CHAPTER 4 — The Camera That Recorded a Lie

“I didn't film it myself, but the camera in my shop did.”

Louise placed a small recording device on the table. Leila hesitated before reaching for it.

“You doubted me earlier.”

“I'm still frightened. But being afraid doesn't excuse refusing to hear you.”

Louise's husband was boarding up the broken front window. The ruined bakery still smelled of flour and smoke.

“If you've got footage, you should give it to the police.”

“That's why I called you. But I don't want to hand over the original to just anyone.”

“Could my lawyer review it with us?”

“Yes. Just make sure no one spreads the other customers' faces.”

Leila nodded. Her own face had gone around the world without her consent. She understood exactly what Louise was asking.

When Adèle arrived, they watched the recording together. At 9:18 p.m., Leila appeared on the far side of the alley, supporting the legs of the fallen Julien. The red medical bag Gabriel had noticed lay open on the ground.

“What does that prove?” Leila asked.

“It shows you were with Julien. But we need to verify this camera's clock too.”

“No one checked anything before they called me an arsonist on television.”

“That's precisely the mistake we don't want to repeat. Not even in your favor.”

Samira let out a frustrated breath.

“They used one clip to make my sister a criminal. Why do we have to do all this?”

Adèle paused the playback.

“Because their willingness to frame her doesn't give us permission to accuse someone else without proof. We'd lose the very grounds on which we're asking people to believe Leila.”

Leila switched off the arrest footage. Her reflected face disappeared from the dark screen.

“Louise keeps the original. I agree to submit a copy.”

“Good,” Adèle said. “We'll protect the identities of anyone else on the recording.”

That afternoon Gabriel contacted Adèle. He didn't ask to meet Leila alone; he arranged receipt of the material through the police records officer.

“Have you compared it against the cordon log?” Adèle asked on the phone.

“Yes. There is a discrepancy in the original footage that we can't explain.”

“Then you'll also have to establish who submitted it.”

“I'm looking into that.”

Leila took the phone.

“Officer Moreau. Did you pass on what I told you about the medicines?”

“The paramedics moved them. I confirmed where they were stored and sent the information to your lawyer.”

For a moment she was speechless. The man who'd arrested her had remembered the one thing she might have expected him to forget.

“Finding my medicine doesn't mean I should forget the handcuffs, does it?”

“I wasn't going to ask you to.”

“Then why did you check?”

“Because you asked me to. And I didn't listen to that request the first time.”

“I know.”

He waited for her to end the call. She set the receiver down, irritated by the fact that she'd wanted to say one more thing.

Leila rubbed a finger over the marks on her wrists. The hands that had followed up on her medicines were the same hands that had fastened metal around them. She couldn't decide which to remember first.

In the back of the bakery, Louise was gathering the remaining dough to make small loaves. She said she couldn't afford to reopen, yet she'd prepared a separate bag for the relief center. Warm steam brushed Leila's palm as she picked it up.

Glass shattered outside. Louise's husband hurried to lock the door. Someone kicked the shop shutter and moved on. Leila ducked instinctively. She remembered the uniforms blocking the entrance on the night she'd promised the children she would come back.

The bakery fell quiet, but no one dared open the door at once. The bread cooled. The people waiting at the relief center had no idea what had happened here. Leila hugged the bag against her chest. Late or not, she had to bring it.

Samira narrowed her eyes. “Why were you on the phone so long?”

“Work.”

“Don't go soft on a policeman, Leila.”

“I won't.”

She remembered that he'd waited for her to hang up. Rather than let Samira see her expression, she unfolded the delivery receipt. There was something else wrong with it besides the forged signature: not a single item number had been recorded for those eighty boxes.

“Doesn't this seem strange?”

“What?”

“Every box we receive has a barcode. This form doesn't even list the contents.”

“So it's fake?”

“Or the goods were never there in the first place.”

They called the driver assigned to that delivery. At first he tried to hang up.

“Did you really load eighty boxes that night?” Leila asked.

“Don't ask me.”

“The records say I received them. I just want to know who used my name.”

After a long silence, the driver spoke quietly.

“There was a dispatch order. But I never went to that warehouse.”

“And the food?”

“It was never loaded into my truck.”

The call ended. Leila stared at her phone.

Eighty boxes of food supposedly lost to the fire.

If the driver hadn't loaded a single one, someone had attached her signature to supplies that might never have existed. What she'd lost was more than work and reputation. The bread that should have gone to hungry people had vanished too.