Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(214)

It was a gangmaster program, Emily realised. The illegals were being hired by farmers, mill owners, and factory foremen. These people paid lower wages than they would have to pay legal workers, and they paid them not to the illegals themselves, but to the person who transported them. That person skimmed off as much money as he wanted and doled out to the workers what he felt like giving them. The illegals thought the scheme was to assist them with their immigration dilemmas. But the law had another word for it: slavery.

They were trapped, Kumhar said. They had only two options: to continue to work and hope that they would be given their papers eventually, or to make their escape and find their way into London, where they might hope to fade into the Asian community and avoid detection.

Emily had heard enough. She saw how they were all involved: the entire Malik clan and Haytham Querashi as well. It was a case of greed. Querashi uncovered the scheme that night at the Castle Hotel. He'd wanted a piece of the action as a portion of the Malik girl's dowry. He'd been refused: permanently. Doubtless he'd used Kumhar as a means of blackmailing the family to do his bidding. Slice him a piece of the financial pie or he'd bring down the entire operation by having Kumhar sing to the police or to the papers. It was a clever idea. He'd been counting on the family's greed overcoming whatever inclination they may have had to call his bluff. And his request for compensation for his knowledge wasn't so illogical. He was to be a member of the family, after all. He deserved his fair share of what everyone else was enjoying. Especially Muhannad.

Well, now, Muhannad could kiss goodbye his classic car, his Rolex watch, his snakeskin boots, his fancy diamond signet ring, and his gold chains. He wouldn't be needing them where he was going.

And this would cook Akram Malik's position in the community as well. Doubtless it would cook the entire Asian population too. Most of them worked for him anyway. And when the factory closed as a result of the investigation into the Maliks’ scheme, they'd have to take themselves off to seek employment elsewhere. Those that were legal, that is.

So she'd been on the right track in searching the mustard factory. She just hadn't thought to search it for people instead of inanimate contraband.

There was much to do. There was SOl to involve, to activate an investigation into the international aspects of the scheme. Then the IND would need to be informed, to make arrangements for the deportation of Muhannad's immigrants. Some of them, of course, would be needed to testify against him and his family at the trial. Perhaps in exchange for asylum? she wondered. It was a possibility.

She said to Azhar, “One thing more. How did Mr. Kumhar come to be hooked up with Mr. Querashi?”

He'd appeared at a work site, Kumhar explained. One day when they rested for lunch along the side of a strawberry field, he'd appeared among them. He'd been seeking someone to use as a means of putting an end to their enslavement, he said. He promised safety and a new start in this country. Kumhar was only one of eight men who had volunteered. He was chosen and he left that very afternoon with Mr. Querashi. He'd been driven to Clacton, set up in Mrs. Kersey's house, and given a cheque to send back to his family in Pakistan as a sign of Mr. Querashi's good intentions towards them all.

Right, Emily thought with a mental snort. It was another form of enslavement in the making, with Kumhar as the permanent sword that Querashi would hold over the heads of Muhannad Malik and his family. Kumhar had merely been too dim to work that out.

She needed to get back upstairs to her office, to see where Barbara was in her search for Muhannad. At the same time, she couldn't let Azhar leave the station lest he give his relatives the word that she was on to them all. She could hold him as an accessory, but one misspoken word out of her mouth, and he'd be on the phone demanding a lawyer so fast that her head would be spinning. Better to leave him with Kumhar, believing he was serving the good of all concerned.

She said to Azhar, “I'm going to need a written statement from Mr. Kumhar. May I ask you to stay with him as he writes it and then append a translation for me?” That should take a good two hours, she thought.

Kumhar spoke urgently, hands trembling as he lit yet another cigarette.

“What's he saying now?” Emily asked.

“He wants to know if he'll get his papers. Now that he's told you the truth.”

Azhar's look was a challenge. It irked her to see it so openly displayed on his dark face.

“Tell him all in good time,” Emily said. And she left them to hunt down Sergeant Havers.


YUMN PICKED UP on Barbara's interest in the craft table in Sahlah's bedroom. She said, “Her jewellery, or so she calls it. I call it her excuse not to do her duty when she's asked to do it.” She joined Barbara at the table and pulled out four of the drawers from their little chests. She spilled coins and beads onto the tabletop and sat Anas on the table's accompanying wooden chair. He became immediately enthralled with his aunt's jewellery-making bits and pieces. He pulled out another drawer and flung its contents among the coins and beads that his mother had already given him. He laughed at the sight of the colourful objects rolling and bouncing on the table. Before, they'd been arranged carefully by size, by hue, and by composition. Now, as Anas added two more drawersful, they were hopelessly mixed with one another, promising a long evening's work sorting them out.

Yumn did nothing to stop him from continuing to empty more of the drawers. Instead, she smiled at him fondly and ruffled his hair. “You like the colours, don't you, pretty one?” she asked him. “Can you name these colours for your ammī-gee? Here's red, Anas. Can you see red?”