The Cairo Diary

by Maxim Chattam

  “It’s where our archives are kept—our files on the staff and the children.”

  “And now you tell me?” raged the English detective.

  Azim was starting to worry about his partner’s state of mind.

  “It could be an important piece of information,” cut in Azim, seeing the director’s disconcerted expression. “What do the files on the children contain?”

  This time, Humphreys did not hesitate to answer the little Egyptian: “The same thing as I’ve brought you: the information we need to know about the child; name, date of birth if known, place where the parents can be contacted, medical remarks, and records of schooling. One particular teacher is assigned to each child, and it is he who updates the files regularly on his pupil’s progress, along with any remarks about behavior.”

  “Medical remarks, you say?” repeated Azim.

  “Yes, of course, just in case—you never know. The majority of these children arrive here at the instigation of their parents, who want to give them a chance in life, to acquire knowledge and the skills they need to live. We select children on the basis of an application and an interview. And when they are accepted, our first task is to send them for a medical examination, which is something they have never received before.”

  “Where does this take place?”

  “At the Lord Kitchener Hospital, which is the best of its kind along with the Anglo-American Hospital, except that the Lord Kitchener is bigger and we know the doctors.”

  Azim was surprised. “Lord Kitchener?”

  He turned to Jeremy. “What was the name of the doctor who performed the autopsies on the victims?”

  “Benjamin Cork.”

  “Ah! Dr. Cork!” exclaimed the director. “Of course, he’s one of the doctors who examine our children.”

  Azim raised his eyebrows in alarm. “We are starting to have a great many coincidences!”

  Jeremy, who was as morose as ever, disagreed with a shake of the head. “No, it can all be explained. The Kitchener Hospital specializes in women and children, and Dr. Cork specializes in children, that’s why he carried out the autopsies. Nothing abnormal, Azim. English-speaking Cairo is as small as the Arab-speaking one can be immense.”

  “Very well,” conceded Azim. “And what about these four child victims? Anything in particular in their files?”

  “No, I’ve checked, nothing more,” Humphreys assured him. “They … they were attentive, two were a little unruly, lacking in seriousness. All were very curious, and they accepted additional lessons. That’s all. I shall allow you to take these files, but kindly bring them back to me when the investigation has been concluded.”

  “Does your patron have the keys to the building?” asked Jeremy.

  “Francis Keoraz? No, it’s not necessary, he’s the … generous spirit behind the foundation, but as for the rest, I’m responsible for everything here. He drops in to see us from time to time, to say hello to the children, nothing more.”

  Jeremy rubbed his earlobe and smiled thinly.

  The director picked up his brandy glass and emptied it with a lick of his lips. A few minutes later, the two detectives were in the street.

  Azim sounded Jeremy out. “Do you really not remember having those children in your classes?”

  Jeremy walked along, gazing into the distance. “No,” he replied evasively.

  “You gave reading lessons, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. More like reading sessions in English. I didn’t teach them anything, I’m not qualified for that; I read them stories, which most of them didn’t even understand. They didn’t have the level of language needed; the best of them could barely stammer a few words of English, but it was an initiation like any other, a way of training the ear. Listen, Azim, we’ve already talked about this, and I told you I did it for that woman. She’s the one who insisted that the foundation must take me on. I didn’t derive any pleasure from it, I wasn’t interested in the children, so as for remembering their faces.…”

  Somewhat embarrassed, Azim smoothed down his mustache. “The thing is … it is becoming very personal,” he said. “First your link with the foundation, and now your link with these four poor children. I think it would be better if you—”

  Jeremy halted. “If I what?”

  The Englishman’s flaming gaze was trained on Azim, who realized it was pointless to insist. However personal the investigation might become, he would never succeed in making Jeremy Matheson see reason. And referring the matter to their superiors would be catastrophic. Matheson knew far too many influential people to be thrown off an investigation he wanted to conduct at any price. The sole consequence would be that he, Azim, would be sidelined from this sinister story. And he wanted to finish what he had started.

  “Nothing … nothing.” Azim raised his arms in surrender. Disappointment was written on his face, and this had the effect of calming Jeremy’s anger.

  When Jeremy spoke again, it was more calmly: “I am sorry, Azim. All of this is becoming very personal, and I have no intention of running away to wait for other detectives to come and tell me what is going on. It is my task to understand, to sort out the problem.”

  Azim twitched. Sort out the problem? He had spoken as if he already knew what was afoot, the nature of his link to the murders. Azim decided not to pick up on this for the moment; circumstances were not favorable to him. He simply continued the conversation: “The boss asked me to draw up a detailed report for him today, and I cannot hide all of this from him.”

  “I know that. He won’t drive me off the investigation, whatever happens. I have too many friends who could harm his career. Do your job.”

  The two companions continued their walk along the avenue with its intermittent traffic. After a time, Azim changed his approach and announced his deduction out loud: “I think we both agree that the burglary at the foundation, in January, has a direct link with our crimes? I am tempted to think that the killer broke in in order to consult the children’s files and—for reasons as yet unknown—he chose children who had been present at your reading sessions. He may also have gained an idea of his future victims’ personalities through the report cards written up by the teachers.”

