The two men had been kept waiting a quarter of an hour. During that time, someone had provided them with a jug of water, four glasses, and a blue paper plate of Oreos. But they appeared to have touched nothing. When Barbara entered, both men were sitting. Azhar rose. Muhannad did not.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she told them. “Some last-minute details we had to clear up.”
Muhannad didn't look as if he believed that remark. Obviously, he was experienced enough and clever enough to know when power-jockeying was being attempted by an adversary. For his part, Azhar made a study of Barbara as if trying to gaze beneath her skin for the truth of the matter. When she returned his scrutiny, he lowered his eyes.
“Details we wait to hear,” Muhannad said. Barbara had to credit him with opening the meeting with an attempt to sound polite.
“Yes. Well.” Onto the table she slapped the folders she was carrying. There were three of them, and she'd brought them along more for effect than for any other reason. She topped them with the yellow-bound book she'd taken from Querashi's hotel room. Then she drew out a chair, sat, and gestured Azhar to do likewise. She'd brought along her cigarettes, and she took a moment to light up.
The room was only a degree or two less stifling than Emily Barlow's office had been, but unlike Emily's office, there was no fan circulating the tepid air. Muhannad's forehead glistened. Azhar, as usual, could have stepped from an icy shower a moment prior to Barbara's entrance.
Barbara indicated the yellow-bound book with her cigarette. “I'd like to begin with this. Can you tell me what it is?”
Azhar reached across the table. He turned the book with the back cover face up and read what Barbara would have thought to be the final page. He said, “This is the Holy Qur'aan, Sergeant. Where did you get it?”
“In Querashi's room.”
“As he was a Muslim, that can't come as a surprise.” Muhannad said pointedly.
Barbara extended her hand for the book, and Azhar complied. She opened it to the page she'd noted on the previous night, marked with a satin ribbon. She directed Azhar's attention to the passage on the page, where brackets had been drawn in blue ink. “As you obviously read Arabic,” she said, “would you translate this for me? We've sent a fax of it to a bloke at the University of London for deciphering, but we'll be that much ahead of the game if you're willing to do the honours right now.”
Barbara saw a small flicker of irritation cross Azhar's face. In revealing that he read Arabic, he'd inadvertently given her an advantage over him that she'd otherwise not have had. In telling him that she'd already sent the page to London, she'd made it impossible for him to manufacture a translation that might meet ends other than the truth. Love-one, she thought with no little pleasure. It was important, after all, that Taymullah Azhar understand their acquaintance wasn't going to stand in the way of Sergeant Havers's getting her job done. It was equally important that both men knew they weren't dealing with a fool.
Azhar read the passage. He was silent for a minute, during which time Barbara could hear voices coming from the first floor conference room as the door opened and shut upon Emily's afternoon meeting with her team. She shot a glance at Muhannad but couldn't decide whether he looked bored, eager, hostile, overheated, or tense. His eyes were on his cousin. His fingers held a pencil and tapped its rubber end against the top of the table.
Finally, Azhar said, “A direct translation isn't always possible. English terms aren't always adequate or comparable to those in Arabic.”
“Right,” Barbara said. “The point's duly noted. Just do your best.”
“The passage refers to one's duty to go to the aid of those who are in need of help,” Azhar said. “Roughly, it reads, ‘How should you not fight for the cause of Allah and of the feeble among men and of the women and the children who are crying: Our Lord! Bring us forth from out this town of which the people are oppressors! Oh, give us from thy Presence some protecting friend!’ “
“Ah,” Barbara said wryly. “Roughly, as you say. Is there more?”
“Naturally,” Azhar said with delicate irony. “But only this passage is marked in pencil.”
“I think it's clear enough why Haytham marked it,” Muhannad noted.
“Is it?” Barbara drew in on her cigarette and examined him. He'd pushed his chair back as his cousin was reading. His face wore the look of a person who'd had his suspicions confirmed.
