Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(167)

Hadiyyah's face lit. She darted ahead of them, squirming through the crowd on her way to the door. To get there, she had to pass the virtual reality race cars, and in her haste for fun, she elbowed her way into the group surrounding them.

It happened quickly, too quickly to see if what occurred was merely an accident or an intentional act. One moment Hadiyyah had disappeared into a mass of scantily clad adolescent bodies. The next moment she was sprawled on the floor.

Someone hooted with laughter, a sound barely discernible above the raucous noise of the arcade. But it was loud enough for Barbara to hear it, and she shot into the group without another thought.

“Shit. Pakis,” someone was saying.

“Just lookit that dress.”

“An Oxfam special.”

“Thinks she's going to meet the Queen.”

Barbara grabbed the limp, sweaty T-shirt of the boy nearest to her. She twisted it into her hand and jerked until he was less than two inches from her face.

“My little friend,” she said evenly, “appears to have tripped somehow. I'm sure one of you gentlemen would like to help her, wouldn't you?”

“Sod you, bitch” was his succinct reply.

“Not even in your dreams,” she said.

“Barbara.” Azhar spoke somewhere behind her, sounding eminently reasonable as he always sounded.

In front of her, Hadiyyah was struggling to her knees among the Doc Martens, sandals, and trainers that surrounded her. Her silk dress had become soiled in her fall, and beneath her arm the seam had ripped. She didn't look so much hurt as surprised. She gazed round, her face bewildered at the sudden confusion.

Barbara gripped the boy's T-shirt more firmly. “Think again, wanker-man,” she said quietly. “I said that my little friend needs some help.”

“Fuck that, Sean. There's two of them and ten of us,” someone to Barbara's left advised.

“Right,” Barbara said pleasantly in answer, speaking to Sean and not to his counsellor. “But I don't imagine that any of you have one of these.” With her free hand she felt in her shoulder bag until she had her police identification. She flipped this open and jammed it into Sean's face. She was too close for him to be able to read it, but reading it wasn't what she had in mind for him.

“Help her up,” she said.

“I di'n't do nothing to her.”

“Barbara.” Azhar spoke again.

She saw him out of the corner of her eye. He was going to Hadiyyah. “Leave her,” Barbara said. “One of these young louts”—another twist of the T-shirt—”is hot to prove what a gent he can be. Isn't that right, Sean? Because if one of these young louts”—another more savage twist of the shirt—”fails to prove what needs to be proved, the whole flaming lot of them are going to be phoning Mummy and Daddy from the nick tonight.”

Azhar, however, ignored Barbara's words. He went to his daughter and helped her to her feet. The adolescents gave him plenty of space to do so. “You've not hurt yourself, Hadiyyah?” He reached for her giraffe, which had flown from her hands as she'd fallen.

“Oh no!” she wailed. “Dad, it's got all ruined.”

Sean still in her grasp, Barbara looked over. The giraffe had somehow become stained with ketchup. Its head had been flattened by someone's shoe.

A boy out of Barbara's range of vision sniggered. But before she could deal with him, Azhar said, “This is something that can be easily repaired.” He spoke like a man who was aware of everything else in life that was well beyond mending. He worked his way out of the group, Hadiyyah walking in front of him, his hands on his daughter's shoulders.

Barbara saw the dejected angle at which the child held her head. She itched to head-butt Sean and drive her knee directly into his bollocks, but instead she released him and wiped her hand on her trousers. “It takes real dreck to go after an eight-year-old girl,” she said. “Why don't the lot of you celebrate the accomplishment by doing yourselves proud somewhere else?”

She shoved past them and followed Azhar and his daughter out of the arcade. For a moment she didn't see where they'd gone because the number of pleasure-seekers seemed to have grown. On her every side was a mass of black leather trousers, nose studs, nipple rings, dog collars, and chains. She felt as if she'd just burst into a crowd of S & M conventioneers.

Then she saw her friends. They were to her right, Azhar leading his daughter out of the pavilion and onto the open section of the pier. She joined them.

“…manifestation of people's fear,” Azhar was saying to Hadiyyah's bowed head. “People fear what they don't understand, Hadiyyah. Fear drives their actions.”

“I wouldn't've hurt them,” Hadiyyah said. “I'm too little to hurt them anyway.”

“Ah, but they aren't afraid of being hurt, khushi. What they're afraid of is being known. Here is Barbara now. Shall we continue our evening? Allowing a group of strangers to determine whether we find joy in this outing seems ill-advised.”

Hadiyyah raised her head. Barbara felt a tightness in her chest at the sight of her little friend's bleak face. “I think those planes are calling to us, kiddo,” she said heartily, indicating a ride nearby: tiny aeroplanes soaring and falling round a central pole. “What d'you say?”