‘So where did the documents come from? You said they change everything . . .’
‘Yes. It was obvious no one had been in the house since Dad died. I started looking around and I found his passport – here it is. It was lying on the table, covered in dust. The police hadn’t even bothered to come and search the place. And then I found his air tickets. Look, you can see the date he flew to Pakistan; and here on the next coupon you can see he had a return flight to London booked for 20 August, a week after he was murdered. I can’t believe no one even thought to look for these things. The police couldn’t care less.’
‘It’s pretty slapdash. But knowing about Ibrahim’s travel plans doesn’t change much. What else did you find?’
‘I found letters that he’d been writing. To my mum in Burnley. They’re so sad. When I read them for the first time in Kahin Nahi I was in tears . . .’
Ayesha picked up a sheet of paper covered in Urdu script.
‘I’ll translate for you. “Dearest Asma, my sweetest spice” – he was always calling her by pet names – “I write to you in the cool of the evening. The sun that warmed the land has set, the fireflies are flitting in the dusk.” He’s quite lyrical, isn’t he? I never realised he was such a poet.’ Ayesha laughed. ‘Then he tells Mum how things have been going with his own mother. She’s quite old and we think she’s suffering from dementia, so Dad was looking after her. He writes about the weather and some bits of local news. He asks how things are back in Burnley and . . .’ Ayesha swallowed, ‘he says how much he misses his children . . . He asks about me and how I’m doing with the government contract I was bidding for. And then he tells her about the house and you can see he’s so proud of what he’s doing, so excited by the way the place is taking shape. It’s exactly how I remember him when he was doing up his first dream home in Burnley; he gets so wrapped up in it, Martin, so carried away by it all. Listen to this bit: “I am doing all this for you, my little tamarind seed; for you and our beautiful children. This place will be my gift to you – the gift of more than a house, the gift of a country and everything it means to me . . .” When you read that, how can you even think he was involved in anything crooked? He’s an honest, simple man, full of enthusiasm and good intentions. There’s nothing hidden or evil!’
I wanted to reply; I wanted to tell her how I had read my brother’s messages, how I too had learned things that Tom had never told me in life. But Ayesha held up her hand.
‘Wait. There’s more. There was a filing cabinet in one of the bedrooms. It had a lock on it, but I found the key under a mat – Dad was never much good at hiding things. Inside it there were papers and documents, all the stuff you can see here now. Lots of it was to do with the house construction; there were receipts for building materials and lists of payments to labourers and so on. But what I couldn’t find were any ownership documents for the land, like the ones the patwari showed us. I thought that was odd. There was stuff Dad had obviously been collecting for his records. And there was a sort of diary he’d been keeping. He didn’t write it in any systematic way; he just seemed to note things down as they came into his head. So there’s a lot about us, his children, and about Mum; and some less nice stuff about my dad’s brother, uncle Ahmed, how they fell out as young men and how angry and bitter Ahmed was with him. I’d heard most of that already. But there were also references to an argument he seemed to be having with someone in Karachi. I tried to figure out what that was about, but it wasn’t easy. His handwriting is terrible for a start, and it’s as if he’s trying to disguise some of the details. He uses abbreviations and he doesn’t write people’s names but just puts initials. At first I couldn’t make sense of it. Then at the end of his diary, tucked in the back cover, I found this . . .’
Ayesha opened a folder and took out a newspaper cutting. It was crumpled and torn. The Urdu text meant nothing to me, but half way down the page was a photograph of a smiling, middle-aged man in a suit. I asked who it was.
‘That’s just it, Martin! Listen to what the article says.
‘MAJOR WATER SUPPLY PROJECT PROPOSED FOR ORANGI TOWNSHIP.
