Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(172)
“This boy is involved in something, isn't he?” Azhar asked. “And it's something to do with Haytham's murder.”
“I don't know, Azhar,” Barbara said truthfully as they watched Charlie mount a dilapidated bike and begin to pedal in the general direction of the distant Nez. “He's involved in something. That much seems obvious. But as to what it is, I swear to God, I just don't know.”
“Is this the sergeant or Barbara speaking?” Azhar asked quietly.
She looked away from the Ruddock boy to the man beside her. “There's no difference between the two of them,” she said.
Azhar nodded and shifted his daughter in his arms. “I see. But perhaps there ought to be.”
ARBARA WAS ON THE ROAD TO HARWICH BY TEN the next morning. She'd phoned Emily the moment her alarm had gone off, catching the DCI at home. She related what she'd heard from Kriminalhauptkommisar Kreuzhage in Hamburg and what she'd seen on the pier the previous night. She left out the fact that she'd been in the company of Taymullah Azhar and his daughter when she'd seen Trevor Ruddock, his brother, and the backpack, and she told herself that a lengthy explanation of her relationship with the Pakistanis would only fracture whatever fragile clarity they were finally beginning to bring to the investigation.
She soon learned that it wouldn't have made any difference had she mentioned her companions on the pier, however, because Emily appeared to have heard nothing else once Barbara mentioned the subject of her conversation with Helmut Kreuzhage. The DCI sounded brisk, rested, and completely awake. Whatever she and the faceless Gary had done to mitigate her stress after hours, it had obviously worked. “An illegality of some sort?” she said. “In Hamburg? Well done, Barb. I said Muhannad was into something dodgy, didn't I? At least now we're on the track of what it is.”
Barbara aimed for caution in her next remarks. “But Querashi didn't give Inspector Kreuzhage any evidence about what sort of illegal activity was going on. And he didn't mention names—Muhannad's included. And when Kreuzhage staked out Oskarstrafie IS, he came up cold, Em. His blokes didn't see a thing that didn't look strictly above board.”
“Muhannad's going to cover his tracks. He's been doing that for more than ten years. And we know that whoever killed Querashi covered up his tracks like a pro. The question is this: What the hell is Muhannad up to? Smuggling? Prostitution? International robbery? What?”
“Kreuzhage didn't have a clue. He didn't exactly launch an investigation, but what little he did wasn't enough to uncover anything. So here's what I think. If there's no real evidence of anything dodgy going down in Germany—”
“Then we'll have to find it on this end, won't we?” was Emily's riposte. “And the Maliks’ factory is set up to be the perfect stopping point for any number of enterprises: from counterfeiting to terrorism. If there's evidence to be found, that's where we'll find it. They ship goods out of there at least once a week. Who knows what else goes into those boxes besides jars of mustards and jellies?”
“But, Em, the Maliks aren't the only people Querashi knew, so they can't be the only ones under suspicion in this Hamburg business, can they? Trevor Ruddock worked at that factory as well. And let's not forget that wire I found in his room. And there's Querashi's lover to consider, if we ever find him.”
“Barbara, whatever we find, it's going to lead to Muhannad.”
Barbara wondered about this as she drove to Harwich. She had to admit that there was a certain logic to Emily's conclusion about Muhannad and the mustard factory. But she felt a disturbing sense of unease at the speed with which the DCI had leapt to it. Emily had dismissed the strange behaviour of the Ruddocks with the simple declaration, “Scavengers, that lot,” and she'd relayed information about Theo Shaw's grandmother having had a massive stroke on the previous afternoon as if that fact exonerated the young man from any part in Querashi's death. She'd said, “I'm sending to London for this Professor Siddiqi character as well. He'll do the translating for Kumhar when I question him.”
“What about Azhar?” Barbara asked. “Wouldn't it save time if you used him to translate? You could have him there without Muhannad.”
Emily scoffed at this idea. “I've no intention of letting either Muhannad Malik or his slippery cousin anywhere near that bloke again. Kumhar's our pipeline to the truth, Barb, and I'm not going to risk plugging up the works by having anyone skulking round in the background when I question him. Kumhar's got to know something about that factory. Muhannad's the sales director at Malik's Mustards. And the sales director oversees the shipping department. Where do you think that tasty bit of information fits into the overall scheme of things?”
Inspector Lynley would have called Emily's deductions intuitive policework, something that came from long experience and a carefully honed awareness of what was going on in one's gut as suspects were questioned and evidence was accumulated. But Barbara had learned the hard way to be aware of what was going on within her own gut as a member of an investigative team, and the sensations that filled her after her conversation with Emily didn't please her.
She considered her uneasiness from every angle, probing it like a scientist confronted with an alien being. Certainly, if Muhannad Malik was the kingpin in some sort of malfeasance, he had a motive to kill Querashi if Querashi had made an attempt to play the whistle blower on him. But the existence of that possibility shouldn't have obviated the potential guilt of Theo Shaw and Trevor Ruddock, both of whom also had motives to be rid of Querashi and neither of whom had a decent alibi. Yet that is exactly what appeared to have happened, at least in Emily Barlow's mind. And as she thought about the peremptory dismissal of Trevor Ruddock and Theo Shaw as suspects, Barbara felt her uneasiness coalesce into a simple and potentially ugly question: Was Emily responding to gut-level intuition or to something else?