Syndrome E

by Franck Thilliez

  “The fingerprint guys didn’t come up with anything in the darkroom, apart from the victim’s prints. We’ll have to send some men back there, this time to look at the equipment, the cameras. The killers surely abandoned some DNA, especially if an eye came in contact with the viewfinder. They must have made some mistakes. You don’t just play around with death like that…”

  She gathered up the photos and thanked him. Back in the street, she walked slowly, deep in thought. After the how came the why. Why had the killers left those frames in place of his eyes? What were those sadists trying to say?

  Plunged into these psychological reflections, she thought of Sharko, the peculiar fellow she’d met on the sly at Gare du Nord. Would he be able to find the answer, with his experience and years in the trade? Would he do a better job than she with this tough and unusual crime? She was dying to talk to him about this new homicide, to see how he’d handle it from the height of his fifty-odd years.

  Following her train of thought, Lucie tried to make links with the Gravenchon case. There, too, the victims had had their eyes removed. A doctor, a professional, according to Sharko. Now they could add the talents of a “filmmaker.” The profile was becoming more refined, even if nothing specific was quite emerging yet. Why steal the eyes? What was their importance to the person taking them? What did he do with them afterward? Did he keep them as trophies? Lucie also remembered the obsession with the retina and the iris in the short film. The slice of the scalpel on the cornea, the blinks of the eyelids…And she recalled Poignet’s remark: “The eye is just a common sponge that soaks up images.”

  A sponge…

  Suddenly excited, Lucie took out her phone, peeled through her contact list, and dialed the number of the medical examiner.

  “Doctor? Lucie Henebelle. Is this a bad time?”

  “Hold on—let me ask the large black gentleman decomposing on my table…No, he’s fine. What can I do for you, Lucie?”

  Lucie smiled; the examiner knew her through and through. Truth to tell, she was a “preferred customer.”

  “This probably sounds stupid, but…it’s about something I’ve heard people say, without ever getting a definitive answer: can the eye retain some sort of imprint of what it sees just before death?”

  “Excuse me? In what sense?”

  “A violent image, for instance. The very last image before the vital functions stop. A cluster of specs of light that could be reconstructed—I don’t know—by analyzing stimulated photoreceptive cells, or parts of the brain that might have preserved the information somewhere?”

  A pause. Lucie felt a bit embarrassed, expecting him to burst out laughing at any moment.

  “The fantasy of the optogram.”

  “What?”

  “You’re asking me about the fantasy of the optogram. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, popular opinion decided that a murder, because of its violent and sudden nature, could leave an impression on the dead person’s retina like sensitive film…”

  Sensitive film, eye, image…words that had been circling around each other since the beginning of this whole affair.

  “Doctors at the time began studying the subject. They thought you could extract a portrait of the criminal from the retina of a corpse. The fantasy of the optogram was that the crime would be directly recorded by the body as the victim was being murdered. In the medical community at the time, this meant taking the eyeball from its socket and removing its crystalline lens, then photographing it to extract tangible proof of the crime. Doctors actually used this method to help the police. And they really arrested people. No doubt innocent people.”

  “And…is such a thing as a retinal imprint plausible?”

  “No, no, of course not. As the term suggests, it’s remained just a fantasy.”

  Lucie asked one last question.

  “And what about in 1955? Did they still believe in it?”

  “No, they weren’t as backward as all that in 1955, you know.”

  “Thanks, Doctor.”

  She said good-bye and hung up.

  The fantasy of the optogram…

  Fantasy or not, the killer or killers meant to draw attention to the image, its power and its relation to the eye. That particular sensory organ must have been important to the killer, symbolic. That incredible instrument was the well that carried light to the brain, the tunnel that conveyed knowledge of the physical world. It was also, aesthetically speaking, the place where cinema began. No eye, no image, and no cinema. The link was tenuous, but it did exist. Lucie now considered the killer a split personality, divided between the medical—the eye as an organ that can be dissected—and the artistic—the eye as medium and bearer of images. Since there were two killers, perhaps each had his own specialty. A doctor and a filmmaker…

  Still deep in thought, Lucie stopped at a sandwich shop. Her phone was vibrating. It was Kashmareck. He dispensed with the preliminaries.

  “How far have you gotten?”

  “I’m just leaving forensics with some news. I’m on my way.”

  “Perfect timing. I know it’s late, but we have to go to the Saint-Luc university clinic, near Brussels.”

  “Belgium again?”

  “Yes. We went through the victim’s phone calls. Among them, Poignet had reached someone named Georges Beckers, who specializes in images and the brain. You gave me his business card. He works in neuromarketing—I didn’t even know there was such a field. Just after he scanned the film, Claude Poignet sent him the URL of the server where he’d stored the copy and asked him to analyze it. We’ve got the digitized film, Lucie. Our tech boys are downloading it. I’m putting a lip-reader on it right now, as well as image specialists. We’re going through it with a fine-toothed comb.”

  Lucie gave a silent sigh. The killers had been outsmarted by technology. They had killed someone to preserve their secret, and this secret was now spreading throughout the entire police computer network.

  “Did this Beckers discover anything?”

