No Place of Refuge

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  Conroy kept up a pleasant stream of conversation as they searched the pile together. ‘Apart from Audrey’s team, I haven’t seen that many Canadians.’

  ‘What about Australians? You mentioned an NGO.’ Khattak picked up a box that was larger than the others. It was empty. He set it aside.

  ‘Yeah, Australians are really feeling it. The boats where the kids wash up dead? It’s like decent people won’t have it, do you know?’

  The blithe assurance behind this remark made Khattak suspicious. Peter Conroy had come a long way to volunteer with an NGO with limited resources. Supposedly this left him free to help out at Woman to Woman, but he could have made himself useful to anyone on the island. Why, then, had he brought himself specifically to Audrey’s attention? And what had made Audrey believe that Conroy could be trusted with her NGO’s work? What had made them compatible?

  ‘If you wanted to help, you didn’t need to come halfway around the world,’ he said.

  ‘How’d you mean?’ Conroy sounded aggrieved. ‘You’ve had a look at this place. You can see what the need is like.’

  ‘Surely, Australia has a crisis of its own?’

  Conroy’s blank look confirmed Khattak’s suspicions. For someone who’d traveled to Greece with a volunteer’s zeal, Conroy seemed oblivious to problems at home.

  Khattak tested his theory. ‘There’s Nauru,’ he said. ‘And Manus Island.’

  Conroy began to shift things around the tent, searching for Audrey’s package. If he was invested in the refugee crisis, he’d be aware of Khattak’s meaning. His sudden, frantic search could mean he was giving himself time to come up with an explanation.

  Nauru and Manus were two islands in the Pacific where asylum seekers were detained at the Australian government’s insistence. None had been settled in Australia. The offshore processing policy meant that asylum seekers innocent of any crime faced mandatory detention in warehouse facilities on the islands.

  But in the past year, explosive leaks from within Nauru had revealed that assaults and self-harm were prevalent at the detention center, with more than fifty percent of the assaults against children. An opposition movement had risen up against the so-called Pacific Solution. Khattak wondered why Conroy hadn’t joined it.

  When Conroy straightened up from his search, his face was deeply flushed. His tone defensive, he said, ‘If Australia is guilty of mistreating refugees, we’re not the only ones.’

  It was a deflection. It didn’t explain Conroy’s decision to travel to Greece. His trip and his room and board would be costly, spending resources that could be better used to enhance the efforts of established organizations. Or the effort back home.

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ Khattak said. He was pushing Conroy, but if there was something Conroy was hiding, he needed to uncover it now.

  Conroy’s eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun.

  ‘Canada, mate. Don’t you detain refugees in jail along with convicted criminals? Doesn’t sound much better than Nauru.’

  Khattak didn’t deny it. A lack of legal status in Canada meant that refugees could be subject to detention for status offenses indefinitely. There had been hunger strikes by detainees, and protests by NGOs who championed humanitarian solutions. Thanks to their efforts, the criminalization of refugees was under renewed scrutiny, though the needle had hardly moved.

  So Conroy was aware of both countries’ refugee policies; something for him to consider.

  A little nervously, Conroy moved away. He shuffled around the boxes until he uncovered a bulky yellow envelope. ‘I think this is what you’re looking for.’ His tone made it clear he was anxious for Khattak to leave. Khattak studied the package.

  Audrey Clare’s name was scrawled on the outside. It was addressed in care of Woman to Woman, and extra postage had been paid for personal delivery.

  Khattak took the package and opened it, mystified as two orange life jackets with the Yamaha logo fell into his hands. As so often happened when he and Rachel were working a case and their discoveries synchronized, Rachel chose that moment to call him.

  He went to stand outside the tent for better reception on his cell phone.

  She sounded tired and frazzled, as if she hadn’t slept. She was on her way to Chios. She’d hitched a ride with Commander Benemerito, and she hurried over preliminaries.

  ‘Remember those inventory lists Gaffney got us from Audrey and Nate’s e-mails?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘I’ve been on the beach twice in the last twenty-four hours, but I didn’t take it in right away.’

