The Language of Secrets (19 page)

And the glimmer of an idea had come to Khattak.

He wanted to check on Rachel as well, but feared that his inquiry might smack of sexism.

If he'd understood his partner a little better, he would have known that Rachel would value the thought that he worried over her safety, regardless of her status as a gun-toting policewoman.

Because what use was a gun against the Canadian winter?

*   *   *

Following Esa, Coale managed to keep his temper in check. He barked at Laine over the intercom.

“You should have caught that, Stoicheva. Now get in here, and then maybe Khattak can explain to both of us what the hell he thinks he's playing at.”

Khattak turned from the window. When Laine entered the room, he nodded.

“You'll have to be more specific. I've no idea what you mean,” Khattak said.

Coale's unstudied elegance was at the mercy of his displeasure. An angry hand had yanked at his five-hundred-dollar tie. In his slate-blue ensemble, he should have appeared as cool as the decorous snowfall beyond the window. Instead, a vein throbbed at the base of Coale's neck. One hand was clenched around his Bulgari pen. He threw it across the desk.

It skidded to a halt in front of Laine Stoicheva, who pocketed it without a word.

“You've no idea, have you? Because you were preoccupied with upstaging me out there.” Coale jerked his head at the meeting room they had just left. “Tell him, won't you, Laine?”

“Andy Dar spoke to the media today.”

The news didn't shock Khattak as much as Coale had hoped. Keeping Dar quiet had always been chancy. He was the person Khattak least expected cooperation from.

“You had one job, Khattak. One job. Keep Dar quiet, and get out of our way.”

Khattak suppressed the urge to tell Coale he couldn't count.

He glanced at Laine, wondering what her contribution to events was meant to be. Audience? Sycophant? A form of Dutch courage, taken straight up?

“He called a press conference in front of police headquarters. Apparently, he sent out a press release in advance, accusing the powers that be of racist dissimulation.”

She recited the words by rote, her face inscrutable, siding neither with Khattak nor Coale.

Khattak glanced at the snowfall outside.

“And people came?”

“It's everywhere. Online, television, radio.”

“Can I see it?”

Laine gave Khattak her phone. He scrolled through the press release, less than half his attention on it. He was thinking ahead to a task that Rachel could undertake.

It was the same kind of material Dar published on his blog. Bombastic, polemical—opinions without hard evidence, indiscriminate generalizations that had made Dar popular with a certain segment of the hard right.

His blog ran under the phrase “The Trouble with Islam Is Islam.”

This was more of the same, with the spleen directed at a new target—Esa Khattak.

But there was nothing substantive to Dar's accusations. Dar wanted to know why Khattak wasn't investigating the scene in Algonquin; he demanded his son's body back for immediate burial. Beyond that, there were shadowy insinuations about the life of a Muslim homicide victim being considered less valuable than that of a white Canadian. He called Khattak's assignment to the investigation a pacifier. And he accused Khattak of attempting to buy his silence. But Dar was a man who wouldn't be silenced, not when he had truth on his side. He didn't want Khattak investigating his son's death. He wanted no one less than the police commissioner on the job.

But he'd left the Masjid un-Nur alone. Coincidence? Providence? Neither seemed to apply. More likely that Dar was keeping something in reserve, something to stir up media interest down the line.

The blizzard would be the lead news item tonight. And Dar wouldn't want the spotlight to fade quite so soon. Which meant there had to be something in reserve.

“The headline's unfair, Esa,” Laine said.

Khattak hadn't read it. And he suspected Laine's attempt at commiseration.

He scrolled back to the top of the press release.

“The Trouble with Islam Is Inspector Esa Khattak of Community Policing, Says Well-known Broadcast Journalist Andy Dar.”

“We're not here to hold each other's hands,” Coale barked.

Khattak handed the phone back to Laine.

“I spoke to Dar. He gave me assurances that he would wait forty-eight hours to go public.” Khattak held up a hand before Coale could interrupt. “I didn't take that as a guarantee, but you'll see that he hasn't mentioned the Nur mosque. This could work to our advantage.”

