Lady Mayor, the result of which was a formal request for information made to those officers whose job it was to assemble profiles of those most likely to cross the criminal line. The pages that Emily now held represented the material that the divisional headquarters' intelligence unit had been gathering on Muhannad Malik for the past ten years.
There wasn't much, and most of it seemed innocuous, suggesting Muhannad at age twenty-six and despite his behaviour that afternoon, had mellowed from the hot-headed teenager who'd first come to the attention of the police. Emily had in her possession his school records, his GCSEs and A-levels, his university career, and his employment history. He was the respectful son to a member of the town's council, the devoted husband to a wife of three years, the committed father of two small children, and a competent manager in the family business. All in all, save for one blemish, he had grown into a model citizen.
But Emily knew that small blemishes frequently hid larger flaws. So she read on. Malik was the acknowledged and admitted founder ofjum 'a, an organization for young male Pakistanis. The association's stated purpose was to strengthen the ties between Muslims in the community and to emphasize and celebrate the myriad differences between these same Muslims and the westerners among whom they lived. Twice in the past year, Jum'a's involvement had been suspected in altercations that had erupted between young Asians and their English counterparts. One was a traffic dispute that had turned into an ugly fistfight; one was an incident of bottles of cow's blood being thrown at an Asian schoolgirl by three members of her form. Assaults had occurred in the aftermath of both of these incidents, but afterwards no one had been willing to implicate Jum'a.
This wasn't enough to put the man out of commission. It wasn't enough even to view him somewhat askance. Still, Muhannad Malik's brand of activism - put on display that day didn't sit well with Emily Barlow. And after completing her examination of the report, she had read nothing that set her mind at rest.
She'd met him and the man he'd called his expert in the "politics of immigration" several hours after the demonstration. Muhannad had let his companion do most of the talking, but his own presence had been impossible to ignore, as he no doubt intended.
He radiated antipathy. He wouldn't sit down.
Rather, he stood against the wall with his arms folded across his chest, and he never took his eyes from her face. His expression of contemptuous distrust challenged Emily to try to get away with lying about Querashi's death. She hadn't considered doing so ... at least not about the essentials.
Both to forestall any outbursts from him and to subtly underscore the unstated fact that there was no connection between the demonstration and her agreeing to see them, Emily had directed her comments to Muhannad's companion, whom he'd introduced as his cousin Taymullah Azhar.
Unlike Muhannad, this man had an air of serenity about him, although as a member of Muhannad's khandan, Azhar would doubtless be governed by an agenda identical to whatever the family's was.
So Emily had been careful with her choice of words.
"We began with the knowledge that Mr.
Querashi's death appeared suspicious," she'd told him. "Once we'd determined that, we asked for a pathologist from the Home Office. He'll arrive tomorrow to perform the postmortem."
"Is this an English pathologist?" Muhannad asked. The implication was obvious: An English pathologist would serve the interest of the English community; an English pathologist would hardly take seriously the death of an Asian.
"I have no idea what his ethnic background is.
We aren't allowed to put in requests."
"And where does the investigation stand?"
Taymullah Azhar had a curious way of speaking, courteous without being at all deferential. Emily wondered how he managed it.
"The moment the death was deemed suspicious, the site was secured," Emily replied.
"Which site is this?"
"The pillbox at the foot of the Nez."
"Has it been determined that he died in the pillbox?"
Azhar was very quick. Emily had to admire that. "Nothing's been determined yet, aside from the fact that he's dead and - "
"And it took them six hours to determine that much," Muhannad put in. "Imagine the fire that would have been lit under the bobbies' pink bums had the body been white."
"-- and, as the Asian community suspected, it appears to be a murder," Emily finished.
She waited for Malik's reaction. He'd been shouting murder since the corpse had been discovered thirty-four hours