The Language of Secrets

by Ausma Zehanat Khan

  “What did you decide in the end? What did Mohsin say?”

  Alia looked surprised. “I didn’t meet him. After I got the speeding ticket, it was like I had come out of a fog. I couldn’t do it. I decided to give him a little more time. Maybe I was imagining things. Maybe my words would hurt him. I can’t prove I drove home, but I did.”

  And yet if she had shot her husband, why would she tell Esa any different?

  She wasn’t done. She tucked her hair back under her scarf, some remnant of Paula’s words still in her mind, Esa guessed.

  “I keep thinking about that. If I had gone to see him. If I had found him there. Maybe he would have heard me tell him how much I love him.” She rose from the bench, her shoulders slumped under the weight of her decision. “Or maybe the last thing I would have heard him say is that he didn’t love me anymore.”

  * * *

  Rachel collected the dirty dishes in the kitchen and passed them to Ruksh at the sink. Khattak’s sister examined Rachel’s unassuming face.

  “So you’re Rachel,” she said. “My brother’s partner.”

  Rachel nodded, well aware that despite the fact that Ruksh had yet to give her away, there was a patent lack of cordiality in Ruksh’s voice.

  “And here you are in my house, not on your own explicitly stated terms, but undercover, sneaking around. Spying on us.”

  Rachel fingered her collar. She was wearing a denim shirt over her fitted cords. She could feel herself begin to sweat. She looked at the door, hopeful that Khattak would appear.

  “Not on you,” she said. “I’m just doing my job.” Rachel tried a halfhearted smile. “This wasn’t how I’d hoped to meet the boss’s family, but sometimes needs must.” And then, because she was anxious on this point, she blurted out, “You haven’t said anything?”

  Ruksh braced her elbows on the counter, the dishes forgotten. She looked sophisticated and cool in the pink cashmere sweater that topped a pair of white wool trousers. A marquise diamond glittered on her finger. She wore gold bangles on her wrists that played a subtle music as she gestured and spoke.

  Rachel felt out of her depth. Ruksh’s smile did nothing to put her at ease.

  “Not yet,” Ruksh said coolly. “Although I don’t appreciate the position the two of you have placed me in. Conspiring against my own fiancé.”

  Rachel cleared her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said. “This should be over soon.”

  Ruksh’s insinuating gaze appraised Rachel’s face and figure.

  “Esa’s quite fond of you. Much more so than any of his previous partners. He says you do excellent work.” Her tone needled Rachel. “What kind of work are you doing by infiltrating the mosque, hanging about our halaqas? No one invited you, yet here you are.”

  Rachel might not have possessed the other woman’s casual flair or her air of arrogance, but that didn’t mean she was about to let anyone condescend to her. Even if that person was Esa Khattak’s sister. She found she didn’t like Ruksh very much. And she pitied Khattak his dilemma. To try and impede such a woman in anything she wanted would be a difficult task.

  “I can’t comment on that, Ms. Khattak. And given the sensitive job your brother’s been asked to do, I’m surprised that you would ask. It should be sufficient for you to know that he’s trying to bring a murderer to justice—more than that, trying to secure justice for a friend. Whatever I’m doing, invited or otherwise, is intended to support him to that end.”

  Ruksh quirked an eyebrow at Rachel.

  “You really do admire him, don’t you? Must be nice for Esa to have someone loyal as a partner for once. Someone who doesn’t try to set fire to his whole life. Still,” she said, raising a hand to her mouth and yawning prettily. “I don’t see what there is for you to learn among such a harmless circle of people. Look at Zaki and Sami—they’re just boys. No member of this halaqa would ever hurt Mohsin. He was the darling of the group, the class clown. And no one could have loved him more than Hassan and Din.”

  Rachel’s response was as wooden as she could make it.

  “Perhaps it’s best that experienced police officers make those determinations, Ms. Khattak. We’re trained not to take people at face value.”

