Dont the villages have ghaffirs too?
The mamur laughed. Owen could guess why. The village watchman, the ghaffir, was normally just an ordinary villager, paid a piastre or two a month for his extra duties and armed, if he was armed at all, with an ancient gun dating back to the wars against the Mahdi. You could hardly expect him to take on forty brigands single-handed.
But the local mamur, the District Inspector of Police, surely he would have men he could rely on?
The mamur saw what he was thinking.
Its not so easy, he said again, defensively. Weve tried beating the cane, but they just move to another part. It goes on for miles.
I can see the problem, said McPhee, with ready sympathy. He fell in beside the mamur and they continued up the path together, discussing the different difficulties of country and city policing.
Owen was left with something nagging him, however. For the moment he couldnt identify what it was. It continued to worry away at the back of his mind as they walked up to the house.
In fact, there were several houses; neat, European-style bungalows with verandahs, gardens and high surrounding walls over which loofah trailed gracefully. Away to the right was the sugar factory, a long barn-like building with steam coming out at various points. In front of the building men were unloading cane from trucks and feeding it on to a continuous belt that led into the factory.
A European came up to them and shook hands.
Schneider. Im Swiss, he said, as if making a point.
He glanced at the mamur.
Theyve just brought the body up, he said.
Has Mohammed Kufti arrived yet? asked the mamur.
One of my trucks brought him over, said Schneider. Hes in the house now.
Wed better go over, said the mamur.
Drop in for some coffee when youve done, Schneider said to Owen. My wife will be glad to see you. She doesnt get much chance to talk to Europeans.
The mamur led them over towards the houses. The one they wanted was not part of the main cluster but set a little way back and native Egyptian in style: white, mud brick, single-storey, with an inner courtyard and a high surrounding wall. Inside, it was dark and although the room they were led into was empty, somehow there was the suggestion of many people off stage.
There was a piano in the room, a surprisingly good one, which looked used and well cared for. Little bowls of water, still half-full, were set beneath its feet. It had not escaped the usual ravages of the termites, however. In several places beneath the piano there were small piles of wood dust.
An Egyptian, dressed in a dark suit, came into the room and shook hands.
Kufti, he said. Im the doctor.
Found anything yet? asked the mamur.
I havent really started. Some things are obvious, though. She was poisoned. That was almost certainly the cause of death. There are one or two tests I have to do, but that is consistent with the symptoms and there are no apparent injuries.
What was the poison? asked Owen.
Arsenic.
The usual. Especially in the provinces, where poisoning your neighbours buffalo was an old established custom.
Can you cover her up? asked the mamur. We want the husband to identify her.
Hes seen her already, said the doctor. Does he have to see her again?
For the purposes of formal identification, insisted the mamur.
The doctor made a gesture of distaste and left the room.
The mamur went out and then came back and led them along a corridor and into a small room where, in the darkness, a man was sitting hunched up on an angrib.
Come, Aziz, said the mamur, with surprising gentleness. It is necessary.
Aziz? For some reason Owen had not taken in that the husband was Egyptian.
They went into another room, where the woman was lying on a bed, covered up with a sheet. The doctor turned the sheet down. The husband broke into sobs and nodded.
Thats all, said the mamur reassuringly.
Come with me, Aziz, and I will give you something, said the doctor.
How can it be? said the husband brokenly. How can it be?
Im Austrian, said Mrs Schneider, smiling prettily; quite.
And your husbands Swiss.
Thats right. They both laughed.
She led him out on to the verandah, where coffee things had been laid out on a table. A moment or two later Schneider joined them, with McPhee. They had dropped behind so that Schneider could take him into a room and show him something hed found near the cat cemetery.
A servant brought a coffee pot and began helping them to coffee. The aroma mixed with the breeze that had come up from the river and spread about the house. They could see the river, just, over the sugar cane. The breeze had come across the cane and by the time it reached them was warm and sweet.
Of course, I didnt know her well, said Mrs Schneider. She kept herself to herself. Or was kept. I used to hear the piano playing, though.
All the time, said Schneider. Music, I like. But not all the time.
I didnt mind it, said Mrs Schneider. She played beautifully. Anyway, she didnt play all the time.
It seemed like it.
Shes played a lot lately.
What sort of music did she play? asked McPhee.
German music.
Lieder?
Schneider looked at his wife.
Sometimes, she said. Brahms, I think, often.
I suppose there will have to be an investigation? said Schneider. Or wont you bother?
There will certainly be an investigation, said Owen. But that will be conducted by the mamur. Neither Mr McPhee nor I do that sort of thing.
Not down here, at any rate, said McPhee.
Schneider looked at Owen curiously.
I thought you did do that sort of thing, he said.
Only if theres a political side to it, said Owen.
The role of Mamur Zapt was roughly equivalent to that of the Head of the Political Branch of the CID. Only in Egypt, of course, there wasnt a CID. The nearest equivalent to that was the Parquet, the Department of Prosecutions of the Ministry of Justice. The Parquet, though, was Egyptian and the British Administration, which in effect ran Egypt at that time, kept it at arms length from anything political.
You wouldnt call this political? said Schneider.
Not at the moment, no.
I thought that was the reason why you were here ?
Thats quite different. The two are completely separate. From the point of view of the law, murder is a civil crime and will be treated as such; that is, investigated by the civil authorities.
Mrs Schneider flinched.
I suppose it must be murder, she said. Only, hearing it said like that
Of course its murder, said her husband impatiently. What else could it be?
I just thought that, well, you know, when I first heard about it, and heard that it was poison, well, I thought
What the hell did you think? said Schneider.
That it might be suicide.
How could it be suicide? She was bandaged, wasnt she? And in the pit. Did you think she walked there?
Well
Suicide!