“Sergeant, if you'd ever sat on this side of the table, you'd know that it is,” Muhannad said. “‘Bring us forth from out this town of which the people are oppressors!’ There you have it.”
“I did hear the translation.”
Muhannad bristled. “Did you? Then let me ask you this: What more do you need? A message written in Haytham's blood?” He dropped his pencil on the table. He got to his feet and went to the window. When he next spoke, he gestured to the street and—metaphorically, it seemed—to the town beyond it. “Haytham had been here long enough to experience what he'd never had to experience before: the smart of racism. How d'you think he felt?”
“We haven't the slightest indication that Mr. Querashi—”
“Wear my skin for a day if you want an indication. Haytham was brown. And being brown means being unwelcome in this country. Haytham would have liked to catch the first flight back to Karachi, but he couldn't because he'd made a commitment to my family that he intended to honour. So he read the Qur'aan looking for an answer, and he saw it written that he could fight in the cause of his own protection. And that's what he did. And that's how he died.”
“Not exactly,” Barbara said. “Mr. Querashi's neck was broken. That's how he died. There's no indication that he was doing any fighting at all, I'm afraid.”
Muhannad turned to his cousin and clenched his fist. “I told you, Azhar. They were holding back on us all along.”
Azhar's hands were on the table. He pressed the tips of his fingers together. “Why weren't we informed at once?” he asked.
“Because the postmortem hadn't yet been performed,” Barbara answered. “And no information's ever released in advance of the p.m. That's how it's done.”
Muhannad looked incredulous. “You can't sit there and tell us that you didn't know the moment you saw the body—”
“How exactly did the death occur?” Azhar asked with a quieting glance at his cousin. “One's neck can break in a number of ways.”
“We're not clear on that point.” Barbara adhered to the police line that Emily Barlow had already drawn. “But we're able to say with a fair degree of certainty that we're looking at a murder. Premeditated murder.”
Muhannad dropped into his seat. He said, “A broken neck is an act of violence: the result of a brawl, a product of anger and rage and hate. A broken neck isn't something that someone can plan in advance.”
“I wouldn't actually disagree with that under normal circumstances,” Barbara said.
“Then—”
“But in this case, the circumstances indicate that someone knew Querashi would be on the Nez, and this someone got there before him and set events into motion that culminated in his death. That's premeditated murder, Mr. Malik. No matter how you might like to think otherwise of Haytham Querashi's death, it wasn't a random killing arising from a racial brawl or incident.”
“What d'you know of racial incidents? What can you tell us of how they start? Do you know the look on a Western face that tells a man to change directions when he's walking down the street, to lower his eyes when he pushes a handful of coins across the counter to pay for his newspaper, to ignore the stares of other patrons when he walks into a restaurant and finds himself the only brown face in the room?”
“Cousin,” Azhar said. “This takes us nowhere productive.”
“Oh yes it does,” Muhannad insisted. “How can a white-skinned CID investigate the death of a man whose experience they can't even begin to understand? These people's minds are closed, Azhar. We'll only get justice if we open them.”
“I
s that the purpose of jum'a?” Barbara asked.
“The purpose of Jum'a isn't under discussion. Haytham's death is.”
“Was he a member of Jum'a?”
“You won't rest till you pin this on an Asian. That's where you're heading.”
“Just answer the question.”
“No, he wasn't a member of Jum'a. If you suspect that I murdered him over that fact, then arrest me.”
The expression on his face—so taut, so filled with anger and loathing—caused Barbara to reflect briefly on the child Ghassan whom she'd seen on the street, with the bottle-tossed urine dripping down his legs. Was it incidents like that, repeated throughout childhood and adolescence, that effected the sort of animosity she felt rolling off Muhannad Malik? He was right in so many ways, she thought. But he was wrong in so many others.
