Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(84)

So when Rachel came to the red billboard with the announcement FINAL PHASE! ALL THE MOD CONS! emblazoned on it, she'd turned her bicycle off Westberry Way and coasted up the drive to the flats. What she'd encountered in the salesman was not an overweight and overeager middle-aged failure with a stain on his tie, but a purveyor of dreams.

But dreams, she'd learned, had a way of fracturing and leading one to disappointment. Perhaps, therefore, it was better never to dream at all. Because when one learned to harbour hopes, one also—

“Rachel.”

Rachel started. She swung round from her view of the endless level sheet of North Sea. Sahlah was standing before her. Her dupattā had fallen round her shoulders, and her face was grave. The strawberry birthmark on her cheek had deepened in colour, signalling as it always did the depth of a feeling that she couldn't hide.

“Sahlah! How did you …? What're you …?” Rachel didn't know how to begin what they had to say to each other.

“I went to the shop first. Your mum said you'd run off after the woman from Scotland Yard came round. I thought you might come here.”

“’Cause you know me,” Rachel said miserably. She plucked at a gold thread in her skirt. It wove brightly through the red and blue swirls of the material's pattern. “You know me better than anyone, Sahlah. And I know you.”

“I thought we knew each other,” Sahlah said. “But I'm not sure now. I'm not even sure we're friends any longer.”

Rachel didn't know what hurt worse, the knowledge that she'd dealt Sahlah a terrible blow or the blow that Sahlah was dealing in return. She couldn't look at her because at the moment it felt like looking at her friend would be opening up for a more grievous injury than she could bear.

“Why did you give the receipt to Haytham? I know he had it because of you, Rachel. Your mum wouldn't have been likely to pass it on. But I don't understand why you gave it to him.”

“You told me you loved Theo.” Rachel's tongue felt thick and her mind felt desperate for an answer that could explain what was even to herself inexplicable. “You said you loved him.”

“I can't be with Theo. I told you that as well. I said my family would never allow it.”

“And it broke your heart. You said that, Sahlah. You said, ‘I love him. He's like the other half of myself.’ That's what you said.”

“I also said that we couldn't marry, despite what I wanted, despite everything we shared and hoped and …” Sahlah's voice faltered. Rachel looked up. Her friend's eyes were liquid, and she turned her head away abruptly, looking north towards the pier where Theo Shaw was. After a moment she went on. “I said that when the time came, I would have to marry the man chosen by my parents. We'd talked about that, you and I. You can't deny it. I said, ‘Theo's lost to me, Rachel.’ You remember that. You knew I could never be with him. So what did you hope to accomplish by giving the receipt to Haytham?”

“You didn't love Haytham.”

“Yes. All right. I didn't love Haytham. And he didn't love me.”

“It's not right to marry when you don't love each other. You can't be happy when you don't love each other. It's like starting out life in the middle of a lie.”

Sahlah came to the bench and sat. Rachel lowered her head. She could see the edge of her friend's linen trousers, her slender foot, and the strap of her sandal. The sight of these parts of the whole that was Sahlah struck Rachel with sadness. Never in years had she felt so alone.

“You knew my parents wouldn't allow a marriage to Theo. They would've cast me out of my family. But you told Haytham about Theo anyway—”

Rachel's head flew up in swift reaction. “Not his name. I swear. I didn't tell Haytham his name.”

“Because,” Sahlah continued, and she spoke more to herself than to Rachel, as if she were in the process of deducing Rachel's motivation as she went along, “you hoped Haytham would end his engagement to me. And then what?” Sahlah gestured towards the row of flats, and for the first time Rachel saw them as Sahlah doubtless saw them: cheaply built, without character or distinction. “I would have been free to live here with you? Did you expect my father would really have allowed that?”

“You love Theo,” Rachel said weakly. “You said.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you were acting in my interests?” Sahlah asked. “Are you saying that you would've been pleased had Theo and I married? I don't believe you. Because there's another truth that you're not admitting: Had I tried to marry Theo—which I wouldn't, of course—but had I tried, you would have done something to stop that as well.”

“I wouldn't!”

“We would have planned to run off because that's the only way I could have managed it. I would have told you: my best friend. And you would have made certain it didn't happen. Probably by telling my father in advance. Or by telling Munhannad or even by—”

“No! I never! I never!” Rachel couldn't prevent the tears, and she hated herself for a weakness which she knew that her friend would never show. She swung round again, her face to the sea. The sun beat on her, heating her tears as soon as she shed them, heating them so quickly that they dried on her skin and she felt the pulling tightness of their salt.