The Perfect Crime, page 28
Langdon Prentice fired her. She should have been angry, but what she felt was relief, free at last of the secrets Hegland had forced her to keep. She’d find work in the suburbs, where she’d never cross paths with a man who thought he owned her, from her headscarf to her hopes.
She was to find out she was wrong.
Hegland wasn’t going away.
Esa
Esa Khattak sat at his desk. He’d just cleared the last of his paperwork and was contemplating a stack of blue aerograms, tied together with a thin green ribbon, faded at the corners with age. They represented the decades-long correspondence between his grandfather and his father, both long since deceased. The letters had passed into his care, and he’d promised himself that one day he would untie that ribbon, sift through the letters from Pakistan, and bring his father back to life. He was vulnerable when it came to grief. Years had passed, but his loss was still fresh, and though the letters were a gift, he’d left them untouched all this time. Perhaps the moment had come to change that. His fingers hovered above the parcel as Rachel came into the room.
Detective Sergeant Rachel Getty was his partner at Community Policing, a job that had less and less meaning when reform continued to be blocked by those in a position to change things. It was a wonder he and Rachel could hold their heads up in the communities they served. He let that thought go—he and Rachel had fought hard but would never come to terms with their superiors.
He was relieved to have an excuse to put off opening the letters. Rachel held a case file in her hand. She slapped it down in front of him, and perched on the edge of his desk, licking the traces of a Mars bar from her fingers. He could only be grateful that she’d used her clean hand to offer him the file.
She nudged the parcel of letters with her hip. ‘Chickening out again? I thought you were going to read them this century.’
No one addressed Esa Khattak, Director of Community Policing, with Rachel’s air of irreverence. From Rachel, Esa didn’t mind it, so he teased her in turn.
‘I was thinking deep thoughts, Rachel. I’d nearly made up my mind.’
‘I’ll bet.’
He opened the file and was confronted by a gruesome set of photographs. A body thoroughly dismembered by the weight of an underground train. A white man by the look of things, though with all that blood, it was hard to be sure.
‘A jumper?’ he asked. ‘Why did it come to us?’
Community Policing dealt with Toronto’s minority communities, specializing in cases where racial tensions were involved.
Rachel snatched a tissue from the box on his desk. ‘Not necessarily a jumper; he could have been pushed.’ She leaned forward, sorted through the photographs, and showed him a picture of a South Asian woman in a bright summer dress with a matching yellow headscarf. Her eyes looked wide and shocked, the pupils dazed by the flash of a camera.
‘That’s from the camera at the station. Her name is Haniya Mirza. She was there when our victim “fell”.’ Rachel made scare quotes with her fingers. ‘Her name was on a witness statement. Someone in the Hate Crime Unit picked up on it and sent the file our way. Thought the whole thing looked suspicious.’
Now Esa was interested. ‘Hate Crime Unit? These kinds of crimes are usually the other way around.’ He meant that the victims of hate crimes were normally people of color.
‘I know that, sir, but get this. The man on the tracks is Blair Hegland—he’s a well-known investment banker. A mover and shaker in the city. And Haniya Mirza filed nine complaints against him in the past seven months. He’d been harassing her, threatening her. Then suddenly she’s on a platform with him and he hits the tracks right before a train pulls up?’ Rachel’s expression was dubious.
‘Which station?’
‘Bloor and Yonge. Southbound to Union.’
‘Rush hour?’
‘I know what you’re going to say. It’s a crush there, maybe he was crowded to the edge. But she was standing right next to him. Would you do that if someone was harassing you?’
‘He could have followed her onto the platform. A crush, like you said, so she couldn’t get away.’
Rachel’s brown eyes lit with enthusiasm. There was nothing she loved more than having a puzzle to solve.
‘There’s security footage. She’s caught on camera speaking to our victim. She’s on the wrong side of the yellow line.’
The yellow line designated the safe zone. Crossing it put commuters too close to the incoming trains.
‘But the camera doesn’t show her pushing him?’
