Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(148)

“I wasn't asking you to go at all,” Sahlah said. “I was just asking you to be willing to help me with information. But I can get that myself. And I will get that myself. And when I have it, all I'll need from you is the willingness to phone me and ask me to do something—it can be anything—that would serve as an excuse for me to be away from my parents’ house for enough time to go to the clinic—or wherever it is that I can have it done.”

“Look at you,” Rachel said. “You don't even want to say the word. You call it it. And that should tell you pretty much how you'll feel if you get rid of the baby.”

“I know how I'll feel. I'll feel relieved. I'll feel as if I have my life back. I'll know I haven't destroyed my parents’ belief in their children, split my family into pieces, struck a death-blow to my father, caused my world—”

“That won't happen,” Rachel said. “And even if it happens for a day or a week or a month, they'll come round. They'll all come round. Theo, your mum and your dad. Even Muhannad.”

“Muhannad,” Sahlah said, “will kill me. Once I can no longer hide my condition, my brother will kill me, Rachel.”

“That's rubbish,” Rachel said. “You know that's rubbish. He'll be in a twist and he might even pick a fight with Theo, but he'll never lay a hand on you. You're his sister, for God's sake.”

“Please, Rachel. You don't know him. You don't know my family. You see their exteriors—what everyone sees—but you don't know how it really is. You don't know what they're capable of doing. They'll see the disgrace—”

“And they'll get over it,” Rachel said, with an air of finality to her voice that washed a wave of despair over Sahlah. “And until they do, I'll take care of you. You know I'll always take care of you.”

Sahlah saw it then: how they'd come full circle. They were back where they'd been on Sunday afternoon, back where they'd met on the previous day. They were at the Clifftop Snuggeries, if only in mind rather than in body.

“Besides,” Rachel said in a tone that indicated she'd reached the conclusion of her remarks, “I have my own conscience to think of, Sahlah. And how d'you expect I'd feel, knowing I made myself part of something I didn't think was right? I got to consider that.”

“Of course.” Sahlah's lips formed the words, but she couldn't hear herself say them. Instead, she felt as if she were being sucked out of Rachel's presence, out of the industrial estate altogether. An unseen force had her in its grip and was casting her away, away, away. She couldn't feel the ground beneath her, and the once-hot sun had burnt itself to nothing, leaving cold in its place, and endless frost.

And from the distance she had left behind, Sahlah could hear Rachel's words of parting. “You don't need to worry, Sahlah. Really. It'll all work out for the best. You'll see.”



ARBARA HANDED TREVOR RUDDOCK OVER TO BE fingerprinted, after which she escorted him to an interview room in the police station. She gave him the packet of cigarettes he requested, along with a Coke, an ashtray, and matches. She told him to have a nice, quiet think about what he'd been doing on Friday night and who—among his doubtlessly lengthy list of friends and acquaintances—was likely to corroborate whatever alibi he produced for the police. By locking the door upon her exit, she made certain he would have no access to a telephone in order to arrange this alibi. She went on her way.

Emily, she learned from WPC Warner, had brought in a suspect as well. “The coloured bloke from Clacton” was how Belinda described him. “The one on the phone chits from the hotel.”

Kumhar, Barbara thought. Emily's placement of the surveillance officer in Clacton had paid off more quickly than she would have expected.

She found Emily making arrangements to have Kumhar's fingerprints sent off to London. In the meantime, these prints would also go to the pathology lab in Peterborough, where officers would attempt to match them with those found on Querashi's Nissan. Barbara saw to it that Trevor Ruddock's dabs were added to Kumhar's. One way or another, it seemed that they were getting closer to the truth.

“His English is shit,” Emily told her laconically as they returned to her office. She blotted her face with a paper kitchen towel that she'd dug out of her pocket. She wadded it up and lobbed it into the wastepa-per basket. “Either that or he's pretending that his English is shit. We didn't get anywhere with him in Clacton. Just a lot of gabbling about his papers, as if we'd come to escort him to the nearest port of departure.”

“Is he denying that he knew Querashi?”

“I don't know what he's doing. He might be admitting, denying, outright lying, or reciting poetry. It's impossible to tell because he's doing it all in gibberish.”

“We'll need to get someone to translate,” Barbara said. “That shouldn't be too rough a go, should it? I mean, what with the local Asian community and everything.”

Emily laughed shortly. “You can imagine how well we'll be able to depend on the accuracy of a translation coming from that quarter. Damn it.”

Barbara couldn't argue with the DCI's perspective. How could they depend upon anyone from the Asian community to translate explicitly and objectively, given the racial climate in Balford-le-Nez?