Fatima’s reaction was both dismay…and anger. Fury. The woman was slim but not small and Sachs imagined that she’d given the Composer a good fright.
The director turned to Sachs and said, “I know you will want to ask Fatima some questions. But one thing I must tell you first. I have just learned something about Malek Dadi’s killing, the refugee who was knifed to death? From what they tell me, this Composer was not responsible for his murder.”
“No?”
“Several men reported—separately—that they saw the Composer in the bushes. What do you say? Staking out?”
“Yes.”
“The Composer was staking out the informal gate in the east fence. As soon as Dadi slipped outside, he ran forward. He was holding what might have been a black mask in his hand—the sort he used today on Khaled. But suddenly several other men from the camp hurried after Dadi and jumped on him, to rob him, it seems. He fought back and one of the men slashed him in the throat and took his money. The American, the Composer, actually tried to save him.”
“Tried to save him?” Ercole asked. “This is certain?”
“Yes. He ran toward the men, shouting, but he was too late. They fled back into the camp. When the Composer saw Dadi lying on the ground, he simply stood over him, looking shocked. Shaking his head. Then he set the noose on the ground and he too fled.”
“All right. That’s interesting news, Rania. Thank you. Did they say anything else about him? The identification of the car?”
“No. It happened very quickly.”
Sachs turned to Fatima. “Please say I’m sorry for her trouble.”
But the woman answered in English. “I am thanks for that.”
“What happened, exactly, please?”
Fatima gave a fast response, in Arabic, the words edgy and staccato.
Rania explained, “She and Khaled left Muna, this is her daughter, there, with a neighbor and went outside to meet a man about a job for Khaled after they were granted asylum. The Composer approached them there. He struck Fatima and pushed her down—it’s very bad for a non-Muslim to touch, much less strike, a Muslim woman. This shocked and stunned her. Then he slipped a hood over Khaled’s head, and immediately Khaled grew groggy. Fatima jumped up and fought. But he hit her again hard and she fell back, dazed. When she climbed to her feet, they were gone and a car was speeding away. She couldn’t see what kind it was either. Dark. That was all she said.”
“I kick-ed him and scratch-ed,” Fatima said in cumbersome English, speaking slowly as she sought the words. “He was…” She said a word in Arabic to Rania.
“Surprised,” Rania translated. “Unprepared.”
“His shoe came off in the struggle?” Ercole asked.
“Yes. I pull-ed it. Holding to his leg.”
“Did you see anything unusual about him? Tattoos, scars. His eye color? Clothing?”
After translation, Rania said, “His sunglasses fell off and his eyes were brown. A round face. She might recognize him again but she is not sure. All Westerners look alike to her. There were scars on his face, from where he had shaved, it seemed. He wore a hat. But she can’t recall his other clothing. Except it was dark.”
“She’ll be all right?”
“Yes, our doctors say it was a superficial injury. Nothing broken. A bruise.”
Fatima cast her eyes onto Ercole’s gray uniform. Then she turned to Sachs and gazed at her desperately. “Please. Fine-ed Khaled. Fine-ed my husband. It so much is important!”
“We’ll do everything we can.”
Fatima gave a hint of a smile, then grabbed Sachs’s hand and pressed it to her cheek. She muttered in Arabic, and Rania translated. “She says, ‘Bless you.’”
Chapter 46
The injury wasn’t bad.
Stefan had been more shocked than hurt when the woman rose from the ground outside the Capodichino Reception Center and, screaming and flailing, attacked him.
He walked into his farmhouse now, carting the Browning .270 hunting rifle in his gloved hands. He hung it on hooks above the fireplace and set the box of shells beneath it. Ironic, he thought: using a hunting rifle against Artemis, the goddess of the hunt.
Well, she would be much less likely to pursue her prey now. Oh, he didn’t think she’d give up the search for him. But she’d be scared. She’d be distracted. They all would.
And that meant they’d make mistakes…and be far less likely to introduce discord into the music of the spheres.
Sitting now in his hideaway, he examined his stinging arm and leg. Just bruises. No broken skin. Still, he was shaky-hand, sweaty-skin…and a Black Scream was just waiting to burst out.
He’d lost his shoe. This was more than a little inconvenient, since he only had one pair and was reluctant to buy another, for fear the police would have put out word to retailers to alert them to a rotund white American in stocking feet buying shoes. With his prey safely unconscious in the trunk of his Mercedes, he’d driven past one of the beaches outside Naples and, when he was sure no one was looking, and there were no CCTVs, he’d snatched a pair of old running shoes a swimmer had left near the road. They fit well enough.
Then he’d hurried back here.
Stefan now walked into the darkened den off the living room. The rhythm section of his next composition lay here, on a cot. He gazed down at Khaled Jabril. The man was so scrawny. His wife had been more substantial. A man of narrow face, bushy hair, full beard. His fingernails were long and Stefan wondered what they would sound like if he clicked them together. He recalled a woman patient, in the hospital, one of the hospitals, New Jersey, he believed. She had worn a sweatshirt, pink, stained with a portion of her lunch. She was gazing out the window and clicking her nails. Thumbnail against index finger.
Click, click, click.
Again and again and again.
Another patient was obviously irritated by the noise and kept glaring at the woman angrily but staring at a mental patient to achieve a desired effect is the same as asking a tree for directions. Stefan had not been the least troubled by the sound. He disliked very few sounds—vocal fry was a rare exception.
Babies crying? So many textures of need, want, sorrow and confusion. Beautiful!
Pile drivers? The heartbeat of lonely machines.
Human screams? A tapestry of emotions.
Fingernails on a blackboard? Now, that was interesting. He had a dozen recordings in his archive. It comes third in the ranking of cringe-worthy sounds, after a fork on a plate and a knife on glass. The revulsion isn’t psychological: Some researchers thought people responded as if the sound were a primitive warning cry—it isn’t. No, it’s purely physical: a reaction to a particular megahertz range, amplified by the peculiar shape of the ear and painfully stabbing the amygdala region of the brain.
No, very few sounds troubled Stefan, though he would be fast to point out there’s a distinction between tone and volume.
Whatever the sound, crank up the decibels and it can move from unpleasant to painful…even to destructive.
Stefan knew this firsthand.
Now, that was a memory he cherished.