The Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet (5 page)

“Please!”
said
Nuri. “If you have not already consigned them to
the wastepaper basket as they deserve.”

“Very
well,” said the young man, “if you wish.”

He
went off into the house.

Nuri
regarded him fondly.

“My
son,” he said, “by a slave girl. He hates me.”

Ahmed
returned with a sheaf of papers which he gave to Nuri, who in turn passed them
to Owen.

They
were very much as Owen had expected: abusive letters from individuals, either
badly written or in the ornate script of the bazaar letter-writer; scurrilous
attacks by obscure radical organizations, darkly hinting that Nuri would get
his deserts; savage denunciations by extremist religious groups, threatening
retribution; and the expected extortionary letters from the new political
“clubs” which had sprung up in such profusion in the last couple of years.

There
were four letters in this last category and Owen found no “club” names among
them that he did not recognize. This should make it comparatively easy to check
them out.

He
passed the sheaf on to Mahmoud.

“I’d
like to keep them for a bit, if I may,” he said.

“Of course.”

“Can
I go?” asked Ahmed.

Nuri
looked at Owen.

“Unless the
Mamur Zapt wishes for something else?” he said. Owen shook his head. The young
man turned away immediately. Nuri sighed.

The interview came to an end soon after and
a servant showed them out.

They went into the house through a large,
cool room, all marble and tiles, in which several people were sitting with
drinks in their hands.

Among them was Ahmed. As Owen and Mahmoud
entered, he ostentatiously turned his back. The woman beside him looked up at
Owen with amusement. Owen caught a glimpse of a strong, beaky face and dark
hair.

The other guests treated them with polite
indifference. They were for the most part elderly, wealthy, Europeanized. In
the upper levels of Cairene society it was fairly usual for women to be present
and for alcohol to be served; but, Owen reflected, had any of the
fundamentalist groups which had written to Nuri been watching, it would have
added fuel to their denunciations.

He and Mahmoud walked back to the main
street to find an arabeah. By mutual consent they walked slowly. In this
wealthy suburb of Cairo the bougainvillaea spilled over the walls and the
pepper trees and eucalyptus hung out across the road making it cool and shady.
From the green recesses of the trees came a continuous purring and gurgling of
doves.

“A clear-cut case,” said Mahmoud.
“Circumstantial evidence, motive, confession.”

“Believe it?”

“Not for one moment,” said Mahmoud.

CHAPTER 3

Owen
could not give all his time to the Nuri Pasha affair. He had his ordinary work
to do.

This morning it was the demonstration. One
of his men had picked the rumour up in el Azhar, Cairo’s great Islamic
university. It was supposed to be taking place that afternoon once the sun had
moved off the streets. Intelligently, the man was staying in the university so
that he could keep an eye on developments. His
reports came every hour. It looked as if the thing was definitely on.

According
to his most recent information, the demonstration would take place in Abdin
Square, in front of the Khedive’s Palace. The students intended to march there
in procession from the university. They would make their way in separate groups
through the narrow mediaeval streets which surrounded el Azhar and assemble in
the wider Bab Zouweleh before the Mouayad Mosque. Then they would march along
the Sharia Taht er Rebaa, cross the Place Bab el Khalk and proceed past the
Ecole Khediviale de Droit, at which point they would join the law students.
From there it was a short step to Abdin Square.

“Mounted?”
asked Nikos.

Nikos
was the Mamur Zapt’s official secretary, a sharp young Copt. Owen nodded.

“With foot in reserve to mop up.
I’ve already spoken
to McPhee.” “I’ll check,” said Nikos, rolling up the street plan.

“And,
just in case,” said Owen, “I want both entrances to Abdin Square sealed off.”

“Both?”

“The two on the eastern side.
The
Gami’a Abdin as well as the Bab el Khalk.”

“It
shouldn’t be necessary,” said Nikos.

“I
know. But I don’t want to risk any of them getting into Abdin Square.”

Nikos
inclined his head to show that he had understood. He reached across the desk,
took some papers from the out-tray and stuffed them under his arm along with
the street map.

“It
means more men,” he said. “Wouldn’t a small mounted troop in the square do
instead?”

“No.
It would look bad.”

Nikos
raised dark eyebrows. “That worries you?”

“A
bit,” Owen conceded.

“The
Khedive is hardly going to complain.”

“He
might,” said Owen.
“Just to be difficult.”

Nikos
made a dismissive gesture. He had
a Cairene
contempt
for the powerless.