“Mr. Malik,” she finally said, setting her cigarette on the edge of an ashtray at her elbow, “I'd like to make something clear to you before we go on: Just because a person's born with white skin, it doesn't follow that she spends the rest of her life attempting to prise a silver spoon from her mouth.” She didn't wait for a response. She went on to delineate the course that the investigation was taking at the moment: A safe deposit box key found among the dead man's belongings was in the process of being traced to one of the banks in Balford and in surrounding towns; the Friday night whereabouts of everyone connected with Querashi were being sought and corroborated; paperwork found among Querashi's belongings was being sorted out; and Fahd Kumhar was being tracked down.
“You have his first name, then,” Azhar noted. “May we know how you obtained it?”
“A piece of luck,” Barbara said.
“Because you have the name or because it's Asian?” Muhannad asked.
Jesus. Give it a rest, Barbara wanted to say. But what she did say was “Give us some credit, Mr. Malik. We don't have time to waste tracking down some bloke just to satisfy our need to cause him aggro. We need to talk to him about his relationship to Mr. Querashi.”
“Is he a suspect?” Azhar asked.
“Everyone who knew Querashi is under scrutiny. If this bloke knew him, consider him a suspect.”
“He knew English people as well,” Azhar said, and he added in so bland a manner that Barbara knew he was already well aware of the answer, “Did anyone English benefit from his death?”
Barbara wasn't about to start walking on that wafer-like patch of ice with Azhar or anyone else. She said, “Guys, can we lift our meetings out of the realm of Asian/English questions? What we're dealing with in this investigation isn't an Asian/English question at all. It's a straightforward guilt/innocence question. We're looking for a killer no matter the skin colour: a man or woman with a reason to do away with someone.”
“A woman?” Azhar asked. “You aren't saying a woman could have broken his neck, are you?”
“I'm saying a woman may be involved.”
“Are you trying to implicate my sister?” Muhannad asked.
“I didn't say that.”
“But what other women are there? Those at the factory?”
“We're not sure, so we aren't closing any doors. If Mr. Querashi knew Fahd Kumhar—a man clearly not from the factory, right?—it stands to reason he may well have known a woman not connected to the factory as well.”
“What are you doing to find this woman?” Azhar asked.
“Asking questions, following leads, looking for connections, digging out any altercations Querashi may have had with anyone in the weeks leading up to his murder. It's legwork, it's plodwork, and it has to be done.” She gathered her folders and placed the copy of the Qur'aan on top of them. Her cigarette had burnt out in the ashtray, but she squashed its remains anyway as unspoken communication that their meeting was at an end. She stood, saying with deliberate politeness to Muhannad Malik, “I expect you'll communicate all of this to your people. We don't want any misinformation to stir them up when it isn't necessary.”
It was clear that he read her meaning: If any sort of misinformation was leaked into the Asian community, it would be coming only from a single source. Muhannad stood also, and it appeared to Barbara that he used his height—at least eight inches over hers—to illustrate the fact that if intimidation was going to be a feature of their meetings, he would be doing it.
He said, “If you're seeking Asian suspects, Sergeant, know that we intend to get to them first. Male or female, child or adult. We don't mean to allow you to interview any Pakistani without legal representation—Asian legal representation—present.”
Barbara regarded him long and hard before she replied. He needed to end their meeting in the one-up position, and she half-wanted to let him get away with it. But that was the half of her that was tired and hot, eager to have a shower and a decent meal. The half of her that knew the importance of winning the first round of a pissing contest was the half that spoke. “I can't tie your hands at the moment, Mr. Malik. But if you muddy our waters by meddling where you don't belong, I must tell you that you're going to find yourself in the nick for obstructing a police investigation.” She nodded at the doorway and added, “Can you find your way out?”
Muhannad's eyes narrowed fractionally. “A good question,” he replied. “You might want to answer it yourself, Sergeant.”
EMILY WAS STANDING to one side of the china board when Barbara joined the afternoon meeting of the CID team in the incident room. This was her first glimpse of the detectives manning the investigation, and she ran her gaze over them curiously. Fourteen men and three women, they were jammed into what had probably once been the first floor drawing room of the old house. Some rested their bums on the edges of tables, arms crossed and ties loosened. Others sat on plastic chairs. Some of them gave notice to Barbara as she entered, but the rest kept their focus on the DCI.
