The Language of Secrets (24 page)

Rachel tapped her neck. “The tattoo on Grace's throat refers to the same thing.”

“Grace's voice is on the tape as well.”

“What does she say?”

“‘I came between a man and his thoughts/like a breeze thrown over the face of the moon.'”

“The moon again. What does it mean?”

Khattak had been wondering the same thing. His friend, the professor of poetry, had been able to offer no additional illumination on the subject of the moon as a symbol in Arabic poetry.

“I don't know if it means anything. It could be a symbol, a code of some kind. But why would Ashkouri need a code to communicate with members of his own cell? Or could it be his way of obscuring what he's actually up to? Whether he knows he's under surveillance, or whether he's just taking precautions—the poetry might be a diversion, unrelated to the Nakba plot.”

Rachel had done a little reading of her own.

“Sir, that first section of poetry that you found in your sister's book. Do you remember that poem? Do you have the rest of it?”

“She put it back in his book. It's in the other room.”

Rachel waited as Khattak retrieved it from the coffee table. She had an idea that she wanted to test against Khattak.

Esa produced the small book and leafed through its pages. The poem was still there, this time in its entirety. It appeared like a flame on the page, unattributed to any poet by name. But Ruksh had told Esa that this was Ashkouri's own work.

O homeland

   If I fly on the wings

      Of a nightingale's song

         To alight in your heart

            With a will to belong

               Will you light up my sky

             With your rapturous flame

           Unfettered, unfold me

         Dismantle my name

       Reclaim me in promise

      Of victory sweet?

       O homeland,

          O heartache,

            When shall

                we meet?

They read the poem in silence. It was not quite a sonnet. Nor could it compare with the musicality and nuance of the verse Ashkouri had recited throughout his halaqa. It did, however, recapture a theme of modern poetry. In the aftermath of the Six-Day War, no poet was credible unless he or she addressed the themes of dignity and freedom for the Arab peoples.

“What's this poem about, sir? Identity? Belonging? Exile?”

Khattak nodded. “All those things.” But he could see what Rachel was driving at, wondered why he hadn't spotted it for himself. “It's about homeland.” He thought of what the professor had discussed with him after listening to the cassette, a lesson Khattak had known for himself. “To Palestinians, homeland is everything.”

They were back at the beginning. At Martine Killiam's insistence that he work with INSET on the murder of Mohsin Dar. At her revelations about Hassan Ashkouri's plot.

“Ashkouri wrote this poem. It's a poem about the Nakba.”

Catastrophe. Cataclysmic catastrophe.

And extrapolated to Ashkouri's homeland, it was also a poem about what had happened to Iraq. What was still happening.

Catastrophe.

Devastation.

A Nakba. And one that was tied to the Nakba plot.

*   *   *

“You need to get closer to them,” Khattak advised Rachel. “But not at the camp. They still have those rifles.”

“I have to go,” Rachel said. “Maybe I'll find something at the scene that INSET missed. And isn't it crazy they would ask us to investigate without letting us anywhere near the park?”

“They weren't all that concerned with finding Mohsin's killer,” Esa said with some bitterness. “Their focus was on the success of the takedown. It still is.”

“Which is why it makes sense for me to go. My priority is the murder. The rest is gravy.” In case that sounded dismissive, Rachel added, “It never made any sense, this CPS consultation. Mohsin's murder and his work as a police agent are bound up together in such a way that one determines everything about the other. Mohsin was running his own game. A game that was a flat-out contradiction to the operation. And it cost him his life.”

Khattak remembered what Laine had told him about the surveillance of his house. He didn't know if that meant wiretaps or cameras or both.

“Let me walk you to your car.”

It was a ten-minute walk in the cold through a tracery of shadows. A necrotic light had infiltrated the sky, and under its reflection, Rachel's face was a faint round disk.

“You have a beautiful home, sir. Nice Christmas lights by the way.”

The expression on Khattak's face tore at Rachel. It was a fleeting glimpse of an inconsolable wound.

“They're not for Christmas, Rachel. My sister is planning her wedding.”

