Deception on His Mind (3 page)

She bypassed the mad congestion of Oxford Street and instead headed northwest on the Edgware Road. The masses of tourists thinned out here, to be replaced by masses of immigrants: dark women in
saris, chādors,
and
hijabs;
dark men in everything from blue jeans to robes. As she crawled along in the flow of traffic, Barbara watched these onetime foreigners moving purposefully in and out of shops. She reflected on the changes that had come upon London in her thirty-three years. The food had undergone a distinct improvement, she concluded. But as a member of the police force, she knew that this polyglot society had engendered a score of polyglot problems.

She detoured to avoid the crush of humanity that always gathered round Camden Lock. Ten minutes more and she was finally cruising up Eton Villas, where she prayed to the Great Angel of Transport to grant her a parking space that was near her personal hovel.

The angel offered a compromise: a spot round the corner about fifty yards away. With some creative shoe-horning, Barbara squeezed her Mini into a space fit only for a motorbike. She trudged back the way she'd come and swung open the gate at the yellow Edwardian house behind which her bungalow sat.

In the long drive across town, the pleasant glow from the champagne had metamorphosed in the way of most pleasant glows arising from alcohol: She was killingly thirsty. She set her sights on the path that led along the side of the house to the back garden. At the bottom of this, her tiny bungalow looked cool and inviting in the shade of a false acacia.

Looks deceived as usual. When Barbara unlocked the door and stepped inside, heat engulfed her. The three windows were open, in the hope of encouraging cross ventilation, but there was no breeze stirring without, so the heavy air fell upon her lungs like a visitation of the plague on the unprepared.

“Bloody hell,” Barbara muttered. She threw her shoulder bag on the table and went to the fridge. A litre of Volvic looked like a tower block among its companions: the cartons and packages of leftover take-away and ready-to-eat meals. Barbara grabbed the bottle and took it to the sink. She swilled down five mouthfuls, then leaned over and poured half of what was left onto the back of her neck and into her cropped hair. The sudden rush of cold water against her skin made her eyeballs throb. It was perfect heaven.

“Bliss,” Barbara said. “I've discovered God.”

“Are you having a bath?” a child's voice asked behind her. “Shall I come back later?”

Barbara swung round to the door. She'd left it open, but she hadn't expected that its position might be interpreted as an invitation to casual visitors. She hadn't actually seen any of her neighbours since being discharged from the Wiltshire hospital where she'd spent more than a week. To avoid the potential of a chance encounter, she'd limited her comings and goings to periods when she knew the residents of the larger building were out.

But here stood one of them, and when the child ventured a hop-and-step closer, her liquid brown eyes grew round and large. “Whatever have you done to your face, Barbara? Have you had a car smash? It looks perfectly dreadful.”

“Thanks, Hadiyyah.”

“Does it hurt? What happened? Where've you been? I've been ever so worried. I even phoned twice. I did that today. See. Your answer machine is blinking. Shall I play it for you? I know how. You taught me, remember?”

Hadiyyah skipped happily across the room and plopped herself onto Barbara's day bed. The answering machine stood on a shelf by the tiny fireplace, and she confidently punched one of its buttons and beamed at Barbara as her own voice was played.

“Hello,”
her message said.
“This is Khalidah Hadiyyah. Your neighbour. Up in the front of the house. In the ground floor flat.”

“Dad says I'm always supposed to identify myself whenever I ring someone,” Hadiyyah confided. “He says it's only polite.”

“It's a good habit,” Barbara acknowledged. “It reduces confusion on the other end of the line.” She reached for a limp tea towel hanging from a hook. She used it on her hair and the back of her neck.

“It's awfully hot, isn't it?”
the message continued chattily.
“Where are you? I'm ringing to ask d'you want to go for an ice cream? I've saved up so I have enough for two and Dad says I c'n invite anyone I like so I'm inviting you. Ring me back soon. But don't be afraid. I won't invite anyone else in the meantime. Bye now.”
And then a moment later, after the beep and an announcement of the time, another message from the same voice.
“Hello. This is Khalidah Hadiyyah. Your neighbour. Up in the front of the house. In the ground floor flat. I still want to go for an ice cream. Do you? Ring me please. If you can, that is. I'll pay. I can pay because I've saved up.”

