by Elise Noble
“It’s a horrible dress.”
“You only have to wear it for a few hours. Then you can ceremoniously burn it on the beach and scatter the ashes at sea if you like, but you’re going to be a good bridesmaid and make your mom happy, okay?”
“Mom’s never happy.”
“Okay, then make her less unhappy. Car. Off you go.”
Zena slunk away in the right direction, and I grinned at Bob. “There. Now we understand each other.”
CHAPTER 18 - BLACK
“I REMEMBER HER,” Aurelie said when Black showed her the picture of Gosia on his tablet. “Gosia, right? She’s one of those militant environmentalists. When we first got here, she was running a campaign to ban plastic bags, and then it was the recycling.”
“Was she friends with Carmela?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“Did you know she’d gone missing?”
“Everyone knew. There were posters all over town for weeks, then it kind of died off. Did she ever turn up?”
“A body was found in the mountains yesterday morning, and we believe it could be Gosia. It’s possible the two deaths are connected.”
The colour drained out of Aurelie’s face, and for a second, Black thought she might keel over sideways. Not that there was very far to fall. To say the furnishings in Aurelie’s apartment were sparse was an understatement, and the four of them were sitting cross-legged on cushions on the floor. Minimalist tastes or a lack of money? If Black had to guess, he’d go for the latter. Teaching a handful of yoga classes each week in Dahab probably didn’t pay much.
The only nod to decoration was the frogs. Ornaments littered the side table, and Black recognised the signature of a local artist on a picture above the TV. The guy sat at his stall in the high street every evening, brush in hand, and Emmy had half a dozen of his paintings hanging on the walls back home in Virginia.
“Really?” Aurelie choked out once she’d swallowed a few times. “Connected how?”
“We found a stone scarab beetle with Carmela, and there was a similar amulet near Gosia.”
“A scarab beetle? That’s it?”
“For the moment, yes. Nothing’s certain at this stage, and the body’s identity hasn’t been confirmed, so this information needs to stay between the four of us.”
“Okay.”
“Do you remember Carmela owning a scarab beetle? A heart scarab? About this size…” He held his thumb and finger an inch apart. “Carved from black stone, maybe onyx.”
“Yuck, no. Carmela hated creepy-crawlies. A little while ago, one of the restaurants was giving out scarab charms with the bill instead of mints, but they were much smaller. Carmela refused to take ours. I didn’t want it either, so we left it on the table.”
Seemed they’d eliminated any possibility of the first scarab belonging to their victim. Plus Bob had asked the groups who’d been out on the Blue Tang in the week before Carmela’s body was found, and they’d denied all knowledge, and Khaled had no idea why one of his colleagues might have brought a tchotchke like that to a crime scene. It seemed more likely that the killer had left it with Carmela, but why?
Should they be looking for a historian with an interest in death?
“Even if they weren’t close friends, do you recall seeing Gosia talk to Carmela?”
“I can’t… It’s really true? Two people dead? In Dahab? I mean, that’s crazy,” Aurelie said, still processing. “It’s always been such a safe town, and now…” She held out a trembling hand. “Look—I’m so nervous I can’t even hold a drink without spilling it. Every time someone goes past outside, I break out in a cold sweat.”
“I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,” Emmy said.
“Somebody knocked on the door last night, and I nearly had a heart attack.”
“Who was it?”
“You think I opened it? Are you insane? My best friend was murdered.”
Black knew exactly what Aurelie was thinking. What if the killer comes back for me?
Statistically, it was unlikely, and the best way they could eliminate the possibility completely was by finding the fucker. Which meant he needed to steer the conversation back on track.
“Gosia and Carmela—do you remember seeing them talk to each other?”
“Uh… Once or twice, they said hello to each other in town. And on the beach. Gosia and her boyfriend would organise people to pick up the rubbish, and we went along a couple of times.”
“And that was when Carmela met Youssef?”
