Stolen Hearts

by Elise Noble

  “There are hundreds of men in Dahab. Most of them have jobs and families.”

  “We found scarab amulets with both bodies. Start by looking at anyone with an interest in Ancient Egyptian customs, maybe a foreigner. And the cord on Carmela’s body was tied with a surgeon’s knot, which raises the possibility of a fisherman or a doctor being involved. Then we have to consider how the killer picked the victim. How they gained access. What about Gosia and Carmela attracted him? Start with your own knowledge—you’ve lived here in Dahab your whole life. Ask your colleagues and go through police files. Speak to Carmela’s friends and Gosia’s associates. Hopefully, we’ll start to see some patterns emerge as the lists grow. Does everyone in the police department share the captain’s attitude?”

  “About three-quarters.”

  “Then enlist the help of the cops who do want to see a murderer behind bars. We also need to establish whether there could be any bodies we haven’t found yet. Can you send us the missing persons list once your computer’s working?”

  “I don’t think it’s a list. Just separate reports.”

  “Then somebody needs to go through them. Reckon you can handle that?”

  Khaled’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He didn’t seem particularly confident, but he nodded anyway. I was worried he might just be telling us what we wanted to hear.

  “Good. I’ll drop you off in town with the computer screen, and once you’ve got the reports, we can go to the organic garden and talk to Selmi.”

  “What about me?” I asked.

  Three of us versus one witness could come across as intimidating. Plus, although Dahab wasn’t as bad as many places in the Middle East, sexism was still alive and kicking in that part of the world. Selmi might be more forthcoming with a couple of men.

  “Don’t you have a bridesmaid’s dress to pick up?” Black was trying not to smirk, the asshole. “And you need to get a rabbit hutch from somewhere. That fucking bunny’s chewed halfway through one of the bed legs, and she’s gonna go for the door if we don’t do something fast.”

  Bunny wrangler and errand girl? Well, I was on vacation, after all.

  CHAPTER 20 - BLACK

  MASRA’A SAIDA, OR Happy Gardens, clung to the edge of Dahab, hidden behind high walls built from mud bricks. The construction didn’t look particularly stable, as if a stiff breeze could send the whole lot tumbling into an ugly brown pile. But the front gates were open, potted plants covered in fragrant pink blooms lined up either side. Bradley would have called the shade flamingo or wild orchid or cotton candy or some other bullshit, but that didn’t change the fact that it was still fucking pink.

  Pink that matched the current colour of Black’s bathroom at Riverley Hall. Did he sound bitter? That’s because he was. Bradley had deliberately waited until Black flew to Argentina for a job before he redecorated, and for the last two months, he’d been “too busy” to change it back to a more appropriate colour. White. Grey. Blue at a push. Anything that didn’t look as though a bottle of Pepto Bismol had thrown up in there.

  The man they’d come to meet was Selmi Mohammed, Gosia’s significant other and an expert in organic gardening, according to Masra’a Saida’s website. Inside, neat rows of plants grew in sandy soil, bordered by shallow channels for irrigation. In the distance, a rattly old pump started up, and water began to flow. Presumably there was somebody around, then.

  “Ahlan?” Khaled called, and a man emerged from a hut on the far side of the compound. Tall and wiry, he wore the flowing white robes of a Bedouin, and Black put him in his early thirties. Was this the man they were looking for?

  “Is that Selmi?” he asked Khaled, and the younger man nodded.

  The plan had called for Khaled to take the lead, but he seemed kinda frozen as Selmi strode towards them.

  “Is there any news about Gosia? Is that why you’re here?”

  Selmi’s body was stiff with tension, his eyes bloodshot. Allergies? A lack of sleep? A pharmaceutical problem?

  “I… Uh… There was… We found… Uh, this is Charles Black. He’s, uh…”

  “A consultant from the United States,” Black filled in, because Khaled was never going to finish that sentence otherwise. “I’m helping the Dahab PD to review some of the older cases on their books.”

