tell that the DCI had reached the same conclusion as her own.
"What did the police log say?" Barbara asked rhetorically.
Emily responded anyway. "He's had three Zodiacs nicked without his knowledge. All three were later found round the Wade."
"So how rough a go would it be, Em, pinching a Zodiac at night and maneuvering it through the shallows? If whoever took it also returned it before morning, no one would be the wiser. And it doesn't look like Charlie's security is much to speak of, does it?"
"Sure as hell doesn't." Emily turned the direction of her gaze until she was looking northward.
"Balford Channel's just on the other side of that spit of land, Barb, just where you can see that fishing hut. Even at low tide there'd be water in the channel. And enough water here in the harbour to get to it as well. Not enough for one of the larger boats. But for an inflatable . . . ? No problem."
"Where does the channel lead?" Barbara asked.
"Directly along the west side of the Nez."
"So someone could have taken a Zodiac up the channel and round the north point of the Nez, beaching anywhere along the east side and walking south to the stairs." Barbara followed the direction of Emily's gaze. On the other side of the little bay which sheltered the marina, a series of cultivated fields rose to the back of an estate whose main building's chimneys were plainly visible. A well-used path etched the land from the estate along the northern perimeter of the fields. It ran eastward and ended at the bay, where it turned south and followed the coast.
Seeing this walkway, Barbara asked, "Who lives in that house, Em? The big one with all those chimneys."
"It's called Balford Old Hall," Emily said. "It's where the Shaws live."
"Bingo," Barbara murmured.
But Emily resolutely turned from such a facile solution to the equation of motive-means-opportunity.
She said, "I'm not ready to tie a bow on that package. Let's get on to the mustard factory before someone gives Muhannad the word. If," she added, "Herr Reuchlein hasn't already done so."
Sahlah spent her time in the hospital corridor watching the door to Mrs. Shaw's room.
The nurse had informed them that only one person at a time was allowed to see the patient, and she was relieved that this injunction prevented her from having to see Theo's grandmother. At the same time, she felt enormous guilt at her own relief. Mrs. Shaw was ill - and desperately so if the glimpse Sahlah had had of the hospital machinery in her room was any indication and the tenets of her religion directed her to minister in some way to the woman's need.
Those who believed and did good works, the Holy Qur'aan instructed, would be brought into the gardens underneath which rivers flowed. And what better work could be done than to visit the sick, especially when the sick took the form of one's enemy?
Theo, of course, had never directly stated the fact that his grandmother hated the Asian community as a whole and wished them ill individually.
But her aversion for the immigrants who'd invaded Balford-le-Nez was always the unspoken reality between Sahlah and the man she loved.
It had divided them as effectively as had Sahlah's own spoken revelations about her parents' plans for her future.
Sahlah knew at heart that the love between Theo and herself had been defeated long before its inception. Tradition, religion, and culture had acted in conjunction to vanquish it. But having someone to blame for the impossibility of a life with Theo was a temptation that had sought to beguile her from the first. And how easy it was to twist the words of the Holy Qur'aan now, moulding them into a justification of what had happened to Theo's grandmother: Whatever good befalleth thee (O man) it is from Allah, and whatever of ill befalleth thee it is from thyself.
She could thus stoutly proclaim that Mrs.
Shaw's current state was the direct result of the loathing, bias, and prejudice that she fostered in herself and encouraged in others. But Sahlah knew that she could also apply those same words from the Qur'aan to herself. For ill had befallen her as surely as it had befallen Theo's grandmother.
And just as surely, the ill was a direct result of her own selfish, misguided behaviour.
She didn't want to think about it: how the ill had happened and what she was going to do to bring it to an end. The reality was that