The Butcher of Casablanca

by Abdelilah Hamdouchi

  Hanash exchanged another meaningful look with Hamid. But before they could resume their interrogation, the door burst open and Suad pushed her way passed the guard. She was now in a tight djellaba that accentuated her curvaceous body. She’d braided her dark hair and added extra layers of makeup. One might have thought she had just entered a brothel rather than a police station. Fatma jumped in her chair. Her face contracted into a scowl as she turned to Suad and said in a crushed and defeated voice, “So you’ve come to get your revenge, Suad. Just remember that the Prophet, may peace be upon him, commanded us to care for our neighbors.”

  At a signal from Hanash, the guard withdrew from the room and shut the door behind him.

  Fatma, momentarily forgetting where she was, added menacingly, “I’m warning you, Suad. You’re going to regret what you’re about to say.”

  “Shut your mouth,” Hamid cut in. “And don’t open it until I tell you to.”

  He then offered Suad a seat and said encouragingly, “Please speak freely. Tell us everything you know.”

  He turned to shoot a warning look at Fatma, who was about to protest.

  As Suad began to speak, she eyed her prey with a defiant and gloating expression. “I saw Rashid come into our building yesterday, at about ten in the evening. About half an hour later, another guy showed up. I’d never seen him before. They partied until after midnight. Dancing, singing, drinking. The music was turned up full blast. You could just hear Fatma’s screeches of laughter over the music. At about one o’clock I went over to complain. But just as I was about to knock, they turned the music down. God forgive me, but I began to eavesdrop. I heard things that I’ll never forget as long as I live. The words still echo in my ears.”

  Fatma sucked in her breath. Her eyes widened as she stared at her neighbor with silent fury.

  “What did you hear?” asked Hanash calmly.

  “I heard her say, ‘Just killing him doesn’t give him what he deserves. Cut off his head and cut his body up into seven pieces. Then put them into seven bags. One for every year he tormented me.’”

  “I said that?” Fatma shouted in a hoarse voice, pounding her chest. “You must have been dreaming!”

  Suad ignored her. Looking at Hanash, she continued, “That’s what I heard, sir. At first I thought she was joking. But the moment I heard Rashid had been killed and that they found his cut-up body in a garbage dump, I realized that it was no joke. So I came here to testify.”

  Fatma’s face crumpled and her shoulders slumped. A shiver ran through her entire body. Hanash cast her a sympathetic look.

  “Tell us what happened that night,” he said softly.

  Officer Hamid added gently, in order to encourage her, “It seems like you’ve been put through something horrible, and that’s what drove you to do it.”

  The tears welled up in Fatma’s eyes. She trembled and stammered at first. But when her features contorted into an expression of deep agony, Hanash and Hamid knew the mask was off. Her eyes grew vacant and for a moment it seemed as though she had given up caring about anything. After a silence, she began to speak with unexpected ease.

  “I couldn’t take it any more. The insults. The cruelty. Rashid was the love of my life. I loved him from the bottom of my heart. When he smiled, he brought tears to my eyes. I never tired of looking at him. I’d stare at him and never get my fill. I’d listen to him and long to hear more. It didn’t matter how trivial. I’d cry when he was away and I’d cry when he was with me. I’d never loved anybody, not even myself, as much as I loved Rashid. Was I under some kind of spell? It’s hard to deny. All my friends said I was. If only I could have fought his spell. It was so powerful. I lost all will of my own. I was blind. I was a slave to my love for him and ready to do whatever he said.”

  Suddenly, the meekness gave way to intense fury. A film clouded her eyes as though her mind had wandered elsewhere. But then she resumed in a venomous voice.

  “Yes, I was ready to do anything for him. Anything! But he abandoned me. After seven whole years of sucking me dry, he dropped me. Just like that. Then, last week, he calls me up, invites me to a coffee on the beach, and says, ‘Try to understand, Fatma. You know I can’t marry you.’ Of all the nerve! Then he has the gall to tell me that, now that he found a decent job, he wants to raise a family, but not with me!”

