The Cairo Diary

by Maxim Chattam

  He half sat on the edge of the table. “You know, Detective, when you strangle someone, it requires so much force to cut off the circulation of air and/or blood that you must press very hard indeed.… And in general, you push your fingers into the skin, leaving traces of the nails, grazes or dermabrasions. In this case, there are actual holes, savage cuts, sometimes quite deep.”

  “What does that mean? That the murderer had a knife?”

  “No, not really. The mark of the fingers is there; the hematomas are shaped almost like the hands. No, it means that the killer of this child had very hard, very long nails, almost like blades.”

  The doctor picked up a porcelain bowl containing the triangular piece of horn found a few hours earlier by the two investigators. “If you want my opinion, this thing here could very well be one.”

  Jeremy bent toward him, inclining his neck. He didn’t understand. “How do you mean?”

  “I am simply saying that this fragment here could be nail.”

  “What? You surely don’t think so! That’s a bit much! The killer would have to be a monstrous giant!”

  “Listen, I am not the one who makes the comparisons; each to his own work, and mine inclines me to think that this could be the tip of a nail. Pointed, thick, hard, certainly, but why not? In any case it corresponds to the type of wound the child has on him. Ah, yes, because he does not just have these marks on his throat but all over his body, or almost. Everywhere where he was held, we find these cuts, like a hand with overlong nails.”

  “With claws, you mean.…”

  “Given the size and the sharpness, yes, one may talk about claws.”

  “Was he attacked … sexually?”

  The doctor seemed to hesitate. “Not in the strict meaning of the term. Rather like the others, there is sperm on his body, but no penetration.”

  “Anything else?”

  The doctor ran a hand through his beard. A line of blood had dried around the rim of his nails. “Details of a biological kind, but nothing concerning the criminal aspect. When I opened the child I noted that he was situs inversus, that his organs were the wrong way around; that is to say that his heart and liver were on the right side, not on the left. Normally, in an adult one notices this even before the autopsy, because in theory the right testicle is lower than the left; it is the opposite for men whose hearts are on the left.”

  “And does this change anything?”

  “Absolutely nothing, it is merely a peculiarity. Another thing: He was a hemophiliac. I could not swear to it, but it seems fairly obvious to me. The digestive tract and the joints bore marks of trauma linked to hemophilia. And with regard to the wounds, the blood flowed far too strongly for injuries of that nature; there is almost no trace of coagulation.”

  Jeremy cast a glance toward a notebook that lay in the middle of some used scalpels. A constellation of little red droplets spattered the pages with their spidery notes. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “This is the last time I work in such a rush,” repeated the doctor. “Next time, you will wait.”

  “I know—”

  “No, you know nothing,” he snapped with an anger that surprised Jeremy. “Working in a rush means taking the risk of rummaging around inside and cutting oneself. Do you know all the illnesses that are transmitted in that way? Two doctors died recently in this manner, one in Alexandria this winter and the other here, last year. Erysipelas—have you ever heard of it? No? It’s an infection that has been decimating doctors for a few years. One small cut and it’s too late.… A fold of swollen flesh, fevers, and you’re gone. I didn’t survive the war in France to die so stupidly! That was the last time.”

  The man grabbed a clean rag and wiped his hands mechanically. He moistened his lips and rubbed his beard, bringing the circulation back to his jaw. Then he turned toward Jeremy Matheson, who gazed at the too-small mass that lay on a table, covered with a sheet.

  “Sad, isn’t it?” said the doctor.

  He approached the detective, the rag in his hand. “You know, sometimes when I’m toiling away in our entrails, I stop for a minute and contemplate the body of work that we are. The extent to which we are all unequal. Some have resilient, wide arteries, which are harder to block. Others on the contrary have frail, narrow ones. Why? There are no rules to it. Probably not hereditary; it’s the chance fault of nature—either you are born with a strong propensity to die early, or not. For this poor lad, it happened more quickly than he’d imagined. His heart beat what, a million times before it stopped? More or less. A million calls to life, for nothing. Nobody heard. He returns to dust.”

  “You’re depressing me, Doctor.” Jeremy patted him amicably on the shoulder and made to head for the exit, a sordid staircase.

  “Are you going to find whoever did this?” demanded the doctor behind him.

  Jeremy halted on the first step. He had absolutely not expected this sign of involvement from this man who had seemed to maintain a casual distance from the situation from the start. Then, in the moving light from the lanterns, the doctor added, “If you find him, Detective, do me the pleasure of putting a bullet into him from me.”

  * * *

  Jeremy rejoined Azim a little later, toward the end of the afternoon. The little Egyptian had done the rounds of the police stations to check any reports of missing children. He was looking for a boy aged around ten, whose description might correspond—insofar as they were able to determine—with the child found that morning in the blind alley.

  But in vain.

  It was more than probable that the boy came from a poor district, and very often, in such areas, the inhabitants first tried to sort out problems among themselves, before turning to the authorities. It might take several days for a disappearance to be reported.

  Jeremy gave a detailed report to Azim of everything the doctor had told him, omitting nothing. Azim took no notes; he memorized the information without showing any trace of emotion.

