“I suppose this is where I should thank him?”
Nahed translated that Sharko thanked him from the bottom of his heart.
“He says you can look at the file here and come back tomorrow if you wish. The doors are wide open to you.”
Open, yes, but armored, with guards who’d be watching his slightest actions and movements. Sharko forced himself to thank the man with a movement of his chin, pulled off the rubber bands, and opened the file. Photos of the crime scene were crammed into a transparent envelope. There were also various reports and information sheets about several girls, including their identities—no doubt the victims. Dozens and dozens of pages written in Arabic.
“Please ask him to tell me about the case… Just the thought that you’ll have to translate all this for me is making me feel queasy.”
Nahed did so. Noureddine puffed languidly on his cigar and let out a cloud of smoke.
“He says it goes back a long way, and that he doesn’t remember much about it. He’s thinking.”
Sharko felt like he was working his way through one of those old adventures of Tintin, Cigars of the Pharaoh, with fat Rastapopoulos sitting there before him. It bordered on the absurd.
“Still, young girls whose bodies have been thoroughly mutilated and their skulls sawed open tend to stick in the mind.”
Nahed contented herself with making eyes at the inspector. The Egyptian officer began speaking slowly, leaving pauses for the young woman to translate.
“He remembers some of it now. He was already in charge of the brigade. He says they died one or two days apart. The first lived in the Shubra neighborhood, in the north part of the city. Another in a low-rent district near the Tora cement factories, next to the desert. And the third, near the ‘trash cities’ of Ezbet el-Nakhl, the quarter of the garbage collectors… He says the police were never able to establish a connection among the girls. They didn’t know each other and attended different schools.”
To Sharko, the names of these neighborhoods meant absolutely nothing. He shook his shirt up and down to dry it. Sweat was pouring down his back. The breeze felt good, but he was dying of thirst. Hospitality did not seem to be these policemen’s strong suit.
“Any suspects? Any witnesses?”
The fat man shook his head and continued speaking. Nahed hesitated a moment before translating his words.
“Nothing very specific. We only know that the girls were killed in the evening, as they were returning home, and that they were found near where they were abducted. Several miles from their building each time. The banks of the Nile, the edge of the desert, the sugarcane fields. All these details are in the reports.”
Not bad for a guy who could barely remember. Sharko thought for a moment. Isolated spots, where the killer could operate in peace. As for the MO, there were as many common points as there were differences with the bodies in Notre-Dame-de-Gravenchon.
“Could you give me a map of the city?”
“He says he’ll get you one right away.”
“Thank you. I’d like to study these reports this evening at my hotel. Would that be possible?”
“He says no. They must not leave the building. It’s procedure. On the other hand, you can take notes, and they’ll fax your office the documents that interest you—after being vetted, of course.”
Sharko pushed the envelope a bit further. He wanted to test the limits of his investigative territory.
“Tomorrow I’d like to visit the places where the crimes and the abductions occurred. Can you assign someone to drive me to the spots?”
The man shrugged his fat, starred shoulders.
“He says his men are very busy. And that he doesn’t quite understand why you want to go to places that certainly no longer exist. Cairo is expanding like… like a fungus.”
“Fungus?”
“Those are his words. He’s asking why you Westerners don’t have any faith in them and feel the need to redo everything your way.”
The Egyptian’s voice remained casual, weighty, but was full of nuances. Those of domination, authority. Here they were at his place, on his turf.
“I’d just like to understand how these poor girls found themselves in the hands of the worst kind of killer. Feel how that predator managed to move around in this city. Every killer leaves a smell, even years later. The smell of vice and perversion. I want to get a whiff. I want to walk in the places where he killed.”
Sharko’s eyes bored darkly at Nahed, as if he were speaking directly to her. The young Egyptian translated his words. With a decisive gesture, Noureddine crushed his barely smoked cigar in an ashtray and stood up.
“He says he doesn’t understand your job or your methods. The police in this country aren’t here to sniff around like dogs, but to act, to eradicate vermin. He does not wish to revisit things buried in the past nor reopen wounds that Egypt would just as soon forget. Our country already has enough ills to face with terrorism, extremists, and drug traffic.” She tilted her head toward the thin file. “Everything is in there; there’s nothing more he can do for you. The case is way too old. There’s an office next door. He says you’re welcome to get up and go use it…”
Sharko did as told, but first he plunked the copy of the Interpol telegram in front of the police chief’s nose. He spoke to Nahed, who repeated in Egyptian Arabic:
“A detective by the name of Mahmoud Abd el-Aal had sent this telegram. He’s the one who was following the case at the time. Chief Inspector Sharko would like to speak with him.”
Noureddine stiffened, pushed the paper out of his line of sight, and spat out a slew of indistinguishable words.
“I am translating word for word: ‘That son of a dog Abd el-Aal is dead.’”
Sharko felt like he’d taken an uppercut in the belly.
“How?”
The Egyptian officer showed his teeth as he spoke. Above the tight collar of his shirt, the veins in his neck stood out.
“He says they found him burned to death at the end of a filthy alleyway in the Sayeda Zenab neighborhood, a few months after this affair. Some score settling among Islamic extremists. Pasha Noureddine says that when the police went to Abd el-Aal’s apartment after the tragedy, they discovered the charter of the Islamic Action Party hidden among his papers, with certain passages circled in Abd el-Aal’s own hand. He was a traitor. And in our country, traitors end up ‘croaking’ like dogs.”
In the foyer, Noureddine firmly adjusted his beret. He leaned toward Nahed’s ear, his hand on her shoulder. The young woman dropped her notebook. The police chief talked to her for a while, then headed off toward the stairs from which the chants could be heard.
“What did he say?” asked Sharko.
“That there’s a map of the area in the office where we’re going.”
“He seemed to say much more than that.”
She nervously brushed her hair behind her shoulders.
“That’s just an impression.”
She led him to a room containing the bare functional necessities. Desk, chairs, dry-erase board, basic office supplies. A closed window looked out on Qasr el-Nil Street. No computer. Sharko flipped a switch that was supposed to turn on the ceiling fan.
“It’s not working. They palmed this office off on us on purpose.”
“No, no, what are you imagining? It’s just by chance.”
“Sure, chance. There are no chances with these guys.”
“Since you got here, I’ve felt you were a bit… distrustful of us, Inspector.”
“That’s just an impression.”
The cop noticed the presence of a guard not far from the door. They were being watched. Clearly, orders had been circulated.