Among the Ruins Read online

  Rachel could appreciate why Nate had chosen to distance himself; he valued his independence as a critic of government policy. Over the past few years, he’d argued against the proposed Charter of Values in Quebec, and had made clear his opposition to the Conservative government’s stance on the admission of Syrian refugees.

  “Let’s not take a step back in fear,” Nate had said about the refugee crisis. “We’ve come too far, and worked too hard to build our reputation. And then there’s the question of decency.”

  Rachel wondered if Nathan Clare, whose pedigree placed him in the category of what the former prime minister had termed an “old stock” Canadian, would have argued so strongly for a multicultural Canada if he hadn’t grown up with Esa Khattak, a man whose parents were from Pakistan. The work Loveland Clare had done in his post as ambassador, the work his children were doing now, suggested the answer was yes.

  Their paths had crossed several times since Rachel had first met Nathan during the course of an investigation. Initially, she’d been nervous around him, intimidated by his fame, but their relationship had since progressed to an easy camaraderie that made Rachel realize Nate had decided on her as a friend.

  Not a girlfriend, she thought, remembering with a blush the hints she had dropped to her father. And she wasn’t sure how she felt about the closing off of romantic possibilities. In addition to everything else, Nathan Clare was undeniably charming.

  When she’d called Nate to ask about Zahra, he’d invited her to Winterglass, the Clares’ magnificent house on the Bluffs.

  And now they were seated in the morning room, a tray of coffee between them, the room a late addition to the glass-and-silver kitchen. An oak table was set before a window enclosed by columns. The white spires of birch trees cast their shadows on the window. The waves of the lake blossomed in the distance, seagulls skimming the surface. It was a cold spring morning, the long grass soaked by a heathery snow.

  On a wall to one side, bookcases rose to the ceiling, the room made intimate by the amiable presence of books. Nate’s laptop hummed on a writing desk between the bookcases, a vase of ivory tulips beside it. A photograph of Zahra Sobhani flickered from the screen.

  “Esfahan,” Nate mused. “An imperial capital of Persia, at least twice in its fascinating history. I’ve never been there, but I understand it’s an architectural wonder.”

  “The boss says he’s been hanging out in the gardens. Must be nice to have a real spring.”

  Rachel’s ardent passion for winter began to wane by the middle of March. Six months was more than enough time to indulge in her fondness for winter activities. She caught Nate’s eye. She’d dressed for this meeting with care, pairing a tailored cream blouse with matching slacks, the effect undercut by the giant blue parka hanging over her chair. But she felt fresh and feminine, eager to tackle the challenge of a new case, and no longer over-awed by Nate, lulled by his old-world charm.

  “I knew Zahra,” he went on. “We met at the film festival last year and stayed in touch. She was a fascinating woman. I can’t believe this has happened to her.”

  Rachel nodded. She couldn’t imagine the starkness of a place like Evin prison. She’d seen the dead, she knew the human heart was capable of a monstrous darkness, but she’d never seen the dead brutalized. Or imagined the fragility of a Canadian passport.

  It made her all the more worried for Khattak.

  When she’d asked him to come home, she’d meant it. He wasn’t just her boss or her partner at Community Policing. He was a measurable part of her life.

  “What can you tell me about Zahra? What was she like?”

  Nate thought about this, his coffee cup half-raised to his mouth.

  “She was lovely. And I don’t mean that in the way most men talk about women.”

  He spoke as if Rachel understood, Rachel who’d never heard a man describe a woman as lovely. These days you were either hot or not, womanhood reduced to a basic equation Rachel hadn’t been able to figure out and didn’t see why she should. She wanted to be attractive, everyone did, but it was the smallest part of who she was.

  “She was thoughtful and decent, but I don’t think anyone would describe Zahra as comfortable. A discussion of culture or film could turn into something urgent. She held you accountable for what you chose to do with your life.”

