Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

via one of the contacts he’d made with the Italian journalists. He was going to want the payoff for this, and he was going to need to pass along a juicy and otherwise significant detail to the Italian who’d helped him in the first place. Quid pro quo and all that. So Barbara had to tell him something, and she had to make sure it was something good.
    When she understood from the translator that Salvatore’s intention was an unannounced call upon DARBA Italia, she fully intended to accompany him there. But she couldn’t have Mitch Corsico tagging along with them. She and Salvatore needed time to pin down their information. What they didn’t need was any of it leaking to the press.
    She’d left him in the café down the street from the
questura
, across the road from the railway station, and the last thing she’d needed was Salvatore Lo Bianco putting his hooded gaze upon the UK’s version of the Lone Ranger sans mask. Because of the distance and the crowds of people milling about, she knew she’d be able to make her escape from the
questura
without Mitchell becoming wise to her whereabouts. But if he discovered she’d done this, there would be hell to pay.
    She had to use half-truths. While Salvatore went for a vehicle in the car park next to the
questura
, she rang Corsico.
    “We’ve got a potential source for the
E. coli
,” she told him. “I’m heading there now.”
    “Hang the hell on. You and I had an agreement. I’m not letting you—”
    “You’ll get the story, Mitch, and you’ll get it first. But ’f you show up now and want to play tagalong, Salvatore’s going to want to know who you are. And believe me, that’ll be tough to explain. He trusts me, and we need to keep things that way. He finds I’m leaking to the press, we’re done for.”
    “It’s
Salvatore
now? What the hell’s going on?”
    “Oh for God’s bloody sake. He’s a colleague. We’re heading for a place called DARBA Italia, and that’s all I know just now. It’s here in Lucca, and ’f you ask me, it’s the source of the
E. coli
and that’s where Lorenzo Mura got it.”
    “If it’s here in Lucca, it could also be where the professor got it,” Corsico pointed out. “He was here in April looking for the kid. All he had to do was waltz over to this place and make the buy.”
    “Oh, too right. Are you trying to tell me that Azhar—a man who speaks no Italian, by the way—swanned over to DARBA Italia with euros in hand and said, ‘How much for a test tube of the worst bacteria you lot have going? I’ll need something I don’t grow in my own lab, so all forms of
Strep
are off the table.’ And then what, Mitch? One of their salesmen tap-danced into the place where they keep this stuff—Quality Control, maybe?—and nicked a little bacteria without anyone noticing? Don’t be a fool. This stuff is going to be controlled. It can take out an entire population, for the love of God.”
    “So why the hell are you going there? Because what you just said—save not speaking Italian—applies to Lorenzo Mura as well. And while we’re talking about this whole bloody mess, how the hell do you know they have
E. coli
in the first place?”
    “I
don’t
know. That’s why we’re paying them a visit.”
    “And?”
    “And what?”
    “I’m sitting here waiting for a story, Barb.”
    “You’ve got your piece on Hadiyyah. Go with that.”
    “Rod’s not chuffed. He says page five. He says Professor Falsely Imprisoned is the only path to page one. Thing is, of course, from what you just told me it sounds like the
falsely
part of the headline might not be needed.”
    “I’ve told you how—”
    “I got you the television film. What’s the payoff for me?”
    Salvatore Lo Bianco pulled to the kerb and leaned over to push open the passenger door. Barbara said, “It’s coming. I swear I’ll keep you in the loop. I’ve given you DARBA Italia. Ask your Italian journalist mates to take things from there.”
    “And give them the story ahead of me? Come on, Barb—”
    “It’s the best I can do.” She ended the call and got into the car. She nodded to Salvatore and said, “Let’s go.”
    “
Andiamo
,” he told her with a smile.
    “Back at you, mate,” she replied.
    VICTORIA
    LONDON
    Isabelle Ardery’s meeting with the assistant commissioner had lasted two hours. Lynley had this information from the most reliable source: David Hillier’s secretary. It didn’t come to him directly, though. The conduit