Believing the Lie il-17

by Elizabeth George

  At home, she saw that Azhar’s car was in the driveway, but the lights were not on in the family’s flat. They were probably out to dinner, she reckoned, having walked the short distance to Chalk Farm Road or Haverstock Hill. Perhaps everything had worked out after all, she thought. Perhaps Azhar’s other children and his never-divorced wife were at this moment dining en famille at the local Chinese with Azhar, Hadiyyah, and Angelina. Perhaps they’d all come to terms with a brilliant way to share in each other’s lives, the wife forgiving the husband for having walked out on her for a university student whom he’d impregnated, the husband abjuring guilt for having done so, the former university student proving her worth as mother and quasi-stepmother to all of the children, everyone living in one of the odd family situations becoming so prevalent in their society …It could have happened, Barbara thought. Of course, all the pigs in England could have taken to the air today as well.

  Meantime, it was as cold as the heart of a serial killer and she hurried down the path alongside the Edwardian house. It was very dimly lit as two of the five garden lights had burnt out and no one had replaced them yet, and it was darker still at the front of her bungalow since she’d not thought to turn the porch light on when she’d left that morning.

  There was enough illumination, however, to see that someone was sitting on the single step in front of her door. This was a hunched figure, forehead on knees, fists raised to temples. The figure rocked slightly and when he raised his head at her approach, Barbara saw that it was Taymullah Azhar.

  She said his name as a question, but he didn’t speak. She saw then as she approached that he was wearing only one of his workday suits, no overcoat or hat or gloves, and as a result he was shivering so badly that his teeth made a death rattle inside his skull.

  Barbara cried, “Azhar! What’s happened?”

  He shook his head, a compulsive movement. When she dashed to him and helped him to his feet, he managed only two words, “They’ve gone.”

  Barbara knew at once. She said, “Come inside,” and with one arm round his waist, she unlocked the door. She guided him to a chair and helped him sit. He was icy cold. Even his clothing felt stiff, as if it were in the process of freezing to his skin. She raced to the daybed and pulled off the counterpane. She wrapped this round him, put on the kettle, and went back to the table to warm his hands with hers. She said his name because it was the only thing she could think of to say. To ask “What’s happened?” once again meant she was going to find out, and she didn’t think she wanted to know.

  He was looking at her, but she could tell he wasn’t seeing her. His were the eyes of a man gazing into the void. The kettle snapped off, and Barbara went to it, flung a bag of PG Tips into a mug, and sloshed the boiling water in after it. She carried the tea to the table with a spoon and sugar and a carton of milk. She slopped some of both into the mug and told him to drink. She told him he had to get warm.

  He couldn’t hold the mug, so she did this for him, raising it to his lips, one hand on his shoulder to keep him steady. He took a gulp, coughed, and took another. He said, “She’s taken Hadiyyah.”

  Barbara thought he had to be mistaken. Surely, Angelina and Hadiyyah had only gone for Azhar’s other children. Surely, despite the foolhardy nature of what Angelina Upman had planned, it would only be a matter of an hour or so before Angelina and Hadiyyah tripped up the path with those children in tow and the Big Surprise about to unfold. But Barbara knew — she knew — she was lying to herself. Just as Angelina had lied.

  Over Azhar’s shoulder, Barbara saw that her answering machine was blinking with messages. Perhaps, she thought, perhaps, perhaps…

  She curved Azhar’s hand round the tea and went to the machine. Two messages were indicated, and the first voice she heard was Angelina’s. “Hari will be quite upset tonight, Barbara,” the woman’s pleasant voice said. “Will you check on him at some point? I’d be ever so grateful.” There was a pause before Angelina went on with, “Make him understand this isn’t personal, Barbara… Well, it is and it isn’t. Will you tell him that?” And then following that brief and inconclusive message, the second was Azhar’s voice breaking on, “Barbara… Barbara… Their passports… her birth certificate…,” and his terrible sobbing before the line went dead.

