The phenomenon made Hanash’s gall rise. It flew in the face of truth and kept him from savoring the taste of victory from the last case they had solved. Kahila’s insidious mug kept peering out at him from all corners of the web, taunting him, reminding him that his work was incomplete and robbing him of the pride his superiors should take in his achievement. In fact, security authorities had the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations (BCJI)—the Moroccan FBI—assemble an elite undercover manhunt team and tasked it with apprehending the notorious murderer. The BCJI and its covert team were given the broadest powers in order to enable them to carry out their assignment. The accomplishments of this bureau, which was equipped with state-of-the-art technologies, enjoyed extensive coverage in the official media. The media portrayed its operatives—highly skilled agents rigorously trained in fighting terrorists and organized crime rings—like the heroes in a sci-fi film, with their assault rifles, helmets, and those masks that make it impossible to learn their real identities.
It was the day before the first weekend after he’d broken the Belaid case, and Hanash was so discouraged that he had an overwhelming urge to get plastered, even though he hadn’t had a drink in ages.
“What are your plans for the weekend?” he asked Officer Hamid in a neutral way so as not to reveal what he had in mind.
Filling his voice with the resentment he felt toward the higher-ups for their ingratitude to Hanash and his department, Hamid answered, “Staying home, sir.”
Speaking brusquely in order to hide his awkwardness, Hanash said, “I might drop by your place tonight,”
“Why, sir?” asked Hamid, suddenly filled with trepidation.
“I thought we could crack open a bottle. I’m on edge and I want to take my mind off things a bit. But I don’t want to go to a public place.”
Hamid smiled brightly. “I’ll be expecting you, then.” Hamid sent up a prayer of gratitude that Manar’s father hadn’t decided to drop in by surprise like he sometimes used to do in the past.
Of course, Hanash hadn’t missed the officer’s sudden alarm. He knew that Hamid had been seeing his daughter in his apartment, which didn’t bother him since the two were as good as engaged. Preparations for the ceremony were almost done, lacking only a convenient date.
The officer didn’t have to spend a dirham from his own pocket. He merely had to phone up his bar-owner friends and have them send over their finest vintages. Simply being asked for such a favor meant a lot to them. The same applied to the famous restaurant from which he ordered an assortment of appetizers.
When he opened the door for Hanash later that evening, his eyebrows shot up to see his boss in sneakers, a jogging outfit, and a cap with the bill pulled down to hide his face, like a thief on the prowl. His eyes widened further when his boss reached into his sweat suit jacket and pulled out a bottle of high-end whiskey.
The detective swept his eyes around the apartment, an enigmatic smile playing on his lips. Though small, it was beautiful and very close to Hanash’s villa.
There was a momentary silence as the two men exchanged glances as though they were at a crime scene. Hamid quickly poured out a couple of drinks and handed one to his boss. Hanash examined the liquid, then held up his glass toward Hamid’s and said, “Cheers.” Hamid told Hanash that he no longer drank except on weekends and holidays. “I gave my word of honor to Manar that I’d stick to this rule until I give up drink entirely.”
Hanash asked playfully, “You’re not going to break that rule even when you get promoted to detective?”
“If that happens, I swear by God that I’ll pay for the drinks out of my own pocket!”
The two men laughed. The officer got up, went to the kitchen, and fetched a tray on which he had laid the appetizers. As they worked their way through the drinks, Hanash went over to stretch out on the couch. Hamid hastened to place a small pillow under his head.
Avoiding eye contact with his officer, Hanash said, “We shouldn’t pay attention to those rumors. They’re totally groundless. We’re good at our jobs. We break cases in record time. The higher-ups are just ungrateful.”
“They’re only interested in catching Kahila to save their own faces. They know nothing about our work.”
Hanash shifted his head on the pillow in order to face Hamid.
“He’s probably left town. He might even have migrated to Europe on one of those human trafficking boats. Or maybe he signed up with some terrorist organization. But the mercenary press insists on attributing the last homicide to him, even though the real perp’s been caught and locked away.”
“And that’s what’s keeping us from getting credit.”
