The Last Cut

Chapter 11

It was the last time-or so everyone present hoped-that they would have to meet, the last occasion, as McPhee, with a sense of history, pointed out, on which there would actually be a meeting of the Cut Committee.

‘When will they start filling in the canal?’ asked the Kadi. ‘Oh, not for some months yet,’ said the Minister. ‘We’re still not quite sure of the money.’

‘Surely some has been set aside?’ said Paul.

‘Yes, but there’s talk of raiding it. To pay for the new Manufiya Regulator, you know.’

‘Is there any chance of the whole thing being put off?’ asked the Kadi. ‘At least for another year? That would be very popular.’

‘I doubt it,’ said the Minister. ‘The contracts have been let.’ They had reviewed the arrangements for the day. It would start early. During the night the workmen would have been busy cutting away the dam until only the thickness of a foot was left. At sunrise the Kadi’s barge would appear and the Kadi would read a proclamation.

‘The usual turgid stuff, I’m afraid,’ said the Kadi.

Then a boat would be pushed through the remaining earth wall.

‘Not mine, I hope?’ said the Kadi anxiously.

‘No, a small one,’ said McPhee, ‘with an officer inside it.’

‘Stout fellow!’ murmured the Kadi, relieved.

‘Then the water will pour through and demolish “The Bride”.’

‘That will be all right, will it? I mean, it will be demolished?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘We wouldn’t want anything to go wrong. The Bride’s been a bit unfortunate this year.’

‘Look,’ said McPhee, ‘they’ve been doing this for nearly two thousand years.’

‘Just making sure.’

‘What about the gold?’ said McPhee.

‘Gold?’

‘They used to distribute purses of gold among the crowd.’

‘Well, they’re not going to this time!’ said Paul. ‘The treasury would have a fit.’

‘What about policing?’ asked Garvin.

‘All ready, sir,’ said McPhee. ‘I’ve got extra men out this time. In view of-well, you know.’

‘What about that?’ asked Paul. ‘Where have we got to over who is going to do the actual Cut?’

‘Still dangling. The Jews are still making up their minds about whether they’re prepared to do it but for no extra money. And the Muslim gravediggers are still hoping they’ll say no.’

‘Well, they’ll have to make up their minds tomorrow evening.’

‘That’s when we can expect trouble,’ said Owen.

‘We’ll be ready for them,’ promised McPhee, grim-faced, however.

Actually, I’ve got a suggestion,’ said Owen.

‘So long as it doesn’t cost money,’ said the Minister.

‘Well, it needn’t cost any extra money. It’s more a question of cost displacement.’

‘My God!’ said Paul. ‘He’s talking like an accountant! And I thought he was a friend of mine!’

‘It was your saying that they might raid the money to pay for the regulator that gave me the idea,’ said Owen, turning to the Minister.

‘Look,’ said the Minister, ‘one raid is enough!’

‘No, no. That wasn’t the idea. The thing is, the Canal is going to have to be filled in. And they’re going to have to pay people to do that. Well, why shouldn’t we promise that work to the Jews and the gravediggers? On condition that they don’t cause trouble tomorrow? The work will have to be done by someone, won’t it?’

‘I quite like this idea,’ said Paul.

‘It would get us off the hook,’ said Garvin.

‘Wouldn’t it be merely postponing trouble?’ asked the Kadi. ‘I mean, they’re still going to find it difficult to work together.’

‘They wouldn’t need to work together,’ said Owen. ‘The Jews could start at one end, the Muslim gravediggers from the other.’

‘I think this is a brilliant idea!’ cried the Kadi. ‘We could make it a race!’

‘First to get there gets a bonus, you mean?’ asked the Minister.

‘I was thinking of honour and personal satisfaction,’ said the Kadi reprovingly.

‘I was thinking that if they got to the middle at different times, they need never actually meet,’ said Owen. ‘And then there would be no trouble.’

‘You know,’ said Paul, ‘this suggestion has considerable merit.’

‘It is a suggestion,’ said the Kadi, admiring, ‘worthy of the Mamur Zapt.’

‘Right, then,’ said Paul briskly. ‘That settled? Anything else?’

