Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

man and abandoned by him.”
    Barbara said to Azhar in a low voice, “Who’s the kid ringing?”
    “My father,” Azhar told her.
    What she thought at this was, Hot bloody hell. What she knew was that things were about to get worse. She said to Angelina, “We’re wasting time. You can see Hadiyyah isn’t here. You can tell, for God’s sake. Can’t you see these people wouldn’t do him a favour any more than your family would do you one?”
    “You’re in love with him,” Angelina snapped. “You’ve been from the first. I no more trust you than I’d trust a snake.” Then she said to Lorenzo, “You check above and I’ll—”
    Sayyid was back in the room in a flash. He threw himself at Lorenzo, shouting, “Get out of our house! Get out! Get out!”
    Lorenzo batted him away like a fly. Azhar took a step forward. Barbara grabbed his arm. Things were going in a very bad direction, and the last thing they needed was one of these people making a call to the local cops.
    “You listen to me,” she said, her tone sharp. “You have a choice here, Angelina. Either you believe what Nafeeza’s telling you, or you conduct a search and explain yourself to the cops when they get here. Because if I was Nafeeza, I’d be on the blower the minute Mr. Universe here put his big toe on the stairs. You’re wasting time. We’re wasting time. So for God’s sake think
.
Azhar was in Germany. He’s shown you that. He wasn’t in Italy and he had no idea that
you
were. So you can continue to raise holy hell, or we can all get on a plane and get back to Italy and lean on the cops there to find Hadiyyah. I suggest you decide.
Now
.”
    “I won’t believe till—”
    “For God’s bloody sake! What’s wrong with you?”
    “You may search.” Nafeeza spoke quietly. She indicated Barbara. “Only you,” she said.
    “Is that good enough for you?” Barbara asked Angelina.
    “How do I know that you aren’t part of this? That you and he together haven’t—”
    “Because I’m a bloody cop, because I love your daughter, because if you can’t see that the last thing either of us would do—me
or
Azhar—is what you’ve done to him by hiding her away somewhere and denying her access to one of her own parents, because if that’s what you really think has happened . . . He’s not
like
you, all right? I’m not like you. And you goddamn know that. So if you don’t stay in this room while I look through the house to prove Hadiyyah isn’t here, I’m going to ring the cops myself and have them out here on a domestic disturbance. Am I being clear enough for you?”
    Lorenzo murmured to Angelina in Italian. He put his hand gently on the back of her neck. “All right,” she said.
    Barbara made for the stairs. It was not a major project to search the house because there was so little of it. Three floors comprised its interior, with bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, little else. Barbara startled Azhar’s other daughter in the midst of her school prep, but she was the only living creature above stairs.
    She returned to the others. She said, “Nothing. All right? Let’s leave. Now.”
    Angelina’s eyes grew bright with tears, and it came to Barbara how deeply she’d been hoping that—despite the ludicrous nature of what she’d decided had happened to her child—Hadiyyah would indeed be in the house. For a moment, Barbara felt sympathy for her. But she stamped on the feeling. Azhar was who mattered. And he was minutes away from a confrontation with his father. She knew they had to get him out of the neighbourhood before that occurred.
    They had no luck. They were leaving the house when two men in traditional dress came storming down the street from the direction of Green Lane. One of them carried a shovel and the other a hoe. It wasn’t a case for Sherlock to read their intentions.
    “Get in the car,” she said to Azhar. “Do it.
Now
.”
    He didn’t budge. The men were shouting in Urdu as they tore towards them. The taller had to be Azhar’s father, Barbara figured, because his face was transfixed by rage. The other—his companion—was much the same age, perhaps a partner in administering retribution.
    “
La macchina, la macchina
.” This from Lorenzo to Angelina. He opened the car door and bundled her inside. Barbara half expected him to follow her and lock the doors, but he didn’t do so. He seemed to be a bloke who liked to mix things up. He might have had no love for Azhar. But when it came to a street