‘Not from the footage we have. But we’re hunting down another angle. We’re also looking to see if anyone else was using a cell phone to film. I’ve got Gaffney on that.’
Gaffney was their tech specialist. If there was video footage out there, he would find it.
‘Good.’ Khattak looked down at the file, disturbed. Haniya Mirza had been a victim of harassment. Nine complaints and Hegland had faced nothing other than a conversation with Hate Crimes.
‘Oh no you don’t.’ Rachel jabbed a finger at him. ‘Don’t go soft on me. Did you see the body on the tracks?’
Khattak stifled a sigh. Rachel was going to insist on being lead in the interview, so he tried to redirect her.
‘Why so many complaints? Weren’t any of them followed up?’
Rachel looked a little abashed. ‘Hate crimes, sir. You know how that goes. No proof to back up her claims, no evidence that he did the things he was accused of. She said he followed her wherever she went. Groped her on the subway, yanked off her scarf. Could be he was escalating, but her word against his, so either he was smart about how he targeted her, or she had an axe to grind.’
‘Her testimony is evidence,’ Khattak pointed out.
He studied the photographs in the file. Haniya Mirza looked to be about thirty, Hegland a few years older.
‘No corroboration,’ Rachel said absently. ‘No witnesses to any of it.’ She touched a finger to the image of the headscarf. ‘You letting Mirza off because of this?’
Khattak didn’t take the bait. Rachel knew he was devout, just as she knew that his faith may have heightened his empathy but it didn’t get in the way of his commitment to his work.
‘I’d like to hear her out, that’s all.’
He spread the stack of complaints across his desk, covering up the photos of the body. Rachel pulled up a chair to join him.
They hadn’t been reading long when Khattak raised his head, a fine rage in his eyes. No woman deserved what Hegland had put Haniya through.
‘Hate Crimes let all of this pass?’
There had been no justice for Haniya when Hegland was alive. And now that he was dead, his shadow still hung over her. What could he possibly say to this woman whom his colleagues had failed? Why hadn’t they referred Haniya’s complaints to him?
She was owed something from him if only for her courage in continuing to report Hegland’s harassment. But also because she was a Muslim sister to him, and as far as he could bridge that gap as a man, the torment she had suffered appalled him.
Rachel reached a different conclusion. Her ponytail bounced with excitement as she said, ‘That’s why I think he didn’t jump.’
Haniya
The detective was beautiful in a way men weren’t meant to be beautiful. So beautiful that she almost didn’t realize he was treating her as a suspect, and not as a witness he’d invited to speak. He had sleek cheekbones, deeply green eyes, and thick black hair, in that way that South Asian hair was thick, lush and springy. Beautifully shaped lips with a delicate upper edging that was likely sensitive to touch. Not that she was thinking of touching him, but she wondered if she’d be able to paint such a strong yet delicate line. Looking at him, she wondered how people took him seriously.
Her glance must have lingered too long because his handsome face became shuttered, a hint of distaste in the lift of his chin. He had to know he was attractive, yet he didn’t altogether welcome it. Haniya found that interesting. The inner and outer man at odds—the detective wary and cool, the rest of him opposed. Those green eyes with tiny flames at the center, the mouth held tight—he could be a man who shared her rage. She knew from his reputation that he’d walked some distance in her shoes, censured for being who he was—a Pakistani Muslim in a white man’s job, while claiming to speak for those he considered his own.
He was the face of Community Policing and that was not an easy thing to be. But Haniya would test him and see. She would know very quickly if he was brown or blue or some strange mix calibrated to suit the current politics. Her replies to him would be governed by whether or not he passed the test. Are you like me or not?
His partner was another matter. Detective Sergeant Rachel Getty had kind, sharp eyes that glinted with good humor. She wore a hockey jersey over slim black trousers, her lank brown hair in a ponytail. Not a look that Haniya envied. Not like the woman in the photograph on Khattak’s desk, whom Haniya noticed at once. A photograph placed beside a stack of letters that looked well-thumbed, though the ribbon that tied them was new.