‘Well, there’s the Lizard Man,’ said the Kadi.

‘Yes,’ said the Minister. ‘There’s the Lizard Man.’

‘Lizard Man?’ said Paul.

Active around “The Bride of the Nile”, apparently.’

‘I’ve got a guard on,’ said McPhee.

‘Against the Lizard Man?’ said Paul.

‘I hope there’s going to be no diversion of resources away from the dams,’ said the Minister. ‘Guards are needed there, too, you know.’

‘I thought the chap was in prison?’

‘No, no. Against the Lizard Man.’

‘Just a minute,’ said Paul, pulling himself together; ‘we’ve got guards everywhere against the Lizard Man?’

‘At the Cut, certainly.’

‘Exacdy why-would you tell me exacdy why-it has been found necessary to have guards against-against a-a Lizard Man?’

‘There have been rumours that he’s taking an interest in the Cut this year.’

‘It’s not the Cut I’m bothered about,’ said the Minister. ‘It’s the dams. We’ve got a lot of money tied up there, you know. If another went-’

‘I think the Cut is the more immediate danger,’ said the Kadi. ‘What makes you think a threat is posed to-to either the Cut or the dams by-by-by a Lizard Man?’

‘There have been incidents,’ said the Kadi.

‘Have there?’ Paul was looking at Owen.

‘Sort of.’

‘He’s blown one up,’ said the Minister. ‘He could blow up another.’

‘But I thought-?’

‘I doubt if the incidents themselves amount to anything,’ said Owen. ‘The point is, though, that the public thinks they do.’

‘I see. And you hope that when it sees a guard, it will feel reassured?’

‘I hope so. Actually,’ said Owen, ‘it’s a bit more complicated than that. As I say, I don’t think the incidents themselves amount to anything, but it’s what, in a way, they express that is important.’

‘And what is that?’

‘Anti-Government feeling,’ said the Kadi.

‘Anti-British feeling,’ the Minister corrected him hurriedly. ‘You think the Lizard Man is a Nationalist?’ asked Paul. ‘Well, no,’ admitted the Minister. ‘It’s just that there’s a lot of popular unrest at the moment over the ending of the Cut and they blame-’

‘There’s a lot of feeling, too, about the dams,’ said the Kadi.

‘Well,’ said Paul, beginning to gather up his papers, ‘I don’t know that there’s a lot this Committee can do about either of those. As for the Lizard Man,’-he took care not to meet Owen’s eye-‘that, I feel, is the sort of thing that is best left to the Mamur Zapt.’

When Owen got back to the Bab-el-Khalk he found his orderly, Yussef, fussing around in his office, changing, among other things, the water in the earthenware pitcher which, as in all Cairo offices, stood in the latticed window. The theory was that the breeze would cool it but that, of course, worked only when there was a breeze. Today there wasn’t and the water was on the hot side of lukewarm. It had, moreover, a fly in it, which Yussef dispatched, with the water, out of the window. Then he refilled the pitcher from the big brass-beaked jug that he was carrying.

‘It’s the best, Effendi,’ he said reassuringly to Owen. ‘Straight from the river.’

‘Oh, good.’ Owen took a sip.

He put the glass down.

‘Straight from the river, you say?’

He had only just begun to think about such things.

‘It’s all right, Effendi,’ said Yussef anxiously. ‘It’s not green.’

‘Green’ water was the first of the year’s ‘new’ water, the beginnings of the new flood, so-called because of the greenish tinge given it by either the vegetable matter of the Sudd or the algae of the Sobat (opinion was divided). Opinion was divided again over the properties of the ‘green’ water. Did it induce love-sick-ness? Or did it merely cause diarrhoea?

Green or not, the water was the only water in town, or, at least, in the Bab-el-Khalk and Owen had been happily drinking it for the past two or three years. Now, however, he sipped it meditatively.

‘Effendi,’ said Yussef, eager, possibly, to divert him, ‘there is a man to see you.’

‘There is?’ Owen put the glass down. ‘How long has he been waiting?’ he demanded.

Yussef waved the question aside.

