Read Online Crime by Ferdinand von Schirach - Free Book Online

no. The prosecutor’s office had secured an extract from the criminal register to confirm this.
    “Mr. Abu Fataris,” said the prosecutor, “you must be aware of the fact that your statement incriminates Imad.”
    Karim nodded. Shamefaced, he looked at his shoes.
    “Why are you doing this?”
    “Well”—he was even stuttering a little by this point—“Walid is my brother, too. I’m the youngest; they all keep saying I’m the moron and so on. But Walid and Imad are both my brothers. Do you see? And if it was another brother, Walid can’t end up in the can because of Imad. It would be better if it was someone quite different—I mean not one of the family—but it’s one of my brothers. Imad, and so on.”
    And now Karim went for the coup de grâce.
    “Your Honor,” he said. “It wasn’t Walid, honest. But it’s true, Walid and Imad look exactly like. See …” And he pulled a creased photo out of his greasy wallet with all nine brothers on it and held it out uncomfortably close to the presiding judge’s nose. The judge reached for it irritably and laid it on his table.
    “There, the first one right there, that’s me. The second, that’s Walid, Your Honor. The third one’s Farouk, the fourth one’s Imad, the fifth one’s—”
    “May we keep the photograph?” asked the court-appointed defense counsel, interrupting; he was a friendly, older lawyer and suddenly the case didn’t look anything like so hopeless.
    “Only if I can get it back; it’s the only one I have. We had it taken for Auntie Halima in Lebanon. Six months ago, sort of all nine of us brothers together, you get it?” Karim looked at the members of the court to be sure that they got it. “So Auntie could see all of us. But then we didn’t send it, because Farouk said he looked stupid in it.…” Karim looked at the picture again. “He does look stupid in it, Farouk, I mean. He’s not even—”
    The presiding judge waved him off. “Witness, go back to your chair.”
    Karim sat down in the witness’s chair and started over again. “But see, Your Honor, the first one there, that’s me, the second one’s Walid, the third one’s Farouk, the fourth—”
    “Thank you,” said the judge, exasperated. “We understood you.”
    “Well, everyone gets them mixed up; even in school the teachers couldn’t tell them apart. Once they were doing this exam in biology class, and Walid was really bad in biology, so they …” Karim plowed on, undeterred.
    “Thank you,” said the judge loudly.
    “Nah, I need to tell you about the biology thing, the way it went was—”
    “No,” said the judge.
    Karim was dismissed as a witness and left the courtroom.
    The pawnbroker was sitting on the spectators’ bench. The court had already heard him, but he wanted to be there for the verdict. He was, after all, the victim. Now he was called to the front again and shown the family photo. He had understood it was all about number two, that he had to recognize him. He said—rather too quickly, as he himself acknowledged later—that the perpetrator was “the second man in the picture, naturally.” He had no doubt that man was the perpetrator; yes, it was completely clear. “Number two.” The court settled down a little.
    Outside the door, Karim was wondering meantime how long it would take for the judges to get a handle on the situation. The presiding judge wouldn’t need that much time; he would decide to question the pawnbroker again. Karim waited exactly four minutes and then went back, unsummoned, into the courtroom. He saw the pawnbroker at the judges’ table, standing over the photograph. Everything was going the way he’d planned. Then he burst out that there was something he’d forgotten. They had to hear him again, please, just quickly; it was really important. The presiding judge, who had an aversion to interruptions like this, snapped, “So now what?”
    “Excuse me, I made a mistake, a really dumb mistake, Your Honor, just