  “That does sound uncomfortable. I wonder if it made her any enemies.”

  “You’re thinking like a detective,” Nate cautioned. “Wasn’t this a political crime?”

  “I’m not sure.” Rachel weighed her words. After their call, Khattak had sent her a brief e-mail about the letters left for him at his guesthouse.

  Find out what Zahra wanted with the letters.

  She’d made a quick guess that proved sound upon reflection.

  There were two different sets of letters. The ones Khattak had received, and the ones in Zahra Sobhani’s possession. Either she or Khattak would have to track Zahra’s letters down.

  “What were you able to find out?” she asked Nate.

  “You’ve seen the news, you know there’s been an international outcry. It would lead you to think something’s being done, that demands are being made on the family’s behalf.”

  “They’re not?”

  Nate tilted his head to one side.

  “Our government has no formal relationship with the Iranian regime. All diplomatic ties were severed some years ago and haven’t been renewed. Publicly, the government is expressing its outrage with some firmness. Privately, it will do nothing.”

  “That’s not what I’ve been hearing,” Rachel said.

  “Ah, you mean the thaw? The plans to re-open our embassy in Tehran? Yes, I’d heard that, too. There were rumblings—all of which depended on the terms of the nuclear agreement being upheld and sanctions being lifted. Things would have progressed,” he mused. “Canadian companies are keen to get back to business in Iran, something Zahra’s death will complicate.”

  “What about this woman the boss mentioned in his e-mail? Where does she fit into things?” Rachel checked her phone. “Touka Swan. Helen.”

  “The next time you hear from him, ask him to send you a photograph. I’ve asked around. Her name is not unknown in diplomatic circles. She has no official standing that anyone will admit to, so she may be intelligence. And Touka Swan may be an alias. I wonder if she was sent ahead to smooth the way—for the day the doors of our embassy re-open.”

  Rachel thought this was possible. Khattak had described a sense of being threatened to cooperate by Touka. And of being bribed. Rachel smiled inwardly at the thought. Clearly, this woman knew nothing about Khattak.

  “Then what do we actually know about Zahra Sobhani’s murder? Why would Swan want proof of this character Radan’s involvement, if we’re hoping to rebuild an official relationship with Iran? Wouldn’t it be better to sweep things under the rug?”

  Nate flipped through a notebook in his hands. “Max Najafi is raising a stink, which is only to be expected. He’s calling his mother’s murder an extra-judicial killing and demanding the government intervene. He’s said he’ll take it to the International Criminal Court. The court won’t have jurisdiction over Zahra’s murder, but it’s an embarrassment for our government nonetheless. Pursuing Radan may be a way of keeping him quiet while working to re-establish diplomatic ties.”

  Rachel took a long sip of her coffee, thinking this over.

  “Not if you can’t do anything with Radan once you have him. It seems flimsy to me. And it seems like Zahra was inconvenient.”

  Nate nodded his agreement.

  “It could be for leverage, then. To be used at a later date when something critical is at stake—perhaps a business opportunity or trade deal that favors us.”

  Rachel looked at the photograph on the laptop screen.

  “The murder of a human rights advocate seems critical to me.” Behind Nate’s shoulder, Zahra’s expression in the photograph was lively, her mouth smiling, the expression of
her eyes commanding. She was as well-known for her films as she was for the clarity behind them.

  The state should not murder its own citizens.

  Rachel shook her head in disgust. “I wouldn’t have had the guts to make those films. She must have thought she had the government’s protection, but we seem quick to trade her away.”

  “We don’t know that for sure, though I’ve learned not to doubt your instincts.”

  Nate leafed through his notebook again. When Rachel had called for his help, she’d asked him to sound out his friends at the Department of Foreign Affairs.

  No one had warned him off. That didn’t mean it wasn’t a matter of time.

