Deception on His Mind

by Elizabeth George

  Rachel's hand jerked on the skirt. “Didn't you say that him and Sahlah—”

  “The story was in the local rag, Sergeant,” Connie put in. “Rache and I c'n both read, and the paper said this bloke was here to marry Akram Malik's daughter.”

  “And you know nothing more than what you read in the paper?” Barbara asked.

  “Not a thing more,” Connie said. “You, Rache?”

  “Nothing,” Rachel said.

  Barbara doubted that. Connie was too determinedly loquacious. Rachel was too taciturn. There was a fishing expedition to embark upon here, but she would have to return when she had better bait. She took out one of her cards. Scrawling the name of the Burnt House on it, she told the two women to phone her if anything jogged their memories. She gave the Kennedy bracelet a final scrutiny and tucked the receipt for AK-162 among her own belongings.

  She ducked out of the shop but glanced back quickly. Both women were watching her. Whatever they knew, they would talk about eventually. People did that when the conditions were right. Perhaps, Barbara thought, the sight of that missing golden bracelet would light a fire beneath the Winfields and defrost their tongues. She needed to find it.

  RACHEL LOCKED HERSELF in the loo. The moment the sergeant moved out of their range of vision, she bolted into the back room. She dashed down the passage created between the wall and a freestanding row of shelves. The loo was next to the shop's back door, and she made for this and bolted the door behind her.

  She pressed her hands together to stop their shaking, and when she was unsuccessful at doing this, she used both of them to turn on the tap in the small, triangular basin. She was burning hot and icy cold at the same time, which didn't seem possible. She knew there was a procedure to follow when physical sensations like these came over one, but she couldn't have said for love or money what the procedures were. She settled on splashing her face with water, and she was splashing away when Connie banged on the door.

  “You get out here, Rachel Lynn,” she ordered. “We got some talking to do, you and me.”

  Rachel gasped, “Can't. I'm being sick.”

  “Being sick, my little toe,” Connie snapped. “You going to open this door for me, or am I going to axe it in to get you?”

  “I had to go the whole time she was here,” Rachel said, and she lifted her skirt to sit on the toilet for the complete effect.

  “I thought you said you were being sick.” Connie's voice had the sound of triumph associated with mothers who catch their daughters in a lie. “Isn't that what you just said? So what is it, Rachel Lynn? You sick? You going? What?”

  “Not that kind of sick,” Rachel said. “The other. You know. So c'n I have a bit of privacy, please?”

  There was a silence. Rachel could imagine her mother tapping her small and shapely foot against the floor. It was what she usually did when she was planning a course of action.

  “Give me a minute, Mum,” Rachel pleaded. “My stomach's all clenched up on itself. Listen. Is that the shop door ringing?”

  “Don't play with me, girl. I'll be watching the clock. And I know how long it takes to do what in the loo. You got that, Rache?”

  Rachel heard her mother's sharp footsteps fading as she headed to the front of the building. She knew that she'd bought herself a few minutes only, and she struggled to gather her fragmented thoughts together in order to form them into a plan. You're a fighter, Rache, she told herself in much the same mental voice she'd used in childhood when preparing every morning for another round of bullying from her merciless schoolmates. So think. Think. It doesn't matter two pins if everyone in the world goes and lets you down, Rache, because you've still got yourself and yourself is what counts.

  But she hadn't believed that two months before when Sahlah Malik had revealed her decision to submit herself to her parents’ wishes for an arranged marriage to an unknown man from Pakistan. Instead of remembering that she still had herself, she'd been horrified at the thought of losing Sahlah. After which, she'd felt both lost and abandoned. And at the end, she'd believed herself cruelly betrayed. The ground upon which she'd long had faith that her future was built had fractured suddenly and irreparably beneath her, and in that instant she'd forgotten life's most important lesson completely. For the ten years following her birth, she'd lived with the certain belief that success, failure, and happiness were available to her through the effort of a single individual on earth: Rachel Lynn Winfield. Thus, the taunts of her schoolmates had stung her but they'd never scarred her, and she'd grown adept at forging her own way. But meeting Sahlah had changed all that, and she'd allowed herself to see their friendship as central to what the future held.

