‘I was taking a walk on the beach – as I do almost every afternoon.’
‘Did anyone see you take that walk?’
‘No, I was on my own, as always.’
‘So you weren’t with anybody then?’
‘I just told you I was on my own.’
‘How do I have proof of that?’
‘What you have proof of is an incident in our room when my husband was here and I was out walking the beach. Look at the state of this place. My husband’s been robbed and clearly injured.’
‘But where is your husband now if he was so injured? If it was a robbery, why didn’t they take either of your laptops?’ he asked, pointing to the pair of laptops side by side on the desk. ‘And there is that very expensive Canon camera by the bed.’
The uniformed cop now picked up a mug from the desk, looked inside and said something to Moufad. When it was handed to him the inspector pulled out a small wad of dirhams.
‘A thief would definitely have taken all this cash that you unwisely left out.’
Picard seemed offended by this remark.
‘In the twenty-three years I have run Les Deux Chameaux,’ he said, ‘we have never once had a robbery.’
‘There’s always a first time,’ I said. Picard and Moufad exchanged a knowing glance.
‘Even if your husband had surprised the thieves,’ Moufad said, ‘even if they had slammed his head against the wall, they would have left with the cash and the electronic goods. They would have grabbed what was valuable and in plain sight – as all these items were. So the fact that the laptops, the camera, the cash were left behind . . . a little strange for thieves. Then there is the matter of the whereabouts of your husband. Why would thieves smash his head against a wall and then drag him away with them, while leaving all the valuable booty behind? It simply doesn’t make sense.’
‘But surely someone saw my husband leave the hotel.’
‘One of the young cleaners – Mira – heard the commotion in the room,’ Picard said. ‘She came downstairs to the reception and raised the alarm. Ahmed then heard more screaming, raced upstairs, found the room in its current state of disorder, and found me. We searched the hotel. No sign of your husband.’
‘Might he have headed out while Ahmed was upstairs?’
‘That is a possibility,’ Moufad said. ‘Another possibility is that you and your husband had an altercation.’
‘We didn’t have an altercation.’
‘There was an angry exchange of notes, wasn’t there? I don’t read English – but Monsieur Picard, when he called us, translated them for me.’
Inspector Moufad reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small black vinyl notebook. He thumbed through it until he found the page he wanted.
‘One note – I presume it was yours – reads: “You have killed everything and I hate you. You don’t deserve to live.” You did write this, yes?’
I hung my head, then quietly said: ‘I wrote that.’
‘And his reply: “You’re right. I should die.” If, that is, he actually wrote that.’
‘Who else could have done that?’ I asked, sounding angry now.
‘Someone who might have wanted to harm him.’
‘Let me get this straight, Inspector. Are you actually thinking that I had an altercation with my husband that saw me – a woman around half his physical size – slam his head against the wall, smuggle his unconscious body out when nobody was looking, but before doing that, write a note in his handwriting, indicating that he was planning to kill himself?’
The inspector thought this one through for a few moments, then said:
‘Who’s to say that you haven’t hidden the body somewhere in the hotel?’
‘But I wasn’t here.’
‘Nobody saw you leave for your alleged beach walk.’
‘I did no harm whatsoever to my husband,’ I said, the anger again flashing. ‘After he headed out to Chez Fouad I didn’t see him again.’
‘But you nonetheless left all these documents behind for him to discover, along with a note wishing him dead. Monsieur Picard translated all the medical transcripts for me. They too make interesting reading. A record of your husband having undergone a vasectomy.’
Silence. I could see the three men quietly relishing my immense discomfort at discovering that they knew everything about this grubby business. I motioned to a chair, indicating that I would like to sit down. Moufad gave me his OK. I positioned myself in the armchair, trying to figure a way out of this, eventually deciding the only way forward was to tell the truth.
‘I am an accountant back in the States. My firm also does my husband’s accounts. One of my associates contacted me today with the information you discovered on the bed. Information that my husband, having agreed with me that we would try for a child – and knowing full well that, with my fortieth birthday only weeks away, I no longer had time on my side – had gone and got himself . . . sterilised. As you can imagine the discovery of this . . . betrayal . . . well, it was shattering. My husband was out at Chez Fouad when these documents arrived. I printed them up and left them on our bed with an angry note in an attempt to prick his conscience. Then I left for my beach walk – and returned to find all this.’
Silence. A quick glance between the inspector and Picard. The inspector then approached me.
‘As sympathetic as I am to what has befallen you, madame, you have left out a key part of your story – the fact that, earlier this afternoon, you booked a flight back to the States tomorrow at twelve noon from Casablanca.’
I felt myself tense.
‘You work fast, monsieur.’
‘My job,’ he said.
‘But the decision to fly back tomorrow . . . that was my determination to leave him there and then. In the wake of what I had discovered, it was over.’
‘And you left him a note saying he should die for what he did.’
‘That was anger. Pure rage. I certainly wouldn’t want any harm to come to my husband.’
‘Even though there is written evidence that you wanted him dead. Perhaps with good reason – as he did something so cunning, so calculated, so treacherous.’
