EMILY HAD TO allow both of them to smoke. It appeared to be the only way to get Kumhar relaxed enough to spill his guts. So with her chest feeling tighter, her eyes watering, and her head beginning to pound, she endured the fumes from his Benson and Hedges. It took three fags before he came anywhere close to speaking what might have been the truth. Before that, he tried to claim he'd come through customs at Heathrow. Then he switched to Gatwick. Then, when he was unable to produce the flight number, the airline, or even the date of entry into the country, he was finally reduced to telling the truth. Azhar translated. His face remained expressionless throughout. To his credit, however, his eyes appeared more and more pained as the interview continued. Emily was leery of this pain, though. She knew enough of these Asians to see them for the actors they were.
There were people who helped, Kumhar began. When one wanted to immigrate to England, there were people in Pakistan who knew the short cuts. They could cut through the waiting time and waive the requirements and ensure one of having proper papers. … All of this for a price, of course.
“How does he define ‘proper papers?’” Emily asked.
Kumhar circumvented the question. He'd hoped at first to be able to come to this wonderful country legitimately, he said. He'd sought ways to do this. He'd sought sponsors. He'd even attempted to offer himself as a bridegroom to a family unaware of his marital status, with the plan of marrying bigamously. Of course, it wouldn't really have been a bigamous union, polygyny being not only legal but also appropriate for a man with the means to support more than one wife. Not that he had the means, but he would. Someday.
“Spare me the cultural asides,” Emily said.
Yes, of course. When his plans were not enough to get him to England legitimately, his father-in-law had informed him of an agency in Karachi that specialised in …well, they called it assisting in the immigration problem. They had, he learned, offices round the world.
“In every desirable port of entry,” Emily noted, recalling the cities that Barbara Havers had listed as locales for World Wide Tours. “And in every undesirable port of exit.”
One could look at it that way, Kumhar said. He visited the Karachi office and explained his needs. And for a fee, his problem was taken care of.
“He was smuggled into England,” Emily said.
Well, not directly into England. He hadn't the money for that, although direct entry was available to those with ￡5,000 to pay for a British passport, a driving licence, and a medical card. But who except the extremely fortunate could produce that amount of money? For what he'd managed to scrape together in five years of saving and doing without, he was able to purchase only an overland passage from Pakistan to Germany.
“To Hamburg,” Emily said.
Again he offered no direct answer. In Germany, he said, he waited—concealed in a safe lodging—for passage to England, where—in time and with sufficient effort on his part, he was told—he would be given the documents he needed to remain in the country.
“You came in through Parkeston Harbour,” Emily concluded. “How?”
By ferry, in the back of a lorry. The immigrants hid among goods being shipped from the continent: car-tyre fibre, wheat, maize, potatoes, clothing, machine parts. It made no difference. All that was required was a lorry driver willing to take the risk for a considerable compensation.
“And your documents?”
Here, Kumhar began to jabber, clearly unwilling to carry his story any further. He and Azhar engaged in a rapid-fire exchange that Emily interrupted with “Enough. I want a translation. Now.”
Azhar turned to her, his face grave. “This is more of the same that we've already heard. He's afraid to say more.”
“Then I'll say it for him,” Emily said. “Muhannad Malik's involved in this up to his eyeballs. He's smuggling illegals into the country and holding their forged documents hostage. Translate that, Mr. Azhar.” And when the man didn't speak at once, his eyes darkening with each accusation she made against his cousin, she said icily, “Translate. You wanted to be a part of this. So be a part of this. Tell him what I said.”
Azhar spoke, but his voice was altered, subtly toned by something that Emily couldn't identify but strongly suspected was preoccupation. Of course. He'd be wanting to get the word out to his detestable cousin. These people stuck together like flies over cow dung no matter what the offence. But he couldn't leave the nick until he knew for certain what the real word was. And by that time they'd have Muhannad under lock and key.
When Azhar had finished the translation, Fahd Kumhar began to weep. It was true, he said. Upon arrival in England, he'd been taken to a warehouse. There, he and his fellow travellers were met by a German and two of their own countrymen.
“Muhannad Malik was one?” Emily asked. “Who was the other?”
He didn't know. He'd never known. But this other wore gold—watches and rings. He dressed well. And he spoke Urdu fluently. He did not come often to the warehouse, but when he did, the two others deferred to him.
“Rakin Khan,” Emily breathed. The description couldn't have fit anyone else.