  “And Gosia’s disappearance is one of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “So there are no new developments?”

  “Two days ago, a member of the public found some bones near a hiking trail in the mountains. At the moment, they’re unidentified, but—”

  “A hiking trail?” Selmi’s shoulders dropped an inch. “That’s not Gosia. She doesn’t hike in the mountains alone anymore.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “A while ago, she fell in a canyon and broke her arm. There was no phone signal, and afterwards, she realised that if it had been her leg, she would have been stuck there. It scared her. So now she only hikes if she is with somebody.”

  That little snippet of information blew away the last slim hope that she’d just gone for a long walk and died all by herself. For the moment, Black refrained from mentioning that somebody could’ve dumped her there and focused on the facts surrounding her disappearance.

  “As I said, I’m helping Khaled here to take another look at some of Dahab’s cold cases. Do you have a few minutes to go over what happened before she went missing?”

  “Of course. I’ll do anything to find her. Do you want tea?”

  Rule number one: always accept a drink if offered—it made the subject feel at ease.

  “Thank you.”

  Black and Khaled followed Selmi over to a house in the nearest corner. Built from the same rough bricks as the rest of the structures, it didn’t look like much from the outside, but inside, someone had gone out of their way to make it comfortable with colourful pictures on the white walls, plants on every surface, and a floor covered in those woven rugs that were stacked outside every souvenir shop on the high street. Gosia’s influence, no doubt. No self-respecting man would have bought that many cushions.

  In the three months that had passed since Gosia’s disappearance-slash-death, it didn’t look as though Selmi had changed anything at all. A dog-eared romance novel with a Polish title still lay on the coffee table with a bookmark halfway through. A woman’s sweater hung over the back of a chair. Pink flip-flops adorned with fabric flowers sat next to the front door.

  He still expected her to come home.

  Khaled fidgeted beside Black on one of the low sofas until Selmi returned with a silver tray. The glass of sweet herbal tea looked like a thimble in Black’s hands and had the usual layer of sludge at the bottom. He was more of a coffee man, but he swallowed it down anyway.

  “I expect you’ve read the police file…” Selmi started.

  Nope. “I’d rather hear you tell the story again, in your own words.”

  Khaled got out his notepad as usual, ballpoint pen at the ready. Black would rather pay attention to a subject’s facial expressions and body language than stare at a page, and thankfully he had a good memory, so he rarely bothered taking notes until afterwards. Besides, he was recording the whole conversation on his phone, as always, and that file would automatically upload to Blackwood’s server back in Virginia should further analysis be needed.

  “It began like any other day. We got up and watered half the plants, then Gosia updated our Facebook page and website while I went into town to pick up breakfast.”

  “How did you get there? Did you drive?”

  “No, I cycled.”

  “Do you have a vehicle?”

  “Yes, but that week, the engine was being repaired. We hired a driver to help with deliveries, but he wasn’t working that day.”

  “So you cycled. How long were you gone for?”

  “About half an hour. I also stopped at the supermarket to pick up more rice on the way back.”

  “Do you know if Gosia spoke to anybody while you were out?”
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  “Just Slonko and Annie. Our goats. Gosia cleaned out their pen while I was gone, and she didn’t mention any visitors.”

  “Interesting names.”

  “Slonko means ‘sunshine’ in Polish, and Annie’s short for Aniolku, which means ‘angel.’” Selmi’s breath hitched. “Gosia named them.”

  “Could anyone have phoned?”

  “It’s possible, but she didn’t mention it. The police didn’t check?”

  Khaled gave a quick shake of his head. Boy, that was a thorough investigation they’d done.

  “I’ll make sure it gets looked into,” Black said. Another job for Mack. “What happened after you got back?”

  “We ate breakfast, then I planted melon seeds while Gosia went into town to take the weekly orders. We send some of our produce to the markets at El Tur and Suez, but mostly, we sell in Dahab to shops, restaurants, and private homes. Last year, we started a box scheme, and it took off better than we ever hoped. That was Gosia’s idea too. Without her, it’s…it’s hard.”