From somewhere out beyond the immediate houses, in the direction of the house they had just left, came the sound of a mourning ululation starting up.
Mrs Schneider flinched again.
It doesnt seem right, she said. Not for her.
Its the family, said Schneider. You wouldnt have thought theyd have cared enough to bother.
Owen knew now what it was that had been nagging at him.
I heard some shots, he said to Schneider, as they were walking back out to the truck.
Oh, yes?
The mamur said it was your ghaffir.
Very probably, said Schneider.
What would he be shooting at? The mamur said brigands.
We do have them. Not as often as he claims, however. I think sometimes he just blazes off into the cane.
Thats a service rifle hes got.
Yes.
I was surprised. Ghaffirs dont usually have that sort of gun.
Theyve all been issued with them round here.
Not just your ghaffir?
No, all of them. We had to get one especially so that our ghaffir wouldnt feel out of it.
Whose bright idea was this? demanded Owen.
The Ministrys. We had an inspector down a few months ago.
Well, I think its crazy. Putting guns like this in the hands of untrained people like
Oh, theyre trained, all right. Musketry courses, drill, mock exercises, the lot.
Ghaffirs? said Owen incredulously.
It didnt square at all with the picture he had of the usual Egyptian village watchman, who was normally much more like Shakespeares Dogberry.
Yes. Its the new policy of the Ministry, apparently.
Well, I still think its bloody crazy.
Schneider shrugged.
Maybe youre just out of date, he suggested.
Maybe he was, thought Owen, as he drove back to Minya in one of the company trucks, lent for the occasion.
But now it nagged at him even more.
Trucks were still new in Egypt and it was the first time he had ridden in one. He wasnt sure that he liked it. The sensation of speed was disturbing and it was very bumpy. Once they had left the cane behind them they were driving across open desert. There was no real road and they were thrown about heavily. He and McPhee both put their sun helmets on to protect their heads when they hit the roof. What with the unfamiliar motion, the constant jolting and the fumes from the engine, he began to feel more than a little queasy. He saw that McPhees face was looking increasingly strained, too.
Still, it certainly got you there quickly. He glanced at his watch. At this rate they would soon get to Minya and with any luck would be able to catch the afternoon boat.
Have you got them all now? asked the mamur.
I think so.
Except for her, of course.
Ought we to have something in writing? asked McPhee.
To say shes dead?
If we dont, shell stay on a list somewhere and that could cause endless trouble.
Owen looked at the mamur.
Will you be sending in a report?
Report? said the mamur, as if it was the last thing that would occur to him.
Shes a foreigner. You have to file a report.
The mamur looked very unhappy.
Certainly, certainly, he muttered.
Owen guessed there was no certainty at all.
When you do, Id like to be sent a copy.
Of course! said the mamur, even more unhappily.
The party was already assembled on the landing stage. Some had bags, some had cases. A little group of spectators watched curiously.
That it? asked Owen, as he went down on to the landing stage.
A police sergeant came forward and saluted smartly.
Thats it, Effendi, he said.
A woman suddenly broke away from the group, rushed up to Owen and held out her hands.
Take me! she said frantically, waving her hands in front of him. Take me!
Youre not German, are you?
Im married to one. Thats him, there. You cant take him and not take me. Hes my husband!
Im sorry, said Owen. Were only taking Germans.
But Im married to one! Thats the same, isnt it? Weve been married for forty years! You cant take him and not take me!
Im sorry.
He hated this. He hated the whole thing. It was not what he had come into policing for. But then, when he had first become Mamur Zapt, Head of the Khedives Secret Police, there hadnt been a war on.
2
War had come to Egypt like a bolt from the blue. Looking back, Owen could see that there had been plenty of signs that it was coming, but at the time he, like everyone else in Egypt, had not taken them seriously. He had put them down to the infantile war games that the Great Powers were forever engaging in, manoeuvres which were merely ritual. And then, suddenly, barely more than a month ago, the manoeuvres had turned out to be not merely ritual.
What had made it even more of a surprise was that no one in Egypt had been paying much attention. The declaration had come during the hottest part of the year, when everything in Egypt had closed down. Most members of the Government were on holiday on the Riviera. Those British officials whose turn had come round had left for England. Egyptian officials had headed for the coast. Kitchener himself, the Englishman in whose hands most of the strings of power in Egypt lay, had departed for Europe; for which relief Owen, who had not got on with the Consul-General, had been giving much thanks.
The great Government offices were largely empty, their occupants having migrated, like the rest of the population of Cairo, to the cafés, where the Mamur Zapt, confident that in the extreme heat even the most desperate of criminals would not be thinking of crime, tended to join them.
And so when the news hit Egypt it did not at first really register. After the initial shock, Egypt had shrugged its shoulders and got on with doing what it normally did in August. That is, nothing.
But then the first orders began to arrive from London and among them was the instruction to arrest, detain and place in internment all German nationals and other suspicious foreigners. In the cafés, unkind Egyptians asked if that included Englishmen.
Owen had hardly got into his office when he heard the phone ringing; and he had hardly got it into his hand before the person on the other end was speaking, or, rather, bellowing.
Owen, is that you? Look, this is damned silly! Theyve taken Becker.
Becker?
Sluices. Hes the one who knows about sluices. Do you know about sluices? No, Im not surprised. Not many do. Theyre tricky things. And once youve got someone who knows about them, you dont muck him about! What is more, you hang on to him. Because if he goes, you wont find another.
Now this chaps really good. Hes been working for us for fifteen years. Its got so now that I cant do without him. With him gone, the whole bloody system will close down. Sluices, dams, then the lot.
How would they like that, then? You tell me. The whole country depends on water, the water depends on the dams, the dams depend on the sluices and the sluices depend on yes, youre right: this man Becker!