making all her wrinkles disappear. She looked years younger.
‘He wanted to get married,’ she said. ‘He really wanted to have the child. But when he realised that I was serious, he supported me in every way. He came with me to New York.’
She looked up. The tears spilled over. She made no attempt to dry her eyes.
‘I didn’t love him. I don’t even think I was in love. But he was the kindest… I think he is the kindest man I have ever met. Thoughtful. Wise. He promised me that he would never tell anyone. I can’t imagine that he would ever break his promise. And if he has, he must have changed radically.’
‘It does happen,’ Johanne whispered.
‘Not with him,’ Helen Bentley said. ‘He was a man of honour, if ever I met one. I’d known him for nearly two years before I got pregnant.’
‘It’s thirty-four years ago,’ Hanne said. ‘A lot can happen to a person in that time.’
‘Not him,’ Helen Bentley repeated and shook her head.
‘What was he called?’ Hanne asked. ‘Can you remember?’
‘Ali Shaeed Muffasa,’ Helen Bentley said. ‘I think he changed his name later. To a more… English-sounding one. But to me, he was just Ali, the kindest boy in the world.’
IX
At last, it was half past seven in the morning. Luckily it was a Thursday and both girls had to be at school early. Louise was going to play chess before her classes started and Catherine was going to do circuit training. They asked after their uncle, but believed it when their father hinted that he had had a bit too much to drink the night before and was sleeping it off.
The house in Rural Route # 4 in Farmington, Maine, was never quiet. The woodwork creaked. Most of the doors were warped. Some of them were difficult to open, whereas others hung loose in their frames and bumped and slammed in the continual draught from the windows that were not properly insulated. The great maple trees at the back were planted so close to the house that the branches tapped on the roof with the slightest hint of wind. It was as if the house was alive.
Al Muffet didn’t need to tiptoe around any more. He knew that no one would turn up before the postman came by on his round. And that wasn’t normally until two. After taking the girls to school, Al had dropped by the office. He told his secretary that he wasn’t feeling well. Sore throat and slight temperature, so they would unfortunately have to cancel today’s appointments. She had looked at him with sad eyes and great sympathy, and told him to get better.
He had picked up what he needed, coughed a goodbye and gone home.
‘Are you comfortable?’
Al Muffet looked over at his brother. His arms were fastened to the head of the bed with masking tape around each wrist. His feet were tied together with a rope that was then coiled around one of the posts at the foot of the bed, and tightened into great knots. Al had put a piece of grey sticky tape over his brother’s mouth.
‘Mmffmm,’ his brother said, shaking his head frenetically. The sound was muffled by the face cloth that was held in place by the tape.
Al Muffet opened the curtains and the morning light poured in. The dust in the guest room danced over the worn wooden floor. He smiled and turned towards his brother on the bed.
‘You’re fine. You barely woke up when I injected a sedative into your butt last night. You were so easy to overpower that I almost didn’t recognise you, Fayed. Once upon a time it was you who was the fighter. Not me.’
‘Mmmfff!’
There was a wooden chair by the window. It was old and rickety, and the seat had been worn by a century of use. It had come with the house. When Al Muffet bought the house, it had been full of old, beautiful things that had helped the family to settle in faster than could have been hoped.
He pulled the chair over to the bed and sat down.
‘This,’ he said, calmly, holding a syringe in front of his brother’s eyes, which stared back at him, wide with disbelief, ‘this is a lot more dangerous than what I gave you last night. This, you see…’
He pushed the plunger down slowly until a couple of fine drops came out of the thin needle.
‘This is ketobemidone, an effective and strong opioid preparation. Very effective, in fact. And here I’ve got…’ he squinted and held the syringe up to the light, ‘one hundred and fifty milligrams. In other words, a lethal dose.’
Fayed rolled his eyes and tried unsuccessfully to pull free his hands.
‘And this,’ Al continued, unperturbed, holding up another syringe from the bag he had put down on the floor beside him, ‘is Naloxone, the antidote.’
He put the second syringe down on the bedside table and pushed it out of reach, just to be on the safe side.
‘I’m going to undo your gag soon,’ he explained and tried to catch his brother’s eye. ‘But first I’m going to give you some of the morphine. You’ll feel the effects very quickly. Your blood pressure and pulse will fall. You’ll feel ill. You might have problems breathing. After that, it’s up to you. You can either answer my questions, or I’ll give you more. And so we’ll continue. Very simple, isn’t it? When you’ve given me the information I need, I’ll give you the antidote. But only then. Do you understand?’
His brother twisted and turned desperately on the bed. There were tears in his eyes. Al noticed that his pyjama bottoms were wet around the crotch.
‘And one more thing,’ Al said as he injected the needle into his brother’s thigh, straight through the fabric of his pyjamas. ‘You can scream and shout as much as you like, but it’s a waste of time. It’s a good mile to the next neighbour. And he’s away. It’s a weekday, so no one will be out walking. Forget it. There now…’
He withdrew the needle and checked how much he had injected. He nodded, satisfied, and put the syringe down with the other one on the bedside table, then pulled the gag off in one go. Fayed tried to spit the face cloth out, but had to retch and turned his head to one side. Al pulled the cloth out with two fingers.
Fayed gasped for air. He sobbed and was obviously trying to say something, but all he managed to do was hawk and retch.
‘We haven’t got much time now,’ Al said. ‘So you should answer as fast as you can.’
He licked his lips and paused for thought.
‘Is it true that Mother thought you were me before she died?’ he asked.
Fayed just managed to nod.
‘Did she tell you something that you knew was meant for my ears only?’
His brother had pulled himself together now and was calmer. It was as if he had finally understood that there was no point in trying to break free. He lay completely still for a moment. Only his mouth was moving. It looked like he was trying to produce some moisture after having had the cloth in his mouth for several hours.
‘Here,’ Al said and held a glass of water to his lips.
Fayed drank. He took several sips. Then he gave a deep cough and spat water, snot, phlegm and loose threads straight into his brother’s face.
‘Fuck you,’ he said hoarsely, and leant his head back.
‘Hmm, you’re not being very sensible here,’ Al said and dried his face with his sleeve.
Fayed said nothing. He seemed to be thinking, assessing what he needed to do to negotiate a deal.
‘We’ll try again,’ Al said. ‘Did Mother say something to you about my life because she thought you were me?’
Fayed still didn’t answer. But at least he lay still. The morphine had started to work. His pupils suddenly dilated visibly. Al went over to the chest of drawers by the bathroom door, opened the coded suitcase and pulled Fayed’s Filofax from under the clothes. He turned to the year planner for 2002 and pulled it out with a tug.
‘Here,’ he said and went back over to the bed. ‘Here’s the date Mother died. And what have you written there, Fayed? On the day Mother died, when you were sitting with her?’ He held the page up for his brother, who turned his head away.
‘June 1971, New York, is what you’ve written. What does that date mean to you? Did Mother tell you? Was