“Yes. Wait! I think Gosia and Youssef might have had an argument that day.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Carmela came over with Youssef and said one of the organisers had laid into him for selling chickens. In the beginning, she just felt sorry for him for getting shouted at, but by the end of the day, they’d gotten to know each other and he invited her out for dinner.”
“Did either of them go into any more detail about what happened?”
“No, I think they both got distracted.”
“I’m surprised Youssef stuck around if he got rebuked like that.”
“He was only there because he’d brought his little sister, and she wanted to stay with her friends.”
So there had been a possible conflict with one of the organisers, but which one? Gosia or her boyfriend? And they’d also established that Youssef knew both women. Definitely a point to follow up on.
“Do you know who Gosia’s boyfriend was?”
“Sorry, I don’t. A Bedouin, I think, but I don’t know his name.”
Never mind. Black knew a man who would: Khaled. Black would bet his new Porsche that the police hadn’t identified Gosia yet, which meant he could trade that little snippet of information for the name and address of Gosia’s significant other.
“Don’t worry; we can find out. Another question—the bag we found with Carmela was purple with the slogan ‘Love Life, Love Dahab’ on it. Do you know where she got it from?”
“No, but when we first came to Dahab, they were in every shop. I think they were part of Gosia’s scheme to reduce plastic waste, which is such an important cause, don’t you think? Why do you ask? Is that another connection?”
“It seems unlikely if they were widely sold.”
An apparent dead end. Black hated dead ends, but they were an unavoidable frustration in every investigator’s life.
A tear rolled down Aurelie’s cheek. “I just want this person caught.”
“We’ll do our best to make sure that happens.”
With just over a week of their “vacation” left, it seemed unlikely Emmy and Black would find a resolution themselves, especially with the limited resources available to them in Dahab, but they could train Khaled in the basics and pass over any information they gathered before they flew back to the US. You can’t win ’em all. Black had been trying to persuade himself of that fact for years, but leaving unfinished business still irked him to no end.
Zena, who’d kept her word and stayed quiet since they’d arrived, fished around in her pocket and passed Aurelie a tissue.
“It’ll be okay. My grandpa says Black never gives up.” She pointed at a ceramic frog perched on top of a stack of well-read paperbacks. “Is that a Malagasy Rainbow Frog?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Did you know they’ve got claws on their front feet that let them climb vertical walls?”
“I love frogs, but I don’t know much about all the different species.”
“I’ve always wanted a pet frog. Either a Green Frog or a Fire-Bellied Toad, but my mom won’t let me have either at the moment.”
“Are they difficult to keep?”
And so started the frog discussion. While Zena and Aurelie talked amphibians, Black let his mind wander across the clues they’d found. On paper, Youssef was still the most likely culprit so far. Black didn’t like the man, but was he a killer? He seemed almost too obvious, too easy a candidate. And he hadn’t struck Bla
ck as all that smart.
The person they were after had been careful, with few clues left behind and only luck leading to the discovery of both bodies. This case was shaping up to be a challenge, and Black never shied away from one of those. But this time, he had two adversaries—a killer, and the ticking clock.
CHAPTER 19 - EMMY
“SHE WAS STABBED,” Khaled told Black and me over a meal at the villa the following morning. Was it a late breakfast? Brunch? An early lunch? Toast, fruit, pastries, juice… “The second victim,” Khaled elaborated, poking the air with a butter knife for emphasis. “The doctor said the bones on the mountain belonged to a female, and she was stabbed.”
One piece of information we already knew, and one we didn’t. Stabbing, huh? Messy. I avoided it wherever possible. A silenced double-tap to the head was the way to go, preferably with a .22 so the bullets ricocheted around inside the skull and mushed everything up. Quick, easy, and clean.
“How did the doctor ascertain the cause of death?” Black asked, spreading honey on his toast. Good shout. With all this talk of death, my strawberry jam didn’t look so appetising anymore.
