KH02 - City of Veils

by Zoë Ferraris

  “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.

  “Your problem,” she said, “is that you can’t get a woman.” She could see she’d struck a nerve, and it only emboldened her. “You think women should be your sex slaves. That’s what Leila was to you, wasn’t it? A pretty face. A cute, tight ass. Someone you thought you could fuck if you felt like it.” She couldn’t believe what was pouring out of her mouth. She summoned all her concentration to forget that people were watching her, their jaws probably hanging open. “So what happened? She said no? She met a handsome American guy?”

  His face twitched at the word American. He lurched forward, slamming his fists onto the table. “Shut your fucking mouth!”

  She held her ground. “She was sleeping with an American, wasn’t she?” Katya went on, speaking louder to control her shaking voice. “She was fucking Eric Walker.”

  “She had no virtue!”

  “And then what? She wouldn’t have you? That cheap, selfish whore wouldn’t give you what you wanted?”

  He leapt up, his chair slamming against the wall. This time she barely flinched. Osama was one foot behind him, ready to grab him.

  “Did she actually say, ‘No, I’d rather die’?” Katya asked. “Was that what gave you the idea?”

  Fuad’s fists were rhythmically clenching and unclenching, his jaw working, muscles knotting his cheek.

  She felt reckless now. “Leila wasn’t just beautiful, she was smart,” she went on. “She saw you and knew right away what most women would only sense—that you’re not worth it.”

  “She was a bitch.” He lurched toward her, spraying spittle on her face.

  “Maybe,” Katya said. “But she didn’t deserve to die.”

  “Yes, she fucking did!” he shouted, his hands gripping the table as if preparing to flip it over. “She fucking did deserve it!”

  “The boiling oil? Did she deserve that?” Katya’s voice was full of its own fury now. “The stabbing? The beating?”

  “She deserved every fucking minute!” And with a horrible strength he lifted the table, shoving it forward into her chest. Osama flew at Fuad. Katya fell backward, arms raised to protect herself, hitting the wall with a thud. The door burst open. Officers ran in. She couldn’t breathe, then just as suddenly, air filled her lungs. The table fell back. The men were on the floor. She felt the urge to throw up. Shaking, she climbed to her feet, the edges of her vision going black. Osama was standing there, looking terrified.

  “I’m fine,” she said. Her voice came out like a whisper. She coughed. “I’m fine.”

  Osama shoved the table aside to reach her. He took her wrist, drawing her gently away from the wall. She let him keep hold of her hand as they left the room.

  49

  Miriam’s brother Justin was an object of fascination—tall, blond, and burly, he was the opposite of Miriam in almost every respect. The only thing they shared were their big blue American eyes. Nayir couldn’t help thinking it was a good thing they were American. The old saying about choosing a wife—that you need only look at her brother’s face to see what the bride would look like—would be so hopelessly wrong in this case that a prospective husband would feel deeply misled.

  The brother’s eyes fell on Nayir more often than he liked. He and Miriam were sitting in a lounge at the airport, Justin standing ten feet away at Miriam’s request to give them some privacy, but his eyes continued probing Nayir’s face. A few times Nayir caught him looking over suspiciously as if it were Nayir who had cheated on Miriam and then been kidnapped and killed in the Empty Quarter.

  “I still don’t know what to think about it all,” she whispered.

  Not for the first time, Nayir wasn’t sure how to reply. He thought of all the things the police hadn’t told her—about the video footage of Eric and Leila in the desert, at his apartment, drinki
ng alcohol on the American compound. About Katya’s later discovery that it was Eric’s hair on the inside of Leila’s burqa. He made a mental note to thank Osama for his tact.

  Miriam had already told him that the police had finally managed to track down Eric’s truck. Mabus had parked it on the street half a mile from their apartment. Miriam had gone to the police garage to identify the vehicle and remove any remaining personal items. She didn’t say what she’d found, but clearly it was a difficult subject, and Nayir didn’t press her.

