Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(49)
Basil Treves, Barbara concluded, was lucky to have anyone staying here at any time of year. Which meant he was lucky to have had Haytham Querashi staying as a long-term resident. Which in turn brought into question the part Treves may or may not have played in Querashi's marriage plans. It was an interesting speculation.
Barbara gazed in the direction of the pleasure pier. Construction was going on at its end, where the Jack ‘Awkins Cafeteria once had stood. And even at this distance she could see that the pier itself gleamed with clean new paint: white, green, blue, and orange, while bright motley flags flew from the poles that lined its sides. None of that had existed when she'd last been in Balford.
Barbara turned away. At the mirror once more, she examined her face and wondered if removing the bandages had been as inspired an idea as she'd originally thought. She'd brought no make-up with her. Her supply of cosmetics being limited to one tube of Blistex and a pot of rouge once belonging to her mother, tossing them into her haversack had hardly seemed worth the effort. She liked to consider herself a bird whose moral fibre wouldn't allow the rank dishonesty of doing anything more than pinching the cheeks for a bit of colour in the face. But the truth was, given a choice between painting her flesh and sleeping for another fifteen minutes in the morning, she'd spent a lifetime selecting sleep. In her line of work, it seemed more practical. Thus, her preparation for the current day took less than ten minutes, and four of these she spent digging through her haversack, cursing, and looking for a pair of socks.
She gargled, ran a brush through her hair, shoved into her shoulder bag the goodies she'd removed from Querashi's room on the previous night, and headed out the door. In the corridor, breakfast odours clung to the air like importunate children to their mother's skirt. Somewhere, eggs and bacon had been fried, bangers had been roasted, toast had been burned, tomatoes and mushrooms had been grilled. Barbara needed no map to find the dining room. She just followed the ever-intensifying smells down one flight of stairs and along a cramped ground floor corridor towards the sound of cutlery being wielded against plates and voices murmuring about the day's plans. Which is when she heard it.
One voice stood out as she approached. A child was saying brightly, “Did you know about the lobster boat ride? C'n we go, Dad? And the Ferris wheel? C'n we ride it today? I watched it and watched it from the lawn with Mrs. Porter last night, and she said that when she was my age, the Ferris wheel—”
A low murmur interrupted the hopeful chatter. As it usually did, Barbara realised grimly. What the hell was the matter with the man? He squelched every impulse the little girl had. Barbara advanced to the door, feeling unaccountably irritated and battle-ready where she knew she had no business feeling anything other than blandly disinterested.
Hadiyyah and her father sat in a dark corner of the old, heavily panelled dining room. They'd been placed well away from the other hotel residents: three elderly white couples whose tables lined up along the open french doors. These latter people attended to their breakfasts as if no one else were present, save for one old woman with a zimmer frame resting next to her chair. She appeared to be the aforementioned Mrs. Porter because she was nodding at Hadiyyah as if in encouragement from her end of the room.
Barbara wasn't completely surprised at the coincidence of being at the same hotel as Hadiyyah and Taymullah Azhar. She'd expected to find them staying with the Malik family, but as that apparently had not been possible, then the Burnt House Hotel was a logical choice. Haytham Querashi had stayed here, after all, and Azhar was in Balford because of Querashi.
“Ah. Sergeant Havers.” Barbara swung round to see Basil Treves behind her, two plates of breakfast in his hand. He beamed at her. “If you'll allow me to show you to your table …?”
As he attempted to shimmy past her to do the honours, Hadiyyah gave a happy shout. “Barbara! You came!” And she dropped her spoon into her cereal, splashing milk across the pink tablecloth. She popped out of her chair and did her usual hop-and-skip across the room, singing, “You came! You came! You came to the seaside!” with her yellow ribboned plaits dancing round her shoulders. She was dressed like sunshine: yellow shorts and striped T-shirt, yellow banded socks and sandals. She gripped Barbara's hand. “Have you come to build a sand castle with me? Have you come to pick cockles? I want to play the penny slide and ride the dodge'm cars as well. Do you?”
Basil Treves was watching this interaction with some consternation. He said with more meaning, “If I may show you to your table, Sergeant Havers,” and nodded pointedly at a table next to an open window and decidedly among the English residents.
“I'd rather be over there,” Barbara told him, jerking her thumb in the direction of the Pakistanis’ dark corner. “Too much fresh air in the morning puts me right off my kippers. D'you mind?”
Without waiting for him to reply, she sauntered over to Azhar. Hadiyyah skipped ahead. She cried out, “She's here! Look, Dad! She's here! She's here!” and didn't appear to notice that her father was greeting Barbara's arrival with that special joy one generally reserves for embracing lepers.
Basil Treves, in the meantime, had deposited the two breakfast plates in front of Mrs. Porter and her companion. He hurried over to usher Barbara into a seat at the table next to Azhar's. He was saying, “Yes, oh yes. Of course. And will it be orange juice, Sergeant Havers? What about grapefruit?” He whipped the napkin out of its teepee folds with a flourish that suggested having the sergeant sit among the darkies had always been part of his master plan.