Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

clarified.
    Doughty nodded.
    “Absolutely,” she said.
    BOW
    LONDON
    They walked out of the pub together, but on the pavement they went their separate ways. Dwayne Doughty and Em Cass watched the ill-dressed detective heading towards the Roman Road. When she was out of sight, he and Em ducked back into the pub. This was completely at Emily’s urging.
    “This is a bad idea,” she said. “We don’t work for cops, Dwayne. That’s a road to a place we don’t want to go.”
    He didn’t entirely disagree with her. But she wasn’t seeing the complete equation. “Checking an alibi in Berlin . . . Child’s play, Emily. And one wants the child to be found, wouldn’t you agree?”
    “That can’t be in our hands. There’re all sorts of limitations on what we can do, and with Scotland Yard breathing down our neck—”
    “She admitted her position there. She could have lied. That indicates something.”
    “It indicates bollocks. She knew we’d check on her the moment she gave her name when she first came to see us with the professor. She’s not stupid, Dwayne.”
    “But she
is
desperate.”
    “So she’s in love with him. So she’s in love with the girl.”
    “And love, as we know, is quite wonderfully blind.”
    “No.
You
are. You haven’t asked for my vote on the matter, but you’re going to get it. I say no. I say we tell her ta-ta and we wish you the best but there’s nothing we can do to help you. Because that’s the truth. There’s nothing, Dwayne.”
    He considered her. Emily rarely spoke with passion. She was far too cool a customer for that. She didn’t command the kingly salary he paid her because she was a woman who ever got caught up in the emotion of the moment. But she was passionate about this, which told him the extent to which she was also worried about it.
    “Really, there’s nothing to be concerned about,” he told her. “And this allows us to keep our eyes on the ball. Our job remains what it’s always been: information providers. Whether we provide the information for the coppers or for Joe Ordinary off the street, it’s no matter to us. What people do with what we give them is their business, not ours, once we hand it over.”
    “Do you actually think anyone’s likely to believe that?”
    He eyed her and smiled his long, slow smile. “Come along, Em. Where’s the trouble in this? I’m happy to listen if you care to point it out.”
    “I have. The Metropolitan police. That woman: Sergeant Havers.”
    “Who, as you yourself have said, has come to us driven by love. And love, as I myself pointed out, is wonderfully—”
    “Blind. All right. Brilliant.” Emily stepped back outside, positioning herself downwind of the smokers. “Where do you want to begin?” she asked Doughty dully. She wasn’t happy, but she was a pro. And she, like him, had bills to pay.
    “Thank you, Emily,” he said. “We do this German business as arranged. But in advance and for safety’s sake, we do phone records. A very clean sweep.”
    “What about computers?”
    He gave her a look. “Going deep with computers means we bring in Bryan.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Give me notice so I can vacate the office.”
    “I will do. But really, you should just submit to him, Em. Things would go much more swimmingly if you did.”
    “You mean he’d do as I say when
you
need him to do it.”
    “There are worse things than having a man like Bryan Smythe under your thumb.”
    “Yes, but all the worse things have to do with having a man like Bryan Smythe under my thumb.” She made a moue of distaste. “Heartless seduction in the name of holding our secrets close? That’s just not on.”
    “You’d prefer the alternative?”
    “We don’t know the alternative.”
    “But we can guess.”
    Em looked beyond him into the pub. He glanced in the same direction. The hen party was forming a conga line. There was no music playing, but this, apparently, wasn’t putting the slightest damper on their pleasure. They began rumbaing in the general direction of the exit, shouts and giggles and stumbles their accompaniment.
    “God,” Em Cass sighed. “Why are women such fools?”
    “We’re all fools” was Doughty’s rejoinder. “But it’s only in hindsight that we see it.”

22 April
    VILLA RIVELLI
    TUSCANY
    O pposite the
giardino
and at the far end of the
peschiera
, a low wall edged the top of a hillside, still green and lush from winter’s rainfall. This hillside fell away to reveal distant