“Did you know who it was?” Hadiyyah asked. “Did I tell you enough so you knew who it was? I wasn't sure how much I was s'posed to say, but it seemed like enough.”

“It was perfect,” Barbara said. “I especially liked the information about the ground floor flat. It's good to know where I can find your lolly when I need to steal it to buy some fags.”

Hadiyyah giggled. “You wouldn't, Barbara Havers!”

“Never doubt me, kiddo,” Barbara said. She went to the table, where she rooted in her bag for a packet of Players. She lit up and inhaled, wincing at the prick of pain in her lung.

“That's not good for you,” Hadiyyah noted.

“So you've told me before.” Barbara set the cigarette on the edge of an ashtray in which eight of its brothers had already been extinguished. “I've got to shed this get-up, Hadiyyah, if you don't mind. I'm bloody broiling.”

Hadiyyah didn't appear to take the hint. She nodded, saying, “You must be hot. Your face's gone all red,” and she squirmed on the day bed to make herself more comfortable.

“Well, it's all girls, isn't it?” Barbara sighed. She went to the cupboard, and standing in front of it, she yanked her dress over her head, putting her heavily taped chest on display.

“Were you in an accident?” Hadiyyah asked.

“Sort of. Yeah.”

“Did you break something? Is that why you're bandaged?”

“My nose. Three ribs.”

“That must've hurt awfully. Does it hurt still? Shall I help you change your clothes?”

“Thanks. I can cope.” Barbara kicked her pumps into the cupboard and peeled off her tights. In a lump beneath a black plastic mackintosh lay a pair of purple harem trousers with a drawstring waist. The very thing, she decided. She stepped into them and topped the outfit with a crumpled pink T-shirt.
Cock Robin Deserved It
was printed on the front. Thus garbed, she turned back to the little girl, who was thumbing curiously through a paperback novel she'd found on the table next to the bed. The previous evening, Barbara had reached the part where the eponymous lusty savage had been driven beyond human endurance by the sight of the heroine's firm, young—and conveniently stripped—buttocks as she delicately entered the river for her bath. Barbara didn't think Khalidah Hadiyyah needed to learn what happened next. She crossed the room and removed the book from her hands.

“What's a throbbing member?” Hadiyyah inquired, her brow furrowed.

“Ask your dad,” Barbara said. “No. On second thought, don't.” She couldn't imagine Hadiyyah's solemn father fielding such a question with the same aplomb that she herself could muster. “It's the official drum-beater for a secret society,” Barbara explained. “He's the throbbing member. The other members sing.”

Hadiyyah nodded thoughtfully. “But it said that she
touched
his—”

“What about that ice cream?” Barbara asked heartily. “Can I accept the invitation straightaway? I could do with strawberry. What about you?”

“That's what I've come to see you about.” Hadiyyah slithered off the bed and earnestly clasped her hands behind her back. “I've got to take back the invitation,” she said, hurrying on to add, “But it's not a forever taking back. It's just for now.”

“Oh.” Barbara wondered why her spirits took a downward slide at the news. Experiencing disappointment hardly made sense, since enjoying ice cream with an eight-year-old child was hardly an event to emblazon upon her social calendar.

“Dad and I are going away, you see. It's just for a few days. We're leaving straightaway. But since I rang and invited you out for an ice cream, I thought I should tell you that we couldn't go till later. In case you rang me back. That's why I'm here.”

“Ah. Sure.” Barbara retrieved her cigarette from the ashtray and eased into one of the table's two accompanying chairs. She'd not yet opened yesterday's post, merely moving it on top of an old
Daily Mail,
and she saw that at the head of the pile was an envelope marked:
Looking for Love?
Aren't we all, she thought sardonically, and screwed the fag into her mouth.

“That's okay, isn't it?” Hadiyyah asked anxiously. “Dad said it was okay for me to come tell you. I didn't want you to think I'd invite you somewhere and then not be round to see did you want to go. That would be mean, wouldn't it?”

A little line appeared between Hadiyyah's heavy black eyebrows. Barbara observed the weight of worry settle on her small shoulders, and she reflected on the way that life moulds people to be who they are. No eight-year-old girl with her hair still in plaits should have to trouble herself so much about others.

