Butterfly on the Storm

by Walter Lucius

  Diba seemed distracted, and looked as if he’d put on an impenetrable coat of armour. Joshua tried to reason with him.

  ‘Diba, listen. Yesterday, I didn’t say anything to Tomasoa because I wasn’t sure if Farah Hafez really had something for us. And yes, I was concerned about the fact she’s a journalist. But she agreed to come to the office to give a statement. And if you want to interrogate her, you go right ahead. And for the record, I put everything in my official report, except for the fact that I just saw my partner ignore a piece of evidence he practically stumbled over.’

  ‘Dammit, Cal!’ Diba cried out like a caged animal. ‘Shut your trap and piss off!’

  Diba walked off, leaving Joshua looking around, worried that someone had seen or heard them. But they were alone and hopefully beyond earshot of the rest. He’d often seen Diba angry, but he’d never seen him so exasperated, so unsure of himself and so unpredictable and destructive. While what just happened here took on a grimmer and greater significance for Joshua, the role of Marouan Diba in all this became more and more puzzling.

  13

  It had been over five hours since the paramedic had gently prised Farah away from Parwaiz’s lifeless body. A policeman had briefly questioned her, wanting to know who she was, what her relationship to the deceased was and what she thought might have happened. Farah had not mentioned the passing car. She couldn’t imagine a connection between the two. How on earth could a faceless man in his forties in the back of a Bentley have caused the heart attack of an old Afghan man? Yet she kept hearing his feeble whisper, ‘Mi … ka … lov.’ And again she felt his powerful grip on her arm.

  She was jolted from her thoughts by the bright-red brake lights of the car in front of her; they were approaching rapidly. A few seconds later she was stuck in traffic, with trembling hands, a throat as dry as dust and throbbing temples.

  For the past couple of hours she hadn’t allowed herself to feel how Parwaiz’s death had affected her. The blond cameraman and his sound engineer had offered to follow the ambulance and take her to the hospital. But Farah had instantly put herself into ‘modus practicus’. Action, she hoped, would help her outrun the panic and the sadness for as long as possible.

  She’d driven to the hospital where she was taken to a cold, tiled mortuary room. Parwaiz lay there like a wax likeness of himself. When she told the hospital worker that he was a Muslim she was given the phone number of an appropriate funeral company. The friendly woman she got on the line assured her that Parwaiz’s body would be collected for a ritual washing in the evening.

  Then she returned to his apartment. Some time ago, Parwaiz had given her a key for what he termed ‘unforeseen circumstances’. This was the first time she’d used it. She opened the front door, quietly hoping she’d see him sitting in his Chesterfield as usual. He’d get up, with a surprised look, and their embrace would confirm that what had happened this afternoon was simply a delusion.

  But the Chesterfield was empty, and a grim silence pervaded the apartment.

  She walked over to the large table and carefully opened the top drawer. The paper butterfly lay on top of the tissue-wrapped parcel Parwaiz had given her. She picked up the butterfly and held it aloft in both hands, in front of her face, like she’d done at the market yesterday.

  She looked at the paper wings and felt the sorrow of the past and present merging. Slowly but surely it took complete possession of her body. Each movement, each action felt gruelling. But she had to keep going.

  Feeling numb, she wandered through the apartment for a while. Then she did something she hadn’t done in a very long time. In the middle of the Bokhara carpet she knelt down, bowed to the east and began praying. ‘Allah, You may doubt me just as I doubt You at times, but please admit Parwaiz jan to Your Paradise.’

  She sat down at the sturdy workbench, picked up a sketching pencil and on the back of a drawing jotted down a list of all the practical things she wanted to take care of today. She looked for and found insurance documents in the drawer, phoned the housing association and told them to cancel the tenancy agreement owing to the death of the tenant, checked the gas and water meters, made a note of the readings and passed them on to the relevant companies with the request for disconnection.

  She planned to store the contents of the two large drawers in boxes at home, and would arrange for the old Chesterfield, the workbench and the carpet to be taken to her own apartment. They were the most tangible reminders of Parwaiz jan. She’d donate the rest of his sparse furniture, the curtains and lamps to the Salvation Army.

