The Butcher of Casablanca

by Abdelilah Hamdouchi

  After locking the door to her beauty parlor, Manar turned around and spotted her father across the street. He had never visited her at the salon before. He came over and gave her a warm hug as though he had just returned from a long trip abroad. Maybe there’s some truth in the rumors, she thought.

  “Where did you come from?” she exclaimed.

  “Are you happy to see me?”

  “Of course I’m happy. Ever since I can remember you’ve been too busy to spend much time with me.”

  Hanash glanced around quickly. “Let’s walk for a bit. There’s a café at the other end of the street. I’ll treat you to a coffee and cake.”

  For a moment, she couldn’t budge. She thought that he was trying to prepare her for some news. His hand disappeared inside his jacket, and she realized he was readjusting the position of his gun in its holster. She smiled weakly and said, “How’s the case coming? Are you close to catching the killer?”

  He hadn’t expected this broadside from his daughter and suppressed a surge of anger. He had just spent a long time trying to free his mind from this case, if only for a little while. Then his daughter suddenly brought it up again and made him feel embarrassed at his lack of progress. To change the subject and lighten the atmosphere, he jested, “I’ll report you to the police if you say anything more about that subject.”

  Manar was growing more and more suspicious of this behavior, which was so unlike her father.

  “What’s going on, Dad? Why did you come to see me?”

  He cast her a pained expression. “Why are you giving me the third degree? Can’t a father want to spend a little time with his daughter?”

  But Manar couldn’t control her curiosity or play along with her father’s attempt to humor her. “Is everything really all right?”

  “If I told you that I just wanted to take a little walk and have a cup of coffee with you after hours of boring meetings, would you believe me?”

  She was silent for a moment, thinking, as they strolled along the pavement. It was turning twilight and there were few pedestrians around. Then she said, “You’re the one who taught us that we should always be cautious because things aren’t always what they seem.” There was a profound sadness her voice, as though she too meant something else, something that troubled her deeply but that she was reluctant to tell her father.

  He took her hand and squeezed it gently. “That isn’t a rule written in stone,” he said. “I’m wondering whether the reason you haven’t married yet is because you suspect all men are guilty and should be thrown behind bars.”

  She laughed. “I don’t look at it that way. But I don’t want to get married just for the sake of getting married. Can I tell you a secret . . . or will you turn me in?”

  He gritted his teeth. “No. . . . Word of honor.”

  She waited until after they took their seats on the veranda of a café and the waiter took their orders. Hanash looked at his daughter questioningly, trying to keep the detective glare out of his eyes.

  “What’s your secret, my dear?” he asked gently.

  “You probably know what I want to say. We’ve already spoken about this subject, but only in jest. It’s getting serious now.”

  Hanash frowned. He knew what his daughter was getting at. As he peered into her eyes he recalled the fond glances his handsome right-hand man would give her. It wasn’t just loneliness that made Hamid spend so much time with the family after his mother died.

  “Are you seeing him behind my back?”

  “Of course not, Dad. . . . Well, only once. He didn’t want to speak to you about this without knowing how I felt first.”

  “And how do you feel?” His hand rested on the table, unclenched.

  “I won’t tell you how I feel until I know your opinion.”

  Other fleeting encounters had followed. Hanash often invited Hamid over to discuss work or just to sit together in the garden and play with the dog. On such occasions, Hamid would exchange a few brief words, and many meaningful looks, with Manar. Her mother had picked up the signals. She even dropped a strong hint one evening when he had appeared at the door in a dapper black suit and freshly polished shoes, carrying a box of expensive chocolates. After he left, Naeema ventured that Hamid was practically doing cartwheels to win Manar’s admiration and that he wanted to ask her out for a date, but feared the wrath of his boss.

  Hanash smiled at his daughter, took a sip of his coffee, and said good-humoredly, “I should have had you followed. How could this have slipped by me?”

