Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(182)

Six stolen cars since January—one per month and all of them accounted for, found in locations that spanned everywhere from the tidal track leading to Horsey Island to the golf course in Clacton-on-Sea. Dead rabbits placed on the front doorstep of the headmistress of the primary school. Four acts of arson: two in rubbish bins placed on the street for the dust collectors, one in a pillbox on the edge of the Wade, one in the graveyard of St. John's Church, where a crypt had been broken into and defiled with graffiti. Five beach lockers broken into. Twenty-seven burglaries among which were house-breakings, the prising open of a change machine at a laundrette, the invasion of numerous beach huts on the seafront, and the theft of the till from a Chinese takeaway. A handbag snatching on the pleasure pier. Three Zodiac inflat-ables taken from East Essex Boat Hire at the Balford Marina, one of them found abandoned at low tide on the south side of Skipper's Island and the other two with dead motors in the middle of the Wade.

Emily shook her head with disgust at this last report. “If Charlie Spencer gave half the attention to securing his Zodiacs that he gives to reading the racing forms from Newmarket, he wouldn't be giving us aggro once a week.”

But Barbara was thinking of what she'd heard and seen on the previous afternoon, what she'd discovered on the previous night, and how both related to one of the reports Emily had just read out from the log. She wondered why she hadn't realised the truth before. Rachel Winfield had revealed it to her. She just hadn't seen its wider application. “The break-ins in those beach huts, Em. What was nicked from them?”

Emily looked up. “Come on, Barb. You can't be thinking that the beach hut break-ins are the connection we're looking for.”

“Perhaps not to Querashi's murder,” Barbara agreed, “but they might fit somewhere. What was taken?”

Emily flipped through several of the printout's pages. She appeared to read more closely than she had on her first run through the information, but she rejected its import by saying, “Salt cellars. Pepper mills. Christ, it's nothing but rubbish. Who would want a sampler? Or a badminton set? I can understand lifting someone's calor gas stove—you could use it or sell it, couldn't you—but what about this: a framed photograph of Great-gran drooling under a beach umbrella?”

“That's it, then,” Barbara said urgently. “That's the whole point: selling what's been nicked. That's just the sort of junk people flog at car boot sales, Em. It's the kind of rubbish the Ruddocks were moving from their sitting room to their car yesterday afternoon. And it's just like the junk that I found in Trevor Ruddock's back pack on the pier last night. That's what he was doing between the time he was with Rachel Win-field and when he showed up for work at the pier: nicking goodies from the beach huts to supplement the family's income.”

“Which, if you're right—”

“Bet on it.”

“—clears him off our slate.” Emily bent eagerly over the report. “But what—goddamn what—puts Malik back on it?”

Her telephone rang and she muttered a curse. She lifted the receiver and continued to study the report. She said, “Barlow here …Ah. Well done, Frank. Take him into interrogation. We'll be with you directly.” She replaced the receiver and tossed the report on her desk. “We finally had a match from S04 on those fingerprints on Querashi's Nissan,” she told Barbara. “DC Eyre's just brought our boy in.”


THEIR BOY WAS locked into the same interrogation room that had previously been occupied by Fahd Kumhar. One look at him told Barbara that they'd managed to track down Querashi's putative lover. He fit the description perfectly. He was a slight and wiry man, with close-cropped blond hair, a gold eyebrow ring, and ears that displayed studs, hoops, and—hanging from one lobe—a plastic-topped safety pin generally used on an infant's nappie. He also had a lip ring, this one silver with a tiny bauble dangling from it. A skimpy T-shirt with its arms ripped off revealed a bicep tattooed with what at first appeared to be a large lily with the words gam me spelled out beneath it. A closer look, however, revealed that the flower's stamen was actually a priapus. Charming, Barbara thought when she saw this. She liked the subtle touch.

“Mr. Cliff Hegarty,” Emily said as she closed the door. “Good of you to come in for some questions.”

“Didn't have much choice, far as I c'n see,” Hegarty said. When he spoke, he displayed the whitest and most perfect teeth Barbara had ever seen. “Two blokes showed up and asked me if I minded coming down to the station. I always like the way cops make it sound like you got some alternative when it comes to assisting with their inquiries.”

Emily wasted no time getting down to business. Hegarty's fingerprints, she told him, had been found on the car of a murdered man called Haytham Querashi. The car itself had been found at the crime scene. Would Mr. Hegarty explain how they got there?

Hegarty crossed his arms. It was a movement that displayed his tattoo to greater effect. He said, “I can phone a solicitor if I want.” His lip ring caught the overhead lighting as he spoke.

“You may,” Emily replied. “But as I haven't even read you the caution, your need for a solicitor intrigues me.”

“I didn't say I need one. I didn't say I want one. I just said I could phone one if I want.”