Karachi stumbled. Street drains, clogged with the ubiquitous rubbish that disfigures Pakistani cities, blocked within minutes. Water filled the carriageways and spilled onto the pavements. Buses, rickshaws, cars snarled into citywide gridlock as exhausts filled with moisture and motorcycles backfired. Outside the patwari’s office a stalled yellow Toyota had halted the traffic; the driver was kicking the car, trying to push it aside as lorry-drivers yelled abuse. Pedestrians leapt precariously from one island to the next, seeking to avoid the snakes in the ankle-deep water. A cow wandered disconsolately amid the traffic.
We crawled through the rainstorm. The driver took shortcuts and diversions, threading down alleyways, driving through gardens. But a mile from our hotel, the traffic congealed. Dusk was falling. Ayesha, who had said little since we left the patwari’s office, lost patience.
‘Can you ask the driver where the nearest bar is?’ she said to Imran. ‘And I don’t mean some side of the road tea and Pepsi place. I need a drink.’
‘I’m not sure that would be very safe, Ayesha. This is not a lovely neighbourhood. And all the bars with alcohol are run by bootleggers, inevitably connected to criminal elements. They can spot you are from abroad . . .’
‘For God’s sake, Imran, just do what I say! We aren’t your mates, or little children you have to look after; we are paying you to do what we tell you to do!’
Imran lowered his eyes and addressed the driver in Urdu. After a brief conversation he reported that there was a bar with alcohol two blocks off the main road; we would need a password, which the driver provided, and prices would be steep.
‘At last! Thank you!’ Ayesha gathered up her belongings and turned to me. ‘I don’t suppose Mr Teetotal Imran is going to join us, but what about you, Martin? Are you going to come and keep an eye on me?’
Illicit alcohol in a rain-soaked Karachi bar was a meagre attraction; but I was concerned for Ayesha’s safety and I knew that abandoning her would deepen the friction between us.
‘I suppose so. But can we agree that we aren’t going to stay all evening? A couple of drinks and then back to the hotel, okay?’
Ayesha shrugged and opened the car door. I told Imran to go home; we would meet as usual for breakfast in the morning.
We found the bar easily enough. It resembled most Pakistani cafés, with billboards advertising Coke and Fanta and crates of indeterminate liquid in plastic bottles stacked around a few folding tables and chairs. The owner seemed surprised when Ayesha spoke the password the driver had given us, but we didn’t look like policemen so he waved us through to a room behind the counter. There were half a dozen customers, all men, with glasses in their hand, puffing on the dark Morven cigarettes that give public places in Pakistan their indelible aroma. The looks we received told us we were interlopers.
Ayesha ordered without asking me what I wanted; a boy brought us two tumblers with cheap whisky. She downed hers in a gulp and motioned me to do the same, a ritual repeated once then once again. The alcohol infused us with a warmth we hadn’t shared since the days of our first meetings; the other’s opinions no longer seemed so offensive, so unpardonably wrong. But we remained wary. We spoke of the rain, the traffic, the hotel, the dirt and smells, avoiding the issues that divided us. Gradually Ayesha relaxed. She mentioned Peter, fleetingly, but I knew she wanted me to pick up on a topic she had avoided since our vexed discussion weeks ago. She was pressing ahead with wedding plans. There would be autumn ceremonies in both church and mosque to cater to each of the happy families.
‘So how do you like that?’ she said.
‘Very much. I’m pleased for you.’
‘I can’t invite you, of course.’
She was teasing now, confiding but prickly, looking to provoke a response. She did.
‘Oh, really? Why can’t you invite me?’
‘Because people would talk. They’d think we’d been having an affair.’
Ayesha had placed her hand on my wrist. I should have pushed it away.
‘I hardly think people would say that,’ I said. ‘We are working together.’
‘Yes, but we have been spending a lot of time together. That’s unusual for my community, at least without a chaperone . . .’
Ayesha laughed then grew serious.
‘I have been lonely, you know. And scared. There haven’t been many people who’ve understood that. To the world I appear so . . . self-sufficient. I know we’ve argued, but at least you have thought about me as a person. And you’ve engaged with all this . . . instead of just sweeping it under the carpet.’
‘Well, I’m doing my job. I can’t write your story if I don’t try to understand you. Although it hasn’t been easy.’
Ayesha smiled. ‘At first I didn’t like you; you seemed so arrogant. But I’ve got to know you now. And I think you have taken a genuine interest in me. It’s the first time I’ve had that since my dad died.’
A show of empathy can be a powerful tool. So many people are starved of it that even a little compassion unblocks many things. I pushed her hand away.
‘Come on; let’s go. I think the rain’s easing. And you’re getting drunk. We need to eat something.’
‘Oh, okay . . .’ She looked surprised. ‘Can I just ask why you are saying that? Why don’t you want to have a drink with me?’
‘We’ve had a drink, Ayesha. And it’s getting late.’
She shook her head. ‘Is it because you believe what DSP Iqbal and patwari Chaudhry have been saying?’
‘No, it’s not that . . .’
‘I think it is . . . I think it’s because you’ve decided my dad’s guilty, so I must be guilty too . . .’
‘That’s nonsense, Ayesha. Even if all those things were true about your father, how could that make you—?’
‘I think you hate me, Martin. I think you’ve decided I’m a liar.’
‘No, it’s not that—’
‘I think you only signed up for this because you want to make money out of me!’
Ayesha’s eyes had glazed; her voice was raised. The men in the bar were looking at us.
‘You want to write some crap book and make a lot of money! Well, if you want my help you’ll need to pay me a fee. You’ll need to pay me for all the help that I’ll be giving you in your research . . .’
I wanted to point out that she had been insisting on paying me a fee. I tried in vain to calm her.
‘Otherwise, don’t count on me to carry on “working with you”, as you so dismissively put it. I’m not “working” like you are, Martin . . . This is my bloody life we’re talking about!’
The men in the bar were transfixed by the foreigners fighting in their space. Two of them stood up and walked towards us. I thought they were offering to intervene, but one asked for a light while the other leaned over the table between me and Ayesha. Almost too late I realised he had picked up her handbag. As I rose to my feet the man with the cigarette pushed me, but I avoided him and set off after the fellow with the bag. He too was clearly worse for drink, because I caught him and he didn’t resist. I grabbed the handbag, went back to the bar.
Ayesha looked bewildered. I pulled her to her feet then out into the street. The rain had stopped. We flagged down a tuk-tuk for the mile or so back to the hotel. In the cramped seat behind the driver I felt Ayesha’s shoulder nestle into mine. She mumbled a thank you.
‘But I think you don’t understand what I’ve been through since my father died. For me it’s not just a detective story. You want to find out who killed him, like Sherlock Holmes or something. But I need to know why . . . and who he was. Because that changes everything – the way I look at him, at my life, at myself. Right now I don’t know who I am or where I’m coming from, Martin . . . You don’t understand, because nothing like that – nothing so massive that it shakes you right to the core – has ever happened to you. You’ve been lucky . . .’
When I got back to my room I found an envelope pushed under the door. The handwritten message from the hotel reception was timed at 12.32, when we were on our way to the patwari’s:
Mrs Tara has telephoned. Tom has killed himself.