Deception on His Mind (49 page)

When he rang off, she said, “Well? Who was it? What did they—” but he held up his hand to stop her question and went on to make the next call.

This time he spoke at greater length, and he made notes as a man's voice on the other end of the line imparted what appeared to be a small volume of information. Barbara itched to wrest the receiver away from Azhar and make demands of her own. But she schooled herself to patience.

Without comment, Azhar went on to the fourth call, and this time Barbara recognised what seemed to be his standard opening: an apology for having phoned at such an hour, followed by an explanation in which Haytham Querashi's name came up more than once. This final conversation was longest of all, and at its conclusion, Azhar kept his attention gravely on the computer print out until Barbara spoke.

His expression was so sombre that Barbara felt the queasiness of trepidation come over her. She
had
handed him a potential item of crucial interest in the investigation. He was free to do with it what he would, including lie about its significance or relate it—with suitable incendiary comments—to his cousin.

She said, “Azhar?”

He roused himself. He reached for his cigarette and took a hit. Then he looked her way.

“The first call was to his parents.”

“That's the number that appears earlier on the printout?”

“Yes. They are—” He paused, ostensibly seeking a word or a phrase. “They are understandably crushed by his death. They wished to know about the status of the investigation. And they would like the body. They feel they cannot grieve their oldest son properly without having his body, so they ask if they must pay the police to release it.”

“Pay?”

Azhar continued. “Haytham's mother is under a doctor's care, having collapsed when informed of his murder. His sisters are confused, his brother hasn't spoken a word since Saturday afternoon, and his paternal grandmother is attempting to hold the family together. But her heart is weakened by angina, the strain is great, and a strong attack may kill her. The ringing telephone frightened them all.”

He fastened his eyes on her. She said, “Murder's a nasty business, Azhar. I'm sorry, but there's no making it easier for anyone to bear. And I'd be lying if I told you that the horror ends when we make an arrest. It doesn't. Ever.”

He nodded. Absently, he rubbed the back of his neck. For the first time, she noticed he wore only the pyjama bottoms under his dressing gown. His chest was bare, and his dark skin appeared burnished in the light.

Barbara rose and went to the window. She could hear music coming from somewhere, the hesitant notes of someone practicing the clarinet in one of the houses on the clifftop some distance away.

“The next number is for a
mulla,”
Azhar said behind her. “This is a religious leader, a holy man.”

“Like an
ayatollah?”

“Lesser. He's a local religious leader and he serves the community in which Haytham grew up.”

He sounded so grave that Barbara turned from the window to face him. She saw that he looked grave as well. “What did he want with the
mulla?
Did it have to do with the marriage?”

“With the Qur'aan,” Azhar said. “He wanted to speak of the same passage that he'd marked in the book: the passage I translated for you during our conference this afternoon.”

“About being brought forth from the oppressors?”

Azhar nodded. “But his interest did not lie with the ‘town from which the people are oppressors,’ as my cousin thought. He wished to understand how to define the word
feeble.”

“He wanted to know what
feeble
means? And he phoned all the way to Pakistan to find out? That doesn't make sense.”

“Haytham knew what
feeble
means, Barbara. He wanted to know how to apply the definition. The Qur'aan instructs Muslims to fight for the cause of the feeble among men. He wished to discuss the manner in which one recognises when a fellow man is feeble and when he is not.”

“Because he wanted to fight someone?” Barbara returned to the dressing table stool. She sank onto it, reached for the ashtray, and crushed out her cigarette. “Bloody hell,” she said more to herself than to Azhar. “What was he up to?”

“The other call was to a
mufti”
Azhar continued. “This is a specialist in Islamic law.”

“D'you mean a lawyer?”

“Somewhat analogous to a lawyer. A
mufti
is one who provides legal interpretations of Islamic law. He's schooled to deliver what is called a
fatwa”

“Which is?”

“Something akin to a legal brief.”

“What did he want from this bloke, then?”

