Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(11)

Leaving her bike propped against a garden urn abloom with geraniums, Rachel plucked the wrapped package from her basket and advanced on the front door. Carefully, she sought the best opening remarks. I'm so terribly sorry … I came as soon as I could … I didn't want to phone ‘cause it seemed so impersonal …This changes things awfully … I know how you loved him. …

Except that last was a lie, wasn't it? Sahlah Malik hadn't loved her intended husband at all.

Well, it was no matter now. The dead couldn't come back to demand an accounting of the living, and there was very little point to dwelling upon her friend's lack of feeling for a man who'd been chosen from complete strangers to be her spouse. Of course, he wouldn't be her spouse now. Which nearly made one think … But no. Rachel forced all speculation from her mind. With her package tucked under her arm, she rapped on the door.

It swung open under her knuckles. As it did so, the unmistakable sound of cinematic background music rose over voices speaking a foreign tongue in the sitting room. The language was Urdu, Rachel guessed. And the film would be yet another catalogue purchase made by Sahlah's sister-in-law, who doubtless sat on a cushion in front of the video player in her usual fashion: with a bowl of soapy water in her lap and dozens of her gold bangles piled into it for a thorough wash.

Rachel wasn't far off the mark. She called out, “Hullo? Sahlah?” and ventured to the sitting room doorway. There she found Yumn, the young wife of Sahlah's brother, seeing not to the care of her copious jewellery, but rather to the mending of one of her many dupattās. Yumn was sewing industriously upon the hem of this scarf, and she was making an inexpert hash of the effort.

She gave a little shriek when Rachel cleared her throat. She threw her hands up and let the needle, the thread, and the scarf fly in three different directions. She was, unaccountably, wearing thimbles on every finger of her left hand. These flew off as well. “How you frightened me!” she exclaimed energetically. “Oh my goodness, my goodness, Rachel Winfield. And on this of all days, when nothing on earth should discompose me. The female cycle is a delicate thing. Has no one told you that?”

Sahlah had always referred to her sister-in-law as born for RADA but bred for nothing. The former certainly appeared to be the truth. Rachel's entry had hardly been surreptitious. But Yumn seemed willing to milk it for whatever power its meagre spotlight offered. She was shining this light on her “female cycle,” as she called it, and she used her hands to cradle her stomach in the event that Rachel failed to catch her meaning. This was hardly likely. If Yumn ever thought or spoke of anything besides her intention of achieving a third pregnancy—within thirty-seven months of marriage and before her second son was eighteen months old—Rachel wasn't aware of it.

“Sorry,” Rachel said. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

“I do hope not.” Yumn looked about for her scattered sewing. She squinted at the scarf, using her good right eye and closing the left one, whose wandering she generally hid by draping a dupattā to cast a shadow over it. When she seemed intent upon returning to her work and ignoring Rachel indefinitely, Rachel spoke again.

“Yumn, I've come to visit Sahlah. Is she about?”

Yumn shrugged. “She's always about, that girl. Although whenever I call for her, she goes stone deaf. She needs a proper beating, but there's nobody willing to give her one.”

“Where is she?” Rachel asked.

“‘Poor little thing,’ they think,” Yumn continued. “‘Leave her be. She's grieving.’ Grieving, mind you. What an amusing thought.”

Rachel felt alarmed at this remark, but out of loyalty to Sahlah she did her best to hide it. “Is she here?” she asked patiently. “Where is she, Yumn?”

“She's gone upstairs.” As Rachel turned from the sitting room, Yumn added, “Where she's prostrate with mourning, no doubt,” with a malicious chuckle.

Rachel found Sahlah in the bedroom at the front of the house, the room that had been fitted out for Yumn's two small boys. She stood at an ironing board, where she was folding a mound of freshly dried nappies into perfect, neat squares. Her nephews—a toddler of twenty-seven months and his younger brother—lay in a single cot near the open window. They were fast asleep.

Rachel hadn't seen her friend for a fortnight. Their last words hadn't been pleasant ones, so despite her rehearsal of prefatory remarks, she felt gawky and overcome with awkwardness. This sensation didn't arise only from the misunderstanding that had grown between them, however. Nor did it arise from the fact that in entering the Maliks’ house, Rachel was aware of walking into another culture. Instead, it rose from the acute appreciation she had—refreshed each time she looked at her friend—of the physical differences between herself and Sahlah.

Sahlah was lovely. In deference to her religion and to the wishes of her parents, she wore the modest shalwār-qamīs. But neither the baggy trousers nor the tunic that hung below her hips managed to detract from her looks. She had nutmeg skin and cocoa eyes, with lashes that were thick and long. She wore her dark hair in one dense plait that hung to her waist, and when she raised her head as Rachel said her name, wispy curls like cobwebs fell round her face. The sole imperfection she possessed was a birthmark. It was strawberry in colour and strawberry in shape, high on her cheekbone like a tattoo. It darkened perceptibly when her eyes met Rachel's.