Meeting in Paris

Part Twenty-Five

In the office of investigation officer Wael Al-Bahtimi, Samir Khairat sits in the chair opposite Wael Al-Bahtimi.

Wael Al-Bahtimi: He looks at Samir Khairat and welcomes him, then asks him questions: Your name, age, and job?

Samir Khairat: My name is Samir Khairat Yaqoub, age 43 years, job: Deputy CEO of Lovely Export and Import Company.

Wael Al-Bahtimi: Were you not the CEO of the company before?

Samir Khairat: Yes, I was an executive director before that, and that was during the illness of the late Rafiq, Mr. Youssef’s father, who is now chairman of the board of directors, and Mr. Ashraf became the executive director, and I am his deputy.

Wael Al-Bahtimi: What is the story of the comprehensive report that Mr. Yousef Rafiq asked you to prepare for him?

Samir Khairat: When Mr. Youssef Rafiq assumed the presidency of the Board of Directors, he asked to prepare a comprehensive report on the operations that took place in his father’s absence from the company.

Wael Al-Bahtimi: How long was the late Rafiq’s absence from the company?

Samir Khairat: The period was two and a half years.

Wael Al-Bahtimi: What was Madam Khadija’s job in the company?

Samir Khairat: Madam Khadija was the secretary in Mr. Rafiq’s office.

Wael Al-Bahtimi: Did Madam Khadija have the right to see the operations that were taking place in the company?

Samir Khairat: When Mr. Rafiq was in the company, he used to make her look at the reports regarding the operations that were taking place in the company, and since Mr. Rafiq traveled a lot to complete deals, Madam Khadija was acting on behalf of managing the company’s business, but after the last Mr. Rafiq’s illness, she fell ill for about six months.

Madam Khadija also suffered from chronic diseases and no longer left her home. Here, Mr. Rafiq assigned me to manage the company, and that was for two years.

Wael Al-Bahtimi: So how do you explain the storming of Madam Khadija’s house and the finding of some report papers?

Samir Khairat: Your Excellency, I have no knowledge of that, because this issue does not affect me from near or far. Mr. Youssef was asked to prepare the report, and I prepared it and delivered it to him, and here I have no business with anything else.

Wael Al-Bahtimi: He looked at Samir Khairat and then said to him, “Thank you for providing us with this information, and if we need anything else from you, we will inform you.

Samir Khairat then left, heading to Salma and Reham’s apartment.

Wael Al-Bahtimi: After Samir Khairat left, his sense of security became certain that there was a connection between Samir Khairat and the break-in that occurred at Madam Khadija’s house. Therefore,

Wael Al-Bahtimi ordered one of the informants to closely monitor Samir Khairat and provide him with reports first.

Nadia and Magda were sitting together one day before returning to Cairo. Nadia was reading some books on French literature, and the name of Albert Camus came before her on the list of the best French writers of the twentieth century.

And here I found Nadia thinking again and seriously, whether the person she met was really Albert Camus, or someone who looked exactly like him. Even this similarity does not make anyone doubt him, because the book in Nadia’s hand mentioned the death of Albert Camus in 1960, that is, forty years ago, and here Magda became certain.