“Are you saying you wouldn’t sack me, given half the chance?”
“In an instant,” she replied. “But that’s not why we’re talking.”
“Then why…?”
“What did she talk to you about?”
“Exactly what you thought she’d talk to me about.”
“And?”
“And?”
“And what did you tell her?”
“What d’you think I told her? Kimmo was Kimmo. Sean was Sean. One was a free-spirit transvestite with the personality of a vaudeville queen, a kid no one in his right mind would want to harm. The other looked like someone who wanted to chew screws for breakfast. I let you know when Kimmo missed a day of assessment. Sean was out of my orbit and on to something else, so I wouldn’t have known if he stopped turning up.”
“That’s all you told her?” She studied him as she asked the question, wondering about what kind of trust could possibly exist between two people who’d betrayed a third.
His eyes had narrowed. He said only, “We agreed.” And as she openly evaluated him, he added, “Or don’t you trust me?”
She didn’t, of course. How could she trust someone who lived by betrayal? But there was a way to test him, and not only that, but a way to fix him in position so that he had to maintain the pretence of cooperation with her, if it was a pretence in the first place.
She went to her canvas holdall. From it, she took the file she’d removed from her office. She handed this over to him.
She watched as his gaze dropped to it, as his eyes took in the label at the top. He looked up at her once he’d read it. “I did what you asked. What am I supposed to do with this, then?”
“What you have to,” she said. “I think you know what I mean.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHEN DETECTIVE CONSTABLE BARBARA HAVERS PULLED into the underground carpark at New Scotland Yard the next morning, she was already on her fourth cigarette, not counting the one she’d lit up and sucked down as she made her way from bed to shower. She’d been smoking steadily since leaving her digs, and the always maddening trip from North London had done nothing to improve either her nerves or her mood.
She was used to rows. She’d had run-ins with everyone she’d ever worked with, and she’d even gone so far as to shoot at a superior officer, in the truly advanced row that had cost her her rank and very nearly her job. But nothing that had gone before in her patchy career-not to mention in her life-had affected her as she’d been affected in five minutes of conversation with her neighbour.
She hadn’t intended to take on Taymullah Azhar. Her objective had been to extend a simple invitation to his daughter. Careful research-well, what went for careful research on her part, which was to buy a copy of What’s On, like a tourist come to see the Queen-had informed her that a place called the Jeffrye Museum offered glimpses into social history via models of sitting rooms through the centuries. Wouldn’t it be brilliant for Hadiyyah to accompany Barbara there in order to feed her eager little mind with something other than considerations of the belly rings currently being worn by female pop singers? It would be a journey from North to East London. It would, in short, be edu-bloody-cational. How could Azhar, a sophisticated educator himself, object to that?
Quite easily, as it turned out. When Barbara knocked him up on her way out to her car, he opened the door and he listened politely, as was his habit, with the fragrance of a well-balanced and nutritional breakfast floating out from the flat behind him like an accusation against Barbara’s own morning ritual of Pop-Tart and Players.
“Sort of a double whammy, you could call it,” Barbara finished the invitation, and even as she said it, she wondered where the hell double whammy had come from. “I mean, the museum’s built in a row of old almshouses, so there’s historical and social architecture involved as well. The sort of thing kids pass without knowing what they’re passing, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I thought it might be…” What, she asked herself? A good idea? An opportunity for Hadiyyah? An escape from further punishment?
That last was it, of course. Barbara had passed Hadiyyah’s solemn little gated face in the window one time too many. Enough was bleeding enough, she’d thought. Azhar had made his point. He didn’t need to beat the poor kid over the head with it.
“This is very kind of you, Barbara,” Azhar had said with his usual grave courtesy. “However, in the circumstance in which Hadiyyah and I find ourselves…”
She’d appeared behind him then, having apparently heard their voices. She cried, “Barbara! Hello, hello,” and she peered round her father’s slender body. She said, “Dad, can Barbara not come in? We’re having our breakfast, Barbara. Dad’s made French toast and scrambled eggs. That’s what I’m having. With syrup. He’s having yogurt.” She wrinkled her nose, but not evidently at her father’s choice of food because she went on to say, “Barbara, have you been smoking already? Dad, can Barbara not come in?”
“Can’t, kiddo,” Barbara said hastily so Azhar wouldn’t have to issue an invitation he might not want to issue. “I’m on my way to work. Keeping London safe for women, children, and small furry animals. You know the drill.”
Hadiyyah bounced from foot to foot. “I got a good mark in my maths exam,” she confided. “Dad said he was proud when he saw it.”
Barbara looked at Azhar. His dark face was sombre. “School is very important,” he said to his daughter, although he looked at Barbara as he spoke. “Hadiyyah, please go back to your breakfast.”
“But can’t Barbara come-”
“Hadiyyah.” The voice was sharp. “Have I not just spoken to you? And has Barbara herself not told you that she must go to work? Do you listen to others or merely desire and hear nothing that precludes desire’s fulfillment?”
This seemed a little harsh, even by Azhar’s standards. Hadiyyah’s face, which had been glowing, altered in an instant. Her eyes widened, but not with surprise. Barbara could see she did it to contain her tears. She backed away with a gulp and scooted in the direction of the kitchen.
Azhar and Barbara were left together eyeball to eyeball, he looking like a disinterested witness to a car crash, she feeling the warning sign of heat seeping into her gut. That was the moment when she should have said, “Well. Right. That’s that, then. P’rhaps I’ll see you both later. Ta-ta,” and gone on her way, knowing she was wading out of her depth and mindlessly swimming into someone else’s business. But instead she’d held her neighbour’s gaze and allowed herself to feel the heat and its progression from her stomach to her chest, where it formed a burning knot. When it got there, she spoke.
“That was a bit out of order, don’t you think? She’s just a kid. When’re you planning to give her a break?”
“Hadiyyah knows what she is meant to do,” Azhar replied. “She also knows there are consequences when she goes her own way in defiance.”
“Okay. All right. Got it. Written in stone. Tattooed on my forehead. Whatever you want. But how about punishments fitting the crime? And while we’re at it, how about not humiliating her in front of me?”
“She is not-”
“She is,” Barbara hissed. “You didn’t see her face. And let me tell you this for a lark, all right? Life’s hard enough, especially for little girls. What they don’t need is parents making it harder.”
“She needs to-”
“You want her brought down a peg or two? Want her sorted? Want her to know she’s not numero uno in anyone’s life and she never will be? Just let her out in society, Azhar, and she’ll get the message. She bloody well doesn’t need to hear it from her father.”
Barbara could see she’d gone too far with that. Azhar’s face-always composed-shuttered completely. “You have no children,” he replied. “If one day you find yourself fortunate enough to be a mother, Barbara, you will think otherwise about how and when your child should be disciplined.”