Seeing that the constable did not understand, McPhee changed his question.
Was he alive or dead?
Various voices from the crowd assured him that Nuri Pasha was (a) dead, (b) unhurt, (c) suffering from terrible injuries. Leaving McPhee to sort that out, Owen pushed his way back through the crowd.
To one side of the mêlée two constables were casually talking to a slight, spare Egyptian in a very handsome suit. He looked up as Owen approached.
The Mamur Zapt? I did not expect to see you here in an affair of this sort. Mahmoud el Zaki. Parquet.
The Parquet was the Department of Prosecutions of the Ministry of Justice.
They shook hands.
You were here very quickly, said Owen.
The Egyptian shrugged his shoulders. Nuri Pasha is an important man, he said.
How is Nuri Pasha?
Shaken.
That all?
The shot did not touch him. It slightly grazed a lemonade-seller.
No need for me, said Owen.
No need for me either, said Mahmoud. Though I expect I shall get the case now.
The Parquet, not the police, were responsible for investigation. It was clear that they already had the case in hand. The Ministry of Justice was nearer than the Bab el Khalk and they must have sent a bright young man down as soon as they had heard. There was nothing that Owen could do.
He pushed his way back through the crowd to where the wounded lemonade-seller lay.
Are you badly hurt?
I am dying, said the man.
There seemed no evidence of any wound.
Where is your hurt?
The man groaned but said nothing.
In the bum, effendi, a woman said eagerly. Look!
She lifted the mans galabeah. The bullet had glanced along the buttock, leaving a livid furrow.
He will survive, said Owen.
The man was unconvinced.
I am dying.
This is not a houris you see, said the woman. It is your wife.
The man groaned again, louder. The crowd guffawed.
Take heart, man, said Owen. You might have been hit in the front.
The woman looked up at him mock-demurely. She was a villager and did not wear a veil.
What difference would that have made, effendi?
None at all in his case, said a voice from the crowd. He has not been with his woman for weeks.
The wounded man sat up indignantly.
Owen moved away. There seemed very few casualties from the shooting. Whoever it was had thoroughly bungled his job.
McPhee was talking to the man from the Parquet. He signalled to Owen to come over.
They think theyve got the man, he said. He was seized as he tried to run away.
Who by? said Owen, surprised.
It was very rare for the ordinary populace to intervene in an assault, which, as opposed to an injury or accident, they tended to regard as a private matter.
Its not so surprising, said the man from the Parquet. Come and look.
He led them across the Place and into the Hotel Continental.
In a small storeroom at the back, guarded by a large, though apprehensive, constable, an Arab lay prone on the floor.
He was completely unconscious. Mahmoud turned the head with his foot so that they could see the face. The eyelids rolled back to reveal white, drugged eyes.
McPhee dropped on one knee beside the man, bent over him and sniffed.
Dont really need to, he said. Smell it a mile away. Hashish.
He began searching the man methodically.
I expect youve already done this, he said apologetically.
Police job, said Mahmoud.
And I dont expect theyve done it, said McPhee.
Most of the ordinary constables were volunteers on a five-year contract and were recruited from those who had finished their conscript service, again five years, with the Egyptian army. They tended to come from the poorer villages and were nearly all illiterate. They were paid three pounds a month.
He wasnt like this when he was caught, surely? said Owen, puzzled.
Pretty well, said Mahmoud. Thats why they caught him. He more or less fell over.
Then how?
How did he fire the shot? Mahmoud shrugged. My guess is he took the hashish to stiffen himself up. He just about managed to fire the shot, and then it caught up with him. Thats why he shot so poorly.
Maybe, said Owen.
The other smiled.
The other explanation is, of course, that he was drugged up to the hilt, someone else fired the shotequally poorlyand then put the gun in his hand.
McPhee looked up. The gun was definitely in his hand at some point.
He took up the Arabs limp hand, smelled it, and then offered it to the other two.
No, thanks, said Owen.
Distinct smell of powder.
Im surprised you can pick it out among the other things.