Emily stood with her weight on one leg, the china board's marking pen in one hand and a bottle of Evian in the other. Like everyone else in the stifling room, she was glistening with perspiration.
“Ah,” she said with a nod at Barbara. “This is DS Havers joining us now. We'll have her and Scotland Yard to thank if the Pakistanis start toeing the line. Which finally lets the rest of us get going on a decent investigation.”
All eyes shifted towards Barbara. She tried to read them. No one looked hostile at her invasion of their patch. At least four of the men looked like the sort of longtime detectives who had a fondness for bouts of harassment whenever joined by a female colleague. They stared. She felt lumpy. Emily spoke.
“Have a problem with this, mates?”
Point taken, they turned back to her.
The DCI said with a glance at the china board, “Right. To continue. Who's got the hospital run?”
“Nothing we can use,” came a response from a crane-like bloke near the window. “An Asian woman died in Clacton last week, but she was seventy-five and it was heart failure. No one's been admitted to casualty with anything looking like a botched abortion. I've checked every local hospital, clinic, and doctor's surgery as well. Nothing.”
“If he's a ginger like you said, that's a blind alley anyway, i'n't it, Guv?” The question came from an older bloke who needed a shave and a new anti-perspirant. Rings of damp descended from his armpits nearly to his waist.
“It's too early to label anything useless,” Emily said. “Until we have solid facts, we check out everything as if it's the gospel. Phil, what more do you have on the Nez?”
Phil removed a toothpick from his mouth. “I had a second go at the houses backing onto it.” He gave a glance to a small black-bound notebook. “Couple called the Sampsons were having themselves a date night, with a baby-sitter watching their kids. Baby-sitter—girl called Lucy Angus—had her boyfriend there for a bit of a snog, but when I tracked her down and gave her memory a jangle, she recalled hearing a motor on Friday night round half-ten.”
There were some positive murmurs at this. Over them, Emily said, “How legitimate is this? What sort of memory ja
ngling are we talking about?”
“Didn't hypnotise her, if that's what you mean,” Phil said with a grin. “She'd gone to the kitchen for a drink of water—”
“Guess we know how she worked up a thirst,” someone called out.
“Shut it.” Emily's order was brusque. “Phil? Go on.”
“She heard a motor. She remembers the time because whoever was out there gunned the hell out of it and she looked outside but didn't see anything. Someone was running without lights, she said.”
“A boat?” Emily asked.
“From the direction of the noise, yeah. She says it was probably a boat.”
“Get on this, then.” Emily said. “Check the marina, check every harbour from Harwich to Clacton, check the boat hires, and get inside the garage, the shed, the lock-up, and the back garden of everyone even remotely connected to Querashi. If someone took a boat out that night, someone else had to have seen it, heard it, or documented it. Frank, what've you got on that key from Querashi's room?”
“It was Barclays,” he said. “All the way in Clacton. The time lock was already running when I got there, so I'll have the goods in the morning directly they open.”
“Right,” Emily said. “So here's where we head,” and she went on without pause, assigning the detectives to their activities for the next day. Primary among the tasks was the effort to locate Fahd Kumhar. “I want this bloke found,” Emily told them, “and I want him found bloody fast, before he has a chance to do a runner. Understand?”
Second among the tasks was the effort to break Muhannad's alibi, and there were several murmurs of surprise when Emily introduced the idea. But she was unmoved by them. She assigned a DC called Doug Trotter the task of sorting through Rakin Khan's neighbours for anyone who could swear to the fact that the Asian man was with someone other than Muhannad Malik on Friday night.
Barbara watched her. Directing a team like this was clearly nothing to Emily. She had an unflappable confidence that spoke volumes as to how she'd attained her position while so young. Barbara thought of her own performance on her last case; she cringed at the contrast between herself and the DCI.
Deception on His Mind Page 32