  “She arrived in Iran at the end of December. She made the rounds that every family member of a detainee makes: the Ministry of Intelligence, the judiciary, the prosecutor’s office, the police chief of Tehran, the offices of human rights groups that haven’t been shuttered. Ten days ago, she was able to obtain an interview with a representative of the Supreme Leader.”

  Rachel snorted into her coffee.

  “Sounds like he should be running an army in North Korea.”

  Nate didn’t laugh.

  “No one holds more power in Iran. To have gotten that interview, Zahra must have had some highly placed contacts.”

  “Do we know why she wanted to meet him?”

  “She asked to discuss the case of Roxana Najafi—her ex-husband’s daughter from his second marriage.”

  Rachel mulled this over. Maybe that wasn’t the only thing Zahra had hoped to discuss. Maybe she’d been searching for the mysterious letters. Or used the letters to some end they didn’t know. She wished Khattak’s secret correspondent had been less oblique.

  “Three days later, she was detained at Evin. Maybe there’s a connection there. If she was granted that meeting—” She looked at Nate, the question in her eyes.

  “She was,” he confirmed.

  “I wonder if connections were what got her that meeting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I doubt the office of the Supreme Leader grants interviews on the welfare of political prisoners. I’m wondering if Zahra had some leverage of her own. If she got the meeting because she had something over them. Or if she knew something that was of interest to the Supreme Leader’s office. And that’s what got her killed. That’s what put her at Evin, where someone wanted her dead. And if that’s the case—we’ll have to figure out why. What did she know that someone found so dangerous?” In short, sharp sentences she told Nate about Esa’s letters.

  “Esa’s burning the letters, I hope.”

  “I hope so, too.” Though in Khattak’s position, Rachel would have thought of the letters as evidence, she wouldn’t have destroyed them.

  She stood up, stuffing herself back into her parka.

  “Where are you going?” Nate put his notebook away.

  “You’re coming with me,” she said. “The only way we’ll figure out how she got that meeting is if we arrange to speak to her son.”

  Nate gathered up his things while Rachel took their mugs to the sink.

  “You think Max Najafi will talk to you?”

  She gave him a breezy smile.

  “Maybe, maybe not. But given that he’s trying to get the government’s attention, I’d lay odds he’ll want to talk to you.”

  9

  The Welcoming Committee

  You know what to expect at Evin. They beat your feet, you walk the gauntlet past the locked cells to the interrogation building. They keep you for hours, then you’re thrown into a cell to scratch your name into a wall, or possibly to sleep. At the interrogation, a man walks behind you out of sight, clicking his beads between his fingers, while another man asks questions by thumping his fists on the table. They may or may not beat you, the violence is psychological. But in Kahrizak, things are different. The beatings begin at 6:00 A.M. and continue until the sun sets. No one is stronger than anyone else, everyone cries, everyone bleeds. And as our bones crack and organs burst, the guards begin to laugh.

  10

  Max Najafi shared a home with his mother in Summerhill, a Toronto neighborhood near the old railway station, characterized by Edwardian-style homes and the occasional renovated property.

  Zahra Sobhani’s house was in a state of mild disrepair, lending a scruffy charm to a beautifully landscaped garden yet to come into bloom. Kaffir lime trees bordered the stone driveway. A flat-bottomed swing attached by a set of metal chains hung from the sturdiest branch of an oak tree in the center of the garden.

  As Rachel and Nate stood side by side on the porch waiting for an answer to the doorbell, Rachel couldn’t shake the feeling they were bearers of bad tidings, though Max had already been informed of his mother’s death. And he hadn’t been left to grieve on his own. A line of cars was parked on the street in front of his house, the driveway blocked by three more.

  When he answered the door, she recognized him from his picture in the newspaper. She flashed her ID and introduced Nate.

  Max was dressed in black, his face unshaven, his eyelids puffy with lack of sleep. Past him down a long corridor, Rachel could see a room filled with visitors. Men and women dressed in black, their faces somber with the courtesies of grief, while a young woman in a black dress offered a tray of tea glasses around the room.