McPhee let the hand drop and rose to his feet.
Nothing else, he said.
Did you find the gun? Owen asked Mahmoud.
Mahmoud nodded. On the ground, he said.
He signed to the constable, who went away and returned a moment later gingerly carrying a large revolver in a fold of dirty white cloth.
Standard Service issue, I think, said McPhee, but youll know better than I.
He looked at Owen.
New model, said Owen. Only started being issued here last February. Wonder where he got that?
Ill have to check, said Mahmoud.
Youll have something to go on at any rate, said McPhee.
He was always pleased to put the Parquet in its place.
More than that, said Owen. I think weve got a witness for you.
Mahmoud looked at him inquiringly.
Blue galabeah, Owen said to McPhee.
He turned to go.
Have a word with Fakhri Bey, he said as they went.
Afterwards, Owen and McPhee went to the Sporting Club for lunch, and then Owen had a swim. In the summer working hours were from eight-thirty till two. The whole city had a siesta then, from which it did not stir until about six oclock. Then the shops reopened, the street stall-holders emerged from under their stalls, the open air cafés filled up, and the narrow streets hummed with life until nearly three in the morning.
Owen had got used to the pattern in India and it did not bother him. However, he never found it possible to sleep in the afternoon. Usually he read the papers at the club and then went for a swim in the club pool. The mothers with their children did not come until after four, so he had the pool to himself and could chug up and down practising the new crawl stroke.
Usually, too, he would return to his office about six and work for a couple of hours in the cool of the evening, undisturbed by clerks and orderlies, agents and petitioners. It was a good time for getting things done.
That evening he had intended to get to grips with the estimates, but when he arrived in his office he found a note on his desk from McPhee, asking him to drop along as soon as he got in.
Oh! Hullo! said McPhee, when he stuck his head round the door. Just as well youre here. The Old Man wants to see us.
Garvin, the professional policeman who had relatively recently been appointed Commandant of the Cairo Police, was, if anything, a little younger than McPhee, but McPhee always liked to refer to him in what Owen considered to be a prep-school manner. McPhee had spent twelve years teaching in the Egyptian equivalent of a minor public school before Garvins idiosyncratic, and amateur, predecessor had recruited him as Assistant Commandant at the time of the corruption business.
The choice was not, in fact, as eccentric as might appear. McPhee was patently honest, a necessary qualification in the circumstances and one comparatively rare in worldly-wise Cairo; he spoke Arabic fluently, which was a prime prerequisite for the post so far as the British Agent, Cromer, was concerned; and he possessed boundless physical energy, which, although irritating at times, fitted him quite well for some of the tasks a policeman was called on to do.
He was, however, an amateur, and, Owen considered, would not have stood a cats chance in hell of getting the job if Garvin had been making the appointment.
The same was probably true of his own appointment as Mamur Zapt, Head of the Political Branch and the Secret Police.
McPhee himself had been responsible for this. The post of Mamur Zapt had become vacant at the time when McPhee, pending Garvins arrival, had been appointed Acting-Commandant. The post was considered too sensitive to be left unfilled for long and McPhee had been asked to advise the Minister. Not a professional soldier himself, he had been over-impressed by Owens service on the North-West Frontier in India, and Owens facility with languages had clinched the matter.
The shrewd, unsentimental Garvin, thought Owen, would have appointed neither of them; neither the eccentric McPhee nor the inexperienced Owen. He would probably have got on better, Owen thought, with the previous Mamur Zapt: the one who knew the underworld of Cairo just a little too well.
Now, when he and McPhee took up their accustomed chairs before the large desk, Owen felt the usual small-boy-about-to-be-disciplined feeling creeping up on him. He guessed that McPhee felt it, too, but they reacted in different ways. McPhee sat up ramrod-straight and barked Yes, sir! Owen lolled back in what he suspected was an absurdly exaggerated manner and said nothing. He suspected that Garvin found him far too easy-going.
The suspicion was soon reinforced.
Nuri Pasha, said Garvin.
Nasty shock, sir, said McPhee. But hes recovering. We have the man who did it.
