The Men Behind (5 page)

“McPhee?”

McPhee was the Assistant Commandant of the Cairo Police.

“Used to knocking people around, certainly. But is he mature? He always strikes me as rather prim. Puritanical, too. I don’t think he and Roper would get on.”

“I don’t think I’d get on with him either from what you say.”

“Ah, but you have the brains to subdue personal feeling in the call of duty.”

“I don’t think—”

“The Old Man does. Owen’s just the chap, he said.”

“I’ll bet.”

“True. He thinks it requires a political touch, you see. And he has a high regard for your political touch.”

“Why the hell does it require a political touch?”

“Because Roper has powerful friends. He’s been sent out here by some Syndicate or other who are interested in the Streeter Concession.”

“Emeralds? I wouldn’t have thought there was enough of them to interest anyone big.”

“I wouldn’t have thought so either. However, the Khedive does. The prospect of money, any money, is enough to send him into a tizzy. And the Old Man is just playing along. If the Syndicate finds there are more emeralds than Streeter thinks, then that’s good. Good for the Syndicate, certainly, good for Egypt, possibly. If it doesn’t, then at least the subject will have occupied the Khedive’s mind for a time and kept him out of the Old Man’s hair. So that would be good too. I don’t know about the emeralds, but Roper’s certainly valuable property. And has to be guarded.”

“Oh Christ,” said Owen resignedly.

“Please please please please. And if that’s not enough, the Old Man says it’s an order.”

Owen made one last attempt.

“How about the Army? Surely some young officer—?”

“Confined to barracks,” said Paul. “You suggested it. Remember?”

So that evening Owen found himself escorting the impossible Roper round Cairo’s night spots. They started with the dancing girls since that was where Roper wanted to start: “The best, mind, the best.” Owen took him at his word and led him to a place below the Citadel, since that was the quarter where the Ghawazi gypsies lived, who provided the best dancing girls in the country.

Roper was not, however, interested in the finer points so they moved on to the Sharia Wagh el Birket. The Sharia was picturesque in its way. One side of it was taken up by arcades with dubious cafés beneath them. The other side was given over to the Ladies of the Night. All the upper rooms had balconies; and every balcony had a Lady.

They drooped alluringly over the woodwork and because the street was so ill-lit, indistinct suggestion prevailed over close analysis. The men sitting at the tables of the cafés opposite gathered only a heady impression of light draperies trailing exotically from lofty balconies under the deep night blue of Egypt, while from the rooms behind lamps with rose-colored shades extended diffuse invitation.

“I like a bit of class,” said Roper, impressed.

They went into a club beneath the balconies and watched a plump girl doing a belly dance.

“God, man, look at that!” breathed Roper.

Aware of his interest, the plump girl wobbled closer. Although inexpert, she had mastered sufficient of the traditional art to give the impression of being able to move the four quarters of her abdomen independently. Roper, considerably the worse for wear by this time, made a grab at her.

The girl, used to such advances, evaded him with ease. Her tummy settled down to a steady, rhythmic rotation.

Roper made another lunge. This time he caught her by the wrist.

“Not here, sweetie!” said the girl. “Upstairs.”

She led Roper away.

Owen beckoned the barman over.

“It would be a mistake if too much happened to him. OK?”

The barman nodded and disappeared into an inner room.

A moment or two later he reemerged and took up his position impassively. However, a glass suddenly materialized beneath Owen’s arm.

“For the Mamur Zapt,” the waiter whispered confidingly. Owen was not altogether pleased at being so famous. But Cairo, at that time a small city, was like a village.

A dancer came over and sat in the chair opposite him. “Hello, dear,” she said.

“No thanks.”

“Oh, don’t be like that.”

“I’m the one who’s got to stay sober.”

“Yes,” said the girl, “you’ll need to. Your friend won’t.” Roper had been drinking three or possibly four to Owen’s one. Owen was counting on him lapsing into insensibility before long. That was the only prospect he could see of the evening ending.

“Where are you from, love?” inquired the girl.

“Caerphilly.”

“Oh.” The girl was plainly disappointed. “I thought for a moment you came from near me.”

“Tyneside?”

“Durham.”

“The accents can be a bit similar.”

The plump girl brought Roper back.

“That was all right,” he said to Owen.

“A last drink.”

“Hell, no, man. Haven’t started.”

The dancing began again. This time the second girl was on stage. She was less expert than the plump girl but by this time, no doubt, distinctions were escaping Roper. The café as a whole, mostly Arab, favored plumpness and the applause was muted. Disappointed, the girl came towards Roper. The two went off together.

