The Mamur Zapt and the return of the Carpet

CHAPTER 6

Understandably, Owen got into the office late the next day. Nikos and Georgiades were waiting for him.

Nikos cocked an eyebrow.

“How are you feeling?” asked Georgiades.

“Fragile,” said Owen.

“Serve you right,” said Nikos vindictively. He had not forgiven Owen the business about the memo.

Georgiades clucked his tongue disapprovingly at Nikos and led Owen into his office.

“Coffee!” he shouted to Yussuf. “Coffee quickly! The man is dying!”

Yussuf scuttled into the room and poured out a large mug of coffee. He watched sympathetically as Owen did his best to wrap himself round it: cradling it in his hands and letting the warmth move up his arms, sucking in the aroma and then taking a sip and letting it transform itself into a glow in the pit of his stomach.

Georgiades took some, too; in case it was catching, he informed Yussuf.

Owen had not really drunk much the night before. One seldom did at Egyptian parties, even Europeanized ones. However, he had not left Fakhri’s until it had gone four and had had only three hours’ sleep.

He put the mug back on his desk and motioned to Georgiades to draw up his usual chair.

“OK,” he said. “Tell me about Ahmed, then.”

“Nineteen,” said Georgiades, “a student. Second year at the law school. Not very good at his studies. A certain native wit, his teachers think, but inconsistent. Not very well organized. His work doesn’t get done. Too many distractions.”

“Like?”

“Politics. Spends too much time hanging around Nationalist headquarters. Attends meetings. Distributes leaflets.” “Speaks?”

“No. Gets tied up. His emotion outruns his thinking.”

“Heart’s in the right place but head isn’t.”

“That’s the sort of thing.”

“And how did he come to fall into these bad habits?”

“Before he went to law school his father sent him to Turkey for six months. The idea was for him to make contacts which might be useful to him later. Business, a bit, but mostly the kind of contacts that would help him with the Khedive. Nuri’s good at that kind of lobbying. Anyway, apparently Ahmed didn’t spend much time talking to the kind of people Nuri wanted him to talk to. Instead, he fell in with a group of Young Turks-officers in the Army, stationed at Stamboul. He got to talking politics with them. They were very keen on getting some change in things. Too keen. They got put down by the Secret Police and Ahmed had to leave the country in a hurry. Nuri wasn’t very pleased.”

“And then he came home to Egypt and thought he’d carry on where they left off?”

“That’s the general idea.”

“Young Turk, is he?”

“Not really. More Young Egyptian.”

“Never met that.”

“Treasure it,” Georgiades invited. “You might not meet it again. He’s on his own, this boy.”

“What’s his position? Who’s he against, for a start?”

“The British.”

“I’d spotted that.”

“The Khedive. The Government. The University. His father. The owner of the cafe. He’s anti most things.”

“Pro anything?”

“Pro the big ideals,” said Georgiades. “Like, me. Including Pan-Islam. Unlike me.”

“Religious, then?”

Georgiades shook his head.

“Come on!” said Owen. “He’s got to be if he’s Pan-Islam!”

“The boy’s confused.”

“How can you be secular and Pan-Islam?”

“I told you, the boy’s position is unique.”

“What the hell!”

“He has a vision,” said Georgiades, “of a worldwide brotherhood of Arab Nationalists. Big, like I said. Only misty.” “Anyone else share this vision?”

“Only me,” said Georgiades. “He couldn’t persuade the others in the cafe.”

Big, sympathetic brown eyes met Owen’s. Georgiades was a marvellous listener. People would tell him anything: their troubles, their hopes, their dreams, their worries; the difficulties they had at work, the problems they had with wife, husband, parents, children. Out it would all come pouring. It was one of the things that made him such a good agent.

“Adopting for the moment a more limited perspective,” said Owen, “who does he tie up with? Not el Gazzari, evidently. Jemal?”

“Not Jemal either. He’s quarrelled with Jemal. He did offer Jemal his services but Jemal made some unflattering remark. About rich landlords’ sons, I believe.”

“His father is a rich landlord,” said Owen. “Is he a rich son?”

“I don’t think he has much money,” said Georgiades. “Nuri keeps him on a tight rein. He doesn’t trust him.”

“I’ll bet that helps their relationship.”

Owen thought for a moment.

“All the same,” he said, “Nuri keeps him on as his secretary.”

“In a funny way,” said Georgiades, “I think he loves him. Anyway,” he added, “the secretarying is pretty nominal.”

