Empire of Lies

17

The CCTV footage from the riverbank had allowed the analyst at the surveillance center to track the target couple from where they’d been filmed shouting and pointing at something all the way back along their walk upriver to where they’d parked their car. A few taps of a keyboard were all it took to tie an address to its license plate. Which was why Kamal and Taymoor were presently standing outside the service entrance to a restaurant and talking to its sweaty chef.

“The quays? Yes, I was there yesterday morning,” the man was saying a bit too casually. “My wife and I usually take a walk before work, before it gets too hot. Why?”

“You didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary on your walk?” Kamal asked.

He and Taymoor could have handed it to the Zaptiye cops to look into, but they didn’t. Kamal had decided he could use the distraction.

He wasn’t having one of his best days. The morning altercation with Nisreen had pretty much ruined it from the start. Some data logs from an Arabian bank that he’d hoped would give them an actionable money trail linking one of their executives to a mosque on their watch list turned out to be a dud. He still hadn’t heard from the two Z Directorate agents he’d sought out that morning, which was grating on him. Especially now, the day after Friday’s executions, when his name should have instilled enough respect in them to spur them to get in touch promptly. And yet silence. And the case of the body in the river wasn’t proving to be the distraction he needed right now.

The man was clearly jittery. Nowadays, no one liked talking to the police, secret or otherwise. He feigned a disinterested shrug and said, “Not really. Why?”

Kamal rolled his eyes and held out his phone to him. It showed the clip of the man and his wife shouting and pointing.

The man visibly stiffened. “I… it’s just—”

“You should have reported it,” Kamal pressed. “You do know it’s also a crime to fail to report a crime.”

“Was that really your wife with you? Should we confirm it with her?” Taymoor asked.

“Of course, it was my wife. Please”—the man’s voice cracked as he nodded—“I know, we should have called someone. But…” His words trailed off. He didn’t need to explain it. Calling in a crime could get you sucked into a dangerous swamp of inquiries. The presumption of innocence had been badly undermined since Abdülhamid had assumed power.

“So what did you see?” Kamal asked.

He hesitated, then said, “There was a man there, on the opposite quay. He was bent down over another guy who wasn’t moving—I think he was dead. He was undressing him and putting on his clothes.” He was no longer hiding the confusion and fear he was feeling. “The guy was naked.”

Kamal looked a question at Taymoor.

“At first, we were confused and just shocked, really. It was so… weird. Then when he started pulling him to the edge of the quay, we understood what was about to happen. That’s when my wife screamed, and he saw us.”

“Then what happened?”

“He looked across the water at us. Scared the hell out of us, too. But he didn’t panic. He just dumped him in the water and ran.”

Kamal and Taymoor were intrigued. And that was before the man added, “Oh, and one other thing. This guy? He had markings all over his body.”

“Markings?” Kamal asked.

“Yes. Like… tattoos. All over his chest.”

This was turning into more than a mere distraction.

“We definitely need to track down this guy,” Taymoor said as they walked back to the car. “If only to get a look at those tattoos.”

Kamal barely nodded. Of course, he had questions. Why was the man killed? For his clothes? What else was the killer after? And what happened to his own clothes? Did he throw them into the river? The chef hadn’t seen him do that. Then there were the tattoos. Still, his mind was elsewhere.

He was feeling antsy and checked his watch. “I need to make a quick call,” he told Taymoor before stepping away from him.

He called the Z Directorate switchboard and asked to be put through to one of the agents handling the playwright’s case. The call went directly to voice mail. He left a blunt message virtually ordering the guy to return his call.

His face was locked with anger. Taymoor saw it.

“Whoa, you need to get a grip, brother.” Taymoor eyed him curiously. “What’s going on?”

Kamal stared away and didn’t reply at first. Then he said, “I’ve got something I need to look into. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Taymoor started to say something. Kamal paused for a second, but Taymoor seemingly decided against it and shook it away. “It’s nothing. Allah go with you, brother.”

Kamal was happy to leave it at that and walked off.