Deception on His Mind

  “What is it?” Emily asked. Her glance sharpened on the paper he held. “Damn it, Doug, if that bloody Ferguson's—”

  “Not Ferguson,” Doug said. “We've had a call from Colchester. Looks like it came in round eight and the chit got put with some others in communications. I only got it ten minutes ago.”

  “What about it?”

  “I just returned the call. Tidying up loose ends. I did Colchester the other day, about Malik's alibi, remember?”

  “Get on with it, Constable.”

  He flinched at her tone. “Well, I did it again today when we were trying to track him down.”

  Barbara felt her trepidations rising. She read caution all over the DCs features. He looked as if he was expecting a round of kill-the-messenger upon the conclusion of his remarks.

  “Not everyone was home in Rakin Khan's neighbourhood when I was there either time, so I left my card. That's what this phone call was all about.”

  “Doug, I'm not interested in the minutiae of your day's activities. Get to the point or get out of my office.”

  Doug cleared his throat. “He was there, Guv. Malik was there.”

  “What are you talking about? He couldn't have been there. I saw him myself on the sea.”

  “I don't mean today. I mean on Friday night. Malik was in Colchester. Just like Rakin Khan claimed from the first.”

  “What?” Emily flung her pencil to one side. “Bullshit. Are you out of your mind?”

  “This”—again he indicated the chit—”is from a bloke called Fred Medosch. He travels, in sales. He has a bed-sit in the house directly across the street from Khan's. He wasn't home the first time I was there. And he wasn't home when I was trying to track down Malik today.” The constable paused, shifting on his feet. “But he was home on Friday night, Guv. And he saw Malik. In the flesh. At ten-fifteen. Inside Khan's house with Khan and another bloke. Blond, round specs, a little hunched at the shoulders.”

  “Reuchlein,” Barbara breathed. “Bloody hell/’ Emily, she saw, had gone dead pale.

  “No way,” she murmured.

  Doug looked miserable. “His bed-sit looks right into the front window of Khan's house. Its dining room window, Guv. And it was hot that night, so the window was open. Malik was there. Medosch described him right down to the ponytail. He was trying to sleep, and those blokes were loud. He looked over to see what was going on. That's when he saw him. I've phoned Colchester CID. They're heading over with a picture of Malik, just to make sure. But I thought you'd want to know up front. Before the press office puts out word that …you know.”

  Emily pushed away from her desk. “It's impossible,” she said. “He couldn't have been …How did he do it?”

  Barbara knew what she was thinking. It was the first thought that had struck her as well. How could Muhannad Malik possibly have been in two places at once? But the answer was obvious: He hadn't been.

  “No!” Emily said insistently. Doug faded from the room. Emily got up from her chair and walked to the window. She shook her head. She said, “God damn.’

  And Barbara thought. She thought about everything they'd heard: from Theo Shaw, from Rachel Winfield, from Sahlah Malik, from Ian Armstrong, from Trevor Ruddock. She thought about everything they knew: that Sahlah was pregnant, that Trevor had been given the sack, that Gerry DeVitt had been hard at work on Querashi's house, that Cliff Hegarty had been the murdered man's lover. She thought of the alibis, of who had them and who hadn't, of what each of them meant and where each of them fit in the greater structure of the case itself. She thought—

  “Good Christ.” She surged to her feet, snatching up her shoulder bag in the same movement and barely noticing the spearhead of pain that pierced her chest. She was too intent upon the sudden, horrifying but utterly clear realisation that had come upon her. ‘Oh my God. Of course. Of course/’

  Emily turned from the night. “What?”

  “He didn't do it. He did the smuggling, but he didn't do this. Em! Don't you see—”

  “Don't play games with me,” Emily snapped. “If you're trying to escape a disciplinary hearing by pinning this murder on anyone but Malik—”

  “Sod you, Barlow,” Barbara said impatiently. “Do you want the real killer or don't you?”

  “You're out of line, Sergeant.”

  “Fine. What's new? Add it to the report. But if you want to close this case, come with me.”