She took a closer look at the picture. The woman had russet hair that fell in soft waves; she was attractive in a way that Haniya resented. She could look like that if she chose, style her hair in long, loose curls. But she’d made a choice about how she expressed her faith, and no matter how dire the repercussions were, she stayed firm in that choice, though the cost of it was loneliness and fear.
When you wore the hijab, people looked through you when you passed them on the street, in the same way they ignored the homeless, as if it was a virus you could catch.
For others, she was too visible. They were the ones who expressed their hate, who brushed up against her body, who shoved their palms between her legs, or who grabbed her breast when no one was looking and squeezed hard enough to bruise. Misogynists and racists. They spit or punched and kicked, they pulled at her headscarf until her pins came loose to score a trail of blood across her cheeks.
She glanced from the photograph to Rachel. Hijab wasn’t just about hair, and here she was, focused on hair. Hegland had wanted to see her hair, and in the end he’d succeeded. He’d pushed her to her knees. She shuddered at the memory. Yet here she was, still breathing and in one piece, a little humiliated maybe, but Hegland was dead, and she was here with Esa Khattak.
Funny, that. Hegland had been visited by the police only once. He’d denied the allegations, and ended up giving them a tour of his boardroom with its stunning views of the lake. The visit had ended in the kind of all-boys-together camaraderie that made Haniya want to throw up, her anger a burning ball in her gut.
Hegland should have been in her place, questioned by two detectives, on the hot seat for his actions. But no one had called him in.
Her eyes flicked to Esa Khattak. He was Muslim and South Asian too. So what was Khattak doing on the other side of that desk?
Whatever it was, he wouldn’t arrest her for the part she’d played in Hegland’s death.
He couldn’t, without any proof.
Esa
Haniya Mirza didn’t look like she could kill, which was probably a facile assumption. Killers came in all shapes and sizes, from all denominations of faith, or from none at all. He’d once considered arresting an imam. A headscarf didn’t mean a woman was saintly; it simply ensured that Esa proceeded with a certain decorum.
He’d studied the security camera footage, and hadn’t come up with answers. One minute a tall red-faced man was standing on the platform, the next he leapt at a woman in a yellow dress, and then he was on the tracks. Electrocuted then crushed by a train that weighed nearly eighty thousand pounds.
A mutilated body. An ugly death.
Was Haniya Mirza beautiful? No. But perhaps, without at all excusing it, there had been something about her that sparked Hegland’s obsession. A generous nature, or a quick sense of humor, an underlying sexuality? He could see none of these things in the woman seated across from him, her ankles neatly crossed beneath her dress. She wore a white chador with her dress, its folds modestly draped over her torso.
He played the footage again.
‘Did you push him?’
She denied it a second time. And then she said, as she hadn’t done the first time, ‘You’re very concerned about this man who managed to fall from the platform.’
‘It could be that he was pushed,’ Khattak said. ‘And I’m curious as to why your arms are raised, as the footage makes clear, if it wasn’t to push him.’
One didn’t necessarily establish the other, but Khattak wanted to see how she’d respond.
‘Does it?’ She tipped her head to one side. ‘I’m not seeing what you see.’
‘That isn’t you in the yellow dress? The same one you’re wearing now? Engaged in a conversation with Blair Hegland, moments before his death?’
She could have worn the dress to the interview to taunt them, or as proof of her innocence. Or maybe she was just confident that the footage wouldn’t convict her. It was difficult to see what had transpired because Hegland’s lunge at her at the crucial moment blocked her body from view. Khattak could only see the upraised arms, and the fitted yellow sleeves. The crowd surged ahead and Hegland fell.
‘What was he saying to you?’
‘The same vile things he always said. Racist insults followed by sexual threats.’ She placed a small hand on his desk, pointing to a complaint. ‘I did give your officers a thorough report. There seemed to be much less interest in Mr Hegland, then.’