  “What does taking the orders involve?”

  “We have a list of customers, and each Monday, she visits to ask what fruit and vegetables they want that week. We grow everything ourselves, so the produce is seasonal, always different. Once we know what to harvest, we pack everything into the boxes and deliver it on Thursdays.”

  It didn’t escape Black’s notice that Selmi spoke about Gosia in the present tense, and it sounded natural rather than forced. Black wasn’t a bad judge of character, and either Selmi deserved an Oscar or he was telling the truth about Gosia’s disappearance.

  “Why don’t you just call people?”

  “We’ve found people order more produce if we speak to them in person.”

  “Do you have the customer list?”

  Silently, Selmi rose and walked to a messy desk on the far side of the room. An ancient laptop took up most of the space, but there was a drawer underneath stuffed with paper. He extracted a sheet and brought it over.

  There had to be fifty names on it, each one highlighted in either yellow, blue, or pink. Some had notes scribbled next to them, times and locations, phrases like “before prayers” and “at Dolphin restaurant.”

  “What do the colours mean?”

  “Pink means Gosia visited to take an order, yellow means she didn’t, and the blue people, I couldn’t find to speak to.” There were only two of those. “I wrote down where the people lived or worked, and if they remembered the time she came, I put that too.”

  Roughly two-thirds of the list was pink, which meant Gosia had gotten through most of her day without incident.

  “Did she take a particular route?”

  “No, she’d go back and forth because people weren’t always in. Or she sometimes had to look for them in more than one place, like at their business or at home, or visit at a particular time.”

  “Who was the last person she visited?”

  “I think Misha Ivanova.” A Russian name, which made sense when Selmi pointed at a spot by the sea on el-Melal Street. Russians had bought up a lot of the beachfront property in Assalah. “Unless she saw one of the people I couldn’t find.”

  “Did you speak to Misha?”

  “She said Gosia visited, took her order, and left as usual.”

  “Which direction did she head in?”

  “Nobody saw her after that.”

  “Misha didn’t see her go?”

  Selmi shrugged helplessly and shook his head. “No. Her baby was crying, and she didn’t see Gosia after she walked out the door.”

  Black understood his frustration. Khaled hadn’t mentioned any of this, probably because he didn’t know. And that most likely meant that the police had left Selmi to do his own investigation while they carried out vital tasks like ogling snorkelers in the bay and snacking on baklava.

  “We’ll follow up on that. The blue names—what can you tell me about them?”

  Loose ends… Black hated loose ends…

  Javier Martinez was a Spanish freediver who’d rented an apartment in Masbat for the six months prior to Gosia’s disappearance. When Selmi went to speak to him, he found the place empty. According to the landlord, Javier had paid a month’s rent in lieu of notice and flown back to Spain in a hurry, ostensibly to deal with a family emergency.

  Missing customer number two was noted simply as “Marten B—Assalah.” A new customer, one Gosia had spoken to on the phone and promised to add to her weekly rounds. Selmi had never managed to track the man down. Black thought the name sounded Scandinavian.

  “Was Youssef al-Masri ever a customer?”

  “From the chicken shop?”

  “Yes.”

  Selmi shook his head. “Gosia wouldn’t have sold our produce to him even if he’d wanted to buy it.”

  “They didn’t get on?”

  “When a man is wilfully cruel to animals, he can’t expect people to like him. Why do you ask these questions?” Selmi’s posture stiffened. “Do you think Youssef made Gosia leave?”

  “There’s no evidence to indicate that. We just heard that they may have had a disagreement on the beach one day, and we need to follow up every lead.”

  “Yes, they did. He came to pick up rubbish, and she told him he should go and feed his chickens instead. Did you know he leaves them for the whole day without food and water?”

  “I’m aware of that. How did he react?”