  She turned back to him. He was bent over the table. She went to him. She said, “Oh my God, Azhar. What has she done?” Except the worst of it was that she knew what Angelina Upman had done, and she realised that had she only spoken, had she told him about the “surprise” that Hadiyyah had revealed to her, he might well have twigged what was about to happen and he might well have been able to do something to stop it.

  Barbara sat. She wanted to touch him but she was afraid that a gesture of concern from her might shatter him like glass. She said, “Azhar, Hadiyyah told me about a surprise. She said she and her mum were planning to fetch your other children, the children… the children from your marriage, Azhar. Azhar, I didn’t know what to tell you. I didn’t want to betray her confidence… and… Bloody hell, what is wrong with me? I should have said something. I should have done something. I didn’t think …”

  He said numbly, “She doesn’t know where they are.”

  “She must have found out.”

  “How? She doesn’t know their names. Not the children’s. Not my wife’s. She couldn’t have… But Hadiyyah would have thought… Even now she must think …” He said nothing more.

  “We must phone the local police,” Barbara said, even though she knew that it was useless. For Hadiyyah wasn’t with a stranger. She was with her own mother, and no divorce existed with complicated custody arrangements attached to it, for there had been no marriage in the first place. There had only been a man, a woman, and their daughter who had lived, for a short time, in relative peace. But then the mother had run off and although she’d returned, it now was clear to Barbara that Angelina Upman’s intention had always been to come for her child and to leave again: first to soothe Azhar into a false sense of all being well and then to take Hadiyyah away from her father and to fade with her into obscurity.

  How they had all been duped and used, Barbara thought. And what, what, what was Hadiyyah going to think and feel when she began to understand that she had been ripped away from the father she adored and the only life she had ever known? To be taken …? Where, Barbara thought, where?

  No one vanished without a trace. Barbara was a cop, and she knew very well that no one ever managed to flee without a single clue being left behind. She said to Azhar, “Take me to the flat.”

  “I cannot go in there again.”

  “You must. Azhar, it’s the route to Hadiyyah.”

  Slowly, he got to his feet. Barbara took his arm and guided him along the path to the front of the house. At the flagstone area before the door, he stopped but she urged him forward. She was the one to open the door, though. She found the lights and she switched them on.

  Illumination revealed the sitting room, altered by Angelina Upman’s impeccable good taste. Barbara saw the alteration now for what it was and for what it had been, which was just another way to seduce. Not only Azhar but Hadiyyah and Barbara herself if it came down to it. What fun we shall have doing it, darling Hadiyyah, and how we shall surprise your father!

  Azhar stood there between the sitting room and the kitchen, immobile and ashen. Barbara thought there was every chance the man might simply pass out, so she took him into the kitchen — the room least altered by Angelina — and she sat him at the small table there. She said, “Wait.” And then, “Azhar, it’s going to be all right. We’re going to find her. We’ll find them both.” He didn’t reply.

  In his bedroom, Barbara saw that all of Angelina’s belongings were gone. She couldn’t have packed everything and taken it off in suitcases, so she must have shipped things on ahead with no one the wiser. This meant she’d known where she was going and, possibly, to whom. An important detail.

  On the bed, a strongbox lay, its lid open and it
s contents dumped out. Barbara looked through all this, noting insurance papers, Azhar’s passport, a copy of his birth certificate, and a sealed envelope with Will written on the front in his neat cursive. As he had said, everything relating to Hadiyyah was missing, and this state of affairs was underscored by the little girl’s bedroom.

  Her clothing was gone with the exception of her school uniform, which lay on the bed, spread out as if in mockery of tomorrow morning when Hadiyyah would not be there to don it. Also still there was her school rucksack, and inside her schoolwork was neatly placed within a three-ring binder. On her little desk, tucked beneath a window, her laptop was in position and sitting on top of it was a small stuffed giraffe that, Barbara knew, had been given to Hadiyyah by a good-hearted girl in Essex the previous year, in Balford-le-Nez on the pleasure pier. Hadiyyah, Barbara thought, would want that giraffe. She would want her laptop. She would want her school things. She would want — above everything else — her father.

