“You’ve said your partnership isn’t personal. Perhaps because there’s something about developing close relationships that scares you.”
Rachel had a sudden sinking feeling that Dr. Sandston knew everything there was to know about her father, Superintendent Don Getty. He’d cast a long shadow in her life until she had carved out her own career. And there were times she still measured herself against him—against the approval that had always been impossible to attain.
But Dr. Sandston showed Rachel the photograph of herself in Khattak’s arms again.
“Out of all these photographs, Rachel, this one is the rawest. This one suggests that there is no one else like you in the inspector’s life. Your partnership is personal. You matter to each other.” She smiled at Rachel. “That’s why you make an excellent team.”
Rachel sat there dumbfounded. She couldn’t think of anything to say.
Though the photographs represented one of the worst nights of her life, she had wanted to keep them for herself.
Now at last, she knew why.
* * *
Marlyse Sandston continued to study the photographs, this time focusing on individuals other than Khattak. She singled one out and slid it across to Rachel.
“Who’s this?”
Her expression was enigmatic.
Rachel hadn’t noticed it before. It was a photograph of Tom Paley, the war crimes historian who had recruited Esa and Rachel to the Christopher Drayton case, the first case of national significance that she had worked with Khattak. The Drayton investigation had led to a parliamentary inquiry that had for a time compromised their unit’s reputation. Paley had been a professional associate of Khattak’s rather than a friend—his photograph was strangely out of place among the others.
Frowning, Rachel explained in some detail about the Christopher Drayton case. All the while, Dr. Sandston was nodding softly to herself.
“So Tom Paley has passed away,” she said. “Yet when it comes to the dead, there aren’t any photos of Inspector Khattak’s father or his wife.”
Rachel frowned. “What are you getting at, Dr. Sandston?”
“My job is to look for patterns. But there’s no pattern here. This photograph is an anomaly. It doesn’t belong with the rest. It was included deliberately to point us to something important.”
“Tom Paley was important to the case,” Rachel said doubtfully.
“But not quite as personally to Inspector Khattak.”
Though Rachel was puzzled by this observation, she experienced a pinprick of awareness. Like a cat laying back its ears, intuition prickled along her spine. It raged into life when Dr. Sandston asked, “How did Tom Paley die?”
“From a heart attack.”
The two women looked at each other in silence.
Marlyse Sandston picked up the photograph and held it up to the light. She considered the other photographs again.
Finally, she said, “No. I don’t think he did. Whoever is following Inspector Khattak has been doing more than taking these pictures.”
49
This time the cordon the police formed was for the protection of the people inside the church. Members of the Allegiance had shown up but didn’t speak. They held up a phalanx of signs, each more ominous than the next. Maxime Thibault was at the head of the group, but like the others he was quiet, casting his mordant glare over anyone who exited the church.
The members of the group were dressed in black. The front row was made up of university students who looked like recruits setting off for boot camp. Behind them was a group of the town’s residents—mothers, fathers, grandparents, teenagers, and children. Families from all walks of life. The only commonality was that all the residents were white.
The professional placards they carried must have been printed in the last few hours. Instead of the Allegiance’s traditional slogans, they bore the words TAKE BACK OUR CHURCH.
Khattak, Lemaire, and Rachel were standing on the steps, watching the demonstration. Khattak frowned to himself. A reporter who was setting up an interview was framing Thibault as an anti-Muslim activist. This was a new phrase in the common parlance, and to Khattak it was a cause for urgent apprehension. He considered the size of the crowd. Thibault must have warned the members of his group to take no action that would precipitate removal. This time the Allegiance relied on silent intimidation.
Rage burned through Esa’s thoughts. He pushed it down, seeing Pascal in the crowd. He was watching him, waiting for him to break. He held on. But Amadou came up behind him and spoke despairingly to the crowd.
“You know our prayers can’t hurt you.”
A corrosive little smile settled on Maxime’s lips. It was the opening he’d hoped for.
“ISIS might disagree!” He shouted the words, playing to his audience. “Don’t they pray for our destruction?”
Khattak put a hand on Amadou’s arm. He bent to the young man’s ear.
“Get out of here. Don’t provoke them. Don’t start anything that could hurt the people who came to pray.”
He’d given the same instructions to the churchgoers who’d come out to pray with the members of the mosque.
I know you mean well, he’d said to them. But you won’t pay the price of trouble.
The words had a sobering effect. When the prayer ended, the group dispersed without delay. A few stragglers lingered on the steps, filming the members of the Wolf Allegiance on their phones.
Khattak scanned the crowd again. His gaze stopped on a presence wearing a long black jacket with a hood. Was it one of the Lilies of Anjou? Something about the figure’s movement looked familiar.
Rachel sidled up to him, whispering in his ear.
“Are you okay, sir?”
He looked at her, surprised. She sounded more than a little afraid. But he was safe now, unharmed, and if someone in the Allegiance had been behind his assault they’d find that out soon enough. He nodded at her, but he didn’t feel up to offering verbal reassurance.
When he turned back to the crowd, the figure in the jacket was gone. He scanned the streets, the parked cars, and the path through the woods to the lake.
