City of Veils (53 page)

“Will you have dinner with me?” he asked instead, shocking them both.

“Oh.” She looked startled and embarrassed. “I already ate, but…”

“No, not tonight. But soon.”

Was it fear in her eyes? “Yes,” she said hesitantly. “I’d like that.”

He stood up, feeling as if he had suddenly been endowed with thirteen hands. “I’d better go.”

“Nayir, thank you.” She motioned to the computer.

“It’s no problem.”

“One more thing,” she said.

About to turn and leave, he froze. “Yes?”

“I lied about being married,” she said.

He held his breath. Her face colored brightly, but she didn’t turn away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t tell them that
you
were my husband, it’s just… they had to think I was married or they wouldn’t have hired me. They just assumed you…” She waved her hand. When he didn’t reply, she went on. “Osama knows the truth now.”

“Ah.”

“And I’m sorry to have involved you in this.”

He nodded. “It’s all right.” After a moment of awkwardness, he said, “Will you be keeping your job?”

“Yes,” she replied carefully. “For now.”

He never thought the day would come when he would be relieved to hear that news. “That’s good,” he said.

She seemed surprised by this, and gave a nervous smile.

“Well,” he said, “
tisbah al-khayr.
” Good night. And he was heading down the hallway before she could say anything more that might prompt him to kiss her—or realize what a fool he’d been.

He left the building without waiting for her to reach the door, turning only once to give a polite wave and then noticing, with a jolt like adrenaline, that the street was wet, the windows glimmering in the lamplight, while a soft dewy rain touched his face and hands. As he walked, the rain fell harder, splashing up at his feet, crackling around him like electric pulses, whipping against him until his shirt was plastered to his chest and he began to smile. Rain! People were coming out of their homes, children rushing into it with squeals of delight, women and men leaning from balconies and staring up at the miraculous sky as if to ask Allah why He had waited so long, so very, very long, to bless them.

K
atya watched Fuad’s thin, drawn face through the interrogation room’s one-way glass. She had arrived early and planted herself at the very edge of the window, taking a chair to be less conspicuous.

Fuad had been sitting there for a few hours now, waiting for Osama, but she knew that the detective was drawing it out. She only hoped that she could remain where she was, and that none of the male techs or officers would come in and begin acting ruffled by the presence of a woman. Or worse, they might tell her to get back to the lab to begin processing the evidence they’d collected from Fuad’s kitchen. This could be a very big finale to a gruesome case, and she was sure everyone would want to see it. She remained, however, determined to keep her place.

Early that morning, she had shown the video from SynTech to Osama, and he had immediately gone to arrest Fuad. The forensics team swept in and quickly found evidence that someone had been injured in Fuad’s kitchen. There was blood spatter on the floor that had been hastily cleaned with detergent and traces of blood on one of his cooking knives. The most damning discovery was a trace of blood on an old
‘iqal
. Katya had spent the whole day waiting restlessly in the lab, but there was so much evidence to collect—blood samples, clothing fibers, knives and bottles of cooking oil, fingerprints and hairs—that forensics was no doubt still at the house and would be there most of the night.

Half an hour later Osama poked his head in and smiled at her. A few lab techs trailed in behind him. Before she could say anything Osama swooped back out.

When he returned, he was holding two cups of coffee. He handed one to her. “I expected to see you here. You’ve done a lot on this case.”

She took that as a compliment and smiled.

“And it’s all thanks to you that we have the video footage,” he said.

“That was Nayir,” she replied.

“I know, but without you, we wouldn’t have Nayir.”

He left a minute later and she looked down at her coffee to hide her face from the techs. She was sure she was beaming, and the slightest hint of indiscretion between her and Osama could still jeopardize her career.

As Osama entered the interrogation room Fuad looked up with disgust. A television had been set up in the corner, hooked up to a DVD player. Other than that, they had made the room as unwelcoming as possible. Nothing but a table, two chairs, and a linoleum floor. No one had offered coffee or chips. There wasn’t even a wastebasket. Overhead, fluorescent lights cast an ugly white light directly onto the table, making Fuad’s face look hollow and gray. The air vent was wide open, but the air conditioner was clearly off. Katya could feel the room’s sticky heat through the glass.

Fuad looked worn out. His shirt was rumpled, and a few strands of his neatly slicked-back hair were dangling in his face. He sat in a kind of rigid stupor.

Osama switched on the television. The surveillance video appeared on the screen. Fuad watched it with an impassive face. When it was over, Osama switched it off and turned to Fuad.

“Obviously, you’ve stolen from Abdulrahman more than this one time. Leila suspected you, and that’s why she set up the surveillance.”

“I didn’t kill her,” Fuad said. His voice was mechanical.

Two men came into the room behind Katya. She didn’t turn around, but when they came to stand in front of the viewing window, she recognized the detective they called Abu-Haitham, who was reputed to be so deeply conservative that he had once refused to take a female killer into custody because she would have to ride in the car with him alone. The other man was young and had followed Abu-Haitham into the room in a deferential way. Katya couldn’t be sure, but he looked like one of the floaters. She didn’t lower her burqa. The men ignored her completely.

“How do you think he’s going to handle it?” the floater asked. His voice indicated that he was referring to Osama’s tactic for extracting a confession.

“Not sure,” Abu-Haitham grunted. “He’ll have figured out what he can about this guy. It doesn’t hurt to make him wait, either.”

“He’s been in there for what, six hours?” the floater asked. Abu-Haitham nodded.

Katya’s attention returned to the interrogation room. Osama was saying, “It’s also obvious that Leila didn’t tell her brother what you’d done, because if she had, you wouldn’t still be working for him.”