Oh, said Garvin.
McPhee described the circumstances.
Garvin did not seem much interested.
So thats all buttoned up, McPhee concluded.
Buttoned up? Garvin regarded him incredulously. You havent bloody begun!
He turned to the Mamur Zapt.
Did you get any warning of this?
No.
Why not?
Owen thought that was an unfair question.
We get any number of warnings, he began defensively. Three or four a day
Garvin cut across him.
Did you get one about this? About Nuri Pasha?
Not specifically, Owen admitted.
Worrying.
Nine-tenths of them are boloney.
The other tenth isnt, said Garvin.
He brooded for a moment.
What do you do about those? The ones that arent boloney?
We check them all out, said Owen. Boloney or no boloney. The ones that look as if they might have something in them we take action over.
What action?
Notify the appropriate people. Stick a man on. Stay with the source.
Sometimes it works, said Garvin.
It nearly always works, said McPhee loyally.
Garvin ignored him.
But those are the cases where you hear something. You didnt even pick up a whisper this time?
No.
Slip-up, said Garvin.
Owen fought back.
Not necessarily, he said. Anyone whos plotting an assassination isnt going to broadcast the fact. There may have been nothing to pick up.
Theres always something to pick up in Cairo, said Garvin dismissively.
He turned his attention back to McPhee.
Buttoned up! he repeated. You havent bloody even started! Whose man was he? Whats behind this? What are they after?
The Parquet Owen began.
Garvin swung round on him.
For Christs sake! he said. Stop messing around! You know damned well this is nothing to do with them. Its political.
Garvins eyes bored into his.
So youd better bloody get on with it, he said. Mamur Zapt.
CHAPTER 2
Owen was at the Place de lOpéra shortly before seven the following morning. Early though he was, the Parquet was there before him.
Mahmoud was surprised.
The Mamur Zapt? he said.
He broke into a smile.
They have been leaning on you, too?
They told me to stop messing around and bloody get on with it, said Owen.
Moi aussi.
They both laughed.
It must be political, said Mahmoud.
What isnt? said Owen.
And big.
Why?
Because youre here.
I honestly dont know anything that makes it big, said Owen.
Nuri Pasha?
I thought hed retired from active politics.
Those bastards never retire from active politics, said Mahmoud. He looked at Owen curiously. Dont you know? Really?
No, said Owen.
I dont really know either, said Mahmoud. I just assumed He broke off.
What did you assume?
Mahmoud hesitated.
Ive got no particular reason for assuming, he said at last. I just took it for granted.
What?
That it was to do with Denshawai.
Why should it be to do with Denshawai?
Because Nuri Pasha was an Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Justice at that time.
The Denshawai Incident had happened in 1906, just before Owen was transferred to Egypt and took up the post of Mamur Zapt.
Some British soldiers had been marching from Cairo to Alexandria and en route five officers had gone to the village of Denshawai to shoot pigeons. Round every Egyptian village were flocks of semi-wild pigeons kept for food and manure. No one was allowed to shoot them without permission from the head man of the village. The officers had misunderstood a guide who was with them and, thinking they were free to shoot, did so. The infuriated villagers had attacked the officers. Two had been wounded and one had died, of sunstroke it was thought, as he lay on the ground. The British-controlled Administration had taken exemplary action against the villagers. Four had been sentenced to death, others sent to prison, and seven had received fifty lashes.
The incident had sparked off widespread protests throughout Egypt. It had not been too popular with the new British Government, either. Word went that Cromer had been in effect forced out over the issue. He had been replaced as Consul General by the more pliable Sir Eldon Gorst, something which hadnt, in the view of old hands, helped matters one little bit.
Denshawai flavours most things, said Owen slowly. I dont know that it is particularly important in this case. How closely was Nuri Pasha involved?
Not very, said Mahmoud. Which is why my assumption may be quite wrong.
He looked around him.
And also why, he went on breezily, I should get on with my reconstruction before the remaining half million of the Cairo population arrive on the scene to help me.