Karachi City government is examining a proposed $400 million project to improve water supply to Orangi and its environs. Municipal water supply in Karachi has become grossly inadequate with regard to users’ needs. Suburban locations, especially low-income settlements, have no access to piped water. Serious shortages have become a feature of life and nowhere more so than in Orangi township, Karachi’s largest informal settlement. In the districts of Ghaziabad, Gulshan-e-Zia, Mansoor Nagar, Gulshan-e-Bihar and Raees Amrohvi Colony, the population must rely on standpipes, awami tanks or private tankers. The proposal now being examined will involve the construction of a new downstream dam on the Hub River to ensure adequate water volume is provided via new feeder canals and underground pipes. The project, which has been put forward by Karachi entrepreneur Mr Javed Shafik, pictured (left), has been granted initial funding with the promise of further large-scale investment by the Karachi Regional Authority.’
Ayesha jabbed her finger at the smiling man. ‘That’s him, Martin! That’s the man who killed my father!’
Her face was lit with passion and anger. I heard the conviction in her voice.
‘He does keep cropping up,’ I said. ‘Javed Shafik, the bad penny. But how does finding a newspaper cutting in your father’s papers prove Shafik killed him? The patwari said the two of them were best of friends . . .’
‘You’re not listening, Martin. I said the newspaper article was the key to Dad’s diary. As soon as I found it, everything else made sense. I told you Dad referred to people by their initials; well, I went back and I found references to “JSh”. There was “visit by JSh” and “phone call from JSh”. Just a few days after he arrived in Pakistan, Dad writes “JSh – my land!” Then there’s a list of other local landowners, all with dates next to them. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Shafik was threatening my dad because he needed Dad’s land for his big dam contract – a scam, if ever I saw one! – and Dad was refusing to play ball. He was contacting the other landowners to get them to stand up to Shafik. The diary and the newspaper cutting prove what I’ve said all along: Dad wouldn’t cave in to the mafia, so the mafia killed him. It’s as clear as day.’
‘Well, that’s one way of interpreting it. But couldn’t there be a different explanation? Who’s to say the phone calls and visits from JSh weren’t friendly ones? Who’s to say the two of them weren’t getting together to discuss mutual business? And who’s to say your dad’s approaches to the other landowners weren’t on behalf of Shafik himself, threatening them into selling up?’
Ayesha shook her head. ‘I think I will never understand you, Martin. And you certainly don’t understand me. I don’t think you understand people at all. I thought your brother dying might make you a bit more compassionate, but you’re as cold as ever.’
‘I’m not cold, Ayesha. I’m trying to be rational.’
‘It can be the same thing. You think you’re so clever at analysing stuff and reasoning things out, but you always miss what’s most important. You need some emotional intelligence, Martin. You need to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, and you can’t do that.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m just trying to do what’s best for you . . .’
‘How would you know what’s best for me? You don’t know anything about me.’
‘Ayesha, please—’
‘I want to make a success of this. I listen to you when you come up with things. But I don’t think you ever listen to me!’
Ayesha dropped her gaze. When she looked up, her face had softened.
‘Why have we always argued, Martin? Why are we arguing now, when we both want the same thing? We both want to find the truth about a person we loved . . .’
‘Maybe. Or maybe one of us wants to create a sanitised version of the truth, something we can live with, that romanticises the dead and defuses the past . . .’
‘Perhaps you’re right. Perha
ps I do need that. But don’t you need it, too? Aren’t you doing the same thing with Tom?’
‘I know what I am doing with Tom!’ I felt the anger; tried to contain it. ‘I’m not saying I’ve got everything figured out . . . But what you are asking me to do is to lie. You want me to accept a version of your father that suits you. You want me to write the story without following it to the end, without tracking down the people involved in it and asking for their version. And it’s because you’re scared what it might throw up.’
‘Yes . . .’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘Maybe . . . It’s just so loaded with meaning. It’s about who he was . . . and who I am.’
‘What? Finding out that Ibrahim was doing something wrong would make you bad too?’
‘No . . . But his death has made me question my own identity. I told you how I used to think I was British and I used to think I was Pakistani too, but now I think I’m neither . . .’
