No Place of Refuge

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  ‘Ah, I’ve got you now, sir. I think we told her the boy in the photograph was Sami, and she asked if we were certain he was dead.’

  Khattak remembered now. That was exactly what Dania had said.

  ‘Sir.’ There was a doubting note in Rachel’s voice. ‘She knew he wasn’t Sami al-Nuri. She knew he wasn’t a relation of hers, because remember she said, “This boy didn’t contact us. He isn’t our family.”’

  As usual, Rachel was right. Though Dania hadn’t placed quite that emphasis on the words. But he’d thought he’d glimpsed a strange relief in her eyes.

  ‘Rachel.’ He wanted her to follow his line of thought to see if it took her to the same conclusions. ‘Lise Cloutier doesn’t know who the young man in the morgue is. She just knows it’s not Sami al-Nuri. But she did say that the Sami she spoke to was looking for a girl named Israa – he wouldn’t turn his documents over to CIJA until he received a guarantee that his friends would also be resettled.’

  Rachel didn’t point out that this resembled a bribe – that was hardly the point.

  ‘I’ll be on Lesvos in half an hour, sir. Commander Benemerito is taking me across. You should get back here, pronto.’

  ‘Why is that, Rachel?’

  She sounded resolute. ‘We need to talk to Ali.’

  Back in the café, Esa asked Cloutier if she knew the name Ali Maydani.

  ‘He’s a friend of Sami’s. He brought us testimony from Military Intelligence in Aleppo, and from Hospital 601, where he was later transferred.’

  Khattak frowned in concentration. Audrey had stored her records in a unit of that number. And in Sami’s application, 601 was a number on Audrey’s list.

  ‘A hospital?’ Khattak studied Cloutier’s shuttered expression. ‘What kind of testimony comes from a hospital?’

  Cloutier shook her head. ‘That’s none of your business.’

  Sehr intervened. ‘Given the prime minister’s backing, and the sensitive nature of your work, I think we can agree that anything that helps us find Audrey is relevant both to your investigation and ours. I’ve read the 2015 report, but it would save us time if you tell us what you know.’ Politely, she asked Esa, ‘We’re headed back to Lesvos, aren’t we?’

  Because she sounded as though she wasn’t certain of her role, Esa nodded. To Lise Cloutier he said, ‘If we find your courier, this Sami al-Nuri, what will happen to his request for asylum now that we’ve turned in his files?’

  Cloutier’s response was brisk. ‘Sami is a priority for us, we’ll make sure he lands on his feet. We need to protect his identity so he can testify once we go to trial.’

  ‘How long will that take?’ Sehr asked.

  Cloutier mimed a gesture of dismissal. ‘You’re a bright young woman, mademoiselle. I’m sure you understand as well as I do the lack of political will. Maybe one day, they’ll send Assad to The Hague. At any rate, we’ll be ready.’

  Esa could see that Sehr didn’t require further explanation. And he wondered if he could speak to her comfortably, at least about the case.

  ‘What about Israa and Aya?’

  Cloutier looked back at Sehr, her composure unruffled, her certainty intact. ‘You’ve handed over Sami’s leverage.’

  At the ready distress that sprang to Sehr’s eyes, she added, ‘Inspector Khattak does have a direct line to Ambassador Mansur.’

  It shouldn’t have surprised him that Cloutier knew more about him than she’d disclosed, or that she knew the players involved in orchestrating Syrian resettlement in Canada. It was tied in to her work, and though she was working at CIJA in an independent capacity, she was still a Canadian national.

  She was getting ready to depart, so Khattak repeated his question. ‘Hospital 601. What can you tell us about it?’

  ‘Any number of horrifying things that would rob you of your sleep.’ She cut off Khattak’s protest. ‘You might have seen a little in those boxes, but if you haven’t seen the Caesar files, you’ve barely scratched the surface. Hospital 601 sits at the base of Mount Mezzeh. The presidential palace is perched at the top, which should give you some idea of how closely the regime is tied to the Mukhabarat’s atrocities. Detainees are brought to the hospital – they think for treatment for the brutality they’ve endured. At the hospital, they’re assigned numbers instead of names. Hospital 601 is a slaughter house.’

