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First published in Great Britain by
Collins Crime 2000
Copyright © Michael Pearce 2000
Michael Pearce asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008259471
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2017 ISBN: 9780007441150
Version: 2017-09-05
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Keep Reading
About the Author
Also by Michael Pearce
About the Publisher
1
A man pushed his way through the crowd and arrived at the bar beside Owen.
Wahid whisky-soda! he instructed the bartender. No, make that a double. After all, he said, turning to the company, its not every day that one gets a death threat in the mail.
Yes, it is, objected the man on his other side. I get one every morning.
Ah, but thats just from colleagues or from the Finance Department. Mine, said the man, pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket and waving it with a flourish, is the Real Thing.
Can I have a look? Owen stretched out his hand. Yes, he said, its the same handwriting.
Same as what?
The one I got.
Someone peered over his shoulder.
Its just an ordinary bazaar letter-writer! he said disgustedly. That doesnt count!
Just because you havent got one, Patterson!
How many other people have had one? asked Owen.
Several other people put up their hands.
You see! said the first man. Its just people who are important. Sorry about that, Patterson!
Some had their letters with them.
I was going to have mine framed, so that my grandchildren will see that once upon a time I was a man to be taken seriously.
They passed them to Owen.
Its all the same handwriting, said Owen.
You mean its only one man? Well, that is a relief. I thought it was everybody that wanted to kill us.
Its just some nut? Well, I do fell let down.
Dont worry prematurely, counselled Owen. Perhaps he means it.
There was no doubt, thought Owen, as he sat in a meeting later that afternoon, that the British were unpopular in Egypt. The letter-writer was not an isolated case. Since the war had started, there had been a number of such expressions of hostility. Stones had been thrown, British-owned premises vandalized and solitary soldiers attacked on their way back to barracks.
And yet, for once, it was not Britains fault. When, a few months before, Italy had invaded Tripolitania, and Turkey, to whom Tripolitania belonged, had retaliated by declaring war, Britain sought to stay neutral. Unfortunately, that was not what most Egyptians wanted. Egypt was still, at least in theory, part of the Ottoman Empire and Egyptian sympathies were heavily with Turkey.
Egypt is, after all, Ismet Bey, the Turkish representative at the meeting, was saying now, our country.
Well, yes and no. Yes, it was true, Egypt was still formally part of the Ottoman Empire and the Khedive, Egypts ruler, owed allegiance to the Sultan at Istanbul. But in practice the Egyptian Khedives had been virtually independent for the best part of a century now, and for the last thirty years, in any case, the real rulers of Egypt had been the British, who had come in by invitation to help the Khedive sort his finances out, come in and then, well, as it happened, stayed.
All we are asking, said Ismet Bey, is that we should be able to move our troops from one part of His Highnesss domains Palestine to another Tripolitania through a third: Egypt.
I do see your point, conceded Owens friend, Paul, who was chairing the meeting.
Well, that is something.
However
However, thought Owen, there wasnt a cats chance in hell of Britain agreeing to let a Turkish army march through Egypt. Who knows, they might even step aside to assert Ottoman rights in other respects.
Shouldnt Egypt herself have a voice in this? asked the Khedives representative.
Egypts is the point of view that I am expressing, said Paul.
No, its not. Yours is the view of the British Administration. We Egyptians strongly condemn Italys action as Western aggression and would wish to do everything we could to help Turkey repel its foreign invaders.
Have you thought, asked Paul, that if you take too active a part, you could yourselves become the object of aggression?
We would take care of that, said Ismet Bey.
The British Commander-in-Chief coughed modestly.
I think, he said, that the presence of a British army in Egypt is all the guarantee that you need against foreign invasion.
Ismet Bey sighed. They had been here before in the last few months: many times.
At least, he said desperately, allow us to move supplies.
Medical supplies, certainly, said Paul. As you know, the Consul-General is anxious to provide whatever humanitarian help he can.
Arms?
Im not sure that counts as humanitarian.
You always used to allow passage.
Limited passage. To allow unrestricted passage would be to prejudice our position of neutrality.
Its not even limited now, protested the Bey. Youve stopped passage altogether.
Thats because you were sending so much.
But
If we include what youve been smuggling.
Smuggling? cried Ismet Bey. How can we be smuggling when its our country?
Exactly! said the Khedives representative. And if its not his country, then its certainly ours!
There was a long pause.
Ill tell you what, said Paul conciliatorily: theres clearly a problem here, and it seems to me that it can best be resolved by appointing someone to regulate the arms traffic whom we can all trust.
Well, that sounds very reasonable, said the Bey, surprised.
The Mamur Zapt.
What? said Owen, waking up.
Mamur Zapt? said the Khedives representative.
Yes. A faithful servant of the Khedive.
But hes a faithful servant of the British too! cried the Bey.
Oh dear, Ismet Bey! said Paul, beginning to gather up his papers. What a shocking suggestion!