  Manar gave him a pleading yet affectionate look. “Now, you promised me you wouldn’t mention any of this to him. He respects you no end and he’s easily embarrassed in front of you.”

  Hanash sighed and said, almost as though speaking to himself, “He’s a decent young man. His main problem, though, is drink. He can’t go to sleep unless he’s had a few.”

  Manar looked down and blanched. She hadn’t known that. Now she understood why her father hadn’t encouraged it.

  Hanash looked out toward the street and his eyes began to track a man in a long overcoat that was out of place in this warm weather. His mind turned to the killer, who was still at large, wandering freely among the people. At this very moment he might be plotting another crime. A brief gloom settled over their table as they were immersed in their private thoughts. Then Hanash looked up and asked, “Do you love him?”

  The question stunned her. Her mouth widened into a bright smile that broke into laughter. She would never have expected her father to ask her such an embarrassing question. He added with an uncharacteristic delicateness, “I only want you to be happy, my dear. Hamid’s not a bad sort. He can give up the drink, or at least drink in moderation. Actually, that part will be up to you now. As you know, I also used to have a drink now and then. And I smoked like a chimney. But a time comes when people change.”

  6

  If “waste pickers” refers to the junk collectors who sift through garbage in the middle of the city, “scavengers” refers to those who live off the piles of urban waste after the city garbage trucks dump their loads at the huge landfill outside the city. Located about ten miles outside of Casablanca, the site, from afar, looks like a plateau. Nestled at its foot are a few wretched ramshackle villages whose inhabitants eke out their livelihood from refuse.

  That morning, a scavenger was trying to shift a plastic garbage bag when it ripped open and a human hand poked through. The hand seemed to hang there, beckoning to him. He let out a scream and leaped back as though he’d received an electric shock. Then he tripped over another bag, which also ripped open, revealing a man’s head, severed just below the chin. The eyes were wide open and seemed to beg

  for mercy.

  The scavenger staggered, fell, and scrambled backward as he screamed for help. He was so terrified that he couldn’t clamber to his feet. As his fellow scavengers rushed over, the air filled with a swelling wave of screams and howls as they too stumbled over plastic bags filled with human body parts.

  Hanash was in the passenger’s seat. Hamid was behind the wheel. They sped through the streets, the deafening siren clearing the way. The detective was sullen and withdrawn. He turned the malicious chain of events over and over in his mind. It was totally without precedent in the city and in his career. It had turned his job—his whole life—topsy-turvy. Never before had he felt such loss, confusion, lack of direction.

  Hamid was equally silent. With Hanash in such a mood, he had no intention of venturing a conjecture. In fact, his mind wasn’t really on the case. Yesterday, he had vowed to himself to bring up the subject of marrying Manar and he’d spent the whole of the previous night working out how to broach it. She’d rung him up and told him about her conversation with her father. They talked for more than half an hour. At one point, as delicately as she could, she brought up the one reservation her father had: the alcohol. Hamid almost burst out laughing when he heard that. Her father, before he quit drinking, used to think of Hamid as his favorit
e drinking buddy. At first, the young officer was new to alcohol and it was Hanash who’d invite him out for a chat over some drinks. Of course he didn’t tell Manar this. Instead, he told her, in all sincerity, that he would be able to give up alcohol the moment they got married. Manar pretended to believe him, silencing the skepticism her father had instilled in her.

  Now all notions of bringing up that subject with Hanash had flown out the window. The only topic of discussion in the coming days would be this new homicide. And wouldn’t you know it, there went Hanash’s phone, ringing insistently even before they reached the crime scene. The caller, moreover, was none other than the chief of police. Hamid knew this immediately from the way his boss glowered at the number on his mobile before answering.

  “I do not want another failure!” Commander Alami snapped menacingly. “I do not want another corpse added to our growing list of cold files.”

  The police chief hung up before Hanash could say a word. Hanash pressed “end call” and flung his phone aside. Frustration and bitterness were written on his face. He turned to Hamid and said wryly, “He doesn’t want another ‘cold file.’ If I don’t get anywhere this time around, I’m going to ask to be taken off the case.”

