by Estelle Ryan
“Physically, they took very good care of me. Because of their business, we were wealthy and I had the best of everything. I wanted for nothing. Except love.” Her shoulders relaxed marginally. “I got that from my Aunt Fatemeh. She was the mother I should’ve had. Reza and Maryam were always very busy with the business, so I often stayed with Fatemeh. Even at weekends.
“She was an accountant and by the time I went to high school, she was the CFO of a small, but influential tech company. She was everything my mother was not, even though she was my mother’s sister and they almost looked like twins. Fatemeh was strong in her faith, but didn’t wear the full-body cloak—the chadar—like Maryam and sometimes didn’t even wear her headscarf—the hijab. Her faith helped her lead a better, richer life and helped her be a better, kinder person.”
“She’s the reason you are as resilient and strong as you are today.” I could see those traits and more in her as she spoke.
“Strong?” Her short laugh held no humour. “I try to be, but I’m terrified of my own shadow. No, really. The first moments when I wake up every morning, I can barely breathe I’m so scared. Then I remind myself that I’m the one who holds all the power in my life. I’m the one who decides what I wear, what I eat, what music I listen to. I’m the one who came to Prague with nothing, but fought my way through university to get my accounting degree. I’m the one who learned to be fluent in Czech and English. I’m the one who got a job and I’m the one who qualified for a mortgage so I can buy my small one-bedroom flat. I did all this. Only then can I breathe again and start my day. Strong? No, I don’t feel strong even though I wish I did.”
“Your father? Reza?” I asked.
“An extremist. There is no other way to describe him. Iran is this amazing country filled with people who are warm and open-hearted towards foreigners. Sure, some people are a bit more cautious, but most Iranians love to meet new people. We have an ancient culture, which is good and bad. Good because it gives us so much to draw from. Bad because it doesn’t always move with the times. In some ways women are still oppressed, but in others women have a lot of freedom. One example is that there are more female engineering students in Iran than in any other country in the world. There are—like in any country—people who are on the extreme ends of this. Reza and Maryam are two of those. They hate everything that represents Western culture.
“Make no mistake, there are quite a few things I’m not crazy about. I still live a rather conservative life. I don’t condone the Western loose morals and thinking that it’s okay to try everything at least once. Some things should never be tried. But I respect others’ choices if they want to try something. That’s maybe the one thing I love most about Western culture—the possibility, the freedom to choose.
“Reza and then later Shahab didn’t agree with that. They believed that the general population is too stupid to choose wisely.” A sad look crossed her face. “When I mentioned this once to Jarda, he laughed and said that there is a bit of truth in that. I liked him.” She rubbed her temples and sighed. “Reza believed only a select few should make the decisions and the rest of the world should follow them without question. That included decisions about interpreting the Koran and everything to do with Islam.
“He would take passages from the Koran and twist them to justify his sick ideologies. Shahab was exactly like that. After he lost the promotion, he would sit for hours with Reza and they would discuss such things.”
“They got on well?” Colin asked.
“Like a house on fire.” Her top lip curled in contempt. “Even better after Shahab lost his promotion. Ours wasn’t an arranged marriage by any means. But Reza and Maryam did everything they could to encourage our union after they’d introduced us. In the beginning it was wonderful. It wasn’t difficult to give in to their pressure. Shahab was one of the few people who’d shown me affection and that was what I fell for. It was all false.”
She fell quiet, trapped in her memories. The pain of that time was clear to see on her face.
“What do you know about Sven and Anna?” I wanted to know how the octogenarian owners of Seppo-Tommi fitted into Reza Alikhani and Shahab’s world.
“From Helsinki? Or wait, they now live in some small coastal village.” Her depressor anguli oris muscles turned the corners of her lips down. “Reza had more affection for them than for me.”
“What was their relationship?”
“Reza studied finance and commerce in Helsinki after he left school. It was before he met Maryam. He was a struggling student with no friends and didn’t fit in with his classmates. He went to have his eyes tested one day and this couple who did the test felt sorry for him. They invited him for dinner and within a month, he was living in their house with them. He always said they took care of him when he needed it most and he would do the same.” She jolted upright. “Did Shahab kill them too?”
“No.”
“Uh. Okay.” She sat back, but didn’t relax. “Well, I never met them. Reza used to go once a year to Finland to visit them. I know that they met Maryam and she liked them too. She often went to visit them too.”
That explained how Sven and Anna came to own the company that had provided Shahab with funds. “How much do you know about your parents’ company?”
“They sell toys.” She shrugged. “I always thought it was the biggest irony of life—these two unloving, horrid people selling products that bring so much joy to children. Reza and Maryam were the two least joyful people I’d ever met. Maybe with the exception of Shahab.” She paused for a moment, looking up and left. She shook her head. “No. I can’t think of anything about their business that I haven’t told the police.”
All the information she was giving us was important. It helped created a more rounded profile of Shahab. But it wasn’t bringing us any nearer to locating him and preventing that opioid weapon from killing people.
Klára continued to talk about how much she loved Iran, the people, the culture, but not her family. While she talked about the psychological abuse she suffered, I thought of everything we’d learned so far.