There was, alas, some truth in what Ismet Bey had said. One of the first things the British had done when they arrived was to install their own man as Mamur Zapt, Head of the Khedives Secret Police, the man ultimately responsible for political security in Cairo. Successive Mamur Zapts had therefore found themselves serving two masters; something which had hitherto not presented much of a problem to Owen, the present incumbent, since he had happily played off one against the other. Lately, however, that had been getting more difficult. Since the new Consul-General had taken over, relations with the Khedive had become strained and the two were often now pulling in different directions.
This evening, though, he was putting such difficulties behind him. An Egyptian colleague had invited him round for coffee. Owen was pleased, because although he had known Mahmoud for nearly four years now, this was the first time he had actually been invited into his house.
The reason for this was partly, he knew, that Mahmoud didnt really have a home of his own. Although he was now in his thirties, he still lived with his mother. Mahmouds father, a lawyer like himself, had died young and Mahmoud had taken over responsibility for the family. Being the man he was, he had probably taken it too seriously, as he tended to do with his work at the Ministry of Justice. Owen doubted if he ever got home much before midnight. He seemed to have very little life apart from his work.
Mahmoud was, in any case, as Owen had learned over the years, an intensely private individual. Owen was certainly his closest, perhaps his only, friend, but in some respects he felt he had never got to know him. He was delighted now that one of Mahmouds defensive walls seemed at last to be coming down.
The house was a tall, thin, three-storey building just off the Sharia-el-Nahhasin. Across its roof, surprisingly near, he could see the minarets of the Barquk and, yes, that other one was probably the Qualun. The street was towards the edge of the old city, balanced precariously between the new Europeanized quarters to the west and the bazaars to the east.
There was a servant but Mahmoud himself came impatiently to the door and led Owen upstairs to the living room on the first floor. It was a large, sparely furnished room with box windows at both ends, one looking down into an inner courtyard, the other out on to the street. There were fine, rather faded, rugs on the floor and one on the wall, and three low divans, arranged round a brazier, on which a pot of coffee was warming. On the little table next to it were three cups.
The third is for my father-in-law, said Mahmoud.
What? said Owen, stunned. This was the first he had ever heard about Mahmoud being married.
My father-in-law to be, Mahmoud amended.
He seemed a little embarrassed.
You are getting married?
Mahmoud nodded.
Owen had never expected this. He had always taken Mahmoud to be one of natures celibates. In all the time Owen had known him, he had never shown the slightest sexual interest in any woman they had met.
Owen pulled himself together.
Congratulations! Well, this is a surprise!
It is to me, too, Mahmoud admitted. But my mother felt the time had come.
I see. Yes. Owen couldnt think what to say. Have you known each other for long? he ventured tentatively.
About a week. Of course, our families have known each other for much longer.
I see.
She lives locally so I must have seen her about in the street. But I cant say I ever noticed her.
Well, you wouldnt.
Not in a veil, and covered from head to foot in black.
But I must have seen her going to school.
Going to school?
Shes just finished at the Sanieh.
How old could she be? Fifteen? The Sanieh, though, was something. It was probably the best girls school in Cairo.
I said she had to be educated.
Quite right. Companionship, and all that.
She seemed very sensible.
Oh, good. You have you have met her, then?
Oh, yes. Once. After my mother had made the contract. She seems very suitable.
Oh, good.
Youll like her father. I know him quite well.
Well, thats important, isnt it?
Yes. As a matter of fact, thats partly why I invited you. I wanted him to meet family. I know that, strictly speaking, youre not family, but Well, the fact is, we dont actually have many male relatives
Glad to do what I can
It was no business of his. Mahmoud was old enough to arrange his own life; or, rather, to decide to let others arrange it for him. And if that was the custom of the country
All the same, he felt bothered. In a way it was his business. Mahmoud was a friend of his and he didnt want him to get hurt. As a matter of fact, he didnt want her to get hurt, either, a mere schoolgirl. But what could he do about it? And who was he to interfere, anyway? Jesus, he couldnt even sort out his own life, the way things were between him and Zeinab
When the prospective father-in-law arrived, he felt a little better. Ibrahim Buktari was plainly such a nice man. He was short and wiry, with close-cropped grey hair and an open, intelligent face. They embraced warmly in the Arab fashion.
You have something in common, said Mahmoud, pouring out the coffee.
Oh, yes?
You were both soldiers.
Ibrahim Buktaris face lit up.
You were?
Well, said Owen, briefly.
I was with Al-Lurd, said Ibrahim, in the Sudan.
With Kitchener?
That was before he was a lord, said Mahmoud.
And now he returns to Egypt! said Ibrahim. He shrugged. Well, at least we have as Consul-General a man who knows something about Egypt.
He knows it only as it was twelve years ago, said Mahmoud.
That was something that all the Egyptian newspapers had said when the appointment was announced. Especially the. Nationalist ones. When Kitchener had been here before, Egyptian nationalism had been in its infancy. But a lot of things had changed since then and among them was that there was now a Nationalist movement which touched almost all parts of the population, especially the young professionals. Like Mahmoud.