  “Did they tell you that they know now for certain that Leila was killed by a man named Fuad?” Nayir said.

  “Yes,” Miriam said. “But they didn’t tell me who he was.”

  “He was stealing from her brother’s store. She took the surveillance video to him. She wanted to blackmail him, I think.”

  Miriam nodded and looked at her hands. A tear slid down her cheek.

  “Miriam.” Her brother was standing over them now. “We’ve got to get to the gate.”

  Miriam turned to Nayir. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you.” She wiped her cheek with the back of her sleeve and laughed. “Well, I’d be dead, actually.”

  “You survived.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  “I’m sorry about Eric,” he said. She nodded, and more tears started sliding down her cheeks. Nayir felt the impulse to take her hand, but her brother was looming.

  Heartbroken and haggard, Miriam looked up at her brother, stood, and took his hand. Nayir stood up as well, shocked by the suddenness of the departure.

  “At least one good thing came out of this,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I got to meet you.” She dropped her brother’s hand and opened her arms, drawing Nayir into a fierce, warm hug. Stunned, he returned the embrace.

  Watching her walk away, he felt a sense of loss, a feeling made more painful by its permanence. It was, and it was not. As she disappeared from view, he stood there mesmerized by the empty space, until he realized that she wasn’t coming back.

  50

  After they dragged him from the interrogation room, the guards took Fuad to another room down the hall where they could handcuff him to a table that was bolted to the floor. They cuffed his feet as well, and left him alone. The attack on Katya had been like the magnificent eruption of a volcano that was smoking dangerously.

  When Osama went in to take his confession five days later, Fuad had deteriorated significantly. He looked like one of those old hajjis who come to Jeddah and remain in a kind of permanent limbo, never quite making it to Mecca for their religious duties and never actually leaving, begging for money on the street on the pretext of needing to get back to some faraway home. Unlike the homeless hajjis, however, Fuad had not sunk to trying to manipulate compassion. He had broken, and now he was talking simply to finish the whole affair, so he could get out of this hell.

  Usually it took much longer—a few weeks in prison at least. But Osama suspected that Fuad had never had much tolerance for being unshaven, hungry, exhausted, and hot. He preferred clean suits, a nice haircut, a fine watch. His monthly laundry bills had been outrageous. A lifelong bachelor, he earned enough to live in unabashed comfort.

  Osama took a seat at the table, set down a water bottle for Fuad, and opened his folder. The guard released Fuad’s hands so he could drink, but he didn’t touch the bottle. Osama took his time assembling photographs and paperwork, seeming to ignore the man sitting opposite him, although the stench of his clothing made this almost impossible. At night the guards came in to take him to a cell where he could pray and eat a solid meal, but during the day he was kept here, in an unair-conditioned room, waiting.

  He had started confessing on day four, telling them everything through the one-way glass. But Osama had waited. They still had evidence to process, and they wanted to weaken him even more.

  Now he looked up at Fuad. “Let’s go over this again,” he said easily. “You killed her.”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  As Fuad began talking, Osama noticed that Fuad’s tongue was swollen. He pushed the water bottle closer but Fuad ignored it. He was in a miserable state, but he still had his pride.

  “She came to your house that morning to show you the videotape,” Osama prompted.

  “I got angry.” Fuad’s face showed only a twinge of remorse; he seemed more concerned with not letting the memory anger him now. “She offered me a deal,” he went on. “She said she’d be willing to take half the money and not tell her brother.”

  “Tell him that you were stealing from him?”

  “Right.” Fuad swallowed and nursed his tongue against the inside of his cheek.

  “And what did you say to her offer?” Osama asked.

  “I said…” Here he hesitated. This was the part he’d glossed over when he’d been shouting his guilt at the window. “I said I’d think about it. She said no, she wanted an answer right away.”