  “According to him, old Vlad Szpilman had already been to their research center, with the very same movie, a little more than two years ago. Szpilman was a friend of the former director, who died of a heart attack a few months ago.”

  Lucie thought for a moment before answering.

  “Vlad Szpilman must have had the same intuition as our restorer did. According to his son, he liked to watch the same film dozens of times over; he had an expert eye. He must have come to suspect that some strange things were hidden in this film. So he had it analyzed. Two years ago is quite a while back, all things considered.”

  “Let’s get rolling. Beckers has been alerted, and he’s waiting for us. Okay for you?”

  She looked at her watch. A little after eight.

  “Let me just run by the hospital. I want to see my daughter and tell her why I can’t fall asleep with her this time.”

  22

  Sharko wondered if he was really going to walk into the Cairo Bar, a crummy-looking place in a dank, unlit alley in the Tewfikieh district. Along the entire length of the alley rested carts, covered with simple sheets, and black cats scampered atop the chalk walls. Sharko walked down the few steps that led to the bar. You really, really had to enjoy strong sensations to venture into that place. A washed-out sign read COFFEE SHOP; the large windows were covered with sheets of newspaper layered over each other, preventing anyone from seeing what might be going on inside. The facade was as raunchy as the pathetic sex shops that sprouted in certain Paris neighborhoods.

  The cop checked one more time that he was carrying his police ID, even though he sincerely doubted it would be of much use here, and plunged into the lion’s den. He was immediately assailed by a heady odor of hashish, mixed with the smells of mint and mu‘assel from the hookahs. The light was muted; the powerful air conditioner rumbled. The thick wooden tables, old Vienna-style lamps, bronze art objects hanging on the wall, and large steins of beer made the place look like an English pub. A waitress, Caucasian
and scantily clad, threaded between the shapes, her tray loaded with glasses brimful of alcohol. Sharko had expected to find faces eaten away by syphilis, drugs, or drink. Instead, he was amazed at how attractive the clientele looked, mostly young and flamboyantly dressed.

  Just his luck: in the middle of one of the oldest Muslim cities in the world, he’d stumbled into a gay bar.

  All I needed!

  Honeyed gazes followed him as he walked firmly to the bar, which was manned by a fellow with white skin, blue eyes, and blond hair. Sharko glanced at his watch—the taxi had dropped him off ten minutes early—and nodded toward an amber-colored bottle labeled OLD BRENT.

  “Whiskey, please.”

  The bartender looked him over a bit too insistently before serving him his drink. Sharko was immediately approached on the right. Here come the come-ons! The guy was in his twenties, swarthy complexion, draftee’s haircut. Around his neck he had tied a scarf tucked into a bright shirt. He whispered into Sharko’s ear:

  “Koudiana or barghal, ‘please’?”

  “Nothing at all. And fuck off, ‘please.’ ”

  The cop snatched up his glass—they served doses that could kill a horse here—and went off to sit in a corner. He looked over the customers, noted the behavior of the rich in their designer suits and imported shoes, on the make, and of the poor, much more effeminate, dazzlingly beautiful in their modest clothes. Sex and prostitution must have been, here as elsewhere, a means of wresting yourself from poverty, for the space of a night and a few exchanged bills. People greeted each other Egyptian style, four pecks on the cheek and taps on the back; they weren’t yet kissing on the mouth, but the intent was clear. Sharko was bringing his glass to his lips with a sigh when a voice reached him from behind:

  “I wouldn’t drink that if I were you. They say a young painter went blind here after drinking that whiskey. The boss, the Englishman, makes his own liquor to double his profits. It’s common practice in the old cafés of Cairo.”

  Atef Abd el-Aal sat down opposite him. He clapped his hands and indicated “two” to the waitress. Sharko set down his whiskey with a grimace, without having touched it.

  “Your French is damn good.”

  “I’ve long frequented a friend of your country. And I work with a lot of your compatriots living in Alexandria. The French make excellent business partners.”

  He leaned over the table. He had lined his eyes with khol and combed his fine hair back. His pupils were subtly congested by the effects of hashish, probably taken before coming to the bar.

  “No one followed you?”

  “No.”

  “This is the only place we can be left alone. The police never come down here; certain people around us are powerful businessmen who control the district. Now that the police know we saw each other on the terrace, I’ll be under surveillance. I traveled by rooftop after leaving my house.”

  “Why should they put you under surveillance? And why keep an eye on me?”

  “To keep you from sticking your nose where you shouldn’t. Give me back the note I wrote you on the terrace. I don’t want to leave any trace of our meeting in this establishment.”

  Sharko complied and lifted his chin toward the faces buried in the shadows.

  “And what about all these people around us? They’ve seen us together.”

  “Here, we’re outside the law and social regulations. We know each other by female names; we have our own codes and our own language. The only goal of our meetings is wasla, the practice of homosexuality between koudiana, the submissives, and barghal, the dominants. We’ll always deny having seen one of our own here, no matter what. We have rules as well.”

  Sharko felt as if he were diving into the unsuspected and secret entrails of the city, to the rhythm of the night.

  “Explain to me more precisely why you came to Egypt,” said Atef.