The room was dark and cool. Heavy slatted wooden shutters kept light and heat out. They were opened only in the evening when the air had become cooler.

“Nuri loves him,” Owen said. "Does he love Nuri, though?” “Not according to Nuri.”

"But according to Ahmed?”

“Well,” said Georgiades, “the boy is misunderstood.”

“Really he loves his father?”

"Sure,” said Georgiades, “and hates him.”

He eased himself back on his chair to free his trousers, which were sticking to the seat.

"But not enough to kill him,” he said, “if that’s what you were thinking. He’s not the sort.”

“That’s what his sister said. Half-sister.”

“ You been doing research into the family, too? Well, that’s right. He hasn’t got the steel.”

"The job was bungled,” said Owen.

“That raises the question,” said Georgiades, “of what the job was.” Their eyes met.

“True,” said Owen. “Interesting.”

Nikos stuck his head into the room.

“Have you shown it him yet?”

“What?”

Georgiades took a scrumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and put it on the desk in front of Owen. It was a handbill such as are given out at political meetings. It was in Arabic and the heading, printed bold at both the top and the bottom of the page, was Death TO THE Sirdar.

“He was giving these out to students at the law school yesterday,” said Georgiades. “He had a couple of hundred of them.”

“Did you take them off him?”

“Just the one. Do you want me to anything about the others?” “Too late now,” said Nikos. “You should have taken them all while you were at it.”

“But that would have given me away,” protested Georgiades. “He thinks I’m a supporter. The only one.”

Nikos sniffed. “They’ll be all over the law school by now.” “You’d be surprised at the indifference of people,” Georgiades said. “Business was not exactly brisk. If you want me to-” he said, turning to Owen.

“No. It’s not worth bothering.”

Owen picked up the handbill and examined it. Seditious leaflets were as common in Cairo as pornographic postcards. It was impossible to control them all and Owen usually contented himself with confiscating a sample and destroying the printer’s type. In the case of leaflets considered inflammatory, however, the working rule was to suppress the run completely. There was not much doubt that this one was inflammatory, but if it had already been distributed it was too late. “Have you come across any more of these?” he asked.

“No.”

“It’s funny no one else is distributing them,” said Nikos.

“Perhaps he’s the only one dumb enough?” suggested Georgiades. “That might mean the printer’s not got a proper distribution system set up yet,” said Nikos, disregarding him. He took the handbill from Owen. “I don’t recognize the printer,” he said. “Do you?” he asked Georgiades.

Georgiades shook his head. “He’s new.”

“That fits,” said Nikos.

“How did he get in touch with Ahmed?” asked Owen.

“Or Ahmed with him,” said Georgiades. “An interesting question.” He looked at Owen. “Want me to find who printed this?” “Yes,” said Owen, “and when you do find him, don’t do anything.” “You don’t want me to call on him?” asked Georgiades, surprised. “Not immediately. Not yet. Put a man on him. Not too obviously.” He could easily accommodate it within his budget. In Cairo it was the bribes that were expensive. The men came cheap.

Georgiades and Nikos had hardly left when Nikos was back on the phone.

“I’ve got a call for you,” he said. “Guzman. He wants to talk to you about thefts from Army barracks.”

He cackled loudly and put Guzman through.

“What is this I hear about dangerous lapses in military security?” said the harsh voice.

“I don’t know what you hear,” said Owen. “Do tell me.”

“Your memo to the British Agent-”

“I didn’t know you were on the circulation list,” said Owen.

“You should have put me on,” said Guzman. “The Khedive is interested.”

“Purely internal matter,” said Owen smoothly.

“Internal? Where threats to security are concerned? Perhaps to the Khedive himself? You yourself speak of risk to important people.” “Not the Khedive, surely?”

He wondered how Guzman had got hold of the memo. By the same means as Owen got hold of the Khedive’s internal memos, he supposed. Still, it was disquieting.

“What are you doing about it?” asked Guzman.

“Setting up appropriate liaison machinery, reviewing existing security arrangements, replacing where appropriate by new ones-that sort of thing,” said Owen.

“About time, too!” snapped the Turk.

“That is, of course, what the memo argues.”

“But you are responsible for security.”

“Oh no,” said Owen. “Not military security. I suggest you talk to the Sirdar.”

And he’ll bloody sort you out, he said under his breath.

“I shall,” said Guzman. “Meanwhile, how are you getting on with your own investigations?”