Shahab did everything with calculated purpose. His victims had been strategically chosen. He had not shown a change in his behaviour significant enough to make me expect his choice of when and where to use the opioid weapon to be without meaning.
I waited for Klára to finish talking about the many successful Iranian businesswomen. It was obvious to me she was trying to calm herself by talking about things and people not related to Shahab or her parents.
“Did you and Shahab ever talk about Prague?” I asked when she inhaled to continue telling us about a woman who had started an online recruiting service in Iran that now had over half a million registered professionals.
She winced and nodded. “Once. Because of Shahab’s job, we had really good internet at home. The government controls, censors and slows down the internet like crazy. Our internet was never throttled, so I was able to visit many websites I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to. He walked into the kitchen one day while I was browsing through photos of Prague. He hated it.” She glanced at the tall windows. “He said the historic buildings show just what kind of sick capitalist, money-grabbing mentality the West suffers from. I showed him Charles Bridge and asked him if he didn’t think it was an artistic and architectural beauty. He laughed at me. He said the moment people strive towards beauty is the moment those people need to be eradicated.”
“Was there any other building or place he specifically hated?”
She thought about this. “No. He just went on and on about Charles Bridge. He said all the people in the photo who were on that bridge were infidels and didn’t deserve to ever see paradise. He said the women in the photo wearing summer shirts, baring their arms and necks, were whores and should be severely punished.”
That was probably the reason Klára had stood out on the video footage. The tourists had likely been dressed in light summer clothes. A dark blue cloak that had covered her from head
to toe would have been in stark contrast.
I thought about Klára and the information we’d now been given access to. “I didn’t see the date when you left Iran. Do you remember?”
“Remember the day my life truly started? Of course.” She glanced again at Roxy’s closed door. “That is why I took the day off work and Nat and I went to the spa to celebrate. It’s seven years ago today.”
“Bloody hell.” Manny’s words came out as a whisper, but everyone heard. He looked at me. “Doc?”
“This would fit in with his profile. If he were to do something, today would give it much more symbolism.” I stared at Klára. “What else happened on this day?”
“How do you know something happened?”
“I saw it on your face.”
“Oh. Huh. Well, you are right about Shahab being into symbolism. We got married on the same date we met, three years later. And I left him on that day. This day.”
“That’s definitely one way of flipping him the bird.” Francine’s expression held approval.
“Holy mother of all the saints.” Manny rubbed both hands over his face. “He’s doing it today. Right, Doc?”
“It would fit.” I looked at Francine.
She swiped her tablet screen and tapped it a few times. Her face lost all colour. “Um. Guys?”
The shot of adrenaline racing through my system felt cold. My grip on Colin’s hand strengthened.
“What?” Manny twisted his torso to look at her tablet. “Oh, hell no.”
“Millard?”
“It’s Bree.” Francine stared at her screen. “I tapped into the security cameras on Charles Bridge just to see if there’s anything off.” She turned her tablet for us to see. “This is live.”
The camera was aimed towards the Lesser Town Bridge Towers serving as an entrance from the bridge to one of the streets leading to the castle. It wasn’t surprising to see a crowd of people on the bridge on this beautiful sunny spring afternoon. Most people were still wearing coats, but a few tourists were in t-shirts. Almost everyone was taking photos.
Bree was standing in the centre of the bridge looking straight at the camera. People were streaming around her, no one taking particular note of a woman standing frozen in one place. That they did not notice her nonverbal cues amazed me. Her rapid breathing, stretched and drawn-back lips and widened eyes behind the lightly-coloured sunglasses shouted her fear louder than words could.
“What are you looking at?” Klára asked. “The woman standing in the middle?”
“Bree.” Phillip pressed his fist against his chest. “Why isn’t she moving?”
“I don’t think she can.” Daniel looked at Ivan. “We need to evacuate the bridge.”
Ivan jumped up, his phone already against his ear.
“Where is the weapon?” I studied the image on Francine’s screen. “Bree is without her coat. I can’t see where a canister can be hidden.”
“She’s right.” Vinnie walked closer and soon everyone was crowding around Francine’s tablet.
“Wait a sec.” Francine turned her tablet back and tapped a few times. She shook her head. “This is the camera from Bree’s back. Look.”
Bree’s long braid hung straight down her back, the light breeze lifting a few strands that had worked their way out. Her muscle tension was immense. She was still wearing the same skinny plaid trousers she had on this morning, but her cream shirt and olive jacket had been replaced by a tight short-sleeve black t-shirt. There was no sign of a canister or any other way to deliver the opioid weapon.
“Go back to the previous view.” My voice sounded gravelly from the distress of watching Bree. Francine changed the image and the others stood back to give me a better view of the tablet. “This is too far away.”
“Give me a se... There.” Francine had zoomed in on Bree, her face now clearly visible.
I waited for the third person to pass her to confirm my suspicion. “She doesn’t want anyone to touch her.”
“Why?” Manny’s frown pulled his brow low over his eyes.
“I don’t know.” I had seen Bree’s comfort with physical closeness to others. She wasn’t like me.
