Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(146)

Akram came inside the building. He paused to close and lock the door behind him. He saw her waiting by the water cooler and he came to her, taking the paper cup that she extended for him.

“You look tired, Abhy,” she said. “You don't need to stay at the factory. Mr. Armstrong can keep things going for the rest of the afternoon. Why don't you go home?” She had more than one reason for making this suggestion, of course. If she left the factory herself while her father was there, he would know soon enough and he'd want to know why. Rachel's phoned and there's an emergency had served her purposes on the previous day when she'd left to confront her friend at the Clifftop Snuggeries. She couldn't use that excuse again.

He touched her shoulder. “Sahlah. You bear the weight of our trouble with a strength I can't quite comprehend.”

Sahlah didn't want the praise, so sorely did it abrade her conscience. She looked for something to use as a response, something that was at least close to the truth because she couldn't bear to continue the process in which she'd been engaged these many months: constructing a careful maze of lies, projecting a purity of heart, mind, and soul that she didn't possess. “Abhy, I wasn't in love with him. I hoped to love him eventually, as you and Ammī love. But I hadn't learned to love him yet, so I don't feel the grief that you think I feel.”

His fingers tightened on her shoulder, then moved to graze her cheek. “I want you to know in your own life the devotion that I feel for your mother. That's what I hoped for you and for Haytham.”

“He was a good man,” she said, and she inwardly acknowledged the truth of this statement. “You made a good choice of husband for me.”

“A good choice or a selfish one?” he asked meditatively.

Slowly, they moved along the back corridor of the factory, past the locker room and the employees’ lounge. “He had much to offer the family, Sahlah. That's why I chose him. And every hour since his death I've asked myself if I still would have chosen him had he been hunchbacked, evil, or ridden with disease. Would I have chosen him anyway, just because I needed his talents here?” Akram's gesture encompassed the factory walls. “We persuade ourselves to believe all manner of falsehood when our self-interest guides us. Then, when the worst befalls us, we're left to gaze back over our actions. We wonder whether one of them might have been the cause of disaster. We question whether an alternative action might have averted the worst from happening.”

“You aren't blaming yourself for Haytham's death,” she said, aghast at the thought of her father carrying this burden.

“Who else is to blame? Who else brought him to this country? And to meet my need of him, Sahlah. Not yours.”

“I needed Haytham as well, Abhy-jahn.”

Her father hesitated before passing through the doorway to his own office. His smile was infinitely sad. “Your spirit's as generous as it's pure,” he said.

No compliment could have grieved her more. She wanted in that instant to pour the truth before her father. But she recognised the selfishness of that desire. While it was true that she would experience the relief of finally dropping the guise of a goodness that she didn't possess, she would be dropping it at the expense of crushing the spirit of a man who had long been incapable of seeing that evil could exist under an exterior that was otherwise righteous.

It was her desperation to preserve her father's image of her that now caused her to say, “Go home, Abby-jahn. Please. Go home to rest.”

His answer was to kiss his fingers and press them to her cheeks. Saying nothing further, he entered his office.

She returned to reception, where her own duties awaited, her brain working anxiously to create an excuse to take her away from the factory for the time she needed to do what had to be done. If she claimed to be ill, her father would insist that someone accompany her home. If she claimed an emergency on Second Avenue—one of the children having disappeared and Yumn in a panic, for instance—he would himself charge into action. If she simply disappeared …But how could she do that? How could she cause her father more worry and trouble?

She sat behind the reception desk and watched the fish and bubbles float across the screen of her computer's monitor. There was work to be done, but she couldn't at the moment think what it was. She could only turn over the possibilities in her mind: what she could do to preserve her family and simultaneously to save herself. There was only one option.

The outside door opened, and Sahlah looked up. God is great, she exulted silently when she saw who was entering the factory. It was Rachel Winfield.

She'd come on her bicycle. It leaned just beyond the entry, rusted from years in the town's salty air. She wore a long, filmy skirt, and round her neck and dangling from her ears were a necklace and earrings of Sahlah's own creation, fashioned from polished rupees and beads.

Sahlah tried to take comfort in Rachel's attire, especially in the jewellery. Surely it meant that her need of help was foremost in Rachel's mind.

Sahlah didn't offer her a greeting. Nor did she let the gravity of her friend's face dismay her. The matter before them was a grave one. Becoming a party to ridding oneself of a burgeoning life—no matter how critical was the need to do so—wasn't an endeavour that Rachel would ever take lightly.

“Hot,” Rachel said by way of greeting. “Hotter than I ever remember. It's like the sun killed the wind and is getting ready to suck up the sea as well.”