The detective whipped out his notebook and tiny pen and took down the sister’s name. Tearing out the page and handing it to Hamid, he said, “Take Bu’u and Miqla and track her down. Be careful.”
Hanash felt certain that the landlord knew very little about his doorman. The rotund little man was merely worried about the reputation of his property and its value in the real estate market. And no wonder. He could hear the murmurs among the gawkers about the shadow of scandal and the evil eye that would haunt the building. Probably, photos of the “ill-fated” Manar building had already begun to circulate across the internet.
“Is the whole building empty?” the detective asked offhandedly, mainly to see how the landlord would respond.
“Yes, it is,” the landlord answered, somewhat startled by the question. “It just needs some slight alterations and the final touches in the lobby. We also have to wait for some bureaucratic problems to get sorted before we launch the sales campaign. Hopefully that will be done soon.”
“Where did this doorman come from? How did you get to know him?”
“He’s from south of Marrakesh. From the village of Ait Ammi, to be precise. A lot of people from that village have migrated to Casablanca. They find jobs as doormen and building guards because of their reputation for honesty and courtesy.”
Hanash grinned and shook his head. “Is he married?”
“No. Single. When I gave him the room, I told him that if he wanted to marry, he’d have to quit, because the room wasn’t designed to accommodate a whole family.”
“Friends and acquaintances?”
The landlord heaved a sigh. About the last thing he could possibly care about was who his doorman’s friends were. But to please the detective, he supplied an answer. “He has no acquaintances to my knowledge. He’s a shy young man who keeps to himself. . . . Oh, and he’s been to university. He has a BA in math.”
Just as I suspected, Hanash thought. Our prime suspect is no country bumpkin. He had the intellectual faculties and scientific mindset to create riddles and tricks for the police.
The detective narrowed his eyes at the landlord and asked with a hint of suspicion, “How can you defend him so strongly? He murdered and mutilated his victims, possibly right here in this building. He might be responsible for at least four murders. . . . Have you ever seen any women with him?”
“I have properties and businesses all over town, not just here. I don’t know more than what I’ve already told you.”
“What types of places did he frequent?” Hanash pressed.
“How in God’s name would I know?” the landlord whined.
Hanash left the crime scene and returned to his office. He was exhausted, but a jumble of thoughts kept racing through his mind. He had to coordinate a manhunt in several directions. He unbuttoned his shirt collar, sank back into his chair, and swiveled it halfway around. He still could not forgive himself for letting Kahila slip through his fingers. He pictured the guy standing there, right in front of him, looking him squarely in the eye without flinching. And no wonder: The suspect was no dimwit. He had a brain—a BA in math, no less. It was impossible to get into that faculty without an excellent academic record. He smiled wistfully as he thought of Tarek. His son just couldn’t get his mind around math. He flashed back to the face of that young guard. How could that kid from some remote, desiccated village in the south have committed such atrocious acts? Where did he get such evil impulses?
He swiveled back to face his desk and set to work with a spurt of energy. Snatching up the phone, he dialed a number at the office of the public prosecutor to ascertain that an arrest warrant had been issued for Abdel-Salam Kahila. Then he called Central Records and had them send over a photo of Kahila, taken from his ID card, which he dispatched along with a nationwide APB instructing all checkpoints and security facilities to search and arrest said suspect. Hanash then dialed a number that connected him with the Ait Ammi gendarmerie. After reading them in on the investigation, he warned them that the suspect was extremely dangerous and that they should take the utmost precautions when apprehending him, should he be present in the village. He also asked them to initiate official interrogations of all family members, relatives, and associates.
Hanash was interrupted by a knock on the door. Hamid entered together with a young woman in her early twenties. Her faded djellaba, the kerchief set high on her head and tied behind her neck, the scuffed plastic sandals on her feet, and every feature of her face spoke of the hardships endured by servant girls forced to help out their poor families by working for the well-to-do. The resemblance was striking. Hanash could tell she was Kahila’s sister at first glance.
“This is his sister, Zuhra,” said Hamid. “She works as a maid with the minister’s family.”
Hanash opened his desk drawer, pulled out a photocopy of a picture, and showed it to her.
“Do you know this person?”
She blinked and replied, “It’s Abdel-Salam . . . my brother.”
Hanash heaved forward in his seat. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“On the first day of the feast. He came to the place where I work . . . the home of the family I work for.”
“Why?”
“He hardly ever came to visit me. I hadn’t seen him for two years, maybe more.”
“So why’d he come? What did he have to say?”
“He didn’t say anything much. Maybe he came just to wish me a happy feast. But he just stood there at the door. He refused to come in, even though the lady of the house said that he could come in and have lunch with me in the garden.”
“How did he seem? Did he seem scared? In a hurry?”
She frowned and hesitated for a moment. Then she said, “He was strange. He seemed tense. He’d open his mouth to say something, then close it again. I asked him if he’d done something wrong at work and gotten fired. He said no.”
The detective and officer exchanged a quick glance. Hamid, who stood in front of Hanash’s desk facing Zuhra, understood that he was to take over the questioning.
