By Death Divided by Patricia Hall

Author:Patricia Hall [Hall, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2013-06-10T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

By the middle of the next morning DC Mohammed Sharif was aware of just how isolated he had become. He had spent the previous evening with his family, most of whom had crowded into his uncle’s house a couple of streets down from his own parents’ home. The atmosphere was hysterical with grief and Sharif found himself comforting his young cousins, Jamilla and Saira, who had taken refuge in their bedroom upstairs to escape from the crush of adults bewailing Faria’s fate in Punjabi below.

‘She should never have married that man,’ Jamilla had said in English in a fierce whisper when Sharif came in and closed the door carefully behind him. It was a sentiment Sharif shared but which he knew could not be spoken downstairs, where the rest of the family were giving vent to their grief and horror but without apparently ever touching on the subject of Imran Aziz and his unexplained absence from the home he had shared with Faria.

‘I’m sure your father blames himself for insisting on it,’ Sharif said. ‘He regrets giving in to your grandfather.’

‘Are they looking for Imran?’ Jamilla asked. She seemed to be the calmest member of the family in the house although Sharif could see the pain in her eyes and knew that her self-control must be fragile.

‘I think so,’ Sharif had said, the policeman in him making him very cautious.

‘Can you catch him?’ Saira said. ‘He must have driven her to this. She would never never have killed herself if she hadn’t been driven to it. She used to be so happy here with us.’ The younger girl collapsed on her bed in tears and her sister sat beside her, stroking her hair gently.

‘Or did he kill her?’ Jamilla asked, her own face beginning to crumple. ‘Was she murdered?’

But Sharif could only shrug.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘No one does. When you last spoke to her, did she give you the feeling that she was depressed?’

‘That she might kill herself, you mean? No, no, of course not. I told you. She said she might be pregnant and seemed – well, excited, I suppose. She would never kill herself. Not Faria. It must be Imran to blame. You’ll catch him and find out, won’t you? You won’t let him get away with this?’

‘They will find him,’ Sharif said. ‘Not me personally. They won’t allow me to be involved, but my boss will catch him. Believe me. We’ll find out what happened. Did you tell your father about what she told you about a baby?’

‘No, not yet,’ Jamilla said. ‘Do you think I should? It will only make him even more upset now, won’t it?’

‘Maybe,’ Sharif said. ‘I suppose there’s no point. We don’t even know if it’s true.’ He lied without a qualm, very aware that DS Mower had not mentioned this crucial piece of information to Faria’s father when he had broken the news of her identification to him, and guessed that the DCI wanted to raise the issue with Faisel Sharif during the interviews that would inevitably follow.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.