The Cairo Diary (14 page)

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.

They began with the el-Huseiniya district, above the cemetery of Bab el-Nasr. They had to abandon the car at the entrance to sharia Negm el-Din, and continued on foot through the labyrinth of alleyways, darkened by tall, crumbling façades. The streets were of beaten earth and some of the buildings had been around for several centuries, without ever benefiting from any maintenance whatsoever.

It took them three-quarters of an hour to find the tiny house where the eight members of Samir's family lived, crowded together. Samir had been discovered in the nearby cemetery.

They were invited to sit down on patched and mended cushions, and offered burning-hot, sugary-sweet tea.

Several children in rags shouted and played in the adjoining room.

Azim conversed with the patriarch, a man worn-down to the tendons, with skin like parchment and the physique of a seventy-year-old even though he was probably twenty or thirty years younger. Pain twisted his features as Azim spoke his son's name.

The low table on which his wife placed a round tray was a chicken cage, turned upside-down. As he noticed this, Jeremy had even more difficulty drinking his sweetened tea, knowing what a treasure it must represent with regard to their finances.

Words were exchanged between the two Arabs, Azim interrupting the other man from time to time, probably to obtain clarification.

Several times, Jeremy caught the expression of fear that the mistress of the house was having difficulty concealing. Azim seemed to be focusing solely on the father.

From time to time, a brown face made an appearance in the opening that led to the kitchen; never the same one, never the same age. From the sound of the voices and the stridence or low pitch of the children's shouting, Jeremy deduced that there must be at least one adolescent aged around fifteen, and several little ones between five and ten. As quickly as it had appeared, the child vanished back into the noisy horde that did not seem to have been subdued at all by the death of one of their number.

Jeremy sat in frustrated silence, the language and cultural barriers making it impossible for him to do anything. He could see that it was necessary to ask the wife some questions too. To have her opinion. Sound out her feelings as a bereaved mother. And understand her anxiety.

As he was finishing burning his lips on his tea, the unexpected happened: Azim turned suddenly to the wife and addressed her. The husband tried to reply but Azim silenced him with an imperious gesture.

The poor woman, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, scarcely dared open her mouth. Azim added something.

She began to stammer.

And as if the floodgates of the Aswan Dam had suddenly opened, the words came pouring out. She held back her tears until she had said everything.

Jeremy thought he caught the last word, as she spoke it after a moment's silence, almost whispering it, fear adhering her tongue to the roof of her mouth:
“Ghul.”

“Ghul?”
Azim repeated, in surprise.

In haste, they were shown outside, politely but firmly. Just as he was leaving, Jeremy said to Azim, “Tell them this is to thank them for their cooperation.”

“Excuse me?”

Jeremy handed a few Egyptian pounds to the mistress of the house. The Englishman detected a certain reticence in the woman's tear-filled eyes, but the mother in her took the upper hand and clasped the notes eagerly.

A little later, the two investigators were walking back up an evil-smelling alley toward their car.

“What did you find out?” Jeremy wanted to know.

“I asked the usual questions, which had already been asked at the start of the investigation, and the answers are the same: no particular details in the days preceding their son's disappearance, no strange individuals in the vicinity of their home, nothing like that. I asked them specifically about a black man, but nothing. Their son was a good boy and had no reason to follow a stranger. The night he was killed, he should have been in his bedroom with his brothers. He went out while everyone was asleep. It wasn't difficult: It's a very old house and it is possible to enter or leave without making a sound.”

“I saw you questioning the mother; what did she say to you?”

“Well … not very much, actually. She talks a lot with the neighboring women, who have all been comforting her since the death. And they gossip. Is that the right word? Gossip?”

“Yes, Azim,” said Jeremy, somewhat exasperated by this detour in their conversation.

“One of them is the friend of a friend of the mother of the little girl who was murdered at the beginning of the month. Do you follow me?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“That creates links, associations. And the women in these places are the consciousness of the district, and its eyes and ears too. Some have seen things. Here, others at Abbasiya, in the very poor district. And they think they know what is killing their children.”

Jeremy halted midstep. He stared at Azim, eyes wide. “And?”