“It's more than okay,” Barbara said. “But I plan to hold you to the invitation. Where strawberry ice cream's concerned, I draw the line at letting friends off the hook.”

Hadiyyah's face brightened. She gave a little skip. “We'll go when Dad and I get back, Barbara. We're going away for a few days. Just a few days. Dad and I. Together. Did I already say?”

“You did.”

“I didn't know about it when I rang you, see. Only what happened is that Dad got a phone call and he said ‘What?
What?
When did this occur?’ and the next thing I knew, he said we were going to the sea. Imagine, Barbara.” She clasped her hands to her bony little chest. “I've never been to the sea. Have you?”

The sea? Barbara thought. Oh yes indeed. Mildewed beach huts and suntan lotion. Donning damp swim suits with scratchy crotches. She'd spent every childhood summer holiday at the sea, trying for a tan and managing only a mixture of peeling skin and freckles.

“Not recently,” Barbara said.

Hadiyyah bounced to her. “Why don't you come? With me and Dad? Why don't you come? It'd be
such
fun!”

“I don't really think—”

“Oh it would, it would. We could make castles in the sand and swim in the water. We could play catch. We could run on the beach. If we take a kite, we could even—”

“Hadiyyah. Have you managed to say what you've come to say?”

Hadiyyah stilled herself at once and turned to the voice at the door. Her father stood there, watching her gravely.

“You said you would require only one minute,” he observed. “And there is a point at which a brief visit to a friend becomes an intrusion upon her hospitality.”

“She's not bothering me,” Barbara said.

Taymullah Azhar appeared to observe her—rather than just notice her presence—for the first time. His slender shoulders adjusted, the only indication of his surprise. “What's happened to you, Barbara?” he asked quietly. “Have you been in an accident?”

“Barbara broke her nose,” Hadiyyah informed him, going to her father's side. His arm went round her, his hand curved at her shoulder. “And three of her ribs. She's got bandages all up and all down, Dad. I told her she should come with us to the sea. It'd be good for her. Don't you think?”

Azhar's face shuttered immediately at this suggestion. Barbara said quickly, “A nice invitation, Hadiyyah. But my sea-going days are completely kaput.” And to the girl's father, “A sudden trip?”

“He got a phone call,” Hadiyyah began.

Azhar interposed. “Hadiyyah, have you said goodbye to your friend?”

“I told her how I didn't know we were going till you came in and said that—”

Barbara saw Azhar's hand tighten on his daughter's shoulder. “You've left your suitcase open on your bed,” he told her. “Go and put it in the car at once.”

Hadiyyah lowered her head obediently. She said, “Bye, Barbara,” and scooted through the door. Her father nodded at Barbara and began to follow.

“Azhar,” Barbara said. And when he stopped and turned back to her, “Want a fag before you go?” She held the packet out towards him and met his eyes square on. “One for the road?”

She watched him weigh the pros and cons of remaining another three minutes. She wouldn't have attempted to detain him had he not seemed so anxious to keep his daughter quiet about their journey. Suddenly Barbara's curiosity was piqued, and she sought a way to satisfy it. When he didn't answer, she decided that a prod was in order. She said, “Heard anything from Canada?” as a form of coercion. But she hated herself the moment she'd said it. Hadiyyah's mother had been on holiday in Ontario for the eight weeks that Barbara had been acquainted with the child and her father. And daily Hadiyyah had scoured the post for cards and letters—and a birthday present—that never came. “Sorry,” Barbara said. “That was rotten of me.”

Azhar's face was what it always was: the most unreadable of any man's in Barbara's acquaintance. And he had no compunction about letting a silence hang between them. Barbara bore it as long as she could before she said, “Azhar, I apologised. I was out of line. I'm always out of line. I do out of line better than anything else. Here. Have a fag. The sea will still be there if you leave five minutes later than you planned.”

Azhar relented, but slowly. His guard was up as he took the proffered packet and shook out a cigarette. While he lit it, Barbara used her bare foot to shove the other chair back from the table. He didn't sit.

“Trouble?” she asked him.

“Why should you think that?”

“A phone call, a sudden change of plans. In my business, that only means one thing: Whatever the news is, it isn't good.”

“In your business,” Azhar pointed out.

“And in yours?”

He lifted his cigarette to his mouth and spoke behind it. “A small family matter.”