  Her jaw worked furiously for a moment. Then she continued, staring vacantly into space. “I told him how I prayed for his happiness. ‘May the good Lord grant you success,’ I said. ‘You have every right to build your future with the person dearest to your heart.’ I asked him not to forget me. ‘I couldn’t take it if you put me out of your mind, just like that,’ I said. He gave me that meek, lamb-like look that drives me mad and said he couldn’t start a new life with another woman by cheating on her.”

  She swallowed with difficulty. A strange glimmer came into her eyes and her mouth twisted into a sneer. “I told him that I only wanted the best for him and I wished him all the joy in the world. Then I said, ‘I have one last request before we part forever. Just spend one last night with me, a night that I’ll cherish in my mind forever. Afterward I’ll let you go and never bother you again.’”

  Her mouth broadened into a triumphant smile. “He was that dumb. Dumb enough to agree to a hot night of sex with me as though I were some cheap whore. As though I hadn’t been his lover for seven years. How cheap I must have seemed in his eyes. A despicable, groveling whore! I called up Maasoul the mechanic. He owns this car-repair shop. I knew that he was head over heels in love with me and ready to do anything I asked. I went over to his garage and smoked a joint with him. I only had to brush his cheek with a kiss to get him going. I told him that I would be his forever and at his service every single day if he just did me this one favor. I had him practically drooling over me. I let him fondle a lock of my hair as I told him what I wanted. He thought nothing of it, even after I spelled it all out in detail. ‘Nothing to it,’ he said. So I organized that party that Suad just told you about. The idiot Rashid never suspected for a moment that I was planning my revenge, and in the most horrid way possible.”

  Officer Hamid spoke in a whisper so as not to stem the flow of her confession.

  “Can you tell me where the mechanic lives?” he asked.

  “La Ferraille,” she snapped, annoyed at the interruption. “Where they sell second-hand car parts. Everyone there knows Maasoul.”

  Hamid slipped out of the room as Hanash nodded to Fatma to continue. She spoke with contempt and without a hint of remorse in her voice.

  “Rashid was surprised when Maasoul arrived. He refused to drink. I started to dance for Maasoul in a really seductive way. I hoped to see just a tiny bit of jealousy in Rashid’s eyes. I wanted him to feel offended that I was doing that right in front of him. I wanted him to get up and slap me. Or tell me to kick out Maasoul. Or show some desire for my body, if only for just one last time.

  “Maasoul was getting turned on. He was plastered and beginning to lose it. Suddenly he got blindly jealous. That was how Rashid was supposed to feel! Before I knew it, Maasoul picked up a bottle and smashed it down on Rashid’s skull. I didn’t even have to give him the order! A single blow was enough make Rashid sag down against the wall, blood oozing from his head. . . . Maasoul yanked me to him and tore off my blouse. He swept all the plates and glasses from the table and made me lie down on it and fucked me right in front of Rashid’s eyes.

  “What hatred I saw in Rashid when our eyes met! I thought he’d leap up and drag Maasoul off me in one last fit of jealousy. But no. He drew in every bit of his last breath and spat at me.

  “I grabbed the kitchen knife and stabbed him over and over, even though he was half dead. Then I cut off his head and I got drenched in his blood. I started to laugh. Then the devil whispered in my ears, ‘Cut him up and fill up seven bags with his flesh and bones. A bag for every year you loved him like a fool.’ That wasn’t part of my agreement with Maasoul. Maybe he hadn’t thought I was really
serious about killing Rashid. Maybe he only acted out of drunkenness, lust, and jealousy. It took me a while to persuade him to help me cut up the body and put it in the bags. I think he started to think I was crazy at that point. He probably only obeyed me because he was drunk and still hot for me. He pulled me to him and kissed me hard. Then we got to work, hollering with laughter. We swore to keep this a secret, just between ourselves. We were evil. We kissed again and again, as we stuffed Rashid into the bags.