“He didn’t tell you where he was going?”
“No. I felt that maybe he was sorry he came to see me.”
“What was his relationship with his parents like?”
“Our father died a long time ago.”
“And your mother?”
Zuhra moaned softly and seemed on the verge of tears, as though the question had reopened a wound that had never healed.
“Our father had left us a plot of farmland. Our house took up part of it and on the rest we grew vegetables. But when the area was rezoned as urban land instead of agricultural land, the price went up, and this big shot from our village, a parliament member who belongs to the ruling party, came up with some documents to prove that my father had sold him our land while he was still alive. That guy won his suit almost overnight. But my mother refused to carry out the court’s ruling. She attacked the MP, got arrested, and was sentenced to a year in prison. She died in there. Afterward, me and Abdel-Salam came here to Casablanca. I found a job as a servant and he got a job as a doorman.”
“Didn’t you have the deeds to prove that you owned the property?” Hanash asked.
“When my father was still alive, he and that big shot were always fighting over that piece of land. In the end, he exploited my father’s death to get what he wanted.”
Soon after identifying the prime suspect in the four open homicide files, a surge of apprehension crushed Hanash’s newfound zeal. What if Kahila was preparing to strike again? And what if he succeeded despite all the precautions they’d taken? Police forces throughout the country had been put on the alert, more personnel had been assigned to the manhunt, and security had been tightened everywhere. But there were still no leads to his whereabouts. Because of the paucity of available information, Hanash had three of his men go back and interview the doorman of the apartment building across the street from the Manar building again. Previously, the older man had given them the impres
sion that Kahila seemed like a normal guy: shy, not very outgoing, and not the type to cause trouble. But after being pumped by Baba, grilled by Bu’u, and turned over to Kinko for some extra sweating, he changed his story. Kahila used to rent out rooms in the empty premises he was guarding for illicit sex. At least one of the suspect’s victims might have been a prostitute.
After the success in identifying the Manar building, Hanash caved to Tarek’s demand for a pair of sneakers—an outrageously overpriced brand. From then on, Tarek granted himself the right to interrogate his father about the case and dissect its minutest details. Hanash indulged his son when he could—for example, while he prepared his special chow for Kreet or took the dog for a walk. During one of their late-night strolls in the company of Kreet, Tarek said, “This Kahila file reminds me a lot of American serial-killer movies. The perp in those films always had a troubled childhood and is psychologically disturbed. He kills in order to wreak vengeance against society and he imagines that by doing this he’s performing a public service. He’s the kind of person who always has problems with women and sex.”
Hanash turned to look at his son with a curious mixture of feelings. All the cases he’d worked on before were far more straightforward: a fit of jealousy or burst of rage that ended with a stabbing or a bullet, a theft gone wrong, a dispute that turned violent and spiraled out of control. Yes, there was the occasional deliberately planned act of revenge, but the majority of homicides he’d dealt with were unplanned and the perpetrator would regret his action immediately. Stunned and confused, he might panic, but with nowhere to run or hide, he would often turn himself in or be quickly apprehended. But this case was different. Hanash was more certain than ever that the suspect had been inspired by some American film. Certainly his trail of murders had all the ingredients of a film: a killer who rents out rooms for prostitution, then chooses his victims from his customers, kills them, and brutally mutilates their bodies. Could this be a way of venting anger at possible sexual impotence?
Hanash smiled at his son as he affectionately scratched Kreet behind the ears and shooed the flies away from him. “Right, sir. Now that you’re one of the team in this case, what do you propose as our next course of action?”
Tarek returned the smile, and said excitedly, “How about sticking up wanted posters with mugshots of the killer in all public places and broadcasting them on TV and the internet, offering a reward for information leading to his whereabouts?”
“That won’t be possible on the public TV stations because the government doesn’t want to spread panic. Also, if we put a price on the murderer’s head, who’s going to pay it? That kind of thing happens only in the movies.”
Despite such reservations, Hanash felt that his son’s suggestion made sense. Ever since the police had learned the suspect’s identity, the press had returned to its staple sources of sensationalism: scandal and the private lives of film stars, singers, and soccer celebrities. The “Butcher of Casablanca” was no longer juicy enough for headlines or even for their rumormongering. He’d have to incite their curiosity again and make them drool for morsels of news.
The first thing he did when he entered his office the following morning was phone up a journalist he knew, now the editor in chief of a high-circulation tabloid that was notorious for its yellow journalism and had a popular online edition. Speaking in a hush and only after a long silence, to suggest that he still had strong doubts about what he was about to say, he said, “I’m speaking on the condition of confidentiality. . . . I’m going to send you the most recent photo of the prime suspect in the serial killings case. Publish it with the caption ‘Wanted: Dangerous Killer.’ Add whatever embellishments you like. Just publish the picture on the front page. Later, I’ll give you the latest scoop in this case.”
After hanging up, he went through the same routine with other tabloids.
