Deception on His Mind (87 page)

Barbara started down the stairs.

“She gets away with everything, the whore.
Whore.
With him in her room, with him in her bed, with pretending to be what she never was. Chaste. Dutiful. Pious. Good.”

Barbara was at the door. Her hand reached for the handle. From the top of the stairs, Yumn cried out the words.

“He was with me.”

Barbara's hand stopped, but remained outstretched for a moment as she registered what Yumn was saying. She turned. “What?”

Carrying her younger child, Yumn came down the stairs. The colour in her face had been reduced to two medallions of red that rode high on either cheek. Her wandering eye gave her a wild air, which was heightened by the words she next spoke. “I'm telling you what you'll hear from Muhannad. I'm saving you the trouble of having to find him. That's what you want, isn't it?”

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying that if you think Munhannad was involved in what happened to Haytham Querashi, he couldn't have been. He was with me on Friday night. He was up in our room. We were together. We were in bed. He was with me.”

“Friday night,” Barbara clarified. “You're certain of that. He didn't go out? Not at any time? Not, perhaps, telling you that he was going to see a chum? Maybe even to have dinner with a chum?”

“I know when my husband was with me, don't I?” Yumn demanded. “And he was here. With me. In this very house. On Friday night.”

Brilliant, Barbara thought. She couldn't have asked for a more pellucid declaration of the Asian man's guilt.

E COULDN'T STOP THE VOICES IN HIS HEAD
. They seemed to be coming from every direction and from every possible source. At first he thought that he'd know what to do next if only he could silence their shouting. But when he realised that he could do nothing to drive the howl of them out of his skull—save kill himself, which he certainly did
not
intend to do—he knew he would have to lay his plans while the voices attempted to lay waste to his nerves.

Reuchlein's phone call had come into the mustard factory less than two minutes after the Scotland Yard bitch had left the warehouse in Parkeston. “Abort, Malik” was all he said, which meant that the new shipment of goods—due to arrive this very day and worth at least £20,000 if he could keep them working long enough without doing a bunk—would not be met at the port, would not be driven to the warehouse, and would not be sent out in work parties to the Kent farmers who had already paid half in advance, as agreed upon. Instead, the goods would be released on their own upon their arrival, to find their way to London or Birmingham or any other city in which they could hide. And if they weren't caught by the police in advance of reaching their destination, they would fade into the population and keep their gobs plugged about how they got into the country. No sense in talking when talking would lead to deportation. As to those workers already on sites, they were on their own. When no one arrived to fetch them back to the warehouse, they'd work things out.

Abort
meant that Reuchlein was on his way back to Hamburg. It meant that every document pertaining to the immigration services of World Wide Tours was heading into the shredder. And it meant that he himself had to act quickly before the world as he'd known it for twenty-six years crashed in on him.

He'd left the factory. He'd gone home. He'd started to put his own plans in motion. Haytham was dead—praise whatever Divine Being was convenient at the moment—and he knew that there was no way on earth that Kumhar would talk. Talk and he'd find himself deported, which was the last thing he wanted now that his chief protector had been murdered.

And then Yumn—that ugly cow whom he was forced to call
wife
—had begun her business with his mother. And she'd had to be dealt with, which is when he'd learned the truth about Sahlah.

He'd cursed her, his slag of a sister. She'd
driven
him to it. What did she expect to happen when she acted like a whore with a Westerner? Forgiveness? Understanding? Acceptance? What? She'd let those hands—unclean, defiled, corrupt, disgusting—touch her body. She'd willingly met that mouth with her own. She lay with that bloody piece of shit Shaw under a tree on the bare fucking ground and she expected
him
—her brother, her elder, her lord—to walk away from the knowledge? From the sound of their breathing and moaning together? From the scent of their sweat? From the sight of his hand lifting her nightgown and sliding sliding sliding up her leg?

So yes, he'd grabbed her. Yes, he'd dragged her into the house. And yes, he'd taken her because she deserved to be taken, because she was a whore, and because above all she was meant to pay the way all whores pay. And once—one night—was not enough to impress her with the knowledge of who was the real master of her fate. One word from me and you die, he'd told her. And he didn't even need to muffle her cries with his palm as he was prepared to do. She knew she had to pay for her sin.

Once Yumn had spoken, he'd gone in search of her. It was the very last thing he knew he should do, but he had to find her. He was in a fever to find her. His eyes were throbbing, his heart was thundering, and his head was pounding with all of their voices.

Abort, Malik.

Am I meant to be treated like a dog?

She's ungovernable, my son. She has no sense of—

The police were here to search the factory. They were asking for you.

Abort, Malik.

Look at me, Muni. Look at what your mother
—

Before I knew it, she had ruined the plants. I don't understand why
—

Abort, Malik.

…your father's perfect little virgin.

Abort.

Virgin? Her? In a few more weeks she won't be able to hide the
—

They wouldn't say what they were looking for. But they had a warrant. I saw it myself.

Your sister's pregnant.

Abort. Abort.

