Brother Kemal

Chapter 15

I spent the following week waiting. For the police, for Hakim’s people, for anyone who put two and two together and thought: if Abakay found himself in jail because of a false statement made by Kayankaya, then presumably he wanted revenge, and presumably Kayankaya would defend himself — so let’s ask him where he was on Thursday evening. But obviously no one wanted to put two and two together. The police were glad that arresting Abakay did not, in retrospect, seem such an unfounded notion — the newspapers and the local TV soon agreed that he had died in the course of a drug deal. And Hakim was rid of a troublesome accomplice and blackmailer — family or not.

In the end, I suppose too many people profited by Abakay’s death for there to be any serious investigations. And where the police were concerned, that also seemed to close the Rönnthaler case for the time being. By now, at police headquarters, they were probably laying the blame on Abakay after all. If only for a better rate of cases solved.

On Saturday several newspapers printed the press release from Maier Verlag, along with comments and leading articles: Malik Rashid, author of the novel Journey to the End of Days, has been released unharmed after his five-day abduction by a group calling itself the Ten Plagues. The group justified its actions by charging that Rashid’s novel insulted people of the Muslim faith. The Ten Plagues wanted to send out a signal. The author’s abduction ended, without bloodshed, on Thursday evening.

One comment pointed out: However, there is food for thought in the name of the group. Is it just a coincidental prank, or was there a clever mind behind it? Are we dealing with a Muslim combat group whose members read the works of Dr. Breitel? That would explain why the abduction went comparatively smoothly: it involved intellectual young men, devout Muslims, probably students, who wanted to distinguish themselves from the image of the primitive bin Laden disciples who murder indiscriminately. Are we facing a cross between guerrilla warfare for fun and serious discourse?

And so on. The Ten Plagues were initially featured in the news sections of the papers, then the comments, and almost all the papers published interviews with Rashid.

On Monday Slibulsky dropped in and brought me the money from Valerie de Chavannes.

‘Wow, what a lady!’

‘Hmm-hmm.’

‘I’m to tell you that she very much wants to see you.’

‘Is her husband back?’

‘No idea. Kind of a big black man?’

‘Big, I don’t know.’

‘He passed me in the hall, but we weren’t introduced.’

‘Thanks, Slibulsky.’

‘Tell me’, he said, looking at me curiously, ‘is there something going on between you two?’

‘Am I crazy?’

‘I should think she could drive a man crazy.’

On Tuesday Octavian called.

‘You’ve probably heard or read that your friend Abakay was shot shortly after his release from custody.’

‘Saw it on Hessen Nightly.’

‘Ah — I didn’t know it was on Hessen Nightly …’

‘Would you have wanted to see it too?’

He sighed. ‘Listen: there was very probably a fight between Abakay and his killer before the fatal shots were fired. There was vomit all over the dead man, and it wasn’t Abakay’s.’

‘Oh? How interesting.’

‘Well, my colleagues are more or less agreed that Abakay got what was coming to him on account of quarrels of some kind on the drugs scene, and there’s a lot to suggest that they’re right. But out of pure curiosity I asked for a list of the components of the vomit.’

‘Oh yes?’ I began to sweat slightly.

‘And then I called the wine bar and asked what was the dish of the day last Thursday. It was goat ragout with white beans.’

I said nothing. There wasn’t anything to say.

‘Well, I just wanted to advise you not to attract any attention in the city for a while. Best if my colleagues forget you exist.’

There was a pause. It cost me an effort, but I said, ‘Thanks, Octavian.’

When we had hung up, I went into the kitchen and drank a schnapps. On Friday I went to see Edgar Hasselbaink.