  Osama saw it in a flash. Leila might have been courageous enough to critique the unfairness or hypocrisy she saw in the world around her, but when it came right down to it, she was not an idealist. He thought back through all the reports he’d read—Majdi’s evidence, Katya’s interview notes, his own conversations with Abdulrahman and Ra’id and Bashir. Money was at the root of everything. Leila needed it. It was the primary subject in all her interviews with women. And perhaps that’s what had really interested Leila: how to get money, how to break the cycle of reliance on men. Bashir had even said it outright: all she wanted was his cash.

  Had she used any other footage as blackmail? The Mabus documentary would have been a better tool than the security footage of Fuad. At least Mabus had had some assets worth stealing.

  “And then what?” Osama asked.

  “Then she got angry.” Fuad snorted and reached for the water. He took a long drink and water dribbled down his chin. “She started accusing me of stealing—as if she had any virtue. She threatened to go to the police right then if I didn’t say yes. I kept thinking: This is Abdulrahman’s sister. She’s a fucking liar and a user, and she thinks she’s a virtuous woman. She really thinks that. But she was filthy.”

  “What happened next?”

  “She touched me. She pushed my arm, because I wasn’t responding.” He took another drink of water. “Then she started really threatening me: ‘I’m going to tell my brother. Your life is finished.’ ”

  “And that made you angry?”

  “Yes,” he said forcefully. “She was everything that was fucking wrong with the world. A spoiled girl and a liar. Always taking money from her brother, never doing anything for anyone else. We were in the kitchen. I was cooking. She came up to me, really got in my face, and said, ‘I’ll make sure he prosecutes you.’ Meaning Abdulrahman. And I couldn’t control it, I just picked up the frying pan and threw it in her face. All the hot oil, the eggplant—everything went crazy. She put up her hands to protect herself, but it was… disgusting.”

  He set down the water. His hands were steady, but his face was twitching with suppressed anger. “She started fighting, screaming. It was like the oil hadn’t burned her at all. She went crazy and grabbed a pot. She threw plates and glasses. I grabbed the only thing I could find—this old ‘iqal that was hanging on a hook—and I started trying to hit her arms, to get her to drop the shit she was throwing at me. By then I was really angry. I wanted to hurt her. She came into my house to defile everything. She grabbed a knife from the counter and came at me. I grabbed another knife and I stabbed her. I don’t know how many times. She was pounding at me, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I kept stabbing her. I just kept stabbing—” He broke off. His face showed no more than a slight confusion, as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself. “I threw her off of me and realized she was dead.”

  “But she wasn’t,” Osama said. “She didn’t die until you broke her neck.”

  “I just wanted to make sure. She was… there was n
o going back. Her face…” He motioned to his own face. “It was over.”

  A long silence went by. Osama felt himself floating in a kind of mental stasis, staring numbly at Fuad. The words her face… it was over kept repeating in his mind. What did it mean? That because she was burned, ugly forever, she would somehow need death? That without her pretty face, she no longer had a purpose for living?

  Osama forced himself to ask the next question. “How did you break her neck?”

  “I just grabbed her head.” Fuad’s lip curled slightly, his hands pantomiming the action. “Jerked it like this…”

  “And the oil burns on her hands and face? They weren’t just splash marks.”

  For the first time, Fuad looked slightly embarrassed. “I heated more oil to make it even.”

  “Why?”

  “So no one would know who she was.”

  “And then you stripped off her jeans.”

  He nodded, opened his mouth, and shut it again. “I was dragging her body out of the car and the jeans got caught on something near her hip. I heard the fabric tear. I thought I’d take the jeans off but I couldn’t do it. I was too eager to get out of there, so I left it.”

  “And where did you take her body?”

  “A pier north of the city. It was the only place I could think of.”

  Osama was quiet for a moment. “You said you were at the air-conditioner repair store that morning. We confirmed that you were there.”

  “I lied.”

  “So did the shop owner.”

  “He’s always got so many people in that shop,” Fuad said. “He’s always frazzled. I had gone in the day before, and I was sure he wouldn’t remember which day I was there exactly.”

  “You also confirmed that you’d had coffee with a friend. Was that a lie, too?”

  Fuad shook his head. “I really did go for coffee.”