Deception on His Mind (10 page)

In the airless room that was her office, she grabbed a tissue and pressed it fully against her face. It came away greasily blotted. She would have given her big toe for a fan. She would have given her entire foot for air conditioning. As it was, she had only a lousy tin of warm tomato juice, which was better than nothing to ameliorate the effects of the day's blistering heat. She reached for this and used a pencil to prise open its pop-top. She took a swig and began to massage the back of her neck. I need a workout, she thought, and once again she acknowledged that one of the disadvantages of her line of employment—in addition to having to deal with pigs like Ferguson—was having to forego physical activity more often than was her natural inclination. If she'd had her way, she'd have been outdoors rowing hours ago, instead of doing what duty called upon her to do: return the day's phone calls.

She tossed the last of her returned telephone messages into the rubbish bin and followed them with the tomato juice tin. She was cramming a stack of file folders into her canvas hold-all, when one of the WPCs assigned to the Querashi investigation came to the doorway, trailing several pages of an uncut fax.

“Here's the background on Muhannad Malik you were asking for,” Belinda Warner announced. “Clacton's Intelligence Unit's just sent it over. You want it now or in the morning?”

Emily held out her hand. “Anything more than we already know?”

Belinda shrugged. “’F you ask me, he's nobody's blue-eyed boy. But there's nothing here to confirm it.”

This was what Emily had expected. She nodded her thanks and the WPC disappeared down the hall. A moment later her footsteps clattered on the stairway of the ill-ventilated building that served as the police station in Balford-le-Nez.

As was her habit, Emily glanced through the entire report quickly before making a more detailed study. One important issue stood out in her mind: Her superintendent's implicit threats and career ambitions aside, the last thing the town needed was a major racial incident, which is what this death on the Nez was fast becoming. June was the opening of the tourist season, and with the hot weather calling city dwellers to the sea, hopes in the community had begun to run high that the long recession was at last coming to an end. But how could Balford expect an influx of visitors if racial tensions took its inhabitants into the streets for confrontations with one another? The town couldn't, and every businessman in Balford knew it. Investigating a murder while simultaneously avoiding an outbreak of ethnic conflict was the delicate proposition before her. And the fact that Balford was teetering precariously on the edge of an Asian/English clash had been made more than evident to Emily Barlow that day.

Muhannad Malik—along with his cronies in the street—had been the messenger of this information. Emily had known the young Pakistani since her days in uniform when, as a teenager, Muhannad Malik had first come to her attention. Having grown up on the streets of South London, Emily had early learned to handle herself in conflicts that were often multi-racial, coincidentally developing the hide of an elephant when it came to taunts that were directed at the colour of her skin. So as a young police constable, she'd had little patience with those who used race as the wild card in each deck from which a hand was dealt them. And Muhannad Malik was someone who, even at sixteen, had waved the race card at every opportunity.

She had learned to give little credence to his words. She simply had not allowed herself to believe that all of life's difficulties could be put down to issues of race. But now there was a death to consider, and not only a death but a bonafide murder, with its victim an Asian who had been the intended bridegroom of Muhannad Malik's own sister. It was inconceivable that, when faced with this murder, Malik would not attempt to make a connection between its occurrence and the racism he claimed to see everywhere round him.

And if a connection could be established, the result would be the very thing that Donald Ferguson feared: a seaside summer of conflict, aggression, and bloodshed, all of which had been promised by that afternoon's chaos.

In response to what had occurred both inside and outside the town council meeting, phones at the police station had begun ringing in panic as the minds of Balford's citizens made the leap from placards and bricks to the acts of extremism which had been carried out globally in the past few years. And among those phone calls had come one from the Lady Mayor, the result of which was a formal request for information made to those officers whose job it was to assemble profiles of those most likely to cross the criminal line. The pages that Emily now held represented the material that the divisional headquarters’ intelligence unit had been gathering on Muhannad Malik for the past ten years.