“There were knife marks on the ribs. The doctor says she was stabbed at least six times.”
“What about Carmela? Any luck with that autopsy report?”
Khaled gave a helpless shrug. He seemed to do that a lot, probably had it ingrained through years of practice or passed down from his father along with his name and his nervous attitude. Ten bucks said he’d have ulcers by the time he hit thirty.
“When I went to the station this morning, the captain was in his office. I’ll try again this evening if he doesn’t stay late. Her dental records arrived from Italy, though, so her identity has been confirmed. Now we just need to find out who the other woman is. The captain told me to go through the reports of missing people, but my computer in the office is broken. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing right now—arranging for it to be fixed.”
“Broken? In what way?”
“The screen won’t turn on. I stopped at the repair shop on the way here, and somebody will come tomorrow, maybe the day after, inshallah.”
“The hotel has a spare screen you can borrow. We need to get that list of missing women.”
But not for the reason Khaled thought. Black and I had spoken about the case this morning, lying in bed, my sweaty body draped over his as we discussed tactics in some weird form of afterplay. Still, Black was happy—two of his favourite things were sex and solving murders.
Two deaths in Dahab within such a short space of time—what if this was just the beginning?
The dead women shared certain characteristics—both foreigners, brunettes, and young-looking. While Carmela had habitually worn make-up and came across older than her nineteen years in photos, Gosia had been blessed with one of those ageless faces. Someone could have told you she was twenty or forty and you’d have believed them either way.
“Do you think she will be on the list?” Khaled asked. “So many people come and go in Dahab, it’s hard to keep track of them.”
“She was a long-term resident,” Black said, tipping our hand. “And yes, she’ll be on the list. But the main reason we want the names is to see if any other dead bodies are likely to turn up.”
Khaled’s hand paused halfway to his mouth, and a lump of almond flaked off the Danish he was holding and landed on the tiles. Did rabbits eat almonds? What we needed there was a dog. Back in Virginia, my Doberman, Lucy, hoovered up any stray pieces of food as soon as they hit the floor.
“You know who the second victim is?”
“Malgorzata Kaminski, also known as Gosia. An environmental activist from Poland.”
“What…? How? How do you know this?”
“She had a metal plate in her arm from the repair of an old injury. The plate had a serial number, and the number was registered to her.”
We’d expected questions on how exactly we knew that little detail, but Khaled betrayed his inexperience by skipping ahead.
“Gosia. I think I know her. Knew her. The recycling bins, yes? She organised the recycling bins?”
“That’s right. What else can you tell us about her?”
“I can’t remember when she came to Dahab, but it was a long time ago. Many foreigners, they visit for a month, two months, then they find it is too quiet or too hot or too isolated and they go home. But Gosia, she stayed, and some people didn’t like that.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was an outsider, but she tried to change the town.”
“How?” I asked. “With her environmentalism?” That was a word, right?
“Yes.”
“Why would recycling and cutting back on plastic make people upset?”
“Because her views were extreme—all or nothing. She didn’t just want to cut back on plastic, she wanted to eliminate it completely. She named and shamed shopkeepers on the internet if they didn’t switch to paper carrier bags, and snatched straws out of tourists’ drinks. And last summer, she tried to stop the Bedouins from fishing off the coast. They’ve been doing that for hundreds of years, and many of them weren’t happy that their way of life was being questioned.”
“Wasn’t she dating a Bedouin?”
Khaled nodded. “Selmi, who runs the organic garden. She did have plenty of friends. People either loved her or hated her.”
Love or hate—that jibed with what Aurelie had told us about the vibe between Gosia and Youssef. They’d argued, but at the same time, Gosia had managed to inspire a whole group of people to clean up the beach with her that day.
Now we had two victims, one with plenty of enemies and one who didn’t seem to have any at all. The only solid links so far? Two heart scarabs and the aforementioned chicken-meister. But it was interesting that Gosia had pissed off a bunch of fishermen, firstly because they’d know how to tie a surgeon’s knot, and secondly because like divers, they’d know the sea wall dropped off sharply at the spot where Carmela’s body was found.
