Just One Evil Act (77 page)

Nearly all of which Salvatore did not follow. So he was more than grateful when Ottavia appeared with the
questura
’s
translator, a multilingual and distractingly buxom thirtyish woman showing so much cleavage—
Dio
, was it eight inches?—that he momentarily forgot her name. Then it came to him: Giuditta Something. She asked how she could be of assistance.

She and Barbara Havers spoke at some length. After an equally lengthy translation from Giuditta, Salvatore asked only two questions. Both were crucial to building a case if, indeed, a case even could be built on something that seemed so speculative. How? he wanted to know. And why?

Barbara Havers went with the why first: Why would Lorenzo Mura want to kill this man Taymullah Azhar? Good question, Salvatore. He, after all, had won Azhar’s woman. He had taken her from the Pakistani man. She lived with him in Italy, far from London. He had made her pregnant. They were to marry. What was the point?

“But who could ever be sure of Angelina Upman?” was the Englishwoman’s explanation. “She’d messed about with Esteban Castro while she was with Azhar. She’d left them both for Lorenzo Mura. Anyone could see there was still a bond between Azhar and her, and beyond that, they shared Hadiyyah. Once Azhar appeared on the scene, he was going to be a permanent fixture in their lives. She might have decided to return to him. Who the hell
ever
knew what she would do?”

“But ridding their lives of Azhar would not have made his own position with Angelina secure,” Salvatore pointed out.

Barbara listened to the translation, then said, “Sure, but he wasn’t thinking like that. He wasn’t looking at the big picture of If Not Azhar, Then Who Else Might She Leave Me For? He just wanted Azhar gone and he was doing it the best way he knew: make him good and ill and hope he keels over and there’s an end to the problem. Salvatore, when people are jealous, they don’t think straight. They just want the object of their jealousy gone. Or ruined. Or devastated. Or what
ever
. But what did Lorenzo Mura have? The return of the rejected lover, Hadiyyah’s dad back in Hadiyyah’s life, Hadiyyah’s dad back in
Angelina’s
life.”

“Men survive that sort of thing all the time.”

“But those men aren’t entangled with Angelina.”

Salvatore considered this. It was plausible, he thought. But it was only
plausible
. There still existed the biggest sticking point: the
E. coli
itself. If what the sergeant was saying was true, how had Lorenzo come to put his hands upon it? And not just
E. coli
but a deadly strain of it.

He spoke to the detective sergeant about this: about the
how
of the
E. coli
’s acquisition. She listened but could offer him no advice. They—along with Giuditta—meditated in silence upon this thorny issue. Then Giorgio Simione came into Salvatore’s office.

For a moment, Salvatore blinked at him in absolute incomprehension. He’d given him an assignment, but he couldn’t recall what it was, even when Giorgio said helpfully, “DARBA,
Ispettore
.”

Salvatore said, “
Come?
” and repeated the word. When Giorgio said, “DARBA Italia,” Salvatore recalled.

“It’s here in Lucca,” Giorgio told him. “It’s on the route to Montecatini.”

LUCCA

TUSCANY

Mitchell Corsico had to be dealt with first. He’d done her an enormous favour in getting the entire, unedited television news film via one of the contacts he’d made with the Italian journalists. He was going to want the payoff for this, and he was going to need to pass along a juicy and otherwise significant detail to the Italian who’d helped him in the first place. Quid pro quo and all that. So Barbara had to tell him something, and she had to make sure it was something good.

When she understood from the translator that Salvatore’s intention was an unannounced call upon DARBA Italia, she fully intended to accompany him there. But she couldn’t have Mitch Corsico tagging along with them. She and Salvatore needed time to pin down their information. What they didn’t need was any of it leaking to the press.

She’d left him in the café down the street from the
questura
, across the road from the railway station, and the last thing she’d needed was Salvatore Lo Bianco putting his hooded gaze upon the UK’s version of the Lone Ranger sans mask. Because of the distance and the crowds of people milling about, she knew she’d be able to make her escape from the
questura
without Mitchell becoming wise to her whereabouts. But if he discovered she’d done this, there would be hell to pay.

She had to use half-truths. While Salvatore went for a vehicle in the car park next to the
questura
, she rang Corsico.

