A Deadly Divide

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  He looked around the room. At every station, officers were hard at work, gathering information, collating facts, busy in subsets of briefings, developing a theory of the shooting. In the office behind a glass door, Lemaire and Isabelle Clément were engaged in what looked like a shouting match, though they were making an effort to keep their voices down.

  Everything was happening quickly and with urgency, yet Khattak felt suspended in the moment, apart from it all, watching through a filtered haze.

  Rachel tugged at his sleeve. He heard her voice as if from a great distance away.

  He’d locked everything down from the moment he’d gotten the call to come to Saint-Isidore. Walking the blood-soaked halls of the mosque, waiting for the vans and ambulances to carry their cargo away—studying the bullet holes in the mihrab from a safe, clinical distance. But it was getting to be beyond him, from what could be expected from a man like himself—a man who’d grown too solitary and closed in by his faith.

  With each new case, there were those who looked to him for something he’d never been able to adequately impart. Like the boy Din, at Algonquin Provincial Park. Or the group of young dissidents in Iran—Taraneh reaching out to him, needing him, asking him to stay. Or Alizah facing him down at her sister’s funeral. As solitary a creature as he was, as much a prisoner of grief.

  He blinked back sudden shaming tears, grateful for the strength in Rachel’s hand as she tugged him out of the room, into the fresh air of the parking lot.

  It was time for maghrib prayer and he was in a town with a community that observed prayer, but he couldn’t attend because the mosque was still cordoned off. He longed to be in the divine presence, yet at the same time he recoiled from it.

  “Esa,” Rachel insisted, using his name to focus his attention. “Please tell me what’s wrong. What did Alizah say?”

  He brought his eyes to rest on Rachel’s upturned face, on the anxious concern for his well-being that blazed from her kind dark eyes.

  He was gripping her hand with a force that appalled him, but she didn’t try to pull away.

  He forced himself to let go, to monitor and slow the pace of his breathing, counting under his breath, in the same inexorable rhythm that he rehearsed on his tasbih. Rachel waited at his side, not pacing, not pushing … just there.

  Then he told her simply, “Youssef Soufiane just died.”

  She didn’t say anything at first, her face hollowed out by shock. She gnawed her lower lip; she was giving herself a moment to come to terms with his words.

  What could she say? What was there left to say?

  He’d needed Youssef to survive the grim and terrible reckoning that had taken place at the mosque; now he too was gone, his life extinguished in a fit of violence and rage. With an added mark of cruelty: the lily on his back. There would be no shielding Youssef’s family from this truth. The act of washing the body, the rituals of ghusl, would leave no truth untold. They would see the nationalist symbol and have to face the fact that Youssef had been killed because of his beliefs.

  The beliefs that had made him a person who wasn’t wanted in Saint-Isidore.

  And Khattak asked himself the question whether it wasn’t just Saint-Isidore and whether there was a place in this world where any member of his community could live unencumbered and at peace.

  He could see his own distress reflected in Rachel’s face.

  “Ah, I’m sorry, sir. Who else knows about this?”

  Khattak looked back at the station. “Lemaire and Clément, probably. They’ll have to make a statement, because nothing will stop Diana from holding her press conference now.”

  “Makes sense. I’d like to tell Chloé myself, before she hears it from anyone else.”

  Khattak made an effort to focus on the case. “You’ve ruled her out as a suspect?”

  “Gaff is pulling up background on the names I gave him, but I can’t see Chloé using an assault rifle. If she did, she wouldn’t have turned it on Youssef. It’s clear to me that Chloé was in love with him.”

  “Rachel—”

  They thought of the same case, a case they had worked in the past, where the love between two people had been weaponized, resulting in terrible injury.

  “I mean, it’s not absolute. We should dig into these Lilies of Anjou. They’re friends with Alizah, they’re on the fringes of the Muslim community, but they’re not entirely distant from Thibault. Still, my money is on Thibault. He has a bit of a god complex. Arrogance like that could maybe speak to method.”