  A young man arrived to collect Cloutier. Khattak handed over the keys to their car, to allow for the transfer of boxes.

  Appalled, Sehr asked Cloutier, ‘How do you make sense of it all? How do you count the dead?’

  Her face severe, Cloutier answered, ‘I’ll count each one at The Hague.’

  35

  Delft, the Netherlands

  ‘Should I go on to Brussels?’ Sehr asked.

  If Audrey had gone on to Brussels, it might be necessary to follow her trail to Belgium. But Sehr had no contact name and no specific idea of what Audrey had been doing there. At the camp in Calais, Matthieu Arnaud hadn’t been able to clear this up. She’d be visiting the mission with no idea of what she was searching for. She would have been grateful for the distance from Esa, but Audrey’s disappearance was her priority as well.

  Esa took out a note case from the inside of his jacket. He scanned a typewritten list before he passed it to Sehr.

  ‘I think we’ve cleared up the question of what brought Audrey to the Netherlands.’ He didn’t smile at her, but his voice was a little warmer as he offered, ‘You did excellent work on CIJA. You would have made a fine detective.’

  A young couple walking hand in hand passed them on the narrow street, causing Esa to move closer. Sehr took a step back. Esa’s face tightened. With impatience or anger, she couldn’t tell. She pushed past the moment. ‘We’re each doing what we can.’

  He nodded at the list. ‘I was wondering if instead of returning with me, you could make sure we haven’t missed anything. Those are the numbers Audrey called while she was in Delft, as connected to locations she visited. I did a cursory check: the storage unit wasn’t her only stop.’

  ‘The others could be places where she met Cloutier. One of them could be CIJA headquarters.’

  ‘Cloutier wasn’t forthcoming, but we shouldn’t ignore other leads.’ Esa’s eyes narrowed against the sun. He brushed away a leaf that had landed on his shoulder.

  Sehr looked away from his face, focusing on the list. She knew he was pushing her away – this time she didn’t mind. There was a new look on his face, a fragility behind his eyes. He wasn’t going to share what was bothering him, unless it was with Rachel. He was heading back to Lesvos because he wanted to talk to Rachel.

  Pretending to be absorbed in the list, she said, ‘I’ll be glad to rule out these leads. Should I drive you to the airport first?’

  ‘I’ll take a cab, you keep the car. And take these as well, they might open a few doors.’ He passed over the letters of introduction from Roux and from Ambassador Mansur. ‘Sehr –’

  She looked up. He was watching her with an unusual intensity. ‘When you come back to Lesvos, I’ll meet you at the airport. We need time to talk without the pressure of what’s been happening.’ Though her pulse had begun to race, Sehr tried not to read too much into his words. She nodded, not knowing he’d read the hope in her face, or that he’d taken heart from it. It wasn’t a victory he’d earned or one she would have wanted him to have.

  When she’d gone, he made a call to Ambassador Mansur, a call she answered on the first ring, the warmth in her voice fading to horror as he told her about the connection to CIJA.

  ‘What do you think has happened to Audrey? Was this the reason she was taken? Did she make herself a target in the eyes of someone at Camp Apaydin?’

  He could hear the worry behind the questions, the shadow it would cast over Canada’s efforts at easing the refugee crisis if Apaydin became seen as an escape route fo
r Assad’s men.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he told her frankly. ‘I haven’t looked at the politics of this, only at the crisis. The situation on the islands is bleak; now that the borders have closed, we’re effectively talking about detention in these camps.’

  Camille Mansur’s voice softened. ‘You are new to this, habibi, or you’d know that’s what all these places are. Think of Zaatari in Jordan. It’s an end in itself. There’s no going forward for hundreds of thousands of people.’

  Esa didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to confront the reality of it, though he’d seen it in Souda, Kara Tepe… Moria. He discussed his suspicions for a few minutes more; at the end of the call, Ambassador Mansur promised to convey his concerns to the prime minister.

  ‘You’ll be careful, yes? You have too much experience not to know where to draw the line.’

  He reassured her the best he could, though he knew he couldn’t have said where that line was, or where he wanted it to be.