“Oh, it won't please the little Englishman in you.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“You haven't been here long enough to believe in our fairy tales, have you?”

“I don't even speak Arabic, Azim.”

“The women think that what is killing their children is a
ghul.
”

Without asking him to repeat it, Jeremy shook his head, indicating that he was listening to the hypothesis, but was unable to believe it.

“A ghoul, is that it? Where did I read about those? In Bram Stoker, I would imagine.… So what is it, a sort of vampire?”

“The
ghul
is a female demon, an evil creature, like the jinn for example.
One Thousand and One Nights
mention them frequently. It is a monster that eats the dead, and which can assume an appearance that is sometimes hideous, sometimes attractive.”

“Azim, these women make up stories, they frighten themselves, and they dig up the old superstitions. This one fits the bill because it is a metaphor for what the killer really is. A man in appearance, capable of luring children, and a monster inside, capable of torturing them.”

Azim smoothed his mustache. “It is not a metaphor if you believe what they say,” he objected. “Because there are witnesses to its presence. A strange being was seen prowling at night, sniffing the children's clothing that was drying on the roofs, attempting to climb through the windows into the children's bedrooms, fortunately without success. A thing dressed in a black robe, and a deep hood to conceal its horrible appearance. Its hands are hooklike and it moves silently; few have seen it. It is even whispered that animals are so terrified that they run away from it.”

“Let's see, you know we won't find any witnesses, any who will give their names, I mean to say; it's a myth, and there are heaps of spiteful people willing to make others believe they have seen this creature, but when you investigate, you never find anybody.”

“Because that is how Cairo is, built from darkness and light, knowledge and ignorance, on myths and promises. And look at the result! The largest city in the Arab world! Proud and coveted! And you whites come all the way from the Americas just to see its pyramids.”

“Spare me the militant speech, Azim. Right, so is there nothing other than this ghoul story?”

Azim seemed disappointed by his colleague's brusqueness. All at once his flow tailed off, along with the beginnings of a smile. “No. This evening I shall write up all the small details I have noted down about the child and what his parents told me.”

They reached their car in silence and went off to visit the other families, which took all day.

Each time, it was a large and very poor family. Nothing unusual had been noticed before their child's disappearance. Jeremy insisted on giving a few banknotes to each family, and in so doing divested himself of a large sum, as Azim looked on with as much surprise as admiration.

The two investigators separated at the end of the day, Azim heading off to the police station to write up his notes, and Jeremy to his usual
qawha
to shake off the weariness of an additional day.

He had been there only an hour when Azim entered, sweat dripping from his brow. He looked round the café, a sheet of paper in his hand. When he spotted Jeremy, he rushed to his table and laid down the document.

“The same school!”

Jeremy sank back into his chair.

“I am a fool!” thundered Azim. “I did not make the connection when the parents gave me the information, and my men did not think to ask for the information when they were conducting the investigation. The dead children all went to the same foundation. Keoraz. It's not really a school, but they went there to receive training, and that is a point common to all of them!”

In the haze of tobacco smoke, Jeremy's eyes suddenly held the same vacant gaze as a blind man's.

“Are you all right?” Azim asked anxiously, furtively checking that the glasses placed in front of the Englishman did indeed contain the vestiges of coffee and not alcohol.

Eventually Jeremy nodded.

“I know somebody at that foundation.” He laid a hand on the sheet of paper. “Let me deal with this, if you don't mind.” And the report vanished into his pocket.

17

Marion slammed the diary shut.

She was seething with impatience at the thought of reading what came next, but first she must relieve herself. Out of curiosity, she nevertheless turned a few pages and caught surprising words, a scene beneath the pyramids … an animated conversation …

Marion was about to place the book on her chair and head off in search of toilets, but changed her mind. She chose instead to take it with her, along with her bunch of keys.

A door creaked at the entrance to the Belle Chaise.

Marion turned her head, ready to explain herself, but there was nobody there. The door was shut.

The wind intermittently whistled between the gaps, creating a hissing, breathing sound throughout the abbey. Was that him, the culprit?

Don't start imagining things …

Marion went out and soon crossed a little overhanging kitchen garden, from where she could look down on part of the village and the bay.

A small sandy recess was shielded from eyes and from the elements.