by Vicki Delany
Hallucinations as my damaged brain tried to make sense of the world. Mistaking what I’d done with Lily? Confusion, too much happening at once.
“Aside from anything else,” Brecken was saying, “we had to take officers off the search in the woods to look for you.”
“And bring in outside resources,” McNeil added. “We can’t pull a dog suddenly off one search and put it onto another. Too confusing. We had to get Quinte West out to help with the search for you. They’re not happy at finding you a few yards from your own doorstep.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I must have fallen asleep.”
“Yeah, right,” Brecken said, his voice dripping with scorn. “On a dirt floor in a cold cellar. When your own bed is a couple of yards away.” He pushed back his chair so suddenly I jumped. He stood up and placed his hands on the table. He leaned over me. His breath was hot on my face. “You can save everyone a lot of time and bother if you tell us where she is. “
“But I didn’t…. I don’t know…”
“Ms. Manning,” McNeil interrupted, the voice of sweet reason. “We know your story. About the attack in Afghanistan. I’ve heard that these IED explosions can do bad things to a person’s brain. Did you think you were getting back at the people who harmed you, killed and injured your colleagues? War’s a nasty business, and its consequences follow people home, soldiers or journalists.”
I gaped at her. They thought I’d killed Hila in revenge for the Taliban killing Simon. For all they’d taken from me. She was telling me if I confessed they’d make sure the court understood I wasn’t in my right mind.
“You’re talking rubbish. Hila isn’t Taliban,” I said. “I liked her.”
“Then what have you been up to for the past two hours?” Brecken said.
“I must have passed out.” I touched my head. “As you said, I have had a brain injury.” I tried to look ill. It wasn’t hard.
“Thursday afternoon,” Brecken said. “The day Ms. Popalzai disappeared. Where were you?”
“Here.”
“Where’s here?”
“At home. In the house.” I thought back. “I wasn’t feeling well, so I slept most of the afternoon.”
“Not according to your sister,” McNeil said. “She told us you left the house after lunch and she didn’t see you for several hours. In fact, she took a break to check on you and looked in your room thinking you were having a nap, but you weren’t there. She assumed you were visiting Ms. Popalzai and went back to work. Later that afternoon you were found lying on the ground. You claimed to have fallen. Is that how you got that bruise on your forehead?”
“I didn’t claim to fall. I did fall. I hit my head. I must have blacked out for a few minutes.”
“Was that after you led Hila Popalzai into the woods and killed her?”
“What the hell?” I turned to McNeil. “You can’t let him talk to me like that. That’s ridiculous. I liked her. I didn’t kill her. I wouldn’t have killed her even if I didn’t like her.”
“In that case,” she said, “you won’t mind telling us what you were up to on Thursday afternoon.”
Pain was growing behind my right eye, and I knew I had to take a pill and lie down while I was still capable of moving. Omar chuckled happily at my predicament.
Could they be right? I didn’t remember what I’d been doing on Thursday afternoon. I couldn’t even remember what I’d been doing for the past two hours. Was it possible I’d mistaken Hila for Omar?
And killed her?
Ridiculous. Shy, quiet, gentle Hila. So smart, so strong. As different from Omar and his ilk as one could possibly be.
Had she said something in Pashtun and, my confused brain thinking I was back in Afghanistan, this time with the chance to save myself, I lashed out?
Had I killed her?
I started to cry. Tears ran down my face. I fumbled in my pocket for a tissue but couldn’t find one. Rick Brecken leaned back, taking himself out of my private space. He had the beginnings of a smirk on his ugly face.
“Tell me how it happened, Hannah,” McNeil said, her voice soft and gentle. Full of sweet understanding. “An accident was it? Tell me where you put her and we can all go home.”
I could only cry. The pain wasn’t too bad. Not yet, but if I didn’t get to my pills soon…I wanted to confess, to get them to leave me alone.
What had I been doing on Thursday? Had I gone for a walk with Hila? Even if I didn’t kill her, did I know something that could help the police? Something I couldn’t remember?
What about today? I remembered leaving Lily in the woods, but Joanne said I hadn’t.
How could I possibly have lost two hours?
I’d seen the woman in the root cellar. I’d watched her go about her life. She’d fled from her home, she’d buried her child.
Was I going crazy?
“I have to lie down,” I said. “I’m sick.”
“Tell us where she is, Hannah, and we’ll have your sister take care of you.”
I would have told them where Hila’s body was.
Except that I didn’t know.
McNeil’s cell phone rang.
The doorbell rang.
McNeil scowled and grabbed for her phone. She glanced at the call display and flicked it open. “What?” she growled.
Joanne came into the dining room. A woman was with her. She took one look at me and crossed the floor. She faced Brecken from the other side of the table. “This woman is seriously ill and she is under my care. I’m ending this interrogation right now.”
“Who the hell are you?” Brecken said. His hair almost stood on end and, through my misery, I was reminded of a dog defending its patch of territory.
“Doctor Rebecca Mansour.” Brown eyes glittered like shards of broken glass. “Ms. Manning is my patient and I am telling you to leave. Now.”