From
along the corridor
came
the chink of cups and a strong
aroma of coffee.

“It’s
not that, though,” said Owen. “It’s the way it might come across in the papers.
The international ones, I mean.”

Especially now, he thought, with the new
Liberal Government in Hnglancj feeling extremely sensitive about international
opinion after the Denshawai business and trying to get out. He wondered how
much Nikos knew. Enough, he suspected. Nikos wasn’t stupid.

Nor, in fact, was the Khedive. He was adept
at finding pretexts to cause diplomatic trouble. There were plenty ready to
help him. France for one, which had never forgiven the British for the way they
had stayed on after crushing the Arabi rebellion.
Turkey for
another.
After all, Egypt was still in theory a province of the Ottoman
Empire, with a head of state, the Khedive, who owed allegiance to the Sultan at
Istanbul.

In theory.
In practice, the
British ran it, and Egypt’s real ruler, for over thirty years now, had been the
British Agent, first Cromer and now Gorst. The Khedive appointed his Ministers
and they were responsible to him through the Prime Minister and Cabinet for
their management of the Departments of State.
But at the top
of each great Ministry Cromer had put one of his men.
They did not
direct, they advised; but they expected their advice to be taken, and if it was
not, well, there was always the Army: the British Army, not the Egyptian.

And then, of course, there was the Mamur
Zapt.

That was the reality. But it did not mean
that appearances could be dispensed with. Egypt was still in principle a
sovereign state, the Khedive still an independent sovereign. The British
presence needed explaining.

The British story was that they were there
by invitation and on a temporary basis. They would withdraw once Egypt’s
finances were sorted out. Only they had been there for thirty years now.

His Majesty’s Government thought it best, in
the circumstances, to emphasize that the British role in Egypt was purely an
advisory one. The British Agent merely suggested, never instructed; the
“advisers” made “recommendations,” not decisions; and the Army was kept
offstage. Appearances were important.

And so it would not do for the students to
demonstrate outside the Palace. It would give all sorts of wrong impressions.

Nikos, of course, understood all this
perfectly well. Indeed, like many sophisticated Cairenes, he rather enjoyed the
ambiguities of the situation. Not all Egyptians, naturally, had such a developed
taste for irony.

Curiously, the British themselves were not
entirely at home with the position either. It was too complicated for the
military and, even under Cromer’s strong
hand,
there
was always tension between the civil Administration, conscious of the diplomatic
need to preserve appearances, and the Army, impatient to cut through the web of
subtleties, evasions and unstated limitations.

The
Mamur Zapt inhabited the shadow between the two.

“Keep
McPhee informed,” he told Nikos. “I’m going out later.”

He
had an appointment with Mahmoud.

As
Nikos left he nearly collided in the doorway with Yussuf, who spun the tray
away just in time. Clicking his tongue at the departing Nikos, he slid the tray
on to Owen’s desk.

“The
bimbashi has a visitor,” he announced. Yussuf was a great purveyor of news. “He
told me to bring the cups.”

Like
McPhee, Owen had his own service-issue mug, which Yussuf now half-filled with
coffee. When they had visitors a proper set of cups was produced.

“Oh,”
said Owen, and then, pretending interest so as not to hurt Yussuf’s feelings,
“who is he?”

“From
the Palace, I think,” said Yussuf, gratified. “The bimbashi looked
unhappy.”

McPhee
always found relations with the Khedive’s staff very difficult. On the one hand,
he had great respect for royalty, even foreign royalty; on the other, he knew
that not all the Khedive’s requests were to be met. Some were acceptable to the
British Agent, others were not, and McPhee lacked the political sense to know
which was which. The adroit politicians of the Khedive’s personal staff ran
rings round him, forever laying traps which he was forever falling into.

Owen
was responsible through Garvin directly to the British Agent and had little to
do with the Khediviate, something for which he was very grateful.

On
this occasion, however, he was unable to keep out. Shortly after he had heard
Yussuf’s slippers slapping away down the corridor, he heard them slap-slapping
back. Yussuf appeared in the doorway.

“The
Bimbashi would like you to join him,” he recited.

He
saw that Owen had not finished his coffee.

“I
bring you a cup,” he said.

The
man from the Khedive was a Turk in his late fifties, with close-cropped hair
and a grey, humourless face.

“Guzman
Bey,” said McPhee.

He
introduced Owen as the Mamur Zapt. The other barely nodded. Owen returned the
greeting as indifferently as it was given.

