Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(116)
She observed him through eyes which she narrowed. Truth or lie? she wondered. He went on.
“I've put a call in about another special town council meeting, by the way. I did that this morning. They'll get back to us, but we can't expect anything soon because of this business with the Asians and the dead man on the Nez.”
This was progress, she admitted, and she felt the first stirrings of encouragement that she'd experienced since she'd had her stroke. It was snail-like and maddening to be sure, but it was progress all the same. Perhaps, after all, Theo was as fully ingenuous as he claimed to be. For the moment, she decided to believe that he was.
“Excellent,” she said. “Excellent, excellent. So by the time we meet with the council again, we'll have the necessary votes in our pockets. I dare say, Theo, I've come to see that disruption of yesterday's meeting as a stroke of divine intervention. This gives us an opportunity to massage each council member personally.”
Theo's attention appeared to be on her, and while she had him interested, she intended to make the most of their conversation. She said, “I've already seen to Treves, by the way. He's ours.”
“Is he?” Theo said politely.
“He is indeed. I spoke to the insufferable man myself this afternoon. Surprised? Well, whyever not speak to him? Why ever not set our ducks in position before we pick up our guns?” She could feel her excitement rising as she spoke. It came upon her like a sexual arousal, heating her up between the legs the way Lewis used to do when he kissed the back of her neck. She suddenly realised that it mattered to her very little whether Theo was listening or not. She'd been holding back her enthusiasm all day—there was absolutely no point in sharing her plans with Mary Ellis—and now she needed and intended to vent it. “It took practically nothing to get him on our side,” she said happily. “He loathes the Pakis as much as we do and he's willing to do anything to help our cause. ‘Shaw Redevelopment serves the interests of the community at large,’ he told me. What he meant was that he'd cut his own throat if that would keep the Pakis in their place. He wants an English name wherever a name's going to be seen: on the pier, on the park, on the hotels, on the leisure centre. He doesn't want Balford to be a stronghold for coloureds. He hates Akram Malik especially,” she added with great satisfaction, and she felt the same frisson of pleasure she'd experienced on the phone when it had first become clear to her that she and the loathsome hotelier had at least one characteristic in common.
Theo looked down at his hands, and she noted that he'd pressed his thumbs together tightly. He said, “Gran, what does it really matter that Akram Malik named a patch of lawn, a fountain, one wooden bench, and a laburnum tree in memory of his mother-in-law? Why's that put you into such an uproar?”
“I am not in an uproar. And I'm certainly not in an uproar about that rodent-filled green of Akram Malik's.”
“Aren't you?” Theo raised his head. “As I recall it, you didn't have any dreams of redevelopment until the Standard ran that article about the park's dedication.”
“Then your recollection is incorrect,” Agatha countered. “We worked on the pier for ten long months before Akram Malik opened that park.”
“The pier, yes. But the rest of it—the hotel, the leisure centre, the buildings along the Marine Parade, the pedestrian walkways, the restoration of the High Street—none of that was even part of the picture until Akram's park. But once you read the story in the Standard, you couldn't rest till we'd hired architects, picked the brains of city planners from here to hell and back, and made sure everyone within hearing distance knew that long-range plans for Balford-le-Nez were in your hands.”
“Well, what of it?” Agatha demanded. “This is my town. I've been here all my life. Who has more right to invest in its future than I?”
“If that's all this was about—investing in Balford's future—I'd agree,” Theo said. “But Balford's future plays a minor role when it comes to your hidden agenda, Gran.”
“Does it?” she asked. “And what, exactly, is my hidden agenda supposed to be?”
“Getting rid of the Pakistanis,” he said. “Making Balford-le-Nez too expensive a location for them to buy property here, freezing them out economically, socially, and culturally by ensuring that there's no land available for them to build a mosque, no shop open in which they can buy halal meats, no employment available where they can find work—”
“I'm providing them work,” Agatha cut in. “I'm providing everyone in this town with work. Who do you expect to work in the hotels, the restaurants, or the shops if not Balford's inhabitants?”
“Oh, I'm certain you've spots allocated for the remaining Pakistanis that you can't drive out. Manual labour, washing dishes, making beds, scrubbing floors. Jobs that'll keep them in their places, ensuring they don't get above themselves.”
“And why should they get above themselves?” Agatha demanded. “They owe their very lives to this country, and it damn well behooves them to keep that in mind.”
“Come on, Gran,” Theo said. “Let's not pretend we're living out the last days of the Raj.”
She bridled at this, but more at the weary tone in which it was said than at the words themselves. All at once, he sounded so much like his father that she wanted to hurl herself at him. She could hear Lawrence in him. At this very moment, she could even see Lawrence. He'd sat in that same chair, solemnly telling her that he meant to leave his studies and marry a Swedish volleyball player twelve years his senior with nothing more to recommend her than enormous bosoms and a leathery tan.