Only One Life: A Novel Part 26

"Let's go back. Rick needs to hear this sequence from the beginning."

The interpreter nodded briefly at Louise and was about to start reading from a piece of paper when Storm interrupted him to explain that this was a conversation that had just taken place over dinner.

"Ahmad called Sada," the interpreter explained. He adjusted his gla.s.ses and started translating the conversation.

"'I've told the police now.'" The interpreter looked up at her and made it clear that Ahmad had said that to Samra's mother.

"Then she asks, 'What did you tell them?'"

"'How it's connected.'"

"Here, there's a long pause on the tape," the interpreter noted before he read more.

"Sada says that he's a sick man, and that he shouldn't ruin her whole family with his wickedness."

Louise had taken a seat on a chair, and she jumped forward a little involuntarily when the interpreter described Ahmad's reaction.

"He says: 'You already ruined the girl with all that freedom and you're ruining the rest of our family. Samra's was only one life. We have a whole family to think about. I will not walk around feeling ashamed for the rest of my life because you couldn't control your daughter.' Sada sobs intensely and says that he has every possible reason to be ashamed, and that she's going to talk to the police too," the interpreter continued, addressing Louise, before he read yet another of Ahmad's outbursts and explained that the voices were very heated here.

The interpreter lowered the piece of paper and said, "At this point, Sada hangs up, and there hasn't been any activity at the number since then."

Louise let the words sink in for a moment.

"We need to bring the mother in now and get her to tell us what she knows," Storm said.

36.

THE FRONT DOOR WAS OPEN WHEN LOUISE AND MlK ARRIVED AT Dysseparken 16B. Mik went in first and waved for Louise to join him. They stood in the doorway to the kitchen, looking at the three people.

Sada was sitting there, ready, with her coat on. She was still crying, and her face was swollen and wet. The two little ones were sitting on the floor with a roll of crackers, which they'd spread out, so they were surrounded by crumbs and bits of cracker.

"Hi," Mik said, walking over to the table where Sada was sitting. "We would really like to talk to you. Is there someone who could look after the kids while you come down to the police station with us?"

Sada nodded and said that she had already called her sister. Samra's mother had her purse in her lap and was holding it with both hands.

"Were you on your way out?" Louise asked, stepping into the kitchen as well, so Sada could see her.

The slender woman glanced up at her and nodded. She opened her purse and pulled out a few pieces of white paper. Louise saw with surprise that they must be the pages that had been ripped out of Samra's diary.

Just then, there was a soft knock on the front door and a woman walked in. Aida leapt up from the floor and flung herself at her aunt with a squeal. The woman held the child pressed up against her, but nothing was said. The two women just exchanged a glance.

"Will you stay with them? Or could they go with you?" Mik asked the sister.

"I'll take them home with me," the woman said briefly.

Sada stood up and closed her purse. Then she stepped over and picked Jamal up off the floor and kissed him affectionately before she placed him in her sister's arms. After that, she stroked Aida's hair, kissed her forehead, and said something Louise couldn't understand. On the way out the door, the girl blew her mother a quick kiss and blinked her long, dark eyelashes vigorously so the tears stopped before they could truly be seen.

At the police station, several minutes pa.s.sed before Sada al-Abd got her crying under control enough that she could start talking. As she set down her coat, Louise took a seat across from her to read the pages that had been missing from Samra's diary, and Mik stepped out to inform Storm. Louise had been prepared for the pages she was holding to hurt deep down in her soul, but when she started reading them, she felt a sense of powerlessness so great that something inside her broke.

"My life isn't worth anything anymore. I'm dirty and contaminated and can never be washed clean. He says that if I tell Mother and Father, he will tell what I've done and the family won't be able to live with that. I don't dare sleep. I can hear him coming and feel his arms. If I scream, he'll tell Father."

Louise could picture the young woman. She almost felt like she could hear the words on the page coming out of her mouth, but the only sound in the small, dark office was Sada's quiet sobs.