  ‘Take what in, Rachel?’ he asked patiently, waving at a little girl who darted down the alley. He was looking over the trough to the castle, and thinking how precariously placed the camp was – vulnerable to torrential rain or to an attack from higher ground. But what made him think of an attack? The Greek men at the restaurant with their closed, suspicious faces? Surely their grievances were minor and would not amount to harm. He made a note to check in at the UNHCR office to get a better sense of relations between islanders and refugees.

  He could also ask Eleni Latsoudi for her opinion. Perhaps she could meet them for dinner. Though, based on the exhaustion in Rachel’s voice, he wasn’t sure Rachel would last that long. He’d booked accommodation on Chios, in case their inquiries delayed their return to Lesvos.

  ‘Are you listening to me, sir?’

  He admitted his attention had strayed and asked her to repeat her conclusions.

  ‘There are life jackets all over the beach. Ali told me there’s a peace memorial made from these jackets up on a hill on Lesvos. The site is called “The Dump.”’

  Khattak frowned at the jacket in his hands. It was new, the tags still attached, and it looked capable of surviving the sinking of the Titanic.

  ‘That package that came from Audrey contained two Yamaha jackets.’

  ‘Yes!’ Rachel sounded triumphant. ‘That’s exactly it. I was asking myself why Audrey had invested money in life vests for refugees. She was already on the island, Woman to Woman was working from the island.’

  ‘Go on.’ Minute by minute, it was becoming clearer to Khattak. But he preferred to hear how Rachel had arrived at her conclusions.

  ‘Refugees dump their vests when they get here. They don’t intend to stay on the islands. In fact, the only person I’ve heard of who made the reverse crossing to Turkey is Ali. Most people take the ferry to Athens and move on. So why was Audrey ordering life vests on Lesvos?’

  Khattak looked at the jacket in his hand and offered a suggestion. ‘She wanted to test one for herself before it was put into use? Or she was smuggling people across on her boat, as Nate thought – she needed supplies for them.’

  ‘Why order them from abroad then? Why not get them in Turkey like everyone else, especially when she’d made so many trips to Izmir in recent weeks?’

  Khattak tested the strength of the life vest’s buckles with his hand. ‘Those are good questions, Rachel. I’m afraid I don’t know the answers.’

  ‘That’s because the answers aren’t on Chios. I hope you’re ready for another trip, sir. I think we need to be on the other side of this journey. But mostly I think you need to get Ali to tell you what it is that he knows.’

  When he’d made arrangements to meet Rachel at a restaurant, Peter Conroy came out of the service tent to join him, conveying an eagerness to be of assistance that was at odds with their earlier discussion. Khattak weighed it, but it was too soon to draw definitive conclusions. Being questioned by the police disturbed the innocent and guilty alike, albeit for different reasons. Conroy gave him a small piece of paper: the receipt for a storage facility, charged to Audrey’s credit card. But the facility wasn’t in Greece, as Khattak would have expected. It was in a town called Delft. And if Khattak’s memory was correct, Delft was not a town in England, Germany, or France, lin
ing up with Audrey’s plane ticket purchases – it was a city in the Netherlands.

  The boxes Shukri had described weren’t in Athens, to his knowledge, and they weren’t at W2W headquarters either on Lesvos or Chios. Was it possible that Audrey had shipped the boxes to Delft? Could she have stored them at the facility mentioned on the receipt?

  He thought about the e-mail correspondence between Audrey and his sister, and between Audrey and Nate. He needed to give Gaffney a call to find out what he’d learned about where her e-mails had been sent from.

  Conroy helpfully urged him to turn the receipt over. A name was printed on the back. Perhaps the printing was Audrey’s, Khattak couldn’t tell.

  CIJA.

  He had no idea what it meant.

  24

  Souda camp perimeter, Chios

  Rachel wasn’t all that hungry after her choppy ride to Chios with Illario. She’d warmed to him during the short boat ride, enjoying his humor, enjoying the fact that he had any humor at all, given the things he saw every day: the condition of the living nearly as wretched as that of those drowned at sea, their names and histories lost.