‘Come on, Ayesha. I understand all that. And I sympathise with you – even though you think I’m incapable of sympathy. But there’s something more, isn’t there? You’re scared of something. And since we’re being frank now, why don’t you tell me why you were so angry when I mentioned your mother? Why is that such a painful topic?’
She sighed. ‘Yes . . . Okay . . . When I was young, my mother and I were close. I told you how we both had to wait in Pakistan before we could get permission to come to England, and that brought us together. But as I grew up, things changed. Something came between us. At the time I didn’t know what it was. But looking back I think I had the sense that my mother was hiding things from me; things she knew but didn’t want to share, that she felt she had to cover up.’
‘Really? What sort of things?’
‘I don’t know . . .’
‘Things about your father?’
‘Perhaps . . .’
‘In Burnley you asked her why she didn’t tell you what Ibrahim was doing on his trips to Pakistan.’
‘That was part of it. But it goes back further. To the time of the Kelly Stafford saga. That was the start of it. And there was another thing . . .’
I could see she was hesitating.
‘You need to tell me, Ayesha, if we’re ever going to get anywhere with this.’
‘It was to do with Tariq, my brother. You met him briefly; he burst in on us when we were talking to my mother . . .’
The image of the wild man with the mobile phone came to me, with his boiling anger and frenzied declarations about slashing the throat of his father’s killers.
‘Tariq had never been like that before. He’d been a quiet boy, shy even. He made a good career as a surveyor. Then a few years ago he just went crazy. He stormed out of the house and said he was never coming back. I have no idea what happened. My father wouldn’t talk about it. And when I asked my mother I could tell she wanted to speak about what had gone wrong, but for some reason she couldn’t do it. I thought it was because she didn’t trust me any more. I got angry. Things got chilly between us. And they’ve never recovered.’
CHAPTER 29
When I told Denise about my meeting with Ayesha she laughed. I asked what she found amusing and she said, ‘You.’
I must have looked hurt.
‘I’m not having a go at you, Martin. And I’m speaking as a friend, not as an analyst. But I think Ayesha has got you to a T. You’re bright in many ways, but in others you’re a complete illiterate. You’re great at reading books, but hopeless at reading people. What do you think Ayesha has been trying to tell you all this time about her father and her feelings and hopes?’
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? She’s terrified of discovering her father was a monster.’
‘Partly. But there’s more to it. Like many daughters, I’d say she has mixed feelings about her father. She grew up with him; she’s seen his loving side and she’s seen his moments of ugliness and shame. What she really wants to know is which one is the real Ibrahim. I think she does want you to find the truth, but she wants you to find it in spite of her not because of her. She forbids you to probe her father’s secrets, but in reality she wants you to. She doesn’t want to assume the burden of uncovering the truth herself; that would make her feel disloyal. She wants you to bear the responsibility for whatever emerges . . .’
‘So when she says No, she actually means Yes? I thought that was something we weren’t meant to suggest about women any more.’
‘Don’t make a joke of it, Martin. If you discover Ibrahim was a saint, that would allay her fears and confirm her memories of the good parent. If you find he was a monster it would destroy her illusions. But at the same time it would confirm the bitterness she has nursed against him. Most daughters harbour a covert anger against the father who chided them and criticised them and maybe even hit or abused them. It would pain her, but it would legitimise the grudges that have made her feel guilty. It would ease the cognitive dissonance of her resentments.’
‘I can see that. On an intellectual level. And it’s interesting you mentioned abuse: do you think Ayesha might have been abused by her father?’
‘That’s not what I was saying. Do you have something that makes you think she might have been?’
‘It’s probably just a reaction to all the talk about Pakistani taxi drivers and underage girls. I did wonder, though, if some of Ayesha’s behaviours might suggest an underlying pathology. The excessive defensiveness alternating with extreme neediness; the demands for attention and for absolute compliance with her wishes, coupled with bouts of fear and anxiety. Does some of that sound congruent with symptoms of abuse?’
