Emily nodded slowly. She seemed to be examining Barbara, and under her scrutiny, Barbara felt her skin begin itching beneath the bandages.
It was miserably hot in the room and although the single window was open - and painted black for some reason - not even the faint promise of a breeze came into the kitchen.
Emily roused herself. "Dinner," she said. She went to the fridge and squatted in front of it, bringing forth a container of yoghurt. She took a large bowl from a cupboard and spooned yoghurt into it in three huge globs. She reached for a packet of dried fruit and nuts. "This heat," she said, pausing to fork her fingers through her hair.
"God Almighty. This bloody heat." She ripped the packet open with her teeth.
"The worst kind of weather for a CID investigation,"
Barbara said. "No one has the patience for anything. Tempers go fast."
"Tell me about it," Emily agreed. "I haven't done much more in the last two days besides trying to keep the local Asians from burning down the town and my guv from assigning his golfing mate to take over the case."
Barbara was gratified that her fellow officer had given her an opening. "Today's demonstration made ITV. Did you know?"
"Oh yes." Emily dumped half the packet of nuts and fruit on top of the yoghurt and patted everything in place with her spoon before reaching for a banana from a bowl of fruit on the work top. "We had a score of Asians at a town council meeting, howling like werewolves about their civil liberties. One of them alerted the media and when a camera crew showed up, they started lobbing chunks of concrete. They've imported outsiders to help in the cause. And Ferguson - that's my guv - has taken to getting on the blower once or twice an hour to tell me how to do my job."
"What's the Asians' main concern?"
"It depends on who you talk to. They're intent on exposing whatever they can: a cover-up, a spate of footdragging by the local coppers, a CID conspiracy, or the start of ethnic cleansing. Have your pick."
Barbara sat on one of the two metal chairs.
"Which comes close?"
The DCI shot her a look. "Brilliant, Barb. You sound just like them."
"Sorry. I didn't mean to suggest - "
"Forget it. The whole bloody world's on my back. Why not you as well?" From a drawer, Emily took a small knife which she wielded against the banana, adding slices to the yoghurt, nuts, and fruit. "Here's the situation. I'm trying to keep the leaks to a minimum.
Things are dicey as hell in the community, and if I'm not careful about who knows what and when, there's a loose cannon in town who'll start firing away."
"Who is it?"
"A Muslim. Muhannad Malik." Emily explained his relationship to the deceased man and described the importance of the Malik family - and hence Muhannad himself - in Balford-leez.
His father, Akram, had brought the family to the town eleven years before with the dream of starting their own business. Unlike many Asian newcomers who confined themselves to restaurants, markets, dry cleaners, or petrol stations, when Akram Malik dreamed, he dreamed big. He saw that in a depressed part of the country, he might not only be welcomed as a source of future employment but he might also make his mark. He'd started small, making mustard in the back room of a tiny bakery on Old Pier Street. He'd ended up with a complete factory in the north section of the town. There he manufactured everything from savoury jellies to vinaigrettes.
"Malik's Mustards and Assorted Accompaniments,"
Emily finished. "Other Asians followed him here. Some of them relatives, others not.
We've a growing community of them now. With all the interracial headaches."
"Muhannad's one of them?"
"A migraine. I'm up to my neck in political bullshit because of that prick." She reached for a peach and began to slice it, tucking wedges of fruit along the rim of the yoghurt bowl.
Barbara watched her, considered her own healthless dinner, and managed to subdue her guilt.
Muhannad, Emily informed her, was a political activist in Balford-le-Nez, fiercely dedicated to equal rights and fair treatment for all of his people.
He'd formed an organisation whose putative purpose was support, brotherhood, and solidarity among youthful Asians, but he was a real hot head when it came to anything remotely suggestive of a racial incident. Anyone who harassed an Asian found himself in short order going eyeball-to-eyeball with