  “Azim, I am going to call at the asylum to reassure myself that nobody has escaped or any former child molesters been freed lately. We should also tour the hospitals to check that no children have been admitted recently following a savage attack of this type. You never know, perhaps there have been previous failed attempts.”

  “Indeed. If I may say so, do not forget to call at Ibn Touloun, the old mosque. There are plans to restore it this year, but for the time being it still houses senile old men. They say that its patients are sometimes dangerous; it’s a lead like any other.”

  Matheson nodded and thanked him, and the two men split up. The English detective went back to sharia Abbas, where he spent three hours obtaining the information he wanted. More than five thousand patients were housed there, in conditions that were far from salubrious.

  When dusk fell over Cairo, Jeremy Matheson took refuge in his usual qawha—a small dive, devoid of decoration—situated near the central railroad station. The owner—the qawhagi—immediately served him an arriha coffee, flavored with cardamom; the Englishman’s preferences were well-known.

  A little distance away, old men were playing mankaleh and chatting, while a storyteller told one of his numerous legends in Arabic to anyone who would listen.

  The wreaths of smoke from the hookahs thickened the air, flavoring it with an oily apple taste, or tainting it with clouds of ma’assil.

  Jeremy let himself be soothed by the storyteller’s voice, imagining all sorts of spectacular sights, straight out of the desert and ancient times.

  He soon moved on to alcohol. This qawha had no hesitation in serving it, something that was becoming increasingly rare since the more orthodox Muslim sects had strengthened their authority. He drank his glasses of house brandy with a speed that did not bode well, systematically throwing under the table the ice that the owner insisted on putting in his glass.

  He staggered back to his railcar, his vision blurred, and collapsed onto his unmade bed.

  He had scarcely laid down when he stretched out a hand to the b
edside table. He knocked over various objects placed on it before grabbing hold of a frame containing a black-and-white photograph of a woman.

  “Jezebel…,” he groaned. “Jeze … bel … who transcends time through nights of pleasure.… Jezeb—”

  The frame slipped from his fingers and fell onto the carpet, beyond his reach in his nauseated state.

  He buried his head in the feather pillow to hold back the rising tears.

  A blinding flash shattered his dream of pleasures now gone.

  The image lasted only a second. The image of a body.

  The body of a child.

  The fragile collarbones were jutting out through the thin skin of his chest.

  And through all the horror of today.

  He had wanted this investigation and its burden of atrocity. Now he was going to have to wear its uniform, in order to be able to enter the firmly closed circle of truth. In order to approach it, dance with it. Was he capable of that? Without putting a foot wrong, without stumbling from the slippery path and falling into shadow.

  Jeremy pulled his pillow over his mouth to muffle the sound and howled with all his strength.

  15

  The entire village was shrouded in mist when Marion awoke on Thursday morning.

  She took her shower and saw the cotton-wool clouds thinning out beneath her window as she emerged from the bathroom. The carpet of innocence was flowing back toward the sea.

  She dressed in jeans and a roll-neck sweater, then put on her trench coat to go out and take the air.

  Outside, the walls and paving stones were still damp. Three-quarters of the shops were not open. Behind her she heard someone panting as they ran; the sound growing gradually louder. She stepped aside to make room and was surprised to see Brother Damien in jogging gear, running down the main street at quite a pace. None of his customary bonhomie was now visible on his features; nothing but a fierce determination. He waved at her as he ran past and disappeared into the downward-sloping curve of the street.

  Marion stopped outside Béatrice’s shop; she was one of the few hopeless cases who almost never closed.

  “Sporty kind of guy, Brother Damien,” commented Marion as she entered.

  “What, him?” chuckled Béatrice. “He could run the whole pilgrimage to Compostela! A proper marathon runner, he is. He goes running almost every day on the causeway. So, how’s our beautiful Parisian lady?”

  Marion leaned her elbows on the counter. “I’m taking advantage of the great outdoors…”

  “Here when you say that it means you’re bored stiff.”

  Marion answered with an amused smile.

  “So, what’s the latest from that book of yours?” asked Béatrice.

  “It’s intriguing.”

  “Intriguing? Isn’t it supposed to be a private diary? In what way is it intriguing?”

  “The way in which it’s written, for a start. It’s the account of a police investigation.”

  Béatrice giggled. “What, really?”

  “Or rather, it’s the point of view of the man who led the investigation.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s all for the moment. I’m making Jeremy’s acquaintance.”

  “Ah! So it’s Jeremy, is it?… You’re on a first-name basis now, are you?”

  Marion winked at her and straightened up. “Anyhow, I think I’m going to spend today reading. Can you recommend a good place on the Mount? You know, as a setting; somewhere pleasant.”

  Béatrice sought inspiration from her ceiling before suggesting, “You could sit up on the ramparts. But the ideal place is the abbey, right at the top. At least in one of the big rooms you’ll be shielded from the wind. If you ask at the entrance desk, they might let you through.”

  Marion almost answered that as a matter of fact she had free access with her keys, but something held her back. She wasn’t from around here, and feared people might see her in a bad light if she flaunted the favors she was enjoying.