Kumhar hadn't known either man's name at first. He learned Mr. Malik's identity only because they themselves—and here he indicated Emily and Azhar—had given it yesterday during the interview they'd already had together. Prior to that, he'd known Malik only as the Master.
“Wonderful sobriquet,” Emily muttered. “Doubtless he came up with it himself.”
Kumhar continued. They were told that arrangements had been made for them to work until such a time as they had sufficient funds to pay for the proper documents.
“What sort of work?”
Some went to farms, others to factories, others to mills. Wherever they were needed, they went. A lorry would come for them in the middle of the night. They would be taken to the location for work. They would be returned when the labour was completed, sometimes in the night of that same day, sometimes days later. Mr. Malik and the other two men took their wages. From these, they extracted a payment for the documents. When the documents were paid off, the immigrant would be given them and allowed to leave.
Except, in the three months that Fahd Kumhar had been working off his debt, no one had left. At least not with the proper papers. Not a single person. More immigrants came, but no one managed to earn enough to buy his freedom. The work increased as more fruit needed picking and more vegetables needed harvesting, but no amount of work appeared to be enough to pay off their debts to the people who had arranged their entry into the country.
It was a gangmaster program, Emily realised. The illegals were being hired by farmers, mill owners, and factory foremen. These people paid lower wages than they would have to pay legal workers, and they paid them not to the illegals themselves, but to the person who transported them. That person skimmed off as much money as he wanted and doled out to the workers what he felt like giving them. The illegals thought the scheme was to assist them with their immigration dilemmas. But the law had another word for it: slavery.
They were trapped, Kumhar said. They had only two options: to continue to work and hope that they would be given their papers eventually, or to make their escape and find their way into London, where they might hope to fade into the Asian community and avoid detection.
Emily had heard enough. She saw how they were all involved: the entire Malik clan and Haytham Querashi as well. It was a case of greed. Querashi uncovered the scheme that night at the Castle Hotel. He'd wanted a piece of the action as a portion of the Malik girl's dowry. He'd been refused: permanently. Doubtless he'd used Kumhar as a means of blackmailing the family to do his bidding. Slice him a piece of the financial pie or he'd bring down the entire operation by having Kumhar sing to the police or to the papers. It was a clever idea. He'd been counting on the family's greed overcoming whatever inclination they may have had to call his bluff. And his request for compensation for his knowledge wasn't so illogical. He was to be a member of the family, after all. He deserved his fair share of what everyone else was enjoying. Especially Muhannad.
Well, now, Muhannad could kiss goodbye his classic car, his Rolex watch, his snakeskin boots, his fancy diamond signet ring, and his gold chains. He wouldn't be needing them where he was going.
And this would cook Akram Malik's position in the community as well. Doubtless it would cook the entire Asian population too. Most of them worked for him anyway. And when the factory closed as a result of the investigation into the Maliks’ scheme, they'd have to take themselves off to seek employment elsewhere. Those that were legal, that is.
So she'd been on the right track in searching the mustard factory. She just hadn't thought to search it for people instead of inanimate contraband.
There was much to do. There was SOl to involve, to activate an investigation into the international aspects of the scheme. Then the IND would need to be informed, to make arrangements for the deportation of Muhannad's immigrants. Some of them, of course, would be needed to testify against him and his family at the trial. Perhaps in exchange for asylum? she wondered. It was a possibility.
She said to Azhar, “One thing more. How did Mr. Kumhar come to be hooked up with Mr. Querashi?”
He'd appeared at a work site, Kumhar explained. One day when they rested for lunch along the side of a strawberry field, he'd appeared among them. He'd been seeking someone to use as a means of putting an end to their enslavement, he said. He promised safety and a new start in this country. Kumhar was only one of eight men who had volunteered. He was chosen and he left that very afternoon with Mr. Querashi. He'd been driven to Clacton, set up in Mrs. Kersey's house, and given a cheque to send back to his family in Pakistan as a sign of Mr. Querashi's good intentions towards them all.
Right, Emily thought with a mental snort. It was another form of enslavement in the making, with Kumhar as the permanent sword that Querashi would hold over the heads of Muhannad Malik and his family. Kumhar had merely been too dim to work that out.
She needed to get back upstairs to her office, to see where Barbara was in her search for Muhannad. At the same time, she couldn't let Azhar leave the station lest he give his relatives the word that she was on to them all. She could hold him as an accessory, but one misspoken word out of her mouth, and he'd be on the phone demanding a lawyer so fast that her head would be spinning. Better to leave him with Kumhar, believing he was serving the good of all concerned.