  Mytilene, Lesvos

  In the bar, Rachel was surrounded by a group of men who joked with each other loudly, though she suspected their banter covered their feelings of despair.

  Two-thirds of those who’d made the crossing the previous night had drowned. The Greek Coast Guard and the Hellenic Rescue Team were still fishing bodies out of the water. Whether the bodies would be identified, whether their families would ever learn what had happened to them, Rachel wished she knew. She didn’t ask – she could see that her new friends were drinking to forget.

  Peter Conroy’s pale skin had flushed red with his consumption of too many beers. He’d become verbose and was regaling Vincenzo with stories about the Top End, a region of Australia Rachel was fairly certain Conroy had never seen. Vincenzo egged him on – the outlandish size of crocodiles in the north grew bigger with each telling.

  The door opened and though Rachel was expecting Khattak, it was Eleni Latsoudi and Shukri Danner who entered. Eleni was still dressed in her rescue gear, and Shukri was wearing a warm coat because she’d been at Eftalou Beach. Her head covering was drenched at the ends.

  Rachel shifted to another table and beckoned the women to join her.

  They’d spent part of the night together, scouting for boats. They’d all been present when the dead had reached their shores.

  Their table was near the fire, and as Eleni stripped off her helmet to shake out her blond hair, several of the men turned to look. Illario Benemerito wasn’t one of them. He’d bought Rachel a beer, and now he tipped his glass at her.

  Rachel ordered Shukri a non-alcoholic cider, surprised to learn the bar kept a variety of non-alcoholic drinks available for their new contingent of customers. Vincenzo, as drunk as Conroy, gestured rudely at Shukri.

  ‘What’s she doing here? We don’t need her kind in here, they’re everywhere as it is.’

  A sharp rebuke from Benemerito silenced him.

  Shukri ignored the commotion. She huddled close to the fire, and unlike the men, the three women talked over the night’s activities. Both Eleni and Shukri asked after Khattak; Rachel responded with a sigh.

  ‘His flight has landed. He should be here any minute.’

  Rachel had been waiting for this moment. She placed a folder on the table between the two women. She asked a pointed question. ‘When the shots were fired at Kara Tepe, did either of you visit the crime scene?’

  Both women shook their heads, clearly surprised.

  ‘And you, Ms Danner, when you were summoned to Athens by the police, were you shown pictures of the victims? Were you taken to the morgue?’

  Sipping at her cider, Shukri answered no.

  Rachel opened the folder. She showed them the photograph of Aude Bertin. Another one of the dead to add to the weight of what they’d witnessed.

  ‘Ah, God rest her,’ Eleni said.

  Rachel showed them the photograph of the boy in the morgue. Shukri set down her glass with a thump. The three women ignored the shouts of laughter from the next table.

  She muttered a formula that Rachel recognized as one she’d heard from Khattak. From God we come, to God we return.

  Except that Shukri chanted it more like a spell, a warding off of evil.

  Eleni’s eyes widened. ‘What happened to this poor boy?’

  ‘You don’t recognize him?’ Rachel asked, watching their faces. Shukri looked up. ‘Of course I do. But the police said Sami al-Nuri was killed.’

  ‘Alongside Agent Bertin, you mean.’

  ‘Yes.’ Shukri nodded vigorously. ‘This doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Why?’ Rachel asked, a keen light in her eyes.

  ‘Because this isn’t Sami al-Nuri.’

  Lowering her voice, Shukri told them the boy’s real name. Rachel caught her breath, her suspicions confirmed. She slid the photograph back into the folder.

  ‘Who identified this body as Sami’s?’

  Bemused, Shukri spread her hands. Eleni took another swallow of her beer.

  ‘Was it the French Interpol agent?’ Eleni and Shukri exchanged a glance before Eleni spoke. ‘I think it was. Inspecteur Roux is her name.’

  ‘You met her?’ Rachel asked sharply.

  ‘She conducted interviews with everyone who’d spoken to Agent Bertin.’

  ‘She’s not on the island now.’ Rachel had done some investigating of her own. ‘The Greek police told me she caught a flight off-island earlier today. Did either of you know that?’

  A trail of steam was rising from Eleni’s gear. She patted down her arms with a napkin. Illario stopped by their table.

