Selected Detective
HANNAH SCHLEGEL FILE

Upon his return from Efdu, Mahfuz had spoken to Chief Hasani and explained all the details of the situation. Surprisingly he was able to take it well. Better than Khalifa thought, of course. There were several vague murmurs when he first came to his study, and the usual hasani gaze, except for the screams and pounding of the fist on the table that Khalifa had anticipated throughout his return trip failed to materialize. On the contrary, Chief looked very different from usual.

His attitude softened towards all things, accepting the reopening of the case almost without rejection, as if there was no more energy or willingness to endure it. Khalifa even thought he caught a vague relief bias in his eyes, like a man who could finally lower a burden that from the beginning was never desired.

“Let's solve this problem,” Hasani said, staring out her study window. Her fake hair hangs on her head like chocolate candy.

“You handled the case yourself. I don't have any more staff for this. I can't assign anyone else. You understand?”

“Ya, Sir.”

“I moved Sariya to handle another case. Until you finish this case, he'll handle the job in another part.”

“Ya, Sir.”

“And I don't want you talking to a lot of other people in this office. Keep this to yourself. If anyone asks, just tell them that new evidence has been found and you're studying it. Don't talk too detailed about this.”

“Ya, Sir.”

There was a loud bang as the horse-drawn caleche rattled past along the road below, his coachman shouting at the tourists, asking them to hurry up. Hasani stared down for a while, then turn around and go back to his desk.

“So, what are you going to do?” tanyakanya.

“Try to find and get more about Jansen's background, I guess. Let's see if I can reveal a lot of things to associate him with Schlegel. Some kind of motive to kill the woman. Whatever we have right now depends heavily on the condition.”

Hasani nodded, opened his desk drawer, took the key to Jansen's house and threw it at Khalifa.

“You will need this thing.” Khalifa caught the key and kept it in a jacket pocket.

“I will contact Israelis for some things,” he said.

“We see who knows they have something about this woman.” Hasani grinned but said nothing. He caught Khalifa's gaze for a while. Then, slowly, distanced himself from the table and stood up again. Hasani walked towards the filing cabinet in the corner of the room, crouched down and unlocked the bottom drawer, taking out a thin red archive. He returned to his desk and gave the archives to Khalifa. On the front page it says “2345/1—Schlegel, hannah. march 10,1990”.

“I suspect all the clues and information are frozen now, but we never know.”

Khalifa looked at the file.

“Mahfuz says you burned this file.” Hasani grumbling. “You're not the only person around this who still has a word of heart, know.” Again he returned Khalifa's eyes. Then with a movement of his hand, he sent Khalifa away.

“And I want to be given the last report on a regular basis!”

He shouted at Khalifa's back. “Yang means routine report.”