Whoever had been standing there had vanished.
Three young women were at the periphery of the crowd, their arms linked in solidarity.
But with whom? The angry young men of the Allegiance, or the worshipers who pushed their children past the protest, sheltered under their arms. The girl in the middle—Réjeanne Beaudoin—was staring right at him.
“This was a mistake,” Lemaire said under his breath.
Khattak agreed. “You should have shut down the protest.”
Lemaire let out a curse. “I meant the prayer in the church. It’s a lightning rod, wait and see. It could burn this whole town down.”
“The shooting already did that.”
Lemaire shook his head, unable to accept his point of view. Khattak understood. It was Lemaire’s responsibility to ensure safe and peaceful assembly, not Khattak’s. But Lemaire’s concept of safety was conflated with stability. The stability that arose from having given in to the demands of the Allegiance. Freedom of expression balanced against freedom of religion, in the starkest display of privilege Khattak had ever seen.
And he knew that at a fundamental level the police’s reluctance to act was emboldening the Allegiance, while those who had just seen their loved ones murdered were running in fear from the church.
“We’re not fighting the Crusades, Khattak,” Lemaire muttered.
“If the church is the battleground you say it is, I think some of these protesters might be. Ask yourself what it is that they’re protesting.”
“The use of the church…” Lemaire’s voice trailed off as Khattak shook his head.
“Not the church, Lemaire. It’s never about the church.”
He couldn’t pin Lemaire down—he didn’t know why the other man had come so often to Saint-Isidore without taking decisive action. Rachel had relayed her conversation about a s
ting operation inside the Sûreté, but Khattak still had his suspicions.
If Lemaire was part of the infiltration of civic and law enforcement institutions by white supremacist elements, that was exactly the story he would have fed to Rachel, who seemed more than willing to be convinced.
“Sir.” Rachel gave a discreet nod. Khattak looked over at the Lilies of Anjou.
Réjeanne Beaudoin was trying to attract their notice with a subtle motion of her hand.
Khattak nodded at her. The reporter was fully engaged with Maxime Thibault now. Khattak descended the steps, despite the hand that Lemaire placed on his shoulder to restrain him.
Ignoring Thibault, Khattak said something softly to the reporter.
The reporter shook his head, refusing to listen.
Khattak tried again.
“The shooting is the only story here.”
The reporter flashed a saucy smile. There was something ugly in it, something complicit. He was clearly taken with Thibault.
“I know my audience, Inspector.” He grinned widely at Thibault. “Believe me, the story is here.”
50
A scuffle broke out in the crowd. An older woman in an abaya had been blocked from descending the steps by a knot of protesters.
“It’s the Twisted Sister!” they shouted.
A stream of other insults followed.
“ISIS killer!”
“Stone the shooter!”
“Send the ISIS bitch back where she came from.”
A group of young men from the mosque broke through the knot to form a circle around the frightened woman. A high-pitched whistle pierced the noise. Police officers moved in between the two groups of young men. Reporters rushed to higher vantage points on the stairs, their cameras clicking furiously. A broken bottle flew through the air. It struck the woman on the head. Blood streamed down the left side of her face. A roar of anger shook the crowd. The woman was thrown to the ground, her body covered by two of the young men.
Esa and Lemaire began to fight their way through the crowd, trying to get to the woman.
The entire situation descended into chaos as others joined in the fight.
Bodies pressed up against Esa’s, taking punches where they could. He used his arms to protect his face and pushed ahead. There was noise everywhere, shouts, cries, the wail of sirens, police whistles blowing, the press of suffocating bodies fueled by a rush of adrenaline.
All he could think was that the woman in the abaya was about to be trampled.
There was going to be another death to add to the toll of the shooting.
He shoved harder, dodging flying fists, but his movements felt as hopeless as a small boat battered by the pitch of monstrous waves.
He heard the crackle of static.
Then a woman’s voice speaking into a megaphone.
It wasn’t Rachel, it was Alizah, and her voice was frantic.
“Max!” she called into the crowd. “Max, you have to stop this.”
He felt a sudden shift in the press of bodies around him, his nostrils assailed by the acrid tang of perspiration and fear. The bodies fell back a little. When he lifted his head, he could see that more members of the mosque were sheltering the woman on the ground.
He searched for Alizah on the steps. She was holding the megaphone in one hand. Her other arm was stretched out to someone in the crowd. Someone at the center of the disturbance—Maxime Thibault. He stared up at Alizah on the steps, arrested by her appeal.
Khattak watched his face: Max’s expression gathered a tightly coiled intensity as he focused on Alizah. The activity around him abated, supporters waiting for his word, though skirmishes persisted on the periphery.
The way Maxime was looking at Alizah raised the hairs on the back of Esa’s neck. He wanted to tell her to stand down, to step away, to find another battle to fight, because this one placed her too close to the heart of danger and loss. He shoved his way through the crowd, determined to reach her before Max did.
She spoke into the megaphone again, her soft voice thick with tears. She gestured at the woman on the ground.
“Please, Max, I’m begging you. You’re the only one who can make this stop.”