“I didn’t kill her,” Fuad replied in that same monotone.

“This one’s going to need some convincing,” Abu-Haitham remarked. Katya felt her shoulders tingle, and a cold sensation slid through her chest. He was talking about torture. The floater was quiet, staring resolutely at the window.

“I don’t get the feeling Abdulrahman is a very forgiving man,” Osama said.

But before Osama could finish, Fuad interjected: “I didn’t kill her.”

Katya’s nerves were beginning to fray. There was still some doubt that Fuad was the killer—after all, anyone could have killed Leila in his house—but he was an accessory at the very least, not to mention a thief. She wanted to march into the room and wring his neck, or maybe wrap an
‘iqal
around it and strangle him until the fear bulged in his eyes and he could barely spit out a confession. He had them at an impasse. He knew—they all knew—that the evidence might not be enough. It would depend entirely on which judge heard the case. All that really mattered was a confession, and who in his right mind was going to give that up when the penalty for murder was death?

There was always the chance that Leila’s family—in this case Abdulrahman and his brothers—would agree to pardon the killer in exchange for blood money, but given that Abdulrahman was so stingy and that he would have learned by now that Fuad had been stealing from him, there was little prospect of his taking the high road and pardoning Fuad for murder as well. No doubt Fuad was asking himself now whether blood money could get him out of this. Could he, who was probably rich only by virtue of having stolen from his boss in the first place, come up with enough money to tempt Abdulrahman into pardoning him? Given Fuad’s current recalcitrance, the answer seemed to be no.

Abruptly, Osama left the interrogation room. Abu-Haitham and the floater walked out of the observation room to meet him. Katya waited until they were almost outside before rising, heading for the door, and reaching it just in time to slip her toe into the gap to keep it from closing. She listened to the conversation in the hall.

“I’m going to wait a few more hours,” Osama said.

“He’s going to say those same four words all night if you don’t do something more drastic,” Abu-Haitham said.

“I think in a few hours we’ll have enough evidence to throw in his face,” Osama went on. “Given the amount of stuff that forensics has got on him and the condition he’ll be in if we don’t go in there for a while, we shouldn’t have to work too hard to get a confession from the guy.”

“You don’t need the evidence,” Abu-Haitham said, “you just need to make him think you’ve got it. Rafiq should have taught you that.”

Osama didn’t reply. He walked past the men. Katya slipped back into the room.

She was just sitting down again when Osama came in. He picked up the coffee cup he’d left on the table, then walked to the window, crossed his arms, and stood staring at his quarry.

Katya didn’t know what to say. She ought to have left before he came in; he probably didn’t want to face anyone right now.

“Would you mind checking in with Majdi,” he said, “to see what we’ve got so far on the evidence from the kitchen?”

“Sure.” She leapt up. She was at the door when Osama stopped her.

“Wait,” he said. His jaw was firm, and there was something she couldn’t read in his eyes. “Actually, I’d like your help in the interrogation room.”

He appeared to be serious.

“Look,” she said, startled, “I may be able to question a female witness, but this…” She glanced back at the window, struggling to understand her sudden fear. Was she certain she would make a fool of herself? Or was she just afraid that she would get into trouble?

Whatever her fears, it was stupid—
stupid
—to deny herself this opportunity. “All right,” she said finally. “What do you need?”

“I just want you to sit there.”

She nodded slowly.

“Let’s play it by ear,” he said. “I have the feeling he won’t like a woman being there. Do you mind?”

“No,” she lied.

She lowered her burqa and Osama led her into the interrogation room.

Fuad looked up when they came in. Katya couldn’t be sure, but it seemed for a moment that the look of tired defiance on his face momentarily shifted to rancor at the sight of her. Osama pulled out a chair and motioned Katya into it. She sat facing Fuad, the burqa still covering her face.

Without offering an explanation of who Katya was or what she was doing there, Osama went back to the television and pulled out the plug. He draped the cord on the media cart and pushed the console out of the room. The door shut behind him with a resolute thud.

Katya could hear her own breathing. She wasn’t sure if Osama wanted her to start the interrogation or simply sit there making Fuad more uncomfortable. The air was stiflingly hot and reeked of body odor. A bead of sweat appeared on his neck.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She didn’t reply. Her hands were clasped on the table so they wouldn’t start shaking.

“Not much of an interrogator, are you?”

She kept her silence, wrapping it around herself like a cocoon.

“Is this their idea of torture?” A mean smile cracked his face. “At least you’re staying covered,” he said.

She flipped up her burqa. His expression changed immediately to one of disgust.

Osama came back into the room and saw Katya’s exposed face. “Officer Hijazi,” he said in a careful, mock-devout voice, “why is your burqa up?”

Suddenly, she knew what he wanted, so she went for it. “Because this man is insulting.”

“That’s no reason to spoil your virtue,” Osama replied evenly.

“I’ll do what I like,” she retorted.

Osama exhaled. Fuad was still staring at her, more menacing now.

“You have no respect for women?” she asked him. “Is that why you’re staring at me?”

“You should cover your face,” Fuad replied. “You’re a police officer. You shouldn’t be full of deceit and lies.”

“Is that what she did to you?” Katya asked. “Deceit and lies?”

Fuad’s eyes shifted to her headscarf, so she took that off, too.

“Officer Hijazi!” Osama said. Fuad’s teeth clenched.

“Does my hair offend you?” Katya asked. “Or is it that you actually want to touch it?”

Fuad let out a snort. His hostility sickened her. He was dripping with greasy sweat, his shirt sticking to his chest so that the little black hairs showed through the thin blue fabric, shifting with his every move like a hill of ants. His rancid sweat was filling her nostrils and creeping down her throat.