"He says that he just happened to see us, but I know that's not true. He must have been following me. I hate him and wish I'd never been born. If I ever have to go to Benlose again, I'll drown myself in the sound.

"I can't take any more. He should kill me rather than letting this continue. I miss Grandma and home. Dear G.o.d, I pray that Mother and Father understand."

Louise glanced over at Sada to see if she was following along with Louise as she read, but the woman was sitting frozen in place with her head bowed, staring at her clasped hands. Only an occasional twitch of her shoulders and the faint sound of deep despair revealed what was going on in her body. Louise had a hard time understanding how Samra's mother could have contained her knowledge of the enormous pain that had filled her daughter at the end of her life.

"I found the pages in her jewelry box after she died," Sada said quietly, without raising her eyes. "Where she kept her jewelry and private things."

Mik Rasmussen came in the door and stood there for a second, obviously struck by the mood in the small room. Without a sound, he walked over and sat down.

Louise continued to watch Sada.

"Tell me what happened," Louise pleaded. "What was your daughter subjected to and why did you cover up something that hurt her so much?"

She spoke calmly. It was as if all the tension had left the room, leaving a heavy calm. In a way, something had been put behind them, even though they hadn't really started yet, Louise thought, looking expectantly at Samra's mother.

"Who is your daughter writing about?"

The woman was silent. Louise thought about Storm and Ruth, who were sitting in the command room, knowing that she was working on something that could resolve the case. She was afraid of being too aggressive with her questioning, or pushing too hard. Piecing together the rest of what happened could very easily depend on how Louise handled the mother, and what she said would have to be able to stand up in court later. In other words, right now it was not so much about getting Sada to confess and sign a statement, because she could recant that once she was facing a jury. That kind of thing happened. Louise knew she had to get Sada to take responsibility for the pain she was feeling right now, to make her feel that, instead of protecting the men in her family, she needed to stick up for her daughter, who had had a right to live.

Louise looked over at Mik quickly, but ignored the feeling that ran through her when he returned her glance. Then once again she turned her full attention back to the woman.

"Something had happened around the beginning of summer vacation that had turned Samra's life upside down. Something that caused her to be quiet and withdrawn," Sada said. "When Samra was home, she mostly stayed in her room with the door closed. She went to school, did her homework, and did her ch.o.r.es at home.

"But she avoided her father and wouldn't join us when the family was together," Sada continued, her breathing ragged.

The weekend before Samra died, Sada had found her lying on the bathroom floor. She was half unconscious; the acetaminophen pills hadn't totally knocked her out yet.

"I knew what she'd tried to do and got her to throw up all the pills," Sada said, trying to dry her eyes. "I gave her tea and a blanket and had my sister come take the kids."

Sada took a deep breath and Louise fidgeted a little in her chair, aware of how difficult it must be for Sada to tell this story. Mik sat completely motionless, listening along.

"Since spring, Samra had had a Danish friend, whom she saw in secret," Sada began, taking a deep breath before she could continue. "She didn't tell anyone about it, not even her girlfriends. But Ahmad found out, and he did something to her that she didn't dare tell us about."

Finally Sada looked up at Louise and there was something in the darkness of the glance that pleaded for understanding and patience.

Louise nodded weakly in return.

"He raped her," Sada finally said. "Several times."

Sada struggled to keep her voice under control.

"She couldn't tell anyone that, because then he would reveal her secret, that she'd been seeing someone."

Louise closed her eyes for a second. "But seeing a Danish boy could never be as bad as being raped by her uncle and having him threaten her," Louise said quietly.

Sada nodded.

"Samra knew that he would spread the rumor about what she was doing, and how bad we were at keeping her in line. So it was better to say nothing."

There was total silence in the office. Sada's words still lingered in the air, but Louise and Mik tried to understand what had held Samra back.

"It is a much more serious crime for an adult man to rape a girl than for her to be seeing a boy her own age," Louise tried again.

Sada made a strange motion with her head, which could have been interpreted as both a yes and a no.

"That's not the case where we come from," she finally said. "It's worse for a girl to be disobedient, because then she herself is to blame for what happens to her."

