Deception on His Mind

  Treves paused outside the door of her room, its key dangling from his palm by an enormous ivory tag that was shaped like a roller coaster. Each of the keys, Barbara had noted when registering, was identified in similar fun-fair fashion: Other tags were shaped like everything from a dodge'm car to a miniature Ferris wheel, and the rooms they gave access to were named accordingly.

  “Criminal Investigations?” Treves said. “Is this about … But of course, you absolutely cannot say, can you. Well, mum's the word at this end of things, I assure you of that, Detective Sergeant. No one will hear who you are from these lips. Here we are, then.”

  Swinging open the narrow door, he switched on the overhead light and stood back to let her enter ahead of him. When she had done so, he bustled past her, humming tonelessly as he set down her haversack on a collapsible luggage rack. He pointed out the bathroom with the proud announcement that he'd especially given her “the loo with a view.” He patted his hands against the bilious green chenille counterpanes of both twin beds, saying, “Nice and firm, but not too much, I hope,” and he flicked the pink skirt of a kidney-shaped dressing table to iearrange it. He straightened both the prints on the walls—matching Victorian ice skaters who glided away from each other, looking none too happy about taking the exercise—and he fingered through the teabags that lay in a basket waiting for morning. He switched on the bedside lamp, then switched it off. Then switched it on again, as if sending signals.

  “You'll have all that you require, Sergeant Havers, and if you need anything more, you shall find Mr. Basil Treves at your service day and night. At any hour.” He beamed at her. He held his hands folded at chest height and stood at a modified kind of attention. “As for this evening, any final requests? A nightcap? Cappuccino? Some fruit? Mineral water? Greek dancing boys?” He chortled happily. “I'm here to serve your every whim, and don't you forget it.”

  Barbara thought about asking him to brush the dandruff from his shoulders, but she didn't think it was the sort of request that he had in mind. She moved to open the windows. The room was so stifling that the air seemed to shimmer, and she wished that one of the hotel's mod cons had been air conditioning or even room fans. The air was still. It seemed as if the entire universe were holding its breath.

  “Wonderful weather, isn't it?” Treves said jauntily. “It'll bring the visitors here in droves. Lucky you've come when you have, Sergeant. In another week we'll be booked to the roof. Not that I wouldn't have made room for you. Police business takes precedence, doesn't it?”

  Her fingers, Barbara noted, were black-tipped with grime from having opened the window. She rubbed them surreptitiously against her trousers. “As to that, Mr. Treves …”

  Birdlike, he cocked his head. “Yes? Is there something …?”

  “A Mr. Querashi was staying here, wasn't he? Haytham Querashi?”

  It hardly seemed possible that Basil Treves could stand any more at attention, but he appeared to manage it. Barbara thought he might even salute. “An unfortunate occurrence,” he said formally.

  “That he was staying here?”

  “Great Scot, no. He was welcome to stay here. He was more than welcome. The Burnt House doesn't discriminate against anyone. Never has done. And never will do.” He gave a glance over his shoulder towards the open door, saying, “If I may …?” When Barbara nodded, he closed it and continued in a lower voice. “Although to be perfectly honest, I do keep the races separate, as you'll probably note during your stay. This hasn't to do with my own inclinations, mind you. I haven't the slightest prejudice against people of colour. Not the slightest. But the other guests … To be frank, Sergeant, times have been difficult. It doesn't make good business sense to do anything that might engender ill will. If you know what I mean.”

  “So Mr. Querashi stayed in another part of the hotel? Is that what you're saying?”

  “Not so much in another part, but just away from the others. Ever so slightly. I doubt he even noticed.” Treves raised his folded hands to his chest once again. “I have several permanent residents, you see. These are ageing ladies, and they simply aren't used to the way times have changed. In fact, this is almost too embarrassing to mention, but one of them actually mistook Mr. Querashi for a servant the first morning he came down to breakfast. Can you imagine it? Poor thing.”