Brecken opened his mouth, but McNeil interrupted. “We’ll be doing just that.” She stuffed her phone back into her jacket pocket. She jerked her head at Brecken. “We’re needed.” His eyes opened a fraction wider.
Doctor Mansour reached down and touched my arm. She gave me a nice smile. “Let’s go upstairs, Hannah. I’m going to check you over. You don’t look good.”
“Seems the cavalry has arrived,” Brecken said. “Only a temporary reprieve. I will be back. Try and get your story straight before then, will you, Ms. Manning? And one more thing. Don’t be leaving the area.”
He stalked out.
Chapter Nineteen
She lay in a shallow muddy puddle, beside a slow-moving stream, face down. Her nose and mouth were in water, but it didn’t matter. She was no longer taking breath when she’d been put there.
Her shoes and baggy pants were missing along with her plain white cotton panties. Her black tunic was disheveled, her headscarf, the hijab, torn, the remnants wrapped around her neck. Her hands were bruised and scratched where she’d tried to defend herself, her lips and eyes badly swollen, and insects were already crawling into the vicious cut that exposed the lumpy gray matter of her brain. Her legs were spread, toes pointing toward the earth, and her virgin blood leaked slowly into the mud. The dog, they suspected, had had a taste before the burrs trapped on his tail snagged on the torn hijab. Tiny fish, not much more than flashes of silver, darted in and out of the wounds, feasting on what they found there.
Men and women moved through the woods. Birds watched them from the branches of trees, rabbits and foxes scurried for safety, and unseen deer slipped into deeper cover. It was July and the sun wouldn’t be setting for a while yet, but it would set before they’d seen enough, and strong lights were being brought in over animal trails and snowmobile lanes by officers riding ATVs. Those same ATVs would take her out of the woods to the coroner’s van waiting by the road.
The men sur
rounding the body stepped back as Brecken and McNeil arrived. No one said anything. McNeil grunted and dropped to her haunches, careless of swamp water and muck leaking into her leather boots and dirtying the hem of her pants.
Brecken stood on the bank watching, hands in his pockets. “Is it her?”
“Not much doubt about it.”
“Why the hell didn’t your people find her before this?”
McNeil didn’t take offence at his tone. She studied the body and the soggy ground and marsh surrounding it before saying, “I don’t think it was here.”
“What’s that mean?”
“She was killed someplace else. And brought here.” Her eyes moved across the body, studying the damage. “Looks like she was given a good beating. Raped, maybe. So not Manning.”
“Still could have been. Except for the raped part, and you won’t know if that’s what happened until the pathologist has a look. Manning’s keeping a lot of secrets, and she’s not right in the head. At least that’s the impression she’s trying to give. “
“Convenient the doctor showing up.”
“Yes.”
“Speaking of doctors, here’s one now.” She spoke over her shoulder. “Welcome to the party.”
The pathologist began to take the tools of his trade out of his bag.
McNeil rose to her feet in one smooth movement. She stepped back. No need to see any more. She’d get the full report in due course.
She stood beside Brecken, lowering her voice so the others couldn’t hear. “I’d still like to know what business this is of yours.”
He didn’t look at her. “I’m sure you would, Sergeant.”
Chapter Twenty
“I didn’t kill her,” I said to Rebecca Mansour.
“Shush,” she replied. She guided me upstairs while Joanne ran on ahead to turn down the covers on my bed.
The room was close in the heat of the day. I lay down, shut my eyes, and felt the doctor’s small frame settle beside me. Joanne pulled off my shoes.
“Your sister tells me you’re not able to account for some time this afternoon,” Rebecca said.
“I fell asleep, that’s all.”
“Outside? In the root cellar? On the ground? While people searched for you and called your name?” Joanne said. “I doubt that. And this wasn’t the first time, either.”
“Hannah?” Rebecca prompted.
“Maybe I like sleeping on the ground,” I said, “reminds of me of some of the postings I’ve had.”
I felt her cool hands on my forehead.
“And then there was the getting Lily wrong,” Joanne said. “Doctor, Hannah told me she’d left Lily and Ashley in the woods. But she hadn’t. That was just wrong.”
“Hannah?”
“I get confused sometimes, okay? It’s why I’m seeing a brain doctor.”
“The passing out is worrying, indeed. But the memory mistake is understandable. It’s called confabulation. Your brain is compelled to make sense of the world. Particularly in times of great stress or excitement, if a piece of information is missing—such as the whereabouts of your niece—you insert a detail which may not be correct. Most of us, most of the time, can simply say we don’t remember, or ask for more information, but your damaged brain panics when pieces go missing.”
I settled back into the pillows and closed my eyes as her voice drifted around me.
I slept, and my dreams did not trouble me.
***
When I woke, I was surprised to see that it was still daylight. I lay in bed, warm and comfy under my thick, fluffy duvet. I thought about Hila, poor Hila. After all she had endured, to come here, to Canada, supposedly a place of safety, only to wind up dead in a patch of woods.
Where had that idea come from?
For a moment I was frightened. I slunk back under the covers. How did I know Hila was dead?
Get a grip, I said to myself. The cops are crawling all over the woods. Of course she’s dead. I didn’t have to be responsible to know that.