  “We need a profiler,” Khattak said. “Lemaire shouldn’t waste any more time.”

  “I think if you mention it, he’ll probably listen.”

  The offhand way Rachel offered the advice made Khattak appreciate that she was getting to know how Lemaire operated. And if that was the case, it made more sense for Rachel to request that a profiler be assigned to assist them.

  “Sir? What about Roy and the church? What did you want me to do?”

  That soaring sense of loss engulfed him again at the words.

  How could the summer night brush against his senses with such ardent warmth, carrying the scent of blossoms and fresh pines? It reminded him of where he’d begun. Of what he’d hoped for when he’d first begun.

  It reminded him of Miraj Siddiqui’s blank face on a table at the morgue.

  Gruffly, he said to Rachel, “The mosque will be sealed for some time. I don’t think it’s a good idea, but the congregation is looking for another place to pray.”

  * * *

  He left Rachel to sort out matters with Lemaire, choosing to walk through the backstreets to the church. Étienne Roy lived in the small house beside it, on call for the needs of his parishioners. He welcomed Esa into a parlor full of books, where a pair of ginger tabbies were curled up on an overstuffed sofa. More composed than at their last meeting, and sporting an ecclesiastic collar, Père Étienne shooed the cats from the sofa and invited Esa to sit down.

  His kind eyes probed Esa’s face.

  “You look troubled,” he said.

  The genuine concern in his voice shifted the ice encasing Esa’s heart.

  “I should be asking about you. What you witnessed was unthinkable for a civilian. Especially for a man of the cloth.”

  Père Étienne wheeled an antique wooden tea table to a spot that was a comfortable distance between their seats. He poured tea from what Khattak recognized as a vintage tea set patterned with historic Québécois inns.

  “It was terrible,” Père Étienne said quietly. “You think you know the devil, then you realize you don’t until you see the proof of his work.”

  This insight interested Esa. “You attribute the shootings at the mosque to something…”—he hunted for the right word and settled on, “… supernatural?”

  Père Étienne placed a wide-rimmed teacup in Esa’s hands. The eyes that looked into his were deep and guileless. He was more fragile than Esa had first guessed; there was a tremor in his hands on his cup that Khattak attributed to incipient palsy.

  “We’ve both seen it in the course of our work. We know the devils that inhabit the human heart. That’s what I have seen in the church.”

  He gave Khattak a short lesson on the history of Saint-Isidore’s church, then turned the subject back to Esa’s visit.

  “You were involved in interfaith work with the imam. You must have thought highly of him. His congregation will need a safe place to pray. Would you be willing to offer the church? Knowing that it might result in another disturbance? And knowing that I have grave doubts about it myself?”

  Père Étienne was nodding before Esa had even finished his request.

  “Anything they need shall be theirs.” He hesitated. “If the altar and the Savior on the cross will not disturb them?”

  There was such a bright warmth in the priest’s eyes that Esa found himself giving in to it. Needing it. With no change in his expression to give himself away, he knew he could no longer think of Père Étienne as a suspe
ct.

  “Whose heart would not be lightened in the presence of the son of Mary?”

  A corresponding warmth brightened Père Étienne’s face. For a moment they were not priest and police officer, bound by their respective duties. They were men whose work had left them seeking a place of grace to heal a deadly divide.

  “You look tired, my son, and hungry. Let me bring something to give you the strength to face the duties you have yet to carry out.”

  He retreated into the interior of the little house, where Esa heard noises that indicated an offering of some kind would be brought to him on a plate. He had an unreasonable hope that it might be a slice of homemade cake.

  While Père Étienne was busy, he took a look around the little study, crammed full of books and samplers and handwritten notes on a desk, where in graceful and dignified French, Père Étienne had laid out the pattern of his sermons. Reading his preparations for the coming Sunday, Esa felt as though a small opening of light had arrowed through the darkness.

  I do not cause you grief to grieve you. What is your grief except a path to Me?