“And how do you figure that?”

“It takes the pressure off Ashkouri. If I'm under attack, and my murder investigation is hobbled, he'll be emboldened. It may help if he sees me as weak.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“Not yet.”

“What are you waiting for, man? You think the solution is going to be handed to you?” Coale mimicked an effeminate voice. “‘Please, Inspector Esa, may I confess to you?'”

“No.” Khattak held on to his patience. Coale was goading him for a reason. “As I remember it, you asked me to proceed without causing undue alarm at the mosque. I've interviewed four of the five people who were at the winter camp with Dar, and my partner has spoken to both women. Ashkouri dodged the questioning today.”

“I should take you off this right now,” Coale threatened. “You've failed from start to finish. On top of that, you're hopelessly compromised.”

This time Khattak took the bait.

“Meaning?”

“Your sister, Khattak. She's engaged to Ashkouri. They're as thick as thieves.”

Khattak's reply was icy. “Have you any evidence to support that claim? Among your thousands of intercepts?”

He wanted proof of what he'd found in Gavin Chan's office. Rukshanda Khattak: Cell 1.

Coale didn't answer. He thrust his hand into his collar. If he'd had anything against Ruksh, he would have played his hand by now.

“Then I want my sister out of this.”

“Oh no, no.” Coale took a special pleasure in denying the request. “Just because we haven't found anything doesn't mean there isn't anything. And if you remove your sister from the equation, that's as good as sounding Ashkouri a warning bell. No, nothing changes except you. We don't need you anymore, and I'm not sure you can be trusted with an operation of this magnitude. It requires careful police work, Khattak. The kind they don't expect from CPS—which let's face it, is just political correctness run amok.”

And there it was, beneath the words. The slow-burning resentment that Khattak had been the one to leap ahead, leaving Coale behind, until Coale's own promotion had come through much later.

It explained a great deal, not least Coale's simmering antagonism.

“That's not your call to make. And if you have nothing but this press release, I suggest that neither of us wastes any further time. I have leads I need to pursue.”

A young officer knocked at the door to Killiam's office. “We have something, sir,” he said to Coale. “We're moving on the fertilizer delivery.”

Ciprian Coale brushed by Khattak, a dismissal. And then he turned at the door, with an actor's instinctive grasp of how to make an exit.

“You set another foot wrong, and you're finished, Khattak. You're going to find that you've used up all your rope.”

*   *   *

Laine and Khattak looked at each other.

“Why am I really here?” Esa asked her. “Has something happened?”

She didn't answer this.

“You know we hear everything that happens at the mosque. But we wouldn't have understood about the poem. That was an incredible step forward for us.”

“And?” Then realization cut deep, as he sorted through her words. “Is Rachel in danger? Does Ashkouri suspect her?”

Laine moved as though she wanted to reach for Khattak's arm. She checked herself before the gesture could be completed. Familiarity was no longer possible between them.

“It's not about your partner. It's Ruksh. You can't get her out—she won't listen to you. But maybe I can. I could talk to her, Esa; she knows me.”

But Ruksh had no reason to trust Laine Stoicheva, and both of them knew it. Ruksh had been a front-row witness to the claim Laine had brought against Esa. And to the two-year silence between Esa and Nathan Clare, his closest friend—Laine the issue of contention between them.

“And risk the operation?” Khattak examined Laine's flawless face. He read nothing save the solemn desire to help. Which was how Laine lured otherwise sharp-witted officers into her ambush. “Why would you do that? Why would you want to do that? We're not friends. There's nothing between us.”

A hand inside his jacket pocket switched on the recording function on his cell phone.

Laine shrugged her slim shoulders. A lock of dark hair fell across her face, giving her the appearance of a downcast angel.

“We don't need complications. This is a complication I could remove.”

And what if she said that Khattak had warned Ruksh off, in defiance of explicit orders? He wouldn't put it past Laine. Her behavior was unpredictable, even at her best.