  Oh, it had been stupid—stupid—to think in such a fashion, and she knew that now. But in those first terrible moments when Sahlah had revealed her intentions in that calm and gentle way of hers—the way that had made her, too, the victim of bullies who wouldn't dare to raise a nasty hand against Sahlah Malik or to voice a slur about the hue of her skin whenever Rachel Winfield was in the vicinity—all that Rachel could think was, What about me? What about us? What about our plans? We were saving up to put money on a flat, we were going to have pine furniture in it with big deep cushions, we were going to set up a workshop for you on one side of your bedroom so you could make your jewellery without your nephews getting into your trays, we were going to collect shells on the beach, we were going to have two cats, you were going to teach me to cook, and I was going to teach you … what? What on earth could I have taught you, Sahlah? What on earth had I ever to offer you?

  But she hadn't said that. Instead, she'd said, “Married? You? Married, Sahlah? Who? Not … but I thought you always said that you couldn't—”

  “A man from Karachi. A man my parents have chosen for me,” Sahlah had said.

  “You mean …? You can't mean a stranger, Sahlah. You can't mean someone you don't even know.”

  “It's the way my parents married. It's the way most of my people marry.”

  “Your people, your people,” Rachel had scoffed. She'd been trying to laugh the idea off, to make Sahlah see how ludicrous it was. “You're English,” she said. “You were born in England. You're no more Asian than I am. What d'you know about him, anyway? Is he fat? Is he ugly? Does he have false teeth? Does he have hairs sprouting from his nose and his ears? And how old is he? Is he some bloke of sixty with varicose veins?”

  “His name is Haytham Querashi. He's twenty-five years old. He's been to university—”

  “As if that makes him a good candidate for husband,” Rachel said bitterly. “I suppose he's got lots of money as well. Your dad would go in big for that. Like he did with Yumn. Who cares what sort of monkey crawls into your bed just so long as Akram gets what he wants from the deal? And that's it, isn't it? Isn't your dad getting something as well? Tell the truth, Sahlah.”

  “Haytham will work for the business, if that's what you're asking,” Sahlah said.

  “Hah! See what they're doing? He's got something they want—Muhannad and your dad—and the only way they can get it is to hand you over to some oily bloke you don't even know. I can't believe you're doing it.”

  “I have no choice.”

  “What d'you mean? If you said you didn't want to marry this bloke, you can't tell me your dad would make you do it. He dotes on you. So all you have to do is tell him that you and me, we've got plans. And none of them have to do with marrying some twit from Pakistan you've never even met.”

  “I want to marry him,” Sahlah said.

  Rachel had gaped at her. “You want …” The immensity of the betrayal cleft her. She hadn't ever thought five simple words could cause such pain, and she had no armour to protect herself from it. “You want to marry him? But you don't know him and you don't love him and how can you begin to live such a lie?”

  “We'll learn to love,” Sahlah replied. “That's what happened for my parents.”

  “And is that what happened for Muhannad? What a joke! Yumn's not his belo
ved. She's his doormat. You've said so yourself. Do you want that to happen to you? Well, do you?”

  “My brother and I are different people.” Sahlah had averted her head when she said this, and a length of her dupattā shielded her from view. She was withdrawing, an action that made Rachel want to cling to her even harder.

  “Who cares about that? It's how different your brother and this Haybram—”

  “Haytham.”

  “Whatever he's called. It's how different your brother and he are to each other. And you don't know if they're different at all. And you won't know that, will you, till the first time he smacks you a good one, Sahlah. Just like Muhannad. I've seen Yumn's face after she's had a good one from your wonderful brother. What's to prevent Haykem—”

  “Haytham, Rachel.”

  “Whatever. What's to prevent him from doing you the same way?”

  “I can't answer that. I don't know the answer yet. When I meet him, I'll see.”

  “Just like that?” Rachel asked.