Manny turned to Colin. “Where the bloody hell is your guy?”
“I don’t know.” Colin looked up from his phone. “I’ve sent him three messages and he hasn’t read them yet. I’m beginning to worry about him.”
“You damn well should.” Manny’s lips were in a thin line. “He was supposed to keep Bree safe.”
“My team is there.” Ivan walked over to us and pointed at the tablet. I looked back and saw people jerking to the side and then starting to move off the bridge as police officers came closer.
“Tell them to stay far away from Bree.” The words rushed out of my mouth as I saw the increased fear on Bree’s face. “No one should touch her.”
Ivan spoke into his phone and the officers moved away from Bree. One officer turned back to Bree and held out one hand as if to calm her. He spoke to her, but she didn’t respond. She didn’t speak, didn’t nod, didn’t shake her head. She didn’t move.
“She won’t talk.” I had no doubt about this, even though I didn’t know the reason for it.
“Holy hell.” Manny rubbed his hand over his head. “What’s going on there?”
Francine handed her tablet to Manny and got up to get her laptop. Soon she had the same footage on the larger screen and handed the laptop to Colin, but looked at me. “You’ll see her better there to keep an eye on everything.”
Colin put the laptop on his knees and turned it towards me. I leaned in and studied Bree’s face. Behind the amber-coloured lenses, her blinking was erratic and it held my attention. The lenses were transparent enough to see her eyes, the frame a smart distraction hiding her swollen eye. Her eyelids were the only parts of her body moving. She had not moved at all since I’d first seen her on the bridge. She was staring at the camera aimed at her.
At first I thought her blinking might be her attempt to communicate, possibly using something like Morse code, but it wasn’t. It was to contain her tears. She was not successful. One tear ran down her left cheek and her fear intensified. Why was she scared to cry?
Men in hazmat suits came onto the bridge and spoke to Bree, but she didn’t respond. Ivan kept repeating the same words into his phone and I hoped he was telling them to stay away from her. They did. In the twenty minutes it took for the hazmat team to clear the bridge and Bree from any traces of opioid, she did not move once.
I saw how her muscles started trembling and how she immediately forced herself to relax so there would be no movement. Curious.
“The bridge is clear. There are no bombs, no opioids, nothing.” Ivan looked at me. “What should we do?”
“Don’t touch Bree and don’t move her.” I got up. “I want to speak to her.”
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
“THIS IS NOT GOING BLOODY anywhere.” Manny opened the SUV’s back passenger door and got out. “It will be faster if we run.”
I agreed. We’d rushed down to Colin’s SUV to reach the bridge as fast as possible, but the traffic had now slowed down to a standstill. Most likely because the area around the bridge had been evacuated and cordoned off.
No one waited another second. Colin pulled to the side of the road and double-parked. All of us got out and ran. I estimated the distance to be another kilometre to the bridge. I wasn’t a sprinter, but I jogged often enough not to feel winded as we veered around tourists gawking at the police presence on and around the bridge.
“Make way!” Manny shouted as we neared a group of tourists, all of them aiming their smartphones at the bridge. I felt like flinching when the phones turned towards us. But Bree’s life was more important than my need to demand respect for my privacy.
Vinnie and Manny ran two metres ahead of us and soon Daniel and Ivan passed us as well, their fitness level clear in their ease as they pushed for speed. They reached the police cordon before us, Colin and me only half a mi
nute behind them. An officer was holding the yellow tape high and we slowed down just enough to lower ourselves under it.
I didn’t stop running when I got to the bridge. Ivan, Daniel and Vinnie were talking to Ivan’s team, standing by a tall statue. Manny was already standing in front of Bree, a five-metre distance between then. His hands were held out in a placating manner.
I stopped next to Manny, my eyes not leaving Bree. Not even when Colin and Manny exchanged a quiet greeting. I stepped away from them, closer to Bree. “I won’t touch you. I know you don’t want that. I also know you can’t or don’t want to talk or move.”
A tear ran down her cheek and she swallowed—even that movement controlled and minimised.
“We need to communicate and I recommend we keep it simple. I will ask questions and you can answer by blinking once for ‘yes’ and twice for ‘no’.”
She blinked once.
“Good.” I stopped when her eyes widened and she looked behind me. I turned around to see Manny and Colin coming closer. I turned back to her. “Everyone here knows not to touch you. Understand?”
She blinked once.
“Will Shahab’s weapon disperse that opioid if you move?”
She blinked once.
“Is there any camera connected to your sunglasses?”
She blinked twice.
“Are the glasses to hide your swollen eye only?”
She blinked once.
“I know you can’t tell me, so I’m going to start guessing how he determines your movement.”
Her eyes widened, then she looked down without moving her head. She was staring hard at her torso. The footage I’d seen of her wasn’t clear, but even now I couldn’t see anything under her black t-shirt. “There is something on your torso?”
She blinked once. Again her eyes widened and she looked to my side. Colin was standing next to me and held out his phone towards us. “Bree, I have Francine on the phone. She’s on speaker and wants to ask you a few questions.”