“We’ve got a potential source for the
E. coli
,” she told him. “I’m heading there now.”

“Hang the hell on. You and I had an agreement. I’m not letting you—”

“You’ll get the story, Mitch, and you’ll get it first. But ’f you show up now and want to play tagalong, Salvatore’s going to want to know who you are. And believe me, that’ll be tough to explain. He trusts me, and we need to keep things that way. He finds I’m leaking to the press, we’re done for.”

“It’s
Salvatore
now? What the hell’s going on?”

“Oh for God’s bloody sake. He’s a colleague. We’re heading for a place called DARBA Italia, and that’s all I know just now. It’s here in Lucca, and ’f you ask me, it’s the source of the
E. coli
and that’s where Lorenzo Mura got it.”

“If it’s here in Lucca, it could also be where the professor got it,” Corsico pointed out. “He was here in April looking for the kid. All he had to do was waltz over to this place and make the buy.”

“Oh, too right. Are you trying to tell me that Azhar—a man who speaks no Italian, by the way—swanned over to DARBA Italia with euros in hand and said, ‘How much for a test tube of the worst bacteria you lot have going? I’ll need something I don’t grow in my own lab, so all forms of
Strep
are off the table.’ And then what, Mitch? One of their salesmen tap-danced into the place where they keep this stuff—Quality Control, maybe?—and nicked a little bacteria without anyone noticing? Don’t be a fool. This stuff is going to be controlled. It can take out an entire population, for the love of God.”

“So why the hell are you going there? Because what you just said—save not speaking Italian—applies to Lorenzo Mura as well. And while we’re talking about this whole bloody mess, how the hell do you know they have
E. coli
in the first place?”

“I
don’t
know. That’s why we’re paying them a visit.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“I’m sitting here waiting for a story, Barb.”

“You’ve got your piece on Hadiyyah. Go with that.”

“Rod’s not chuffed. He says page five. He says Professor Falsely Imprisoned is the only path to page one. Thing is, of course, from what you just told me it sounds like the
falsely
part of the headline might not be needed.”

“I’ve told you how—”

“I got you the television film. What’s the payoff for me?”

Salvatore Lo Bianco pulled to the kerb and leaned over to push open the passenger door. Barbara said, “It’s coming. I swear I’ll keep you in the loop. I’ve given you DARBA Italia. Ask your Italian journalist mates to take things from there.”

“And give them the story ahead of me? Come on, Barb—”

“It’s the best I can do.” She ended the call and got into the car. She nodded to Salvatore and said, “Let’s go.”

“
Andiamo
,” he told her with a smile.

“Back at you, mate,” she replied.

VICTORIA

LONDON

Isabelle Ardery’s meeting with the assistant commissioner had lasted two hours. Lynley had this information from the most reliable source: David Hillier’s secretary. It didn’t come to him directly, though. The conduit was the redoubtable Dorothea Harriman. Dorothea cultivated sources of information the way farmers cultivate crops. She had informants within the Met, the Home Office, and the Houses of Parliament. So she knew from Judi MacIntosh the length of the meeting between Hillier and Ardery and she knew it had been tense. She also knew that present at the meeting had been two blokes from CIB. She didn’t know their names—“I did try, Detective Inspector Lynley”—but the only details she had managed to unearth were that the blokes had come from one of the two arms of the Complaints Investigation Bureau, and that arm was CIB1. Lynley received this titbit with a frisson of apprehension. CIB1 dealt with internal complaints. CIB1 dealt with internal discipline.

The superintendent didn’t offer to share the content of her meeting. Lynley tried to learn something useful from her, but her quick and firm “Don’t let’s go there, Tommy” told him that things were in motion and the nature of those things was as serious as he’d earlier concluded they might be when she’d phoned Hillier and asked for a meeting.

So he was deeply thoughtful when he took a surprising and welcome phone call from Daidre Trahair. She’d come to town to look for a flat, she told him. Would he like to meet her for lunch in Marylebone?

He said, “You’ve taken the job? That’s brilliant, Daidre.”

“They’ve a silverback gorilla that’s quite won my heart,” she said. “It’s love on my part, but I can’t say how he feels just yet.”

“Time will tell.”