  “I didn’t like the idea of putting Rashid into the fridge. I poured a drink for Maasoul and said, ‘I don’t want Rashid to spend the night my house, even hacked to pieces.’ Then an idea flashed into my mind. I said, ‘We’ll never get caught by the police if we make our crime look like the work of that serial killer the whole city’s worked up about.’ I told Maasoul about the bodies that the police keep finding in the dumpsters every night. ‘The police will think it’s the same killer,’ I said. The more we thought about it, the more we liked it. At dawn, we took the bags and put them in the trunk of his car, which was parked out in front. Then I went back inside, cleaned up the house, and slept all day long.”

  Maasoul put up no resistance when the police came to arrest him. He corroborated Fatma’s account and all the pieces of the crime fell into place. But Fatma’s idea of making it look like a continuation of the other murders complicated things. The chief of police ordered further investigation and closer questioning of Fatma and Maasoul to determine whether they had any connection to the other homicides.

  Under the pressure of prolonged interrogation, which included various forms of physical and psychological “inducements,” Fatma succumbed to a kind of stupor. She agreed to fabrications fed to her and didn’t care how false the accusations leveled at her were. She even asked her interrogators to remind her of the details of her other crimes in case they’d slipped her mind. Maasoul, for his part, acted like someone who had just woken from a nasty dream. He’d respond to the interrogators with a stream of invective against Fatma. She was wickeder than the devil himself. She would probably get off and he’d have to pay for the crime alone, he thought. He figured that by confessing to other murders he’d make sure to drag her down with him. He, too, was struck by a fit of madness. He begged the investigators to believe him. He had a criminal record. He boasted of having been in prison twice.

  *

  Hanash wondered who in the force gave the press the impression that “tranquility” had been restored to Casablanca. He lifted his eyebrows at the front-page article in a respectable newspaper that cited him speaking about “cleansing the city of crime” and reassuring fellow Casablancans that they “could now sleep easy at night.” He hadn’t issued any statements to the press.

  Chief of Police Mohammed Alami, on the other hand, convened a huge gathering of journalists from news outlets of all stripes so they could cover a reenactment of the crime of Fatma and Maasoul. Crime reenactments received nationwide TV coverage and the print media plastered their front pages with headlines and photos of them. It was great PR for the force and its vigilant heroes. It was little wonder, therefore, that the police chief’s voice was filled with triumph as he stood before the cameras and spoke as though Fatma and Maasoul had carried out not one murder but four.

  Later, during a meeting with Hanash, Alami gestured to a pile of newspapers and nodded approvingly. He must have noticed the skepticism in Hanash’s face, because he asked, “Do you have any comments or objections?”

  Hanash sat up in his seat. “I just want to say, sir, that so far we have nothing to prove that Fatma and Maasoul committed the three previous homicides. We’re under enormous pressure from the public and the press. Everyone’s eager to feel reassured. But on the three previous files, Fatma’s and Maasoul’s statements lack detail, they contradict each other, and there’s no concrete evidence to support them. They’ve confessed to all charges without the slightest objection.”

  Alami folded his hands over his belly and said calmly, “It makes no difference. It’s important to understand how much this case means to public opinion. I assume you care about that as well. I have complete confidence in your work. But at the same time, we have to calm the people down. If we tell them that the last crime is separate from the others, they’ll only grow more alarmed. Rumors will proliferate and the press will criticize us and blow everything out of proportion. We have confessions. Even if there’s no concrete evidence to support them, they’re confessions all the same. That’s an achievement in its own right. It should be publicized so people can be put at ease. Why don’t you pick up some of those newspapers and read the headlines?”

  Hanash did as he was told. Affecting a news anchor’s voice, he recited: “‘Killers Caught after Fourth Gruesome Murder.’ ‘Outstanding Success Relieves Casablancans of Fear.’ ‘Killers Arrested in Record Time Thanks to Outstanding Efforts of the Force.’ ‘The Criminals Are Behind Bars. Casablanca Safe and Sound Once More.’” Hanash looked up and gave the chief a look that acknowledged defeat. “It’s hard to deny all that news.”

  7

  It was the morning of the first day of Eid al-Adha—the Feast of Sacrifice. Over two months had passed since the police had tied up the Rashid Abuela file. Hanash was in his garden, in his favorite chair, watching Hamid play with Kreet. Manar stole occasional peeks at Hamid from the balcony of her room. Hamid seemed happy and at ease, like one of the family.

