Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

said. “I’ve got my police ID, so I can get her a ticket back to London, but you need to meet her at the other end.”
    “And what?” he asked.
    “And then you’ve got to hide her.”
    “Tell me I’m not hearing you correctly as I think you might have just said I must hide her.”
    “Sir, it would only be for as long as it takes me to get Azhar out of gaol. I need to rattle a few doorknobs over here. I need to shake a few skeletons. You and I know that if the Upmans get their hands on Hadiyyah, they’re going to make it impossible for Azhar to get her back.”
    “You and I,” Lynley said, “know nothing of the sort.”
    “Please, sir,” she said. “I’ll beg if I have to. I need your help. She c’n stay with you, can’t she? Charlie can mind her. He’ll love her to bits. And she’ll love him.”
    “And when he has an audition, is he to take her with him or perhaps give her an assignment in the house? Something along the lines of polishing the silver, perhaps?”
    “He can take her with him. She’d enjoy it. Or he c’n pop her over to Simon and Deborah. Deborah’s dad can mind her or Deborah herself can. She’s mad about kids. You know she is. Please, sir.”
    He was silent. She prayed. But when he responded, it was not to say anything that lifted her spirits.
    “I’ve been to his lab, Barbara.”
    Her stomach was liquid. “Whose lab?”
    “There’s another connection, one that existed between Azhar and Italy far in advance of Hadiyyah’s kidnapping and Angelina’s death. You’re going to need to come to terms with this, and you’re going to need to prepare Hadiyyah to do the same.”
    “What?” She forced the word out. In the other room, she could hear the voice-over on the film of Angelina and Azhar, and she could hear Hadiyyah’s chatter in Italian either to Signora Vallera or to her daughter.
    Lynley said, “He has incubators, Barbara. Two sets of them, in fact. One set comes from here, from Birmingham. The other set comes from Italy.”
    “And?” she demanded, although her incredulity was forced. “He may have a bloody pair of Italian shoes as well, Inspector, but it’s rubbish to think that has anything to do with Angelina dying over here. Italian incubators have nothing to do with anything anyway, and you know it. Christ, what if he has Italian olive oil in his kitchen cupboard? How ’bout a bag of imported pasta? What about cheese? He might like Parmesan.”
    “Are you quite finished? May I continue?” When she said nothing more, he did so. “Italian incubators in and of themselves mean nothing. But if you have incubators you also have the conditions under which the incubators are tested by the company that makes them, to make certain they do the job for which they were designed. Can we agree on that?”
    She was silent for a moment, thinking about this. There was a heaviness within her that she couldn’t ignore. “S’pose,” she finally said.
    “Right. And what better way to test those incubators, Barbara, than with the different kinds of bacteria they’re meant to grow?”
    She rallied. “Oh, please. That’s completely ridiculous. So what did he do? Drop by the company over here and say, ‘Afternoon, you lot. How ’bout handing over some truly virulent
E. coli
for a little romp on top of someone’s pizza? Just to see, mind you, if the incubators really work?’”
    “I think you know what I’m saying, Barbara.”
    “I bloody well don’t.”
    “I’m saying there’s another link. And you can’t afford to ignore a link.”
    “And what, exactly, do you intend to do with this information?”
    “It has to go to Chief Inspector Lo Bianco. What he then decides to do with it—”
    “Oh, for God’s bloody sake. What’s the matter with you? You’ve lost the plot. And when did you become such a sodding prig? Who turned you, eh? Has to be
Isabelle
.”
    He was silent. She reckoned he was counting to ten. She knew she’d crossed over a line with the mention of Superintendent Ardery, but she was beyond social niceties at this point. He finally said, “Let’s not venture in that direction.”
    She said, “No, no. Let’s stick to what we know for sure. What
I
know is that you’re not about to help me. Chuck Hadiyyah out with the bathwater and let her swim in it as best she can. That’s your game, isn’t it? You’ll do your duty. Or whatever you do, you’ll
call
it your duty. You’ll sigh and say, ‘It is what it is,’ or some rubbish like