I thought about Hila. She didn’t really smile, just the one side of her face could turn up, and she didn’t laugh often. But when she did have a rare moment of amusement, it was all the more bright and infectious. She enjoyed learning the names of the plants and occasional animal we came across on our walks. Not that I can distinguish one tree from another or name the type of ducks that flew over our heads on their path between the marsh and the open lake. At the most I knew the difference between a maple and a birch, between a duck and a Canada goose, so I could tell her that.
I hoped she had not been too frightened in her last moments.
Rick Brecken. CSIS.
The Canadian government was letting a few Afghans into to Canada. Those who’d worked for the Canadians in one capacity or another. Precious few, considering that if the Taliban returned, their lives, and the lives of their families, wouldn’t be worth living. I’d assumed Hila was just an ordinary refugee. Maybe she’d worked as an interpreter for the Canadians, or her father had.
But CSIS wouldn’t give a damn about any ordinary Afghan refugee.
Who was Hila?
I pushed the bed covers aside. Not my concern.
I smelled coffee wafting up from downstairs, and I heard Charlie yelling something and his mother’s quiet voice in reply.
Coffee. That was strange. No one in this family ever drank coffee in the evening. At that moment I noticed the beams of light slipping into my room from beneath the blinds.
Coming from the east, not the west.
It was morning, which meant I’d slept around the clock.
What had Doctor Mansour given me?
Could I have more?
The family was at the kitchen table when I came in, surrounded by the Sunday morning smell of coffee, bacon, and maple syrup. Jake had the sports section of the Saturday Globe and Mail spread out in front of him and a cup of coffee, steam rising, at his elbow. Lily leapt to her feet and ran to give me a hug. She smelled of good soap and toothpaste and straw. She’d been out to the barn already. Jake looked up from the sports scores long enough to scowl at me and Joanne said, “Good morning. You’ve been asleep for a long time. Are you ready for pancakes?”
I sat down. Charlie was stuffing blueberry pancakes into his mouth as fast as he could. “Good?” I said. He grunted. “No pancakes, thanks. I’ll just have tea and toast. Don’t get up. I’ll help myself in a minute. Are there any, uh, developments?”
Joanne glanced at her children. Charlie’s head was down and Lily was at the fridge, pouring herself orange juice. She nodded, almost imperceptibly. Not good news then.
“What are your plans for the day?” I asked.
“We’re farmers,” Jake snapped. “We farm. Every day.”
“Can I watch TV now?” Charlie asked. His plate was clean save for a small puddle of maple syrup.
“For a short while,” Joanne replied.
“I must have been pretty darned tired,” I said. “I slept all the night through. I didn’t even hear Doctor Mansour leave.”
“She’s worried about you. These blackouts…”
“I’m not blacking out.”
“If you say so.”
Lily shut the fridge door and pressed herself against the back of my chair. Her arms came around me and she held me close. I reached up and patted her hands. Jake and Joanne exchanged worried glances. He pushed himself up from the table. “Come on, sweet-pea. You can give me a hand in the barn. ”
She gave me another tight hug before unwrapping herself. “Sure, Dad.”
When they’d left, Joanne also got up from the table. She filled the kettle and switched it on.
“Hila?”
“Yeah. They found her. Her body. Not long after those two were here, talking to you, a
nd the doctor arrived. I guess that phone call Detective McNeil got told her they’d found her. It.”
“Have you told Lily?”
“Yes. We felt that we had to. Fortunately the ambulance and the forensic van didn’t have to come onto our property to get to…the place. There’s an old road into the marsh and then trails from there.”
“I don’t suppose the cops told you anything?”
“No. One of them came to the house and told Jake a body had been found. A female, he said. He didn’t say it was Hila, but who the hell else would it be?”
“Who indeed?”
My sister’s hands were kept busy as she made me tea and toast.
“How’s Lily taking it?”
“Hard to tell. She seemed a mite clingy this morning. First to me and then to you.” The toaster popped and Joanne spread a thick layer of butter and last year’s raspberry jam. She put the plate in front of me. I pushed it aide, and she said, “You need to eat.”
“Yes, Mom.”
She didn’t smile. “This is going to be hard on Lily. Very hard. It was one thing when Jake’s grandmother died last year. We’d prepared the kids for that. But a woman Hila’s age?”
“I don’t suppose the police told you anything about the cause of death?”
She shook her head and poured hot water over a tea bag. “No. I saw a news van last night, driving past. Fortunately it didn’t stop here. Bloody reporters. That’s all we need.” She glanced at me quickly. “Present company excepted.”
I didn’t mind. Over the years I’d heard every insult known to journalists. “Perhaps you should get some counseling for Lily. I bet Doctor Mansour could recommend someone.”
“I doubt Jake would like that idea. He thinks folks today spend too much time wallowing in grief for people they hardly know. Look, Hannah, I’m sorry he was so rude to you this morning.”
“No problem,” I said, wondering how much longer I could go on living here.
“All this disruption. The police, the…uh…search for you. It’s put him behind, and he doesn’t like that.”
“The search for me,” I said slowly. “You mean yesterday?”
