Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [292]
She said, “Yes,” and she thought about texting him instead. But there he was in a moment of happiness and pleasure and how on earth could she tear him from it when the truth of the matter— as she bloody well knew despite her words to Azhar— was that there was nothing he could do? There was nothing anyone could do officially. Whatever happened next was going to have to happen in an extremely unofficial manner.
She ended the call. She stared at the phone. She thought of Hadiyyah. It had been only two years since Barbara had met her, but it did seem as if she’d known her the length of her very short life: a little dancing girl with flying plaits. It came to Barbara that Hadiyyah’s hair had been different the last few times she’d seen her and she wondered how much different it was going to become in the ensuing days.
How will she make you look? Barbara wondered. What will she tell you about your disguise? More, what will she tell you about where you’re going once it becomes clear there are no half siblings for you to meet at the end of your journey? And where will that journey take you? Into whose arms is your mother fleeing?
For this was the truth of the matter, and what could be done to stop it when Angelina Upman was only a mother who’d come to claim her child, a mother who’d returned from “Canada” or wherever she’d been with whomever she’d been with, who was, of course, the very same person to whom she was running, some bloke who’d been seduced by her, just like Azhar, just like all of them, seduced into waiting instead of believing… What had Angelina done and where had she gone?
She had to get back to Azhar, but Barbara began to pace. Every black cab in London, she thought. Every mini cab, and there were thousands. Every bus and after that the CCTV films from the Chalk Farm tube station. Then the railway stations. The Eurostar. After that the airports. Luton, Stansted, Gatwick, Heathrow. Every hotel. Every B & B. Every flat and every hidey hole there was from the centre of London working out to the edges and then beyond. The Channel Islands. The Isle of Man. The inner and outer Hebrides. Europe itself. France, Spain, Italy, Portugal …
How long would it take to find a beautiful light-haired woman and her dark-haired little girl, a little girl who was going to want her father soon, who was going to manage— God in heaven, she would manage, wouldn’t she?— to get to a phone and to ring her father so that she could say, “Daddy, Daddy, Mummy doesn’t know I’m ringing and I want to come home…”
So do we wait for the call? Barbara asked herself. Do we set out to find her? Do we simply pray? Do we convince ourselves with any amount of lies that no harm is meant and no harm will be done because this is, after all, a mother who loves her child and who knows above all that Hadiyyah belongs with her father, because he’s given up everything to stand at her side and has, as a result, absolutely nothing without her?
God, how she wanted Lynley to be there. He would know what to do. He would know what to say. He would listen to the entire anguished tale and he would have the right words of hope to give to Azhar, the words she herself couldn’t muster because she hadn’t the skill. She hadn’t the heart. But still she had to do something, say something, find something, because if she didn’t, what sort of friend was she to a man in agony? And if she couldn’t find the words or develop a plan, was she in truth a friend at all?
It was nearly ten o’clock when Barbara finally went to her bungalow’s small bathroom. Lynley had not yet rung her back, but she knew he would. He would not fail her because DI Lynley did not fail people. That was not who he was. So he would ring as soon as he was able, and Barbara believed this— she clung to this— because she had to believe something and there was nothing else left to believe and she certainly didn’t believe in herself.
In the bathroom she turned on the shower and waited for the water