WHEN BARBARA ARRIVED at the incident room the next morning, Emily Barlow was on the phone, completing a conversation with enough animosity attached to it that Barbara concluded she had to be speaking to her superintendent.
“No, Don,” she was saying. “I don't read minds. So I won't know what the Pakistanis have planned until they do it. … And where am I supposed to dig up an Asian for that sort of undercover work? … That's assuming that New Scotland Yard has nothing better to do than send us an officer to infiltrate an organisation which—as far as any of us have been able to ascertain—has never committed a single bloody crime. … That's what I'm trying to dig up, for God's sake. … Yes, I could do. If you'd be good enough to give me a chance to accomplish something other than yammering on the blower with you twice a day.”
Barbara could just make out a man's angry shouting on the other end of the line. Emily rolled her eyes and listened without comment until the superintendent abruptly ended their conversation by slamming the receiver into its cradle at his end. Barbara heard the crack of the two pieces meeting. Emily cursed as the sound struck her ear.
“He's had three town councillors in his office this morning,” Emily explained. “They've got word of a protest set for midday on the High Street, and they're worried about the shops … what shops there are. Not that anyone has anything concrete to report to us, mind you.”
She went on with what she'd apparently been doing prior to Barbara's arrival and Ferguson's phone call: hanging a blue pillowcase over the uncurtained window of her office, perhaps with the intention of cutting down on the day's coming heat. She cast a look over her shoulder as she used the base of a stapler to pound drawing pins through the pillowcase and into the wall. She said, “Decent job with the face paint, Barb. You finally look human.”
“Thanks. I don't know how long I can keep it up, but I give you the fact that it does do something to hide the bruises. I thought I could be quicker about it, though. Sorry to have missed the morning briefing.”
Emily waved the apology off. Barbara was, she told her, not on the time sheet. This was supposed to be her holiday. Her assistance with the Pakistanis was a bonus to Balford's CID. No one expected her to skin her nose on the grindstone doing anything else.
The DCI stepped down from her chair and continued with the drawing pins and the stapler base, lower down on the pillowcase. She'd been to the news agent's on Carnarvon Road in Clacton, she informed Barbara. She'd spent quarter of an hour there on the previous night, having a chat with the owner. He himself ran the shop, and when she'd quizzed him about the Pakistani customer who used the phone to make calls to one Haytham Querashi, he'd responded at once with “That'd be Mr. Kumhar, that one. He i'n't in some sort of trouble, is he?”
Fahd Kumhar was a regular, he'd told her. Never caused a bit of trouble or worry, always paid cash. He came in at least three times a week for packets of Benson and Hedges. Sometimes he bought a newspaper as well. And lemon pastilles. He was tremendous fond of lemon pastilles.
“He's never asked Kumhar where he lives,” Emily said. “But the bloke's evidently there often enough for us to make contact with him without much trouble. I've a man in the laundrette across the street, watching the place. When Kumhar shows his face, our boy'll trail him and give us the word.”
“How far is the news agent's from Clacton market square?”
Emily smiled grimly. “Less than fifty yards.”
Barbara nodded. That location placed one more person in the proximity of the gentlemen's toilets, which gave them the first possibility of corroborating Trevor Ruddock's story. She told Emily about her phone calls to Pakistan on the previous night. She didn't add that Azhar had placed them, and when Emily didn't ask her for clarification that would have led to that detail, she concluded that the information itself was more important than the manner in which she'd come by it.
Like Barbara, Emily homed in on the discussions that Querashi had had with the mufti. She said, “So if homosexuality is considered a grave sin by the Muslims—”
“It is,” Barbara said. “I've unearthed that much.”
“Then there's a decent chance that our boy Trevor is telling the truth. And that Kumhar—skulking about in the vicinity—knew about Querashi as well.”
“Perhaps,” Barbara said. “But Querashi could have been phoning the mufti about someone else's sin, couldn't he? Sahlah's, for example. If she'd sinned by having it off with Theo Shaw—and fornication's as big a sin as any of them, I reckon—then she'd be cast out. And that, I'll reckon, would get Querashi off the hook of having to marry her. Maybe that's what he was looking for: a way out.”
