Inspector Lynley 18 - Just One Evil Act

functioning as anything other than a ballerina’s.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning she ceased being a woman some time ago. That’s largely why Angelina and I became involved.”
    “Are there other reasons, then?”
    “Have you met her?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then you know. She’s lovely. She’s passionate. She’s alive. That’s very appealing. Now what the hell is going on and why are you here?”
    “Have you been out of the country in the last month?”
    “Of course not. I’m in the middle of choreographing
Wind in the Willows
. How could I possibly leave? And let me repeat: What the hell is going on?”
    “No quick trip for a weekend in the sun somewhere?”
    “Like where? Spain? Portugal?”
    “Italy.”
    “Of course not.”
    “What about the wife?”
    “Dahlia’s doing
Giselle
with the Royal Ballet. And she’s got her classes here. She has no time for anything other than soaking her feet at home when she isn’t working. So the answer is no and no again and I’m not saying another word until you tell me what the hell is going on, understand?” To emphasise this point, he got to his feet. He strode into the centre of the room and stood there with his arms crossed on his chest and his legs spread. Very manly pose, Barbara thought. She wondered if it was deliberate, full of the knowledge, perhaps, of how to use what he had.
    She said, “Angelina Upman’s daughter was snatched from a marketplace in Lucca, Italy.”
    Castro stared at her. His mind appeared to be coming to terms with this and with what it meant that the police had come calling upon him. He said, “And what? D’you think I did it? I don’t know her daughter. I never met her daughter. Why the hell would I want to snatch her?”
    “Everything has to be checked out, which means everyone whose life touches Angelina’s has to be checked out. I know she dropped you without a word, just disappeared from your life. You might have taken a bit of offence at that. You might have wanted to do something to smack her round a bit—figuratively speaking. You might have wanted to play mind games with her the way she played mind games with you.”
    He laughed shortly. “That’s going nowhere, Sergeant . . . ?” He paused.
    “Havers,” she said. “Detective Sergeant, actually.”
    “Havers,” he said. “Detective Sergeant, actually. She didn’t play mind games. She was here, she was gone, that was it.”
    “And you didn’t wonder where she’d gone off to?”
    “I didn’t have the right to wonder. I knew that and she knew I knew it. Our rules were simple: I wasn’t going to leave Dahlia for her. She wasn’t going to leave Azhar for me. She’d disappeared once before for a year, but then she’d returned and she and I more or less resumed meeting. I’ve assumed this is the same sort of thing.”
    “You mean you’ve reckoned she’ll be back.”
    “That’s how it was in the past.”
    “So you knew all along about Azhar? During the entire time you were involved with her?” It was germane to nothing, but Barbara had to know, although she would have preferred it if it made no difference to her.
    “I knew. We didn’t lie to each other.”
    “And Lorenzo Mura, her other lover? What about him? Did you know about him?”
    To this, Castro said nothing. He walked back to the chair on which he’d been sitting. He dropped into it and gave a sharp bark of a laugh. He shook his head. Barbara got the point. He said, “So she was . . . what? Fucking all three of us?”
    “It’s looking that way.”
    “I didn’t know. But I’m not surprised.”
    “Why not?”
    He rubbed his hands through his hair. He squeezed a handful of it as if this would drive more blood to his brain. He said, “It’s this. Some women are driven by excitement. Angelina’s one of them. To settle into life with one man? Where’s the excitement in that?”
    “She appears to be with one bloke now, though: Lorenzo Mura in Italy.”
    “
Appears
is the operative word, Sergeant. She
appeared
to Azhar to be with Azhar. Now she
appears
to him to be with this Italian.”
    Barbara thought about this in light of her knowledge of Angelina. The woman she knew was a consummate actress. She herself had been completely taken in by Angelina’s air of friendliness and her spurious interest in Barbara’s own life. Was it out of the question, then, that she’d managed to bamboozle everyone else around her as well? While Barbara couldn’t quite get her mind round the idea