Deception on His Mind

  He said, “Why?”

  His wife replied, “Because of Haytham.” She glanced at Sahlah with compassion in her eyes, as if in the belief that her daughter had actually come to love the man she'd been told to marry. And why not? Sahlah realised. Under identical circumstances, Wardah had learned to love Akram Malik. “Muhannad says that your brother's son has experience in these matters, Akram.”

  Akram snorted. “It all depends on what ‘these matters’ are. You should not have let him into the house.”

  “He came with Muhannad,” was her reply. “What could I do?”

  He was with Muhannad still, seated at one end of the sofa while Sahlah's brother took the other. Akram was in an easy chair, with one of Wardah's embroidered pillows cradling his back. The oversize television was playing another of Yumn's Asian films. She'd muted the sound instead of dousing the picture before scuttling upstairs. Now, over her father's shoulder, Sahlah could see two desperate young lovers meeting secretly like Romeo and Juliet. Except instead of upon a balcony, they met, embraced, and fell to the earth to do their business in a field where maize grew to their shoulders and hid them from view. Sahlah averted her eyes and felt her heart beating in her throat like a trapped bird's wings.

  “I know you're not happy with everything that happened this afternoon,” Muhannad was saying, “But we've got the police to agree to meet with us daily. That'll keep us informed of what's going on.” Sahlah could tell by the clipped way her brother spoke that he chafed beneath their father's unuttered disapproval and disgust. “We wouldn't have got that far in one interview had Azhar not been there, Father. He positioned the DCI so that she had no option but to agree. And he did it so smoothly that she wasn't aware of the direction he was leading her till she arrived there.” He shot Azhar a look of admiration. Azhar crossed his legs, pressed the crease of his trousers between his fingers, but said nothing at all. He kept his gaze fixed on his uncle. Sahlah had never seen anyone look so composed in a situation in which he was so unwelcome.

  “And this was your purpose in causing a riot?”

  “The point isn't who caused what. The point is that we got an agreement.”

  “And you think this is something we could not have managed on our own, Muhannad? This agreement, as you call it.” Akram lifted his glass and drank some of the lassi He hadn't glanced once at Taymullah Azhar.

  “The cops know us, Father. They've known us for years. And familiarity makes people lax when it comes to fulfilling their responsibilities. Who shouts the loudest gets heard the soonest, and you know it.”

  These last four words were a mistake, born of Muhannad's impatience and of his aversion for the English. Sahlah understood his feelings—having also been on the receiving end of childhood torment at the hands of schoolmates—but she knew that their father did not. Born in Pakistan and coming to England as a man in his twenties, he'd had only one experience of racism that he ever spoke of. Even that one episode of public humiliation in a London Underground station had not soured him about the people he'd decided to adopt as his countrymen. In his eyes, Muhannad had disgraced their people that day. Akram Malik wasn't likely to forget that fact soon.

  “Who shouts the loudest often has the least to say,” he responded.

  Muhannad's face tightened. “Azhar knows how to organise. The way we need to organise now.”

  “What is now, Muni? Is Haytham less dead than he was at this time yesterday? Is your sister's future any less destroyed? How does one man's presence change what is?”

  “Because,” Muhannad announced, and the tone of his voice told Sahlah that her brother had saved the best for last, “they've now admitted it's murder.”

  Akram's face grew grave. However irrationally, he'd been consoling himself, his family, and Sahlah especially with the belief that Haytham's death had been an unfortunate accident. Now that Muhannad had ferreted out the truth, Sahlah knew that her father would have to think in different terms. He would have to ask why, which might very well lead him in a direction in which he didn't wish to go.

  “Admitted, Father. To us. Because of what happened at today's council meeting and in the street afterwards. Wait. Don't respond yet.” Muhannad pressed his point, rising to his feet and pacing to the fireplace, where the mantelpiece held a score of framed family photographs. “I know I angered you today. I admit that things got out of hand. But I ask you to look at the results I got. And it was Azhar who suggested the town council meeting as a place to start. Azhar, Father. When I phoned him in London. Can you tell me that when you spoke to the CID they admitted murder to you? Because they didn't to me. And God knows they didn't tell Sahlah anything.”

