Wait. Don't respond yet." Muhannad pressed his point, rising to his feet and pacing to the fireplace, where the mantelpiece held a score of framed family photographs. "I know I angered you today. I admit that things got out of hand.
But I ask you to look at the results I got. And it was Azhar who suggested the town council meeting as a place to start. Azhar, Father. When I phoned him in London. Can you tell me that when you spoke to the CID they admitted murder to you? Because they didn't to me. And God knows they didn't tell Sahlah anything."
Sahlah lowered her eyes as the men looked her way. She didn't need to confirm her brother's words. Akram had been in the room for her brief conversation with the police constable who'd come to inform them of Haytham's death. He knew exactly what had been said: "There's been a death on the Nez, I'm sorry to say. The deceased appears to be a Mr. Haytham Querashi.
We need someone to identify the body formally, however, and we understand you were to marry him."
"Yes," Sahlah had replied gravely, while inside she was screaming, No no no!
"This may be," Akram said to his son. "But you have gone too far. When one among us has died, it is not up to you to see to his resurrection, Muhannad."
He was, Sahlah knew, not speaking of Haytham. He was speaking of Taymullah Azhar.
Azhar was supposed to be dead to everyone in the family once his parents had proclaimed him so. If you saw him on the street, you were to look through him or avert your eyes. His name wasn't to be mentioned. His existence wasn't to be spoken of to anyone, even in the most oblique terms.
And if you thought of him, you quickly busied your mind with something else lest thinking of him turned to speaking of him turned to a willingness to consider allowing him entrance to the family once more. Sahlah had been too young to be told what crime Azhar had committed within the family to have been cast out, and once the casting out had been accomplished, she'd been forbidden to speak of him to anyone.
Ten years of solitude, she thought as she observed her cousin. Ten years of wandering in the world alone. What had it been like for him? How had he survived without his relations?
"What's more important, then?" Muhannad was attempting to sound reasonable. He didn't want to be any further at odds with their father than the day's proceedings had already made him.
He couldn't risk being cast out himself. Not with a wife, two children, and the need to be gainfully employed. "What's more important, Father?
Tracking down the man who murdered one of our own or making certain Azhar is cut off for life? Sahlah is a victim of this crime as much as Haytham. Don't we have an obligation to her?"
When Muhannad looked in her direction again, Sahlah lowered her eyes modestly a second time.
But her insides shrivelled. She knew the truth.
How could anyone not see her brother for what he was?
"Muhannad, I do not need your instruction in this or any other matter," Akram said quietly.
"I'm not trying to instruct you. I'm only telling you that without Azhar - "
"Muhannad." Akram reached for one of the pardthds that his wife had prepared. Sahlah could smell the minced beef that had been folded within the pastry. Her stomach lurched at the odour.
"This person you speak of is dead to us. You should not have brought him into our lives, much less into our home. I have no argument with you about the crime that has been committed against Haytham, your sister, and all of our family, if indeed it is a crime."
"But I told you the DCI said it was murder.
And I told you she was forced to admit it because of the pressure we've put on the CID."
"The pressure you brought to bear this afternoon was not on the CID."
"But that's how it works. Don't you see that?"
The room was stifling. Muhannad's white T-shirt clung to his muscled frame. In contrast, Taymulah Azhar sat in a state of such cool calm that he appeared to have transported himself to another world. Muhannad changed gears. "I'm sorry to have caused you pain, and maybe I should have warned you in advance that there would be a disruption in the meeting - "
"Maybe?" Akram asked. "And what occurred at the meeting wasn't