Owen was fed up. He was one of those people who wake very early in the morning and had been up since five. Conversely, he always fell asleep early in the evening. Or would if he could.

He felt a light touch on his arm. It was a gypsy girl.

“I saw you at the Citadel,” she said.

“What are you doing over here?”

“Business is better.”

Owen felt his pockets. The girl laughed.

“You’re safe,” she said. However, as she kept her hand on his arm he took the precaution of transferring his wallet to the button-down pocket of his shirt.

The girl laughed again.

“That wouldn’t stop me,” she said. “Why don’t you just give me some?”

“Would you content yourself with that?”

“Yes.”

Owen gave her some money.

“Thank you.” She looked around. “They’re all busy,” she said. “I’ll stay here and talk to you for a moment.”

The gypsies worked in gangs. Unusually in this Muslim country they used both men and women. The women distracted attention while the men slipped around. Of course, the women were quite capable of picking a pocket themselves.

“What’s your name?”

“Soraya. Would you like to come with me?”

Owen shook his head regretfully.

“It would be nice,” he said. The Ghawazi girls were noted for their accomplishments. They were without exception strikingly pretty, with thin aquiline faces, long black hair and dark lustrous eyes. They did not wear veils. And what aroused Arab men almost beyond endurance was a general sauciness, a boldness which was almost totally at odds with the self-subjection normally required of Muslim women.

“I’m with someone,” he explained.

“Yes,” said the girl. “I saw him. He did not like the dancing at the Citadel.”

“He is a stranger here. He does not know.”

“You are not like him.”

“I hope not.”

He tried out a few words of Egyptian Romany on her. She looked at him in surprise.

“You speak our tongue?”

“A little.”

The language spoken by the Egyptian gypsy was not pure Romany. Much of it consisted of Arabic so distorted as to be unintelligible to the native Egyptian. Some of the words, however, were of Persian or Hindustani origin, and this interested Owen, who had served in India before coming to Egypt.

He told her this.

“I am a Halabi,” she said, meaning that she was one of the gypsies who claimed Aleppo in Syria as their place of origin.

“Have you been there?”

“No.”

Roper returned, weaving his way unsteadily through the tables.

“Hello!” he said. “Who have you got here?”

“Her name is Soraya.”

“How about coming upstairs with me?” he said.

Soraya considered.

“I would prefer to go with you,” she said to Owen.

“You can bloody come with me,” said Roper.

He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a wad of bank notes.

“Here!” he said. “Do you want some of these?” Soraya’s eyes glistened.

“No knives!” warned Owen.

“Just keep out of it,” said Roper. He grabbed the girl by the arm.

She pulled a knife out of her sleeve and slashed him across the hand. Roper swore and let go of her arm. She snatched the bank notes, ducked under his arm and was gone.

“What the hell!” said Roper, dazed.

He sat down heavily in his chair and looked at his hand. A film of blood spread slowly back to his wrist.

“Well, damn me!” he said.

“Want a handkerchief?” said Owen.

“What do you think I am?” said Roper. “Some kind of pansy?”

“To tie it up,” said Owen, “so that the blood doesn’t get on your suit.”

Roper swore again.

“She a friend of yours?” he said to Owen.

“Not until now.”

Roper went on looking in dazed fashion at his hand. Suddenly he thumped on the table.

“Drink!” he said. “Drink!”

The waiter brought him a whisky, which he downed in one.

“That’s better!” he said. “Bring me another.”

The waiter caught Owen’s eye.

“Bring him another,” said Owen. “Make it a special one.”

Roper drank that too. Owen waited for him to fall. Instead, he clutched at the table and steadied himself. He seemed to be trying to think.

“She bloody knifed me!” he muttered. He looked at Owen. “Friend of yours, wasn’t she? Well, she’s no friend of mine!”

He lunged across the table at Owen. Owen caught his arm and held him there.

“Shut up!” he said. “You’re going home!”

“Am I hell!”

Roper tried to throw himself at Owen, missed, and fell on the floor. Owen put a foot on his throat.

“Get an arabeah,” he said to the waiter.

He held Roper there until the arabeah came. Then he stooped down, hauled Roper upright and pushed him towards the door.

A waiter plucked at his arm.

“The drinks, effendi.”

Owen put his hand in his pocket, thought better and put it in Roper’s pocket.

Roper suddenly tore himself away. He caught hold of a table and hurled it across the room, then swung out at an Egyptian who had been sitting at it. As the man fell, the waiters closed in.

The knot of struggling men edged towards the door. Just as they got there Roper went limp. He stood motionless for a moment, then bent forward and was violently sick.