  Barbara wasn't sure whether he was referring to Haytham Querashi or the old woman, but she felt she could hazard a fairly accurate guess. “I'd like to see the room he stayed in, if I may,” Barbara said.

  “Then you are here because of his demise.”

  “Not his demise. His murder.”

  Treves said, “Murder? Good God,” and he reached behind him till his hand came into contact with one of the twin beds. He sank onto it, said, “If you'll pardon me,” and lowered his head. He breathed deeply and when he finally raised his head again, he said in a hushed voice, “Does it have to be known that he was staying here? Here at the Burnt House? Will the newspapers mention it? Because with business promising to pick up at long last …”

  So much for his reaction having to do with shock, guilt, or the milk of human kindness, Barbara thought. Not for the first time, she had validation for her long held belief that Homo sapiens was genetically linked to pond scum.

  Treves must have seen this conclusion on her face, because he went on quickly. “It's not that I don't care what happened to Mr. Querashi. I do. Indeed I do care most deeply. He was quite a pleasant chap, for all his ways, and I regret his unfortunate passing. But with business about to pick up, and after all these years of recession, one can't take the chance of losing even one—”

  “His ways?” Barbara headed off his discourse on the nation's economy.

  Basil Treves blinked. “Well, they are different, aren't they?”

  “They?”

  “These Asians. Why, surely you know. You'd have to, wouldn't you, working in London. Good grief. Don't deny it.”

  “How was he different?”

  Treves apparently inferred something more than she intended in the question. His eyes started to go opaque and he crossed his arms. Defences are rising, Barbara thought with interest, and she wondered why he was arming himself. Nonetheless, she knew it wouldn't do for them to be at odds, so she hastened to reassure him. “What I meant is that since you saw him regularly, anything unusual that you can tell me about his behaviour will help. Culturally he would have been different to the rest of your guests—”

  “He certainly isn't the only Asian in residence,” Treves interrupted, still driving home the point about his liberality. “The Burnt House's doors will always be open to all.”

  “Right. Of course. Then I take it he was different even to the other Asians. Whatever you tell me I'll keep in confidence, Mr. Treves. Anything that you know, saw, or even suspected about Mr. Querashi may be the fact we need to get to the root of what happened to him.”

  Her words seemed to mollify the man, encouraging him to reflect upon his own importance to a police investigation. He said, “I see. Yes. I do see,” and proceeded to look thoughtful. He stroked his scraggly, undipped beard.

  “May I see his room?”

  “But of course. Yes. Yes.”

  He led her back the way they had come, ascending one more flight of stairs and walking along a corridor towards the rear of the building. Three of the doors along the corridor stood open, awaiting tenants. A fourth was shut. Behind it, television voices spoke at a considerate, low volume. Haytham Querashi's room was next to this one, the fifth room at the very end of the passage.

  Treves had a master key. He said, “I haven't touched it since his … well … the accident. …” There was indeed no euphemism for murder. He gave up searching for one and said, “The police came by to tell me about it—just that he was dead. They told me to keep his room locked up till I heard from them.”

  “We don't like anything to be disturbed till we know what we're working with,” Barbara told him. “Natural causes, a murder, accident, or suicide. Y
ou haven't disturbed anything, have you? No one else has?”

  “No one,” he said. “Akram Malik called in with his son. They wanted the personal effects to send back to Pakistan, and believe me, they weren't happy hikers when I wouldn't let them into the room to collect them. Muhannad acted as if I was part of a conspiracy to commit crimes against mankind.”

  “And Akram Malik? What did he think?”

  “Our Akram plays his cards ve-rry close, Sergeant. He wouldn't be fool enough to let me know what he was thinking.”

  “Why's that?” Barbara asked as Treves swung open the door to Haytham Querashi's room.

  “Because we loathe each other,” Treves explained pleasantly. “I can't abide upstarts, and he doesn't like to be considered one. It's a shame he immigrated to England, when you think of it. He'd have done much better in the U.S., where the first concern is whether you have money, and who your people are ranks down round your shoe size. Here we are.” He switched on the overhead light.

