strobes as his picture was recorded for tomorrow's papers. He'd carried Hadiyyah to his car and he'd driven off, leaving the police to sweep up the pieces of what his cousin Muhannad had wrought.
Emily said, "Take him to my office," and she finally gave a glance to Barbara. "Sergeant Havers and I will meet him there."
Sergeant Havers and I. Barbara's gaze flew to Emily's. She tried to read for substance beneath the DCI's words. But Emily's look was level, betraying nothing, and she turned on her heel and left the conference room. Barbara followed, waiting for a sign.
"How is she?" Barbara asked when Azhar joined them in the DCI's office.
"She's well," he said. "Mr. Treves was good enough to have soup prepared. She's eaten and bathed, and I've put her to bed. She's been seen by a doctor. Mrs. Porter sits with her until I return." He smiled. "She has the giraffe in bed with her, Barbara. The ruined one.
'Poor thing,' she said. 'It's not his fault he got mooshed up, is it? He doesn't know he's a mess.' "
"Who really does?" Barbara replied.
Azhar gazed at her a long moment and then nodded slowly before he turned to Emily,
"Inspector, I have no idea what Barbara has told you about our acquaintance. But I'm afraid you might have misunderstood her involvement with my family. We're neighbours in London. Indeed, she's been so kind as to befriend my daughter in her mother's . . ."He hesitated, shifted his eyes away, brought them back to Emily. "In her mother's absence.
And that's the extent to which we know each other. She had no idea that I came to your town to assist my family in a police matter.
Equally, she had no idea that my experience isn't limited to my work at the university, as I've never told her that. So when you requested that she assist you during her holiday, she was completely innocent of any knowledge that might have - "
"I what?" Emily said. "I did what?"
"You phoned her? You asked for her help?"
Barbara closed her eyes briefly. It was one hell of a tangled web. She said, "Azhar, that's not what happened. I lied to you both about how I happened to be in Balford. I came because of you."
He looked so perplexed that Barbara wanted to sink through the floor rather than have to explain anything further. But she muddled on.
"I didn't want you in over your head. I thought if I was here, I could keep you out of trouble.
Both you and Hadiyyah. Obviously, I failed. At least in Hadiyyah's case. I completely blew it."
"No," Emily said. "You got us out on the North Sea, Sergeant. Which is where we needed to be to learn the truth."
Surprised, Barbara shot her a grateful look, embraced entirely by relief at last. No accounting had to be made. What had passed between them on the sea could be forgotten.
Emily's words told Barbara that the DCI had learned richly from the experience, that no report to her superior officer was going to have to be made.
There was a moment of silence among them.
Into it came the sounds of the CID team pulling information together, working through the evening and into the night. But there was a sense of lightheartedness to their work, the sound of men and women who knew a trying job was winding down.
Emily turned to Azhar. "Until we have Malik in interrogation, we can only sketch out the details of what happened. You can help us with that, Mr. Azhar. As I see it, Querashi twigged to the smuggling ring by accident when he came across Muhannad in Parkeston on the night that he himself was there at the Castle Hotel. He wanted in on the action. He threatened to talk if he wasn't included in a way that earned him big money.
Muhannad stalled. Querashi grabbed Kumhar and got him to go along by telling him the plan was to put an end to the entire smuggling business.
He installed Kumhar in Clacton as leverage for his scheme to make the Maliks pay up.
But things didn't work out the way he'd hoped. He got the chop instead."
Azhar shook his head. "That cannot be,"
Emily bristled.
Back to normal indeed, Barbara thought.
"After what Kumhar said about Muhannad, you can't think Malik's not involved in this murder.
The man just dumped your own daughter into the sea."
"I'm not disagreeing about my cousin's in881 volvement. It's Mr. Querashi's that you've misunderstood."
Emily frowned. "How exactly?"
"By not taking our religion