‘Possibly. It could have other causes.’
‘Of course. But then when she complained about her mother keeping secrets and how that had spoiled their relationship . . . I wondered if she was hinting that the mother knew about the abuse but failed to stop it. And there’s Ayesha’s behaviour with men – the flamboyant seeking for attention followed by immediate backing away; her on-off relationship with her fiancé, Peter . . .’
‘I haven’t met Ayesha, but from what you’ve told me I’d say there’s no overt indication of abuse. The behaviour you’ve described – the unpredictable reactions and extravagant demands – sounds more like the result of the trauma she’s been through. Bereavement is not easily assimilated. Our culture does the impact of death a disservice – in detective books and films and on television it seems so inconsequential. A death may be marked by a few perfunctory tears then we settle back into the familiar, aseptic narrative of clues and detectives sleuthing. The reality is very different . . .’
‘That’s not something you need to convince me of . . .’
‘Freud says the human psyche is stretched between two forces – Eros and Thanatos, the drive for life and the pull of death. In Ayesha you might say the death force – her obsession with her murdered father – is overwhelming the yearning for life, which Freud identifies with sexuality and its outcome, human renewal. Her relationship with Peter is put on hold until the morbid spell of Thanatos can be broken.’
‘To a non-Freudian that sounds a bit fanciful.’
‘Eros and Thanatos are the two basic instincts, the primal drives of creation versus destruction, battling in the psyche.’
‘Okay. I’m not arguing with Freud—’
‘Sorry, Martin, I just want to add one thing that might be relevant to Ayesha. Melanie Klein says that when the mind is overwhelmed by that battle, the deflection of the death instinct can find expression in exaggeratedly aggressive behaviour. I mention that for what it’s worth.’
‘Well, thank you. As you said last time, we almost always forgive what we understand. I can’t pretend I understand all of that, but . . .’
‘. . . but you’re willing to forgive? Honestly, I think that would be a step forward. Forgiving Ayesha, I mean.’
‘Forgiving her for what? She hasn’t caused me any harm. I could have walked away from the aggravation of working with her at any time.’
‘And
yet you didn’t. Has your experience with Tom helped you understand what she has been going through?’
It was a question I had thought about.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She and I have been grappling with the same conundrum. We lost a person we thought we knew; but when they died we discovered we hadn’t known them. Or at least, we discovered there were things about them that we didn’t know.’
‘You said earlier that you were investigating Tom’s death.’
‘I would say that Ayesha and I have both been struggling to know the unknown. For her that meant who murdered her father and why they murdered him. But also the things her father did and why he did them.’
‘She wanted to know who her father was,’ Denise said. ‘Because feeling that we have been mistaken about someone we have been close to, someone we have relied on, can be immensely disturbing for our own identity. Is that what you have been feeling about Tom?’
‘Yes. In a way. I didn’t know Tom had such a dark hinterland. I have been trying to understand where that came from. And also to understand how I could have been so stupid that I didn’t recognise it. I spent all those years studying psychology and I couldn’t understand my own brother.’
‘All I would say is that suicide among middle-aged men is horrifically common. And the constant factor is that they don’t talk about it. You said you spoke to Tom in his coffin . . .’
‘What I really need is for him to talk to me. I need an explanation. I need a memoir from beyond the grave . . .’
‘I fear you are not going to get that, Martin.’
‘Tom and I had the same genes and the same upbringing; we were two halves of a whole. So part of me has been destroyed. It isn’t just that I can’t ask him – or anyone – about the life we shared for all those years; it’s as if part of my identity has been obliterated. I feel his absence terribly.’
‘What about Tom’s children?’
‘It must be terrible for them. I’m sure they loved Tom. And I know he loved them more than anything in the world. I can’t take the place of their father, Denise, but I would like to be there for them . . .’
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