Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(171)

The backpack contained a hotchpotch of useless articles, at least articles that were useless to her present purposes. She emptied the pack of salt cellars fashioned like lighthouses, fishermen, anchors, and whales; pepper mills posing as Scotties and pirates; a plastic tea set; two dirty Barbie dolls; three unused and sealed decks of cards; a mug commemorating the short-lived marriage of the Duke and Duchess of York; a small London taxi missing a wheel; two pairs of child-sized sunglasses;

an unopened box of Beehive nougats; two Ping-Pong bats, a net for the game, and a box of balls.

Hell, Barbara thought. This was a total bust.

“Barbara,” she heard Azhar murmur from the other side of the door. “A boy's walking in this direction from the pavilion. He's just come out.”

She stowed everything away again, trying to replace each article in the order in which she'd first found it. Azhar said her name again, more urgently this time.

“Right, right,” she whispered in response. She returned the backpack to the chest and rejoined Azhar outside on the pier.

They faded to the railing, where the shadows were deep, just beyond the sailing ship ride. The newcomer rounded the corner of the shed, went to its doorway without hesitation, cast a surreptitious glance to the right and the left, and let himself inside.

Barbara knew him on sight, having had two occasions already to interact with the boy. It was Charlie Ruddock, Trevor's younger brother.

“Who is this, Barbara?” Azhar asked quietly. “Do you know him?” Her head on his shoulder, Hadiyyah was fast asleep, and she murmured as if in answer to her father.

“He's called Charlie Ruddock,” Barbara said.

“Why do we watch him? And what were you looking for in that shed?”

“I don't exactly know,” she said, and when he looked sceptical, she went on. “It's the truth, Azhar. I don't know. That's the hell of this case. It could be racial like you want it to be—”

“As I want it to be? No, Barbara. I am not—”

“All right. All right. Like some people want it to be. But it's starting to look like it could be something else as well.”

“What?” he asked. But he read her reluctance to part with information as clearly as if she'd communicated it to him. “You won't explain yourself further, will you?”

She was saved from having to answer his question. Charlie Ruddock was exiting the shed. And on his back he wore the pack that Barbara had just examined. Curiouser and curiouser, she thought. Exactly what the hell was going on?

Charlie headed back towards the pavilion. Barbara said, “Come on,” and began to follow.

The lights had been turned off now on the amusements, and the number of fun-goers had been reduced to the shadow-seeking couples and a few families still gathering up their straggling members prior to departure. The din had quieted. The smells had faded. In the attractions, on the rides, and within the numerous take-away food stalls, those whose livelihood was the pier readied it for another day.

With so few pleasure-seekers left and most of them wending their way towards the exit, it was easy enough to tail one young boy who was not only doing likewise, but doing it with a bulging pack on his back. As Barbara and her friends made their way through the pavilion and towards the seafront, she watched Charlie's progress and considered what she'd seen and heard that evening.

Haytham Querashi had been quite insistent that something illegal was taking place between Germany and England. Since he'd phoned Hamburg, it stood to reason that he believed the activity originated in that city. And German ferries leaving from Hamburg arrived in Parkeston harbour, near Harwich. But Barbara was no closer to learning what—if anything—was going on between the two countries and who—if anyone—was involved in the activity than she'd been when the condition of Querashi's abandoned Nissan had first suggested possession of contraband.

The fact that the Nissan had been torn apart brought everything about Querashi into question anyway, didn't it? And didn't the car's condition also emphasise the possibility of smuggling? And if it did, was Querashi involved? Or was he, a man of deep enough religious convictions that he'd phoned all the way to Pakistan merely to discuss a verse of the Qur'aan, attempting to blow the whistle on the illegal activity? And no matter what Querashi had been doing, how the hell did Trevor Ruddock fit into it? Or his brother Charlie?

Barbara knew how Muhannad Malik—and perhaps Azhar—would respond to those final two questions. The Ruddocks, after all, were white.

But she herself had seen this evening evidence of what she already knew about racial interactions. The adolescents who had harassed Hadiyyah and the one young girl who'd attempted to right the wrong were human microcosms of the population at large, and as such they gave testimony to Barbara's belief: Some of her countrymen were xenophobic imbeciles; others most decidedly were not.

But where did that knowledge leave the investigation into Querashi's murder? she wondered. Especially in a situation in which the only suspects without alibis were white?

Ahead, Charlie Ruddock had gained the land side of the pavilion and stopped. Barbara and her friends did likewise, watching him. He was at the south railing of the pier, mounting an ancient, rust-corroded bicycle. Beyond him, the proprietors of the Lobster Hut were cranking down the metal shields over the establishment's ordering windows. A short distance away, Balford Balloons and Rock had already shut its doors for the night. The tiers of deserted beach huts that stretched along the promenade to the south of these two commercial concerns resembled an abandoned village. Both their doors and their windows were firmly barred, and the only noise emitted from their immediate vicinity was the echo of the sea as waves hit the shore.