“Fine,” said Owen. “Fine, thanks.”

“Have you arrested the murderers yet?” “What murderers did you have in mind?” asked Owen.

“The Nuri murderers. That is your responsibility, isn’t it?” the Turk added sarcastically.

“Afraid not. The Parquet. The police,” Owen said airily.

“And Security?”

“There are, indeed, security aspects,” said Owen. “I’m looking into those. Hence my memo.”

There was a silence at the other end of the phone. Owen wondered whether Guzman had rung off. He was about to put the phone down when the Turk spoke again.

“The Khedive would appreciate more cooperation from the Mamur Zapt.”

Owen took that, correctly, for a threat.

“You can assure the Khedive of our fullest cooperation,” he said heartily.

Again there was a pause.

“I have not had your report yet,” said Guzman.

“That’s strange!” said Owen. “I sent it off.”

“To me?”

“Of course. Perhaps it’s stuck in your front office?”

“Or yours. Or perhaps you haven’t written it.”

“Oh no,” said Owen. “I have certainly written it. I think.”

“I shall complain to the Agent,” said Guzman, and rang off.

Owen sighed.

Nikos, who had been listening throughout, rang through again.

“Why didn’t you put him on to Brooker?” he asked.

In this outer part of Cairo the houses were single-storey. A low mud brick wall screened them and their women from the outside world. Beyond the houses was the desert, flat, grey, empty, except for a few wisps of thorn bushes.

Mahmoud met Owen in the open square where the buses turned.

“I thought it better like this,” he said. “Otherwise you’d never find it.”

He led Owen up a dark alley which narrowed and bent and doubled back on itself and soon lost its identity in a maze of other alleys threading through and connecting the houses. In the poorer suburbs there were no roads. The alleys were the only approach and these were thick with mud and refuse and excrement.

In the dark Owen could not see, but he could smell, and as he stumbled along, his feet skidding and squashing, he could guess. There were, too, the little scurries of rats.

The only light was from the sky. Out here there was no reflected glare from the city’s lights and you could see the stars clearly. The sky seemed quite light compared with the dark shadows of the alleys.

Occasionally you heard people beyond the walls and often there was the smell of cooking. Once or twice the voices came from the roofs where the people had taken their beds and lay out in the evening cool.

The alleys became narrower and the walls poorer and more dilapidated. There were gaps in them where bricks had fallen away and not been repaired. You could see the spaces against the sky.

Some of the bricks had fallen into the alleyways and there were heaps of rubble and other stuff that Owen had to climb over or wade through.

They came out into what at first Owen thought was a small square but in fact was a space where a house had fallen down. He heard Mahmoud talking to someone and then felt Mahmoud’s hand on his arm gently guiding him along a wall. There was a small doorway in the wall, or perhaps it was just a gap. Mahmoud slipped through it and drew Owen after him.

They were in a small yard. Over to one side there was a little oil lamp on the ground, around which some women were squatting. They looked up as Mahmoud approached but did not move away, as women usually would. They wore no veils, and in the light from the lamp Owen could see they were Berberines, their faces marked and tattooed with the tribal scars.

He followed Mahmoud into the house. There was just the single room. In one corner there was a low fire from which the smoke wavered up uncertainly to a hole in the roof, first wandering about the room and filling the air with its acrid fumes. On the floor was another oil lamp, and beside it two people were sitting, one of them a policeman. The other man looked up. He was gaunt and emaciated and plainly uneasy.

Mahmoud muttered something and the policeman left the room. They squatted down opposite the other man.

The smell of excrement was strong in the air. So was another smell, heavy, sickly, sweet. Owen recognized it to be hashish.

The man waited patiently.

Eventually Mahmoud said: “You travel the villages?”

“Iwa,” said the man. “Yes, effendi.”

“You take them the drug?”

“Yes, effendi.”

“Do you take them just the drug, or do you also take them the one that chills?”

The man’s face twitched slightly. “Sometimes I take them the one that chills,” he said in a low voice. He put out his hand pleadingly.

“But not often, effendi. Sometimes-just for a rich omda-that is all.”

“It is bad,” said Mahmoud sternly. “It is bad. Nevertheless, that is not our concern tonight. Our concern is with something other. Tell us about the other and we shall not ask questions about this. Do you understand?”

“I understand, effendi,” said the man submissively.

“Good. Then let us begin with what you have already said. You travel the villages with the drug.”

“Yes, effendi.”