The following morning, the pictures were splashed across the front pages of the country’s newspapers beneath such headlines as “The Butcher of Casablanca: Still at Large.” Kahila’s picture went viral on Facebook and other social-networking sites, which warned: “He’s still out there! He could be standing right next to you!”
That evening, the officer who had been assigned to keep the Manar building under surveillance knocked on Hanash’s office door and entered. He had with him a woman in her twenties wearing a worn djellaba and a kerchief on her head. He held her by the arm as though afraid she’d bolt.
“She came to the building and asked for Abdel-Salam Kahila,” he explained. Hanash was both surprised and delighted. He examined the woman closely and broke into a wide smile. He leaned forward, looked at her amiably, and asked gently, “Why did you come to that building asking for Abdel-Salam?”
“I saw his picture in the papers and on Facebook.”
Hanash signaled to the officer to leave. Then he got out of his chair, walked around his desk, and took the seat in front of her. Her eyes widened in alarm.
“Who are you, my dear?” he asked, as though talking to his own daughter.
She wavered a moment, then stammered, “I’m . . . my name’s Samira Nour. My sister, Nezha, went missing here in Casablanca and I’m afraid she might be one of his victims.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“I haven’t seen her since September last year.”
Hanash practically jumped out of his seat. He knew the dates of the murders by heart. September was when they had discovered the first victim.
“And you haven’t talked on the phone since then either?”
The young woman looked down at her lap, at a loss, as though expecting to hear bad news.
“Look at me,” Hanash said firmly. “Hasn’t your sister called you even once since that date?”
“No. . . . I work as a maid for a family in Rabat. I don’t have the time to come down to Casablanca to look for her. I’m just a maid, sir.”
“What did your sister do?”
Samira bowed her head. Hanash gave her the time to collect her courage. She knitted her eyebrows and sighed. Then she muttered, “She’d go out with—”
Hanash cut her off in order to relieve her embarrassment. “Do you and your sister have family here in Casablanca?”
“Our family’s from the village of Baba Mohamed near Fez. But our parents were poor, so they took us out of school and had us work as servant girls in people’s homes. I’ve been working for a family in Rabat since I was ten. My sister worked for a family here in Casablanca. But she was raped by the father of that family and then fired. She was left homeless and eventually she fell into prostitution.” She paused to collect herself. “I lost touch with her for several years and then she began to visit me from time to time in Rabat. But not since September last year. I’ve had no news from her at all since then. Then yesterday, I came across Kahila’s picture in the newspaper and read that he murders women. So I came to Casablanca to look for my sister.”
“Do you have a picture of her?”
She opened her small handbag, took out a small photo, and handed it to the detective. It showed a rather pretty young woman, seated with her hands in her lap. He contemplated the photo closely, then looked up at Samira. The resemblance was striking.
Hanash hesitated for a moment. With a sympathetic look in his eyes, he said, “It’s hard to answer your question. Kahila mutilated his victims’ faces to keep us from identifying them. Do you think your sister had a relationship with him?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Leave me your phone number and address. We’ll keep in touch with you.” Hanash picked up his office phone, punched a number, and barked a command. A moment later, the door opened and an officer walked in. Gesturing toward him, Hanash told Samira, “Right now, I want you to accompany this officer. He’s going to take you to a lab so they can take some swabs from you to see if it helps us identify one of our victims. There’s no reason to be alarmed. It’s a very simple test.”
In less than twenty-four
hours, tests confirmed the identity of the first victim: Nezha Nour.
It was Dr. Wafa Amrani who achieved the next breakthrough, and scored a personal triumph in the process, when she surprised all with her remarkable expertise in forensic facial reconstruction. Not only had she invited other specialists in this discipline, the forensic investigators and technicians, and the criminal investigation team and other ranking police officials to her presentation at the University Hospital, she also ensured that plenty of representatives of the written and televised press were on hand. She waited until her audience fell silent and all attention was trained on her. Then she whisked away the cloth from a plaster bust of a finely sculpted young man in his late twenties. Some uncontrollable laughs escaped some audience members, even from the section where Hanash and his team were seated. That young man was extraordinarily handsome. It was as though Dr. Amrani had given him the features of a celebrity she fancied instead of a person who’d had the skin flayed from his face and his skull crushed.
“The face is a human being’s primary means of communicating with others,” Dr. Amrani said. “It expresses our emotions and our thoughts, consciously or unconsciously.” She explained the difficulties she had encountered in reconstructing the chin, the lips, and the rest of the features. As though delivering a lecture to a class of her own students, she proceeded to explain in detail why forensic facial reconstruction needed to go beyond the physiological level to the reproduction of a face that people would see as natural and recognizable.
Sadly, there was there no missing-persons file matching this victim’s face, which confirmed Hanash’s theory that the victim probably belonged to that class of lost souls in Casablanca who had no family or loved ones to search for them. But no sooner had the reconstructed face of the last victim—digitally enhanced—circulated across the internet than Hanash received numerous phone calls from diverse parts of the country.
The Butcher of Casablanca Page 11