  “I agree. He considers their character, their personality, through teachers’ records. He knows their basic traits, some of their flaws, and consequently how to manipulate them.”

  “Particularly since according to Mr. Humphreys, they were all very curious. By the way, what did you think of the director?”

  “I don’t like him.”

  “I am pleased to hear you say that. I share your opinion. Tell me, I am sorry to return to the subject, but that doctor, Dr. Cork—why didn’t he say anything when he did the autopsy on that child? He knew him, did he not? After all, he is one of the doctors who check out the foundation’s pupils, so he must have recognized the child, don’t you think?”

  “I think he did recognize him,” replied Jeremy with a black look. “And in his way, he gave me to understand that. But he is above all a professional.”

  Azim gazed at his partner for a good ten seconds, then raised his eyebrows. “What is the plan for this afternoon?” he demanded finally.

  Jeremy kept on walking, watching the cars that overtook them. “You write your report; I need a little time alone, to think.”

  Azim opened his mouth, but immediately decided to say nothing.

  They parted beneath the sun’s increasingly incandescent eye.

  Jeremy stopped for lunch opposite the central railway station, then walked along the railway lines and across them to get back home.

  He stepped under the canopy, pleased to find a little shade, and immediately stopped in his tracks, all his senses on the alert.

  The nape of his neck started to prickle. As a hunter, he knew how to recognize the confused signs given out by the body and the intuition.

  He was in danger.

  Imminent danger.

  23

  Marion reread the last line
s in the diary:

  I halted in my tracks. That shiver up the back of my neck, that stretching feeling at the base of my ears: I knew how to interpret them. Through hunting African predators on their own terrain, I had developed the kind of intuition that belongs to people who live within striking distance of nature. I knew how to recognize the association of my body with the still-wild part of my mind as the herald of a possible threat. The extreme concentration of my senses had just captured subtle alterations in my environment, and there was a distinct possibility of imminent danger.

  The account of this investigation was becoming more and more intriguing, and now it had the added spice of a hint of action. Marion was captivated.

  This man Humphreys, the director of the foundation, seemed strange to her. Of course, she had to bear in mind that everything she read passed through the subjective filter of Jeremy Matheson; in the end, her deductions were more than slanted, if not positively determined by the detective’s own opinions. Whatever the case, all the murdered children had a direct relationship with the foundation; that wasn’t a coincidence but rather a link between the killer and his victims. And that lead had still to be followed.

  Suddenly, Marion cast a worried glance at the pages of closely spaced handwriting.

  To what extent was all of this true?

  How much was invention, and how much reality? Had there even been any child murders in Cairo in 1928?

  Marion looked around the living room. If only she had an Internet connection, she could have done a bit of research. She swore.

  These monks—when it comes to technology they can’t even be bothered to install the basics.…

  And she hadn’t seen a computer at Béatrice’s place either.

  Maybe in one of the many rooms at the abbot’s residence?

  If not, she would have to spend some time in a library that was well provided with old periodicals, and with a little luck she might unearth a few articles mentioning this affair. It was sufficiently sordid to have crossed the Mediterranean and entered French newspapers of the time.… At least, she hoped so.

  Periodicals of the time.

  She clapped her hands in victory.

  There were heaps of them in the library at Avranches—she had seen whole piles of them, sorted them herself, in ecstasies over the outdated charm of the dust-scented covers. It was possible that the answers to her questions could be found among those pages.

  She sat up on the sofa.

  It was dinnertime, a little late to go and ask someone on the Mount to drive her to Avranches and have the doors of the town hall opened up for her.

  She gave a long sigh.

  Her curiosity would have to wait until tomorrow.

  She had enough to keep her going, she thought, picking up the black book.

  Hunger was beginning to bother her, so she decided to make the suspense last and postpone her reading until later. She opened her refrigerator in search of meal ideas and then put on a pan of water to boil. An omelette with potatoes and bacon.

  If she didn’t want to get fat she would have to watch her food intake more carefully, and ask Brother Damien if he was against the idea of having a jogging partner. Running along the causeway would be energizing to begin with, until she had familiarized herself with the landscape, but then it would become painfully monotonous when she’d learned every square inch of the route by heart. But there was still the splendid view of Mont-Saint-Michel itself.

  She would begin the following Monday: It was settled. Another three days of loafing around and then she would start toning up and slimming down her body.

  Marion enjoyed her omelette in the muted light of the living room, without music, her only company the sinister melody of the wind sliding over the rooftops.

  “And just think: Right now there’s probably a poor guy out there, waiting for me to come and place the diary at the foot of the tower,” she murmured between two mouthfuls. “Imbecile…”

  She constantly wondered about the nature of the link between her mysterious correspondent and the diary she had appropriated. Was it his? Unlikely. Jeremy Matheson was around thirty in 1928, so he would have been around one hundred today. Difficult.