  They chatted for an hour before Marion went back up to her house to fetch the diary. She picked up the magic bundle and scaled the interminable steps to reach the summit. Before she’d even reached the Châtelet, she found a black door that formed part of the edifice. Out of curiosity, she approached and tried several keys in the lock before hearing the mechanism click open.

  Now that she could get through any door she liked, she was really in business.

  Stimulated by her success, Marion slipped inside with the joy of a child doing something forbidden. She took care to lock the door properly behind her. She walked across a room partially occupied by maps designed for tourist visits and carried on until she reached the northern slope. Outside, she discovered an entire steep flank covered in foolhardy vegetation, constantly battered by the winds.

  Marion followed the wall of the Merveille back to the western gardens; heading back up the winding slope, she found herself back at the door that led into the Merveille via its lowest level, where she had dug up the plants with Sister Anne.

  She arrived in the storeroom, a gigantic chamber crisscrossed by columns. All the plants and shrubs she had dug up with Sister Anne were still there, freshly watered. Marion considered the place too dark and too cold for sitting and headed up the spiral staircase to the floor above and the Salle des Chevaliers. She remembered passing through it during her tour with the nun. Suddenly she missed the old woman.

  You can’t treat her like an old woman! How old is she? Fifteen years older than you? It’s ridiculous.… It’s her skin.… The moment she displays any emotion, it crumples into myriad lines.…

  Sister Anne’s blue eyes came back into her mind, suddenly inspiring her to great good sense.

  What was happening to her? Was it the setting? Marion crossed the fabulous stone forest and wandered along a gnarled corridor, climbed up and down steps, opened doors that protected crypts or led outside, and in a very short time she realized that she no longer knew where she was.

  Then she entered Belle-Chaise, the abbey’s old courthouse. An army of benches with backs stood in serried ranks, facing a long table that looked like an altar. With its slender windows and its high wooden ceiling shaped like an upside-down ship’s hull, the room made Marion feel that she could spend a few tranquil moments here, particularly when she spotted a chair with a cushion in one corner. She picked it up and wedged it behind the enormous fireplace, not far from a window that filtered in the gray light appropriate to this sullen day.

  Now that she was at her post, Marion reminded herself of one of those attendants you meet in the Louvre museum, sitting at the entrance to the galleries. She wriggled about on her chair to get comfortable, then stood up to drag over a bench, which sent a horrible grating noise echoing right through the hall. Marion listened for a moment and, detecting nothing but the wind whistling through the corridors, she dragged it a bit further and sat down, stretching out her legs on it.

  This time, she was all set.

  When she opened the diary, it was with the desire to discover the exact link between this Jezebel woman and Jeremy.

  Marion shivered as gooseflesh climbed up her arms. It was cool and damp.

  She read the first few lines of the passage where she had halted previously, while the sentences that followed dissolved to form an image, sounds, smells … and the characters sprang to life, before her wondering senses.

  16

  The two investigators, Azim and Jeremy, met up for breakfast on the terrace of a café, opposite the Ezbekiya gardens. An arid heat had already taken hold of the city, bedecking every forehead with a salty veil. The two colleagues ate nothing, confining themselves to steaming cups of tea. Behind them, a group of hotel employees, dragomans hired for the occasion, and a variety of individuals in the pay of Westerners were lining up to procure tickets for the forthcoming Oum Kalsoum concert.

  The two men ran over the previous day’s research, which had borne no fruit for either of them.

  “I can’t stop thinking about
what the doctor said about that piece of horn,” confided Azim. “He really thinks it is a fragment of nail? How is that possible? How could anyone have nails like that?”

  “I agree with you, the old doctor is mistaken. That being said, it could form part of a costume.…”

  Azim drew back in his seat. The early-morning sun lit up his round face and his mustache and hair shone with the brand-new South American pomade, gomina argentina.

  “I can see what you’re getting at; I too have told myself that the murderer must be an Arab,” he announced. “Those children did not speak English, and even one of yours who spoke a little Arabic could not have made them trust him enough to come alone to such sordid places each time.”

  “Except with the lure of profit,” Jeremy corrected him. “But I must confess I rather agree; an Englishman would have drawn attention more easily. On the other hand, a black from Sudan could have done it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there are many of them in Cairo, they speak Arabic, are sufficiently integrated not to be noticed, and because certain ethnic groups have probably retained traditional dress. Again, it is the hunter slumbering within the killer who provides me with this lead. In many southern tribes, men don tribal dress to go hunting, together with charms, made from ivory or horn, for example.…”

  Azim wore a sad smile. “Still this idea of the hunter? But it’s coherent, I give you that. It is entirely coherent. Where I am less in agreement with you is regarding the integrated status of the blacks. In your eyes perhaps, but”—he leaned toward the Englishman—“in the eyes of a native of Cairo, a Sudanese is still a Sudanese. I shall go and ask a few questions in the districts where the victims lived. You never know.”

  They set off around ten o’clock, when they felt it was no longer too early to go and question the families of the previous victims. Azim was to play the principal role, as Jeremy did not speak Arabic. However, he wished to be present, to show that British authority was openly involved and especially so that he could evaluate the atmosphere and people’s attitudes himself.