  Haytham Querashi's room was a single with a small casement window overlooking the back garden of the hotel. It was decorated as haphazardly as Barbara's room. Yellow, red, and pink all battled to be the dominant colour.

  “He seemed to be quite happy here,” Treves said as Barbara took in the depressingly narrow bed, the one armless and lumpy chair, the pseudo-wood of the clothes cupboard, and the gaps in the tassles on the shade of a wall sconce. There was a print above the bed, another Victorian scene, this one a young woman languishing on a chaise longue. The paper it was mounted on had long since gone dingy.

  “Right.” Barbara grimaced at the odour in the room. It was the smell of burnt onions and sprouts too long cooked. Querashi's room was located above the kitchen, doubtless a subtle reminder to the man of what his place was in the hotel hierarchy. “Mr. Treves, what can you tell me about Haytham Querashi? How long had he been staying with you? Had he any visitors? Any friends that stopped by? Any particular phone calls that he made or received?” She pressed the back of her hand against the hot dampness on her forehead and went to the chest of drawers to have a look at Querashi's belongings. She paused and rustled through her shoulder bag for the evidence bags that Emily had given to her before she'd left the Crescent. She donned a pair of latex gloves.

  Querashi, Basil Treves informed her, had been staying at the Burnt House for six weeks while waiting for his wedding. Akram Malik had arranged for the room. Apparently, a house had been purchased for the soon-to-be newlyweds as part of the Malik daughter's dowry, but as it was undergoing redecoration, Querashi's stay at the hotel had been extended several times. He went to work before eight in the morning and generally returned round half past seven or eight at night, taking breakfast and dinner at the Burnt House on weekdays, dinner elsewhere at the weekend.

  “With the Maliks?”

  Treves shrugged. He ran one finger down a panel in the opened door and examined its tip which, even from where Barbara stood at the chest of drawers, she could see was furred with dust. He couldn't swear that Querashi was with the Maliks every weekend. While it would make sense were that the case—”since in usual circumstances the lovebirds would want to be together as often as possible, wouldn't they?”—because these circumstances were rather abnormal, there was always a possibility that Querashi spent his weekend hours in other pursuits.

  “Abnormal circumstances?” Barbara turned from the chest of drawers.

  “An arranged marriage,” Treves explained, with delicate emphasis on the adjective. “Rather medieval, wouldn't you say?”

  “It's cultural, isn't it?”

  “Whatever you call it, when you force fourteenth-century mores upon twentieth-century men and women, you can't be surprised what develops as a result, can you, Sergeant?”

  “What developed in this case?” Barbara turned back to take note of the items on top of the chest: a passport, neatly arranged stacks of coins, a money clip clasping fifty pounds in notes, and a brochure for a place called the Castle Hotel and Restaurant which was—according to the map that accompanied it—on the main road to Harwich. Barbara opened this curiously. The tariff sheet fell out. She noted that listed last among the rooms was a honeymoon suite. For £80 per night, Querashi and his bride would have been set up with a four-poster bed, one half bottle of Asti Spumante, one red rose, and breakfast in bed. Romantic devil, she thought, and went on to a leather case that, upon inspection, she found locked.

  She realised that Treves hadn't answered her question. She glanced his way. He was pulling thoughtfully at his beard, and she noticed for the first time a few disagreeable flakes of skin caught up in it, product of a mild case of eczema that mottled the lower part of his cheeks. He was wearing the sort of expression that powerless people seeking power often wear. Lofty, knowing, and undecided about the wisdom of sharing his knowledge. Bloody hell, Barbara thought with an inward sigh. It looked as if she was going to have to massage his ego every step of the way.

  “I need your insight into him, Mr. Treves. Aside from the Maliks, you're probably the best source of information we have.”

  “I understand that.” Treves gave his beard a preening pat. “But you must understand that a hotelier is not entirely unlike a confessor. To the successful hotelier, what one sees, hears, and concludes is of a confidential nature.”