  She returned to the kitchen where Azhar sat, staring at nothing. She said to him, “Azhar, you’re her father. You have a claim upon her. She’s lived with you since she was born. You’ve a building full of people right here who’re going to testify to that. The police will ask them and they’ll say you’re the parent of record. Hadiyyah’s school will say that as well. Everyone — ”

  “My name is not on her birth certificate, Barbara. It never was. Angelina would not put it on. It was the price I paid for not divorcing my wife.”

  Barbara swallowed. She took a moment. She forged ahead. “All right. We’ll work with that. It doesn’t matter. There are DNA tests. She’s half you, Azhar, and we’ll be able to prove it.”

  “In what manner without her here? And what does it matter when she is with her mother? Angelina defies no law. She defies no court order. She does not fly in the face of what a judge has told her must be the way in which Hadiyyah is shared. She’s gone. She’s taken my daughter with her, and they are not returning.”

  He looked at Barbara and his eyes were so pained that Barbara couldn’t hold his gaze. She said uselessly, “No, no. That’s not how it is.”

  But he put his forehead against his upraised fists and he hit himself. Once, twice, and Barbara grabbed his arm. She said, “Don’t. We’ll find her. I swear we’ll find her. I’m going to phone now. I’m ringing some people. There are ways. There are means. She’s not lost to you and you must believe that. Will you believe it? Will you hang on?”

  “I’ve nothing to hang on to,” he told her, “and I’ve less to hang on for.”

  CHALK FARM

  LONDON

  Who could she blame? Barbara asked herself. Who on God’s bloody earth could she possibly blame? She had to blame someone because if she could not find a person to wear the mantle of guilt, she was going to have to blame herself. For being seduced, for being awed, for being stupid, for being-

  It all came down to Isabelle Ardery, she decided. If the bloody superintendent hadn’t ordered, insisted, recommended strongly that Barbara alter her appearance, none of this would have happened because Barbara wouldn’t have come to know Angelina Upman in the first place so she would have maintained a distance from her that might have allowed her to see and to understand… But what, really, did that matter because Angelina had intended to take her daughter away from the very first, hadn’t she, and that had been the argument Barbara had heard that day between Angelina and Azhar. It had been her threat and his reaction to her threat. Azhar had lost his temper, as any father might, in the face of her declaration that she would take away his child. But when Angelina had explained the cause of the argument to Barbara, Barbara had stood there in her little shop of deceit, and she’d bought up her lies, every one of them.

  She didn’t want to leave Azhar alone, but she had no choice once she decided to make her phone call. She didn’t want to do it in his presence because she wasn’t sure of the outcome despite her words of assurance to the man. She said, “I want you to lie down, Azhar. I want you to try to rest. I’ll be back. I promise you. You wait here. I’ll be gone a little while because I have some phone calls to make and when I return, I’ll have a plan. But in the meantime I have to phone… Azhar, are you listening? Can you hear me?” She wanted to ring someone to come to him and to comfort him in some way, but she knew there was no one other than herself. All she could do was get him into his bedroom, cover him with a blanket, and promise she would return as soon as she could.

  She hurried to her bungalow to place the call. There was only one person she could think of who might be of help, who would be able to think clearly in this situation, and she rang his mobile.

  Lynley said, “Yes? Barbara? Is that you?” over a tremendous roaring of noise and music in the background. Barbara felt a surge of gratitude and she said, “Sir, sir, yes. I need — ”

  He said, “Barbara, I can’t actually hear you. I’m going to have to — ”

  His voice was overwhelmed by the cheers of a crowd. Where in God’s name was he? she wondered. At a football game?