  After locking up the apartment she got into her car. By the time dark-grey clouds came rolling in from the west, the heat had become stifling. And now she was stuck in a tailback stretching for ever, unable to stop thinking about what had happened. Her whole body started shaking and it felt like her throat was being choked.

  The first big, fat raindrops splashed down. She threw open the door, ran past the stationary vehicles and on to the hard shoulder where, leaning over the crash barrier, she started retching.

  She had no idea how long she’d been there when she heard loud honking behind her. As she turned around she saw that the Carrera was the only car standing still in the middle of the three lanes. Some of the drivers who were manoeuvring their vehicles around it made angry gestures in her direction. In tandem with the pouring rain, the blaring horns and furious name-calling from the lowered windows produced a cacophony of noise.

  Farah took a deep breath.

  She stuck both hands in the air, waving them about to create the firmest stop sign she possibly could, and stepped out on to the motorway. In the full glare of braking cars she dashed into the Carrera. The engine started straight away. She stepped on the gas and drove deeper into the torrential rain.

  14

  It was approaching five in the afternoon when Marouan Diba hesitantly knocked on his boss’s door; he got the feeling he’d had to wait a bit too long before being asked to ‘come in’.

  Upon entering the room, he felt as if he’d interrupted a secret meeting. Calvino, the head of Forensics, Dick Park, and Tomasoa looked at Marouan as if they’d been talking about him at great length, but hadn’t yet decided if they’d immediately tar and feather him and ride him around in a cart, or they’d do it as soon as they were finished talking.

  ‘Have a seat, Diba,’ Tomasoa offered. ‘As you already know, via the Examining Magistrate, I’ve asked the forensic lab to put a rush on examining all the evidence Dick’s team collected today. To my surprise, this has already delivered a number of possible clues that we can cross off the list.’ Just like a bingo card, Diba cynically thought.

  First off, Tomasoa wanted to know what they’d found during the line search. Marouan saw Calvino sternly nod in his direction as if to say, Go ahead, you tell them.

  Marouan wondered what he was even doing there. Since being snarled at and ordered about early this morning, he’d had the same feeling as thirty years ago, when he took the bus from Tangier to Marrakesh to bring his youngest brother, the baby of the family, home. Marouan had boarded that bus while everything in him screamed not to. He’d ignored that warning, a warning similar to what he felt this morning when his clandestine associate with the Slavic accent had ordered him to stall the investigation, while he knew there was no way he could do that. He wanted to put on the handbrake but there wasn’t one. And besides, if there had been a handbrake, it probably wouldn’t have worked. Just like the brakes on that bus which also hadn’t worked.

  He’d acted impulsively this morning in the woods: pretended he hadn’t seen anything. An impulse that suddenly felt like treason when Calvino gave the stop sign and walked over to something red that looked like a sandal. After that altercation in the woods, Marouan spent the entire day trying to avoid his partner. Partly out of embarrassment for his petty behaviour and partly because he sensed that by now Calvino had to have at least a vague suspicion about his double-dealing.

  Calvino coughed. Marouan was jer
ked back to reality and saw the three men impatiently looking in his direction.

  ‘There were three items found,’ he stammered. ‘An earring with blood spatters, a piece of cloth from the boy’s robe and a sandal.’

  Tomasoa gazed at photos of the three items, which the senior forensics officer had taken at the location.

  Marouan threw Calvino a compelling glance, as if to insinuate, And now you. Tell, them, asshole! Calvino looked away.

  Park broke the silence. ‘The lab confirmed that the blood on the earring is the boy’s. There are no further DNA matches in our system.’

  ‘Anything else in particular to report?’ Tomasoa routinely asked.

  ‘Yes, about the earring,’ Calvino muttered, ‘that is, uh, it wasn’t our find exactly, chief.’

  ‘Then who exactly found it?’ Tomasoa looked at him as if he knew he wasn’t going to like the answer. The chief could see right through people, Marouan thought.

  ‘A journalist,’ said Calvino, sounding like a choirboy who’d been up to something naughty. ‘It’s a bit bizarre: she’s the same person you saw the night before last in that fight at Carré.’

