Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(112)

“How much time do you want, khushi?” he asked. “I believe that I have you trapped, and you're only prolonging your king's death throes.”

“I'm thinking, Dad.” Hadiyyah squirmed to a new position on her seat, rising on her knees with her elbows on the table and her bottom in the air. She made a closer scrutiny of the battlefield. Her fingers drifted first towards a knight, then towards the single remaining castle. Her queen had already been taken, Barbara noted, and she was attempting to mount an attack against far superior forces. She began to slide the castle forward.

Her father said, “Ah,” in anticipation.

She withdrew her fingers. “Changed my mind,” she announced hastily. “Changed my mind, changed my mind.”

“Hadiyyah.” Her father drew her name out in affectionate impatience. “When you make a decision, you must adhere to it.”

“Sounds just like life,” Barbara said. She stepped out of the bar to join them.

“Barbara!” Hadiyyah's little body rose on her chair till she was kneeling upright. “You're here! I kept watching and watching for you at dinner. I had to eat with Mrs. Porter ‘cause Dad wasn't here, and I wished and wished that she was you. What've you done to your face?” Her own face screwed up, then lit as she realised. “You've painted it! You've covered your bruises. You look quite nice. Doesn't Barbara look quite nice, Dad?”

Azhar had risen, and he nodded politely. When Hadiyyah chanted, “Sit, sit, please sit,” he fetched a third chair so that Barbara could join them. He offered his cigarettes and lit hers wordlessly when she took one.

“Mummy uses make-up as well,” Hadiyyah confided chattily as Barbara settled in. “She's going to teach me how to do it properly when I'm old enough. She makes her eyes the prettiest of prettiest that you've ever seen. They're big as anything when she's done. ‘Course, they're big anyway, Mummy's eyes. She's got the loveliest eyes, hasn't she, Dad?”

“She has,” Azhar said, his own eyes on his daughter.

Barbara wondered what he saw when he gazed upon her: her mother? himself? a living declaration of their love for each other? She couldn't know and she doubted he'd say. So she gave her attention to the chess board.

“Dire straits,” she said as she studied the meagre collection of pieces with which Hadiyyah was attempting to wage war on her father. “Looks like white-flag time to me, kiddo.”

“Oh pooh,” Hadiyyah said happily. “We don't want to finish now anyway. We'd rather talk to you.” She adjusted her position so that she was sitting, and she swung her sandal-shorn feet against the legs of the chair. “I did a puzzle today with Mrs. Porter. A jigsaw of Snow White. She was asleep and the prince was kissing her and the dwarfs were crying cause they thought she was dead. ‘Course she didn't look dead, and if they only thought about why her cheeks were so rosy, they could've worked it out for themselves that she was only sleeping. But they didn't and they didn't know that all she needed was a kiss to wake up. But since they didn't know, she met a real prince and they lived happily ever after.”

“A conclusion to which we all fervently aspire,” Barbara said.

“And we painted as well. Mrs. Porter used to do watercolours and she's teaching me how. I did one of the sea and one of the pier and one of—”

“Hadiyyah,” her father said quietly.

Hadiyyah ducked her head and was silent.

“You know, I've got a real thing for watercolours,” Barbara told the little girl. “I'd love to see them if you're up for that. Where've you got them stowed?”

Hadiyyah brightened. “In our room. Shall I fetch them? I c'n fetch them easier than anything, Barbara.”

Barbara nodded and Azhar handed over the room key. Hadiyyah squirmed off her chair and dashed into the hotel, ribboned plaits flying. In a moment, they could hear her sandals clattering against the wooden stairs.

“Out for dinner this evening?” Barbara asked Azhar when they were alone.

“There were things to see to after our conference,” he replied. He dislodged ash from his cigarette and took a drink from a glass on the table. It held ice, a lime, and something fizzy. Mineral water, she guessed. She couldn't see Azhar blithely swilling down gin and tonic, despite the heat. He replaced the glass exactly on the same ring of damp from which he'd taken it. Then he looked at her and with such intent scrutiny that she was certain she'd smeared her mascara. “You acquitted yourself well,” he finally said. “We gained something from the meeting, but not, I imagine, all that you know.”

And that's why he'd not returned to the hotel directly in time for dinner with his daughter, Barbara decided. He and his cousin had no doubt put their heads together for a discussion on their next move. She wondered what that move would be: a meeting of the Asian community, another march in the streets, a request for intervention from their MP, an event designed to heighten media interest in the killing and the investigation once again. She didn't know and couldn't have said. But she had little doubt that he and Muhannad Malik had decided upon an action they'd take in the next few days.

“I need to pick your brains about Islam,” she told him.

“Tit for tat,” he replied, “in exchange for …?”