  It was getting to her, this place. She felt bad about it but she longed to be off-island, and back with Nate and Sehr, picking up the friendship they’d established when Khattak had been in Iran. Vincenzo, Illario’s subordinate, hadn’t warmed up to Rachel at all; the more comfortably she chatted with Illario, the stormier the glances he cast in her direction. She suspected him of having a crush on his commander.

  They left her at the pier and went on to the camp, making the most of their few days’ leave. Rachel hadn’t asked but she guessed that Illario made a point of checking the number of survivors that made it across to the islands in the northern chain each day. She wondered if he was comparing those numbers to the crossings to Italy.

  Rubbing her tired eyes, she let Khattak order a late lunch for them. She described her efforts during the night, and he listened to her with his familiar combination of close attention and warmth, interpreting her emotions from her terse recital of the facts.

  ‘I never meant for you to become so personally involved, Rachel.’ Before she could flare up, he added, ‘Though I wouldn’t have expected anything else from you.’

  They talked about the life jackets and agreed that their next step would have to involve tracing Audrey’s steps in Turkey. The restaurant didn’t have wireless access or they could have checked for messages from Gaffney – they were waiting on his summary of locations, so they’d have a better understanding of what Audrey had been chasing.

  During the course of the night’s work, she and Khattak had lost track of Ali Maydani, who, for all they knew, had the answers. Their food came and they helped themselves to brined fish whose quotient of salt was an acquired taste. When they finished, they were served the ubiquitous Greek coffee. Khattak told her about Conroy and showed her the receipt.

  ‘The boxes are there, I think,’ Rachel said. ‘Unless the Greeks aren’t cooperating.’ She grinned at Khattak. ‘I know you had a rocky beginning, but maybe Inspecteur Roux would be willing to be more candid with you. She’s ahead of us in terms of putting pressure on the Greeks.’

  Rachel and Khattak both knew that despite the prime minister’s endorsement, the Greek authorities had primary jurisdiction. She thought of another idea.

  ‘Sehr didn’t seem to have much luck with the IPCD. Maybe you should give it a shot.’

  Khattak considered this in silence. Finally, he said, ‘I don’t want to infringe on relationships Sehr has established. She might think I’m questioning her competence.’

  Rachel shook her head, her ponytail bouncing. ‘Why would she, sir? We all want the same thing – a quick resolution to this, and answers about where Audrey may be, if she’s still alive.’

  Her words caught the attention of a group of men on the patio – most in their twenties, wearing ball caps. They were dressed in black, their T-shirts imprinted with a logo that contained a cubic emblem within a pair of laurels. The backs of their T-shirts were printed in Greek.

  ‘Sir.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Is that something we should be worried about? That emblem looks like a swastika.’

  Khattak had his back to the men. Rachel didn’t think it was a good idea for him to turn around. These men wouldn’t take Khattak for an Italian or Greek. She reached across the table and grasped his hand.

  ‘I’m tired, love,’ she said, adopting an affectionate tone. ‘Should we head back to our hotel?’ Under her breath, she muttered, ‘The Athena looks pretty good. That’s where you booked us in, right?’

  Khattak picked up on her cue at once. He ran a caressing hand along Rachel’s arm, a gesture that caused her to gulp her coffee, scalding the back of her throat. He summoned the waiter and paid the bill, escorting Rachel out from the far side of the patio. They walked hand in hand, Rachel conscious of a strange new tension.

  ‘You don’t think we should head to Lesvos to look for Ali?’

  They walked to the Athena, a guesthouse ten minutes down the road, built like a miniature castle with two arched windows at the summit of a flight of stone stairs. A Greek flag flew beside a medallion of the goddess Athena.

  ‘No point in delaying, sir. Let’s see what Gaff has sent us, then let’s get across to Turkey on the first boat. We could fly but I think we should follow Audrey’s exact route.’