‘He is but a fellah, Effendi,’ said Yussef dismissively. Yussef had been but a fellah too but now that he had risen to the dizzy heights of orderly he was inclined to look down upon his country cousins.

‘Show him in!’

Suleiman’s father came diffidently into the room.

‘Effendi-’

‘Mr Hannam!’

And to show Yussef what ought to be what, Owen ordered coffee.

‘Effendi, I apologize for disturbing you when you must be so busy but Labiba Latifa told me-’

‘Labiba Latifa? You’ve met her?’

‘Yes, and she told me that you were concerned about- Effendi, I have tried to persuade him, I have even used a father’s authority, although that doesn’t seem to go far these days-’

‘What about?’

‘My son. You asked Labiba-’

‘Yes, indeed. I advised her to use her influence to get the boy out of the Gamaliya for a time. And you have been adding your efforts?’

‘Well, yes, Effendi. But without success. He will not listen to me. He will not listen to his father! He says he is on the brink of finding out something that his chiefs will be very pleased about and that will make his career. He asks me if I do not wish well for him, if that is not what I want, him to do well, to make a success of his career? And, Effendi, I do, that is what I sent him up here for. Water is our life-blood, I told him, but it comes in different forms. In the fields it is sweat, in the city it is money. Effendi, I have laboured in the fields and done well enough, but that is not what I want for my boy. And now he says: “Father, I have done what you ask and now, just when I am getting somewhere, you bid me to leave!” “You can do as well elsewhere,” I said. But he said: “No, father. We get but one chance in our life-you have told me that yourself-and for me this is it!” So what shall I do, Effendi? What shall I say to him? I come to you!’

‘Has he said what he is on the brink of finding out?’

‘No, Effendi. It is to do with his work.’

‘I think I know what it is. It is important but it is nothing compared with his life.’

‘You think it may come to that?’ said Suleiman’s father, troubled.

‘I hope not. Nevertheless, he has enemies in the Gamaliya. As you have.’

‘He is too young to have enemies. Such enemies!’

‘I think so, too. And therefore I think he would be better out of the Gamaliya.’

‘I begin to wish I had never sent him up here. Terrible things happen in the city. First that girl. Then this!’

‘Good things happen also, and they can happen to him. But I think it would be well if he were out of the Gamaliya for a time. He stands on the brink, you say? How near is that? Is it a matter of days? Or weeks?’

‘I do not know. Days, I think.’

‘If it were a day or two, and if he watched his step, all could yet be well.’

‘I will tell him that,’ said Suleiman’s father, relieved.

‘But let it not drag on!’ Owen warned.

‘I will tell him that, too. And insist that a father’s authority shall not be set aside!’

Yussef brought coffee. Over its aromas, Suleiman’s father calmed down.

‘What things happen in the city, Effendi!’ he sighed. ‘What things happen in the city!’

‘Things happen in the country, too,’ said Owen, ‘and one thing that especially interests me is what happened once, years ago, between Ali Khedri and yourself.’

Suleiman’s father was silent for a while, a long while. Owen sipped his coffee and waited. He knew better than to hurry the old man. In Egypt, where all present things had roots in the past, such conversations took a long time.

‘It was a dispute over water,’ said Suleiman’s father at last. ‘In the villages most disputes are. We ploughed adjoining fields. Between our fields there was an old canal, not much used because now there was a new and better one which went past the end of my field but not past his. I allowed him to build a gadwal across my land and take off water from the new canal. The old canal was on my land and one day I decided to fill it in. Ali Khedri objected.

“You cannot do that,” he said.

“Look,” I said, “we have the new canal and I have allowed you water. The old canal stands idle, and it is on my land. I will plant it with cotton.”

‘But Ali Khedri said: “The canal is not yours but the village’s.’”

‘I said: “It is on my land.’”

‘Well, we went to the sheikh and to the omda and then to the Inspector and they said that I was in the right. So I filled it in and planted cotton. And Ali Khedri was very angry and one night he came and beat the cotton down. And I said: “If that is what you do, then I will beat you down!” And I tore out his gadwal.’

‘So then he was without water?’

