Just One Evil Act (54 page)

He found the street in which Bryan Smythe lived without any trouble. It wasn’t a thoroughfare the salubrious nature of which encouraged him to park his car. Indeed, it was insalubrious in the extreme, but there was nothing for it but to guide the Healey Elliott to the kerb and to hope for the best.

What he concluded from Barbara’s actions on the day that she had called upon Smythe was that, whoever the bloke was, he was also involved in this business of Hadiyyah, Azhar, and Italy. He could see no other reason that Barbara would come to call upon the man and then go from him directly to Dwayne Doughty. So his expectation of Smythe was that the man would stonewall, and he was going to have to come up with a way to break through whatever barriers Smythe put up once he opened the front door upon Lynley’s knock upon it.

Smythe was nondescript, completely ordinary save for his dandruff, which was mightily impressive. Lynley had not seen such dandruff since he’d been at Eton and Snow-on-the-Mountain Treadaway had been his history master.

He took out his warrant card and introduced himself. Smythe looked from the police ID to Lynley to the police ID to Lynley again. He said nothing, but his jaw hardened. He looked beyond Lynley to the street. Lynley told him he’d like a word. Smythe said he was busy, but he sounded . . . Was that anger in his tone?

Lynley said, “This won’t take long, Mr. Smythe. If I might come in . . . ?”

“No, you may not” would have been the wise answer, followed by Smythe’s closing the door, striding to the phone, and ringing his solicitor. Even “What’s this about, then?” might have been the reasonable response of an innocent person. As would any indication that something untoward might have happened in the neighbourhood and here was an officer of the Met to ask him questions about it. But none of that was forthcoming from Smythe because no one guilty of something ever thought of the list of replies that an innocent person might make when faced unexpectedly with a policeman on his doorstep.

Smythe stepped back from the door and indicated with an impatient jerk of his head that Lynley could enter. Inside, Lynley saw, was an impressive collection of Rothko-esque paintings along with various other objets d’art. Not exactly what one expected to find in a South Hackney sitting room. Parts of the borough were on a galloping course towards gentrification, but Smythe’s home was extreme. As was the fact that he appeared to own an entire row of the terrace in which his house stood and had bashed his way from one house to the next in order to fashion a showplace of all of them.

He had money by the lorryful. But from what? Lynley doubted its source was on the up-and-up. He said to Smythe, “Your name has come up, Mr. Smythe, in an investigation into the kidnapping of a child in Italy.”

Smythe said at once and nearly by rote, “I know nothing about a kidnapping of any child in Italy.” His Adam’s apple, however, jumped in a rather revealing fashion.

“You don’t read the newspapers?”

“From time to time. Not recently, as I’ve been rather busy.”

“Doing?”

“What I do.”

“Which is?”

“Confidential.”

“Related to someone called Dwayne Doughty?”

Smythe said nothing, but he looked round as if with the wish that he could do something to move Lynley’s attention off him and onto one of his art pieces. He was, at that precise instant, probably bitterly regretting admitting Lynley into his house. He’d done it to look less guilty as if with the belief that a show of reluctant cooperation on his part would mean something other than having very little sense.

Lynley said, “Mr. Doughty is connected to this Italian kidnapping. You’re connected to Mr. Doughty. Since your work is”—with a gesture to acknowledge the room itself and its art collection—“quite obviously profitable, it leads me in the direction of believing that it also violates any number of laws.”

Unaccountably, then, and contrary to Lynley’s expectations of him, Smythe muttered, “Jesus
Bloody
Christ.”

Lynley raised an eyebrow expectantly. Calling upon the Saviour wasn’t the reaction he’d thought he might get. Nor was what came next from the man.

“I don’t know who you are, but let’s get this straight. I don’t bribe cops, no matter what you think.”

“How very good to know,” Lynley replied, “as I’m not here to be bribed. But I expect you see how the suggestion on your part doesn’t actually clarify your connection to Mr. Doughty, although it does leap in the direction of admitting you’re operating something here that’s illegal.”

Smythe seemed to be evaluating this for some reason. The reason became marginally clear when he said, “Did she give you my name?”