Louise was going to object, but held back.

"When a woman is raped, it's her own fault. She brings it on herself," Sada attempted to explain. "Ahmad says that if she can have s.e.x with a Danish boy, then she can have s.e.x with him too."

Here was a cultural difference that was so impossible to understand that Louise decided not to even try. They had to just let the mother tell her story, and they could go back in later and respond to what she'd said. The autopsy report had not said anything about whether Samra's hymen had been intact, because that wasn't part of the routine exam, unless there was a suspicion of rape. Louise hadn't requested that they do that examination since there hadn't been anything to suggest a s.e.x crime.

"What did you do when your daughter told you what had happened?" Louise asked to bring them back on topic.

"At first she refused to let me tell her father. But I explained to her that my husband would understand. I would no longer consider my husband's brother as family, and if Ibrahim didn't understand, I would leave him and take the kids with me."

She paused for a moment.

"We told him Monday afternoon when he came home from the boat early. At first he wouldn't believe it and got very angry. He hit Samra and said she was trying to break up his family and ruin things for him. He's a very proud man, and he wouldn't have anyone believing that he couldn't look after his family. She showed him the big marks that she still had on her body, and he blamed her for them, said her Danish boyfriend had made them. But she told him exactly what had happened in her uncle's bathroom in Benlose, and in the end he had to believe her. Several times, my husband's brother had brought our daughter in there and raped her on the changing table by their bathtub, and each time she took it without screaming even though her aunt and small cousins were just outside the door in the living room." Louise understood from Sada's explanation that what had convinced Ibrahim, his daughter was telling the truth was her description of a scar his brother had in his groin area. It was from an accident that had taken place when the two brothers were little and had been playing in the river. Ibrahim had accidentally stabbed Ahmad with a sharp knife that their father used to clean fish. The blood had been gushing and Ahmad was practically unconscious before they managed to stop the bleeding. The scar was in a place that could pretty much only be seen when his p.e.n.i.s was exposed.

Louise could picture the scene in the bathroom. Samra had been a slight, delicate girl. It would have been almost effortless for him to have his way with her. She hadn't stood a chance of resisting, although she hadn't tried either.

"Then my husband got angry," Sada continued. "He hugged our daughter and held her tight and promised that it would never happen again. He also promised that she would be at peace."

"What did he have to say about her seeing a Danish boy?" Louise asked when Sada once again fell silent, with her head bent and her hands folded.

"He said that she was free to live her life and that she was more important to him than his extended family or anyone else."

A tremble of discomfort suddenly made the room feel cold and full of sorrow. Louise crossed her legs tightly and folded her arms, huddling up a little.

"Then what happened?"

"He asked Ahmad to come over Tuesday evening, the night she disappeared," Sada began and then looked up with an expression so distant, it was as if no one was there. "They argued. My husband said we refused to be threatened. He had made plans to send our daughter home to Jordan for Christmas. No one in Rabba would turn their back on him. And if she were ever touched again, he would report it to the police."

Louise looked at her in surprise.

"Ahmad got angry too and said that my husband wouldn't dare because he wouldn't be able to show his face in Jordan once the rumors got there about how his daughter had behaved here in Denmark. My husband didn't care, he was going to protect Samra, and finally he kicked his brother out."

"The next day, you went to Benlose. What did you talk about on that visit?" Louise wanted to know.

"Samra was missing. We wanted to ask if he'd taken her or seen her," came the response.

"Had he?" Louise asked.

Sada shook her head and started crying again.

"But you think he was the one who killed your daughter?"

It took a moment before Samra's mother gathered her wits and raised her head. "I don't know what to think now, but I didn't think she was dead then. I thought maybe she'd run away to get away from him, or so she wouldn't have to be home when her father talked to him."

Louise had a hard time understanding how the mother could have been walking around with suspicions like this about her brother-in-law-and it was almost worse if Ibrahim had the same suspicions-without anyone saying anything.

