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‘They shall be tracked down.’
‘And tortured,’ said Ali Osman with relish. ‘Flayed alive and nailed out in the sun.’
‘Severely dealt with.’
‘I would wish to be present myself,’ said the Pasha. ‘In person. Please make arrangements.’
‘Certainly. Of course, it may all take a little time … Legal processes, you know …’
Ali Osman raised himself on one arm.
‘Justice,’ he admonished Owen, ‘should be swift and certain. Then people know what to expect.’
‘Absolutely! But, Pasha, surely you would not wish it to be too soon? Might not your injuries prevent—?’
‘Grievous though they are,’ said Osman, ‘for this I would make a special effort.’
He collapsed on his face again and a eunuch hastily began to massage him.
‘May I inquire into the nature of your wounds?’ asked Owen.
‘Severe.’
‘No doubt. But—’ eyeing the pummelling Ali Osman was receiving from the eunuch—‘confined to the surface?’
‘The bruising goes deep.’
‘Of course. But—bruising only? No stab wounds?’
‘Some of them had knives. It was merely a matter of time.’
‘Yes. It was fortunate that your driver—’
Ali Osman interrupted him. ‘They let him off lightly. Why did they pick on me? Why didn’t they beat him? He’s used to it, after all; he wouldn’t have felt it as much.’
He seemed to be expecting an answer.
‘The great,’ said Owen diplomatically, ‘are the target for the world’s envy.’
‘Ah,’ said Ali Osman Pasha, ‘there you have it.’
He lay silent for a while.
‘Of course,’ he said suddenly, ‘they didn’t think of this themselves. They were put up to it.’
‘You think so?’
‘I am sure of it. And I know who is behind it.’
‘Really?’
‘Abdul Maher.’
‘Abdul Maher?’
‘Yes.’
‘But, Pasha—’
Abdul Maher was a veteran politician, an intimate of the Khedive, a noted public figure. He had occupied some post or other in the last dozen Governments.
The Pasha was looking at him solemnly.
‘I know,’ he said.
‘You must have some reason—’
‘Motive,’ said Ali Osman.
‘Motive?’
‘He wished to take my place. Supplant me in the Khedive’s favour.’
‘I see,’ said Owen, as light began to dawn. ‘And that would be particularly important just at the moment’
‘Yes.’ Ali Osman motioned to him to come closer. ‘This is for your ear alone, my friend,’ he breathed. ‘His Highness is close to making a decision. Very close. It has been difficult. He has had to choose between those he knows are loyal to him, those who have served him well in the past. And those others who claim—’ Ali Osman snorted—‘claim they speak for the new.’
‘But surely Abdul Maher—’
‘Belongs with the old, you think? Because he has been part of every Government for the last twenty years? You would be wrong, my friend. Because there is the cunning of the man. He claims he speaks for the new!’
‘I cannot believe that the Khedive—’
‘Of course not. The Khedive knows him far too well. But he is plausible, you see, not just to the Khedive but to others. He speaks well and some may believe him. So the Khedive—well, over the past week or so the Khedive seems to have been inclining to him. But yesterday he—His Highness, that is—told me personally that Abdul Maher is absolutely out.’
The Pasha looked at Owen triumphantly.
‘So, my friend, if Abdul Maher is out, someone else must be in.’
‘You don’t mean—’
Ali Osman smiled importantly.
‘I think, my friend, that I have reason to hope.’
Owen pulled himself together.
‘Well, Pasha, I can only hope you’re right.’
‘It is for the sake of the country, of course.’
‘Of course. And—and you think that Abdul Maher may have got wind of this—change of fortunes and tried to warn you off?’
‘Not warn,’ said Ali Osman reproachfully. ‘Kill.’
‘Attack, anyway. That Ali Maher may have been behind your unfortunate experience yesterday?’
‘Exactly,’ said Ali Osman with satisfaction.
Owen reflected.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Ali Osman.
‘I shall certainly treat your suggestions very seriously. I shall start investigations at once.’
‘Excellent.’ Ali Osman’s face clouded slightly, however. ‘How long do you think it would be before you were in a position to arrest him?’ he asked, a trifle anxiously.
‘Oh, a week or two. Say two or three. Perhaps four.’
‘You don’t think you could do it more quickly?’