  And there are none among you that I will turn away.

  One of the tabbies leapt up onto the desk demanding to be petted. As she did so, her bushy tail dislodged a sheaf of papers. Esa bent to collect them as the other tabby slipped between his feet to brush against his ankles.

  He’d been marked by the pair of tabbies as a possible source of affection. Smiling, he stroked his hand over one of the cats, snatching a sheet of paper from beneath her feet. He turned it over and set it on the desk and felt an immediate shock.

  It was a copy of one of the flyers that had vandalized the student office on campus. The cartoon that featured a group of men kicking a woman in a burqa.

  A china plate rattled as it crashed down on the trolley. Père Étienne’s face was white. Gasping at Esa, he said, “It’s not—my son, it’s not…”

  Esa’s expression gentled. He moved to settle Père Étienne in his seat, taking his trembling hands in his own. He scooped up one of the tabbies and placed her in the priest’s lap, giving him something to hold on to. The cat glared at Esa balefully but curled up without further protest.

  He fetched a glass of water from the kitchen and held it so that Père Étienne could drink.

  Eventually, the other man said, “I know what you must think. I was found at the mosque with the gun. But I didn’t—the picture you found isn’t mine. It depicts a terrible act of cruelty.”

  Esa kept his voice even. “It depicts a hate crime.”

  It seemed to him that Père Étienne wanted something from him, was looking at him as if Esa might have the answer to a riddle that haunted his thoughts.

  But Esa had a question of his own.

  “Père Étienne. Do you take confession at your church?”

  31

  Rachel took a deep breath and made the call. If she waited any longer, she’d talk herself out of it again, and then she’d be back where she started. Second-guessing herself for no good reason and delaying a conversation that was more necessary by the moment.

  “You have to come back,” she said without preamble.

  “What? Who is this?”

  The voice on the other end sounded disoriented, as she might well be. Sehr Ghilzai had given Rachel her number, but the two women didn’t often have reason to connect. Sehr had known Esa as a friend for years and was the woman he’d grown to love after the long period of mourning he’d observed over the death of his wife, Samina.

  “It’s Rachel. And I’m calling you because I think Esa is in trouble.”

  Rachel knew she was way out of line making this call. She had no right to interfere in Khattak’s personal affairs, and he wouldn’t thank her for pressuring Sehr to return from her vital work at an NGO in Greece, assisting Syrian refugees. He’d view it as an intrusion and it was. Rachel didn’t care. She would argue about it with Khattak later. If he was thinking of leaving Community Policing, there wasn’t much worse that he could do. Raise an eyebrow? Offer a stern reprimand? He’d need stronger weapons than that to dent Rachel Getty’s courage.

  She launched into a recital of everything that had happened since they’d arrived in Saint-Isidore. Then she discussed the effect she thought it was having on Khattak’s mental health. Though they’d grown extremely close as partners, she knew that Khattak often felt isolated and alone. Having Sehr in his life was supposed to change that. But it bloody well couldn’t when she was thousands of miles away. And then, Khattak did his damnedest to protect Sehr from the knowledge of anything that hurt him, including the emotional impact of his work with CPS. It was a difficult line that Khattak had to walk in his job, and if Sehr wasn’t up to supporting him through it, Rachel couldn’t see how Sehr was of any use. It was also past time to call Sehr out on the way she was punishing Khattak for taking so long to come to the conclusion that he loved her, insisting on distance at the very moment Khattak needed her close.

  But before she could gather a full head of steam, Sehr cut her off.

  “It’s good to hear from you, Rachel.” Her tone was wry. “And, yes, I’ve heard the news.”

  “On Lesvos?” Rachel spluttered in disbelief. Then she was drenched in embarrassment. What if Khattak had called Sehr himself?

  “No, no. I’m back, Rachel. I flew in last night.”

  “Does the boss know?” Rachel asked cautiously.

  “I wanted to surprise him. I’m not here for long, but I was planning to see him today.”