  THERE WAS NO need to rush, so they didn't use either the siren or the lights. As they drove up Martello Road, from there to the Crescent where Emily's house lay in darkness, from the Crescent into the upper Parade and round back of the railway station, Barbara explained. And Emily resisted. And Emily argued. And Emily tersely presented reasons why Barbara was leaping to a false conclusion.

  But in Barbara's mind, everything was there and had been all along: the motive, the means, and the opportunity. They'd merely been incapable of seeing them, blinded by their own preconceptions of what sort of woman would submit herself to an arranged marriage in the first place. She would be docile, they had thought. She would have no mind of her own. She would give her will over to the care of others—father first, husband second, elder brothers, if there were any, third—and she would be unable to take an action even when an action might have been called for.

  “That's what we think when we think of a marriage being arranged, don't we?” Barbara asked.

  Emily listened, tightlipped. They were on Woodberry Way, gliding past the line of Fiestas and Carltons that stood before the down-at-heel terraced houses of one of the town's older neighbourhoods.

  Barbara went on. Because their Western culture was so different to the Eastern, she argued, Westerners saw Eastern women as so many willow branches, blown by any kind of wind that happened upon the tree. But what Westerners never considered was the fact that the willow branch was formed—indeed, had completely evolved over time—for resiliency. Let the wind blow; let the gale howl. The branch moved but still remained fixed to the tree.

  “We looked at the obvious,” Barbara said, “because the obvious was all that we had to work with. It was logical, right? We looked for Haytham Querashi's enemies. We looked for people with a bone to pick with him. And we found them. Trevor Ruddock, who'd been given the sack. Theo Shaw, who'd been entangled with Sahlah. Ian Armstrong, who'd got his job back when Querashi died. Muhannad Malik, who had the most to lose if Querashi told anyone what he knew. We considered everything. A homosexual lover. A jealous husband. A blackmailer. You name it, and there we were, running it under the microscope. What we never thought of was what it meant in the larger scheme of everyone's life once Haytham Querashi was out of the way. We saw his murder as having to do solely with him. He got in someone's way. He knew something he shouldn't have known. He gave someone the sack. So he had to die. What we never saw was that his murder might not have had anything to do with him at all. We never thought it could have been the means to an end having nothing to do with anything that we—as Westerners, as bloody Westerners—could possibly hope to understand.”

  The DCI shook her head stubbornly. “You're blowing smoke. This is nothing.” She'd driven them through the solidly middle-class neighbourhood that served as a boundary between old Balford and new, between the sagging Edwardian buildings that Agatha Shaw had hoped to restore to their former glory and the upmarket, tree-shaded, elegant homes that had been built in architectural styles that harkened to the past. Here were mock Tudor mansions, Georgian hunting lodges, Victorian summer homes, Palladian façades.

  “No,” Barbara responded bluntly. “Just look at us. Look at how we think. We never even asked her for an alibi. We never asked any one of them. And why? Because they're Asian women. Because in our eyes they allow their men to dominate them, to decide their fates, and to determine their futures. They cover their bodies cooperatively. They cook and clean. They bow and scrape. They never complain. They have, we think, no lives of their own. So they have, we think, no minds of their own. But for God's sa
ke, Emily, what if we're wrong?”

  Emily turned right into Second Avenue. Barbara directed her to the house. The downstairs lights all appeared to be on. The family would know about Muhannad's flight by now. If they hadn't had the news from a member of the town council, they'd have had it from the media, phoning with questions, eager for a response from the Maliks, their reaction to Muhannad's escape.

  Emily parked, studied the house for a moment without speaking. Then she looked at Barbara. “We haven't a shred of evidence for this. Not one speck. Exactly what d'you propose to do?”

  That was certainly the question, all right. Barbara considered its ramifications. Especially, she considered the question in light of the DCFs intention to pillory her for Muhannad's escape. She had two options, as she saw the situation. She could let Emily walk the plank on this one, or she could move beyond her ignoble preferences, beyond what she really wanted to do. She could take her revenge or assume responsibility; she could go at the DCI in kind or give her the coup that would save her career. The choice was hers.