  A genuine smile broke across Ruksh’s face.

  “I’m being awful, aren’t I? Of course you know your job much better than I do.” She ran the tap in the sink, looking down. “I know Esa thinks he’s acting in my best interests. But I wish he would learn to trust me. Hassan is a good man. I wouldn’t be marrying him if he wasn’t.”

  Rachel’s inexhaustible supply of compassion welled up once again.

  Could Ruksh really have no idea of Ashkouri’s ulterior agenda?

  “Your brother is under a lot of pressure. If it were possible for him to accept your word, I’m sure that he would.”

  * * *

  When Khattak found Rachel alone in the kitchen, he told her about his conversation with Alia.

  “Do you think she could have made it to the camp and back in enough time that no one would notice her absence?”

  “It’s possible,” Rachel said. “We’ll need to check the alibi with her father-in-law.”

  “Who won’t be inclined to be helpful.”

  “Who’ll do everything he can to screw us,” Rachel paraphrased. “It would be tight, even if he confirms it. What were the roads like? Can we search her GPS?”

  “Clear. No accidents, either. And she doesn’t use a GPS.”

  “So if she was speeding—maybe she’d already seen him.”

  “No,” Khattak argued. “Mohsin didn’t take his walk until after midnight. Alia got the speeding ticket just before. She wasn’t that far away from the park. It’s possible, Rachel.”

  “Then if she killed her husband—say in a jealous rage—she would have been driving like the wind to get home. Not much of an alibi at all.”

  “Especially if she believed her husband was having an affair.”

  Rachel snagged a slice of pineapple from a fruit platter on the counter.

  “He wasn’t interested in an affair with Paula; Paula made that clear. He was doing the same thing with her that he was doing with Din. It’s just surprising the RCMP missed it.”

  “Mohsin could be very persuasive. He wouldn’t have lasted in Ashkouri’s group for very long if he hadn’t been.”

  Rachel munched on her pineapple, putting the pieces together. “Mo was working as their agent, keeping tabs on the camp, trying to figure out the method of communication between Ashkouri’s cell and the strike team. But he was also doing something they didn’t know about—something there’s no way in hell they would have wanted him to do.”

  Khattak listened patiently.

  “Mo never had any intention of turning all the members of the halaqa over to his handlers at the RCMP.” She blew out her breath in a whistle. “No wonder he ended up dead. He was trying to get Din and Paula out. Grace too, because she and Din were a package deal.”

  A mixture of sorrow and guilt settled in Khattak’s stomach.

  “Yes. That was the Mohsin I knew.”

  * * *

  Rachel remembered the second clue she had been waiting for information on.

  “Sir. What about the cassette tape? What was on it?”

  “Believe it or not, some kind of hip-hop fusion. Local. Speaking in English and Arabic. And I know the voice that raps over the music. It belongs to Din Abdi. Didn’t you tell me that he does spoken-word poetry?”

  “Yes. That’s what Grace told me. That Din competes at poetry slams. What’s he been rapping about?”

  “There’s music, too. He speaks over it. He calls it a Somali backbeat, and most of what he recites is about Somali pride. Nostalgia for a place he’s never seen. He calls himself a pirate.”

  Rachel tapped her neck. “The tattoo on Grace’s throat refers to the same thing.”

  “Grace’s voice is on the tape as well.”

  “What does she say?”

  “‘I came be
tween a man and his thoughts/like a breeze thrown over the face of the moon.’”

  “The moon again. What does it mean?”

  Khattak had been wondering the same thing. His friend, the professor of poetry, had been able to offer no additional illumination on the subject of the moon as a symbol in Arabic poetry.

  “I don’t know if it means anything. It could be a symbol, a code of some kind. But why would Ashkouri need a code to communicate with members of his own cell? Or could it be his way of obscuring what he’s actually up to? Whether he knows he’s under surveillance, or whether he’s just taking precautions—the poetry might be a diversion, unrelated to the Nakba plot.”