  Candles were lit on a side table before a portrait of Zahra. The windows were open, and two men stood near them, smoking and speaking in low voices. A television program ran mutely in the background. From time to time, a woman would sob aloud.

  Max invited them into a cold and spacious room at the front of the house, where a pair of rattan chairs were flanked by a low-cushioned seating area, broad enough for several people to stretch out. Persian string instruments reminiscent of sitars were stationed at intervals around the room, along with a drum called the tombak. In pride of place at the center of the room was an exquisitely restored Bosendorfer piano, the underside of its lid painted a creamy white. Against this backdrop, a flight of blue starlings encircled a vegetal vine. On either side of the piano’s fallboard, two sets of initials were inscribed in inlaid panels. MN and RN.

  Above this, a scrollwork held an unfinished composition.

  Nate wandered over to it, his gold eyes flinty with concentration. Rachel could sense how badly he wanted to touch the keys.

  When Max called to the other room in Farsi, a young man served them tea without milk. Rachel examined Max’s face. He gripped his glass, staring at Rachel in turn.

  “Why have you come?” He frowned over at Nate, still lingering at the piano. “I don’t see how the local police can help me.”

  In the photographs Rachel had studied while bringing herself up to date on Zahra’s murder, Max Najafi had seemed possessed of an inarticulate, dreamlike quality, like a stargazer searching the skies. She’d seen the look before, on her mother’s face, when Lillian had played the piano sequestered in the basement.

  The basement was Lillian’s retreat. Seated before a shabby piano, she would play Schubert, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski. Rachel would sit at her mother’s feet, enthralled, until her father’s return from work signaled the end of their private rapprochement. If the piano had been out of tune, if the pages of Lillian’s sheet music were out of order, neither of them had minded.

  And as Lillian had played, a familiar look would come into her eyes—a look Rachel had mistaken for abstraction. Max’s eyes held that same ethereal quality: he was hearing the music in his head.

  Nate had taken a seat on the piano bench. At a brief nod of permission, his fingers strayed over the Bosendorfer’s keys, in a delicate run of notes.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. Najafi. Given your mother’s talents, it’s a more than ordinary loss.”

  Max was distracted by Nate’s desultory wanderings at the piano. Rachel recognized Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp Minor, its soft introduction followed by broken portamento chords that Nate intention
ally dampened. She was glad he hadn’t chosen “Tristesse” or Ravel’s “Pavane for a Dead Princess,” too close to Max Najafi’s pain. Halfway through, Nate broke off—perhaps recognizing the music as an intrusion into another’s sorrow, rather than a tribute.

  Max drew a sharp breath. He turned his head from the piano.

  “No loss is ordinary,” he said.

  “Tell me about your mother. I know she was a gifted filmmaker. Is that why she was in Iran? To make another film?”

  Najafi seemed to consider many different responses before he answered.

  “It was her life’s purpose. She wanted to do a follow-up to the last film. She said the regime had broken the bones of the movement.”

  “What was there to follow up?” Rachel asked cautiously. “Do you mean a sequel to A Requiem for Hope? Would the Iranian authorities have allowed her to make such a film, given the reception to the first one?”

  The widely lauded film had been a damning indictment of the regime’s repression of human rights, embarrassing the nation on the world’s stage and isolating it further.

  “The story wasn’t finished.”

  “Of course it wasn’t,” Nate agreed. He was studying the sheet music in his hands. “The election was just the beginning. Your mother must have wanted to know the fate of the protesters. She must have hoped there was something more she could do.”

  Rachel took this up. “I believe she was asking about your stepsister. I understand your mother had a meeting at the office of the Supreme Leader.”

  Najafi’s face went blank.

  “You mean my sister, Roxana.” And then a note of excitement crept into his voice. “How could you know this?” he demanded. “Do you have sources in Iran? Someone who could help?”