Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(55)

“Mr. Treves, what the hell are you talking about?”

“The woman who came to see Haytham Querashi,” Treves said reasonably. He looked miffed that Barbara hadn't been following a train of thought that was chugging towards a perfectly obvious destination. “Two weeks before he died, he was visited by a woman. She came in that get-up they wear. God knows she must have been cooking under it, what with this heat and all.”

“A woman in a chādor? Is that what you mean?”

“Whatever they call it. She was all done up from head to toe in black, with slits for the eyes. She came in and asked for Querashi. He was in the lounge having his coffee. They had a whisper over by the door, right next to that umbrella stand, mind you. Then they went upstairs.” He looked pious as he concluded with, “I have no idea what they got up to in his room, by the way.”

“How long were they up there?”

“I didn't actually time them, Sergeant,” Treves answered archly. Then he added, as she was about to walk off, “But I dare say it was quite long enough.”

? ? ?


YUMN STRETCHED LANGUIDLY and turned onto her side. She studied the back of her husband's head. In the house beneath their bedroom, she could hear the morning sounds telling her both of them should be up and about, but she liked the fact that while the rest of the family were busying themselves with the day's concerns, she and Muhannad were cocooned together with no concerns except for each other.

She raised a lazy hand to her husband's long hair—freed from its ponytail—and she insinuated her fingers into it. “Meri-jahn,” she murmured.

She did not have to glance at the small calendar on the bedside table to know what day this morning heralded. She kept a scrupulous record of her female cycle, and she'd seen the notation on the previous night. Relations with her husband today could lead to another pregnancy. And this more than anything—indeed, more than keeping the puling Sahlah firmly and permanently in her place—was what Yumn wanted.

Two months after Bishr's birth, she had begun to feel the urge for another child. And she'd begun turning to her husband regularly, arousing him to plant the seed of another son in the soil of her more than willing body. It would be another son, of course, once the pregnancy was achieved.

Yumn felt a physical stirring for him as she touched Muhannad. He was so lovely. What a change her marriage to such a man had brought to her life. The eldest sister, the least attractive, the most hopelessly unmarriageable in the eyes of her parents, and she—Yumn the sow and not one of her mild and doelike sisters—had proved herself an exceptional wife to an exceptional husband. Who would have thought it possible? A man like Muhannad could have had his pick of women, no matter the size of the dowry that her father had assembled to tempt him and his parents. As the only son of a father overly eager for grandchildren, Muhannad could have made certain that his every wish for a mate be embodied in the woman he ultimately took as his wife. He could have laid out his requirements in terms his father would not have dared to deny him. And having done so, he could have evaluated each potential bride presented by his parents and rejected anyone not meeting his specifications. But he had accepted his father's choice of her without question, and on the night they'd met, he had sealed their agreement to marry by taking her roughly in a dark corner of the orchard and making her pregnant with their first son.

“We make quite a pair, meri-jahn,” she murmured, easing closer to him. “We're very good for each other.” She brought her mouth to his neck. The taste of him increased her desire. His skin was faintly salty, and his hair smelled of the cigarettes he smoked out of his father's presence.

She glided her hand down his bare arm, but lightly so that his coarse hairs tickled her palm. She clasped his hand, then moved her fingers to the fur on his belly.

“You were up so late last night, Muni,” she whispered against his neck. “I wanted you. What were you and your cousin talking about for so long?”

She'd heard their voices long into the night, long after her in-laws had trudged up to bed. She lay, impatient for her husband to join her, and she wondered what it might cost Muhannad to defy his father by bringing the Outcast into their home. Muhannad had told her of his plan the night before he'd put it into action. She'd been bathing him. Afterwards, as she rubbed lotion into his skin, he spoke in a low voice of Taymullah Azhar.

He didn't care what the old fart said, he'd told her. He would bring his cousin to their assistance in this matter of Haytham's death. His cousin was an activist when it came to the rights of Pakistani immigrants. This much he knew from a member of Jum'a who'd heard him speak at a conference of their people in London. He'd been talking about the legal system, about the trap that immigrants—legal and otherwise—fall into by allowing their cultural traditions and predispositions to colour their interactions with police, with solicitors, and with courtrooms. Muhannad had remembered all of this. And when Haytham's death was not at once declared an accident, he moved quickly to obtain assistance from his cousin. Azhar can help, he'd told Yumn as she went from the lotion to brushing his hair. Azhar will help.

“But help do what, Muni?” she'd asked, feeling a pinch of worry at what the advent of this interloper might mean to her own plans. She didn't want Muhannad's time and his thoughts to be consumed with the death of Haytham Querashi.