City of Veils by Zoë Ferraris

Author:Zoë Ferraris [Ferraris, Zoë]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Middle Eastern Culture
ISBN: 9780316074278
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

23

When Osama arrived at the interrogation room, he found Abdulrahman and Fuad standing outside the door. Both men looked upset.

“I’m sure they won’t keep him,” Fuad was saying in a half whisper. “Just as long as he explains himself.”

“The stupid boy,” Abdulrahman said loudly, looking ready to burst.

Osama came upon them, and Abdulrahman turned with a start.

“Salaam alaikum,” Osama greeted the men warily. After Fuad’s phone call, Osama had waited an hour, then gone with two of his most trusted men to Abdulrahman’s house, their only pretext an elaborate errand that no one but forensics was likely to comprehend. Ra’id must have seen their cars pull up in front of the house, because he’d attempted to escape through the backyard. They had caught him and promptly arrested him.

They’d done a search of his room and found nothing, but the inspection of his car had been more fruitful: they’d found a small box of cassette tapes, the type that could be used in a video camera. Each one was labeled Leila Nawar. They’d also found a computer in the trunk. Forensics suspected that the computer was Leila’s, but according to Majdi, the hard drive had been wiped clean.

“I understand the young man came back to your house on his own?” Osama asked, knowing that his involvement would get Fuad into trouble if Abdulrahman ever discovered that his assistant had called him.

“He’s ready to talk,” Abdulrahman said. Osama disliked his tone. There was too much aggression in it.

“Did he come to you?” Osama asked.

“Yes,” Abdulrahman said. “He showed up this morning and explained himself. I told him he had to come to the police. He was a little nervous about it. I was about to convince him before your people showed up.”

Fuad wore a look of careful neutrality.

Inside the interrogation room sat a very forlorn-looking Ra’id, his head in his hands, his greasy hair hanging over his fingers. His shirt was rumpled, and there was a long cut on his forearm that looked fresh. On the table next to his elbow was an old brown box.

When Osama came in, Ra’id quickly dropped his injured arm beneath the table and sat up.

“What happened to your arm?” Osama asked.

“Bumped it against the gate in the backyard,” he said.

Osama set a folder on the table and opened the box, glancing at the cassette tapes.

“Where did you get these?” he asked.

“Leila’s bedroom,” the boy replied. His skin was gray, the bags under his eyes a terrible dark brown.

“Are these her original cassettes?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you get them?”

“She kept them in one of the spare rooms, in a hidden panel in a closet.”

“And the computer that was in the trunk of your car—whose was that?”

“Leila’s.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I took it from her room.”

“Is this why you ran away from the lingerie store that day?”

Ra’id nodded and sat forward, pressing his chest against the table as if expecting a whipping. Osama studied the boy. The family photographs they’d found in Leila’s room gave testimony to the fact that she and Ra’id were close.

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