  Sahlah lowered her eyes as the men looked her way. She didn't need to confirm her brother's words. Akram had been in the room for her brief conversation with the police constable who'd come to inform them of Haytham's death. He knew exactly what had been said: “There's been a death on the Nez, I'm sorry to say. The deceased appears to be a Mr. Haytham Querashi. We need someone to identify the body formally, however, and we understand you were to marry him.”

  “Yes,” Sahlah had replied gravely, while inside she was screaming, No no no!

  “This may be,” Akram said to his son. “But you have gone too far. When one among us has died, it is not up to you to see to his resurrection, Muhannad.”

  He was, Sahlah knew, not speaking of Haytham. He was speaking of Taymuliah Azhar. Azhar was supposed to be dead to everyone in the family once his parents had proclaimed him so. If you saw him on the street, you were to look through him or avert your eyes. His name wasn't to be mentioned. His existence wasn't to be spoken of to anyone, even in the most oblique terms. And if you thought of him, you quickly busied your mind with something else lest thinking of him turned to speaking of him turned to a willingness to consider allowing him entrance to the family once more. Sahlah had been too young to be told what crime Azhar had committed within the family to have been cast out, and once the casting out had been accomplished, she'd been forbidden to speak of him to anyone.

  Ten years of solitude, she thought as she observed her cousin. Ten years of wandering in the world alone. What had it been like for him? How had he survived without his relations?

  “What's more important, then?” Muhannad was attempting to sound reasonable. He didn't want to be any further at odds with their father than the day's proceedings had already made him. He couldn't risk being cast out himself. Not with a wife, two children, and the need to be gainfully employed. “What's more important, Father? Tracking down the man who murdered one of our own or making certain Azhar is cut off for life? Sahlah is a victim of this crime as much as Haytham. Don't we have an obligation to her?”

  When Muhannad looked in her direction again, Sahlah lowered her eyes modestly a second time. But her insides shrivelled. She knew the truth. How could anyone not see her brother for what he was?

  “Muhannad, I do not need your instruction in this or any other matter,” Akram said quietly.

  “I'm not trying to instruct you. I'm only telling you that without Azhar—”

  “Muhannad.” Akram reached for one of the parāthās that his wife had prepared. Sahlah could smell the minced beef that had been folded within the pastry. Her stomach lurched at the odour. “This person you speak of is dead to us. You should not have brought him into our lives, much less into our home. I have no argument with you about the crime that has been committed against Haytham, your sister, and all of our family, if indeed it is a crime.”

  “But I told you the DCI said it was murder. And I told you she was forced to admit it because of the pressure we've put on the CID.”

  “The pressure you brought to bear this afternoon was not on the CID.”

  “But that's how it works. Don't you see that?” The room was stifling. Muhannad's white T-shirt clung to his muscled frame. In contrast, Taymullah Azhar sat in a state of such cool calm that he appeared to have transported himself to another world. Muhannad changed gears. “I'm s
orry to have caused you pain, and maybe I should have warned you in advance that there would be a disruption in the meeting—”

  “Maybe?” Akram asked. “And what occurred at the meeting wasn't a simple disruption.”

  “All right. All right. Maybe I approached it wrong.”

  “Maybe?”

  Sahlah saw her brother's muscles tense. But he was too old to throw stones at the wall, and there were no tree trunks in the room to be kicked. His face was beaded with sweat, and for the first time Sahlah realised the importance of having someone like Taymuilah Azhar acting as intermediary for the family in future discussions with the police. Tranquillity under duress wasn't Muhannad's strong suit. Intimidation was, but more than intimidation was going to be called for. “Look where the demonstration got us, Father: an interview with the DCI heading the investigation. And an admission of murder.”