  Naeema had been bustling around the house since dawn. Eid al-Adha had a special sacredness for her. She began preparations a month beforehand. She’d have the walls repainted, buy new pots and pans for the kitchen, start obsessing about knives and sending them off to get them sharpened, and pester her husband with incessant demands. Now she was getting everything ready for the slaughtering of the sheep Tarek was fetching from a farm that belonged to a friend of his father’s. That friend had been giving Hanash a sheep as a feast-day gift for years as an expression of gratitude for an old favor Hanash had performed for him.

  Hamid laughed as he played tricks on Kreet. Hanash looked on as his mind strayed to the relationship between the officer and his daughter. He’d been giving a lot of thought to that matter during the past few days. His wife recently brought up the subject to him directly. He suspected that mother, daughter, and prospective groom were weaving plans behind his back because they were afraid he’d oppose an engagement.

  In fact, Hanash had no strong objection at all. He just wanted to be absolutely certain, which is why he was awaiting the results of a thorough background check from the chief of Azilal, where Hamid grew up. Although Hamid now lived in Casablanca, he was not from there and not that much was known about his family and his upbringing. Of course, at some level, Hanash realized that this was his detective’s mind working overtime. Everything he knew about Hamid confirmed that he was an honest and decent young man from a good family. His only flaw was his fondness for drink.

  Now, as he watched Hamid playing with his dear dog, he felt a surge of affection for him. The inspector was actually his best friend after Kreet. He spent most of the day with him at work and thought of him as his right-hand man. He was the only officer in whom he felt he could confide his speculations and intentions in every case. Hamid, for his part, respected and obeyed his commanding officer. Ever since Hanash had returned to work after his scrape with death, Hamid was solicitous of his health and tried to keep him from overexerting himself.

  Hanash wondered how it was that he’d never before thought of Hamid as the perfect match for his daughter. He vaguely recalled the inspector dropping hints, but he’d never caught on. Probably because he was used to talking to Hamid about suspects, investigations, and other work-related things.

  Hanash leaned back in his chair, savoring the warm weather in the garden and the coziness of being at home with his family. He had to admit that he hadn’t dedicated enough time to his family and that he had no close friends. Everybody seemed to shun him as though the only thing he had going for him was his ability to catch
criminals.

  At last, the gate to the villa opened and Tarek appeared together with the butcher. The two were pulling the sheep by its horns.

  They all gathered around the bleating animal, exclaiming how fine it looked. Hamid’s attention swiveled toward Manar, who was wearing a beautiful housedress. His eyes filled with admiration.

  Hanash noticed how bright and bubbly his daughter was, laughing and giggling. As for Hamid, he seemed not quite there. Instead of stepping forward to help drag the sheep into the yard, he just stood with a grin on his face, holding Kreet by the collar.

  “Are you going to slaughter the dog instead of the sheep?” Hanash asked as if upbraiding an officer at work.

  Everyone burst out laughing. Hamid flushed with embarrassment as Manar flew to his rescue. Looking toward her father, she said, “Hey, officers, try to act for a moment like you’re not at the station.”

  “That sheep looks like an ex-con,” said Hamid timidly.

  Hanash laughed. “What are you waiting for? Arrest it!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Hamid leaped on the lamb and wrestled it into a position ready for slaughter.

  Manar turned away, unable to stand the sight of blood. Once he’d finished his task, Hamid went over and stood beside her, offering her an apologetic smile as if to say that he, too, felt sorry for the sheep. She returned his smile, which encouraged him to furtively study her carefully arranged hair and the features of her subtly made-up face. He fought the temptation to allow his eyes to roam further.

  Suddenly, the ringing of the house phone on the second floor pierced the air and mingled with the strident rings of Hanash’s and Hamid’s mobiles. The two men exchanged worried expressions as the cheerfulness around them evaporated. Only a work-related emergency could make all those phones ring at once. Hanash signaled to Hamid to answer first. No one budged until the officer finished listening to the caller. He hung up and said with a croak in his voice, “They want us downtown right away.”