‘I would have to complete my investigations.’
‘Of course. Of course.’
Ali Osman still looked unhappy, however.
‘You don’t think,’ he said tentatively, ‘you don’t think you could, oh, let it be known, publicly, I mean, that you are investigating Abdul Maher?’
‘Why would I want to do that, Pasha?’
‘Oh, the public interest. It would be in the public interest. The people ought to know.’
‘And the Khedive?’
‘The Khedive ought to know, too,’ said Ali Osman, straightfaced.
Owen smiled. He understood Ali Osman’s political manœuvres perfectly.
‘I am sure,’ he said, getting up to go, ‘that this is something you will manage very expertly yourself.’
‘Ali Osman?’ said Nuri Pasha incredulously. ‘The man’s a fool. He stands no chance whatever.’
‘He seems to think he does.’
‘The man’s a joke!’
‘The Khedive has given him a wink. So he says.’
‘Utter nonsense!’
Nuri looked, however, a little upset.
‘Abdul Maher has fallen out of favour.’
‘Abdul Maher never was in favour. The Khedive detests him.’
‘Ali Osman considers him his chief rival. He believes he was behind the recent attack on him.’
‘Ali Osman has a fertile imagination,’ said Nuri. ‘Unfortunately, it vanishes entirely the moment he gets in office.’
‘The attack, at any rate, was genuine.’
‘Was he much hurt?’ asked Nuri, with pleasure rather than concern.
‘Bruised a little.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Nuri.
‘That, actually, was why I’ve come to see you. There have been a number of such attacks recently. I wanted to be sure that you were all right.’
‘Thank you. As you see, I am clinging to life with the skin of my teeth. How is Zeinab?’
Zeinab was Nuri’s daughter and a more than close friend of Owen.
‘She is very well, thank you. She reinforces my concern.’
‘Have you any particular reason for concern?’
‘No. It is just that this could be a time for settling old scores.’
A few years before, Nuri Pasha had been the Minister responsible for carrying through the prosecution and subsequent punishment of some villagers who had attacked a party of British Officers, wounding two and killing one. The punishment, on British insistence, had been exemplary; and Nuri had never been forgiven for it.
Nuri shrugged his shoulders.
‘It is never not a time for settling old scores,’ he said. ‘That is one of the things one just has to get used to.’
‘Has anything come up?’
‘Not out of the ordinary.’
‘Threats?’
‘As always.’
Nuri passed him a note. It read: ‘To the blood-sucking Nuri: The people have not forgotten. Your time is coming. Prepare, Nuri, prepare.’
Owen passed it back.
‘You have been receiving notes like this for years.’
‘And ignored them,’ said Nuri, ‘confident in the assumption that the Egyptian is always more ready to tell what he is going to do than actually to do it.’
‘A reasonable assumption. In general. However, just at the moment I think I would avoid testing it.’
‘Have you a suggestion?’
‘How about a holiday? The Riviera? Paris?’
Nuri, a total francophile, shook his head with genuine regret.
‘Circumstances, alas, keep me here.’
Owen could guess what the circumstances were. Nuri was another of the ever-hopeful veteran politicians. Owen thought, however, that he might be disappointed this time, along with Ali Osman and Abdul Maher. He was too identified with the old regime. There was a need, after Patros, for someone who could satisfy the Nationalists—satisfy, without giving in to them.
‘Would you like a bodyguard?’
‘The police?’ said Nuri sceptically. ‘Thank you, no. I feel safer without. I have, in fact, taken certain steps already.’
Nuri directed Owen’s attention to two ruffians lurking in the bougainvillaea behind him. They were Berbers from the south and armed from head to foot. They beamed at him cordially.
‘I have no fears should there be an attack on me at close quarters. And when I go out I take two Bedawin with me as well. They are excellent shots and used to people attempting to shoot them in the back. No, the only thing that worries me is a bomb.’
‘Surely there is no question of that?’
‘There have been rumours,’ said Nuri.
There were indeed rumours. Cairo was full of them. Owen’s agents brought fresh ones in every day. They came from the Court, from the famous clubs—the Khedivial, frequented by Egyptians and foreigners, the Turf and the Sporting Club, frequented by the British—from the colleges and university, from the cafés and bazaars.