  “I see that,” Akram acknowledged. “So now you shall offer formal thanks to your cousin for his advice and send him on his way.”

  “Bugger that shit!” Muhannad swept three framed pictures from the mantel onto the floor. “What's the matter with you? What are you afraid of? Are you so tied to these bloody westerners that you can't even think that—”

  “Enough.” Akram stepped out of character: He raised his voice.

  “No! It's not enough. You're afraid that one of these English murdered Haytham. And if that's what happened, you're going to have to do something about it—like feel different about them. And you can't bloody face that because you've been playing at being a sodding Englishman for twenty-seven years.”

  Akram was up and across the room so quickly that Sahlah didn't realise what had happened until her father struck Muhannad across his face. It was then that she cried out.

  “Stop it!” She heard the fear in her voice. It was fear for both of them, for what they were capable of doing to each other and how what they did had the potential to rip their family apart. “Muni! Abhy-jahn! Stop!”

  The two men faced off, Akram with a warning finger held stiffly in front of Muhannad's eyes. It was the posture he'd adopted throughout his son's childhood, but with a difference. Now he held his finger up to his son's face because Muhannad topped him by more than two inches.

  “We all want the same thing,” Sahlah said to them. “We want to know what happened to Haytham. And why. We want to know why.” She wasn't sure of the veracity of either of those statements. But she said them anyway because it was more important that her father and brother remain at peace with each other than it was that she speak the complete truth to them. “Why are you arguing, then? Isn't it best to follow the path that'll take us to the truth the quickest? Isn't that what we want?”

  The men didn't answer. Upstairs, Anas began to cry, and in response Yumn's feet pattered down the corridor in her expensive sandals.

  “It's what I want,” Sahlah said quietly. She didn't add the rest because she didn't have to: I am the injured party because he was to be my husband. “Muni. Abhy-jahn. It's what I want,” she repeated.

  Taymullah Azhar rose from his place on the sofa. He was smaller than the two other men, slighter of build and shorter in height. But he seemed their equal in every way as he spoke, even though Akram didn't look at him. “Chachā,” he said.

  Akram winced at the appellation. Father's brother. It claimed a tie of blood where he would not acknowledge one.

  “I don't wish to bring trouble to your home,” Azhar said, and held Muhannad off with a gesture when he would have interrupted hotly. “Let me serve the family. You won't see me unless it's necessary. I'll stay elsewhere so that you needn't break your vow to my father. I can help because, when necessary, I work with our people in London when they have troubles with the police or the government. I have experience with the English—”

  “And we know where that experience took him,” Akram said bitterly.

  Azhar didn't flinch. “I have experience with the English that we all can use in this situation. I ask you to let me help. Because I have no direct connection with this man or his death, I have less emotion tied up in it. I can think more clearly and see more clearly. I offer myself to you.”

  “He disgraced our name,” Akram said.

  “Which is why I no longer use it,” Azhar replied. “I can show my regret in no other way.”

  “He could have done his duty.”

  “I did my best.”

  Instead of answering further, Akram studied Muhannad. He seemed to be taking the measure of his son. Then he turned heavily and looked at Sahlah where she still sat, perched this time on the edge of her seat.

  He said, “I would not have had this happen in your life, Sahlah. I see your sorrow. I only want to bring it to an end.”

  “Then let Azhar—”

  Akram silenced Muhannad by raising his hand between them. “This is for your sister,” he told his son. “Do not let me see him. Do not have him speak to me. And do not bring another moment of disgrace on this family's name.”

  With that, he left them. His footsteps heavily struck each stair.

  “Old fart.” Muhannad spat the words. “Ignorant, grudge-bearing, bloody-minded old fart.”

  Taymullah Azhar shook his head. “He wants to do what's best for his family. It's a concept that I, of all people, understand.”