The waiters sprang back, cursing.

Roper slowly collapsed until he was kneeling on the ground in the doorway, both hands pressed to his middle.

“Christ, I feel awful!” he said.

The second girl, the Durham one, came forward and put a hand under his elbow.

“Come on, love,” she said.

Roper got to his feet and looked around dazedly.

“Christ, I feel awful,” he said again.

With the plump girl helping on the other side, the Durham girl maneuvered him out of the door. An arabeah was drawn up, waiting. As they tried to get him inside he collapsed again and fell under the wheels, groaning.

Owen bent down, caught him by the collar and tried to lift him up. The girls, used to such scenes, pulled Roper’s arms over their shoulders and took his weight. At the last moment, however, he lurched and they fell into a heap. Owen was pulled down too and found his nose pressed deep into the plump girl’s warm, soft flesh.

“Owen!” It was McPhee’s surprised voice. “Owen! What on earth—”

“Give us a hand, for Christ’s sake!”

They eventually succeeded in bundling Roper into the arabeah. Owen took the money out of Roper’s pocket, paid the waiters and gave some to the girls. They would probably have picked Roper’s pockets anyway.

He was about to get into the arabeah himself when he suddenly had a strong sense that somebody was behind him. He looked up quickly. There was no one there. For a moment, though, he had the impression that somebody was standing in the shadow. But then in Cairo there was always somebody standing in the shadow, waiting.

Owen was sitting at his desk in the Bab el Khalk when he heard a cru-ump. He knew at once what it was.

He stayed sitting. Within minutes bare feet came scurrying along the corridor. A man burst into the room.

“Effendi! Oh, effendi!” he gasped. “Come quick! It is terrible.”

“Take me,” said Owen.

They hurried along the Sharia Mohammed Ali and then branched off left into a maze of small streets, heading in the direction of the Ecole Khediviale de Droit, the Law School. There was confused shouting and a whistle blowing perpetually. There was a great cloud of dust which made Owen gasp and choke, and men running about in the cloud.

The explosion had demolished the entire corner of a building. A wall swayed drunkenly. Even as Owen watched, it crumbled down to join the pile of rubble which lay in a slanting heap against what was left of the building.

A fresh cloud of dust rose up. When it cleared, Owen saw that men were already picking at the rubble. A sharp-eyed, intelligent workman was directing operations, getting the men to pile the rubble to one side.

“Is anyone under there?” asked Owen.

“God knows,” said the man. “But it was a café.”

A woman started ululating. Through the ululation and the shouting and the screaming the whistle was still blowing. Owen looked up. A police constable was standing in a corner of the square, his eyes bulging with shock. He had a whistle in his mouth which he kept blowing and blowing.

“Enough of that!” said Owen. “Go to the Bab el Khalk and see the Bimbashi and tell him to bring some men.”

The constable stayed where he was. Owen gave him a push. The man collected himself and ran off.

There were more galabeahed figures pulling at the rubble now. The subsidiary pile of debris was growing. A few broken parts of furniture had joined the stones.

Owen suddenly became aware that there were other people in the square besides the workers. A peanut-seller lay on his back in the dust with a little crowd around him. He was moaning slightly.

Not far from him an injured water-carrier had been dragged into the shade. His bags of water had left watery trails behind them as they had been dragged with him. Presumably the sellers had been passing when the explosion had occurred.

There were youngsters in European-style clothes, students from the Law School probably. Some were supporting fellow students, others pulling at the rubble.

A large man in a blue galabeah, his face white with dust, went past holding his head in his hands. Two men went up to him but he shook them off and continued wandering around the square in a daze.

A young man in a suit knelt beside a man bleeding from the leg. He was tearing strips from the man’s undershirt and binding them round the wound: fairly expertly.

“Are you a doctor?” Owen asked.

“Student,” the man said briefly over his shoulder.

“What happened?”

“An explosion. There, in the café.”

“Did you see it?”

“Heard it. We were on our way there.”

“It’s a student café, is it?”

“Yes.”

“Christ!” Owen had a sudden vision of a crowded café and bodies buried under the rubble.

“It shouldn’t have been too bad. The café’s empty at this time of day. A lecture was just finishing.”

“What’s your name?” asked Owen.

“Deesa.”

Owen took note of the name and then went over to help the rubble-workers. They were pulling at a huge beam. He got men to hold the beam while he organized others to pull away the stones which were trapping it. It came clear and they lifted it away.

A large fair-haired man came into the square with a small troop of constables.

“Good heavens!” the man said.