  Rachel had done a little reading of her own.

  “Sir, that first section of poetry that you found in your sister’s book. Do you remember that poem? Do you have the rest of it?”

  “She put it back in his book. It’s in the other room.”

  Rachel waited as Khattak retrieved it from the coffee table. She had an idea that she wanted to test against Khattak.

  Esa produced the small book and leafed through its pages. The poem was still there, this time in its entirety. It appeared like a flame on the page, unattributed to any poet by name. But Ruksh had told Esa that this was Ashkouri’s own work.

  O homeland

  If I fly on the wings

  Of a nightingale’s song

  To alight in your heart

  With a will to belong

  Will you light up my sky

  With your rapturous flame

  Unfettered, unfold me

  Dismantle my name

  Reclaim me in promise

  Of victory sweet?

  O homeland,

  O heartache,

  When shall

  we meet?

  They read the poem in silence. It was not quite a sonnet. Nor could it compare with the musicality and nuance of the verse Ashkouri had recited throughout his halaqa. It did, however, recapture a theme of modern poetry. In the aftermath of the Six-Day War, no poet was credible unless he or she addressed the themes of dignity and freedom for the Arab peoples.

  “What’s this poem about, sir? Identity? Belonging? Exile?”

  Khattak nodded. “All those things.” But he could see what Rachel was driving at, wondered why he hadn’t spotted it for himself. “It’s about homeland.” He thought of what the professor had discussed with him after listening to the cassette, a lesson Khattak had known for himself. “To Palestinians, homeland is everything.”

  They were back at the beginning. At Martine Killiam’s insistence that he work with INSET on the murder of Mohsin Dar. At her revelations about Hassan Ashkouri’s plot.

  “Ashkouri wrote this poem. It’s a poem about the Nakba.”

  Catastrophe. Cataclysmic catastrophe.

  And extrapolated to Ashkouri’s homeland, it was also a poem about what had happened to Iraq. What was still happening.

  Catastrophe.

  Devastation.

  A Nakba. And one that was tied to the Nakba plot.

  * * *

  “You need to get closer to them,” Khattak advised Rachel. “But not at the camp. They still have those rifles.”

  “I have to go,” Rachel said. “Maybe I’ll find something at the scene that INSET missed. And isn’t it crazy they would ask us to investigate without letting us anywhere near the park?”

  “They weren’t all that concerned with finding Mohsin’s killer,” Esa said with some bitterness. “Their focus was on the success of the takedown. It still is.”

  “Which is why it makes sense for me to go. My priority is the murder. The rest is gravy.” In case that sounded dismissive, Rachel added, “It never made any sense, this CPS consultation. Mohsin’s murder and his work as a police agent are bound up together in such a way that one determines everything about the other. Mohsin was running his own game. A game that was a flat-out contradiction to the operation. And it cost him his life.”

  Khattak remembered what Laine had told him about the surveillance of his house. He didn’t know if that meant wiretaps or cameras or both.

  “Let me walk you to your car.”

  It was a ten-minute walk in the cold through a tracery of shadows. A necrotic light had infiltrated the sky, and under its reflection, Rachel’s face was a faint round disk.

  “You have a beautiful home, sir. Nice Christmas lights by the way.”

  The expression on Khattak’s face tore at Rachel. It was a fleeting glimpse of an inconsolable wound.

  “They’re not for Christmas, Rachel. My sister is planning her wedding.”

  * * *

  At the car, he made himself put Ruksh out of his thoughts. He could speak to Rachel freely now. But she was ahead of him, as usual.

  “I’m betting INSET wishes they’d date-stamped that gas receipt differently. It would place Alia at the scene, it would mean she lied, it would destroy her credibility. And she has motive.” And at Khattak’s grave look, “What? Did I say something wrong?”

  “It’s not a wretched institution, Rachel. It’s a necessary one. The people who commit these kinds of crimes, they’ve made it necessary.”

