Read Just One Evil Act for Free Online Page A

behind her back. At least Winston, as always, was courteous enough to talk to her directly.
    “Inspector told me what’s going on,” he said. “’Bout Hadiyyah and her mum. Look, I know she’s . . . how you feel about her and all that, Barb. I reckoned the guv wasn’t going to go for your wanting more time off, so . . .” He slipped a torn bit of a daily calendar towards her. It was one of those desk calendars that had upon it an inspirational saying. This one was “To make God laugh, tell Her your plans,” which, Barbara decided, fitted the situation quite well. On this slip of calendar Winston’s copperplate handwriting had unfurled a name, Dwayne Doughty, along with an address on the Roman Road in Bow and a telephone number. Barbara read this and looked up. “Private detective,” Winston told her.
    “Where’d you find a private detective so quick?”
    “Where everything gets found: the Internet, Barb. Section on his site from satisfied customers and all the rest. He may’ve put ’em there himself, but he’s worth looking into.”
    “You knew she’d lock me to my desk, didn’t you?” Barbara said shrewdly.
    “Figgered, is all,” he told her. Kindly, once again, he made no exact mention of what Barbara had done to her appearance.

19 November
    BOW
    LONDON
    B arbara Havers laboured at the job of metaphorically keeping her nose clean at work for the next two days. This meant several meetings with the clerk at the CPS, during which the only pleasurable moment came from once being taken by the Crown Prosecutor for lunch in the impressive dining hall of Middle Temple. The lunch might have been nicer had the Silk not wished to discuss the case in minute detail, but in a situation in which beggars couldn’t be et cetera, Barbara did her best to add sparkle and wit to a conversation that actually made her want to bury her head in her mash and commit suicide by carbohydrate inhalation. It was the kind of employment she particularly despised, and she reckoned that Superintendent Ardery was forcing her into it because this was her only way of taking revenge upon Barbara for what she had done to herself.
    She’d had to shave the rest of her head. There was nothing else for it, as the hairstyle could not have been saved. What remained was stubble that left her looking vaguely like a cross between a neo-Nazi and a female boxer. She kept it covered with a selection of knitted caps, on which she’d stocked up at the Berwick Street market.
    There were actually two cases ongoing to which she could have been assigned, had Ardery chosen to do so. DI Philip Hale was heading one; DI Lynley was heading the other. But until Isabelle Ardery had reached the conclusion that Barbara had been punished enough for her transgressions, Barbara knew that she was stuck with the clerk from the CPS and the witness statements that the Crown Prosecutor was intent upon verifying.
    They finished early in the afternoon two days after Barbara’s confrontation with the superintendent. She saw her chance in this, so she took it. She rang up Azhar at University College London and she told him she was heading his way. Where are you? she wanted to know. Having a conference with four graduate students in the lab, he told her. Wait for me there, she said. I’ve come up with something.
    The lab proved easy enough to find. It was a place of white coats, computers, fume cupboards, and biohazard signs, complete with impressive microscopes, petri dishes, boxes of slides, glass-fronted cabinets, refrigerators, stools, work stations, and other, more mysterious furnishings. When Barbara joined Taymullah Azhar there, he introduced her politely to the students. Their names were lost to her almost as soon as Azhar said them, mostly because of Azhar himself.
    Barbara had seen him daily since Hadiyyah’s disappearance. She’d taken him food, but she could tell he had eaten very little of it. Now he was looking worse than ever, mostly from lack of