“She?”

“We both know who I mean. You’re from the Met. You’re a cop. So is she. And I’m not stupid.”

Not entirely, Lynley thought. He had to be speaking about Havers, so another connection was made. He said, “Mr. Smythe, what I know is that an officer of the Met came to see you and, after her call upon you, went directly to the office of a private investigator called Dwayne Doughty who was—earlier in the year—engaged in a search for a British child kidnapped in Italy. This same Mr. Doughty has been named by a man under arrest in Italy for his own involvement in the kidnapping. Now, the Smythe-to-Doughty business asks for conclusions to be drawn, and that’s my job. It also asks whether there might be Smythe-to-Doughty-to-bloke-under-arrest-in-Italy conclusions to be drawn as well, which is also my job. I can happily draw those conclusions or you can clarify. Frankly, I don’t know what we have here unless you tell me.” And when Smythe’s expression bordered on the complacent at the end of these remarks, Lynley added, “So I suggest you enlighten me lest the report I give to my guv indicates that a more thorough investigation of you is necessary.”

“I’ve told you. I work for Doughty occasionally. The work’s confidential.”

“A broad idea would be fine.”

“I compile information on cases he’s working on. I pass the information to him.”

“What’s the nature of the information?”

“Confidential. He’s an investigator. He investigates. He investigates people. I follow trails that they leave and I . . . Let’s say I map those trails, all right?”

Trails
suggested only one thing in this day and age. “Using the Web?” Lynley said.

Smythe said, “Confidential, I’m afraid.”

Lynley smiled thinly. “You’re a bit like a priest, then.”

“Not a bad analogy.”

“And for Barbara Havers? Are you her priest as well?”

He looked confused. Clearly, he had not expected the river to course in this direction. “What about her? Obviously, she’s the cop who came to see me and she went from me to Doughty. You already know that. And as to what I told her or what sent her there . . . If I don’t keep my work confidential, Inspector . . . What did you say your name was?”

“Thomas Lynley.”

“Inspector Lynley. If I don’t keep my work confidential, I’m out of business. I’m sure you get that, eh? It’s a bit like your own work when you think about it.”

“As it happens, I’m not interested in what you told her, Mr. Smythe. At least not at present. I’m interested in why she showed up on your doorstep.”

“Because of Doughty.”

“He sent her to you?”

“Hardly.”

“She came on her own, then. For information, I daresay, since—if you work for Doughty—supplying information is your business. We seem to have come full circle in our conversation and what’s left is for me to repeat the obvious: Gathering information appears to be paying you quite well. From that and the look of your home, I expect what you’re doing can lead you to trouble.”

“You’ve said this.”

“As I noted. But your world, Mr. Smythe”—he glanced round the large room—“is about to undergo a seismic shift. Unlike Barbara Havers, I’m not here on my own behest. I’ve been sent, and I expect you can put the pieces together and come up with the reason why. You’re on the Met’s radar. You’re not going to be happy to be there. To use an analogy that I’m certain you’ll understand, you’re living in a house of cards and the wind has now begun to blow.”

“You’re investigating her, aren’t you?” he said, with dawning understanding. “Not me, not Doughty, but her.”

Lynley didn’t reply.

“So if I tell you—”

Lynley interrupted him. “I’m not here to make deals.”

“So why should I bloody—”

“You can do as you like.”

“What the
hell
do you want?”

“The simple truth.”

“The truth’s not simple.”

Lynley smiled. “As Oscar himself once said. But let me make it simple. At your own admission you look for trails and create ‘maps’ of them for Dwayne Doughty and, I expect, for others. As this pays you extraordinarily well by the look of your home, I’m going to assume you also ‘uncreate’ maps by removing those trails, an activity for which you charge rather more. Since Barbara Havers was here, I suspect—due to some glaring omissions in her reports to me—that she’s employing you to engage in uncreating and removing. What I need from you is confirmation of this fact. A simple nod of your head.”

“Or?”

“‘Or’?”

“There’s always an
or
,” he said angrily. “Spit it out for God’s sake.”

“I’ve mentioned the wind. I think that’s sufficient.”

