2

Omid had always wondered why Kermani was so important to the gentlemen up there.

Kermani was nothing more than an intellectual dissident, someone who dealt exclusively with Iranian culture and history and who taught as a guest lecturer at the Faculty of Persian Literature in Isfahan. He knew many poems of the old Persian writers and he gave anecdotes on every political event or on a politician's not exactly clever statement. Sometimes he was cynical, sometimes humorous.

He knew the psyche of his fellow countrymen. If he hadn't been systematically harassed, he wouldn't have screamed and protested for help.

Years before the Islamic Revolution, he wrote a long poem in which he declared his belief in a world without a god:

"I am godless, yes, I say it out loud, I do not recognize this God,

Worshipping him gives me no honor,

He is prone to rage, he seduces and deceives his creatures with houris in paradise and threatens torture in his hell,

I do not worship this beast,

I am not afraid and fear no punishment."

He was later to focus on religious topics.

But I would never have classified him asdangerous, Omid said to himself.

Now he's dead, and I'm probably going to be wiped out too. Why then, asks Omid, who is now standing in the dark alley. His pursuer is on his mind at any moment.

***

The following day it was already known that the deceased was none other than the well-known dissident and writer Saied Kermani, who had been reported missing by his family three days earlier.

His death could not have been natural, the liberal newspapers, which reported the death of the sixty-two-year-old Kermani on the front page, were unanimous in their opinion. For them, the bottle of alcohol next to the dead man was proof that the murderer or murderers wanted to accuse Kermani of drinking alcohol and thus try to defame him.

Omid knew the deceased very well. He had had long and in-depth conversations with him. No one else was more familiar with the Kermani case than Omid Hadian. That is why his superiors had tasked him with investigating the case.

He knew that the secret service, known as the Ministry of Information, had taken over the investigation on the express orders of the President of the Islamic Republic and that the police had been released from investigating. The president felt compelled by public pressure to show a willingness to investigate. The president personally appreciated Kermani's literary work and had even worried about his life.

Kermani's death made waves, both at home and abroad. Major international media also reported on the writer's mysterious death. The president used the pressure of public opinion as an excuse to intervene in the case. However, he did not want to offer