“That would certainly set the Maliks off.” Emily nodded her thanks to Belinda Warner as the WPC carried a fax into the room and handed it over. “Anything from London on those prints we lifted from the Nissan?” Emily asked her.
“I've put a call into S04,” Belinda said. “I was asked did I realise that the print officers get the dabs of twenty-six hundred people every day and is there any special reason why our prints ought to have top priority?”
“I'll phone them,” Barbara told Emily. “I can't promise anything, but I'll try to shake the tree.”
“That's from London, that fax,” Belinda went on. “Professor Siddiqi's done the translation on the page from that book from Querashi's room. And Phil rang in from the marina. The Shaws have a boat there, a big cabin cruiser.”
“What about the Asians?” Emily asked.
“Only the Shaws.”
Emily dismissed the young woman and stared thoughtfully at the fax before she read it.
“Sahlah gave Theo Shaw that bracelet,” Barbara said to her. “‘Life begins now.’ And his alibi's about as firm as jelly.”
But the DCI was still studying the fax from London. She read aloud. “‘How should ye not fight for the cause of Allah and of the feeble among men and of the women and the children who are crying: Our Lord! Bring us forth from out this town of which the people are oppressors! Oh, give us from thy Presence some protecting friend! Oh, give us from thy Presence some protector!’ Well.” She flipped the fax onto her desk. “That makes things as clear as mud.”
“It sounds like we can trust Azhar,” Barbara said. “That's practically a word-for-word duplicate of his translation from yesterday. As to what it might mean, Muhannad argued it's a sign that someone was causing Querashi aggro. He homed in on the ‘bring us forth from out this town,’ part.”
“He's claiming Querashi was being continually persecuted?” Emily clarified. “We've not a scrap of evidence of that.”
“Then Querashi might have wanted to be delivered from his marriage,” Barbara offered. She warmed to this idea, supporting—as it did—her earlier hypothesis. “After all, he can't have been chuffed if he discovered that his fiancée had messed about with Shaw. It's logical that he'd try to call things off. And maybe he'd phoned Pakistan to talk to the mufti about that, using veiled terms to do it.”
“I'd say it's more likely that he'd realised he couldn't pretend to be straight for the next forty odd years and was trying to get out of the marriage because of that, regardless of what he discussed with this mufti character. Then someone here got word of his reluctance about marrying Sahlah and—” She made a gun from her thumb and index finger, pointed it at Barbara, and released the trigger. “You fill in the blanks, Barb.”
“But where does that put Kumhar? And what about the four hundred pounds changing hands from Querashi to him?”
“Wouldn't four hundred pounds make a nice start on a dowry? Perhaps Querashi was in the process of setting Kumhar up for one of his sisters. He has sisters, hasn't he? Surely I read it in one of these blasted reports.” She indicated the mess on her desk.
Emily's reasoning made sense, but her certainty roused an unease in Barbara. This uneasiness wasn't mitigated when Emily went on.
“The killing was planned to the last detail, Barb. And the last detail had to be an ironclad alibi. No one who took the time to dog Querashi's nighttime movements, to string a tripwire, and to make sure there was no evidence left behind would fail to make certain that he also had an alibi for his whereabouts on Friday night.”
“Okay,” Barbara said. “I'll go with that. But since everyone but Theo Shaw has an alibi—and more than one person also had a motive to off Querashi—don't we need to look for something else?” She went on to tell Emily of the other phone calls that Querashi had made. But she got only as far as the unintelligible message on the answering machine in Hamburg, when Emily interrupted her.
“Hamburg?” she asked quickly. “Querashi phoned Hamburg?”
“The Hamburg numbers were on the computer print out. The other call was to the central police station, by the way, although I didn't get far in trying to suss out who received the call. Why? Does Hamburg mean something special?”
Rather than reply, Emily pulled a plastic bag of trail mix from her drawer. Barbara tried not to look guilty about the breakfast she'd consumed earlier: a hefty plate of eggs, potatoes, sausages, mushrooms, and bacon, all swimming in cholesterol and fat. But it wouldn't have mattered had she been wearing the face of Judas. Emily was so deep in thought that Barbara quickly realised that she wouldn't have noticed.
“Em?” she said. “What is it?”
“Klaus Reuchlein.”
“Who?”
“He made a third at that dinner in Colchester on Friday night.”