Moufad had me locked in his line of vision – I was beginning to feel my hands go clammy and beads of sweat were cascading down my face. As far as he was concerned I was the person of interest in this case.
‘Monsieur,’ I said, trying to calm myself, ‘why would I leave a note like that if I was planning to do my husband harm? Why would he leave me his reply if he didn’t feel horrendous about being caught out in this terrible lie?’
A little shrug from the inspector.
‘Perhaps you wrote his note yourself.’
I stood up and walked over to the desk where Paul kept the large black hardcover Moleskine notebook that was his journal – and which I never touched, as I believe that privacy is sacrosanct. The uniformed officer tried to stop me, but the inspector said something that made him back off. I opened the journal and found page after page of Paul’s spindly handwriting. Followed by pages of sketches, doodles. And several bulky items in the inside pocket on the back cover. I came over and placed a page of his journal next to the note he had left on the bed. Even if you weren’t a trained forensic graphologist it was blindingly obvious that the writing belonged to the same person. Moufad, the uniformed officer and Picard all took turns staring down at the comparative scrawls. The inspector pursed his lips.
‘And who’s to say this isn’t your journal?’ he asked.
I stormed back over to the desk and picked up my own diary, flinging it down on the bed next to the enraged note that had landed me in such deep trouble.
‘This is my journal – and, as you will note, the handwriting matches my own.’
Another shrug.
‘I will need to take all this evidence with me, along with your passport.’
‘Are you charging me with a crime?’
‘Not yet. But there is clear evidence he
re that—’
‘What?’ I said, now emboldened and angry. ‘The way I see it, my husband saw that I had found out about his lie and that I was planning to leave him, and went berserk. Tearing up his drawings, slamming his head against the wall. We have to find him. Now.’
My delivery of this statement was so vehement that it rendered Moufad and Picard wide-eyed. Moufad finally replied:
‘I am still taking the journals, the documents, the notes and your passport as—’
‘You will do no such thing,’ I said, ‘unless you want to formally charge me with my husband’s disappearance . . . if, that is, he has disappeared.’
‘Madame, you do not know the law here.’
‘I know that the United States has an embassy in Rabat and a consulate in Casablanca. If you try to seize my passport or any of my possessions – and that includes my husband’s effects – I will make a phone call. You will then have to deal with the consequences.’
Just to prove that I meant business I started to reach for my journal. The uniformed officer instinctively reached out and grabbed me roughly by the arm. I broke away and screamed at him:
‘Comment osez-vous? Je connais mes droits!’
The officer backed off immediately.
‘There is no need for drama, madame,’ said Moufad.
‘Yes, there is. My husband is in distress, perhaps terribly injured. And probably wandering around Essaouira, bleeding and disorientated. We are wasting precious time here. I suggest that we all go to Chez Fouad to see if he’s gone back there, or if Fouad has got him to a doctor’s.’
Silence. I could see that the inspector was calculating his next move.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘We will go to Chez Fouad. But everything remains here.’
‘No way. Because we’ll get back from Fouad’s and find that your men have cleared the place out.’
‘You will have my word, madame.’
‘With respect . . . that’s not enough, monsieur.’
Another silence. Then an idea dropped into my head.
‘I will, however, allow you to photograph everything – just as it is now. Before we leave. But the documents, the notebooks, remain with me.’
Moufad bit on his lower lip, not completely disliking this idea . . . but not at all pleased with the way I was setting the agenda.
‘I will agree to that – on two conditions. The suite is sealed after we photograph it. I am certain Monsieur Picard can find you another room for the night. And I will assign one of my men to watch guard over you . . .’
‘That is not at all necessary.’
‘Yes, madame, it is. Though you have not been charged with any crime so far there is the fact that some sort of potentially criminal activity took place in this room. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps your husband has indeed attempted to harm himself, burdened by guilt and the realisation that he has lost you – that you are leaving him. Which, no doubt, must be something very hard to bear. But who’s to say he might not come back and try to harm you? We must rest assured that you are safe here tonight. Would you not agree?’
I felt myself about to flinch again.
‘I am certain that Paul will not do me any harm.’
‘But if he’s left blood on the walls from self-inflicted wounds, and has ripped up his precious artwork . . .’
I knew I didn’t have a retort to that so I said nothing. The inspector asked Picard if there was any access from the roof or a back door into the hotel. Picard informed him that only a cat could find a way from the roof into one of the rooms, and that the rear entrance was always padlocked from the inside.
‘There is no way for a guest to leave the hotel except by the front door.’
‘Then I will, with your permission, have one of my men stationed in front of the hotel all night to ensure that no harm comes to Madame . . .’
‘If I choose to go for a walk?’ I asked.
‘The officer will accompany you. By the way, I will be approaching a judge tomorrow morning to obtain a warrant to seize the evidence we’ve photographed, and to force you to turn your passport over to us until the investigation into your husband’s disappearance has been concluded.’
‘Then I will be contacting my embassy first thing tomorrow morning as well.’