The officer poured out a couple more drinks and handed one to the detective, who sat up with some difficulty to accept it.
“I can bet on this,” said Hanash as he raised his glass. “If Kahila’s still in Casablanca, I swear I’ll get to him before anyone else.”
He took a swig and leaned back into the couch. Hamid settled back in his seat and stared off into the distance. Hesitantly, due to the diffidence he felt toward his CO, he said, “I’m really glad to be part of your family, sir.”
“Let’s keep this visit between the two of us,” Hanash said. “I don’t want anyone to think I’m encouraging you to drink when that was the reason I was initially reluctant to let you marry my daughter.”
“I may have been a heavy drinker in the past, sir, but now I only imbibe on weekends and that’s solely for restorative purposes after a long week’s work.”
“Ha! That’s a good one! What do you mean by ‘restorative’?”
“For alcoholics, drink is a leisure activity. People such as ourselves merely drink as a form of R&R to relieve ourselves of work-related stress. . . .”
Hanash grinned and scoffed, “You sound like a professor.”
Hanash saw a helmeted man in a mask like those worn by the BCJI reach into the closet where he hid his gun. He tried to shout, but no sound came out. His body felt numb and immobilized. He jerked awake in a cold sweat, chest heaving, throat as parched as if he’d spent a week in the desert. He was feeling the effects of the night before. While gulping down a glass of water, he remembered that his officer had accompanied him to his house. Then, instead of turning in, Hanash had fetched Kreet and the two of them had taken the dog for a long walk down to the beach, where they’d remained until after midnight, chatting about this and that.
In the morning, Hanash headed to the restaurant of an old friend of his, Rubio, located in Ain Diab. Drinking black coffee after a sumptuous breakfast, Hanash and Rubio exchanged jokes and chatted about the latest political news: the forthcoming elections, the transportation crisis. Rubio owned a hotel that catered to foreign tourists, two elegant cafés, the modern restaurant they were in, and other real estate. Over the years, he and Hanash had forged a solid friendship. Rubio was one of the few people who knew the details of Hanash’s unsavory past from his Tangiers days, and vice versa.
But the fact was that Hanash had changed since his scrape with death when he was shot point-blank in his office by Officer Qazdabo. He’d become a sentimental homebody who preferred domestic tranquility to late-night carousing.
Rubio asked his friend how the case of the famous killer was going. Hanash brushed the question aside with a hasty “Nothing new.” He didn’t even want to talk about his success with his latest file, the homicide perpetrated by Hajj Belaid inspired by the “famous killer.”
After leaving his friend, Hanash walked along the corniche. “The ‘famous killer’ instead of the ‘famous Hanash’ who’s on the case,” he muttered in self-derision. The “case of the famous killer”—those words had hit him like a punch below the belt when Rubio said them.
Where had he disappeared to? Once again, his mind dragged him back to how Kahila had fooled him, hiding behind the mask of a naive doorman. He’d fooled Hamid as well. If only one of them had taken a step or two after Kahila when he disappeared down the corridor when they first int
erviewed him, they might have caught a whiff of something to arouse their suspicions.
Hanash pictured Kahila’s small room and its meager contents: a saggy mattress, a small stained and filthy table, a doorless closet with some pitiful rags inside. The windowless room was as dark and dank as a cellar, and putrid. How could Kahila have even breathed in such a fetid hole? How could he have slept? That vile form of entertainment he’d invented for himself—dismembering bodies—was perfectly suited to this den, which he lived in even after converting it into a slaughterhouse. The walls retained traces of blood despite the layer of paint he applied after every murder. After disposing of the trunk and the limbs outside, he took the victim’s head and hands up to the top floor in order to dissolve them in acid. That was how he concealed the identity of his victims. . . . Prostitutes were murdered all the time. Hanash suspected Kahila would have had earlier victims—before he graduated to this cat-and-mouse game he was playing with the police. How many victims had he really claimed?