The ones from the Moslem University of El Azhar and the colleges were the most alarming but it was there that the gap between rhetoric and reality was at its greatest. Or so Owen hoped.
The ones from the Court were alarming in a different way, for they were almost exclusively concerned with the current manœuvring about the Khedive, with who had his favour, who didn’t, who might be in, who was definitely out. There seemed to be no sense of anything beyond the narrow confines of the Court, no awareness of the impact the delay was having on the country at large.
The rumours from the Club were testimony to the general jitteriness. Owen tended to discount them, not because they were insignificant—in certain circumstances they might be very significant indeed—but because he felt he knew them already and understood them.
It was the rumours from the cafés and bazaars that he gave most attention to, for they were a gauge of the temperature of the city. It was from them that he would learn if things were getting out of hand, if there was a danger of things boiling over.
At the moment he did not get that feeling. The city was tense, certainly, and, given its normal volatility, there was plenty of potential for an explosion. In a city with over twenty different nationalities, at least five major religions apart from Islam, three principal languages and over a score of minor ones, four competing legal systems and, in effect, two Governments, the smallest spark could set off a major conflagration. Owen always had the feeling that he was sitting on a vast, unstable powder-keg.
But he didn’t have that feeling more than usual. There was trouble in the city, yes, there were incidents, dozens of them, but he felt they would all fade away—in so far as they ever could fade away—if only the Khedive would stop his bloody dithering and form a new Government.
Until that happened he just had to hold on and damp things down. On the whole he thought he would be able to manage that. The Pashas were no great problem. After the attack on Ali Osman they would all be prudently keeping out of sight. The demonstrations, the stone-throwing, the attacks on property, they could all be handled in the normal way.
Even that following business was all right, so long as it stayed at following. It was only if it went beyond that that he would worry.
As in the case of Fairclough.
The attack on Fairclough, simply as crime, did not concern Owen. Investigating it was not his business. Nor was it, curiously, that of the police. In Egypt investigation of crimes was the responsibility of the Department of Prosecutions of the Ministry of Justice, the Parquet, as it was known.
What concerned Owen as Mamur Zapt were the political aspects of the affair. The Mamur Zapt was roughly the equivalent of the Head of the Political Branch of the CID in England. Only roughly, because the post was unique to Cairo and included such things as responsibility for the Secret Police, a body of considerable importance to some previous Khedives when they were establishing their power but now significant only as an intelligence-gathering network.
Fairclough as the near-victim of some private quarrel or dispute did not interest him; Fairclough as the near-victim of a terrorist attack was a very different matter.
Up till now there had been no conclusive evidence that it was one or the other. The Parquet’s investigations had so far failed to uncover any private grudge. Nor had they been able to unearth any further information about his attackers.
They had, however, recovered two of the spent bullets and sent them to the Government Laboratories for examination. First analysis had failed to match them with any gun used in previous terrorist attempts.
This was quite significant, as in Egypt terrorists tended to cling on to their firearms, using them repeatedly and making no effort to cover their tracks by employing new ones. It was a pattern of behaviour inherited from the country’s rural areas, where a gun was a treasured possession, jealously guarded and preserved, bound together with bits of wire, until it was long past an age of decent retirement.
If a private quarrel was ruled out, this suggested that a new terrorist group was beginning to operate, a hypothesis Nikos favoured on other grounds.
‘They’re inexperienced,’ he said. ‘They fired from too far away.’
Beginners often did that, either because they were nervous or because they did not know the characteristics of their weapons. Small arms were effective only at very close range. The most successful assassination attempts occurred when the assailant ran right up to the victim and shot him at point-blank range, a fact which it was very useful to know when arranging protection for the Consul-General or Khedive.
Of course, such evidence was very speculative and Nikos, who took a detached view of such things, was really waiting for other evidence to come along; such as another attack.
Meanwhile, he was attempting an analysis of the reports of following that had come in. There were dozens of them.
‘Nearly all of them imaginary,’ he complained.
‘Mine wasn’t bloody imaginary,’ said Owen.
‘Wasn’t it?’
‘Of course it bloody wasn’t, I saw two men.’
‘Yes, but were they anything to do with it?’
‘Of course they were something to do with it!’
‘How do you know? They were just standing there. They might have been buying a camel or something.’
