Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(223)

Fogarty leapt forward. He jerked the DCI upright in her seat. He yelled, “She's right! Guv! She's right!”

And Barbara went for the boat's controls.

She didn't know how much time had passed. It seemed like several eternities. She brought the boat about with such speed that they nearly capsized. While Fogarty disarmed Emily, she wildly scanned the water for the girl.

Shit, she thought. Oh God. Please.

And then she saw her, some forty yards off their starboard side. Not thrashing, but floating. A floating body. She shouted, “Mike! There!” And she gunned the motor.

Fogarty was over the side the instant they were close enough to the child. Barbara killed the engine. She flung the life jackets and seat cushions into the water, where they bobbed like marshmallows. And then she prayed.

It didn't matter that her skin was dark, that her mother had abandoned her, that her father had allowed her to live eight years believing they were alone in the world. What mattered was that she was Hadiyyah: joyous and innocent and in love with life.

Fogarty reached her. Hadiyyah was floating face down. He flipped her over, caught her under the chin, and began swimming back to the boat.

Barbara's vision blurred. She whirled on Emily. “What were you thinking?” she shrieked. “What the goddamn hell were you thinking? She's eight years old, eight f*cking years old!”

Emily turned from the sea back to Barbara. She raised a hand as if to fend off the words. Her fingers curled into a fist. But above that fist, her eyes narrowed slowly.

“She's not a Paki brat,” Barbara persisted. “She's not a nameless face. She's a human being.”

Fogarty had the child at the side of the boat.

“Christ,” Barbara whispered as she dragged the fragile body inside.

As Fogarty clambered into the boat, Barbara stretched the little girl out on the floor. Scarcely breathing herself, without thinking about its use or futility, she began CPR. She moved rapidly between the kiss of life and the cardiac massage and she kept her eyes on Hadiyyah's face. But her own ribs ached from the pounding she'd taken. And every breath she took seared her chest. She grunted. She coughed. She pounded the heel of her hand beneath Hadiyyah's breast.

“Get out of the way.” It was Emily's curt voice. Next to her, right into her ear.

“No!” Barbara closed her mouth around Hadiyyah's.

“Stop it, Sergeant. Get out of my way. I'll see to it.”

Barbara ignored her. And Fogarty, panting heavily from his exertions, reached for her arm. He said, “Let the Guv, Sarge. She can do it. It's okay.”

So Barbara allowed Emily to work on the child. And Emily worked in much the same way that Emily Barlow had always worked: efficiently, seeing that there was a job to be done, allowing nothing to get in the way of her doing it.

Hadiyyah's chest gave a monumental heave. She began to cough. Emily rolled her onto her side, and her body convulsed once before it began to expel saltwater, bile, and vomit all over the bottom of Charlie Spencer's prized Hawk 31.

Hadiyyah blinked. Then she looked stunned. Then she seemed to take in the three adults who were hovering over her. Face perplexed, her glance went first to Emily, then to Fogarty, then found Barbara. She smiled beatifically.

“My stomach went whoop-dee-do,” she said.


THE MOON HAD risen by the time they finally made it back to Balford Marina. But the marina was awash with light. It was aswarm with spectators as well. As the Sea Wizard rounded the point at which the Twizzle met the Balford Channel, Barbara could see the crowd. They were milling about the Hawk 31's berth, headed by a bald man whose pate glittered in more lights than were natural or necessary on the pontoon.

Emily was on the helm. She squinted over the Sea Wizard's bow. She said, “Brilliant,” in a disgusted tone.

In the boat's back seat, Barbara held Hadiyyah in the curve of her arm, the child swathed in a mildewed blanket. She said, “What's going on?”

“Ferguson.” Emily said. “He's phoned the bloody press.”

The media were represented by photographers wielding strobes, reporters carrying notebooks and cassette recorders, and a newsvan getting ammunition for ITV's ten o'clock broadcast. Together with Superintendent Ferguson, they surged forward and scattered down the pontoons on either side of the Sea Wizard as Emily cut the engines and let the boat's momentum carry them into the berth.

Voices were shouting. Strobes were popping. A video cameraman jostled his way through the crowd. Ferguson was yelling, “Where is he, goddamn it?” Charlie Spencer was crying, “My seats! What the hell've you done with my boat seats?” Ten journalists were shouting, “Can I have a word over here, please?” And everyone in sight was searching the boat for the obvious—and unfortunately missing—celebrity, promised to be brought to them in chains, head bowed and repentant, just in time to avert a political disaster. Except they didn't have him. All they had was a shivering little girl who clung to Barbara until a slender dark man with intense black eyes pushed past three constables and two teen-aged gawkers.

Hadiyyah saw him. She cried, “Dad!”

Azhar reached for her, grabbed her from Barbara's arms. He clutched her to him as if she carried the only hope of his salvation, as indeed she probably did. “Thank you,” he said fervently. “Barbara. Thank you.”