  He said as if in answer, “I’m at the exhibition centre. Earl’s Court…” More cheers and roaring and Lynley saying to someone, “Charlie, has she gone out of bounds? My God, the woman’s aggressive. Can you tell what’s happened?” Someone said something in reply and this was followed by Lynley’s laughter. Lynley laughing, Barbara realised, as she’d not heard him laugh since before last February, when it had seemed his laughter had died forever. He said into his mobile, “Roller derby, Barbara,” and she could barely hear him over the background noise although she managed to catch “…that woman from Cornwall” and she thought, Is he on a date? With a woman from Cornwall? What woman from Cornwall? And what is roller derby? And who is Charlie? Someone otherwise called Charlotte? He couldn’t mean Charlie Denton, could he? What on earth would Lynley be doing out and about with Charlie Denton?

  She said, “Sir, sir…,” but it was hopeless.

  Another roar from the crowd and he said to someone, “Is that a point?” and then to her, “Barbara, may I ring you back? I can’t hear a thing.”

  She said, “Yes,” and she thought about texting him instead. But there he was in a moment of happiness and pleasure and how on earth could she tear him from it when the truth of the matter — as she bloody well knew despite her words to Azhar — was that there was nothing he could do? There was nothing anyone could do officially. Whatever happened next was going to have to happen in an extremely unofficial manner.

  She ended the call. She stared at the phone. She thought of Hadiyyah. It had been only two years since Barbara had met her, but it did seem as if she’d known her the length of her very short life: a little dancing girl with flying plaits. It came to Barbara that Hadiyyah’s hair had been different the last few times she’d seen her and she wondered how much different it was going to become in the ensuing days.

  How will she make you look? Barbara wondered. What will she tell you about your disguise? More, what will she tell you about where you’re going once it becomes clear there are no half siblings for you to meet at the end of your journey? And where will that journey take you? Into whose arms is your mother fleeing?

  For this was the truth of the matter, and what could be done to stop it when Angelina Upman was only a mother who’d come to claim her child, a mother who’d returned from “Canada” or wherever she’d been with whomever she’d been with, who was, of course, the very same person to whom she was running, some bloke who’d been seduced by her, just like Azhar, just like all of them, seduced into waiting instead of believing… What had Angelina done and where had she gone?

  She had to get back to Azhar, but Barbara began to pace. Every black cab in London, she thought. Every mini cab, and there were thousands. Every bus and after that the CCTV films from the Chalk Farm tube station. Then the railway stations. The Eurostar. After that the airports. Luton, Stansted, Gatwick, Heathrow. Every hotel. Every B amp; B. Every flat and every hidey hole there was from the centre of Lon
don working out to the edges and then beyond. The Channel Islands. The Isle of Man. The inner and outer Hebrides. Europe itself. France, Spain, Italy, Portugal …

  How long would it take to find a beautiful light-haired woman and her dark-haired little girl, a little girl who was going to want her father soon, who was going to manage — God in heaven, she would manage, wouldn’t she? — to get to a phone and to ring her father so that she could say, “Daddy, Daddy, Mummy doesn’t know I’m ringing and I want to come home…”

  So do we wait for the call? Barbara asked herself. Do we set out to find her? Do we simply pray? Do we convince ourselves with any amount of lies that no harm is meant and no harm will be done because this is, after all, a mother who loves her child and who knows above all that Hadiyyah belongs with her father, because he’s given up everything to stand at her side and has, as a result, absolutely nothing without her?

  God, how she wanted Lynley to be there. He would know what to do. He would know what to say. He would listen to the entire anguished tale and he would have the right words of hope to give to Azhar, the words she herself couldn’t muster because she hadn’t the skill. She hadn’t the heart. But still she had to do something, say something, find something, because if she didn’t, what sort of friend was she to a man in agony? And if she couldn’t find the words or develop a plan, was she in truth a friend at all?

  It was nearly ten o’clock when Barbara finally went to her bungalow’s small bathroom. Lynley had not yet rung her back, but she knew he would. He would not fail her because DI Lynley did not fail people. That was not who he was. So he would ring as soon as he was able, and Barbara believed this — she clung to this — because she had to believe something and there was nothing else left to believe and she certainly didn’t believe in herself.