Threads of Silence

"Rule one for detectives," said Laila the next morning, sitting on the library doorstep with her notebook open on her knees. "Never accuse anyone until you've collected the evidence."

"And what's rule two?" asked Hadi.

"Rule two: everyone's a suspect. Even you."

Hadi laughed. "Me? I only walked into the library yesterday!"

"Exactly," said Laila seriously. "Which makes you a bit suspicious."

And the investigation began.

Uncle Fahim was the library's caretaker and had worked there for more than fifty years. He was a thin old man with a bushy grey moustache, a striped galabiya and cloth slippers, who walked slowly and was always humming old songs nobody else knew. He cleaned the shelves, dusted the jars and mended the windows and locks. He was very quiet and hardly ever spoke.

"Fahim?" said Sitt Zainab. "Impossible. Fahim loves this library even more than I do."

But Laila wrote his name in her notebook at the top of the list, with a small question mark beside it.