There wasn't much, and most of it seemed innocuous, suggesting Muhannad at age twenty-six and despite his behaviour that afternoon, had mellowed from the hot-headed teenager who'd first come to the attention of the police. Emily had in her possession his school records, his GCSEs and A-levels, his university career, and his employment history. He was the respectful son to a member of the town's council, the devoted husband to a wife of three years, the committed father of two small children, and a competent manager in the family business. All in all, save for one blemish, he had grown into a model citizen.

But Emily knew that small blemishes frequently hid larger flaws. So she read on. Malik was the acknowledged and admitted founder of
Jum'a,
an organization for young male Pakistanis. The association's stated purpose was to strengthen the ties between Muslims in the community and to emphasize and celebrate the myriad differences between these same Muslims and the westerners among whom they lived. Twice in the past year,
Jum'a's
involvement had been suspected in altercations that had erupted between young Asians and their English counterparts. One was a traffic dispute that had turned into an ugly fistfight; one was an incident of bottles of cow's blood being thrown at an Asian schoolgirl by three members of her form. Assaults had occurred in the aftermath of both of these incidents, but afterwards no one had been willing to implicate
Jum'a.

This wasn't enough to put the man out of commission. It wasn't enough even to view him somewhat askance. Still, Muhannad Malik's brand of activism—put on display that day—didn't sit well with Emily Barlow. And after completing her examination of the report, she had read nothing that set her mind at rest.

She'd met him and the man he'd called his expert in the “politics of immigration” several hours after the demonstration. Muhannad had let his companion do most of the talking, but his own presence had been impossible to ignore, as he no doubt intended.

He radiated antipathy. He wouldn't sit down. Rather, he stood against the wall with his arms folded across his chest, and he never took his eyes from her face. His expression of contemptuous distrust challenged Emily to try to get away with lying about Querashi's death. She hadn't considered doing so … at least not about the essentials.

Both to forestall any outbursts from him and to subtly underscore the unstated fact that there was no connection between the demonstration and her agreeing to see them, Emily had directed her comments to Muhannad's companion, whom he'd introduced as his cousin Taymullah Azhar. Unlike Muhannad, this man had an air of serenity about him, although as a member of Muhannad's
khāndān,
Azhar would doubtless be governed by an agenda identical to whatever the family's was. So Emily had been careful with her choice of words.

“We began with the knowledge that Mr. Querashi's death appeared suspicious,” she'd told him. “Once we'd determined that, we asked for a pathologist from the Home Office. He'll arrive tomorrow to perform the postmortem.”

“Is this an English pathologist?” Muhannad asked. The implication was obvious: An English pathologist would serve the interest of the English community; an English pathologist would hardly take seriously the death of an Asian.

“I have no idea what his ethnic background is. We aren't allowed to put in requests.”

“And where does the investigation stand?” Taymullah Azhar had a curious way of speaking, courteous without being at all deferential. Emily wondered how he managed it.

“The moment the death was deemed suspicious, the site was secured,” Emily replied.

“Which site is this?”

“The pillbox at the foot of the Nez.”

“Has it been determined that he died in the pillbox?”

Azhar was very quick. Emily had to admire that. “Nothing's been determined yet, aside from the fact that he's dead and—”

“And it took them six hours to determine that much,” Muhannad put in. “Imagine the fire that would have been lit under the bobbies’ pink bums had the body been white.”

“—and, as the Asian community suspected, it appears to be a murder,” Emily finished.

She waited for Malik's reaction. He'd been shouting
murder
since the corpse had been discovered thirty-four hours before. She didn't wish to deny him his moment of triumph.

He took it quickly. “As I
said/’
he asserted. “And if I hadn't been dogging you since yesterday morning, I expect you'd be calling this an unfortunate accident.”

Emily steadied herself inwardly. Argument was what the Asian wanted. A verbal brawl with the investigating officer would be helpful as a rallying cry for his people. A meticulous conversation reporting the facts would be far less useful. So she ignored his jibe. Instead, she said to his cousin, “The forensic team spent approximately eight hours going over the site yesterday. They bagged evidence, and they've taken it to the lab for analysis.”