“I don't think so. I don't need your help, Laine. I can manage my own family.”

“I'm not your enemy, Esa. I don't know why you still see me that way. We used to work well together.”

Khattak raised both eyebrows.

“Is that a serious question, Laine? After everything you did? After what you did to my friend?” He precluded her attempt at an answer. “Let's not dig up the past. Whatever you're doing now, whatever this attempt at reconciliation is—it's not working. Leave it alone.”

Laine studied Khattak's shuttered face in turn. Whatever she saw in it convinced her that this wasn't the time to press the subject. She moved to the door, one hand clasped on the knob. She spoke over one shoulder, in an unconscious imitation of Coale's departing gesture.

“Maybe something good came of your presence at Nur today. When Ashkouri left without talking to you, I mean. You've distracted his attention from the fertilizer delivery.”

But she didn't tell him anything further, and Khattak chose not to ask.

 

16

Rachel had pulled over to a side street to wait out the storm when Khattak called her.

“Where are you?”

“Not far from where you left me. Blizzard's out of control. It's supposed to ease up later tonight.”

“Could you go back?”

Rachel decided not to ignore the note of strain in Khattak's voice.

“To the mosque? No problem. What's going on?”

“Throw yourself on their mercy. Tell them you need a place to stay. And make sure they know you've told several people where you are. I want you to nose around a little. Maybe you'll find something that tells us how the two cells are communicating. Or something that connects to the murder.”

Rachel could almost hear Khattak second-guessing himself.

“I'll be fine, sir, don't worry. You're thinking they're on to us? The wiretaps caught something?”

“Not that exactly. Someone at the camp has already killed once. Whatever their reasons, the murder was cold and rational. If they knew about Mohsin, it's possible they suspect you. I don't like to think of sending you into a pit of vipers by yourself. Someone still has that gun.”

“Well, they won't all be staying over at the mosque, will they? And I'll have the chance to search for the gun. You don't need to worry about me. You know that I can handle myself.”

The words came out sounding more personal than professional. Rachel hurried over them before Khattak could notice.

“What happened with INSET?”

“Several unpleasant things.” Khattak filled her in on the Rose of Darkness website, and its connection to Ashkouri. He went over the chat log in some detail.

Rachel scratched at her ear, thinking.

“So if Hawiye is Din Abdi, doesn't that put him in the clear? If he's demanding answers about Mohsin Dar's death? And doesn't it sound like he expects that if anyone did this, it was Ashkouri himself?”

She heard Khattak sigh. And wondered how he planned to get home. The road closures had multiplied. Cakes of snow were wedged inside her windshield wipers.

“Yes to the first. I don't think it is Din. He doesn't possess that kind of coolheadedness. If he'd been the one to murder Mohsin Dar, he'd have fallen apart by now. You get a sense of it in the transcript as well. He's unraveling. As to Ashkouri—it sounds like it, but RDSB used the public terminal at the mosque.”

Rachel pondered this. “So it could have been someone else. Listen,” she said. “I had a thought about Mohsin Dar. And what he might have been doing at Nur.”

She spoke for several more minutes without interruption. When she had finished, Khattak confirmed her suspicions.

“I've been thinking the same thing. And wondering about the RCMP role in all this.”

“Too laid-back?” Rachel offered. “Too wrongheaded? Wearing blinders? Fatally misunderstanding their man?”

“All of the above.”

Rachel started her car. The wipers moved back and forth across the windshield, bumping slightly over the hardened snow. She turned on the defrost.

“What else, sir? There's something more, isn't there?”

She had a feeling she knew what it was. And she wondered if Khattak would choose to tell her. After a moment, he did.

“I don't like working with Laine. Ciprian's a known quantity, I know what his agenda is, what he wants, why his feelings are bruised. I can't say the same for Laine.”

Despite the falling temperature, warmth bubbled inside Rachel. The words were a sign of trust, a sign that her partnership with Khattak was expanding, deepening. She caught herself in the rearview mirror with a ridiculous grin pasted on her face. She wiped it off with a frown.