‘He had to carry it. Well, it is hard to carry enough if you have fields, and his crops dwindled and my crops throve. I would have let him build his gadwal again if he had said a soft word, but he did not. So I hardened my heart against him.’

‘Did not the neighbours bring you together?’

‘They tried but he would not listen to them. “I would rather carry,” he said, “than accept from him, even though I go poor.” Well, he went poor and in the end he had to leave, and now I own his fields, and many others.’

He looked at Owen.

‘These things are not good, I know, but life in the fields is hard. Although not as hard as life in the city if you are a water-carrier.’

In this heat you needed to take fluid frequently and some time later Owen found himself pouring out another glass of water. As he raised it to his lips his conversation with Yussef came back into his mind. He put the glass down again.

‘Yussef,’ he said, ‘where does this water come from?’

‘The river, Effendi. Right from the middle. It’s the best.’

‘But how did it get here? Here, to the Bab-el-Khalk?’

Yussef shifted his turban to the back of his head and scratched. ‘How did it get here? In a water-cart, I suppose.’

‘Water-cart?’ said the man from the Water Board indignantly. ‘No it doesn’t! You’re one of the buildings on the pipes!’

‘I’ve never seen them.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? They’re underground. Look, there are two sorts of pipes and they bring two sorts of water.’

‘From the river?’

‘From our pumping station on the river. One sort of water is filtered and that’s for drinking. That’s the stuff, I hope, that Yussef gives you. The other sort is unfiltered-it comes straight out of the river-and that is for irrigation. It’s the sort of stuff you see in the parks and gardens on watering days. We turn the cocks on and flood the place. And then it all seeps down into the ground and comes back again, into the river. Water-carts? Look, water-carts are a health hazard, about as big a danger to health as that bloody old canal they’re about to fill in. It’s all right when they’re carrying water to damp down the dust in the streets but what some of the buggers do is sell water from the cart for drinking. And that’s not the worst of it!’

‘No?’

‘No. They even tap our pipes-the ones we use to carry water for irrigation in-and sell that for drinking!’

‘Did I hear someone say the magic word?’ said Macrae, coming towards them with a bottle.

‘Water?’

‘No. Drinking.’

He poured them both a generous dram. It was the rehearsal for Burns Night that Macrae had invited him to. Scotsmen were there in abundance. So, too, were many whom Owen had hitherto never suspected to be Scottish. Paul, for example. ‘Mother’s side,’ he claimed.

He was talking to the man from the Khedive’s Office.

‘But, just a minute,’ the man was saying, ‘there he is!’

They looked across the room and saw the pink young man who had been responsible for despoiling the Khedive’s Summer Palace.

‘I thought he was in the Glass House?’ said the man from the Khedive’s Office. ‘Being tortured?’

‘Oh, he is, he is!’ Paul assured him. ‘He’s just been let out for this special occasion.’

‘He doesn’t look as if he is being tortured,’ said the Khedive’s man.

‘I should hope not!’ said Paul indignantly. ‘We British are trained to keep a stiff upper lip!’

‘Even so-’

‘Besides,’ said Paul, ‘the whole point is that it should be lingering.’

‘Perhaps you are starting too gently?’ suggested the man from the Khedive’s Office.

‘You think so?’ Paul inspected the pink man critically. ‘Of course, it would be underneath his kilt,’ he said.

‘You mean-?’

Paul nodded.

‘Well, that’s the place to start,’ said the Khedive’s man, impressed. ‘The genitals.’

‘He bears it well, don’t you think?’ said Paul.

‘Well, he does. And yes, perhaps you’re right. You don’t want them to die too quickly. It’s a fine judgement. Well, I’m sure the British know what they’re doing.’

Cairns-Grant was there, also kilted. Owen asked him if he carried a surgical knife in his stocking instead of a skean dhu.

‘Nae,’ said Cairns-Grant. ‘I keep a wee bottle of Islay there. In case the other runs out.’

‘Now, look,’ said Owen, ‘have you been talking to the Nationalists lately?’

‘Are you accusing me of being subversive?’

‘I’m just wondering where all these ideas on health are coming from.’

‘Well. They’re not all coming from me, I can tell you. That lassie, Labiba-’

‘On circumcision, I grant you.’