  They'd been in the pear orchard beneath the trees, canopied in mid-spring by fragrant blossoms. They'd been sitting on the same teetering bench that they'd sat upon so many times as children when they'd swung their legs and made plans for a future that would now never come. It wasn't fair to be denied what was rightfully hers, Rachel thought, to have snatched from her the one person she had learned to depend upon. Not only was it not fair, though, it also wasn't right. Sahlah had lied to her. She had played along with a game that she'd never intended to complete.

  Rachel's sense of loss and betrayal shifted slightly, like ground growing used to a new position once an earthquake has done its work. A budding of anger began to grow within her. And with anger came its companion: revenge.

  “My father's told me that I can decide against Haytham when we meet,” Sahlah said. “He won't force me into a marriage if he sees I'm unhappy about it.”

  Rachel read her friend's meaning behind the words, however Sahlah sought to make them appear. “But you won't be unhappy about it, will you? No matter what, you're going to marry him. I can see that in you. I know you, Sahlah.”

  The bench upon which they sat was old. It rested unevenly on the ground beneath the tree. Sahlah picked at a splinter on the edge of the seat, raising it slowly with the smooth crescent edge of her thumbnail.

  Rachel felt a rising sense of desperation accompanying her need to strike out and wound. It was inconceivable to her that her friend had changed to such a marked degree. They'd seen each other only two days previous to this conversation. Their plans for the future had still been in place. So what had happened to alter her so? This wasn't the Sahlah she'd shared hours and days of companionship with, the Sahlah she'd played with, the Sahlah she'd defended before the bullies of Balford-le-Nez Junior School and Wickham-Standish Comprehensive. This wasn't a Sahlah she'd ever met.

  “You talked to me about love,” Rachel said. “We talked to each other about it. We talked about honesty too. We said that in love, honesty comes first. Didn't we?”

  “We did. Yes. We did.” Sahlah had been watching her parents’ house as if she were worried about someone observing their conversation and the passion of Rachel's reaction to her news. She turned to Rachel now, though. She said, “But sometimes complete—absolute—honesty isn't possible. It isn't possible with friends. It isn't possible with lovers. It isn't possible between parents and children. It isn't possible between husbands and wives. And not only isn't it always possible, Rachel, it's not always practical. And it's not always wise.”

  “But you and I've been honest,” Rachel protested, the fear of Sahlah's meaning fast and hard upon her. “Or at least I've been honest with you. Always. About everything. And you've been honest with me. About everything. Haven't you? About everything?”

  In the Asian girl's silence, Rachel heard the truth. “But I know all about … You told me …” But suddenly everything was open to question. What, indeed, had Sahlah told her? Girlish confidences about dreams, hopes, and love. The kind of secrets, Rachel had believed, that sealed a friendship. The kind of secrets she had sworn—and had meant—to reveal to no one.

  But she hadn't expected such pain. She had never once thought that she'd encounter in her friend such a calm and steely resolve to smash her world to ruins. Such determination and everything that rose from such determination called for an action in response.

  Rachel had chosen the only course open to her. And now she was living with the consequences.

  She had to think what to do. She'd never have believed that one simple decision could have been such a significant domino, toppling a structure of other game pieces until nothing was left.

  Rachel knew that the police sergeant had not believed either her or her mother. Once she picked up the receipt book and fingered through it, she'd seen the truth. The logical move for her to make was to speak to Sahlah now. And once she did that, every possibility for a new beginning with the Asian girl would be destroyed.

  So actually, there was little to consider as a course of action. It lay before her like a road without a single diversion upon it.

  Rachel rose from the toilet and tiptoed to the door. She drew back the bolt in near silence and created a crack through which she could see the back room and hear what was going on in the shop. Her mother had turned on the radio and tuned in a station that doubtless reminded her of her youth. The choice of music was ironic, as if the dj were a mocking god who knew the secrets of Rachel Winfield's soul. The Beatles were singing “Can't Buy Me Love.” Rachel would have laughed had she felt less like weeping.