The traffic noises broke into Hanash’s thoughts as he walked down the corniche in Ain Diab. Most of the cars speeding by were upmarket models: flashy sports cars, luxury coupés, capacious SUVs. This was an upscale neighborhood with elegant restaurants and cafés, trendy nightclubs and bars, and sophisticated shopping centers boasting the top international brand names. Newspapers abounded with stories about bonanzas, opportunities for making a quick profit, and the rise of new class of millionaires who made their fortunes through bribery, corruption, and the rentier economy. At the same time, crime experienced a boom, making it possible for the likes of Kahila to exist. As Hanash walked, he contemplated the skyscrapers, and the cranes and bulldozers on building sites from which new skyscrapers would rise. The city was a magnet that attracted laborers from distant rural villages. Most of those newcomers had probably been agricultural workers before they packed themselves off to work in fields of concrete as construction workers or, like Kahila, as building guards and doormen, forced to live like rats in the trenches of building sites or in clammy holes beneath the stairwells of apartment blocks. Casablanca had undergone major transformations. But so had crime in the city—so much so that it too sported international “brand names.” Casablanca now had its Kahila the Butcher, just as London had its Jack the Ripper.
Hanash jerked his head up to find that he was right in front of the Manar office block. The place was shrouded in silence. What distinguished Sundays in Casablanca, like many major cities around the world, was the reduction in traffic, car horns, and sirens.
The front door was securely bolted. He stepped back and peered up at the windows overlooking the street. There were now five signs affixed next to the door—all engineering and accounting services. Kahila, of course, was the reason why the building was still mostly empty. Had this not been the scene of his homicides, there would have been a high demand for office spaces in this prime location and they would have been worth a fortune. The only option the landlord had was to wait until people forgot the bad omen that plagued the building and that was likely to continue to plague it as long as Kahila remained at large. He was so closely associated with the place that people frequently called it the “Kahila building.”
“Hey Chief . . . Commander . . . sir . . .”
Hanash finally realized that someone had been calling him. He focused his attention and found himself staring at a man standing in front of him, hand to forehead in a makeshift salute. It was the new doorman of the building, whom Hanash or one of his officers had been checking in with.
The doorman had opened the door even before Hanash asked to be let in. As Hanash stood in the foyer, he felt a numbness come over him as Kahila’s face loomed before him again and he felt his throat constrict at the thought of that nauseating putrid odor from his room. He took a deep breath and asked the doorman, “Any news?”
“All’s well, sir. Nothing to report, sir.”
Staring directly into the eyes of the doorman, Hanash asked, “Do you live in the same room as he did?” He nodded toward the end of the dark corridor.
“Yes sir. As long as I’m still single.” He smiled, and added, “And I’d have to stay that way for the rest of my life if I wanted to remain here.”
Hanash smiled back and asked, “Do you mind if I take a quick look at the room?”
“Do you mean . . . ?” The doorman pointed in the direction of his room, surprised and somewhat alarmed at the request.
In fact, Hanash was nearly as surprised as the doorman that he had made this request, which had slipped out of his mouth as spontaneously as his feet had led him back to the scene of the crime. The doorman invited him into the room, where Hanash found that everything had changed. It had been restored to life and was now as clean and tidy as a room in a modest but decent hotel.
When Hanash reemerged from the building and resumed his walk, his mind became absorbed in other questions as he reviewed each chapter of the case and reexamined them through the lenses of different hypotheses. The mystery of Kahila’s whereabouts was a constant concern. Kahila had to be somewhere in this city, unless he’d been murdered himself, or had somehow managed to escape overseas. If he’d tried to go to Tangiers to take one of the so-called death boats to Europe, he would almost certainly have been apprehended at a roadblock or by some other security detail along the way.
The possibility of being smuggled onto a boat from the Port of Casablanca was equally remote. It was virtually impossible to enter the Port of Casablanca without a special permit or unless you were an official employee there. Surveillance was extremely tight and covered the whole environs of the port, which was surrounded by high, unscalable barbed-wire walls. In addition to the hundreds of security cameras, an elite team of guards with trained dogs patrolled the area around the clock. The chief reason for such precautions was precisely in order to prevent illegal migrants from sneaking into the port and onto ships bound for Europe.