Owen, who found Nikos’s pedantic logic very tiresome on occasions, resisted a temptation to kick his ass.
‘Anyway,’ said Nikos, ‘you haven’t described them properly.’
‘What do you mean, I haven’t described them properly?’
‘No detail.’
‘There wasn’t time to notice detail.’
‘They didn’t just disappear. They must have walked away. That would take time.’
‘A couple of steps?’
‘Long enough to see something.’
‘Not from where I was. My view was interrupted.’
‘It was a chance,’ said Nikos accusingly.
‘Look,’ said Owen, ‘there was a reason why I didn’t stand out in the middle of the street and examine them carefully. It was that I didn’t want to get a bullet in my head.’
Nikos bent prudently over the papers on his desk.
Owen stalked indignantly over to the earthenware pot standing in the window where it would keep cool and poured himself a glass of water. He picked up a copy of the Parquet’s first report and settled down to read it.
A few moments went by. Then Nikos coughed slightly.
Owen looked up.
‘Young or old?’ said Nikos.
‘What?’
‘Young or old? Those two men. Were they young or old?’
‘Young, I think.’
‘Galabeahs?’
‘Shirt and trousers, I think.’
‘Short, fat, tall, thin?’
‘About medium, I’d say. Slightly built, perhaps.’
‘Young,’ said Nikos.
‘Probably. It would go with them being inexperienced.’
‘They needn’t be the same two. The group as a whole might be young. In fact, it probably would be.’
‘What about the other cases?’
‘The other reports? Nine-tenths imaginary or so vague as to be useless. About six worth looking at.’
‘Including mine?’
‘You’re on the margin.’
‘Fairclough’s?’
‘No detail on the following. Useful detail from the shooting, though not much of it.’
‘What did you get from the others?’
‘Two people, nearly always. Men, young, Western-style clothes.’
Owen thought for a moment.
‘That could be good,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘It could mean there’s only one group operating. If it’s the same pattern in each case.’
‘It’s the same pattern, I think.’
‘I hope it is. That would make things a lot easier.’
‘Did you think it wasn’t?’
‘No, no, not particularly. You always worry in a situation like this, with general unrest, that they might all start coming at you, from all sides. It’s much easier if there’s only one group to handle.’
‘You’ve still got the general restiveness to cope with.’
‘Yes, but you handle the two in different ways. The general stuff is all right provided you keep a sense of proportion. You’ve not got to let it get out of hand but at the same time you’ve not got to overreact. If you start thinking they’re all bloody terrorist groups you tend to overreact. But that only makes it worse because it provokes people, and then what starts as a demonstration becomes a bloody riot.’
‘You don’t think demonstrations might grow into terrorism if they’re not put down?’
‘No,’ said Owen.
‘I hope you’re right,’ said Nikos. ‘We’ll soon see, won’t we?’
Keeping a sense of proportion was all very well but it wasn’t only Owen who had to guard against overreacting. The next morning he had a meeting at the Residency and when he came out he found that the Army was building roadblocks in all the neighbouring streets.
‘What the bloody hell is this?’ he asked the sergeant who seemed to be in charge.
‘Defences, sir,’ said the sergeant.
‘Defences? What the hell against?’
‘Search me, sir, I don’t know. All them Arabs, I expect.’
An Egyptian who had been at the meeting with Owen and had followed him out emerged on to the street and turned right, where he walked straight into a roadblock.
‘’Ere, where do you think you’re going?’ asked the corporal manning it.
‘Along to the Ministry.’
‘Not this way, you’re not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I bloody say so, that’s why not. And because I’ve got this—’ the corporal patted the butt of his rifle—‘to back me up.’
‘But I’m only going to the Ministry!’
‘’Ard luck.’
‘I work there.’
‘You’ll just have to work somewhere else.’
‘But—’
The Egyptian looked around in bewilderment. Owen stepped forward.
‘I must get there at once,’ said the Egyptian. ‘I’ve got an important meeting!’
‘Why don’t you just go away?’ suggested the corporal.
‘Hallo, Mr Fahmy,’ said Owen. ‘Can I help?’
The Egyptian made a bemused gesture.
‘This is the Minister of the Interior,’ said Owen.
The corporal flinched.