  Sharko retraced the story in broad strokes, without giving away the confidential aspects of the case. He spoke without getting too detailed about the bodies discovered in France, the similarities in modus operandi with the young Egyptian victims, the telegram his brother had sent. Atef had the somber expression of a djinn. His eyes were veiled.

  “Do you really think these two episodes are related, given how far apart they are in time and place? What proof do you have?”

  “I can’t tell you that. But I have the feeling they’re hiding things from me, that documents are missing from the file. My hands and feet are tied.”

  “When are you going back?”

  “Tomorrow evening. But I promise you that if I have to, I’ll come back as a tourist. I’ll find the families of those poor girls and interview them.”

  “You’re a persistent one. Why should the fate of some miserable Egyptians who died so long ago interest you?”

  “Because I’m a cop. Because the passage of time shouldn’t make a crime any less hateful.”

  “An avenger’s speech.”

  “I’m just a father and a husband. And I like seeing things through to the bitter end.”

  The waitress brought two imported beers and warm mezes. Atef invited Sharko to help himself and spoke in a low voice.

  “Your hands and feet are tied because the entire Egyptian police system is corrupt. They fill their ranks with the poor and the ignorant, most of whom come from the country or Upper Egypt so that they won’t oppose the system. They pay them barely enough to survive on so that they’ll be forced to become corrupt themselves. They provide false papers for money, shake down taxi drivers and restaurant owners, threaten to have their licenses revoked. From Cairo to Aswan, police brutality is known far and wide. Just a few years ago, they were still arresting us for homosexuality—and believe me, being in those prisons was no joke. With less than thirty pounds a month to live on, thirty of your euros, people like that become the system. Half the police in this country have no idea what they’re doing it for. They’re told to repress, so they repress. But my brother wasn’t of that stripe. He had the values of men from Port Said. Pride. And respect.”

  Atef took out a photo from his wallet and handed it to Sharko. It showed an upright man, young, solid in his uniform. He shone with the savage beauty of the desert dwellers.

  “Mahmoud always dreamed of being a policeman. Before he was accepted, he had joined the youth center in Abdin to do bodybuilding; he wanted to be up to the level of the gymnastic tests at the police academy. He got ninety percent on his final exams. He was brilliant. He got by without money and without bribes. He was never an extremist; he had nothing to do with that gangrene. That was all a frame-up to make him disappear.”

  Sharko delicately set the photo on the table.

  “A frame-up by the police, you mean?”

  “Yes. By that son of a whore Noureddine.”

  “Why?”

  “I could never find out why. Until today, when I finally learned from you that it was all related to that investigation. Those girls who were viciously murdered…”

  Atef stared vacantly at his beer bottle. Made up that way, he gave off a wholly feminine sensuality.

  “Mahmoud wouldn’t let the case go. He always brought back his files, photos, and personal notes to the apartment. He told me the case had quickly been classified, and that his superiors had assigned him to another investigation. Here, spending your time on the murder of poor people doesn’t bring in much money, you understand?”

  “I think I’m beginning to.”

  “But Mahmoud kept right on with it, quietly. When the police came to search his place after his charred body was discovered, they took everything. And now, you tell me those documents no longer exist. Someone had an interest in making them disappear.”

  At the slightest noise, Atef looked around. The smoke emitted by the chichas blurred the faces, darkened the risqué gestures. Some men exited. In this place, one arrived alone but left in twos, for a busy night.

  Sharko took a swallow of beer. The atmosphere was like the situation: tense.

>   “And your brother hadn’t told you anything? Details? Any points in common among the murdered girls?”

  The Arab shook his head.

  “It goes back a long time, Inspector. And when you talk about this case in hints and whispers, you’re not really helping me.”

  “In that case, let me refresh your memory.”

  Sharko spread the victims’ photos on the table. This time, he recounted exactly what Nahed had translated for him in the un-air-conditioned office at the police station. The discovery of the bodies, the precise indications of the autopsy report. Atef listened carefully, touching neither his drink nor the mezes.

  “Ezbet el-Nakhl, where the trash collectors live…” he repeated. “Now that you say it, yes, I do believe my brother went there for his investigation. Then Shubra…Shubra…the cement factories. It all vaguely rings a bell.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again, picked up a photo, and stared at it attentively.

  “I believe my brother was convinced that there did exist a link among these girls. The crimes were too close together in time, too similar for the killer to have acted randomly. The murderer must have had a plan, a path he was following.”

  Sharko’s throat grew tighter by the minute. Mahmoud had sensed the killer, and he’d acted in all the right ways, starting from the principle that a killer rarely struck by chance. A true European-style detective—no doubt the only one in this vast city.

  “What kind of plan?”

  “I don’t know. My brother didn’t tell me a whole lot, because…I didn’t like what he was doing. But I do know who he might have talked to more openly.”

  “Who?”

  “My uncle. The one who got us out of poverty, so long ago. The two of them were very close and spoke about all sorts of things.”

  Behind them, bottles of alcohol circulated, the atmosphere began to churn. Hands moved closer, fingers caressed wrists in a sign of desire. Sharko leaned over the table.