Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(96)

“You told no one else? Not Mr. Malik? Not Muhannad? Not Sahlah?” Who would, Barbara believed, doubtless be horrified to know that her intended husband was betraying her and threatening the family's sense of honour. And it would be an honour issue for the Asians, wouldn't it? She needed to explore this issue with Azhar.

“It was my word against his, wasn't it?” Trevor said. “It's not like he was caught in the act by the rozzers or anything.”

“So even you don't know for sure what he was doing in the toilets that day.”

“I didn't go in to check it out personally, if that's what you're saying. But I'm not daft, am I? Those toilets are used for cottaging all the time, and everyone knows it. So if two blokes go in there and don't come out in the time it takes to pee … Well, you figure it out.”

“What about Mr. Shaw at the pier. Did you tell him?”

“Like I said. I didn't tell no one.”

“What'd this other bloke look like, then?” Barbara asked.

“Dunno. Just a bloke. Real tanned. Wearing a black baseball cap backwards. Not a big bloke, y'know, but not exactly a poufter-type either. I mean, not to look at. Oh yeah, one other thing. He had a ring through his lip. A little gold hoop.” Trevor shuddered. “Jesus,” he said without a trace of irony, fingertips resting against the spider on his neck, “what some blokes'll do to their appearance.”


“HOMOSEXUALITY?” EMILY BARLOW said. Her voice heightened sharply with interest.

Barbara had found her in the incident room of the old police station, where she held her daily meetings with the investigation's team of detective constables. She'd been penning names and activities onto a china board.

Barbara saw that since Emily's visit to the factory, two DCs had been assigned to Malik's Mustards and were already in the process of conducting interviews there with all the employees. They would be seeking information that could lead them to an enemy of Haytham Querashi.

This new detail about the dead man would be invaluable to them, and the DCI didn't waste any time before striding to the door and giving the order to pass the information along to the constables post haste. “Page them first,” she directed WPC Belinda Warner, who was working at the computer in the next room. “When they phone in, give them the word, but for Christ's sake, tell them to play their cards close.”

Then she turned back to the conference room, recapping her felt-tip pen smartly and setting it on the china board's tray. Barbara had reported on her entire day's activities: from her conversation with Connie and Rachel Winfield to her failed attempts to corroborate Sahlah Malik's story about tossing the gold bracelet from the pier. Emily had nodded and continued to make her entries on the china board. It was only when the issue of Querashi's putative homosexuality came up that she'd reacted.

“How the Muslims feel about homosexuality.” She made the phrase sound like a category that she was setting up mentally in the investigation.

“I haven't a clue how they feel about it,” Barbara replied. “But the more I thought about the question of homosexuality on my drive back here, the less I could attach it to Querashi's murder.”

“Why's that?” Emily went to one of the bulletin boards which lined the walls. Copies of photographs of the victim had been posted there, and she studied them earnestly, as if by this she could somehow get verification of Querashi's sexual proclivities.

“Because it seemed more likely that if one of the Maliks found out that Querashi was cottaging, they'd just call off the marriage and give him the boot back to Karachi. They sure as hell wouldn't kill him, would they? Why go to the bother?”

“They're Asians. They wouldn't want to lose face,” Emily stated. “And they sure as hell wouldn't be able to—how did Muhannad put it?—hold their heads up with pride if the word got out that Querashi was playing them for fools.”

Barbara thought about what Emily was suggesting. Something seemed slightly out of joint. She said, “So one of them killed him? Hell, Em, that's taking ethnic pride to the extreme. It seems to me that Querashi'd be likely to go after anyone who knew his secret, rather than someone going after Querashi because he had a secret. If homosexuality's at the root of this, doesn't it make more sense to see Querashi as the killer and not as the victim?”

“Not if an Asian, outraged by the knowledge that a man was planning to use Sahlah Malik as a cover for his homosexual lifestyle, went after Querashi.”

“If that's what Querashi was planning,” Barbara said.

Emily picked up a small plastic bag that was lying on top of one of the room's computer terminals. She untwisted its wire tie and dug out four carrot sticks. Seeing this, Barbara tried not to look guilty about her previously consumed whitebait and rock—not to mention her cigarettes—as the DCI began to munch virtuously. “Which Asian comes to mind when you think of someone being driven to murder in order to revenge that sort of arrangement?”

“I know where you're heading,” Barbara said. “But I thought Muhannad was supposed to be a man of his people. If he isn't and if he offed Querashi, then why's he raising hell about the murder?”

“To paint himself in a saintly light. Jihad: the holy war against the infidels. He shouts for justice and directs the spotlight of guilt onto an English killer. And, coincidentally, off himself.”