  “As he always does—he just ignored her. He never accepts that what he does is cruel.”

  That sounded like the Youssef Black had met—slightly selfish, reluctant to engage in conflict, but all too willing to bury his head in the sand. But did his shortcomings extend to murder?

  “Can I take a picture of the list?” Black asked. Wordlessly, Selmi slid it in Black’s direction, and soon, a high-resolution copy was safely stored on Blackwood’s network. “I may have follow-up questions at some point.”

  “Anything. I’ll do anything that’ll help to find her. I’m not a rich man, but…but…” Selmi’s voice cracked. “I’d give everything I have to get her home.”

  Fuck. People accused Black of not having a heart, and at times, he was inclined to agree with them. Over two decades of seeing the worst of human nature had left that spot in his chest ice cold, and although events in Colombia two and a half years ago had led to him thawing a little, feeling love and empathy the way other people did was still foreign to him except where Emmy was concerned. His darling wife had fought her way inside every barrier he’d thrown up.

  But today? Today, Black wanted to tell Selmi the truth so the man could start healing, and then he wanted to find whoever killed Gosia and put a bullet through their head.

  “Leave it with me,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do. One more thing—did Gosia ever wear a scarab amulet on a blue cord?”

  “How did you know?”

  Fuck. “Somebody mentioned it. Said it was a nice one. Do you know where she got it?”

  “We took a trip to Luxor three years ago. No, four years now. We visited the temple of Hatshepsut, and a Bedouin outside told her the necklace belonged to a pharaoh, that it would protect her in this life and beyond.” Selmi choked up. “I said it was too expensive, but Gosia bought it anyway. I hope it is working.”

  “She was wearing it when she disappeared?”

  “I think so. I haven’t seen it since that day.”

  Black forced those damned emotions back into the dark hole where they belonged, and once again did what he was best at. He lied.

  “We’re still treating this as a disappearance. Don’t give up hope.”

  “I will never give up hope.”

  Out in the sunshine, Black took a deep breath, kissed goodbye to the last remnants of his vacation, and turned to Khaled.

  “Tomorrow morning, you need to round up every cop in the Dahab Police Department who has an interest in seeing this case closed and organise them to canvas the people on this list. We need to build up a full picture of Go
sia’s last day. Then we have to cross-reference the names to a list of Carmela’s known acquaintances, paying particular attention to fishermen and anybody with medical experience. And talk to her neighbours. Someone must have seen something.”

  “That’ll take weeks.”

  “There are six days until we leave.”

  Khaled swallowed hard. “I’ll call people this evening. Is there anything else?”

  “Yes. It’s important to be discreet. I can’t imagine Captain al-Busari being overjoyed that we haven’t gone through him to question Selmi, which means we need to go around him for the next stage too.”

  “Uh…”

  “And we’ve got to get ahold of that autopsy report.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes, tonight.” Black bleeped open the doors on Bob’s truck. “Let’s go.”

  “How was your day, dear?” Emmy asked.

  Better now, since she was lying on the bed in her underwear.

  “The good news is that we have a new list of people to question. The bad news is there are forty-seven of them. I’ve just spent an hour briefing Khaled and half a dozen of his buddies on exactly what questions to ask. We’ve got two names to follow up on ourselves.”

  “Two? That’s doable.”

  “And the other bad news is that the scarab amulet we found in the mountains belonged to Gosia. She was wearing it when she died. Which means—”

  “The killer didn’t bring it with him, and any link between the two deaths is purely circumstantial. Two dead girls, one small town.”

  “Exactly.”

  The historians were now at the bottom of the suspect list.

  Speaking of historians, Miles had emailed again, insisting that if the amulet was a genuine ancient Egyptian funerary offering, it belonged in a museum. In his eyes, the fact that it was evidence in a murder investigation was a mere triviality. Trying to placate a militant archaeologist was something Black could do without in a week when everything else had gone wrong already.