Free Orpheus Lost by Janette Turner Hospital Page A

down the middle of the roadway itself, level with the empty lot; the other was two blocks behind, on the sidewalk, a shadow that clung to the houses.
    “And now the close-ups from this aerial shot,” Cobb said. “First of you, in front. You recognize yourself, I’m sure. And then of your follower, Berg.”
    “This doesn’t make sense,” Leela said. “What proof do you have that these close-ups are of the figures in the other photo? Those blobs could be anyone.”
    “You remember this street? What’s the name of this street?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “You remember that you walked there alone?”
    “I often walk in the evening. I like walking. I’m getting exercise. I’m thinking. I’m solving equations in my head. I’m not reading street signs.”
    Cobb reached for the magnifying glass and handed it to her. “Look at the aerial shot. Look at the second figure. Look at the doorway of that house he’s huddling against. Look at the length of the man’s shadow. Now look at the doorway and the shadow in the close-up.”
    Leela’s concentration was intense. She studied each image in turn. She held the glass at varying heights.
    “Well?” he prodded. “Do they match?”
    “They match,” she said quietly. “I don’t understand why he’d be following me. It doesn’t make sense.”
    “You were both going to the same place,” Cobb said.
    “When I’m walking, I’m just walking for the exercise. I’m not going anywhere.”
    “This is a back street a few blocks north of the T stop in Central Square,” Cobb said. “You were going somewhere that night. You were going to the mosque on Prospect Street.”
    Leela stared at him and in the flicker of surprise and unease that crossed her eyes, he knew the seesaw had begun to tip. He had an odd and intense sensation of water swirling about his ankles: the switch-flow tide on the rise.
    Leela said quietly, “I didn’t know that’s where I was going. I was—” she skipped two beats; he could practically see the quick editing inside her head—“meeting a friend.”
    “You were following someone who was going to the mosque and Berg was following you.”
    Leela met his eyes steadily; or rather, she stared at the eye holes in his mask, unblinking. She said nothing.
    Cobb drew another photograph from his folder and placed it in front of her. “You were following this man,” he said. “Who is he?”
    Leela seemed reluctant to look. Instead, she gazed at the wall above her interrogator’s head but her focus was clearly not in the room. Cobb noted the tic at the corner of one eye, the twitching nerve in her lip. He picked up the photograph—a view of the back of a walking man—and held it in front of her face. The man’s hair was thick and dark, as Cobb’s used to be, though the hair of the man in the photograph was dense with loosecurls. He wore jeans and a white shirt. There was nothing to give a sense of scale. There was no way to tell if the man was tall or short.
    “Who is he?” Cobb demanded.
    “I haven’t a clue,” she said. “He could be you.”
    “You were following him. Who is he?”
    Leela looked at Cobb through half-closed eyes as though she were succumbing to a drug. “How can I tell? I can’t see the face.”
    “We both know his name,” Cobb said.
    “Do we indeed?”
    “Unless you don’t know the name of the man you’ve been living with for the past few years.”
    Leela put her elbows on the table and laced her fingers and leaned on her interlaced hands. Cobb observed a slight tremor at her fingertips. “I had no idea my private life was so important,” she said. “Do tell me the name of the man I’m living with.”
    “Mikael Abukir.”
    “What?” She burst into involuntary laughter.
    “Though it’s possible you know him by a different name.”
    Cobb had her now. Certainty was leaving her like air from a punctured balloon. Nothing gave him more pleasure than to watch confidence ebb from the supremely