Azhar hesitated, and Barbara could see that they'd come to the heart of whatever had caused the solemnity of his earlier expression. Instead of answering at once, he reached for the ashtray and crushed out his cigarette. A second time, he brushed his fallen hair from his forehead. He studied his feet. Like his chest, they were bare. Like his hands, they were thin. High arched and smooth, they might have belonged to a woman.

“Azhar,” Barbara said. “Please don't do a bunk on me now, okay? I need you.”

“My family—”

“Needs you as well. Right. But we all want to get to the bottom of this. Asian killer or English killer, we don't want Querashi's death to go unpunished. Even Muhannad can't want that, no matter what he says about protecting his people.”

Azhar sighed. “From the
mufti,
Haytham sought an answer about sin. He wished to know if a Muslim—guilty of a serious sin—would remain a Muslim and hence part of the greater community of Muslims.”

“You mean: Would he remain a part of his family?”

“A part of his family and a part of the community as a whole.”

“And what did the
mufti
tell him?”

“He spoke of
usul al-figh:
the sources of law.”

“Which are?”

Azhar raised his head to meet her eyes. “The Qur'aan, the
Sunna
of the Prophet—”

“Sunna?”

“The Prophet's example.”

“What else?”

“Consensus of the community and analogical reasoning—what you call deduction.”

Barbara reached for her cigarettes unseeing. She shook one for herself and offered Azhar the pack. He took the book of matches from the dressing table, striking one for her and then applying it to his own cigarette. He returned to his place on the edge of the bed.

“So when he and the
mufti
were done with their confab, some conclusion must have been reached, right? They had an answer to his question. Can a Muslim guilty of a serious sin remain a Muslim?”

He answered with a question of his own. “How can one live in defiance of any one of the tenets of Islam and still claim to be a Muslim, Barbara?”

The tenets of Islam.
Barbara tossed this phrase round in her head, attaching it to everything she'd learned so far about Querashi and about the people with whom he'd come into contact. Doing this, she saw the inevitable connection between the question and Querashi's own life. And she felt the heady rush of excitement as the Asian's behaviour began to make sense. “Earlier—when we were outside—you said that homosexuality is expressly forbidden by the Qur'aan.”

“I did.”

“But he intended to marry. In fact, he was committed to marry. He was so committed that his family was ready to attend the celebration and he had the wedding night all planned out.”

“It seems reasonable to conclude that,” Azhar said cautiously.

“So can we reckon that after his conversation with the
mufti,
Haytham Querashi decided to start living by the tenets of Islam, in effect to go straight?” She warmed to her topic. “Can we reckon that he'd been at war with himself about doing this—about going straight—ever since coming to England? He was committed to getting married, after all, and yet still he was drawn to the men he'd sworn to give up. In being drawn to them, he was probably drawn to locations they frequent, more than one location. So he met some bloke in Clacton market square and took up with him. They carried on for a month or so, but he didn't want to live a double life—too much was at risk—so he tried to end it. Only he ended instead.”

“Clacton market square?” Azhar asked. “What has Clacton market square to do with anything, Barbara?”

And Barbara realised what she'd done. So caught up was she in her desire to piece together what facts and speculations they had been able to gather that she'd inadvertently given Azhar a piece of information which only Trevor Ruddock and the investigators had. In doing so, she'd crossed a line.

Shit, she thought. She wanted to rewind the tape, to whisk the words
Clacton market square
out of the air and back into her mouth. But she couldn't unsay them. All she could hope to do was temporise. Temporising, however, was among the very least of her talents. Oh, to be in the company of Detective Inspector Lynley, Barbara thought. With his gracefully adroit conversational footwork, he'd ease them out of this situation in a flash. Of course, he'd never have got them into this situation in the first place since he wasn't in the habit of thinking aloud unless he was in the presence of his colleagues. But that was another matter entirely.

She decided to ignore the question by saying in as reflective a manner as possible, “Of course, he may have had another person in mind when he was speaking to the
mufti,”
and having said this, she realised how close to the truth she may have just come.

“Who?” Azhar asked.

