Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

with a pint of Guinness for himself, an ale for Barbara, a virtuous mineral water for Em, and a thoughtful four bags of crisps. These he tossed on the table that Barbara had chosen, in a far corner, conveniently distant from a hen party on the other side of the pub, eight women who appeared determined to build up a significant head of prematrimonial steam.
    Barbara had no preamble to offer the private detective and his assistant. She said only, “Hadiyyah’s been kidnapped.”
    Doughty opened the crisps, one packet at a time. He spilled them onto a napkin that he’d unfolded upon the table. He said, “This is news because . . . ?”
    “I don’t mean originally,” Barbara told him. “I don’t mean by her mum. I mean now. A few days ago. She was in Italy and she’s been kidnapped.” She sketched in the details: Lucca, the market, Hadiyyah’s disappearance, Angelina Upman, Lorenzo Mura, and their arrival in Chalk Farm. She left out the bits about Ilford and the brouhaha with Azhar’s legal family. Mostly, she didn’t want to think about them.
    “Angelina thinks Azhar took her. That’s why she came to London. She thinks he found her in Tuscany, took her, and has her stowed somewhere.”
    “And she thinks this why?”
    “Because no one saw anything. There was a crowd of people—it was in the middle of a market—and no one saw Hadiyyah get snatched. So Angelina thinks Hadiyyah wasn’t snatched. She thinks Azhar knew she’d be in the market. She thinks he waited there. She thinks Hadiyyah saw him and went with him. At least that’s what I suspect she thinks since mostly she was just screaming.”
    “The child?”
    “Angelina. ‘You’ve taken her, where is she, where have you put her, I want her back,’ et cetera, et cetera.”
    “And no one saw a thing?”
    “Apparently not.”
    “These same people in the market, then, also didn’t witness what would have been, I expect, quite a reunion between a nine-year-old and the father she hasn’t seen in five months? I mean, had Mr. Azhar taken her.”
    “You’re getting the point,” Barbara said. “I like that about you.”
    “How was he supposed to have managed all this?” Doughty asked.
    “No clue, but Angelina wasn’t thinking straight. She was in a panic—who wouldn’t be?—and all she wanted was Hadiyyah back. The Italian coppers haven’t made much progress in finding her.”
    Doughty nodded. Em Cass took a sip of her mineral water. Barbara downed some ale and a handful of crisps. Not salt-and-vinegar—her favourite—but they would do. She was suddenly ravenous.
    Doughty shifted his weight in his chair and looked to the windows that gave a view of the people at the tables outside on the pavement. He said, as he inspected them, “Let me ask you this, Miss Havers. How can you be sure the professor
didn’t
take his daughter? I’ve been in the midst of these sorts of disputes in the past, and be assured about one thing: When it comes to marital breakups and children—”
    “This isn’t a marriage.”
    “We can forego the niceties. They’ve been, for all intents and purposes, man and wife, no? So when it comes to relationship breakups in which children are involved, anything can happen and it usually does.”
    “How is he supposed to have snatched her? And what was he supposed to be thinking? That he could grab Hadiyyah, bring her back to London, and not find Angelina on his doorstep the very next day? And how was he supposed to have found her in the first place?”
    Em Cass spoke. “He could have hired an Italian detective, Miss Havers, much the same way he hired Dwayne. If he somehow found out on his own that Angelina had gone to Italy . . . or if he suspected it . . . Like Dwayne says, in this kind of situation, anything can happen.”
    “Right. Whatever. Okay. Let’s say somehow Azhar sussed out she was in Italy. Let’s say that he then unearthed an Italian private detective. Let’s even say that detective—God only knows how . . . perhaps going door-to-door all over the bleeding country—actually found Hadiyyah and reported this to him. That doesn’t change the fact that Azhar was in Germany when Hadiyyah was taken. He was at a conference and there’re going to be a few hundred people, not to mention a hotel and an airline, who can confirm that.”
    Doughty looked interested at last. “Now that’s a very nice detail. That’s something checkable and you can rely upon the coppers checking it. The Italians . . .