your tails over there. You know the routine, don't you?
Or do I have to recite it? If you can't guarantee me a suspect by tomorrow morning, I'm sending Presley over."
Emily knew that she was supposed to quake with fear at the threat, after which she was supposed to produce a candidate for arrest - any bloody candidate, thank you very much -
in order to give Ferguson the opportunity to paint himself in the most positive light for the muck-ety-mucks who held his promotion in the balance.
But she was too incensed to play the game. Having to deal with yet another of Ferguson's obsessive attempts to have his professional feathers oiled made her want to crawl through the telephone line and kick the superintendent's arse black and blue.
So she said, "Send Presley over, Don. Send half a dozen DCIs with him if you think that'll make you look good to the committee. But just get off my back, all right?" And having said that, she slammed down the phone.
Which was the moment that Belinda Warner passed along the unwelcome information that one of the Pakistanis was in reception, insisting upon having a word with her. Which was why she was facing Taymullah Azhar now.
He'd followed DC Honigman to Clacton when Emily had refused to allow him to escort Fahd Kumhar back to his digs himself. Distrusting the honour of the police in general and of Balford DCI in particular, he'd intended to plant himself outside Kumhar's boarding house till Honigman departed, whereupon he meant to check on the Pakistani man's condition: mental, emotional, physical, and otherwise. So, waiting on the street for the detective constable's departure, he'd seen Honigman with Kumhar in tow once again. And he'd trailed them back to the nick.
"Mr. Kumhar was weeping," he told Emily.
"It's quite obvious that he's under considerable strain. You'll agree it's essential that once again he know his - "
Emily cut into the song and dance about legalities.
She said impatiently, "Mr. Azhar, Fahd Kumhar is in this country illegally. I expect you know what that does to his rights."
Azhar looked alarmed at this sudden turn of events. He said, "Are you saying that his current detention has nothing to do with the murder of Mr. Querashi?"
"What I'm saying is what I've already said. He's not a visitor, he's not a working holidaymaker, he's not a domestic servant, a student, or somebody's spouse. He has no rights."
"I see," Azhar said. But he wasn't a man to admit defeat, as Emily quickly realised when he went on. "And how do you plan to make this point clear to him?"
Blast the bloody man, Emily thought. He stood there in front of her - sang-froid incarnate, despite his nanosecond of alarm a moment earlier - and calmly waited for her to draw the only conclusion that she could draw from the fact that Fahd Kumhar spoke practically no English.
She cursed herself for having sent Professor Siddiqi on his way back to London. Even if she got DC Hesketh on the mobile, by this time they'd probably be all the way to Wanstead.
She'd lose at least another two hours that she could ill afford to lose if she ordered him to turn round and bring the professor back to Balford for another session with Kumhar. And this is exactly what Taymullah Azhar was betting that she didn't want to do.
She thought about what she'd learned about him in the report from London. SOU had deemed him worth watching, but the intelligence gathered hadn't fingered him for anything more serious than adultery and abandonment. Neither act portrayed him in a flattering light, but neither was criminal. Had that been the case, everyone from the Prince of Wales to St. Botolph's drunks would be shopped for a few years, deserving or not. Besides, as Barbara Havers had pointed out a day earlier, Taymullah Azhar wasn't involved in this business directly. And nothing Emily had read about him indicated a brotherhood with the Asian underworld represented by his cousin.
Even if that weren't the case, what bloody choice did she have between waiting for Siddiqi and attempting to get to the truth right now?
None at all, as far as she could see. She lifted a monitory finger and held it inches away from the ai 9
Asian man's face. She said, "Come with me. But make one wrong move, Mr. Azhar, and I'll have you charged as accessory after the fact."