“Sahlah. Perhaps he'd discovered something about her that made him reluctant to marry her. Perhaps he was seeking from the
mufti
a way to get out of the marriage contract. Wouldn't a woman's grave sin—something that if revealed could result in her being cut off from Islam—be reason enough to nullify the marriage contract?”

He looked sceptical, then shook his head. “It would nullify the contract. But what grave sin could my cousin Sahlah possibly have on her soul, Barbara?”

Theo Shaw, Barbara thought. But this time wisely she said nothing.

T
HE DOORBELL RANG
in the midst of their argument. Connie's voice had reached such a shrill pitch that had Rachel not been standing in the sitting room doorway, she wouldn't have heard it. But the two-note chime—the second note strangled as always like a bird shot down in the middle of a chirp—came at the moment when her mother was taking a breath.

Connie ignored the chimes. “You answer me, Rache!” she shouted. “You answer me now and you answer me good. What d'you know about this business? You was lying to that police detective and you're lying to me now and I'm not going to stand for it, Rachel Lynn. I truly am not.”

“That was the door, Mum,” Rachel said.

“Connie.
I'm Connie and don't you forget it. And bugger the door. It won't get itself opened till you answer me straight. How're you messed in with that dead bloke from the Nez?”

“I already said,” Rachel told her. “I gave him the receipt so he could see how much Sahlah loved him. She told me she was worried. She said she didn't think he believed her and
I
thought that if he saw the receipt—”

“Rubbish!” Connie shrieked. “Bloody flaming bollocks! If that rot's the truth, then I'm Mother Goose. Why didn't you tell that police person when she asked you about it, eh? But we know the answer to that one, don't we? You didn't say cause you hadn't cooked up a good explanation till now. Well, if you expect me to believe a half-arsed story about proving some coloured girl's eternal love for her intended bloody sodding bridegroom, then—”

The doorbell rang again. Three times in succession. Connie herself stormed to answer it. She flung the door open. It smashed against the wall.

“What?” she barked. “What bloody
what?
Who the hell are you? And do you know what time it is, by the way?”

A young voice, male. It was carefully deferential. “Rachel in, Mrs. Winfield?”

“Rachel?
What d'you want with my Rache?”

Rachel went to the door, standing behind her mother. Connie attempted to block her with her hip.

“Who is this wanker?” Connie demanded of her. “And what's his business showing up at … Piss on your face! Do you know what time it is, you?”

It was Trevor Ruddock, Rachel saw. He was standing well into the shadows so that neither the light from the house nor the light from the streetlamps touched him. But still, he couldn't do much to hide. And he looked worse than usual because his T-shirt was dirty, with holes round the neckline, and his jeans had gone so long unwashed that they probably could have stood up on their own.

Rachel attempted to step past her mother. Connie caught her arm. “We aren't finished, you and me, Missy-miss.”

“What is it, Trev?” Rachel asked.

“You
know
this bloke?” Connie demanded incredulously.

“Obviously,” Rachel replied. “Since he asked for me, I probably know him.”

“C'n you talk for a minute?” Trevor asked. He shifted his weight, and his boots—unlaced and unpolished—scraped against the concrete front step. “I know it's late, but I was hoping … Rachel, I need to talk to you, okay? Private.”

“About what?” Connie demanded hotly. “What've you got to say to Rachel Lynn that you can't say in front of her mum? And who are you anyways? Why've I never seen you before if you and Rachel know each other good enough for you to come calling at quarter past eleven?”

Trevor looked from Rachel to her mother. He looked back to Rachel again. His expression said clearly,
What d'you want her to know?
And Connie read it like a psychic.

She jerked Rachel's arm.
“This
is what you been messing with? This is what you snuck up round the beach huts for? You been lowering yourself to do the job with a wally no better than yesterday's rubbish?”

Trevor's lips jerked as if he were stopping himself from responding. Rachel did it for him.

“Shut up, Mum.” She twisted out of her mother's grasp and stepped onto the porch.

“You get back in this house,” her mother said.