‘Sorry, sir,’ he said, as much to Owen as to the Minister. Although Owen was not in uniform—he was, in fact, on secondment from the Indian Army—the corporal knew at once that he was an Army officer.
‘He needs to get to the Ministry,’ said Owen. ‘Obviously.’
The corporal looked troubled.
‘I—I know, sir,’ he said. ‘The trouble is, I’ve been instructed not to let anyone pass along this street. Orders, sir.’
The sergeant, who had followed Owen along when he saw how things were going, intervened.
‘You go and fetch Captain Fenniman,’ he told the corporal. ‘I’ll look after things here.’
Relieved, the corporal took himself off.
‘Sorry, sir,’ said the sergeant, including Fahmy in his ‘sir’. ‘Would you mind waiting a minute?’
‘I’m as much in the dark as you,’ Owen said to Fahmy.
Fahmy shrugged.
The corporal came hurrying back with a young officer in tow.
‘Yes?’ he said sharply.
‘This is Mr Fahmy, Minister of the Interior,’ said Owen. The captain nodded politely. ‘He wants to be allowed to get to the Ministry.’
The captain hesitated.
‘I think he should,’ said Owen.
Fenniman made up his mind.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Hawley, will you escort this gentleman through our blocks? Bennett, you stay here. Sorry to inconvenience you,’ he said to Fahmy. ‘But you’ll understand that we have to take precautions.’
The Egyptian shrugged again. As he went off with the sergeant he gave Owen a wry smile.
‘I don’t understand why you’ve got to take precautions,’ said Owen.
‘Haven’t you heard? There’s been an attack on a senior member of the Administration. More are on the way, apparently.’
‘Senior member of the Administration?’
‘Apparently.’
‘Fairclough?’
‘I think that’s his name.’
‘Fairclough isn’t a senior member of anything. Except possibly the bridge club.’
‘Oh? Well, that’s what I heard.’
‘There’s been an attack, certainly. But why the hell all this?’ Owen indicated the barricades.
‘Guarding the Residency. The CG could be the next target.’
‘This isn’t your bright idea, is it?’
‘It seems a good idea to me,’ said Fenniman defensively.
‘It’s a stupid idea,’ said Owen.
‘Oh? And what exactly do you know about it, Mr—?’
‘Owen. The Mamur Zapt. Responsible for law and order in this bloody city. Which you are messing up.’
Owen steamed back into the Residency. His friend Paul, the Consul-General’s personal aide, who had been secretarying the meeting, was still packing up. Owen told him about the barricades.
‘Jesus!’ said Paul. ‘All we asked for was an extra couple of guards.’
Owen told him about the Minister.
‘The bloody fools! I’ll get on to him at once and apologize.’
‘Can’t you do something about the barricades?’
‘You think they’re a bit de trop?’
‘I bloody do.’
They went back to Paul’s office. Paul rang up the Commander-in-Chief’s office and asked to speak to one of his aides.
‘John? Is that you? What’s going on? Have you declared war or something?’
‘Not as far as I know. We can’t, anyway, because I’m playing tennis this afternoon.’
‘Who’s responsible for putting these barricades all over the place?’
‘Barricades?’
Paul told him.
‘Sounds like Hardwicke to me. Want me to have a word with him?’
‘Yes. I have a friend of yours here, an old foe from the tennis courts, who thinks they merely add to the already overwhelming difficulties of his life.’
‘If he’d only leave Zeinab alone, he’d have a lot less difficulty in his life.’
‘I’ll tell him that. Oh, I think he’s heard. Oh, and, John, one more thing: it would lessen the difficulties in my life if the Army stopped arresting Ministers of His Royal Highness’s Government.’
‘That the barricades too? OK, I’ll see what I can do. Ring you back.’
Within a few moments he rang back.
‘It was Hardwicke. And I’m sorry to say he’s being difficult. He says the CG requested it.’
‘All we requested was an extra guard. I sent the memo myself.’
‘He’s digging his heels in. If the CG is changing his mind he’s got to be told formally.’
‘I’ll send him a chitty.’
‘That won’t be enough. He wants a meeting.’
‘A meeting! I’ve got too many of those already.’
‘With the CG.’
‘He’ll be lucky! The Old Man’s off to the coast this afternoon.’