of a man, Peter explained, had been discovered in a pillbox on the beach in BalfordeNez 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-inthe-making, with Azhar heading off to deal with "a minor upheaval" within his family . . . There was a limit to Barbara's toleration for coincidence. Taymulah Azhar was on his way to BalfordleNez.
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.
Chapter 2
Rachel 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 her best to keep from her mother's eyes. Tucking it under her arm, she ducked into the alley, where she kept her bike. The box she placed lovingly in the basket. Then she guided the bike round the corner to the front of the shop and took a moment to double check the door.
There'd be hell to pay if she was caught leaving early. There'd be permanent damnation if she not only left early but also left without locking up properly. The bolt was old and sometimes it stuck. Wisdom called for a quick, reassuring, and foiled attempt to get inside. Good, Rachel thought when the door didn't budge. She was in the clear.
Although it was late in the day, the heat still hadn't abated. The regular North Sea wind which made the town of Balford-le-Nez so nasty in the depths of winter - wasn't gusting at all this afternoon. Nor had it gusted for the last two weeks. It wasn't even sighing enough to stir the bunting that hung dispiritedly across the High Street.
Beneath those crisscrossing red and blue triangles of manufactured gaiety, Rachel pedalled determinedly southward, heading for the upmarket part of the town. She wasn't going home. Had she been doing so, she would have been riding in the opposite direction, along the seafront and beyond the industrial estate to the three truncated