  Hamid felt it wiser to keep his mouth shut, and remained silent until they reached the garbage dump. He parked the car a few steps away from the mountains of refuse with birds circling around them.

  Since this area was outside the city limits, units from the royal gendarmerie and metropolitan police were added to the hodgepodge of police at the site. A crew from forensics wearing masks and rubber gloves were wading through the piles of garbage. Hanash forced himself to remain still for a moment. He appeared indifferent and aloof, but he was actually working out a game plan as he slowly scanned the scene. The head of the regional gendarmerie came up and greeted him warmly. They were old acquaintances. He took hold of Hanash’s arm and steered him in the direction of where the CPD vehicles were parked. Hanash stopped abruptly, stunned by what he saw: seven black plastic bags lined up side by side. Flies buzzed around them.

  “All these belong to the same victim?” asked Hanash

  in awe.

  “Affirmative. The body was cut up into seven pieces. The head was packed in a bag of its own.”

  Hanash’s eyes lit up. “Male or female?” he asked.

  “Male. Mid- to late thirties, probably.”

  “Are all the parts there? Including the hands and fingers?”

  “It’s hard to confirm amid all this filth. But I believe so.”

  Hanash nodded. He looked around for his right-hand man and signaled him over. As Hamid came up, Hanash said excitedly, “It looks like this time we’ll be able to ID

  the victim.”

  No sooner had Hanash returned to his office than Hamid entered, holding a printout of a picture he’d found on the computer.

  “The face is identical with that of the severed head and the fingerprints are a match,” said Hamid. “Rashid Abuela, thirty-five, unemployed, no police record.”

  The mother instinctively knew what the police were going to tell her the moment they knocked on the door of her modest home. She wasn’t expecting good news. On the other hand, she had never imagined that someone would sever her son’s head and dismember him, as the police put it.

  “Why did she have to do that to him?” she wailed. “Why did she have to cut him into bits? Why did she hate him so much?”

  She reeled, but Hamid caught her before she fell. Hanash called out for a glass of water. The last thing he wanted was for her to pass out, forcing them to wait until they could question her. As soon as she drank some water, Hanash asked, “Who is this woman you’re talking about?”

  The mother was unable to speak. Clutching her belly, she continued to weep and moan, her face contorted in agony and horror. She was barely aware of the circle of men hovering over her, waiting for her to speak.

  Hanash appealed to her in a sympathetic voice. “Please, ma’am, tell us what you know.”

  She sat up, a sharp glint flashing in her eyes. “Who else would it be but that whore? The slut just wouldn’t keep her claws off him. I’ll kill her with my bare hands!”

  “Her name and address, please,” Hanash pressed her.

  The mother burst into tears again and wailed, “Why’d she have to kill him just as his luck changed and he found a stable job and was about to get married?”

  “Her name and address, please,” Hanash asked again, impatiently.

  “Fatma Zein. Seven years, she’s been sucking his blood. Seven years!”

  “Where does she live?” Hamid asked gently.

  As soon as she told them the address, they left, as if making a getaway.

  A riot of children playing in the street, gaggles of unemployed youth hanging out on the corners, a group of women collected in front of the public faucet, chitchatting as they waited their turn to fill their pans and buckets—this slum was notorious in Casablanca for its high rates of violence and endless neighborhood squabbles. It also had a reputation for having the highest rate of crimes related to hashish, vice, public intoxication, and other such offenses. Therefore, at the first sight of a police car, voices cried out, “Hanash!”—“Snakes!”—because that was the slang word for all policemen, not just the famed detective. Everyone vanished in a flash, including the women at the faucet. No one wanted to get picked up for arbitrary questioning. No family was without a relative or a neighbor who’d had some kind of run-in with the “snakes.”