  ‘The crane lady?’

  ‘Yes, her.’

  Here we go, thought Marouan.

  ‘What does she have to do with this case?’ Tomasoa asked in an icy tone.

  ‘Long story, chief. She was in the ER to check on her opponent at the moment the boy was brought in. She’s Afghan and interpreted for the medical staff. Then she went to the scene of the accident, walked through the woods and found the earring.’

  ‘So she got there before you?’ Tomasoa now asked, clearly irritated.

  ‘That’s right. Afterwards she called us, sorry, called me to report her find and we went to see her immediately.’

  ‘We? Calvino? Is that the royal, plural “we”, or …?’

  ‘Detective Diba and myself.’

  ‘Obviously. And when did that visit take place?’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘And how do you know exactly where she found the earring?’

  There was an awkward silence. Calvino stared at Marouan and this time it was Marouan who looked away.

  ‘I went with her this morning to the spot she’d indicated,’ Calvino replied softly.

  Tomasoa looked at them individually. ‘This morning? I had the idea that you were there together. And by “you”, I mean the two of you.’

  ‘I was there, chief,’ Marouan suddenly heard himself lying aloud. ‘Then I came to the station.’ He ignored the surprised look on Calvino’s face.

  Tomasoa had laid the photos aside and was rummaging through the piles on his desk for something. ‘And I understood that …’ he said, still searching, ‘based on the clothing, jewellery and make-up that the boy was used for something called …’

  ‘Bacha Bazi,’ Calvino said.

  ‘Afghan dancing boys,’ Marouan clarified for him.

  ‘In other words,’ said Tomasoa while he hurriedly read through the document he’d found, ‘a boy whore.’

  Nobody responded. They were used to hearing pretty crude stuff, but when Tomasoa uttered these words, it somehow sounded like someone swearing in church.

  ‘Is that why the journalist is so caught up in this?’

  ‘Without a doubt,’ said Marouan.

  ‘But I’d like to hear it directly from her,’ Tomasoa said. ‘When is she going to be questioned?’

  ‘As soon as possible, chief.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said Tomasoa. ‘Not a day later.’ He looked at the document again.

  ‘Bacha Bazi. A new phenomenon. That brings us to the question of what on earth went down at that villa.’

  ‘From the different tyre tracks found, we can deduce that the villa was possibly used as a meeting place,’ said Park, who took his time to elaborate. ‘At this stage we don’t have any evidence that we’re dealing with something like child prostitution, but we can conclude that it got rather out of hand when the parties met up at the villa. There were shots fired both inside and outside the place. We found bullet casings, blood and drag marks at both spots. Based on those casings, while performing the autopsy the pathologist found a match with the calibre bullet in the sternum of one of the men from the burnt-out station wagon. In the case of the second victim, two bullets passed right through the body, but the entry wounds were compared with those bullet casings too and also indicated a match.’

  ‘Can we deduce that the two men in the station wagon were both victims of that shoot-out?’ asked Tomasoa.

  ‘That’s the most likely scenario,’ agreed Park.

  Tomasoa straightened his back – Yul Brynner-style – and looked at Marouan, who again felt more and more like the helpless passenger he once was in a fast-moving bus, as a lorry full of asphalt barrelled towards it from the right.

  ‘I’m trying to reconstruct the scene,’ Tomasoa said, glancing at Calvino. ‘A number of parties come by car to the villa. The boy was probably part of the entourage. Then something goes wrong. What exactly, we don’t know. Shots are fired. At least one of the shootings takes place inside the villa. So we can make an educated guess that there is at least one victim now. Shots are also exchanged outside. Another victim. Somewhere in that chaos the boy manages to escape.’

  As he summed up, Tomasoa shifted his gaze to Park. ‘Our first victim was then dragged from the villa. The other victim who was shot outside was also dragged away. They were dumped in a car and found a short time later a few kilometres away. What do we know about the car?’

  Park fumbled through some papers and handed Tomasoa a document. ‘Via the chassis number we’ve determined that it’s a Russian car, delivered by the manufacturer in Odessa to an importer who leases cars to a letterbox company, owner unknown.’