“Hello,” said Owen. “It was a café with students. There may be some under here.”

“Right,” said the man, and began organizing his constables. They formed a chain and began passing debris along it. The constables were simple peasants from the villages and used to this sort of work. One of them, incongruously, began to sing.

After a while Owen left the rubble work. McPhee, a Boy-Scoutish sort of man, was better at this kind of thing than he was. The work of clearing the debris was now proceeding systematically. The sharp-faced, intelligent workman who had got started in the first place was now burrowing deep into the rubble.

The square was filling up with people, eager to help but getting in the way. Owen pulled a constable out and sent him for more help. He tried to get the crowd to keep back. Then, seeing that was useless, he borrowed McPhee’s idea and formed them into chains, getting them to clear away the subsidiary pile, which was threatening to topple back onto the rubble.

So far he had seen very few injured people.

The student he had been talking to had finished his bandaging and came over to stand beside Owen.

“Are you sure it was empty?” Owen asked.

“Not empty,” said the student. “Emptyish.”

He interrupted the large man with the white, dusty face as he went past for the umpteenth time.

“Ali,” he said. “Come here.”

Ali stopped obediently. The student took hold of his head and stared into his eyes. Then he released him. “Concussed,” he said.

“You’re not a law student,” said Owen.

“No, medical. I was visiting friends.”

“Why,” said Ali, in a tone of surprise, “it’s Deesa.”

“Yes,” said the student, “it’s Deesa. What happened, Ali?”

“I don’t know,” said the man. “I came to the door to take some air and then suddenly it was as if a giant put his hand to my back and pushed me. I fell into the street and lay there and when I looked up the building had gone. Where did it go to, Deesa?”

“It fell down, Ali,” said Deesa. “That is all that is left.” He pointed to the rubble.

The big man shook his head disbelievingly.

“When I looked up, it had gone,” he repeated. “Where did it go to, Deesa?”

“Ali,” said Deesa. “Try to remember. How many people were there inside?”

Ali shook his head blankly.

“Try to remember, Ali. How many people were there inside? Was Karim inside?”

“No. He is at the mosque.”

“God be praised. And Mustafa?”

“Mustafa is at the souk.”

“It looks as if Ali was on his own,” the student said to Owen. “And if he was standing at the door he couldn’t have been too busy.”

There came a shout from the rubble. The sharp-faced man jjad reemerged and was beckoning urgently. McPhee began to organize a special group.

“It looks as if they’ve found someone,” said Deesa. “I’d better see if I can help.” As he went across, he looked back over his shoulder at Owen. “I’m only in my third year, though.”

“You’re doing fine.”

Ali sat down and put his head on his knees. Suddenly he looked up at Owen.

“Two,” he said. “There were two.”

“Sure?”

“At the back. The table at the back.”

Owen called across to McPhee. “There are two of them. At least.”

“We’ve found one.”

More constables came into the square. They formed into a loose ring holding back the crowd. The crowd had grown so large that it was spilling back down the side streets. Unusually for a Cairo crowd, it was silent.

There was a ripple among the men working on the rubble. A white-dusted form was lifted out. Deesa bent over it.

McPhee came across, inspected the pile of rubbish and shook his head.

“An angrib,” he said, “has anyone got an angrib?”

Someone shouted acknowledgment from the back of the crowd and a moment or two later some men appeared carrying a low, rope-matting bed. The form was lifted onto it. Then it was hoisted up and borne off to the hospital.

Deesa started to walk beside it, then turned and came back. “It’s no use,” he said to Owen.

He stationed himself at the top of the hole down which the sharp-faced workman was already burrowing. The man began to pull at the stones again.

“It was a bomb,” said Owen. “I heard it.”

The three of them were sitting in Garvin’s office—Garvin himself, McPhee, the Assistant Commander, and Owen.

“It had been planted at the back of the café. Probably left under a table or chair. It would have been easy. There weren’t many people there that early in the morning.”

“How many?”

“Two definitely. That’s all Ali, the owner of the café, remembers. There could have been more. Others had been in and out.”

“It could have been worse, then.”

“Yes. A lot worse. If it had gone off half an hour later the café would have been full.”

“Why would anyone want to do it?” asked McPhee. “It’s monstrous. All those youngsters!”

“No idea. You wonder if you’re dealing with a lunatic.” Garvin turned to Owen.

“Presumably you’ve got people on it?”

“Yes. I’ve got them all on it. I hope to Christ nothing else turns up for a day or two.”

“What about Fairclough?” asked McPhee.

Owen shrugged.

“The Parquet are supposed to be handling it. Not very well, though. They’d prefer to steer clear.”