  They were far enough from the restaurant that Rachel could raise the issue of the men in black. ‘They’re watching the camp,’ she said. ‘They’re watching you. Any idea who they are?’

  Khattak looked back. The group of men had been joined by several others. One was looking straight at him, his strong face set with enmity. He’d brought a black staff with him and laid it on the ground, its red flag tightly furled.

  ‘I haven’t seen them before. When I arrived at Souda there was a different group of men sitting there, older and more vocal. They were watching the camp as well.’

  ‘Maybe we should talk to the police.’

  ‘It might be enough to warn the proprietor of the Athena. I’m sure they don’t want trouble around here.’

  Once inside the hotel, Rachel freed her hand from Khattak’s. He’d been holding on to it as an afterthought; she could see that he was preoccupied. The proprietor, a man named Nikos Papadakis, wasn’t forthcoming about the police, but he gave them advice about ferry crossings. They had missed the afternoon ferry; the next one wasn’t until the morning.

  They checked into the hotel for the night but stayed together in the lobby.

  Khattak had received the message from Gaffney. He forwarded it to Rachel so they could make comparisons. Nate had also sent him an e-mail containing scans of Audrey’s credit card purchases from the time she’d left for Greece. Together, these comprised at least four months of records. Rachel borrowed a pencil from the front desk and began to chart a course that followed the location tags attached to Audrey’s e-mails.

  When she’d finished cross-referencing e-mails and credit card purchases, there were two separate trips that she’d tracked.

  The first was a trip Audrey had made by boat from Mytilene, Lesvos, to Izmir, Turkey. She’d stayed in Izmir for several days before catching a flight to Paris. From Paris, she’d taken a trip to Brussels, and from Brussels she’d flown back to Izmir, then crossed back to Mytilene.

  That had been in January. In between, Audrey had sent numerous e-mails from the Greek islands, and just as many from Izmir. A week before her disappearance, she’d taken the second of two complicated trips: Mytilene to Izmir, where she’d purchased bus tickets to Hatay. She’d stayed in Hatay for a day before returning to Lesvos. Then she’d flown to the Austrian-German border, where she’d taken a series of train trips that had seen her end up in Delft. For the two days she was in the Delft area, there were no transactions recorded on her credit card and no e-mails from her account
. She’d flown back to Greece; a day later she’d sent an e-mail to Nate from Lesvos. There was no record of her journey from Mytilene to Izmir; Rachel suspected she’d used her private boat for that trip.

  Audrey had purchased three bus tickets for Hatay – who had she taken with her? Ali and the little girl? Why would Audrey have taken two refugees who’d fled Syria back to the Syrian border? Were these roundabout trips attempts to find Israa?

  One thing was clear. Only after the trip to Hatay had Audrey rented a storage unit in Delft. The boxes that were missing from Woman to Woman’s offices on Lesvos were likely stored in Delft. Rachel believed whatever was in those boxes had something to do with Audrey’s trip to Hatay. One week after her return to Lesvos, she’d disappeared, and Aude Bertin and Sami al-Nuri had been found shot with Audrey’s gun.

  Had something in Hatay precipitated this outcome?

  She studied the receipt Khattak had passed her.

  CIJA.

  What did it mean? A Google search brought up the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and the Center for Investigative Journalism in the Americas. Could Audrey have been trying to break a story on the refugee crisis?

  There were other acronyms Rachel needed to check as well. She bookmarked the page and looked over at Khattak.

  ‘Hatay, sir. I don’t get it. What’s there? It’s not near the coast, it’s near the Syrian border. Why on earth would Audrey have risked a trip to the border? Especially if she was traveling with Syrian refugees?’

  He shook his head. Neither of them knew enough about the refugee crisis, or what Audrey had been doing with her time. Khattak was sorting through information on his laptop and now he angled the screen in her direction.

  He’d done a search on Hatay, trying to find a link to the refugee crisis. There were dozens of refugee camps in Turkey; one of them was a heavily guarded camp close to the Syrian border called Camp Apaydin. Reading about it had confirmed something to Khattak – the muscles in his face were taut.