“A German? But when you said a foreigner, I thought you meant …” How easily her own natural predispositions and unconscious prejudices influenced her thinking. Barbara had assumed the word foreigner meant an Asian when “assume nothing” was one of the first rules of policework.
“He comes from Hamburg,” Emily said. “Rakin Khan gave me his number. If you don't believe me, and obviously you don't, he said, confirm Muhannad's alibi with this. And he handed it over. Where did I …” She sifted through papers and folders on her desk and brought forth her notebook. She flipped through the pages until she found the one she wanted. She read the number out.
Barbara wrestled the print out from her shoulder bag and found the first of the Hamburg telephone numbers. She said, “Bloody hell.”
“Which I take to mean that you found yourself phoning Mr. Reuchlein last night?” Emily smiled, then threw back her head and clenched a fist in the air. “That's it, Barb. Mr. Man of His People. Mr. Politico. I do believe we've bloody well got him.”
“We've got a connection,” Barbara agreed cautiously. “But this could just be a coincidence, Em.”
“Coincidence?” Emily's voice was incredulous. “Querashi happens to have phoned the very same person whose name is produced as one half of Muhannad Malik's alibi …? Come on, Barb. This is no coincidence.”
“Then what about Kumhar?” Barbara asked.
“What about him?”
“How does he fit in? He's obviously living in the vicinity of Clacton market square, in the very same area where Trevor claims he saw Querashi doing some cottaging. Is that a coincidence? And if it is, how can we say one fact in the case constitutes a coincidence and the other points to Querashi's killer? And if the Kumhar business isn't a coincidence, what have we got? A major conspiracy to murder Querashi, orchestrated by members of his community? And if so, why?”
“We don't need to know why. Why is the job of the prosecution. We just need to hand them a who and a how.”
“Fine,” Barbara said. “Okay. Accepted. But we know a boat was heard offshore that night. And the Shaws have a boat. We know Ian Armstrong benefitted directly from Querashi's death. And his alibi's a hell of a lot weaker than anyone else's. We also have a claim that Querashi was a real bent twig. And we know he was going to the Nez to meet someone, a person he met regularly. I don't see how we can dismiss all this in favour of pursuing one line of enquiry leading to Muhannad. I don't think that's decent policework, Em, and I don't believe you think it's decent work either.”
She knew at once that she'd gone too far. Her tendency to blab, argue, accuse, and confront—never a problem in working with the affable DI Lynley in London—had undermined her self-control. The DCI reacted by straightening her spine while her pupils contracted to the size of pinheads.
“Sorry,” Barbara said hastily. “Bloody hell. I'm sorry. I get caught up in things and I just don't think. If you'll give me a moment, I'll try to pull my foot out of my mouth.”
Emily was silent. She was also unmoving, save for the index and middle fingers of her right hand. These she tapped rapidly and alternately against the top of her desk.
The phone rang. She didn't pick it up. Barbara looked nervously from her to it.
The ringing ceased after fifteen seconds. Belinda Warner came to the door. “Frank on the phone, Guv,” she said. “He's got into Querashi's safe deposit box at Barclays in Clacton. He says he's got a bill of lading from a business called Eastern Imports—” Here she glanced at a piece of paper on which she'd apparently jotted down the information relayed to her by the DC at Barclays. “‘Purveyors of furniture, rugs, and other goods for the home,’ it says. An import company from Pakistan. He's also got an envelope with part of an address on it. Oskarstrafe 15, but nothing else. And a page from a glossy magazine that he can't make anything of. There's also paperwork on a house on First Avenue and Querashi's immigration documents. And that's it on the safe deposit box. Frank wants to know do you want him to bring this stuff in?”
“Tell him to use his bloody head for once,” Emily snapped. “Of course I want him to bring the stuff in.”
Belinda gulped and exited hurriedly. Emily turned to Barbara.
“Oskarstrafie 15,” she said meditatively but with a meaning Barbara couldn't avoid. “Now, where d'you expect that address is?”
“I was out of line,” Barbara said. “I get the bit between my teeth sometimes and I just run with it. Can we forget what I said?”
“No,” Emily returned. “We can't forget it.”
Shit, Barbara thought. There went her plans to work at the DCFs side, to learn something from her, and to keep Taymullah Azhar out of trouble. All defeated by her own flapping lips. “Hell, Em,” she said.