“What the
hell
do you want?”

“I’ve said—”

“No!
No!
There’s always something bloody more with you lot. First it was her and I cooperated. Then it was her and him and I
still
cooperated. Now it’s you and where the hell is it going to end?”

“‘Him’?”

“The bloody Paki, all right? She came alone first. Then she brought him. Now you’re here and for all I know, the bloody Prime Minister is going to show up next.”

“She was here with Azhar.” That wasn’t in the report and how, Lynley wondered, had John Stewart missed that?

“Of course she was bloody here with Azhar.”

“When?”

“This morning. When d’you think?”

“What did she want?”

“My backup system. Every record, all my work. You name it, she wanted it.”

“That’s all?”

He looked away. He walked to one of his paintings—this one largely red with a blue stripe at the bottom that bled almost imperceptibly into a purple haze. Smythe gazed on it as if evaluating what would become of it once the appropriate Met officers started swarming round the place. “As I said,” he explained to the painting rather than to Lynley, “she wanted to hire me as well. One job only.”

“Its nature?”

“Complicated. I’ve not even done it yet. I’ve not even begun.”

“So its revelation should present no . . . no moral or ethical dilemma for you.”

Still, Smythe kept his gaze on the painting. Lynley wondered what he saw there, what anyone saw when they tried to interpret someone else’s intentions. Smythe finally said with a sigh, “It involves altering bank records and phone records. It involves a date change.”

“What sort of date change?”

“On an airline ticket. On two airline tickets.”

“Not their elimination?”

“No. Just the date. That and making them round-trip.”

Which would, Lynley thought, explain why Barbara had said nothing to Isabelle about those tickets to Pakistan that SO12 had uncovered. Altering them would remove suspicion from Azhar entirely, especially if the change involved the date of purchase. So he said, “Purchase date or flight date?” and he waited for what, at heart, he knew Smythe would say.

“Purchase,” he said.

“Are we talking about the airline’s records, Mr. Smythe, or something else?”

“We’re talking about SO12,” he said.

SOUTH HACKNEY

LONDON

He’d given up smoking long before he and Helen had married. But as Lynley stood with the key to the Healey Elliott in his hand, he longed for a cigarette. Mostly, it was for something to do other than what needed doing. But he had no cigarettes, so he got into the car, rolled down the window, and gazed sightlessly at the London street.

He understood why Barbara’s call upon Smythe with Taymullah Azhar in tow had not been part of John Stewart’s report. It had only occurred that morning, itself the reason she’d arrived late at the Yard. But he had no doubt that it would be included as an addendum that Stewart would hand over to Isabelle at the appropriate moment. The only question was when and what, if anything, he himself was going to do about it. Obviously, there was no stopping Stewart. There was only preparing Isabelle in advance.

In this, he saw that he had two options. He could either manufacture a reason that Barbara had paid a call on Bryan Smythe. Or he could report to Isabelle what he’d discovered and let matters develop from there. He’d asked the guv for time to sort all of this out but what, really, was there to sort at this point? The only saving grace that he could see was that his own call upon Smythe had obviated any tinkering the hacker might have been about to do inside the records of SO12, if he could, indeed, even get inside them in the first place. At least that blot on the copybook of Barbara’s career would not be present. As to everything else . . . The truth was that he didn’t know how far she was steeped in the sin of this mess and there was only one way to find out and he didn’t want to do it.

He’d never been a coward when it came to confrontations, so he had to ask himself why he was feeling such cowardice now. The answer seemed to be in his longtime partnership with Barbara. The truth was that she’d apparently gone bad, but his years working with her told him that, in spite of everything, her heart was good. And what in God’s name was he supposed to do about that? he asked himself.

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Salvatore’s removal from the kidnapping investigation put him in the position of ship-without-harbour. This left him daily slinking by the morning meeting of Nicodemo and his team, a displaced policeman trying to catch a word here and there that would allow him to know where the investigation stood. No matter that the child had been returned to her parents unharmed. There were things going on here that needed understanding. Unfortunately, Nicodemo Triglia was not the person to sort through them.