Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

judgement. As to my niece, I don’t know the child. And none of us intend to get to know her.”
    BOW
    LONDON
    Dwayne Doughty was the
next
final stone because, Barbara had to admit, she couldn’t take no and if there was the slightest chance that she didn’t have to take no, she was going to go for that chance like Ophelia being tossed a rope from a bridge on the off chance she was having second thoughts as she floated by. So at day’s end, she drove to Bow.
    The area hadn’t improved since she’d last seen it, although there were more people along the pavements. In the Roman Road, the Roman Café and Kebab was doing a bang-up business, and the halal grocer appeared to be bagging goods as fast as housewives in c h a dors managed to fling them in the vicinity of the till. The money store was closing for the day, but the door that led to Dwayne Doughty’s office was still unlocked, so Barbara helped herself. She entered and at the top of the stairs, she met Doughty in conversation with an androgynous being who turned out to be Em Cass, the woman Azhar had said Doughty employed. Em Cass and Doughty exchanged what looked to Barbara like a wary glance when they clocked Barbara’s presence. They acted a wee bit like guilty lovers, which Barbara supposed they might well have been. Until Doughty made it clear that his companion was a woman by calling her Emily, Barbara reckoned he was the sort of man who liked a bit of boy flesh on the side. Turned out she was wrong on all fronts. They’d been discussing a triathlon along with the intentions of some bloke called Bryan to accompany Em with stopwatch, mineral water, and power bars. Doughty was finding this amusing. Em Cass was not.
    They were leaving for the day, Doughty told Barbara. He did wish she’d rung first for an appointment. As it was, he needed to be off and so did Em.
    Barbara said, “Yeah. Sorry. Should have but I was in the area and thought I’d take a chance. Just five minutes of your time?”
    They both looked supremely doubtful about all of it: from being in the area to five minutes of their time. One wasn’t generally in the area of the Roman Road, and nothing they did took only five minutes unless it was to endorse a client’s cheque, which could be accomplished in far less time.
    “Five minutes?” Barbara repeated. “I swear.” She brought out her chequebook. A dead moth fell out of it. Not a good sign, but Doughty overlooked this. “I’ll pay, of course.”
    “This is about . . . ?”
    “Same as before.”
    They exchanged another look. Barbara wondered again. Private eyes were notorious for all sorts of skulduggery. They were also known for providing the fruits of their labour to various tabloids round the capital. If Doughty or his assistant had been into this game, Barbara wondered was there something they didn’t want her to know.
    Doughty sighed and said, “Five minutes.” He opened the office and ushered her inside.
    Barbara said, “What about . . . ?” in reference to his employee.
    “Triathlon training is triathlon training,” he told her. “You’ll have to make do with me.”
    “What’s she do for you exactly?” Barbara followed him into his office as Emily Cass powered down the stairs.
    “Emily? This and that with the computer. Research. Phone calls. Tying loose ends. The occasional interview.”
    “What about blagging?”
    He looked cagey enough at this to suggest that Emily Cass had talents extending beyond those related to swimming, biking, and running marathons.
    Barbara said, “Look. I’ve talked to Azhar. I know what you told him. No trace left. Completely disappeared. But no one disappears without leaving some sort of trail, and I don’t see how Angelina Upman managed to do it.”
    “Nor do I,” he said frankly. “But such is the case. It happens.”
    “Her alone maybe. All right. On a stretch. She takes off with no one noticing or, for that matter, no one much caring. But that’s not the situation here. Someone cares. And she’s not alone. She’s got a nine-year-old with her—and this is a kid who’s bloody close to her dad, by the way—so even if Angelina doesn’t want to be found, at some point Hadiyyah’s going to start talking about Dad and where he is and why they’re not sending him a bloody postcard.”
    Doughty nodded but then he said, “Children are told all sorts of things about their parents in this kind of situation. I expect you know that.”
    “Such as?”
    “Such as