Sahlah wouldn't speak of it. She wouldn't accuse him. She wouldn't dare. An accusation would ruin her because from it would rise the truth about Shaw. Because
he
—Muhannad, her brother—would speak that truth.
He
would accuse.
He
would relate exactly what he had seen pass between them in the orchard and he'd allow their parents to conclude the rest. Could they trust the word of a daughter who betrayed them by sneaking out of the house at night? Of a daughter who acted like a common slag? Who was more likely to be telling the truth? he would demand. A son who did his duty to his wife, his children, and his parents, or a daughter who daily lived a lie?

Sahlah knew what he would say. She knew what their parents would believe. So she wouldn't speak of it, and she wouldn't accuse.

Which gave him a chance to find her. But she wasn't at the factory. She wasn't at the jewellery shop with her hag-faced friend. She wasn't in Falak Dedar Park. She wasn't on the pier.

But on the pier he'd heard the news about Mrs. Shaw and he'd gone to the hospital. He was just in time to see them coming out, the three of them. His father, his sister, and Theo Shaw. And the look that passed between his sister and her lover as he opened the door of their father's car for her had told him what he needed to know. She'd told. The little bitch had told Shaw the truth.

He'd spun away before they could see him. And the voices roared.

Abort, Malik.

What am I to do? Tell me, Muni.

At the moment, Mr. Kumhar hasn't identified anyone he wishes to be notified.

When one among us has died, it is not up to you to see to his resurrection, Muhannad.

′
found dead on the Nez.

I work with our people in London when they have troubles with
—

Abort, Malik.

Muhannad, come and meet my friend Barbara. She lives in London.

This person you speak of is dead to us. You should not have brought him into our house.

We go for ice creams on Chalk Farm Road and we've been to the cinema and she even came to my birthday party. Sometimes we go to see her mum in
—

Abort, Malik.

We told her we were going to Essex. Only Dad didn't tell me you lived here, Muhannad.

Abort. Abort.

Will you come again? Can I meet your wife and your little boys? Will you come again?

And there—there, where he least expected to find it—was the answer he was seeking. It silenced the voices and calmed his nerves.

It sent him hurtling towards the Burnt House Hotel.

“ALL
RIGHT,”
Emily
said fiercely. Her face lit with a radiant smile. “Well done, Barbara. God damn. All
right.”
She shouted for Belinda Warner. The WPC came bounding into the office.

Barbara felt like crowing. They had Muhannad Malik by the short and curlies, presented to them like the Baptist to Salome with no dancing required. And by his very own dimwitted wife.

Emily began giving orders. The DC working the Colchester end—who'd been combing the streets round Rakin Khan's home in an attempt to find someone who could either corroborate Muhannad's alibi for Friday night or sink it forever—was to be called home. The constables sent to the mustard factory to go through everyone's personnel file for an examination of their paperwork were to be taken off that scent. The blokes working on the beach hut break-ins to clear the slate of Trevor Ruddock were to put that endeavour on the back burner. Everyone was to join the search for Muhannad Malik.

“No one could be in two places at once,” Barbara had exulted to Emily. “He forgot to tell his wife what his alibi was. And she bloody well gave him a second one. The flaming game's not afoot, Emily. It's bloody well
up.”

And now she watched the DCI in her glory at long last. Emily fielded phone calls, constructed a battle plan, and directed her team with a calm assurance that belied the excitement which Barbara knew that she had to be feeling. Hell, she'd been right from the very first. She'd sensed something dodgy in Muhannad Malik, something not right in all of his loud protestations of being a man of his people. Indeed, there was probably some allegory or fable that emphasised the exact hypocrisy of Muhannad's life, but at the moment Barbara was too wired to dredge it up from her memory. Dog in the manger? Tortoise and the hare? Who knew? Who cared? Let's just
get
this flaming bastard, she thought.

Constables were dispatched in all directions: to the mustard factory, to the Avenues, to the town council rooms, to Falak Dedar Park, to that small meeting hall above Balford Print Shoppe where Intelligence had revealed
that Jum'a
had its gatherings. Other constables were assigned to Parkeston in the event that their quarry had headed to Eastern Imports.

Descriptions of Malik went out by fax to surrounding communities. The Thunderbird's number plates and the car's unique colour and features were relayed to police stations. The
Tendring Standard
was phoned for a front-page position for Malik's photograph in case they hadn't run him to ground by morning.

The entire station was mobilised. Everywhere was movement. Everyone worked like a cog in the greater machine of the investigation, and Emily Barlow was that machine's centre.

It was in this sort of mode that she did her best work. Barbara remembered her ability to make quick decisions and to deploy her manpower where it would have the greatest effect. She'd done this in their exercises at Maidenstone when there was nothing at stake but the approval of the instructor and the admiration of colleagues taking the course. Now, with everything at stake—from peace in the community to her very job—she was the personification of tranquility. Only the manner in which she bit off words as she spoke them gave an indication of her tension.

“They were all in on it,” she told Barbara, tossing back a slug of water from an Evian bottle. Her face was shiny with perspiration. “Querashi as well. It's so fucking obvious. He wanted a share of the lolly that Muhannad was having off everyone who hired his illegals. Muhannad wouldn't play. Querashi did a header down the stairs.” Another slug of water. “Look at how easily it worked, Barb. Malik was in and out of his house all the time: meetings of
Jum'a,
dealing with Reuchlein, shipping illegals all over the country.”