  ‘So it’s a dead end,’ Tomasoa concluded.

  Marouan’s mouth went dry as he recalled the final seconds before the lorry rammed the bus. He’d wrapped his arms around his younger brother and pressed him to his chest to protect him.

  Tomasoa shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  ‘We’ve reached a point where I feel like we’re groping around in the dark. And let me assure you, I can do without this. So gentlemen, enlighten me!’ He began drumming his fingers on the desktop, impatient for answers. ‘Why so close by? Why set fire to the station wagon on a spot that can be connected to the villa so easily?’

  ‘Maybe it was an unplanned rush job,’ Calvino said, pausing to see if Tomasoa approved of him continuing.

  ‘Go on,’ said Tomasoa with a wave of his hand.

  ‘What if it was one man?’ Calvino suggested.

  Marouan sat up. Since that morning he’d had the same suspicion.

  ‘One man?’ asked Tomasoa.

  ‘That would explain a lot.’ Calvino glanced at Park. ‘I understand that more than two trails of blood were found?’

  ‘Correct,’ Park verified.

  ‘Suppose our man himself was injured during the exchange of shots. If he was alone … We’re dealing with a pro. He knows that if his victims are identified the evidence will lead us directly to him. He uses the station wagon fire to make sure we can’t identify them. But he doesn’t want to do this at the villa. Because that immediately places the primary site of the crime in the spotlight. So he torches the wagon somewhere else. However, he can’t go too far from the villa because he’s alone. He has to go back because he’s left his car there.’

  Marouan was stunned by Calvino’s astute analysis. It suddenly dawned on him why he’d perceived Calvino as a threat for such a long time. The man had qualities that helped a detective rise above the poor slobs who were just trying to do their very best. He had command of the job in the way a chess master controls the board. He looked ahead, considered all the possible moves and made his choices.

  Marouan could only conclude that Calvino had long since passed him by. And he hadn’t done that with a lot of bravado, it had happened quietly. Marouan had completely missed it. A
nd now he could only listen dumbfounded to Calvino presenting his brilliant theory about the case.

  ‘Our man uses the station wagon to transport the bodies to the clearing a few kilometres away. He removes the plates, along with rings, watches and any other personal belongings of the victims, pours petrol over the vehicle and lights a match. Boom!’

  Marouan felt dizzy. After more than thirty years, he could still feel the bus skidding at an angle at the moment the lorry rammed it. Once again he heard the deafening racket of tearing metal, splintering glass and the screams of the passengers who were launched through the spinning vehicle like live projectiles. His brother included.

  ‘Everything okay, Diba?’ Tomasoa threw him a concerned glance.

  ‘I’m okay, boss,’ he lied.

  ‘And then,’ said Calvino, ‘our man still has to return to the villa. And he’s not about to call a taxi.’

  ‘So you’re saying … that’s why he stayed so close by,’ Tomasoa mumbled.

  Calvino nodded enthusiastically. ‘Exactly. And that’s also why we found all that trace evidence. By the time he gets back to the villa it’s dark, the area is swarming with police because the boy has been found on the road, and our suspect is also wounded. No opportunity, no time and too badly hurt to cover his tracks.’

  Marouan could tell them exactly who they should go to in order to verify Calvino’s story. An impulse told him to just give up the name of the man he now pictured. A man who liked to dress in tight-fitting Armani suits, wore a bizarre sort of ponytail as if he’d just stepped out of a kung fu film and spoke English with a thick Slavic accent. But Marouan also realized that as soon as he revealed the man’s identity, he’d be the victim of his own honesty. The mere mention of the name would have the same impact as the blow with which the lorry hit that bus in Marrakesh thirty years ago.

  In the meantime, Tomasoa had given his undivided attention to Calvino and seemed impressed. Marouan knew that Calvino would one day be sitting in Tomasoa’s seat. And Tomasoa didn’t look like a man who felt threatened by this. Only true masters respected each other, because of the talent and qualities they recognized in one another, thought Marouan. He saw Tomasoa studying him again.