I quickly did the math. Two people, one week of vacation left, and probably a hundred Bedouin fishermen in town. Black and I would need help to question that many people. Either we could fly men here from Blackwood’s Cairo office or Khaled would have to step up. Our people were better trained but already stretched thin, and they didn’t have the benefit of local knowledge. Khaled seemed keen, but there was only one of him and his competence was questionable.
And that wasn’t our biggest problem. Until the police identified Gosia themselves and notified her family of her death, we couldn’t admit we were investigating her murder either.
Decisions, decisions…
Black cut his eyes to me, then glanced at Khaled, and I knew he was going through the same thought process. Seventeen years, fifteen of them married, and we were on the same wavelength. I gave the tiniest nod. On balance, local knowledge and a police badge won out. We’d just have to get creative with our questioning.
“The first task is to ensure your colleagues are aware of the body’s identity, which means you’ll have to follow a similar process to us—take the details of the orthopaedic device to the hospitals in Dahab and ask them if they can link it to a patient. I’d strongly suggest starting with the Dahab International Medical Center. Will there be any problems getting the captain to authorise that?”
“I don’t think so. He wants to find out who the victim is, but if I suggest the death was anything but an accident, he will be unhappy.”
“Then you’ll have to tread carefully, and so will we until somebody speaks to Gosia’s next of kin. For the moment, we’ll have to frame this as a follow-up to her disappearance.”
“But we hardly have any clues,” Khaled said. “Where do we start?”
“With circumstantial evidence. We need to make three lists—one with Carmela’s acquaintances, one with Gosia’s, and a third with anyone in town you suspect might be capable of the murders.”
“How do we know who to put on the li
sts?”
We’d gone from lock-picking 101 to investigations 101, but Black stayed patient. “Local knowledge and profiling.”
“Ah, profiling! I have seen that on—”
“CSI,” I said. “We know.”
“Offenders can be divided into two basic categories—organised and disorganised,” Black told him. “Organised offenders tend to be smarter, and they’re also more likely to have a job and a spouse. They plan out their crimes and maintain enough control to avoid being impulsive. They also target their victims carefully, bring the tools they need with them—weapons, restraints, cleaning materials—and tend to hide the bodies when they’re done with them. Disorganised offenders are the opposite—they often live alone, have lower-than-average intelligence, and may be unemployed. They don’t have a lot of control over their actions, and the crime scene’s more likely to be a mess.”
“I need my notepad,” Khaled muttered, fishing around for it in his pocket and frantically scribbling away the instant he got to a blank page. “So which type are we dealing with?”
“Which do you think?”
Khaled chewed on his bottom lip as he thought. “Organised?”
“That’s my conclusion too. Yes, the killer improvised when he used Carmela’s own bag to sink her, but the rest of the job was quite tidy. Although remember, we don’t have a crime scene for either victim yet, just two dump sites. I don’t believe the girls were killed where we found them.”
I agreed with that. What kind of idiot would stab a girl to death on the seashore? Granted, the track past the caves wasn’t busy, but just dumping the body was risky enough without her screaming bloody murder first. And when we’d been hunting for Gosia’s bones, I’d scanned the surroundings. Nothing that resembled a bloodstain had graced the granite and sandstone rocks nearby.
“So we are looking for somebody smart, employed, maybe married,” Khaled said.
“Yes. Although we’re not quite in serial killer territory, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was another victim out there that we haven’t found.” Khaled paled a shade at Black’s words. “Most serial killers are male and in their twenties or thirties. They don’t tend to cross racial lines, and most kill close to home, especially for their first few victims. Call it a comfort zone. It’s unlikely our perpetrator’s travelling from Sharm el-Sheikh or Nuweiba to kill these girls.”