“It always does, doesn’t it?”

They met in Marylebone High Street, where he found her waiting inside a tiny restaurant at a very small table tucked into a corner. He knew his face lit up when she raised her head from studying the menu and saw him. She smiled in return and lifted a hand in hello.

He kissed her and thought how completely normal it felt to be doing so. He said, “Have Boadicea’s Broads gone into permanent mourning?”

She said, “Let’s say that my stock isn’t very high with them at the moment.”

“The Electric Magic, on the other hand, must be breaking out the bubbly.”

“One can only hope.”

He sat and gazed at her. “It’s very good to see you. I needed a tonic, and it seems you’re it.”

She cocked her head, examined him, and said, “I must say it. You’re a tonic as well.”

“For . . . ?”

“The grim process of looking at flats. Until I sell up in Bristol, I’m beginning to think I’ll be sleeping upright in someone’s broom closet.”

“There are solutions to that,” he told her.

“I wasn’t hinting at your spare room.”

“Ah. My loss.”

“Not entirely, Tommy.”

At that, he felt his heart pound harder a few times, but he said nothing. Instead he smiled, took up the menu, asked what she was having, and gave their orders to a waiter hovering nearby expectantly. He asked her how long she was in town. She said four days and this was the third. He asked her why she hadn’t phoned sooner. She said the business of finding a flat, of meeting people at the zoo, of seeing what was needed to organise her offices and labs, of speaking with the various keepers about problems they were encountering with the animals . . . It had all taken up so much of her time. But how lovely it was to see him now.

This, he thought, would have to suffice. Perhaps it was enough to feel how engaged he became in her presence, as the rest of the day faded into insignificance.

Unfortunately, that engagement in her presence did not last long. As their starters were set before them, his mobile rang. He glanced at it and saw, heart sinking, that it was Havers. He said to Daidre, “I’m sorry. I’ll have to take this call.”

“I need your help” was Havers’s first remark.

“You need more than what I can provide. Isabelle’s had a meeting with two blokes from CIB.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Have you entirely lost your mind?”

“I know you’re cheesed off. But Salvatore and I are onto something over here, and what I need from you is a piece of information. One little piece of information, Inspector.”

“Coming from which side of the law?”

“It’s completely legitimate.”

“Unlike virtually everything else you’ve done.”

“All right. Agreed. I get it, sir. You need to scourge me and the only thing wanting is a pillar. We c’n see to that when I get back. Meantime, like I said, I just need one piece of information.”

“Which is what, exactly?” He glanced at Daidre. She’d tucked into her starter. He rolled his eyes expressively.

“The Upmans are on their way to Italy. They’re coming to fetch Hadiyyah. I need to prevent that. If they get their mitts on her, they’ll keep her from Azhar.”

“Barbara, if you’re heading in the direction of my intercepting—”

“I know you can’t stop them, sir. I just need to know if they’re on their way
now
to fetch Hadiyyah. I need to know what flight they’re on and which of them is coming. It would also help to know the airport. It might be the parents coming—they’re called Ruth-Jane and Humphrey—or it might be Bathsheba Ward, the sister. If you ring the airlines and check the flight manifests . . . You know you can do this. Or you can get SO12 to do it. That’s it. That’s all I need. And it’s not for my own sake. It’s not even for Azhar’s. It’s for Hadiyyah’s sake. Please.”

He sighed. He knew Havers would not relent. He said, “Winston’s checking into everyone here associated with Angelina Upman, Barbara. He’s looking for any connection that might point from here to Italy among people she knew. So far, there’s nothing.”

“And there won’t be, sir. Mura’s our man. He intended Azhar to ingest the
E. coli
. Salvatore and I are heading to a place called DARBA Italia to prove it.”

“That’s the incubator company from Azhar’s lab, Barbara. Surely, you can see how this points to—”

“Right. I can see it. And for the record, Salvatore’s made the same point.”

“Salvatore? How exactly are you managing to communicate with him?”

“Lots of hand gestures. Plus he smokes, so I think we’ve bonded. Look, sir, will you sort out the Upmans-on-their-way-to-Italy situation? Will you have SO12 do it? One piece of information. That’s it. Full stop. And it’s not for me. It’s for—”