*   *   *

At the car, he made himself put Ruksh out of his thoughts. He could speak to Rachel freely now. But she was ahead of him, as usual.

“I'm betting INSET wishes they'd date-stamped that gas receipt differently. It would place Alia at the scene, it would mean she lied, it would destroy her credibility. And she has motive.” And at Khattak's grave look, “What? Did I say something wrong?”

“It's not a wretched institution, Rachel. It's a necessary one. The people who commit these kinds of crimes, they've made it necessary.”

“You mean National Security?” she asked. “INSET? I forget you used to work with them. But you weren't seconded, were you?”

Khattak leaned against Rachel's car, gazing up at the waterfall of stars, the cold wind welcome as a means of honing his thoughts.

“I was core personnel.” He glanced over at Rachel. “I had language skills, background. A certain need to prove myself.” A feeling he knew Rachel would understand.

She fumbled with her response. “But didn't you feel…”

“What, Rachel?”

He turned to look at her. His partner. His friend.

“I don't know. Set apart? A bit alienated? A stranger in a strange land?”

Rachel's scarf had slipped down her shoulder. Khattak reknotted it at her neck with steady hands. Trust Rachel to have the courage to ask such a question. To know him well enough to know that it needed to be asked.

“It's the price you pay for doing what is necessary.” His voice was firm and dark. “For what you think is right.”

His gaze encompassed the sleepy streets of Forest Hill, a glossy theater of silence.

“And for knowing where you belong.”

*   *   *

He should have known that wouldn't put an end to Rachel's questions. She was gearing up to ask him something else. He didn't like the thought that she had to prepare herself to be direct with him. He wanted her to know that nothing was off limits.

“Spit it out, Rachel. What else is on your mind?”

She looked over her shoulder at the house they had left behind, a silhouette against the night, dressed in garments of snow.

“Ashkouri was rude to you in your own home. I guess I was just wondering why you still live with your family.”

Khattak considered the question. His reply was grave, but not off-putting.

“I'm the eldest. My sisters are my responsibility.”

Rachel's voice squeaked in her throat. “If you don't mind me saying, sir, they sound like fully competent women to me. It doesn't seem like they need a minder.”

Esa could tell that Rachel was wondering if she had blundered again by making assumptions about his culture or faith. He wanted to reassure her.

“You sound like Ruksh. Though Ruksh doesn't hesitate when she calls me a chauvinist.” His smile negated Rachel's quick apology. “My sisters know they can reach me whenever they need me should they ever have a problem of any kind. I stay at my parents' house when my mother is out of the country, for the sake of her peace of mind.” He tipped his head back, wondering if that was enough of an explanation. Or even one he believed himself. “You don't have to agree with it—I'm not sure that I do—it's just that at this stage of my mother's life, I want to ensure that she's free of any worry.” A speculative look came into his eyes. “Didn't you feel something similar about your parents, Rachel? Isn't that why you lived with them for so long?”

A hollow silence fell between them. A car passed by, its snow tires crunching against the ice on the road.

“Something like that, sir. My Da was pretty tough, though. I wouldn't say he needed me at home.”

“And your mother?”

Rachel turned away. The shared confidences had gone too far. But with her sense of fairness, she offered something in exchange anyway.

“It was the happiest day of her life when I left.”

 

20

Rachel and Khattak had decided between them that it was best to take the day off from Masjid un-Nur, to avoid making Ashkouri or any other members of the cell suspicious. Khattak had made an appointment to see an old friend, and he'd asked Rachel to come with him. He'd also suggested an alternate method for Rachel getting closer to the group. Din and Grace were going to an underground club for an open-mic night. He wanted Rachel to meet up with them.

They hadn't yet reached a decision on Rachel's attending the winter camp.

But Rachel had every intention of going, a decision she would bring up with Khattak later. She found it more than a little strange that Ashkouri would plan a second trip up north so close to the activation of the Nakba plot. It was less than a week from New Year's Day. Was this Ashkouri's attempt at providing the members of his cell with an alibi in connection with the plot? Or was he planning to leave the group at Algonquin and double back?

