Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(208)
She thought about what she'd learned about him in the report from London. SOU had deemed him worth watching, but the intelligence gathered hadn't fingered him for anything more serious than adultery and abandonment. Neither act portrayed him in a flattering light, but neither was criminal. Had that been the case, everyone from the Prince of Wales to St. Botolph's drunks would be shopped for a few years, deserving or not. Besides, as Barbara Havers had pointed out a day earlier, Taymullah Azhar wasn't involved in this business directly. And nothing Emily had read about him indicated a brotherhood with the Asian underworld represented by his cousin.
Even if that weren't the case, what bloody choice did she have between waiting for Siddiqi and attempting to get to the truth right now? None at all, as far as she could see. She lifted a monitory finger and held it inches away from the Asian man's face. She said, “Come with me. But make one wrong move, Mr. Azhar, and I'll have you charged as accessory after the fact.”
“The fact of what?” he inquired blandly.
“Oh, I think you know the answer to that.”
THE AVENUES WERE on the other side of town from the mustard factory, backing onto the Balford Golf Course. There were several routes one could take to get there, but Barbara chose the way along the sea. She took with her one of the biggest detective constables who'd come to search the factory, a bloke called Reg Park, who did the driving and looked as if he'd happily go two or three rounds with anyone who didn't step lively should he make the suggestion that a jig was called for. Muhannad Malik, Barbara decided, was not going to be happy with her invitation to take a drive to the local constabulary for a confab with DCI Barlow. Despite the hours he'd been spending there in the past few days, she had little doubt that he clung to the Victorian bricks of the Balford nick only when it was his own idea. So DC Reg Park was her insurance policy, guaranteeing Malik's cooperation.
She kept an eye peeled for the Asian's turquoise Thunderbird as they drove. He'd not shown up during the search of the factory, nor had he phoned to check in or to give his whereabouts to anyone. Ian Armstrong hadn't found this curious behaviour, though. When Barbara queried him on the point, he'd explained that as Director of Sales, Muhannad Malik was often out of the factory for hours—if not days—at a time. There were conferences to attend, food shows to organise, advertising to arrange, and sales to stimulate. His job was not production-oriented, so his presence at the factory was less essential than were his efforts out on the road.
Which is where Barbara was searching for him as she and DC Park buzzed along the shorefront. He could have been out on company business, true. But a phone call from World Wide Tours or Klaus Reuchlein could have taken him out on other business as well.
She didn't see the turquoise car on their route, however. And when DC Park slowed in front of the Maliks’ enormous half-timbered, many-gabled house on the other side of town, there was also no Thunderbird in its pebbly driveway. Still, she instructed the DC to pull to the kerb. The absence of Muhannad Malik's car didn't necessarily equate with the absence of the man himself.
“Let's give it a go,” she told Park. “But be ready to have to strong-arm this bloke if he's here, okay?”
DC Park looked as if the idea of having to strong-arm a suspect was just the ticket to make his afternoon complete. He grunted in a simian fashion that matched his overlong arms and pugilist's chest.
The detective constable lumbered up the front path behind her. This curved between two herbaceous borders which, despite the heat and the hose-pipe ban, flourished with lavender, campion, and phlox. To keep the flowers alive in the oppressive heat and sun, Barbara knew that someone had to be lovingly watering the plants by hand each day.
No one was stirring behind the diamond-paned windows on either of the house's two floors. But when Barbara rang the bell next to the heavy front door, someone inside opened what went for a peephole in the oak: a small square aperture that was covered with fancy grillwork. It was a bit like visiting a cloister, Barbara thought, and the image was further cemented in her mind by the dim form she saw on the other side of the aperture. This was a veiled woman. She said, “Yes?”
Barbara rustled up her warrant card and held it at the opening, introducing herself. She said, “Muhannad Malik. We'd like a word with him, please.”
The aperture shut smartly. Inside the house, a bolt was drawn and the door swung open. They were face-to-face with a middle-aged woman, standing in the shadows. She wore a long skirt, a tunic buttoned to her throat and her wrists, and a headscarf that swathed everything from her forehead to her shoulders in yards of deep blue, so blue as to be nearly black in the muted light of the entry.
She said, “What do you want with my son?”
“Mrs. Malik, then?” Barbara didn't wait for a response. “May we come in please?”
The woman evaluated this request, perhaps for its propriety, because she looked from Barbara to her companion and she made the greater study of him. She said, “Muhannad isn't here.”
“Mr. Armstrong said he'd come home for lunch and not returned.”
“He was here, yes. But he left. An hour ago. Perhaps longer.” She inflected these last two phrases as if they were questions.
“You're not certain when he left? Do you know where he went? May we come in, please?”
Again, the woman looked at DC Park. She drew her scarf high and closer round her neck. At this, Barbara suddenly realised how unlikely it was that the Asian woman had ever entertained—if a visit from the police could qualify as entertaining—a Western man in her home without her husband present. Thus, she added, “DC Park will wait in the garden. He was admiring your flowers anyway, weren't you, Reg?”