Deception on His Mind (18 page)

“But it's his death you know something about.”

“Not exactly his death. But something related. And I wanted to know should I say something if someone asks me.”

“What kind of someone?”

“Maybe a police kind of someone.”

“Police?” Connie managed to say the word with barely a movement of her lips. Beneath the fuchsia blusher she wore, her skin had gone quite pale so that the streaks of make-up on her cheeks stood out like sodden rose petals. She didn't look at Rachel again as she spoke. “We're business women, Rachel Lynn Winfield. We're business women first and we're business women last. What we got—no matter how little it is—depends on the good will of this town. And not just the tourists’ good will, mind you, coming here in the summer, but everyone else's good will as well. You got that?”

“Sure. I know.”

“So you get a name as someone who opens her gob too easy and spills what she knows to every Tom, Dick, and Harry coming in off the street, and the only people who lose out are us: Connie and Rache. People shy away from us. They stop coming into the shop. They take their business over to Clacton, and it's no inconvenience for them to do that because they'd rather go somewhere they feel comfortable, where they can say, ‘I need something pretty for a very special lady’ and they can wink when they say it and know that wink isn't going to get back to their wives. Am I being clear on this, Rache? We got a business to run. And business comes first. Always.”

That said, she took up her Coke once again, and this time when she took a gulp, she pulled a copy of
Woman's Own
from the pile of bills, catalogues, and newspapers on the table. She opened it and began to study the table of contents. Their conversation was at a close.

Rachel watched her running her long red fingernail down the list of articles contained in the magazine. She watched as Connie flipped to one entitled “Seven Ways to Know if He's Cheating.” The title made Rachel shiver despite the heat, so accurately did it hit the very nail on the very head. She needed an article called “What to Do When You Know,” but she had her answer, really. Do nothing and wait. Which is what, she realised, everyone should do when it came to betrayals petty or otherwise. Acting upon a knowledge of them led nowhere else but to disaster. The past few days in Balford-le-Nez had proved that to Rachel Winfield beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“FOR AN INDEFINITE
stay?” The proprietor of the Burnt House Hotel fairly salivated over the words. As it was, he rubbed his hands together as if he were already massaging the money Barbara would have to part with at the end of her stay. He had introduced himself as Basil Treves and had added the information that he was a retired lieutenant in the army—in “Her Majesty's Armed Forces,” as he termed it—once he read upon her registration card that her place of employment was New Scotland Yard. This apparently made them compatriots of some sort.

Barbara supposed it was the idea of having to wear uniforms both in the army and for the Met. She herself hadn't worn a uniform in years, but she didn't share this bit of personal trivia. She needed Basil Treves on her side, and anything that served to put him there and keep him there was well worth preserving. Besides, she appreciated the fact that he'd tactfully made no mention of the condition of her face. She'd removed the remaining bandages in the car after leaving Emily, but her skin from eyes to lips was still a panorama of yellow, purple, and blue.

Treves led her up one flight of stairs and down a dim corridor. Nowhere was there much to indicate to Barbara that the Burnt House Hotel was a banner of delights just waiting to unfurl for her pleasure. A relic of long-ago Edwardian summers, it boasted faded carpets over creaking floor boards above which hung water-stained ceilings. It was possessed of a general atmosphere of genteel decay.

Treves seemed oblivious of all this, however. He chatted incessantly the entire way to Barbara's room, smoothing his sparse and oily hair up from a parting just above his left ear and across the gleaming dome of his skull. She would find the Burnt House had every possible convenience, he confided: a colour television in every room
with
a remote control device and another large-screen telly in the residents’ lounge should she decide to be sociable of an evening; tea-making facilities next to one's bed for a morning cuppa; bathrooms in nearly
every
room and additional toilets and baths on each floor; telephones with a direct line into the world upon the touch of a nine; and that most mystical, blessed, and cherished of mod cons—a fax machine in reception. He called it a facsimile sender, as if he and the machine were still on formal terms with each other, and he went on to add, “But you won't be wanting that, I dare say. Here for a holiday, are you, Miss Havers?”

“Sergeant Havers,” Barbara corrected him, and added “Detective Sergeant Havers.” There was no better time than the present, she decided, to position Basil Treves where she needed him. Something about the man's sharp little eyes and expectant posture told her he would be only too happy to assist the police with information if given a chance. The framed newspaper photo of himself in reception—celebrating his election to the town council—told her that he was the sort of man who didn't come by personal glory often or easily. So when the opportunity arose to garner a bit, he doubtless would be the first to jump at it. And what better glory than to be an unofficial part of a murder investigation? He might prove to be quite useful, and with only a little effort on her part. “I'm here on business, actually,” she told him, allowing herself a slight taffy-pull with the truth. “CID business, to be more precise.”

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. You 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.”