Deception on His Mind Read Online Free PDF Page B

speaking into the microphone. “The time has come for our people to demand equal treatment under the law. If the police won't see this death for what it is—a hate crime and an out-and-out murder—then we intend to seek justice in our own way. We have the power, and we have the means.” He swung away from the microphone and used a loud hailer to shout to the people in the crowd. “We have the power! We have the means!”
    They roared. They surged forward. The camera swung wildly and flickered. The reporter said, “Peter, we need to get to safer ground,” and the picture switched to the station's news studio.
    Barbara recognised the grave-faced newsreader at the pinewood desk. Peter Somebody. She'd always loathed him. She loathed all men with sculptured hair.
    “To recap on the situation in Essex,” he said. And he did just that, as Barbara lit another cigarette.
    The body of a man, Peter explained, had been discovered in a pillbox on the beach in Balford-le-Nez by an early morning walker. So far, the victim had been identified as one Haytham Querashi, recently arrived from Karachi, Pakistan, to wed the daughter of a wealthy local businessman. The town's small but growing Pakistani community were calling the death a racially motivated crime—hence, nothing short of a murder—but the police had yet to declare what sort of investigation they were pursuing.
    Pakistani, Barbara thought.
Pakistani.
Again she heard Azhar say, “… a minor upheaval among my relations.” Yes. Right. Among his
Pakistani
relations. Holy shit.
    She looked back at the television, where Peter was continuing to drone on, but she didn't hear him. What she heard was the tumble of her own thoughts.
    They told her that having a substantial Pakistani community outside of a metropolitan area was such an anomaly in England that for there to be two such communities along the coast in Essex would be wildly coincidental. With Azhar's own words telling her that he was on his way to Essex, with his departure preceding this newsflash of what was clearly a riot-in-the-making, with Azhar heading off to deal with “a minor upheaval” within his family … There was a limit to Barbara's toleration for coincidence. Taymullah Azhar was on his way to Balford-le-Nez.
    He planned, he'd said, to offer his “expertise in these matters.” But
what
expertise? Brick throwing? Riot planning? Or did he expect to get involved in an investigation by the local police? Did he hope for access to the forensic lab? Or, more ominous, did he intend to become involved in the sort of community activism she'd just witnessed on the television, the sort that invariably led to big violence, arrest, and a stretch in the nick?
    “Damn,” Barbara muttered. What in God's name was the man thinking? And what in bloody hell was he doing, taking a very special eight-year-old girl along for the ride?
    Barbara gazed out the door, in the direction Hadiyyah and her father had taken. She thought of Hadiyyah's bright smile and the plaits that twitched like living things when she skipped. Finally, she mashed out her cigarette among the others.
    She went to the clothes cupboard and pulled her haversack off the shelf.

ACHEL WINFIELD DECIDED TO CLOSE THE SHOP TEN minutes early, and she didn't feel one twinge of guilt. Her mother had left at half past three—it was the day of her weekly “do” at the Sea and Sun Unisex Hairstylists—and although she'd left firm instructions about what constituted doing one's duty at the till, for the past thirty minutes not a single customer or even a browser had come inside.
    Rachel had more important things to attend to than watching the second hand of the wall clock slowly circumnavigate the dial. So after carefully checking to make sure that the display cases were locked, she bolted the front door. She flipped the OPEN sign to CLOSED and went to the stockroom, where she took from its hiding place behind the rubbish bins a perkily wrapped box that she'd done