Read Online Dishonour by Helen Black - Free Book Online

you expect your sisters to be good Muslim girls,’ he said.
    ‘My sisters are good Muslim girls,’ Raffy snapped.
    ‘I think you discovered Yasmeen had a boyfriend.’
    Raffy shook his head furiously. ‘She did not have a boyfriend.’
    ‘And I think you decided to teach her a lesson.’
    ‘That’s rubbish.’
    ‘I think your family honour needed to be avenged,’ said Bell.
    Raffy shrugged towards Anwar and laughed. ‘You’ve met my brother. Do you think he gives a shit about family honour?’
    ‘I can’t speak for Anwar but I think you care very much,’ Bell replied. ‘I think it matters to you that other people see you first and foremost as a Muslim. And your sister carrying on with her boyfriend just didn’t fit.’
    ‘Why don’t you stop chatting this crap and listen?’ Raffy jabbed his ear. ‘My sister didn’t have no boyfriend.’
    DI Bell let the satisfaction slide across his features. What did he know that they didn’t? Lilly tensed her muscles, waiting.
    ‘Well, I’m not a Catholic, Raffy, and I don’t believe in the Immaculate Conception.’
    Raffy pursed his brows but alarm bells were already sounding in Lilly’s brain.
    DI Bell slid a folder across the desk to her. ‘Autopsy report,’ he said. ‘It says Yasmeen was ten weeks pregnant.’
    Aasha calls in at a café on the way home from school. She tells herself that she’s thirsty and orders some chai but she knows it’s a delaying tactic. She doesn’t want to get home before five when starvation will force her brothers to swallow their pride and help themselves to whatever Mum’s left for them to eat.
    Honestly, those boys are going to make terrible husbands. Whenever her mum and dad go out her mum leaves a pan of dahl or something in the fridge. They only have to bung it in the microwave but they moan about that.
    ‘Aasha will get everything ready,’ her mother assures them.
    Well, not tonight. Tonight they can do it themselves.
    She takes one of the plastic orange seats in the window and blows over the rim of her mug. She feels satisfied by the small stand she is making.
    ‘Hello, beautiful.’
    Aasha nearly spills her drink when Ryan sits in the chair opposite.
    ‘Hi,’ she says, hoping she hasn’t turned completely beetroot.
    ‘What you doing here?’ he asks.
    Aasha nods at her mug. ‘Take a guess.’
    She immediately regrets her tone. She was trying to be funny but it came out all sarcastic and wrong.
    She needn’t have worried because Ryan just laughs. That’s one of the nice things about him, actually: he doesn’t take offence. He’s always easy-going.
    When Lailla calls her a geek and laughs at her, Aasha wants to punch her in the face and grinds her teeth to make the feeling go away. Ryan’s not like that. Sometimes, during art, Lailla says horrible things to him about his clothes being scruffy or cheap or whatever, and he just makes a joke of it. Aasha wishes she could do that. One time he drew a cartoon of Lailla’s face and stuck it onto the body of some porn star.He’d got into masses of trouble for that, but it had been funny.
    ‘So what are you doing here?’ she asks.
    ‘Following you, innit.’
    Before Aasha can work out if he’s teasing her, he grabs the plastic menu and casts his eye along the list of specials.
    ‘There ain’t no sausage and chips,’ he says.
    Aasha giggles and points to the stamp certifying that all meat sold on the premises is halal.
    ‘So why can’t I get halal sausages?’ he asks.
    She shakes her head at him as he orders a doner kebab roll, chips and a can of Lilt. When the heaving plate arrives Ryan pushes the lettuce and tomato into a napkin and tosses it to the other side of the table. He takes an enormous bite of his roll and grins.
    ‘They don’t feed you at home?’ asks Aasha.
    Ryan frowns and she worries she’s offended him but he barks out another laugh.
    ‘My mum can’t cook for shit.’
    Aasha tries to imagine what would happen if her mum couldn’t