  Of course, she wanted the former. She ached for the former. But her years with Inspector Lynley in London had shown that an ugly job can be well completed and the doer can still stand whole at the end.

  “There's a lot you might learn from working with Lynley “ Superintendent Webberly once had said.

  The words were never more true than in this moment, when they gave her the answer to Emily's question.

  “We do exactly what you said, Emily. We just blow smoke. And we do it till the fox comes out of its den.”

  Akram Malik answered their knock at his door. He seemed years older than he had when they'd seen him at the factory. He looked at Barbara, then at Emily. He said tonelessly but with such a study of pain underscoring his words that the tone of it wasn't necessary for them to ascertain its presence, “Please. Do not tell me, Inspector Barlow. He could not be any more dead to me now.”

  Barbara felt a surge of compassion for the man.

  Emily responded. “Your son isn't dead, Mr. Malik. As far as I know, he's on his way to Germany. We'll try to apprehend him. We'll extradite him if we can. We'll put him on trial and he'll go to gaol. But we're not here to talk to you about Muhannad.”

  “Then …”He drew his hand down over his face and examined the sweat that glistened on his palm. The night was as hot as the day had been. And not one window in the house was open.

  “May we come in?” Barbara asked. “We'd like a word with the family. With everyone.”

  He stepped back from the door. They followed him into the sitting room. His wife was there, her fingers plucking uselessly at an embroidery ring that held a complicated pattern of lines and curves, dots and squiggles that she was sewing onto gold fabric. It was a moment before Barbara realised they were Arabic words that she was fashioning into a sampler, similar to the others that hung on the wall.

  Sahlah was also there. She had a photograph album open on a glass-topped coffee table. She was in the process of removing photographs from it. Round her on the bright Persian carpet lay her brother's likeness, scrupulously incised from picture after picture as his place in the family was eradicated. The sight of this gave Barbara the chills.

  She walked to the mantel, where earlier she'd seen the photographs of Muhannad, his wife, and his children. The picture of the family's son and his wife was still in place, not a victim yet of Sahlah's scissors. Barbara picked this up and saw what she hadn't noted before: where the couple had posed for the picture. They stood on the Balford Marina, a picnic basket at their feet and Charlie Spencer's Zodiacs lined up behind them.

  She said, “Yumn's home, isn't she, Mr. Malik? Could you fetch her? We'd like to speak to all of you together.”

  The two older people looked at each other apprehensively, as if the request implied that more horrors were in the offing. Sahlah was the one who spoke, but she directed her words to her father, not to Barbara. “Shall I fetch her, Abhy-jahn?” She held her scissors upright between her breasts, the personification of patience as she waited for her father to direct her.

  Akram said to Barbara, “I apologise, but I see no need for Yumn to face anything more tonight. She's become a widow; her children are fatherless. Her world has been shattered. She's gone to bed. So if you have something to tell my daughter-in-law, I must ask you to tell me first and allow me to judge whether she's fit enough to hear it.”

  “I'm not willing to do that,” Barbara said. “You're going to have to fetch her or DCI Barlow and I are going to have to park ourselves here until she's ready to join us.” She added, “I'm sorry,” because she did feel sympathy for his position. He was so obviously caught in the middle, the human rope in a tug-of-war whose adversaries were duty and inclination. His cultural duty was to protect the women of his family. But his adopted inclination was English: to do what was proper, to accede to a reasonable request made to him by the authorities.

  Inclination won. Akram sighed. He nodded at SahlaL She set her scissors on the coffee table. She closed the photo album upon her work. She left them. An instant later, they heard her sandaled feet on the stairs.

  Barbara looked at Emily. The DCI communicated wordlessly. Don't think this changes a thing between us, Emily was telling her. You're finished as a cop if I have my way.

  Do what you have to do, was Barbara's silent reply. And for the first time since meeting Emily Barlow, she actually felt free.

  Akram and Wardah waited uneasily. The husband bent stiffly to gather up the severed pictures of Muhannad. He tossed these into the fireplace. The wife set aside her embroidery, weaving the needle into the fabric before she folded her hands in her lap.