She said to Azhar, “I'm going to need a written statement from Mr. Kumhar. May I ask you to stay with him as he writes it and then append a translation for me?” That should take a good two hours, she thought.
Kumhar spoke urgently, hands trembling as he lit yet another cigarette.
“What's he saying now?” Emily asked.
“He wants to know if he'll get his papers. Now that he's told you the truth.”
Azhar's look was a challenge. It irked her to see it so openly displayed on his dark face.
“Tell him all in good time,” Emily said. And she left them to hunt down Sergeant Havers.
YUMN PICKED UP on Barbara's interest in the craft table in Sahlah's bedroom. She said, “Her jewellery, or so she calls it. I call it her excuse not to do her duty when she's asked to do it.” She joined Barbara at the table and pulled out four of the drawers from their little chests. She spilled coins and beads onto the tabletop and sat Anas on the table's accompanying wooden chair. He became immediately enthralled with his aunt's jewellery-making bits and pieces. He pulled out another drawer and flung its contents among the coins and beads that his mother had already given him. He laughed at the sight of the colourful objects rolling and bouncing on the table. Before, they'd been arranged carefully by size, by hue, and by composition. Now, as Anas added two more drawersful, they were hopelessly mixed with one another, promising a long evening's work sorting them out.
Yumn did nothing to stop him from continuing to empty more of the drawers. Instead, she smiled at him fondly and ruffled his hair. “You like the colours, don't you, pretty one?” she asked him. “Can you name these colours for your ammī-gee? Here's red, Anas. Can you see red?”
Barbara certainly was doing so. She said, “Mrs. Malik, about your husband. I'd like a word with him. Where can I find him?”
“Why would you want to talk to my Muni? I've already told you—”
“And I've got every word from the last forty minutes engraved on my heart. But I've one or two points to clear up with him regarding Mr. Querashi's death.”
Yumn had been continuing her play with Anas's hair. Now she turned to Barbara. “I've told you that he isn't involved in Haytham's death. You should be talking to Sahlah, not to her brother.”
“Nonetheless—”
“There is no nonetheless.” Yumn's voice was louder. Two spots of colour appeared on her cheeks. She had dropped her treacly wife-and-mother routine. Steel resolve replaced it. “I've told you that Sahlah and Haytham had words. I've told you what she got up to at night. I expect that, since you're the police, you can add one and one together without my having to do it for you. My Muni,” she concluded as with the need to clarify a point, “is a man among men. And you have no need to talk to him.”
“Right,” Barbara said. “Well, thanks for your time. I'll find my own way out.”
The other woman read the greater meaning behind Barbara's words. She said insistently, “You have no need to talk to him.”
Barbara passed her. She went into the corridor. Yumn's voice followed her.
“You've been taken in by her, haven't you? Just like everyone. You have five words with the little bitch and all you see is a precious doe. So quiet. So gentle. She wouldn't hurt a fly. So you overlook her. And she gets away.”
Barbara started down the stairs.
“She gets away with everything, the whore. Whore. With him in her room, with him in her bed, with pretending to be what she never was. Chaste. Dutiful. Pious. Good.”
Barbara was at the door. Her hand reached for the handle. From the top of the stairs, Yumn cried out the words.
“He was with me.”
Barbara's hand stopped, but remained outstretched for a moment as she registered what Yumn was saying. She turned. “What?”
Carrying her younger child, Yumn came down the stairs. The colour in her face had been reduced to two medallions of red that rode high on either cheek. Her wandering eye gave her a wild air, which was heightened by the words she next spoke. “I'm telling you what you'll hear from Muhannad. I'm saving you the trouble of having to find him. That's what you want, isn't it?”
“What are you saying?”
“I'm saying that if you think Munhannad was involved in what happened to Haytham Querashi, he couldn't have been. He was with me on Friday night. He was up in our room. We were together. We were in bed. He was with me.”
“Friday night,” Barbara clarified. “You're certain of that. He didn't go out? Not at any time? Not, perhaps, telling you that he was going to see a chum? Maybe even to have dinner with a chum?”
“I know when my husband was with me, don't I?” Yumn demanded. “And he was here. With me. In this very house. On Friday night.”
Brilliant, Barbara thought. She couldn't have asked for a more pellucid declaration of the Asian man's guilt.