Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(105)

“We're not clear on that point.” Barbara adhered to the police line that Emily Barlow had already drawn. “But we're able to say with a fair degree of certainty that we're looking at a murder. Premeditated murder.”

Muhannad dropped into his seat. He said, “A broken neck is an act of violence: the result of a brawl, a product of anger and rage and hate. A broken neck isn't something that someone can plan in advance.”

“I wouldn't actually disagree with that under normal circumstances,” Barbara said.

“Then—”

“But in this case, the circumstances indicate that someone knew Querashi would be on the Nez, and this someone got there before him and set events into motion that culminated in his death. That's premeditated murder, Mr. Malik. No matter how you might like to think otherwise of Haytham Querashi's death, it wasn't a random killing arising from a racial brawl or incident.”

“What d'you know of racial incidents? What can you tell us of how they start? Do you know the look on a Western face that tells a man to change directions when he's walking down the street, to lower his eyes when he pushes a handful of coins across the counter to pay for his newspaper, to ignore the stares of other patrons when he walks into a restaurant and finds himself the only brown face in the room?”

“Cousin,” Azhar said. “This takes us nowhere productive.”

“Oh yes it does,” Muhannad insisted. “How can a white-skinned CID investigate the death of a man whose experience they can't even begin to understand? These people's minds are closed, Azhar. We'll only get justice if we open them.”

“Is that the purpose of jum'a?” Barbara asked.

“The purpose of Jum'a isn't under discussion. Haytham's death is.”

“Was he a member of Jum'a?”

“You won't rest till you pin this on an Asian. That's where you're heading.”

“Just answer the question.”

“No, he wasn't a member of Jum'a. If you suspect that I murdered him over that fact, then arrest me.”

The expression on his face—so taut, so filled with anger and loathing—caused Barbara to reflect briefly on the child Ghassan whom she'd seen on the street, with the bottle-tossed urine dripping down his legs. Was it incidents like that, repeated throughout childhood and adolescence, that effected the sort of animosity she felt rolling off Muhannad Malik? He was right in so many ways, she thought. But he was wrong in so many others.

“Mr. Malik,” she finally said, setting her cigarette on the edge of an ashtray at her elbow, “I'd like to make something clear to you before we go on: Just because a person's born with white skin, it doesn't follow that she spends the rest of her life attempting to prise a silver spoon from her mouth.” She didn't wait for a response. She went on to delineate the course that the investigation was taking at the moment: A safe deposit box key found among the dead man's belongings was in the process of being traced to one of the banks in Balford and in surrounding towns; the Friday night whereabouts of everyone connected with Querashi were being sought and corroborated; paperwork found among Querashi's belongings was being sorted out; and Fahd Kumhar was being tracked down.

“You have his first name, then,” Azhar noted. “May we know how you obtained it?”

“A piece of luck,” Barbara said.

“Because you have the name or because it's Asian?” Muhannad asked.

Jesus. Give it a rest, Barbara wanted to say. But what she did say was “Give us some credit, Mr. Malik. We don't have time to waste tracking down some bloke just to satisfy our need to cause him aggro. We need to talk to him about his relationship to Mr. Querashi.”

“Is he a suspect?” Azhar asked.

“Everyone who knew Querashi is under scrutiny. If this bloke knew him, consider him a suspect.”

“He knew English people as well,” Azhar said, and he added in so bland a manner that Barbara knew he was already well aware of the answer, “Did anyone English benefit from his death?”

Barbara wasn't about to start walking on that wafer-like patch of ice with Azhar or anyone else. She said, “Guys, can we lift our meetings out of the realm of Asian/English questions? What we're dealing with in this investigation isn't an Asian/English question at all. It's a straightforward guilt/innocence question. We're looking for a killer no matter the skin colour: a man or woman with a reason to do away with someone.”

“A woman?” Azhar asked. “You aren't saying a woman could have broken his neck, are you?”

“I'm saying a woman may be involved.”

“Are you trying to implicate my sister?” Muhannad asked.

“I didn't say that.”

“But what other women are there? Those at the factory?”

“We're not sure, so we aren't closing any doors. If Mr. Querashi knew Fahd Kumhar—a man clearly not from the factory, right?—it stands to reason he may well have known a woman not connected to the factory as well.”

“What are you doing to find this woman?” Azhar asked.

“Asking questions, following leads, looking for connections, digging out any altercations Querashi may have had with anyone in the weeks leading up to his murder. It's legwork, it's plodwork, and it has to be done.” She gathered her folders and placed the copy of the Qur'aan on top of them. Her cigarette had burnt out in the ashtray, but she squashed its remains anyway as unspoken communication that their meeting was at an end. She stood, saying with deliberate politeness to Muhannad Malik, “I expect you'll communicate all of this to your people. We don't want any misinformation to stir them up when it isn't necessary.”