Maxime nodded curtly. He gave an abrupt signal with his arm. A hush fell over the crowd. Members of the Allegiance began to run, this time away from the police. Their straggling supporters were taken into custody. A few members of the mosque who’d gotten caught up in scuffles were also led to police vans. A little at a time, the crowd began to disperse, the noise and pressure easing in their wake. The woman in the abaya was helped to an ambulance. Police blocked the attempts of reporters to intercept her.
The shrewd reporter who’d spoken to Thibault earlier hurried back up the steps.
“Who is she?” he asked Max breathlessly.
Thibault and Alizah were still looking at each other—their faces distorted mirrors of each other, reflections of hope and despair.
“Fuck off,” was Thibault’s response.
Khattak reached Alizah first. He wrested the megaphone from her hand and pushed her behind him, watching Thibault’s approach with narrowed eyes. Thibault’s eyes moved from Alizah to Khattak and back. He scowled, but Alizah ducked under Khattak’s arm, refusing his protection. She reached out and took hold of Thibault’s hand.
“Thank you,” she said simply. “I know that wasn’t easy—not in front of them.”
Thibault’s breath drew in harshly. He looked down at Alizah’s hand as if he couldn’t believe she had touched him. For a moment, he did nothing, said nothing. Then tentatively, his fingers fastened around her wrist. He held it as if his lightest touch would break it.
He looked up at Alizah, his eyes burning.
“I did it for you.”
He looked back over a desolated ground. Discarded placards, broken bottles, bits of debris wielded like weapons. At Lemaire watching him grimly from the bottom of the stairs. He let go of her hand, his face unreadable and cold. He must have remembered the men who were watching him, the ones who looked to him as their leader.
“It doesn’t change anything. I’m not some knight in shining armor.”
Alizah moved closer to Thibault and took his face between her hands. He stood there, shocked into silence, letting her hold him in place.
She looked at him searchingly. He couldn’t meet the clarity of her gaze, his eyelashes shielding his eyes.
“Just because you’re not with me doesn’t mean you can’t be someone I respect. You were once my friend, Max. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to be this.” She indicated the scene behind him. “Without you, they’re nothing. It will dissipate and end. You could be the one to change things. The one who makes everything better.”
Her low voice thrummed with passion, trying to infuse him with belief.
Khattak was unbearably moved. He knew he’d underestimated Alizah—the compassion she was capable of. He made a sound of encouragement.
Thibault’s eyes flicked to Khattak. His intrusion had broken the spell between Max and Alizah. Max took a step back, freeing himself from Alizah.
He donned his former attitude like a shield, answering her with scorn. He jerked his chin at Khattak, as if accusing her of something.
“You’re a whore,” he told her. “So you’ll forgive me for thinking, ‘Why can’t it be me?’”
* * *
Alizah shuddered. She’d been holding herself so tightly in Max’s presence; then it felt like all the life was leaking from her body. She wanted to crumple up, far away from his hateful words. She thought she’d seen his humanity in his eyes, the warmth she’d known from him in the early days, when she’d thought of him as a friend. He’d shut the protest down because of what he’d once felt for her. But it didn’t change the person he’d become. She’d been naïve to think that it would. Love, compassion, kindness—there were some kinds of evil that wouldn’t bow to their power. She hated herself for having to learn that lesson again.
; “That was brave of you,” Esa said close to her ear.
It wasn’t. People thought of her as a rebel, as someone who couldn’t be hurt, when half the time it was only a front she put up against her fear. It was Miraj who had been the brave one, and it was her memory of Miraj that refused to allow Alizah to give up the fight. But Miraj’s restless courage had put her in a grave.
Now this man Alizah had welcomed into the circle of her friendship when she’d first known him had called her a whore to her face. She had to act like it didn’t matter, because she had been shouldering the burden of shielding the men in her life—Amadou, Youssef, even Esa. The desperate need of others to protect her, to claim her, to own her in some small way, was fired any time she gave in to her emotions. And she didn’t want to be protected. No one could protect them from what had just happened, any more than they could prevent what was still to come.
A course had been set in motion and it was ugly and dangerous and there was no turning back. There was only getting on with things. Choosing the battles she could fight on her own.
She made herself seem calm, watching as Lemaire led Maxime over to one of the vans.
“I wish I knew why Inspector Lemaire didn’t shut the protest down. Why does he keep letting things spiral out of control?”
She studied the few remaining protesters. A reporter tried to approach her, but Esa turned him aside. She wished Diana were here. She wished she had a woman to talk to, someone who would help her make sense of her conflicting emotions. She and Rachel had been close once, but now she wasn’t sure if Rachel would understand.
Réjeanne waved to her again from across the road. Alizah frowned. She didn’t see Amadou anywhere. Had he been caught up in a scuffle? Or did the police have him? Esa hadn’t answered her, and she turned to find him watching the play of emotions on her face. She didn’t want to blush, but she couldn’t help it.
Her voice a little brusque, she said, “Did you keep track of Amadou?”
He was still watching her, and with a flutter of embarrassment she realized that he was assessing her actions as a police officer searching for telltale clues.
A Deadly Divide Page 24