She could tell that Mik was already preparing to go bring Ibrahim's brother in for another round of questioning, but she remained seated when he stood up and let him leave on his own. Samra's story had been more gruesome than she'd imagined, and both she and Sada needed a moment to sit and let everything settle.

37.

THE SCENT OF FLOWERS WAS PUNGENT. CAMILLA CHOSE A discreet bouquet of bright yellow blossoms and contemplated whether or not to include a little card. Maybe she should just leave it anonymous, because she didn't know what to write. Should she apologize because maybe she bore some of the blame for his arrest, and because his life was over now? She didn't hear it when the saleslady repeated her question about a card. Just held out her debit card and finally shook her head. The arrest wasn't her fault, she decided, and she wasn't going to carry that as a burden.

"Just send it," she said, handing the woman the address of the church in Soro.

She walked out of the shop and stood on the sidewalk for a moment, thinking about the funeral. She didn't feel like she could share in grief that didn't concern her, and suddenly it was like something inside her gave in and relaxed. As if the love she'd felt for her ex-boyfriend had finally seeped out of her, allowing her to see clearly again. She didn't have room for him anymore and didn't want anything else to do with him. That chapter was over now.

Camilla strolled down the main street. She'd spoken with Louise and knew that Ahmad had been brought in for another round of questioning, and that he had opted not to have a defense attorney present because he stubbornly insisted that he hadn't done anything he could be charged for. That was all she'd found out, but that was enough to make her think she might have misjudged the situation and jumped the gun a little with her defense of the family. On the other hand, she was pretty much the only one who hadn't railed against the family and hung them out to dry long before they were ever convicted of anything. If that turned out to have been the wrong call, she was going to have to eat crow.

If it really was someone in the al-Abd family who had killed those two girls, of course the act was completely indefensible, she thought, crossing the wide thoroughfare, whose sidewalks were lined with planters full of flowers. She had never intended her articles to imply that it was acceptable for recent immigrants to kill their daughters just because ethnic Danes had done the same thing at some point in the past. Of course it had ticked her off that people were so quick to judge the immigrants even though the same phenomenon could be found in other subsets of Danish society, but really she mostly just felt that she owed it to Sada for people to hear her side of the story.

Camilla had visited Sada after she'd been questioned at the police station. Sada had called and invited her over. Still deeply shaken by the experience, Sada had obviously felt that Camilla was the only person she could talk to if she were to have any chance of making someone understand what it was like to be trapped between two cultures. Sada had served her sweet tea, and Camilla had quietly listened with Aida on her lap. While the little girl twisted Camilla's long blonde hair into loose ringlet curls, it slowly dawned on Camilla that the familial schism Sada was talking about was so deep that it wasn't just about being good or evil. This woman's life had been ripped apart, both when Samra died and when her conduct had been called into question, without her having any chance to set the record straight.

Sada might actually have suffered more than Samra had, Camilla thought sadly as she strolled down the narrow walkway that led to the harbor to get a little fresh air.

"Ahmad still denies that he killed Samra, and so do both Ibrahim and Hamid," Storm said once the team had gathered in the command room after having spent the whole day questioning the three family members. "But we have to stick with it until one of them loosens up a little."

"That's going to take a while with this family. They're not going to say s.h.i.t," Skipper said, adding that he had the impression Ahmad didn't believe he had anything to hide. "He actually acknowledged that he'd had s.e.x with his niece, but he doesn't think it was rape because girls who go out with Danish boys are s.e.x-crazed hussies." He stopped and glanced around at the others as he pulled his hand though his wavy gray hair. "I was really working on him, but he didn't give up a thing. Suddenly he can't even remember what the boyfriend looks like. Nothing besides the fact that he's blonde and way too old for her. Ahmad stubbornly insists that he didn't see his niece after he left his brother's house Tuesday night. His wife confirmed that he came right home after the visit and that he didn't leave the house again until the next morning when he went to open his shop."

"She's not a credible alibi," Velin interjected critically.

"Of course not," Skipper said. "And at this point he doesn't really have anything else to say, although it doesn't seem like he understands how serious his crime is. He's said several times that Samra represents only one life."