She was angry, and she had every right to be if the reports were true, yet her response to Esa was impersonal. Candid, cool, and not at all anxious or frantic. He couldn’t get a read on her. The contrast between the woman who sat before him unperturbed, and the one at the end of her tether in the complaints, was stark. Sending Hegland to his death would have taken a great deal of nerve. Did she possess that kind of nerve?
‘What did you say to him before he lunged at you?’
Her fingers slid over the papers on his desk, soft and lightly caressing.
Her eyes slid away from his, and, with a complete change of manner, she said, ‘You know that he assaulted me? On many occasions, he—groped me?’
‘I’ve read every word of the complaints.’ Voice grave, gaze respectfully turned from her.
‘He was going to do the same again. I could see it in his eyes. He thought I was powerless, and that gave him some kind of high. He was an evil man,’ she went on. ‘But that doesn’t mean I killed him.’
Esa wanted to believe her. Rachel was still skeptical. Her thick brows were raised, a nerve ticking in her jaw.
‘You didn’t answer the inspector’s question. What did you say to Hegland that made him come at you like that?’
Haniya’s lips firmed, a sign of temper at Rachel’s accusation, but her answer was frank.
‘I told him not to touch me. I told him to save himself.’ She gestured at Khattak without looking at him. ‘No woman should be touched without her consent. Inspector Khattak knows exactly how he was trying to degrade me.’
Rachel frowned. ‘To save himself from what? Retaliation?’
Haniya’s voice cracked. ‘To save his own soul. As a daughter of Khadija, I wanted to warn him. He was so determined to abuse me that he didn’t notice the train. He sprang at me and he fell.’
Still doubtful, Rachel pushed on. ‘Daughter of Khadija? I don’t know what that means.’
Esa Khattak did. Khadija, the first woman to accept Islam, was the beloved wife of the Prophet. A partner and mentor of unquestionable integrity. And he wondered if Haniya saw herself that way or if that self-knowledge had colored Hegland’s treatment of her.
‘Why didn’t you report Hegland’s threats to Community Policing?’
She should have lashed out at the question. She wasn’t the one at fault. Her eyes came to rest on the little parcel of letters. As if she understood what he was grappling with, she said, ‘It’s hard to face the things that strip you raw. Or to bear up against the past.’
Empathy warmed the space between them. The tightness in Khattak’s chest eased because the truth in the end was simple. He wasn’t ready. And he wouldn’t touch the letters until he was.
Rachel said, ‘Hegland was in your present, not your past.’
He gave Rachel a hard look before he followed up, ‘Can you tell us why your arms were raised if you didn’t push him?’
The moment between them lost, Haniya’s hands worked in her lap.
‘He was going to touch my body. I was guarding myself.’
•
As a last resort, Khattak called in an old friend, a reporter by the name of Vicky D’Souza, who excelled at analyzing film. Vicky was small, bright, lovely and persistent, a great favorite of Rachel’s and Esa’s, whom she’d met on another case. They’d asked her in to cast fresh eyes over the security footage.
No other record of Hegland’s fall had turned up, no cell phone videos, no witnesses, no proof that he’d been pushed. Only that brief confrontation on the platform.
‘I like her gloves,’ Vicky said, nodding at the screen. ‘They’re a perfect match for her scarf.’
Esa had missed this. Haniya Mirza hadn’t been wearing gloves in his office. He’d seen her small brown hands smoothing the papers on his desk. Keeping her hands concealed wasn’t part of her dress code. So why had she been wearing gloves on a warm summer’s day?
‘Take another look at this, would you, Vicky?’
‘Anything for you, Inspector.’
He smiled and she continued, ‘Stop smiling at me like that. You know my heart can’t take it.’
He shook his head in reproof. ‘Stop flirting with me and pay attention.’
Vicky wasn’t serious. She had married her college sweetheart earlier that summer, and Esa had given a toast at the wedding.
‘Do you see anything I don’t?’
They stared at the screen together, Khattak peering at the gloves.
