Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(114)

“So in addition to being cut off from his family, he would have done a job on their chances of emigrating, right? Because I expect that no one else would be hot to strike a marriage bargain with them, not after they'd palmed off spurious goods as the real thing. In a manner of speaking.”

“Correct,” Azhar said.

Finally, Barbara felt, they were making progress. “So, he had a bucketful of reasons to keep the lid on if he was queer.”

“If he was,” Azhar acknowledged.

She stubbed out her cigarette, placing this new bit of knowledge into various positions in the puzzle of Querashi's murder, attempting to see where it best fit. When she had a potential picture in her mind, she went on slowly. “And if someone knew what he was hiding, knew it for certain because he'd seen Querashi in a situation where there was absolutely no mistaking what was going on … and if that person got in contact with him and told him what he knew … and if that same person made certain demands …”

He said, “Are you speaking of the person who suggested Haytham's homosexuality in the first place?”

Barbara noted his tone: simultaneously anxious and vindicated. She realised that her speculations were leading them both where he and his cousin ardently wished them to go. She burst his bubble. “It's a rare Englishman who would know all the ramifications of a Muslim's homosexuality, Azhar. Especially all the ramifications of this particular Muslim's homosexuality.”

“Then you're saying an Asian knew.”

“I'm not saying anything.”

But by the way his eyes moved to and stayed on his glass, she saw that he was thinking. And his thoughts led him to the only Asian, aside from members of his own family, whom the police had mentioned in connection with Haytham Querashi. “Kumhar,” he said. “You think this man Fahd Kumhar played a part in Haytham's death.”

“You didn't hear that from me,” Barbara said.

“And you wouldn't have pulled that idea from nowhere,” he continued. “Someone has told you of a relationship between Haytham and this man, yes?”

“Azhar—”

“Or something. Something has told you. And if you speak of demands being made under these circumstances, demands that Fahd Kumhar made of Haytham Querashi, you must be speaking of blackmail as well.”

“You're really getting ahead of yourself,” Barbara said. “All I'm saying is that if one person saw Querashi doing a job where he wasn't employed, another person might have done the same. End of story.”

“And you think that other person is Fahd Kumhar,” Azhar concluded again.

“Look.” Barbara was feeling exasperated, partly because he'd read her so well and partly because his reading of her could lead to his muddying up the case by involving his cousin where his cousin wasn't wanted. “What bloody difference does it make if it's Fahd Kumhar or the Queen of—”

“Here, here, here!” The sing-song cry came from Hadiyyah, who stood at the door. She waved her watercolours in one hand. In the other, she held a white-lidded jam jar. “I only brought two cause the one of the sea's awfully bad, Barbara. And look, see what I caught as well? He was in the roses outside the dining room and after lunch I got a jar from the kitchen and he flew right in.”

She presented her jam jar for Barbara's inspection. In the fading light, Barbara saw a rather unhappy bee flinging itself hopelessly against the glass.

“I put some food in for him. Look. D'you see it? And I poked some holes through the top. D'you think he'll like London? I expect he will cause there's lot of flowers, so he can eat them up and then make honey.”

Barbara set the jar by the chess board on the table and gave it a close inspection. The food Hadiyyah had provided consisted of a wilting pile of rose petals and a few sad leaves with their edges curled inward. A Nobel-calibre entomologist in the making, she clearly wasn't. But she was positively inspired when it came to the art of providing distraction.

“Well,” Barbara said, “here's the problem with that, kiddo. Bees have families, and they all live together in hives. They don't like strangers, so if you take this bee back to London with you, he won't have any family to live with. I expect that's why he's in such a state at the moment. It's getting dark, and while it's been a nice visit, he'd like to go home.”

Hadiyyah came to stand between Barbara's legs. She crouched so that her chin was level with the table and her nose pressed up to the side of the jar. “You think?” she asked. “Should I let him go? Is he missing his family?”

“Sure,” Barbara said, picking up the child's watercolours for an inspection. “Besides, bees don't belong inside jars. It's not a good idea, and it isn't safe.”

“Why?” Hadiyyah asked.

Barbara looked past the paintings to the artist's father. “Because when you ask a creature to live in a way that's against his nature, someone always ends up getting hurt.”


THEO WASN'T LISTENING, Agatha Shaw concluded. He wasn't listening any more than he'd listened during drinks, during dinner, during coffee, or during the nine o'clock news. His body had been present and he'd even managed to respond in such a way that a less perspicacious woman might have taken for holding up his end of the conversation. But the truth of the matter was that his mind was no more on the redevelopment of Balford-le-Nez than hers was on the current price of bread in Moscow.