McPhee
sat stiff and uncomfortable.

“It’s
about Nuri Pasha,” he said to Owen. “The Khedive is very concerned.”

“Naturally,”
said Owen.

“He
would like to know what progress has been made.”

“It’s
very early days yet,” said Owen, “but I believe the Parquet have the matter
well in hand.”

“What
progress?” said the man
harshly.

“A
man is held. He has confessed.”

Guzman
made a gesture of dismissal.

“The
others?” he said.

“The
Parquet has only just begun its investigations,” Owen pointed out.

“The
Parquet!” said the man impatiently. “And you?
The Mamur
Zapt?”

“The
case is primarily the concern of the Parquet,” said Owen. “I am interested only
in security aspects.”

“Precisely.
That is what
interests the Khedive.”

“I
am following the case,” said Owen.

“No
progress has been made?”

“As
I said—” Owen began.

The
man cut him short. “The British are responsible for security,” he said to
McPhee. “What sort of security is this when a statesman like Nuri Pasha is
gunned down in the street?”

“He
was not gunned down,” said Owen.

“Thanks
to Allah,” said the man. “Not to you.”

Owen
was not going to be provoked.

“The
Khedive has many valued friends and allies,” he said evenly. “It is not easy to
protect them all.”

“Why
should they need protection?” said the Turk. “That is the question you have to
ask.”

“That
is the question the Khedive has to ask,” said Owen, counterattacking.

The
man gave a short bark of a laugh.

“If
he is not popular,” he said, “then it is because he shares the unpopularity of
the British.”

Owen
drank up his coffee.

“Ah,”
he said, “I am afraid that is a problem I cannot help you with.” He stood up to
go. “If you will excuse—”

“The
Khedive wants reports.”

“Reports?”
“Daily. On the
progress you are making in tracking down Nuri Pasha’s killers.”

“That
is a matter for the Parquet.”

“And the Mamur Zapt.
Or so you said.”

“Security aspects only.”

“Security,”
said the
Turk,
“is what the Khedive is especially
interested in.”

Owen
pulled himself together.

“If
the Khedive would genuinely like reports,” he said, “then he shall certainly
have them.”

“Send
them to me,” said Guzman.
“Directly.”

“Very
well,” said Owen. “I’ll see you get them directly from the Agent.”

“The
Khedive has spoken to the Agent.
Directly to me.
With a copy to the Agent.”

Owen
found the Turk watching him closely. He put on a charming smile.

“Of
course,” he said.

“Good!”
said the Turk. “See to it.” And he walked out.

McPhee
swore softly to himself.

“See
to it!” he reported. “I’ll bloody see to him. Just wait till I get to Garvin!”

“He’s
very confident,” said Owen. “He must have got it fixed already.”

“I’ll
bloody unfix it, then. Or Garvin will. We can’t have the Mamur Zapt reporting
to the bloody Khedive or where the hell will we be?” Owen was thinking.

“Gorst
must have agreed.”

“The stupid bastard!”

There
was little liking among the old hands for the liberal Gorst. “If he has
agreed,” said Owen, “Garvin will find it hard to get him to change his mind.”

“Stupid
bastard!” said McPhee again. He got up. “I’ll go straight to Garvin.”

“Don’t
let it worry you too much,” said Owen.

McPhee
stopped and turned and opened his mouth.

“If
the Khedive wants reports,” said Owen, “he can have them.” He winked
deliberately.

“All the
same,” said McPhee, soothed, “it’s the principle—” Walking back down the
corridor Owen thought that it was doubly advisable that no students should get
into Abdin Square.

“Yes,”
said Mahmoud. “The Khedive has been on to us, too.”

They
were sitting outside an Arab café in one of the small streets off the Place Bab
el Khalk. The café was tiny, with one dark inner room in which several Arabs
were sitting smoking from nargilehs, the traditional native water pipe, with
its hose and water-jar, too cumbersome to be carried around so hired out at
cafés. Outside in the street was a solitary table drawn back into the shade of
the wall. The café was midway between the Parquet and Owen’s office off the Bab
el Khalk: on neutral ground.

“Reports?”

Mahmoud
nodded. “Daily.”

“Why
is he so worried?” asked Owen.

Mahmoud
shrugged. “Perhaps he’s scared.
First Nuri, then him.”
“There have been others,” said Owen.
“Why this sudden
interest?”
“He knows something that we don’t?” offered Mahmoud.