‘That is your prerogative, madame.’
He turned to Picard.
‘With your permission I will have several of my men search your hotel to see if Madame’s husband might still be here, hidden away somewhere.’
Picard nodded his assent. But then I said:
‘Surely my husband could have gone out when someone wasn’t watching the front door?’
Now all eyes were on Ahmed. He looked uneasy at the attention.
‘I was at the desk all afternoon – and never saw Monsieur Paul leave,’ he said.
‘So he must still be here,’ the inspector noted.
‘But surely if Monsieur Ahmed had to pick up the phone, or deal with a guest, or answer a call to nature, my husband could have slipped by undetected.’
Again all eyes were on Ahmed. He just shrugged and said:
‘Of course the nature of my job means that I am not at the front desk one hundred per cent of the time.’
‘So he could easily have gone out,’ I said.
‘Someone would have seen him,’ Picard interjected. ‘We have a man out front most of the time too. Karim. He is our informal security person during the day – always outside, sweeping, tending to the plants, ensuring no one loiters near the entrance. We have another man there at night – as Madame knows, since he rescued her on her first night when she made the dangerous mistake of wandering off on her own.’
Trumped again. I could see the inspector, in the wake of this little tale, deciding: This woman is trouble.
Just to twist the knife deeper, Picard added:
‘I spoke to Karim after we heard the commotion in your room. He was out front all afternoon and never saw your husband go out.’
‘But I didn’t see Karim when I left for my walk,’ I said.
Picard narrowed me in his sights.
‘Yet he saw you leave – and he told me you had murder in your eyes.’
‘That’s not true.’ Though of course I knew that I had stormed off, looking frenzied. But that line about Karim seeing me . . .
‘Does it matter if he thought I looked angry?’ I said. ‘The fact that he saw me leave the hotel before my husband got back—’
‘He never saw your husband come back,’ Picard retorted. ‘Nor did he see him leave. Neither did Ahmed. Isn’t that right, Ahmed?’
Ahmed nodded his head several times. Who wants to bite the hand that pays him? Especially when the hand belongs to such a cold, calculating operator as Picard, who wants to keep the police on his side and will happily see me framed for this if it wins him credit. I’ve no doubt that, in a place like this, having the police in your corner is a serious necessity.
‘I will say this once more. My husband left the hotel around twelve-fifteen. I left around two p.m. I came back a half-hour later, then went and took a walk on the beach. In my absence something happened in our room which left blood on the wall and my husband . . .’
I felt myself welling up, but I held down the sob and managed to say:
‘He’s somewhere out there, injured, in desperate need of help. So can we please get out of here and over to Chez Fouad?’
The inspector studied his fingernails for several moments, then said:
‘We will leave for Chez Fouad when we have photographed everything in the room and when we have searched the hotel and are satisfied that your husband’s body hasn’t been secreted here. And no, you may not go to Fouad’s alone. I may not as yet be able to take your passport away from you, but I can have you escorted and followed everywhere in Essaouira. Which is exactly what I am planning to do.’
Eleven
IT TOOK THEM over two hours to search the hotel. Every room was opened – and several guests disturbed – as
the police, all led by Inspector Moufad, looked under every bed and in every bathtub and insisted on opening every wardrobe. All storage closets were inspected on each of the four floors. The meat locker and the big freezer in the kitchen. The extra-large garbage bins in the rear alley. The staff bedrooms in the basement.
On and on the inspection went, despite my entreaties to let me go to Fouad’s accompanied by an officer. The inspector was letting me know that, from this point on, we’d be playing by his rules. He insisted on sending for ‘the official police photographer’ to take detailed pictures of the two telltale notes, the two journals, the shredded drawings, the broken chest of drawers, the crimson splatter on the stonework. At one juncture the young cleaner, Mira, came in with a tray of mint tea for the policemen (but Ahmed, accompanying her, insisted on pouring it himself). I could tell immediately that Mira was finding the sight of the destroyed room more than a little unnerving. She was also looking at me with silent trepidation, as if she wanted to tell me something but couldn’t with all the officialdom around. I caught her eye and motioned that we could talk in the corridor but she shook her head and hurried off. When the inspector came back into the room I said:
‘We could have spent all this time searching for my husband. Instead we—’
‘Are you telling me how to run this investigation, madame?’
‘I just want to find Paul. I’m scared, monsieur. Scared for him.’
‘You will be pleased to hear that I’ve had two of my men scouring the beach. They had our four-by-four, so they were able to drive around ten kilometres down the sands. No sign of your husband . . . unless, of course, he decided to go into the water. Or was pushed.’
I could see the inspector again studying me, trying to fathom how I was dealing with that less-than-veiled accusation, or the thought that perhaps Paul threw himself into the Atlantic with his head haemorrhaging blood. Again I felt the anguish welling up. But I managed to push it away as I met his accusing stare straight on and said:
‘Vous êtes un homme très sympathique. Très classe.’
I could see him flinch. Just as I could also see him quickly recover and shoot back:
The Heat of Betrayal Page 10
