Deception on His Mind (93 page)

“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 to 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.”

Akram said nothing. His face was grave.

“Sahlah.
Bahin,
you know we were here. I asked for you. I asked Muni to fetch you. He would have done so. He would have gone to your room and instructed you to—”

“No, Yumn. That isn't how it was.” Sahlah spoke so carefully that it seemed as if she set each word on a thin sheet of ice and wished to be diligent about not fracturing it. She seemed to be realising what each of her words meant as she said them. “Muni wasn't here. He wasn't in the house. And …” She hesitated. Her face was stricken as, perhaps, she understood the import of what she was about to say, and she fully comprehended how her words would devastate the lives of two innocent little boys. “And neither were you, Yumn. You weren't here either.”

“I was!” Yumn cried. “How dare you say that I wasn't here! What are you thinking, you stupid girl?”

“Anas had one of his nightmares,” Sahlah said. “I went in to him. He was screaming and Bishr had started to cry as well. I thought, Where is Yumn? Why doesn't she come to them? How can she sleep so well that she doesn't hear this terrible noise in the very next room? I even thought at the time that you were just too lazy to get out of bed. But you're never too lazy when it comes to the boys. You never have been.”

“Insolent!” Yumn jumped to her feet. “I insist that you say I was in this house. I'm your brother's wife! I command your obedience. I order you to tell them.”

And there it was, Barbara realised. The motive itself. Buried deeply within a culture she knew so little about that she had failed to see it. But she saw it now. And she saw how it had worked its desperate energy within the mind of a woman who had nothing else to recommend herself to her in-laws but a sizable dowry and the ability to reproduce. She said, “But Sahlah wouldn't have had to obey any longer if she married Querashi, would she? Only you would be left having to do that, Yumn. Obeying your husband, obeying your mother-in-law, obeying everyone, including your own sons eventually.”

Yumn refused to submit. She said,
“Sus,”
to Wardah.
“Abby,”
to Akram. And “Your grandsons’ mother,” to them both.

Akram's face closed down, shuttering itself effectively and completely. Barbara felt a chill run down her spine as she saw in that instant that Yumn had simply ceased to exist in the mind of her father-in-law.

Wardah took up her embroidery. Sahlah leaned forward. She opened the photograph album. She cut Yumn's likeness from the first of the pictures. No one spoke as her image, loosened from the family group, fluttered to the carpet at Sahlah's feet.

“I am …” Yumn grasped for words. “The mother …” She faltered. She looked to each of them. But no one met her gaze. “The sons of Muhannad,” she said in desperation. “All of you will listen. You will do as I say.”

Emily moved. She crossed the room and took Yumn's arm. “You'll need to get dressed,” she told the woman.

Yumn cast a look over her shoulder as Emily drew her towards the door. She said, “Whore,” to Sahlah. “In your room. In your bed. I heard you, Sahlah. I know what you are.”

Barbara looked cautiously from Sahlah to her parents, breath held and waiting for their reaction. But she could see on their faces that they discounted Yumn's accusation. She was, after all, a woman who had deceived them once and would be willing to deceive them yet again.

T WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT WHEN BARBARA FINALLY
returned to the Burnt House Hotel. She was wrung out. But not so much so that she failed to note the blessed stirring of a breeze from the sea. It struck her cheeks as she climbed out of the Mini, wincing as the pain in her chest told her of the rough usage she'd made of her unhealed ribcage during the day. For a moment, she stood in the car park and carefully breathed in the salt air, hoping that its long-touted medicinal properties might hurry her healing along.

In the corona of silver light from one of the streetlamps, she could see the first wisps of fog—so long anticipated—finally coming to the shore. Hallelujah, she thought at the sight of the fragile feathers of vapour. Never had the potential return of a damp and dreary English summer seemed so bloody good to her.

She scooped up her shoulder bag and trudged to the door of the hotel. She felt weighed down by the case, despite—or perhaps because of—having been the means of bringing it to a conclusion. She didn't have to look far to find a reason for feeling so burdened, however. She'd seen the reason first hand, and she'd heard it spoken as well.

What she'd seen had been in the faces of the elder Maliks as they sought a way to come to terms with the enormity of their beloved son's crimes against his own people. He had represented the future to his parents—their own future and the future of their family stretching out towards infinity, each generation more successful than the last. His had been the promise of security in their old age. He had been the foundation upon which they'd built the larger part of their lives. With his flight—more, with the reason for his flight—all of that had been destroyed. What they might have anticipated for him and expected from him as their only son was gone forever. What was left in place of their hopes was ignominy, a family disaster turned into a permanent nightmare and very real disgrace by their daughter-in-law's culpability in the murder of Haytham Querashi.

What Barbara had heard was Sahlah's quiet reply to the question she'd asked the girl out of her parents’ hearing. What will you do now? she'd wanted to know. What will you do …about everything that's happened? Everything, Sahlah. It hadn't been her business, of course, but with the thought of so many lives being ruined by one man's greed and one woman's need to cement her position of superiority, Barbara had felt anxious for any indication of reassurance telling her that something good would arise from the devastation fallen upon these people. I'll remain with my family, Sahlah had told her in reply with a voice so steady and sure that there was no doubt that nothing could move her from her resolve. My parents have no one else, and the children will need me now, she'd said. Barbara had thought, And what do
you
need, Sahlah? But she hadn't asked a question that she'd come to realise was utterly foreign to a woman of this culture.

She sighed. She realised that every time she felt she'd got a leg up on understanding her fellow man, something happened to whip the rug out from under her. And these past few days had been one long session of energetic rug whipping, as far as she could see. She'd begun in awe of a CID diva; she'd concluded in a stunned recognition that her chosen exemplar had feet of clay. And at the end of the day, Emily Barlow was really no different from the woman they'd just arrested for murder, each of them seeking nothing more than the means—however fruitless and destructive—to order her world.

The hotel door opened before Barbara could put her hand on the knob. She started. All the lights were out on the ground floor. In the shadows, she had failed to see that someone had been awaiting her arrival, seated in the old porter's chair that stood just inside the entry.

Oh God.
Not
Treves, she thought wearily. The idea of another round of cloaks-and-daggers with the hotelier was too much for her. But then she saw the gleam of an incandescently laundered white shirt, and a moment later she heard his voice.

“Mr. Treves wouldn't hear of leaving the door unlocked for you,” Azhar said. “I told him I'd wait and lock up myself. He didn't like that idea, but I expect that he could see no way round it other than by giving direct offence, rather than his more usual, oblique brand of insult. I do think he intends to count the silver in the morning, however.” Despite the words, there was a smile in his voice.

Barbara chuckled. “And he'll do the counting in your presence, no doubt.”

“No doubt,” Azhar said. He closed the door behind her and turned the key in the lock. “Come,” he said.

He led the way into the darkened lounge, where he lit a single lamp next to the fireplace and took himself behind the bar. He poured two fingers of Black Bush into a tumbler and slid this across the mahogany to Barbara. He poured a bitter lemon for himself. That done, he came round the bar and joined her at one of the tables, placing his cigarettes at her disposal.

She told him all of it, from start to finish. She left out nothing. Not Cliff Hegarty, not Trevor Ruddock, not Rachel Winfield, not Sahlah Malik. She told him the part Theo Shaw had played and where Ian Armstrong fit into the picture. She told him what their earliest suspicions had been, where those suspicions had led them, and how they'd ended up in the Maliks’ sitting room, arresting someone they'd never once suspected could be guilty of the crime.

“Yumn?” Azhar said in some confusion. “Barbara, how can this be?”