  “You mean National Security?” she asked. “INSET? I forget you used to work with them. But you weren’t seconded, were you?”

  Khattak leaned against Rachel’s car, gazing up at the waterfall of stars, the cold wind welcome as a means of honing his thoughts.

  “I was core personnel.” He glanced over at Rachel. “I had language skills, background. A certain need to prove myself.” A feeling he knew Rachel would understand.

  She fumbled with her response. “But didn’t you feel…”

  “What, Rachel?”

  He turned to look at her. His partner. His friend.

  “I don’t know. Set apart? A bit alienated? A stranger in a strange land?”

  Rachel’s scarf had slipped down her shoulder. Khattak reknotted it at her neck with steady hands. Trust Rachel to have the courage to ask such a question. To know him well enough to know that it needed to be asked.

  “It’s the price you pay for doing what is necessary.” His voice was firm and dark. “For what you think is right.”

  His gaze encompassed the sleepy streets of Forest Hill, a glossy theater of silence.

  “And for knowing where you belong.”

  * * *

  He should have known that wouldn’t put an end to Rachel’s questions. She was gearing up to ask him something else. He didn’t like the thought that she had to prepare herself to be direct with him. He wanted her to know that nothing was off limits.

  “Spit it out, Rachel. What else is on your mind?”

  She looked over her shoulder at the house they had left behind, a silhouette against the night, dressed in garments of snow.

  “Ashkouri was rude to you in your own home. I guess I was just wondering why you still live with your family.”

  Khattak considered the question. His reply was grave, but not off-putting.

  “I’m the eldest. My sisters are my responsibility.”

  Rachel’s voice squeaked in her throat. “If you don’t mind me saying, sir, they sound like fully competent women to me. It doesn’t seem like they need a minder.”

  Esa could tell that Rachel was wondering if she had blundered again by making assumptions about his culture or faith. He wanted to reassure her.

  “You sound like Ruksh. Though Ruksh doesn’t hesitate when she calls me a chauvinist.” His smile negated Rachel’s quick apology. “My sisters know they can reach me whenever they need me should they ever have a problem of any kind. I stay at my parents’ house when my mother is out of the country, for the sake of her peace of mind.” He tipped his head back, wondering if that was enough of an explanation. Or even one he believed himself. “You don’t have to agree with it—I’m not sure that I do—it’s just that at this stage of my mother’s life, I want to ensure that she’s free of any worry.” A speculative look came into his eyes. “Didn
’t you feel something similar about your parents, Rachel? Isn’t that why you lived with them for so long?”

  A hollow silence fell between them. A car passed by, its snow tires crunching against the ice on the road.

  “Something like that, sir. My Da was pretty tough, though. I wouldn’t say he needed me at home.”

  “And your mother?”

  Rachel turned away. The shared confidences had gone too far. But with her sense of fairness, she offered something in exchange anyway.

  “It was the happiest day of her life when I left.”

  20

  Rachel and Khattak had decided between them that it was best to take the day off from Masjid un-Nur, to avoid making Ashkouri or any other members of the cell suspicious. Khattak had made an appointment to see an old friend, and he’d asked Rachel to come with him. He’d also suggested an alternate method for Rachel getting closer to the group. Din and Grace were going to an underground club for an open-mic night. He wanted Rachel to meet up with them.

  They hadn’t yet reached a decision on Rachel’s attending the winter camp.

  But Rachel had every intention of going, a decision she would bring up with Khattak later. She found it more than a little strange that Ashkouri would plan a second trip up north so close to the activation of the Nakba plot. It was less than a week from New Year’s Day. Was this Ashkouri’s attempt at providing the members of his cell with an alibi in connection with the plot? Or was he planning to leave the group at Algonquin and double back?

  He had to be watched. And the INSET team would be focused on the tactical operation. Ashkouri’s retreat would be dismissed as a distraction. Rachel knew that for a mistake.