He had to be watched. And the INSET team would be focused on the tactical operation. Ashkouri's retreat would be dismissed as a distraction. Rachel knew that for a mistake.

She glanced across at Khattak, who was dressed so formally that he would not have been out of place at a wedding. Or a funeral. Rachel had dressed for the underground club, not the appointment with Khattak's friend, the Crown prosecutor Sehr Ghilzai. Rachel's blue jeans were faded and tighter-fitting than usual. She'd found the H&M version of a kaffiyeh in gray and blue and had wound it around her neck. Under the scarf she wore a band jersey that had seen better days, though her taste in music ran more to The Police than alt-punk rock, a choice that was entirely without irony. The words “Regatta de Blanc” trailed down one arm. The other arm read “The Bed's Too Big Without You.” She saw Khattak read the words before he glanced away.

“Sting fan?” he asked her.

Rachel snorted. “With that Elizabethan lute?” She didn't want to admit how deep her obsession with the front man of the band ran, so she added, “Stewart Copeland's more my style, sir. He was always a bit crazy behind those drums. I found that endearing.”

Khattak grinned in response.

They discussed the case as Khattak's BMW wove through the traffic. Union Station was still under construction for the Pan Am Games. Front Street was a gnarl of stops and starts, as frozen pedestrians attempted to reach safety through a maze of improvised crosswalks. Christmas stars glittered at the intersections.

He suggested a new line of questioning to pursue with Grace and Din, whose alibis for Mohsin's murder he wanted to pin down. He didn't trust Ashkouri's rendition of events. He wasn't sure that he trusted Din's either.

Rachel asked a few questions about Paula. Her obsession with Ashkouri was well documented by now. And Rachel had witnessed her animosity toward Ruksh firsthand. What if there had been a similar animosity directed at Mohsin, whom Ashkouri had taken into his confidence?

They talked companionably as they drove past the assorted buildings of the University of Toronto and rounded Queen's Park. The prosecutor had said she would meet them at a café behind the observatory. Not at the Department of Justice, Rachel noted. Which was sensible, considering what they hoped to discuss with her. None of them needed to be seen in one another's company.

“How do you know Ms. Ghilzai, sir?”

Khattak slid the BMW into a nearby parking spot and switched off the ignition.

“You asked me if I felt set apart at INSET.”

Rachel perked up. Because it sounded like Khattak was on the verge of a personal confession.

“I did ask you that, yes.”

His green eyes were candid upon her face.

“I am set apart, Rachel. I've always been. Because of who I am and because that's been conflated with what I do. On both sides. But Sehr belongs to the same network of friends as I do, doing the same kind of work, facing the same unspoken challenges. We can be honest with each other, without worrying about keeping up our guard. If Sehr can tell us something useful, I know that she will.”

Rachel noted the pronunciation of the other woman's name with care. It was two syllables, not one, with the emphasis on the first syllable.
Se-her.
She asked Khattak what it meant.

“Awakening. The dawn.”

*   *   *

They met in the sunroom of the Café des Artistes. It was located inside a large Victorian house that had been built as a private residence in 1875. The new owner had refurbished it with a slate stone roof and the copper eaves and downspouts that had enhanced its original character. The stairs that led to the café were carved of cut stone. The café seating dwelt in the light of a dozen soft windows, under a rounded cupola. Khattak and Rachel swept past a massive oak staircase to enter the picturesque room.

Seated at a round wood table under the unsparing light was a well-dressed woman whose russet-gold hair fell around her shoulders in a style of simple elegance. She wore a fitted dress in a deep shade of caramel, a matching leather briefcase set on the floor beside her. Her light brown eyes were wide-set in a thin, intelligent face. Her jewelry was muted: braided gold earrings, a bangle on her wrist, an understated watch. She wore no rings on her fingers. Unmarried, then, and not as young as Rachel had expected. Probably in her mid-thirties, with surface lines deepening the character of her eyes and mouth.