“When can you expect the results?”

“We've let them know this is a top priority.”

“How did Haytham die?” Muhannad interjected.

“Mr. Malik, twice I've tried to explain to you over the phone that—”

“You don't expect me to believe that you still don't know
how
Querashi was murdered, do you? Your medical examiner has seen the body. You admitted on the phone that you saw it yourself.”

“Looking at a body doesn't reveal anything,” Emily explained. “Your own father can tell you that much. He made the formal identification, and I dare say he's as much in the dark as we are.”

“Are we correct in assuming there was no gun involved?” Azhar asked quietly. “No knife either? No garrotte? No rope? Because, of course, the use of these would have left marks upon the body.”

“My father said he saw only one side of Haytham's face,” Muhannad said. Then he enhanced the implication behind his comment by continuing with “My father said he was
allowed
to see only one side of his face. The body was covered with sheeting which was rolled down to the chin for less than fifteen seconds. And that was that. What are you hiding about this murder, Inspector?”

Emily poured herself water from a jug on the table behind her desk. She offered some to the men. They both declined, which was just as well since she'd taken the last of it and she didn't much feel like sending for more. She drank thirstily, but the water tasted vaguely metallic and it left an unpleasant flavour on her tongue.

She explained to the Asians that she was hiding nothing because there was nothing this early in the investigation to hide. The time of death, she told them, had been set between half past ten and half past midnight on Friday night. Prior to concluding that they were dealing with a homicide, the pathologist had determined that Mr. Querashi's death was not a suicide and not the result of natural causes. But that was the extent—

“Bullshit!” Muhannad offered the expletive as the only logical conclusion to her remarks. “If you can tell it wasn't a suicide or natural and you still say it
appears
to be a murder, do you really expect us to believe that you can't tell how he was killed?”

To clarify matters further, Emily told Taymullah Azhar as if Muhannad hadn't spoken, everyone living in the vicinity of the Nez was being questioned by a team of detective constables to determine what might have been seen or heard on the night of Mr. Querashi's death. Additionally, appropriate measurements had been made at the site, clothing had been bagged, tissues would be taken from the body for microscopic analysis, blood and urine samples would go to the toxicologist, background information—

“She's stalling, Azhar.” Emily had to give Muhannad credit for the observation. He was very nearly as quick as his cousin. “She doesn't want us to know what happened. Because if we know, we'll take to the streets again and this time we won't clear out till we have the answers and justice. Which, believe me, is exactly what they do
not
want at the beginning of their tourist season.”

Azhar raised a hand to silence his cousin. “And photographs?” he asked Emily quietly. “You took them, of course.”

“That's always done first. The entire site is photographed, not only the body.”

“May we see these, please?”

“I'm afraid not.”

“Why?”

“Because as we've determined the death is a homicide, no element of the formal investigation can be shared with the public. It just isn't done.”

“And yet information is leaked to the media quite frequently in the midst of an investigation of this kind,” Azhar pointed out.

“Perhaps it is,” Emily said, “but not by the officer in charge.”

Azhar observed her with large, intelligent brown eyes. If the room hadn't been insufferably hot already, Emily knew she would have flushed under his scrutiny. As it was, the heat was her alibi. Everyone in the building—save the Asians—was crimson with discomfort, so her own colouring was indication of nothing.

“In what direction do you go from here?” he finally asked.

“We wait for all of the reports to come in. And we place everyone who knew Mr. Querashi under suspicion. We'll begin interviewing—”

“Everyone brown who knew him,” Muhannad concluded.

“I didn't say that, Mr. Malik.”

“You didn't have to, Inspector.” He made her rank too polite a title to indicate anything other than his scorn for it. “You have no intention of pursuing this murder into the white community. If you had your way, you probably wouldn't bother to pursue it as the murder it is. And don't bother to deny the accusation. I've a bit of experience associated with how the police treat crimes committed against my people.”