‘Well, she’s got something there. In the case of pharaonic circumcision-you know, where all the girl’s genital organs are excised-we estimate that complications occur in over fifty per cent of the cases. And where they occur we estimate that death results in over fifty per cent of cases.’

‘Okay, she’s beginning to persuade me. Not that I can do much about it.’

‘Ah, well, there you are, you see. That’s what we all say. And it’s true, you see, not just of circumcision but of a lot of other mortality too. And not just mortality, disease. A lot of it could be avoided. That’s why I’ve been talking to the Nationalists.’

‘And that applies to water-borne illnesses, too?’

‘It does,’ Cairns-Grant looked across the room to where Macrae and Ferguson, bottles in hand, were welcoming new arrivals. ‘Now you see those two laddies; if anyone told them that what they were doing was not for the benefit of the public, they’d laugh at you. And a lot of what they do does benefit the public. Egypt would be a great deal worse than it is if it weren’t for them. They’re grand laddies. But I’m beginning to wonder if they’ve not got it wrong.’

Macrae came bustling across.

‘Are you talking to that auld resurrectionist?’ he said to Owen. ‘I’ll bet he’s touting for business again. “Bring me the bodies, Owen! As long as you keep them coming, I’m all right for a job!”’

Cairns-Grant threw back his head and laughed.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘there’s no doubt I’m in the right place. Egypt’s a great country-for pathologists.’

Later in the evening the reeling began. The dancing, that is. Owen reeled too; and as the evening wore on and the supply of whisky continued, he reeled more and more.

At one point he was sure he could hear Cairns-Grant talking about lizards.

‘Aye,’ he was saying to the pink young man, ‘they shed their tails. Drop them, when they’re startled. When I was on the wards in Alexandria they used to play a game. There were always lizards skittering over the walls, you understand. Well, the game was to clap your hands when a lizard was just above the man in the bed opposite you so that it would drop its tail on him.’

‘Really?’ said the pink young man.

‘What was that?’ said the man from the Khedive’s Office. ‘He’s telling him about the next torture,’ said Paul. ‘We keep these special lizards, and-’

‘Really?’ said the man from the Khedive’s Office, looking thoughtful.

And it was just about then that the orderly came in to fetch Owen.

McPhee was waiting for him outside.

‘Owen, there’s been an attack at the Cut.’

‘What on?’

‘The dam, I think.’

Any idea who by?’

McPhee hesitated.

‘The Lizard Man, they say.’

He and Owen left at once. They found an arabeah in the Place Bab-el-Khalk with its driver sleeping beneath it, woke him and set out through the moonlit empty streets, with the domes and minarets mysterious against the velvety sky. It was about three in the morning and in another hour the city would be waking. Or, at least, some of it would. At the moment, however, there was nothing to impede them as the driver urged his horse along.

At the Cut men were stirring in the darkness but there were not the great crowds that Owen had feared. Selim came running excitedly towards them.

‘Effendi, I have done it! I have killed the Lizard Man!’

‘But, Selim-’ began one of the other constables hesitantly. ‘While these poofters were sleeping!’ said Selim, dismissively. ‘A Lizard Man has but a back like everyone else! That is what I said, didn’t I, Abdul?’

‘You did, Selim. But-’

‘Then it can be broken like anyone else’s back! That is what I said, didn’t I?’

‘You did. But, Selim-’

‘And that is what I did. One blow, Effendi, that was all. But a mighty one!’

‘I’m sure it was!’

‘And there he lies, Effendi! Just the other side of the dam. I thought it best to leave him lest in his death agonies he might sweep me to the ground with his tail and fall upon me. That’s what you’ve got to watch,’ said Selim condescendingly, ‘the tail. It is as with crocodiles. The tail is the most dangerous part. I know he is but a lizard, Effendi, but he’s a hell of a big one!’

‘How did it happen?’ asked Owen.

‘Well, Effendi,’ said Selim, preening himself, ‘I woke in the night and found I wanted to have a pee. So I prised myself loose from Amina’s embraces-she is a dirty slut, I know, Effendi, and but a peanut seller, but when one is far from home one has to find consolation where one can-and went to water the canal bed. And then I thought: “I’ll bet those idle sods are fast asleep!” For, Effendi, as guards they are not to be trusted. So I went to look, Effendi, for am I not Captain of the Guard?’