  She slithered out of the loo. Casting a hurried glance towards the shop, she slipped to the back door. It stood open, in the hope of creating cross ventilation from the steamy alley behind the shop through to the equally steamy High Street. No breeze stirred, but the open door provided Rachel with the exit route she needed. She stole into the alley and hurried to her bicycle. She mounted it, and began to pedal energetically in the direction of the sea.

  She'd caused the dominoes to topple, it was true. But perhaps there was a chance to right a few before the lot of them were swept from the table.

  ALIK'S MUSTARDS & ASSORTED ACCOMPANIMENTS was in a small industrial estate at the north end of Balford-le-Nez. It was, in fact, on the route to the Nez itself, situated at an elbow created where Hall Lane, having veered northwest away from the sea, became Nez Park Road. Here, a ramshackle collection of buildings housed what went for industry in the town: a sailmaker, a seller of mattresses, a joinery, an auto repair business, a fencemaker, a dealer in junk cars, and a maker of custom jigsaw puzzles whose naughty choice of subjects generally kept him only one step ahead of public censure from the pulpits of every church in the town.

  The buildings that housed these establishments were mostly prefabricated metal. They were utilitarian and suited to the environment in which they sat: A pebble-strewn lane cratered with potholes curved among them; orange skips bearing the oxymoronic name Gold Coast Dumping in purple letters listed on the uneven ground, spilling out everything from chunks of canvas to rusty bedsprings; several abandoned bicycle frames served as latticework for a gardener's nightmare of nettles and sorrel; sheets of corrugated metal, rotting wooden pallets, empty plastic jugs, and unwieldy, corroded sawhorses of iron made negotiating the industrial estate an ambitious undertaking.

  In the midst of all this, Malik's Mustards & Assorted Accompaniments was both an anomaly and a reproach to its companion businesses. It comprised one third of the estate, a long, many-chimneyed Victorian building that had in the town's heyday been the Balford Timber Mill. The mill had fallen into disrepair with the rest of the town in the years following World War II. But now it stood restored with its bricks scoured of one hundred years of grime and its woodwork replaced and yearly repainted. It served as a wordless example of what the other businesses could do with themselves had their owners half the energy and one quarter the determination of Sayyid Akram Malik.

  Akram Malik h
ad purchased the derelict mill on the fifth anniversary of his family's arrival in Balford-le-Nez, and a plaque with words commemorating that occasion was the most impressive object that Emily Barlow took note of when she entered the building after parking her Peugeot in a space that was relatively cleared of debris along the lane.

  She was fighting off a headache. There had been a disturbing undercurrent to her morning's meeting with Barbara Havers. This weighed on her mind. She didn't need a member of the political correctness police on her team, and Barbara's willingness to saddle guilt exactly where the bloody Asians wanted guilt assigned—on the back of an Englishman—bothered her, causing her to wonder exactly how clear the other detective's vision was. Additionally, the presence of Donald Ferguson in her life—hovering on its periphery like a stalking cat—was an added screw to her misery.

  She'd begun her day with yet another phone call from the superintendent. He'd barked without so much as a good morning or a pleasant comment of commiseration about the weather, “Barlow. Where do we stand?”

  She'd groaned. At eight in the morning her office had been like Alec Guinness's sweat box on the River Kwai, and a quarter hour's search for a fan in the choking, dust-filled air of the old station's attic had done nothing to improve her disposition. Stirring Ferguson into the mix of heat and aggravation was almost too much flavour for the recipe of her morning to have to bear.

  “Don, are you going to give me a free hand in this?” she'd asked. “Or will you and I be playing report-to-the-teacher every morning and afternoon?”

  “Watch your mouth,” Ferguson warned. “You'd do well to keep in mind who's sitting at the other end of this telephone line.”

  “I'm not likely to forget it. You don't give me the chance. Do you keep this sort of short rein on the others? Powell? Honeyman? What about our lad Presley?”

  “They've more than fifty years of experience among them. They don't need watching over. Least of all Presley.”

  “Because they're male.”