  Hanash’s car screeched to a halt. Another car carrying several CID officers pulled up behind it, followed by a police van filled with security guards. The guards leaped out and surrounded the building where Fatma Zein lived. When people saw that the police had homed in on a particular building, they began to reemerge and collect in the square. They were dying of curiosity. This raid meant something big.

  Suad, the neighbor across the hall, watched from her doorway, propped against the frame in a sultry pose. In her mid-forties, she wore thick layers of makeup and blew and popped bubbles with her chewing gum in a flagrantly provocative way.

  Hamid rapped on the door repeatedly until they heard an irritated voice calling from inside.

  “I’m coming. I’m coming!”

  Fatma flung open the door. When she saw the huddle of policemen, her jaw dropped and her eyes widened in alarm.

  “Are you Fatma Zein?”

  Unable to find her voice, she just nodded. An inspector elbowed his way inside and others rushed in after him. In a matter of seconds they had the place turned inside out. They upended every object, opened every drawer and closet, and strewed the contents about. Fatma shrieked at the havoc unfolding around her. Flinging her dyed blond hair away from her eyes, she cried, “I’m a respectable woman, gentlemen! Don’t believe anybody who says otherwise. If people are going around saying nasty things about me, it’s just because they want to get me into trouble with you.”

  When Fatma appeared in the hallway, arms locked behind her, with an officer on either side clasping her elbows, Suad threw Fatma a meaningful look, eyes sparkling with malicious glee. Outside, the guards struggled to restrain the large crowd of men, women, and children who were pressing forward to get a closer look.

  A chorus of angry whistles and heckles arose, as always when there was a police raid and the “snakes” arrested someone from the neighborhood. Often the taunting would turn violent, with kids pelting the police with stones or smashing the windows of their cars, while others belted out slogans voicing social demands. The long-promised projects and programs to improve their living standards always evaporated after the electoral campaigns ended. Meanwhile, their despair and misery grew as they watched the rest of the city change and develop around them. Modern skyscrapers towered and commercial complexes burgeoned, their elegant façades lit up day and night, while their wretched neighborhood remained plunged in darkness.

  Fatma was seated in Hanash’s office. She was slumped in a cha
ir, drained of energy, her face pale and her lips parched. Inspector Hamid sat opposite her while the detective was in the leather swivel chair behind his desk. After reading through the information he had just received on Fatma Zein, he looked up, fired off a few questions to confirm her identity, and then asked, “Do you have a record?”

  She was startled by the question. She thought for a moment and then shook her head emphatically. “No. God forbid! I have no previous offenses, sir,” she said.

  He shot her a wry smile. “The report I’m holding here says that you do. You spent three months in prison for vice and drunk and disorderly behavior in a public thoroughfare.”

  “I was innocent, sir,” she protested without looking at him.

  Hanash’s smile widened as he added, “And you were sentenced to pay compensation in a case involving a brawl with a certain Suad Muaddaba.”

  “She’s the one who started it, sir.”

  Hanash’s face hardened and he began to press her with questions: “What’s your relationship with Rashid Abuela?”

  Fatma’s face reddened. “I . . . There is no relationship . . . not any more. Not since he told me he was going to get married.”

  “Do you know what happened to him?”

  “No sir. And I’m still waiting to know why I’m here.”

  Hanash and his officer exchanged a long look. Then Hamid leaned forward, pushing his face directly in front of hers, and said forcefully, “We just found your lover in a garbage heap, hacked to pieces.”

  She emitted a loud gasp and flung her hand to her heart. “Oh my God!” she shrieked and burst into tears. She swayed forward and backward, slapping her knees and shaking her head hysterically, sending her hair flying in all directions.

  It was hard to link that appalling murder to this wailing woman, but Hamid pressed on, more gently this time: “It was his mother who said you killed him.”

  “Don’t believe a word she says! She blames me for her son’s disappearance. She came to my home this morning, swore at me, and made the most appalling accusations. May God forgive her. I love her son and I only wish the best for him.”