Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [289]
He was looking at her, but she could tell he wasn’t seeing her. His were the eyes of a man gazing into the void. The kettle snapped off, and Barbara went to it, flung a bag of PG Tips into a mug, and sloshed the boiling water in after it. She carried the tea to the table with a spoon and sugar and a carton of milk. She slopped some of both into the mug and told him to drink. She told him he had to get warm.
He couldn’t hold the mug, so she did this for him, raising it to his lips, one hand on his shoulder to keep him steady. He took a gulp, coughed, and took another. He said, “She’s taken Hadiyyah.”
Barbara thought he had to be mistaken. Surely, Angelina and Hadiyyah had only gone for Azhar’s other children. Surely, despite the foolhardy nature of what Angelina Upman had planned, it would only be a matter of an hour or so before Angelina and Hadiyyah tripped up the path with those children in tow and the Big Surprise about to unfold. But Barbara knew— she knew— she was lying to herself. Just as Angelina had lied.
Over Azhar’s shoulder, Barbara saw that her answering machine was blinking with messages. Perhaps, she thought, perhaps, perhaps…
She curved Azhar’s hand round the tea and went to the machine. Two messages were indicated, and the first voice she heard was Angelina’s. “Hari will be quite upset tonight, Barbara,” the woman’s pleasant voice said. “Will you check on him at some point? I’d be ever so grateful.” There was a pause before Angelina went on with, “Make him understand this isn’t personal, Barbara… Well, it is and it isn’t. Will you tell him that?” And then following that brief and inconclusive message, the second was Azhar’s voice breaking on, “Barbara… Barbara… Their passports… her birth certificate…,” and his terrible sobbing before the line went dead.
She turned back to him. He was bent over the table. She went to him. She said, “Oh my God, Azhar. What has she done?” Except the worst of it was that she knew what Angelina Upman had done, and she realised that had she only spoken, had she told him about the “surprise” that Hadiyyah had revealed to her, he might well have twigged what was about to happen and he might well have been able to do something to stop it.
Barbara sat. She wanted to touch him but she was afraid that a gesture of concern from her might shatter him like glass. She said, “Azhar, Hadiyyah told me about a surprise. She said she and her mum were planning to fetch your other children, the children… the children from your marriage, Azhar. Azhar, I didn’t know what to tell you. I didn’t want to betray her confidence… and… Bloody hell, what is wrong with me? I should have said something. I should have done something. I didn’t think …”
He said numbly, “She doesn’t know where they are.”
“She must have found out.”
“How? She doesn’t know their names. Not the children’s. Not my wife’s. She couldn’t have… But Hadiyyah would have thought… Even now she must think …” He said nothing more.
“We must phone the local police,” Barbara said, even though she knew that it was useless. For Hadiyyah wasn’t with a stranger. She was with her own mother, and no divorce existed with complicated custody arrangements attached to it, for there had been no marriage in the first place. There had only been a man, a woman, and their daughter who had lived, for a short time, in relative peace. But then the mother had run off and although she’d returned, it now was clear to Barbara that Angelina Upman’s intention had always been to come for her child and to leave again: first to soothe Azhar into a false sense of all being