‘You certainly are,’ agreed Owen.

‘Well, then. But, Effendi, I did not need to look for even from the bank I could hear Ibrahim’s snores. “I will go over there,” I said to myself, “and give that idle bastard a kick up the backside.” But then, Effendi, I had a better idea. A really good one!’

‘You did?’

‘I thought, I will come upon him quietly, like a thief in the night. And I will lift his galabeeyah and bite him in the bum. And then he will think the Lizard Man has got him and shit hot bricks! That will teach the bugger to fall asleep when I am Captain of the Guard!’

‘So, Effendi, I slid forward on my stomach like a lizard. And I had almost got there when I heard a noise, as of another lizard. And then I thought, it is another lizard! And then I thought, O, my God, it is the Lizard Man himself! Well, then, Effendi, I lay as one dead!

‘And then I thought, Effendi, “He can have that stupid bastard, Ibrahim, for breakfast if he wants,” and I began to slide away again.

‘But then, Effendi, I stopped. Am I not Captain of the Guard, I said to myself? Am I the man to desert my post? And that stupid bastard, Ibrahim, asleep though he be? So, Effendi, I slid forward again and unshipped my truncheon.

‘And there he was, Effendi, bold as brass, digging at the dam! Oh, ho, my beauty, I said to myself, we’ll see about that! And I gave myself a really big swing and then landed him one right across the back. And he gave a great jump and a mighty groan and then lay still. But, Effendi, afterwards I did not go close for I thought he might twitch. They do, you know. Crocodiles, that is. So-’

They came round the side of the dam.

‘Bring a lamp!’ said Owen.

‘Selim-’ said the hesitant constable again.

‘What is it, Abdul? Why don’t you go back to sleep? Now that all the real work has been done by others.’

‘Selim, he is still alive!’

Owen lifted the lamp. By its light he could see a huddled figure lying against the face of the dam.

‘Oh, is he? Stand aside, Effendi. Abdul, Ibrahim, get ready to rain blows upon him should he-’

‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ said Owen.

He could see now that the huddled form was that of a man. He went up to him and turned the body over with his foot. ‘Why!’ he said. ‘It’s-’

‘Do you know him?’ said McPhee.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Owen. ‘It’s one of the Muslim gravediggers.’

‘He’s broken my back!’ groaned the gravedigger.

‘That will teach you not to be the Lizard Man!’ said Selim. ‘Lizard Man?’ said the gravedigger.

‘You are a fortunate man,’ said Owen. ‘It could have been worse.’

‘Lizard Man?’ said the gravedigger, attempting to sit up. ‘I don’t want anything to do with the Lizard Man!’

‘Leave him lying there!’ said Owen. ‘Let the Lizard Man take his own.’

‘Here, look-’ began the gravedigger.

‘What were you doing there?’ said Owen.

‘Nothing!’

‘Right, leave him!’

Owen began to walk away.

‘Hey, wait!’

Owen turned.

‘Well?’

‘I was thinning out the dam,’ said the gravedigger sulkily. ‘In case those Jews get the job.’

‘You were going to make the Cut yourself?’

‘No, no. It’d take more than me to do that. No, I was just thinning it out in one place. So that it would fall on the Jews when they started.’

‘That is a bad thing,’ said Owen severely. ‘Not only that, it is a stupid thing. What if you gain the contract?’

‘We would know what to do.’

‘Are the others with you on this?’

The gravedigger closed his mouth firmly.

‘The contract goes to the Jews,’ said Owen. ‘You have brought this on your own head.’

(jms

By this time there was no point in going to bed. Owen was never able to sleep during the day. Instead, he went to the Bab-el-Khalk. Used though they were to his early ways, the bearers were surprised to see him.

At this time of the morning a night chill still hung over the building. To one fresh out from England, that pink young man, say, the temperature would have seemed pleasantly warm. Those longer in the sun thought of frost. Owen raised the jacket of his collar and huddled himself in his chair.

