“Hadiyyah, I believe my words were clear.”
She shoved back her chair and, droopy-shouldered, trudged across the room to Mrs. Porter, who indeed was struggling with her aluminium zimmer, attempting with trembling hands to square it in front of her chair. Azhar waited until Hadiyyah and the elderly woman had disappeared through the french doors that led to the lawn above the sea. Then he turned back to Barbara.
As he did so, Basil Treves whisked into the dining room with Barbara's breakfast and deposited it in front of her with a flourish. He said, “If you need me, Sergeant …” and nodded meaningfully towards reception, which Barbara interpreted as indicating he'd been standing with telephone in hand, ready to punch the triple nines should Taymullah Azhar step out of line.
“Thanks,” Barbara said, and tucked into her eggs. She decided to wait for Azhar to speak. Better to see how much he was willing to reveal about his business in Balford than to play her cards of information before she had an idea of what his own hand was.
He was the incarnation of laconism. And as far as Barbara could tell, he hid nothing from her: The murdered man had been engaged to marry Azhar's cousin; Azhar had come to town at the request of the family; he was assisting them in a similar capacity to what Barbara would be doing for the local police.
Barbara didn't tell him that she'd already exceeded her designated job description of liaison officer. Liaison officers didn't prowl round victim's bedrooms, paw through their belongings, and bag items of interest. She said instead, “This couldn't be better, then. I'm glad you're here. The police need to be put clearly into the picture about Querashi. You can help, Azhar.”
He looked immediately wary. “I serve the family.”
“No question about that. But you're a step removed from the killing, so you've got more objectivity than the family has. Right?” She hastened on before he could answer. “And at the same time, you're on the inside of the group closest to Querashi, so that gives you information as well.”
“The family's interests come first, Barbara.”
“I dare say the family are interested”—she put gentle and ironic emphasis on the word—”in getting to the bottom of who offed Querashi.”
“Of course they're interested. They're more than interested.”
“I'm glad to hear it.” Barbara slathered butter on a triangle of toast. She forked up a portion of fried egg. “So here's how things work. When someone is murdered, the police are after the answers to three questions: Who had the motive? Who had the means? Who had the opportunity? You can help the police get at the answers.”
“By betraying my family, you mean,” Azhar said. “So Muhannad is right after all. The police wish to find guilt among the Asian community, don't they? And as you are working with the police, you too—”
“The police,” Barbara interrupted with determination, and she pointed her knife at him to emphasise the fact that she wasn't about to submit to an attempt to manipulate her with charges of racism, “want to get to the truth no matter where it leads them. You'd do your family a good turn by making that clear to them.” She munched on the toast and watched him watching her. Inscrutable, she thought. He'd have made a fine cop. She said past a wad of toast in her cheek, “Look, Azhar, we need to understand Querashi. We need to understand the family. We need to understand the community at large. We're going to be looking at everyone he came into contact with, and some of those people are going to be Asian. If you intend to get sweaty collared every time we start treading on Pakistani turf, we'll get nowhere. Fast.”
He reached for his cup—he'd been drinking coffee—but he merely rested his thin fingers against its handle rather than picking it up. “You're making it clear that the police don't wish to view this as a racially motivated incident.”
“And you, my man, are jumping to conclusions from here to hell and back again. Which is not a good habit for a liaison officer to get into, is it?”
Despite himself, a smile quirked one corner of his mouth. He said, “Accepted, Sergeant Havers.”
“Good. So let's agree to something up front. If I ask you a question, that's what it is, okay? A question. It doesn't mean that I'm heading in any direction at all. I'm just trying to understand the culture so I can understand the community. Okay?”
“As you wish.”
Barbara decided to take this as his wholehearted agreement to lay bare any and all facts at his fingertips. There was no point forcing him into signing with his blood a contract of cooperation. Besides, he seemed to be accepting her somewhat broad interpretation of her role as police liaison, and while she had him in that state, she wanted to get as much information out of him as she could.
She tucked into her eggs and forked up a wedge of bacon to accompany them. “Let's suppose, just for a moment, that this wasn't a racially motivated crime. Most people are murdered by someone they know, so let's suppose that was the case with Querashi. Are you with me?”
Azhar turned his cup in his saucer. He'd still not drunk from it. He was watching Barbara. He nodded slightly.
“He hadn't been in England long.”
“Six weeks,” Azhar said.
“And he'd been working at the mustard factory with the Maliks during that time.”
“Correct.”
“So can we agree that the majority of his acquaintances here in England—not all, but the majority, okay?—were probably Asians?”
His expression was sombre. “For the moment, we can agree on that probability.”
“Good. And his marriage was to be an Asian marriage. Isn't that the case?”
“It is.”