“Among them the village that we know.”

“Yes, effendi.”

“And at that village you sell the drug.”

“Yes, effendi.”

“To all the men? Do most of the villagers buy?”

“Most of them. They work hard, effendi. This year there is little food. It fills their stomachs,” the man said quietly.

“And among the men,” said Mahmoud, “you sell to the one we spoke of?”

“Yes, effendi.”

“Every time? Or most times?”

“Since Ramadan,” said the man, “every time.”

“Little or much?”

“Little, effendi.”

The man looked at Mahmoud.

“He is a good man, effendi,” he said. “He would not take it from his children.”

“So he bought only a little. But not last time.”

“Last time,” said the man, “he wanted more.”

“Why was that? Did he say?”

“He said that one had given him the means to right a great wrong and that he wished to strengthen himself that he might accomplish it.” “And what did you say?”

“I warned him, effendi.” The man spoke passionately, pleadingly.

“I warned him. I said, ‘The world is full of wrongs. Try to right them and the world turns over. Better leave it as it is.’ ”

“And he said?”

The man looked down. “He said, effendi, that a drug-seller was without honour.”

The lamp flickered and the shadows jumped suddenly. Then the flame steadied and they returned to their place.

The man raised his eyes again.

“I warned him,” he said. “I told him that the one who had given him the means was a wrongdoer, for his was not the grudge. That troubled him. He said the one who had given him the means did not know what he intended. I asked him how could that be? But he would say no more.”

“And you said no more?”

"And I said no more.”

“He had the money.”

“He had the money,” the man agreed.

He looked down at the lamp. Mahmoud waited. The silence continued for some minutes. Owen was not used to squatting and desperately wanted to stretch, but he knew that the silence was important and dared not break it.

Eventually the man looked up.

“I think I saw the man, effendi,” he said diffidently, “the wrongdoer.”

“How was that?” asked Mahmoud mildly, almost without interest. “It was the day of the meeting,” said the man. “Afterwards I saw one from outside the village talking to him. And then again the next day. I stayed in the village that night,” he explained.

“This one from outside the village,” said Mahmoud, “was he young or old?”

“Young, effendi,” said the man immediately. “Not much more than a boy.”

“Rich or poor?”

“Rich. One of the well-to-do.”

“If we showed a man to you,” said Mahmoud, “could you tell us if it was he?”

The man looked at him with alarm. “Effendi, I dare not!” he said. “They would kill me!”

“They?” asked Owen. It was the only time he spoke.

“When one acts in a thing like this,” said the man, “one does not act alone.”

“The man was not alone, then?” said Mahmoud.

“When I saw him he was alone,” the drug-seller said. “I spoke without meaning.”

“If you saw him,” said Mahmoud, “you would know him.”

“I would know him,” the man agreed wretchedly. “But, effendi-” “Peace!” said Mahmoud. “We will bring you where you will see him but he will not see you. No one will ever know. I swear it.” “Effendi-” began the man desperately.

“Enough!” Mahmoud held up his hand.

“Do this thing for us,” he said, “which no one shall ever know about, and you shall go in peace. Do not do this thing, and you will never go.”

The man subsided, shrank into himself. Mahmoud rose. He put his hand gently on the man’s shoulder.

“It will soon be over, friend,” he said. “Go in peace.”

“Salaam Aleikham, ” said the man, but automatically.

Owen followed Mahmoud out into the courtyard. The two policemen came across and waited expectantly. Mahmoud spoke to them for a couple of minutes and then they went into the house. They emerged with the slight figure of the drug-seller between them. Owen and Mahmoud set out along the alleyway with the others following close behind. In this part of the city it was better to travel as a party. When they reached the space and light of the main road Mahmoud spoke to the constables again and then they went off separately, on foot. He and Owen walked slowly back to where Owen had left his arabeah. “We’re going to find it’s Ahmed, aren’t we?” said Owen.

“It begins to look like that.”

They walked a little way in silence.

Then Mahmoud said: “I must say, I am a little surprised.”

Owen told him what Georgiades had found out about Nuri’s son and secretary. Mahmoud listened with interest.

“It fits together,” he said. “Mustafa and the Nationalists, Mustafa and Ahmed. Ahmed and the extremists among the Nationalists, if that leaflet really means anything. Those most likely to want to kill Nuri.” Which made it all the more surprising the next day when one of Owen’s men reported that Nuri and Ahmed had been seen visiting al Liwa’s offices: together.