We get him out of prison, and he’s going to be grateful. Grateful, he’s going to give you an interview.”
    Corsico didn’t like the set-up, but he could hardly complain. Barbara’s position as a police officer had got her inside to see Lo Bianco in the first place. He knew this and had to live with it. Just as she had to live with whatever he came up with as story material at the end of the day.
    Azhar was being held at a prison, the customary lodging place for someone who’d been charged with murder. It was miles from Lucca, which necessitated another terrifying race on the
autostrada
, but they made good time and Lo Bianco had phoned ahead with instructions. It was not visiting hours. It was not a visiting day. But the police had access when they wanted access. In very short order once they arrived at the place, Barbara was ushered into a private interview room which, she suspected, was not generally used when family members came calling upon the incarcerated. She’d left behind her bag and everything in it in Reception. She was searched and wanded. She was thoroughly questioned and summarily photographed.
    Now in the centre of the room, she sat at its only table. This was fastened to the floor, as were its accompanying chairs. There was a large and grisly-looking crucifix fitted onto the wall, and Barbara wondered if this constituted a means of eavesdropping on what went on in the room. Microphones and cameras were so tiny now that one of the nails in Jesus’s feet and one of the thorns in his crown could easily contain them.
    She rolled her thumbs along the pads of her fingers and wished for a cigarette. A sign on the wall opposite the dying Jesus seemed to forbid smoking, however. She couldn’t read the Italian but the large circle containing a cigarette with a red slash through it was universal.
    After a minute or two, she got to her feet and began to pace. She gnawed on her thumbnail and wondered what was taking so long. When the door finally opened after a quarter of an hour, she half expected someone to come in and tell her the gaff was blown and her presence in Italy had not been confirmed—let alone sanctioned—by the London police. But when she swung round to face the door, it was Azhar who entered ahead of a guard.
    In an instant Barbara realised two facts about her neighbour from London. First, she had never seen him unshaven, which he now was. Second, she had never seen him when he was not garbed in a crisp white dress shirt. Sleeves neatly rolled up in summer, sleeves rolled down and cuffs buttoned in winter, sometimes with a necktie, sometimes with a jacket, sometimes with a pullover, accompanying jeans or trousers . . . It was always the dress shirt, as definite to him as the way he signed his name.
    Now, though, he wore prison garb. It was a boiler suit. It was a hideous shade of green. In combination with his unshaven face, with the dark patches of skin beneath his eyes, with his hollow expression of defeat, the sight of him made Barbara’s eyes prickle.
    He was, she could tell, horrified to see her. He stopped just inside the door, so quickly that the guard accompanying him stumbled and then barked, “
Avanti, avanti
,” which