Barbara sliced into more bacon and dipped it into the egg yolk. “I need to understand one thing, then. What happens if an Asian engagement—an arranged engagement—is broken?”
“What do you mean, broken?”
“I mean what happens if one of the parties calls off an arranged marriage?”
It seemed like a simple enough question, but when he didn't answer immediately, Barbara looked up from the triangle of toast to which she was administering a generous dollop of blackcurrant jam. His face was expressionless, but it seemed too controlled. Damn the man. He was jumping to conclusions despite what she'd said about needing to gather information.
Impatiently, she said, “Azhar—”
“Do you mind?” He took out a packet of cigarettes. “May I? Since you're eating …?”
“Fire it up. If I could smoke and eat simultaneously, believe me, I'd be doing it.”
He used a small silver lighter against the tobacco. He turned in his chair to gaze in the direction of the french doors. Outside on the lawn, Hadiyyah was throwing a red and blue beach ball into the air. He seemed to be considering how best to answer the question, and seeing this, Barbara felt the pinch of irritation. If their every conversation was going to be a round of the political correctness minuet, they'd still be sitting in Balford at Christmas.
“Azhar, do I need to rephrase this?” she asked him.
He turned back to her. “Haytham and Sahlah had both submitted themselves to the arrangement for their marriage,” he said, rolling the tip of his cigarette against the table's ashtray although the ash of it didn't need to be dislodged. “If Haytham decided to reject the arrangement, he would in effect be rejecting Sahlah. This would be viewed as a grave insult to her family. To my family.”
“Because the family arranged the marriage in the first place?” Barbara poured herself a cup of tea. It was viscous and had the look of a brew that had been bubbling away like a hell broth for the better part of a week. She loaded it up with sugar and milk.
“Because Haytham's actions would cause my uncle to lose face and thus lose the respect of the community. Sahlah herself would be branded as discarded by her intended husband, which would do nothing to heighten her desirability to other men.”
“What about Haytham? What would he suffer?”
“In rejecting the marriage, he would be defying his own father. This could result in his being cast out from his family if the marriage had been considered an important liaison.” The act of inhaling and expelling smoke served to screen Azhar's face. But Barbara could see that he was observing her through the smoke as he went on. “To be outcast is to have no contact with the family. No one communicates with the outcast for fear of being cast out as well. On the street, one turns away. At the home, doors are not opened. Telephone calls are not returned. Post is sent back unacknowledged.”
“Like being dead?”
“Completely unlike. The dead are remembered, mourned, and revered. The outcast never existed in the first place.”
“Rough,” Barbara acknowledged. “But would this have been a problem for Querashi? Isn't his family in Pakistan? He wouldn't have been seeing them anyway, right?”
“It would have been Haytham's intention to bring his family to England as soon as he had the money to do so. Sahlah's dowry would have provided him that money.” Azhar looked back to the french doors. Hadiyyah was hopping across the lawn, bouncing the beach ball on her head. He smiled at the sight and kept his gaze on her as he continued. “Thus, Barbara, I think it unlikely that he was attempting to back out of marriage to Sahlah.”
“But what if he'd fallen in love with someone else? I can understand the whole arranged marriage business, and I can see how someone might agree to do his duty and all that—hell, look at the flaming monarchy and the mess they've made of their lives in the name of duty—but what if someone else came along and he fell in love with her before he really knew what was happening? People do that, you know.”
“Quite true,” he said.
“Right. So, what if he was set to meet a lover the night he died? And what if the family found out about it?” When Azhar frowned, looking doubtful, she said, “He had three condoms in his pocket, Azhar. What does that suggest to you?”
“A preparation for intercourse.”
“Not a love affair? A love affair significant enough to cause Querashi to want to call off his wedding plans?”
“It might be that Haytham had fallen in love with someone else,” Azhar replied. “But love and duty are often mutually exclusive ideas to my people, Barbara. Westerners think of marriage as the logical consequence of love. Most Asians do not. Thus Haytham may have fallen in love with another woman—and possession of the condoms suggests he went to the Nez for purposes of sex if not for purposes of love, I will agree—but it does not follow that he would wish to abrogate his agreement to marry my cousin.”
“Okay. I'll accept that for the moment.” Barbara dropped a square of toast onto her plate and forked it about in the remaining yolk of her egg. She knifed it up with some bacon and chewed thoughtfully, considering alternative scenarios. When she had one, she spoke, aware of the fact that Azhar was frowning. No doubt he was assessing her table manners, which at breakfast left something to be desired. She was used to eating on the run and had never got out of the habit of bolting down her breakfast as if pursued by Mafia hitmen. “Then what if he'd got some woman pregnant? Condoms don't always work the way one would like. They leak, they break, they're not put on in time.”