  Then Yumn was clattering down the stairs in Sahlah's wake. They could hear her protestations, her quavering voice. “How much more am I meant to bear in one evening? What have they come to tell me? My Muni did nothing. They have driven him from us because they hate him. Because they hate us all. Who will be next?”

  “They just want to talk to us, Yumn,” Sahlah said in her gentle lamb's voice.

  “Well, if I'm made to bear this, I will not bear it unaided. Fetch me some tea. And I want real sugar, not that sour chemical business. Do you hear me? Where are you going, Sahlah? I said, fetch me some tea.”

  Sahlah entered the sitting room, her face impassive. Yumn was saying petulantly, “I asked you to … I am your brother's wife. You have a duty,” as she followed her sister-in-law into the room. There, she gave her attention to the two detectives. “What more do you want of me?” she demanded of them. “What more do you wish to do to me now? You've driven him—driven him—from his family. And for what reason? Because you're jealous. You're eaten with jealousy. You have no men of your own, and you can't bear the thought that someone else might have one. And not just any man, but a real man, a man among—”

  “Sit down,” Barbara told the woman.

  Yumn gulped. She looked to her in-laws for a reprimand to the insult given her. An outsider did not tell her what to do, her expression said. But no one made this protest on her behalf.

  With affronted dignity, she walked to an armchair. If she realised the import of the photograph album and the pair of scissors lying next to it on the coffee table, she gave no sign. Barbara shot a look at Akram, realising that he'd gathered the pictures from the floor and thrown them into the fireplace in order to spare his daughter-in-law having to witness one of the initial ceremonies illustrating her husband's official banishment.

  Sahlah returned to the sofa. Akram went to another armchair. Barbara stayed where she was by the mantel, Emily by one of the room's closed windows. She looked as if she wanted to throw it open. The air inside was tepid and stale.

  From this moment forward, Barbara knew, the entire investigation became a crap shoot. She drew a deep breath and rattled the dice. “Mr. Malik,” she said, “can you or your wife tell us where your son was on Friday night?”

  Akram frowned. “I see no purpose to this question, unless you have come t
o my home with a desire to torment us.”

  The women were motionless, their attention on Akram. Then Sahlah reached forward and picked up the scissors.

  “Right,” Barbara said. “But if you thought Muhannad was innocent until he scarpered this afternoon, then you must have had a reason for thinking that. And the reason must be that you knew where he was on Friday night. Am I right?”

  Yumn said, “My Muni was—”

  “I'd like to hear it from his father,” Barbara cut in.

  Akram said slowly, still reflecting, “He was not at home. I recall this much because—”

  Yumn said, “Abhy, you must have forgotten that—”

  “Let him answer,” Emily ordered.

  “I can answer,” Wardah Malik said. “Muhannad was in Colchester on Friday night. He always dines there once each month with a friend from university. Rakin Khan, he's called.”

  “Sus, no,” Yumn's voice was high. She fluttered her hands. “Muni didn't go to Colchester on Friday. That would have been on Thursday. You've confused the dates because of what happened to Haytham.”

  Wardah looked perplexed. She glanced at her husband as if for guidance. Slowly, Sahlah's gaze moved among them.

  “You've just forgotten,” Yumn continued. “How easy to do, considering all that's happened. But surely you remember—”

  “No,” Wardah said. “My memory is actually quite accurate, Yumn. He went to Colchester. He phoned from work before he left because he was worried about Anas's nightmares, and he asked me to change what I was making for the boys’ tea. He thought the food might be upsetting him.”

  “Oh yes,” Yumn said, “but that would have been on Thursday, because Anas had one of his bad dreams on Wednesday night.”

  “It was Friday,” Wardah said. “Because I'd done the shopping, which I always do on Friday. You know that yourself, because you were helping me put the groceries away, and you were the one who answered the phone when Muni rang.”

  “No, no, no.” Yumn's head moved frantically, directing her gaze first to Wardah, then to Akram, then to Barbara herself. “He wasn't in Colchester. He was with me. Here in this house. We were upstairs, so you would have forgotten. But we were in our bedroom, Muni and I. Abhy, you saw us. You spoke to us both.”