  ‘Can I help in any way?’ he asked. ‘You look worried.’

  The door to the bar opened. Rachel looked up with relief. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Thank you. Inspector Khattak is here.’

  36

  Kara Tepe, Lesvos

  They took a taxi up the road to Kara Tepe. They moved between the row of tents, past the Woman to Woman headquarters, which was still marked off as a crime scene. They moved down opposite lanes, looking for signs of the boy.

  A stone skidded past Rachel on the path. It was nearly midnight but Aya wasn’t asleep. She waved at them from her tent.

  Rachel whistled at Khattak. He followed her lead to the tent. It wasn’t raining, but the night air was cold. Aya ran up to Rachel and hugged her. Khattak ducked into the tent. There were two sleeping bags on one side of the tent; Ali rested on one, the other side was occupied by an elderly man and his grandchildren. Ali sat up on his elbows and waved.

  ‘What is it?’ His voice was husky. ‘Is it Israa? Did you find her?’

  Khattak shook his head. ‘Come outside.’

  Rachel gathered Aya up in her arms. They commandeered a set of plastic chairs.

  ‘We found Ali Maydani,’ Khattak said.

  The boy rocketed to his feet. ‘What are you talking about?’ he demanded. ‘I’m Ali Maydani.’

  ‘But you’re not, are you?’ Khattak said. ‘Your real name is Sami al-Nuri.’

  There was no moon to ride the slow, hypnotic pitch of the waves. Rachel and Khattak used their flashlights, making their way along the shore, the boy they now knew as Sami walking ahead, Aya skipping behind, fresh and full of excitement.

  ‘Tell us,’ Khattak said to the boy. ‘You can trust me, I won’t let any harm come to you.’

  And Rachel remembered when Khattak had said as much to her in a town called Waverley. A knot formed in her throat. She believed Khattak’s promises.

  The boy seemed to be weighing Khattak as an adversary. In a voice warm with empathy, Khattak said, ‘I prayed at your side in Izmir. I view that as a trust.’

  Sami kicked at stones on the beach, ducking his head to hide the tears in his eyes. ‘I know you do,’ he said. ‘But I once thought a Syrian would never kill another Syrian.’

  They let him have a moment
, the waves bleeding into silence at his feet.

  At last, Khattak asked, ‘Were you in the tent when the shots were fired? Were you the one who fired them?’

  The boy brushed the tears from his face with both hands. ‘No. But it was my fault.’

  Aya ran up to Rachel and clutched her hand, sensing the oppression of the moment. Rachel gave her an encouraging squeeze.

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Agent Bertin asked to meet me at Woman to Woman. She said she had news about Israa. A boat was coming in and I wanted to wait and see if Israa was on the boat, so I told Ali to go ahead without me. We had almost made it back to camp when I heard the gunshots.’

  ‘You knew they came from Woman to Woman?’

  ‘Yes.’ He swallowed. ‘You could tell. So I ran the rest of the way.’

  ‘Did you get there before the police did?’

  He nodded. ‘I didn’t touch anything other than his papers. I just looked to see if I could help.’ He began to cry. ‘I couldn’t. They were already dead.’ His eyes wide and haunted, he said, ‘I’ve seen the dead, so I knew.’

  When Rachel would have gathered up Aya and left Khattak with Sami, he waved a hand at her. ‘Aya has seen the dead, too. You don’t need to protect her.’

  ‘Did you see who shot Agent Bertin and Ali Maydani?’

  Sami shivered in the night air, though Khattak had bought him a thicker coat in Izmir. It was the shiver of a boy who felt the presence of ghosts at his heels.

  ‘There was so much noise and confusion. Everyone who’d been on the beach seemed to be rushing to camp. Peter, Shukri, Vincenzo. Even Octavio, the owner of the bar.’

  ‘Peter Conroy was on the beach?’ Rachel interrupted to ask. He shouldn’t have been. He should have been on Chios. Yet, just as he was tonight, Peter was here on Lesvos with his same group of friends.

  ‘He was the first person to reach me on the hill. He didn’t see me at the tent. I don’t think anyone did.’

  ‘And of course, you didn’t confess you’d been there,’ Rachel said.