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They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.
—FRIDA KAHLO
Chapter 18
PATRICK, DUBAI, TWELVE HOURS AFTER HARRY’S DEATH
A murderer. That is what they think I am. Harry Willoughby, my oldest friend, was killed last night, and the police think that I did it.
Where did I go after the party at the gallery? That is what the officer keeps asking me.
“Home,” I keep telling him. “I signed the paperwork for the sale of the painting, I called and left a voice message for my wife, then I drove home.”
“Straight home?” he asks.
“Straight home,” I say, as confidently as I can muster. Because suddenly it has occurred to me that if I tell them where I actually went, or what I actually did, I won’t be the only one in a cell.
So instead of confessing that I went back to my ex-wife’s hotel room for a celebratory drink and committed adultery—which is not just frowned upon but technically illegal here in Dubai—I lie. The instant the lie leaves my lips, it hits me that if he somehow finds out I haven’t told the truth, I’m going to be in even worse trouble.
When the interrogation is over, I am taken to a holding cell. The smell of it, stale and acrid, is overpowering. One large room divided by a wall of floor-to-ceiling green-painted bars. On one side of the bars there about fifteen detainees, all male. Everyone is wearing the clothes they were arrested in—laborers in blue jumpsuits, guys in hotel porter garb, an older man in a cheap suit. Several are lying on the floor with jackets over their heads. A few have managed to find an angle at which they can sleep in one of the plastic chairs. On the other side of the bars, a man in uniform sits at a desk. On the wall behind him our phones lie in numbered cubbyholes. A couple of my cellmates are up at the bars, arms outstretched, asking to use their phones, being ignored. Every so often, the guard looks up in irritation, asks one his name, grabs his phone, and hands it to him.
It is almost three hours before I am able to call Sarah.
Several times I have gone up to the bars, been ignored, and sat back down again. This time I have been standing there for twenty minutes before he acknowledges my presence, sighs, and asks my name. I tell him. He starts searching the cubbyholes in a desultory fashion, checking the plastic bags in which the phones are kept, on which our names are scribbled. I tell him mine is on the bottom row, far left. He either does not hear me or does not understand. He brings out the wrong phone several times and holds it up. I shake my head each time but try to look encouraging, praying that he won’t get irritated and stop looking. Eventually, he brings over the right phone, holding up three fingers and then tapping his watch.
I have missed calls and new messages, but with the phone at just 19 percent power, I decide to ignore them. With trembling hands, I call my wife. It goes straight to voicemail. Of course it does. The sheikha’s wedding Sarah is running is in the middle of the desert—no phones allowed, and no reception anyway. She won’t even see I have tried to call her until sometime on the drive home tomorrow. I leave a very brief message, promising I will try to call again. I don’t know what else to say.
The instant I hang up, I am surrounded by men asking if they can use my phone too, hands pressed together, imploring. “I’m sorry,” I say to them, genuinely meaning it. “The battery, it’s very low... I’m so sorry.”
What happens when the thing dies, I just don’t know.
At the back of my mind I can feel a storm cloud gathering, a deluge of grief that will hit when it sinks in that Harry—someone whose life has been entangled with mine for as long as I can remember—is gone. For the moment, though, I just feel numb.
I am about to hand the phone back to the guard when it occurs to me that I know a lawyer here, Tom Wilson, the husband of a friend of Sarah’s. He’s not a criminal lawyer, but he must at least have some idea how the UAE’s legal system works. Thankfully, I have his number saved. Tom’s phone rings, keeps ringing. Fuck. I hang up, call again. This time, he answers.
“Patrick! Good to hear from you—”
I stop him abruptly, explain what has happened, fast, and tell him what the police have been asking me. It sounds like I’ve caught him at home—in the background I can hear his wife, Sumira, asking what’s going on.
“Patrick’s in a cell at CID, out by the airport,” he tells her.
“Christ,” is her non-reassuring response. “What the fuck’s he done?”
“I haven’t done anything,” I say emphatically, loud enough, I hope, for her to hear too.
There is a long silence at the other end of the line. When Tom speaks, he sounds like he is considering his words very carefully.
“Patrick. There is something it is vital for you to understand. Just like the UK, the UAE’s judicial system is based upon the principle that you’re innocent until you are proven guilty.”
“That’s good news, because I am innocent,” I say. “And as soon as they start to investigate, they’ll realize that.”
“In theory, yes. In practice, I am not so sure. Because I don’t think they are going to investigate, Patrick. Not in any real way. Not if they’ve got a plausible culprit. Because in my experience, in this country, once someone has been charged, they almost always get convicted.”
“That person being me.”
“Look, let’s not despair just yet,” Tom says. “You may be able to convince them there has been a mistake before they charge you, before this goes any further.”
“Oh God,” I hear Sumira saying.