“Go on.”
“I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I never mean … Oh hell.” Barbara sank her head into the palm of one hand.
“I didn't mean go on with your grovelling,” Emily said. “Appropriate though it may be. I meant go on with what you were saying.”
Confused, Barbara looked up, trying to read her friend for irony and an intent to humiliate. But what she saw was only interest. And once again she was forced to recognise those qualities that were so essential in their line of work: the ability to back off, the willingness to listen, and the facility for altering one course of action if another presented itself.
Barbara licked her lips, tasting the thin film of lipstick that she'd applied earlier. “Okay,” she said, but she proceeded gingerly, determined to control her ungovernable tongue. “Forget Sahlah and Theo Shaw for a minute. What if we suppose that Querashi's intent in calling the mufti was actually about his homosexuality, as you suggested. He phoned and asked if a Muslim who commits a grave sin is still a Muslim and he was talking about himself.”
“I'll go with that.” Emily reached for a handful of trail mix and held it cupped it her palm as Barbara continued.
“He heard that a grave sin would cut him off, so he decided to end his affair and he told the other bloke at an earlier meeting. But this other bloke—his lover—didn't want to break it off. He asked for another meeting. Querashi took his condoms, figuring the last meeting might well end up with a farewell buggering. Better safe than sorry. Only this time, the lover arranged for Querashi's death, along the lines of ‘If I can't have you, no one can.’ “
“Querashi became his obsession,” Emily clarified, sounding as if she did so more for herself than for Barbara. She shifted her gaze to the oscillating fan that she'd unearthed from the attic on the previous day. She hadn't yet turned it on. Stilled, the blades were tufted with dust. “I can see how that works, Barb, but you're forgetting one thing: your own argument from yesterday. Why would the lover have killed Querashi and then moved the body? What might have been taken for an accident immediately became suspicious because of that. And because the Nissan was tossed.”
“That bloody Nissan” was Barbara's response, an admission that Emily had just shot down her theory. But when she thought of the events of that past Friday night—a secret rendezvous, a fatal fall, a body out of place, a car tossed—she began to see another possibility. “Em, what if there's a third party involved?”
“A menage a trois? What d'you mean?”
“What if Querashi's supposed lover isn't his killer? D'you have the crime scene pictures?”
The DCI again rooted through the files and papers on the top of her desk. She found the file and set the photos of the body to one side. She laid out the pictures of the scene itself. Barbara went to stand behind the DCI's chair, studying the photographs over her shoulder.
“Okay,” Emily said. “Let's go with it. Let's see how it plays with the lover not Querashi's killer. On Friday if Querashi's intention was to meet someone, then that person was either already at the Nez waiting for him when Querashi got there or on his way to the rendezvous. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Barbara continued with the scenario. “So if that person either saw or heard Querashi take the fall or if he found him dead at the bottom of those steps—”
“Then he would have logically assumed it was an accident. He would have chosen two courses of action at that point: leaving the body there for someone else to find or reporting the accident himself.”
“Right. If he wants to keep their liaison secret, he leaves the body. If he doesn't care who knows—”
“He reports it,” Emily finished.
“But the entire picture changes if Querashi's lover actually saw something suspicious that night.”
Slowly, Emily's head turned from the photographs until she was meeting Barbara's eyes. She said, “If the lover saw …Christ, Barb. Whoever Querashi was going there to meet must have known it was murder when he fell.”
“So Querashi's lover is out of sight, waiting. He sees the killer string the tripwire, a shadow on the stairs moving about. He doesn't know what he's watching, but when Querashi takes the tumble, he figures it out directly. He even sees the killer remove the wire afterwards.”
“But he can't come forward because he can't let it be known that he's been having a fling,” Emily went on.
“Because he's married,” Barbara said.
“Or involved with someone else.”
“In either case, he can't come forward, but he wants to do something to signal to the police that this is a murder and not an accident.”
“So he moves the body,” Emily finished. “And he tosses the car. Jesus Christ, Barb. D'you know what this means?”
Barbara smiled. “We've got ourselves a flaming witness, Guv.”
“And if the killer knows that,” Emily added grimly, “we also have someone who could be in danger.”