  “We’re in Saint-Isidore.”

  “Yes,” Sehr said dryly. “So I gathered.”

  She sounded sleepy, as if she was still adjusting to the difference in time zones.

  “Can you get here right away?”

  She waited impatiently as Sehr considered her request.

  “I don’t think that would be wise. It’s better if I wait for your return to Toronto.”

  An impasse. But not for long. Rachel had screwed up her courage to make the call; she might as well see it through.

  “Listen, Sehr,” she spoke in the same tone she used when she was mapping out a play for her hockey team. Get behind the blue line. “He’s not doing well. The shooting has hit him hard and he’s talking about leaving Community Policing. He wants me to step in and take his place. That is not happening. You have to make it not happen.”

  There was a long pause before Sehr said the only thing that mattered to Rachel. The thing she was counting on Sehr to say.

  “I’ll catch a flight tonight. Where will I find him, Rachel?”

  Rachel gave her the address, feeling a momentary relief. Sehr would be able to fit the pieces back together. That was her special gift. At least, Rachel hoped it was.

  Clearing her throat, Rachel asked another intrusive question. She might as well. In for a penny, in for a pound.

  “You’re still together, right? You won’t hurt him?”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt him, Rachel. I just needed a little time.”

  That was what had hurt him, Rachel thought. Not knowing if he had anything to count on. To hope for.

  “He’s not himself,” she said finally. “Things here are getting to him.” She paused. “This case is ugly and it’s going to get uglier. It would be good if you were around.”

  Sehr’s reply was grave. “He makes his own decisions. You know that, Rachel.”

  Growing angry, Rachel pinched the bridge of her nose, adjusting the phone in her grasp.

  “He didn’t decide that you should stay behind on Lesvos.”

  “I have my own life, my own work, Rachel.” Sehr sounded sad, but Rachel didn’t care. What the hell did she have to be sad about? Everything she wanted was right within her grasp.

  “Do you know what’s unique about your relationship with Esa, though?”

  Sehr stayed quiet. Maybe because she had some inkling of what Rachel was planning to say. Rachel steamrollered over the silence.

  “When he needs help, he doesn’t
ask for it. He doesn’t think he deserves it. That’s because of you.”

  * * *

  She hung up before Sehr could respond, breathing heavily, angry at Sehr, angry at herself. Jesus Christ. The woman had Esa-fucking-Khattak wildly in love with her, and all she could think of was playing these stupid games. Though maybe Rachel was angry because of how things had played out with Nate. Khattak had given Sehr a chance to work things out. Why hadn’t Nate done the same? The answer that rang through her head had plagued her thoughts for weeks: because she wasn’t worth it, because nobody wanted her. Just like her father had said.

  “Why the ferocious scowl? Who were you talking to?”

  Lemaire closed the door to his office, where Clément was making a call.

  Rachel put a hand up to her ponytail and tugged at it.

  “Just a friend.”

  He didn’t trot out the tired joke in response: with friends like that …

  Quickly she asked him, “Did you hear about Soufiane?”

  A team member walking by passed Lemaire a clipboard. He read the update with a frown.

  “Yes. I’m doing the press conference now, as soon as Isabelle is free. We’ll be holding it on the outside steps. You’ll attend?”

  “I’d like to observe from inside, thanks. What about the vigil?”

  A group of uniformed officers was beginning to gather near the door. They were carrying batons and flashlights, adding their names to a list.

  Lemaire signed the clipboard and passed it back to the officer who was waiting.

  “It’s taking place after sunset prayer in the park. We have about an hour and a half. I don’t expect any trouble.”

  A statement that gave Rachel pause. Why didn’t he? There’d been so much trouble already. And as Lemaire believed in Père Étienne’s innocence, that meant there was a fugitive on the loose. Who might return at any moment.

  She considered her next words carefully, conscious of her place as an outsider on a mainly Québécois team.

  “And if trouble shows up without waiting for your permission?”

  Damn. That wasn’t careful or well-considered at all.