“It’s the possible Faircloughs I’m worried about,” said Garvin.

“A note’s come round from the CG asking people to lie low,” said McPhee. “That might help a bit.”

“Do you think the two are connected? The Fairclough business and this bombing?” asked Garvin.

“No. I’d reckoned that the Fairclough business was the work of a specialist group. Specializing in civil servants. The students don’t fit into that.”

“Maybe they’re not so specialized.”

“Bombing is a specialist thing too. I reckon we’ve got two groups,” said Owen.

Garvin sighed. “We’ll have the whole bloody lot taking a hand if we don’t look out,” he said.

“Or if the Khedive doesn’t make up his bloody mind soon,” said Owen.

He felt aggrieved. He had warned Garvin at the Reception and Garvin had more or less turned his back. Now this had happened. If the Khedive had made up his mind earlier it probably wouldn’t.

“I don’t think that’s much to do with it,” said Garvin. “Two groups operating simultaneously would stretch us,” said McPhee. “There’s all the general policing as well.”

“You’ll have to look after that,” said Garvin. “And you’ll have to look after the bombers,” he said to Owen. “And the Fairclough business, of course.”

“It’s a lot,” said McPhee, looking at Owen. “I’ve got some men moving the rubble. Would you like me to carry on with that? We won’t find anybody alive now but we’ll know how many dead there were.”

“Thanks,” said Owen. “That would be a help. I’ll be going through the witnesses.”

“Have you cleared it with the Parquet?” asked Garvin.

“The Parquet can go hang,” said Owen. “This is plainly political.”

“I suppose it must be,” said McPhee. “But why students?”

“Any bombing is political,” said Owen, “because you’re almost bound to hit other people, people who’ve got nothing to do with it.”

“It’s terrorist, all right,” said Garvin. “Part of the general picture. The trouble is, it means we’ve got on to a new stage. Your people haven’t picked up anything, have they?”

“In the bazaars? No, no talk of bombs. I saw Nuri Pasha the other day, though, and he said there had been rumors.”

“There’ll be more rumors now. That won’t make things any easier.” He frowned. “I don’t like bombing,” he said. “It’s hard to handle. And this will have an effect on people. Worse than that following business, even. They’re going to need reassuring.”

He looked at Owen.

“Are you sure you don’t want to think again? About bringing in the Army, I mean?”

“Quite sure,” said Owen.

The lemonade-seller was only too willing to tell all he knew; which wasn’t much.

“I had stopped to relieve myself,” he explained, “when I heard a mighty roar. I ran around the corner and the square was full of dust. A great cloud enveloped me and all was dark and I couldn’t breathe. I gave myself up for lost,” said the lemonade-seller with relish.

He eased the tray around his middle to allow himself to squat more comfortably.

“But then the cloud went from me and I saw Hussein lying. Like this!” The lemonade-seller clasped his hands dramatically and quite implausibly. “And I said to myself: ‘Surely Hussein is dead.’ But then one said to me: ‘Not so. He moves.’ And I looked again and it was so. And the other said: ‘Let us carry him to the side, for if he lies where he is, further harm may befall him.’ And one carried him aside and I said—”

Here Owen stopped him.

“Let us go back to the beginning,” he said. “You were around the corner?”

“Yes. I was relieving myself. God works in mysterious ways. Had I not stopped I would have been in the square and the house might have fallen upon me.”

“The hand of God is in everything,” said Owen.

“That is exactly what I said to my wife.”

“And what did she say?”

“Not to count upon it when I came to her bed that evening.”

“While you were relieving yourself,” said Owen, “did anyone run past you coming out of the square?”

“I do not think so. Afterwards, though,” offered the lemonade-seller, “many people were running hither and thither.”

“But beforehand?”

What Owen was trying to find out was whether anyone had seen a thrower. Terrorist bombs were typically primitive affairs. They tended to be the sort that exploded on concussion and were therefore usually thrown, not left.

“No one came past me.”

It was one of the few hard pieces of information that Owen was able to extract. What all the witnesses wanted to do was tell him about their part in the drama, the narrowness of their own escape, their thoughts and recollections, what they had said to Abdul, etc. What they did not want to do was confine themselves to anything as mundane as the bare facts of the affair.

Facts, if they emerged at all, were thrown out rather at random. In order to catch them, therefore, one had to sit patiently by while the story was unfolded in all its glory. Which, with a number of witnesses, took rather a long time.

After a while Owen handed it over to his men and walked round the square to where a group of interested onlookers was watching McPhee’s men at work clearing the rubble.