  Barbara wanted to point out to him that the state of the Burnt House hardly justified the adjective successful being applied to him. But she knew the rules of the game he was playing. “Believe me,” she intoned, “whatever information you supply will be treated in confidence, Mr. Treves. But I've got to have it if we're to work together as equals.” She wanted to snarl when she said the final words. She covered this desire by sliding open the top drawer of the chest, searching through carefully folded socks and underwear for the key to the locked leather case.

  “If you're sure of that …” Treves was apparently so eager to part with what he knew—despite his words—that he went on without waiting for her assurances. “Then I must tell you. There was someone else in his life besides the Malik girl. It's the only explanation.”

  “For what?” Barbara went on to the second drawer. A stack of perfectly folded shirts was arranged by colour: white giving way to ivory, to grey, and finally to black. Pyjamas were in the third drawer. Nothing was in the fourth. Querashi travelled light.

  “For why he went out at night.”

  “Haytham Querashi went out at night? How often?”

  “At least twice a week. Sometimes more. And always after ten. I thought at first that he was going to see his fiancée. It seemed a reasonable enough conclusion, despite the odd hour. He'd want to get to know her, wouldn't he, before the wedding day. These people aren't complete heathens, after all. They may give their sons and daughters away to the highest bidder, but I dare say they don't give them away to total strangers without allowing them a chance to get acquainted. Do they?”

  “I haven't a clue,” Barbara replied. “Go on.” She went to the bedside table, a wobbly affair with a single drawer. She slid this open.

  “Well, the point is that on this particular night, I saw him as he was leaving the hotel. We chatted a bit about the upcoming nuptials, and he told me he was going to the seafront for a run. Pre-wedding nerves and all. You know.”

  “Right.”

  “So when I heard he died on the Nez, of all places—which as you may or may not know, Sergeant, is in the opposite direction to the seafront if you leave from this hotel intending to have a run—I realised he hadn't wanted me to be privy to what he was up to. Which can only mean that he was up to something he hadn't ought to be up to. And, since he regularly left the hotel at the exact hour at which he left on Friday night, and since on Friday night he ended up dead, I think it's safe to deduce not only that he was meeting someone whom he met on the other nights but also that this someone was a person he ought not to have been meeting in the first place.” Treves folded his hands at chest height once again and looked as if he expected Barbara to sh
out, “Holmes, you amaze me!”

  But since Haytham Querashi had been murdered and since the conditions suggested the death was no random act, Barbara had already concluded that the man had gone to the Nez to meet someone. The only piece of information Treves had added was that Querashi may have made this a regular rendezvous. And, reluctant as she was to admit it, that was an extremely valuable titbit. She threw the hotelier a bone. “Mr. Treves, you're in the wrong profession.”

  “Really?”

  “Believe it.” And those two words weren't even a lie.

  Thus buoyed, Treves came to inspect the contents of the bedside table with her: a yellow-bound book with a matching satin marker that, opened, displayed several lines bracketed off and an entire text that was written in Arabic; a box of two dozen condoms, half of which were gone; and a five by seven manila envelope. Barbara placed the book into an evidence bag as Treves tut-tutted over the condoms and everything that possession of such sexual paraphernalia seemed to imply. As he clucked, Barbara upended the manila envelope into her palm. Two keys fell out, one not much larger than the length of her first knuckle to the tip of her thumb, the other quite tiny, fingernail size. This second had to be the key to the leather case on the chest of drawers. She closed her fingers round both of the keys and contemplated her next move. She wanted a look inside the case, but she preferred the look to be a private one. So before she took action, she had to take care of her bearded Sherlock.

  She thought about how best to do this while still keeping the man's good will. He wouldn't take kindly to the dawning knowledge that, as he knew the victim, he was one of the suspects in Querashi's murder until an alibi or other evidence eliminated him.

  She said, “Mr. Treves, these keys may be crucial to our investigation. Would you step into the corridor and keep watch, please? The last thing we want at a moment like this is eavesdroppers or spies. Give me the word if the coast is clear.”

  He said, “Of course, of course, Sergeant. I'm only too happy …” and hurried off to fulfill his commission.