“If she was pregnant, why did he have condoms with him that night? They'd've hardly been necessary.”
“Right. Closing the barn door too late,” Barbara agreed. “But he might not have known she was in the club. He went prepared to do the dirty as usual, and she broke the news to him when he got there. So she's pregnant and he's engaged to someone else. What then?”
Azhar stubbed out his cigarette. He lit another before answering. “That would be unfortunate.”
“Okay. Good. So let's imagine it happened. Wouldn't the Maliks—”
“But Haytham would still consider himself contracted to Sahlah,” he said patiently. “And the family would consider the pregnancy to be the responsibility of the woman. Since she'd likely be English—”
“Hang on,” Barbara cut in, her dander up at this blithe assumption. “Why would she likely be anything? How would he know any English women, anyway?”
“This is your conjecture, Barbara, not mine.” It was clear that he read her vexation. It was also clear that he wasn't bothered by it. “She'd likely be English because young Asian women are careful about their virginity in ways that young English women are not. English girls are easy and available, and Asian men seeking sexual experience will seek it from them, not from another Asian.”
“How nice of them,” Barbara commented acidly.
Azhar shrugged. “The community's values predominate when it comes to sex. The community values virginity in women prior to marriage and chastity in women after marriage. A young man seeking to sow wild oats will therefore sow them in an English girl's field, because English girls are seen as not considering virginity important. Thus, they are there for the taking.”
“And what if Querashi happened to run into an English girl who didn't share this charming attitude? What if he ran into an English girl who thought having it off with a bloke—whatever his colour, race, or religion—meant making a bloody commitment to him?”
“You're angry,” Azhar said. “But I meant no offence with this explanation, Barbara. If you ask questions about our culture, you'll doubtless hear answers now and again that are in conflict with your own beliefs.”
Barbara shoved her plate to one side. “And you'd do well to toss round the idea that my beliefs—as you call them—might bloody well reflect the beliefs of my culture. If Querashi put some English girl in the club and then came on like Rodney Righteous about how he had to do his duty to Sahlah Malik and excuse me but it doesn't really matter that you're up the spout because you're flipping English, how do you think her father or brother would react to this news?”
“Perhaps badly,” Azhar said. “Indeed, perhaps with murderous intentions. Wouldn't you agree?”
Barbara wasn't about to let him lead their conversation to an end of his choosing: the guilt of an Englishman. He was quick as a whip, but she was obdurate. “And what if the Maliks discovered all of this: the affair, the pregnancy. What if the woman—whoever she is—informed them in advance of telling Querashi? Wouldn't they be just a little put out?”
“You're asking if they would have murderous intentions as a result,” Azhar clarified. “But killing the bridegroom would hardly serve the purposes of the arranged marriage, would it?”
“Bugger the arranged marriage!” The crockery rattled when Barbara smacked her hand on the table. The remaining diners in the room glanced their way. Azhar had left his packet of cigarettes on the table, and she helped herself to one, saying in a lower voice, “Come on, Azhar. This situation plays both ways, and you know it. Sure, these are Pakistanis we're talking about, but they're also humans with human feelings.”
“You wish to believe someone within Sahlah's family committed this crime, perhaps Sahlah herself or someone acting for Sahlah.”
“I hear Muhannad's got something of a temper.”
“But there were several reasons why Haytham Querashi was chosen for her, Barbara. And foremost among them is that the family needed him. Every member of the family. He had expertise that they wanted for their factory: a business degree from Pakistan and experience in running the production side of a large factory. This was a mutually beneficial relationship: The Maliks needed him and he needed the Maliks. No one would have been likely to forget that, no matter what Haytham planned upon doing with the condoms in his pocket.”
“And they couldn't have got that same expertise from an Englishman?”
“They could have done, naturally. But my uncle's desire is to maintain this as a family business. Muhannad already serves in an important position. He cannot do two jobs. There are no other sons. Akram could bring in an Englishman, yes, but that would not be keeping the job within the family.”
“Unless Sahlah married him.”
Azhar shook his head. “Which would never be allowed.” He extended his cigarette lighter, and Barbara realised she'd not lit the fag that she'd been in such a tearing hurry to enjoy. She leaned into the flame. “So you see, Barbara,” Azhar concluded smoothly, “the Pakistani community had every reason to keep Haytham Querashi alive. It is only among the English that you will find the motive to kill him.”
“Is that so?” Barbara asked. “Well, let's not saddle our horses till we've put on our spurs, all right, Azhar?”
Azhar smiled. It looked as though he smiled in spite of an inner wisdom telling him not to. “Do you always address yourself to your work with this degree of passion, Sergeant Barbara Havers?”
“It makes the day just fly right by,” Barbara retorted.