The strident ring of his cell phone made his heart sink even before he looked at the screen. Who the hell would call him on a Sunday morning if not to tell him bad news? He pressed “answer” and put the phone to his ear. It was the supervising inspector from Central Telecommunications, sounding as though he were delivering a formal communiqué. “Good morning, Detective. Dispatch received a communication from the Fallah neighborhood. A body was discovered in a trash receptacle—”
Hanash cut him off. “Call BCJI. They’re the ones in charge of these cases now.”
“I’m sorry, sir. But they’re the ones who told me to call you. The body belongs to a child.”
The victim was on the ground next to a trash bin, covered by a piece of clothing. Hanash lifted the fabric to find the body of a five-year-old boy, thankfully without a mark on his body. There were no signs of violence, amputations, or disfigurement, and he was fully dressed. The only other members of the force on hand were Inspector Hamid, a security guard, and two techs from forensics.
Some meters away, a woman was reeling on her knees, slapping her cheeks, raising her arms skyward, and pitching herself forward to the ground. She tried to fling herself toward the little body, but a neighborhood woman restrained her while another sprinkled water on her from a bottle.
Hanash surveyed the scene. All the doors and windows were shut. A cluster of filthy trash bins stood in the center of the dusty square. Some distance away, he saw a single store open. Looking up, he caught sight of a few heads peering down from the rooftops. Though it was a Sunday morning, a crowd was gradually beginning to collect.
Hamid came over and greeted his boss.
“Where are Baba and Miqla?” Hanash asked, without returning the smile.
“Miqla’s en route. He’s late because he was on an assignment.”
“And Baba?”
Hamid paused, then said, “When I called he told me he was in El Jadida.”
“He’s not on leave.”
As though covering for Baba, the officer muttered, “A close relative of his wife died, so he took
her there.”
Hanash dismissed the excuse with an impatient flick of the wrist and turned toward the wailing woman.
“That’s the mother?”
“Yes. She lives over there,” Hamid said, pointing to a building about a hundred meters away.
“Where’s the father?”
“We haven’t inquired yet.”
“Who called in the homicide?”
Hamid nodded toward the open store. “The grocer. He told me that on his way to open his shop at six, as he does every morning, his attention was caught by a bunch of cats circling around something and pawing at it. When he took a closer look, he noticed what looked like hair on a small human head. He said that last night everyone in the neighborhood had joined the search for the child Saad who’d gone missing. No one found a trace of him. The grocer recognized Saad and rushed off to tell the boy’s mother and phone the police.”
“Has his mother seen him yet?” Hanash asked.
“Yes. The grocer said that after he told her, he and the neighborhood women tried to stop her, but she wrenched herself free and ran over and looked.”
“Have the women take her inside so that you can question her.”
A forensics technician approached, muttered a greeting, and gave a despondent shrug. “The body’s intact. It bears no marks of violence or abuse. The probable cause of death is suffocation.”
Hanash’s phone rang. He took it out, saw who the caller was, and sighed. It was the assistant chief of police.
“Good morning, sir. We’re on-site. . . . Yes, a child of five or six—”
“Well then,” the official cut in, “if that’s the case then the incident is unrelated to the Kahila file. He’s never killed a child before.”
“I’ll keep you posted as soon as we have more facts.”
“Good luck,” the security official said and hung up.
Hanash headed to his car and drove off, letting Hamid oversee operations at the scene.
Hamid, heartened by what for his boss was warm encouragement, took a deep breath and headed to the victim’s mother’s house. The door was open. The front room was a pandemonium of wailing and screaming and people who were all speaking at once. Several women were huddled around the mother, trying to comfort and console her. Her face was gray, sapped of every last drop of energy. He ordered the women to wait outside so he could talk with her alone. As they left, he cast his eyes around the room. On one wall he saw a picture of the child dressed in a circumcision-celebration costume. He looked down at his mother who, he guessed, was in her mid-twenties. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying, her body hunched. When Hamid introduced himself, she reached toward him beseechingly and cried, “Tell me it’s not my son!” Then her arm went limp and her body trembled. “My baby!”
The Butcher of Casablanca Page 15