  AFTER EMILY'S MEAL, Barbara and she had moved to the back garden of the house. They'd been interrupted by a telephone call from Emily's paramour, who'd said, “I can't believe you really wanted to cancel tonight, not after last week. When have you ever come so many—” before Emily snatched up the phone, cutting off the answer machine and saying, “Hi. I'm here, Gary.” She'd swung round so that her back faced Barbara. The conversation had been brief, consisting of Emily saying, “No … It's got nothing to do with that. You said she had a migraine and I believed you. … You're imagining things. … It has nothing to do with—Gary, you know how I hate it when you interrupt me. … Yes, well, I've someone here at the moment, so I can't go into it. … Oh for God's sake, don't be ridiculous. Even if that were the case, what would it matter? We agreed at the start how things would be. … This isn't about control. I'm working tonight. … And that, my darling, is none of your business.”

  She'd hung up smartly and said, “Men. Jesus. If they didn't have the right equipment to amuse us, they'd hardly be worth the trouble.”

  Barbara didn't attempt a clever riposte. Her experience with men's equipment was too limited to offer anything more than a roll of the eyes, which she hoped Emily would read as “Ain't it the truth?”

  The DCI had appeared satisfied with this response. She'd grabbed a bowl of fruit and a bottle of brandy from the work top, and saying “Let's get some air,” she led Barbara to the garden.

  The garden wasn't in much better condition than the house. But the worst of the weeds had been hacked away, and a flagstone path had been laid in a curve to a horse chestnut tree. Beneath this, Barbara and Emily now sat in low-slung canvas chairs, with the bowl of fruit between them, two glasses of brandy that Emily kept topped up, and a nightingale singing somewhere in the branches above them. Emily was eating her second plum. Barbara was munching a handful of grapes.

  It was, at least, cooler in the garden than it had been in the kitchen, and there was even a bit of a view. Cars passed on the Balford Road below them, and beyond it the nighttime lights of the distant summer cottages blinked through the trees. Barbara wondered why the DCI just didn't bring her camp bed, her sleeping bag, her torch, and A Brief History of Time out here.

  Emily cut into her thoughts. “Are you seeing anyone these days, Barb?”

  “Me?” The question seemed ludicrous. Emily had no trouble with her vision, so surely she could deduce the answer without having to ask the question. Just look at me, Barbara wanted to say, I've the body of a chimpanzee. Who d'you think I'd be seeing? But what she said was, “Who has the time?” and hoped it sounded casual enough for the subject to be dismissed.

  Emily glanced her way. A stree
tlamp burned on the Crescent, and since Emily's was the last house in the row, some of its light made its way into her back garden. Barbara could feel Emily making a study of her.

  “That sounds like an excuse,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For maintaining the status quo.” Emily lobbed her plum pit over the wall, where it fell into the weeds of the bare lot next door. “You're still alone, aren't you? Well, you can't want to be alone forever.”

  “Why not? You are. Being alone's not holding you back.”

  “Right. It's not. But there's being alone, and there's being alone,” Emily said wryly. “If you know what I mean.”

  Barbara knew what she meant well enough. While she lived by herself, Emily Barlow had never been without a man on the string for more than one month. But that was because she had it all: good looks, a fine body, a singular mind. Why was it that women who slew men by virtue of simply existing always thought that other women had the same power?

  She craved a cigarette. It was beginning to seem like days since she'd last had one. What the bloody hell did non-smokers do to buy time, to displace unwanted attention, to avoid discussion, or simply to quell nerves? They said, “Pardon, but I don't want to discuss it,” which wouldn't exactly be the best response in a situation in which Barbara was hoping to work closely with the DCI heading up a murder investigation.

  “You don't believe me, do you?” Emily asked when Barbara made no response.

  “Let's just say that experience has encouraged my scepticism. And anyway—” She hoped the gust of air she expelled would give the impression of insouciance. “I'm happy enough with things as they are.”

  Emily reached for an apricot. She rolled it round her palm. “Are you.” The words were a thoughtful statement.