“You’re a persistent one. Why should the fate of some miserable Egyptians who died so long ago interest you?”
“Because I’m a cop. Because the passage of time shouldn’t make a crime any less hateful.”
“An avenger’s speech.”
“I’m just a father and a husband. And I like seeing things through to the bitter end.”
The waitress brought two imported beers and warm mezes. Atef invited Sharko to help himself and spoke in a low voice.
“Your hands and feet are tied because the entire Egyptian police system is corrupt. They fill their ranks with the poor and the ignorant, most of whom come from the country or Upper Egypt so that they won’t oppose the system. They pay them barely enough to survive on so that they’ll be forced to become corrupt themselves. They provide false papers for money, shake down taxi drivers and restaurant owners, threaten to have their licenses revoked. From Cairo to Aswan, police brutality is known far and wide. Just a few years ago, they were still arresting us for homosexuality—and believe me, being in those prisons was no joke. With less than thirty pounds a month to live on, thirty of your euros, people like that become the system. Half the police in this country have no idea what they’re doing it for. They’re told to repress, so they repress. But my brother wasn’t of that stripe. He had the values of men from Port Said. Pride. And respect.”
Atef took out a photo from his wallet and handed it to Sharko. It showed an upright man, young, solid in his uniform. He shone with the savage beauty of the desert dwellers.
“Mahmoud always dreamed of being a policeman. Before he was accepted, he had joined the youth center in Abdin to do bodybuilding; he wanted to be up to the level of the gymnastic tests at the police academy. He got ninety percent on his final exams. He was brilliant. He got by without money and without bribes. He was never an extremist; he had nothing to do with that gangrene. That was all a frame-up to make him disappear.”
Sharko delicately set the photo on the table.
“A frame-up by the police, you mean?”
“Yes. By that son of a whore Noureddine.”
“Why?”
“I could never find out why. Until today, when I finally learned from you that it was all related to that investigation. Those girls who were viciously murdered…”
Atef stared vacantly at his beer bottle. Made up that way, he gave off a wholly feminine sensuality.
“Mahmoud wouldn’t let the case go. He always brought back his files, photos, and personal notes to the apartment. He told me the case had quickly been classified, and that his superiors had assigned him to another investigation. Here, spending your time on the murder of poor people doesn’t bring in much money, you understand?”
“I think I’m beginning to.”
“But Mahmoud kept right on with it, quietly. When the police came to search his place after his charred body was discovered, they took everything. And now, you tell me those documents no longer exist. Someone had an interest in making them disappear.”
At the slightest noise, Atef looked around. The smoke emitted by the chichas blurred the faces, darkened the risqué gestures. Some men exited. In this place, one arrived alone but left in twos, for a busy night.
Sharko took a swallow of beer. The atmosphere was like the situation: tense.
“And your brother hadn’t told you anything? Details? Any points in common among the murdered girls?”
The Arab shook his head.
“It goes back a long time, Inspector. And when you talk about this case in hints and whispers, you’re not really helping me.”
“In that case, let me refresh your memory.”
Sharko spread the victims’ photos on the table. This time, he recounted exactly what Nahed had translated for him in the un-air-conditioned office at the police station. The discovery of the bodies, the precise indications of the autopsy report. Atef listened carefully, touching neither his drink nor the mezes.
“Ezbet el-Nakhl, where the trash collectors live…” he repeated. “Now that you say it, yes, I do believe my brother went there for his investigation. Then Shubra… Shubra… the cement factories. It all vaguely rings a bell.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again, picked up a photo, and stared at it attentively.
“I believe my brother was convinced that there did exist a link among these girls. The crimes were too close together in time, too similar for the killer to have acted randomly. The murderer must have had a plan, a path he was following.”
Sharko’s throat grew tighter by the minute. Mahmoud had sensed the killer, and he’d acted in all the right ways, starting from the principle that a killer rarely struck by chance. A true European-style detective—no doubt the only one in this vast city.
“What kind of plan?”
“I don’t know. My brother didn’t tell me a whole lot, because… I didn’t like what he was doing. But I do know who he might have talked to more openly.”
“Who?”
“My uncle. The one who got us out of poverty, so long ago. The two of them were very close and spoke about all sorts of things.”
Behind them, bottles of alcohol circulated, the atmosphere began to churn. Hands moved closer, fingers caressed wrists in a sign of desire. Sharko leaned over the table.
“Let’s go see your uncle.”
Atef hesitated a long time.
“I’d really like to help you, in memory of my brother. But this I should do alone. I’d rather remain careful and not be seen with you. We’ll meet again tomorrow, in front of the Saladin Citadel overlooking the Necropolis, an hour and a half after the call to prayer. Six a.m., at the foot of the left minaret. I’ll be there with your information.”
Atef downed half his beer.
“I’m going to stay a bit longer. You go now. And especially…”
Sharko finally picked up his glass of whiskey and emptied it in one gulp.
“I know, not a word. See you tomorrow.”
Once outside, the cop intentionally lost himself in the streets of Cairo, carried along by the human flow, the colors and smells.
He might have a lead.
The temperature had dropped a good fifteen degrees, and the sweat from the club grew cool along his scalp and ears. The cop didn’t feel like going back to his deathly little room and confronting what was inside his head. The city carried him, guided him in its whirlwinds of mystery. He discovered improbable cafés hidden between two buildings, and hookah joints lit by Chinese lanterns among which people glided, carrying reddened coals. He crossed paths with wandering vendors of vinyl wallets and paper handkerchiefs, dove into atmospheres whose very existence he would never have suspected. He smoked and drank without worrying about the water the tea was made from, without fearing the tourista. Somewhere back in the Muslim portion of the city, carried along by drunkenness, he watched the slaughter of three young bulls, their throats slit in the middle of the street, which butchers hacked into pieces before wrapping them in pouches ready for distribution. In the heart of the night, human waves unfurled: poor people, children with bare feet, women with black veils, while a well-dressed man in a suit handed out political pamphlets. Bags of meat were being tossed to the crowd along with the advertising; people elbowed each other and shouted. The whole city vibrated like a single being.
In the midst of his euphoria, Sharko suddenly felt a surge of nausea and squinted his eyes. Over there, standing apart from the crowd, was a man plunged in darkness, wearing a mustache and a hat that looked like a beret.
Hassan Noureddine.
The man stepped to the side and disappeared down a street.
The Frenchman tried to open a path toward him, but the human flow jostled him. He forced his way through the crowd, the tide of arms, and began running. When he arrived at the square, the police chief had vanished. Sharko moved forward into the deserted alleyways, turned in every direction, then finally stopped, alone in the middle of the silent houses.