Fortunately, it was not long before he heard the pad of bare feet and smelled a delicious aroma and then Yussef, who had heard from the other orderlies that his master was in, appeared with coffee.

‘Would the Effendi like me to send the barber in?’ he suggested, seeing that Owen was unshaven.

‘Why, yes!’ said Owen.

‘The Effendi was out all night?’

‘Yes.’

‘Down at the Cut?’

‘Yes. For most of it.’

‘I hope the charm worked,’ said Yussef.

Owen sat up.

‘Why, yes it did, Yussef! Yes, it did,’ he said in surprise.

Restored, he felt able to contemplate his desk. Among the other messages, most of which appeared to be abusive ones from the Accounts Department, there was one from Georgiades. After some thought, and after the barber had visited, Owen put on his sun helmet and set out for the barrage.

The sun, now, was warming everything up, but out on the river, where there was a little breeze, the heat was not yet overpowering. On the left the misty, purple forms of the two great pyramids of Giza soared above the palm groves. On the right, outlined against the horizon, were the airy domes and flying minarets of the great mosque on the brow of Saladin’s Citadel, lit up by the early morning sun.

Soon the barrage itself appeared up ahead, purple and rose in the sun. There was a crowd of people at the landing stage waiting for boats to take them in to the city. The felucca moved in past the water-carriers already filling their bags for the day’s work.

Owen followed one of them up to the Gardens, past the sweet sellers and peanut sellers setting out their stalls, past the lemonade sellers top-heavy with their ornamental urns on their backs, and on through the trees towards the regulator.

Georgiades, alert this time, came to meet him. He led him through the bougainvillea to where the gardener was bent in a rose bed.

Georgiades walked forward and perched himself on the edge of a gadwal nearby. Owen stayed out of sight, but within hearing distance, behind the bougainvillea.

‘You are about early!’ said the gardener in surprise.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ said Georgiades.

‘No?’ said the gardener sympathetically. ‘Well, it was hot last-’

‘I was thinking of you,’ said Georgiades.

‘Of me?’

The gardener put down his trowel, staggered.

‘I was saying to myself: he is my friend. Can I let him do it?’

‘Do ’ what?’ said the gardener, beginning to get agitated.

‘He is my friend. He had a wife, children. What will become of them when he is in the caracol?’

‘In the caracol?’

‘That’s where you’re going. I’ve heard them talking.’

‘Allah!’

‘They have found out, you see.’

‘Found out?’ said the gardener cautiously.

‘About you and Ibrahim. And what you did to the bank the other day.’

The gardener sat stunned.

‘Found out!’ he whispered.

‘Yes. There was no Lizard Man, was there? Just you and the ghaffir. You pulled out the stakes. You broke the Effendi’s marking tape. And you broke away the bank to suggest that a beast had gone down to the canal to drink.’

‘It was only in jest!’ cried the gardener.

‘Ah, but that was not how it seemed to the Effendi.’

‘Yes, but-’

‘Why did you do it, Abdullah? Why did you do a thing like that? You, who know so well the ways of water?’

‘It was because of them! They were going to build a new canal. Right across my Gardens!’

‘Did you think you could stop them, Abdullah? You, a mere gardener?’

‘It was Ibrahim’s idea! He said that now they knew there was a lizard man about, they would think it was him. He said that there had been much talk of lizard men lately, not just here but at the Cut. That the Effendi would think it was the same one, that it would make them pause and think-’

‘They have paused, Abdullah, and they have thought. And they have alighted on you.’

‘How did they come to alight on me?’ whispered the gardener. ‘They asked themselves who might wish to do a thing like that? And they remembered your concern for the Gardens. They asked who had the occasion to do it? And they thought of you and of Ibrahim. And they looked again at the place where the bank was breached and they saw not the marks of paws but the marks of a trowel.’

‘What shall I do?’ moaned the gardener.

‘Well,’ said Georgiades, ‘if I were you, I would find some way of worming myself into the Mamur Zapt’s graces.’

‘How might I do that?’

Georgiades considered.

‘You could start,’ he considered, ‘by telling him the name of the person to whom Babikr took the flowers.’