local factory. He could have offered Mr.
Kumhar employment. Yet Mr. Kumhar says the subject of a job never came up between them.
Does he wish to change that claim?"
No, Kumhar told her through his interpreter.
He did not wish to change that claim. He knew Mr. Querashi only as a benefactor sent to him through the goodness of Allah. But there was a common thread that bound them to each other:
They both had families in Pakistan whom they wished to bring to this country. Although in Querashi's case it was parents and siblings and in Kumhar's case it was a wife and two children, their intention was the same and thus there existed between them a greater understanding than might have otherwise existed between two strangers who meet on a public road.
"But wouldn't a permanent job have been far more of a benefit than four hundred pounds if you want to bring your family to this country?"
Emily asked. "How far could you have stretched that money in comparison to what you might have earned over time as an employee of Malik's Mustards?"
Kumhar shrugged. He had no way to explain why Mr. Querashi hadn't offered him employment.
Siddiqi interjected a comment. "Mr. Kumhar was a wayfarer, Inspector. In giving him funds, Mr. Querashi met his obligation to him. He wasn't required to do anything more."
"It seems to me that a man who was 'nothing but kindness' to Mr. Kumhar is a man who would have seen to his future welfare as well as to his immediate needs."
"We can't know what his ultimate intentions were towards Mr. Kumhar," Professor Siddiqi pointed out. "We can only interpret his actions.
His death, unfortunately, prevents anything more."
And wasn't that convenient? Emily thought.
"Did Mr. Querashi ever make a pass at you, Mr. Kumhar?" she asked.
Siddiqi stared at her, absorbing the abrupt change in topic. "Are you asking - "
"I think the question's clear enough. We've been given information that Querashi was homosexual.
I'd like to know if Mr. Kumhar was on the receiving end of anything besides Mr.
Querashi's money."
Kumhar heard the question with some consternation.
He declared his answer in a tone of strained horror: No, no, no. Mr. Querashi was a good man. He was a righteous man. He could not have defiled his body, his mind, and his everlasting soul with such behaviour. It was an impossibility, a sin against everything Muslims believed.
"And where were you on Friday night?"
At his lodgings in Clacton. And Mrs. Kersey -- his most generous hostess - would be happy to tell Inspector Barlow as much.
That concluded their interview, which is what Emily recited into the tape recorder. When she switched it off, Kumhar spoke urgently to Siddiqi.
Emily said angrily, "Hang on there."
Siddiqi said, "He only wants to know if he can return to Clacton now. He is, understandably, anxious to quit this place, Inspector."
Emily meditated on the prospect of getting any more information out of the Pakistani if she held him longer and gave him time to sweat a little more in that sauna of a cell just off the weight room. If she grilled him another two or three times, she might wrest from him a detail that would take her one step closer to their killer. But in doing this, she also ran the risk of sending the QD
Asian community back into the streets. Whatever member oijum'a came to fetch Kumhar back to Clacton in the afternoon would be looking for anything useful to their cause that could be carried back and reported upon as a means of enlaming the people. She weighed this possibility against whatever potential information she could get from the Asian before her.
She finally went to the door and yanked it open.
DC Honigman was waiting in the corridor. She said, "Take Mr. Kumhar to the weight room. See that he has a shower. Have someone get him lunch and some decent clothes.
And tell DC
Hesketh to take the professor back to London."
She turned back to Siddiqi and his companion in the interrogation room. She said, "Mr.
Kumhar, I'm not finished with you, so don't even think about leaving the vicinity. If you do, I'll track you down and drag you back here by your bollocks.
Is that clear?"
Siddiqi leveled an ironic gaze upon her. "I expect he'll get your point," he said.
She left them and returned to her office on the first floor. She'd long ago learned to trust her instincts in an investigation, and they were fairly screaming that Fahd Kumhar had more information than he was willing to part