  But possible.

  Particularly since there were very few old men on the Mount.

  Brother Gilles.

  And that man Joe!

  They both seemed very old, but whether they were a hundred years old or not.…

  And Jeremy was English.

  Except that, after seventy years of speaking French, he could have lost his accent.…

  No, she was going much too far. The diary’s author was rotting in a tomb somewhere in the world. However, someone on the Mount knew about the existence of this black book, and wanted to get it back. Someone who had misappropriated it?

  Or simply stored—or hidden—it in the library, so as not to be caught unawares one day with this kind of nosing into his affairs.… Marion didn’t know what to think.

  She finished her meal with a yogurt and thought about allowing herself a glass of alcohol to round off the evening. From Monday, she would be strict with herself, so she could allow herself this luxury.…

  She poured herself some gin and orange juice in a big glass and stretched out on the sofa with the black book under her arm.

  Whomever you are, waiting in vain for me out there, I am going to continue this tale without you, and perhaps in a little while … perhaps I’ll join you.…

  24

  Jeremy stood stock-still, alert for the smallest movement around him. A train passed in the distance, the noise masking any other sounds.

  He knew that someone had come, or was perhaps still there. Someone had visited his rail car in his absence.

  Objects had moved in the progressive, meticulous collection of dust that he had fostered in his jumble of possessions.

  Tiny details, yet significant in his eyes. Not a regulation search, just a curious, wandering hand that had traveled across his things.

  He approached the door of the rail car and seized a tent pole that was lying there with some other bits and pieces. He slid it down the wall noisily.

  The daylight filtered in through the windows, although it was partially absorbed by the velour wall-covering. He climbed the three steps and inspected the main room.

  Nobody.

  Nothing had moved.

  He went to the bathroom and opened the door with the end of the tent pole. Empty.

  He went to the bedroom.

  Suddenly, the smell of perfume attacked him. Wafting up his nostrils, it slid down his body, gushed up again into his memory and fell upon his heart with the painful caress of a feather whose edge was as sharp as a razor blade.

  That scent was so familiar. So sweet and so razor sharp, all at once.

  Jeremy let go of his improvised weapon and sat down on the bed.

  It was a fruity, almost masculine perfume.

  It was the one she wore.

  She always placed a drop of it between her breasts before making love.

  It was then that Jeremy realized the photo was missing from the bedside table. She had taken it.

  His wrist encountered a sharp corner.

  A handwritten card.

  Your invitation to this evening’s celebration at Shepheard’s, “A Senegalese Extravaganza.” Fancy dress. Your one and only opportunity to question my husband for your investigation. Enjoy yourself.

  Jezebel

  She was playing with him. As cruelly as a cat with its mouse, refusing for hours to put it to death, prolonging its death-agonies purely for its own amusement.

  * * *

  Night was falling over the city. On the sharia Ibrahim Pasha, the gaslights grew brighter, casting blue and orange halos over the fronts of the buildings.

  The celebrated Shepheard’s Hotel was ready for what was to be dubbed “the ball of the decade.” Under the vast entrance canopy, at the top of ten red-carpeted steps, two palm trees guarded the front door. Hosts of can
dles in lanterns had been added at the last moment to welcome the guests.

  Jeremy, who had come there on foot from the railway station, walked past the Albanian porters and up to the lobby entrance. He showed his invitation card to a man in fancy dress, who in return pointed out the main restaurant. Outside the main doors to the large room, a couple were distributing turbans to the male guests and animal-shaped bracelets to the women.

  Jeremy declined the head-covering, considering that his safari suit was sufficient to gain him access to this soiree.

  The hotel was talked about all over Europe and even in the United States. Once again, Jeremy saw that its reputation was not undeserved.

  The walls were covered with long, lush lianas; palm trees stood against the walls like living columns, while enormous fans made the leaves move almost silently. Monstrous masks of mythological creatures appeared here and there under the vegetation, lit from inside by enormous candles. On carved perches, an entire gallery of multicolored birds were hopping around to the accompaniment of the guests’ laughter. Jeremy immediately spotted a tiger and further off a lion with its teeth bared. The standard of the taxidermy was admirable. Other large mammals lurked among the foliage, between the round tables. These were covered with brightly colored tablecloths, and on each one stood a massive candelabra, around which a snake coiled, glistening in the light from the flames.

  On either side of the main aisle, carefully plaited native huts had been erected, forming a path to the far end of the room, where a scene depicting a temple to the goddess Kali awaited the dancers. The goddess’s statue was several yards tall, with candles burning in its eye sockets as it looked down upon the stunned guests. At its feet, a group of Senegalese musicians was playing a monotonous rhythm on percussion instruments.

  The drums made the air quiver, and the red lamps trembled in harmony, as though under their spell.

  More than a hundred people were gently jostling one another in shimmering costumes, glasses of champagne in their hands. Among them, Jeremy quickly spotted important politicians and industrialists, such as Aboud Pacha, the seventh richest man in the world.