HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1999

Copyright © Michael Pearce 1999

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 author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content or written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780008259341

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2013 ISBN: 9780007400485

Version: 2017-09-05

Praise for Michael Pearce

‘This series continues to be the most delightful in current detective fiction’

GERALD KAUFMAN, Scotsman

‘Pearce… takes apart ancient history and reassembles it with beguiling wit and colour’

JOHN COLEMAN, Sunday Times

‘Irresistible fun’

Time Out

‘The Mamur Zapt’s sly, irreverent humour continues to refresh the parts others seldom reach’

Observer

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for Michael Pearce

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by Michael Pearce

About the Publisher

1

‘Of course, it’s very quiet there,’ said Owen.

‘Just what we want!’

‘And picturesque. Flamingoes, pelicans, that sort of thing.’

‘Excellent!’

‘No crocodiles there now,’ said McPhee.

‘Crocodiles!’

Owen sometimes wished that McPhee would keep his mouth shut.

‘There used to be,’ said McPhee. ‘In fact, the lake was famous for them. They were kept almost as pets. The priests used to pamper them, prepare special feasts for them—’

‘Crocodiles!’ said the man from the Khedive’s office uneasily. ‘I don’t think His Highness will be happy about that!’

‘There aren’t any now,’ said Owen, perspiring. They had been going round and round in the meeting all morning trying to hit on a place and just when they’d got one, that bloody fool of a Deputy Commandant—

‘The whole area was sacred to the crocodile god once,’ said McPhee happily. ‘That’s why they named the town after it. Crocodilopolis.’

‘It sounds a most unsuitable place to me,’ said the official. ‘I’m sure His Highness wouldn’t want to stay—’

‘He couldn’t,’ Owen almost shouted, ‘even if he wanted to! It’s all under the sand!’

‘Uncomfortable, too? No, really—’

‘It was under the sand three thousand years ago!’

‘Oh, come, Owen,’ McPhee objected mildly. ‘Two thousand.’

‘Two thousand. In the past, anyway. There are no crocodiles there now.’

‘How do you know?’ objected the man from the Khedive’s office. ‘I thought all the lake was fed by the Bahr-el-Yussuf flowing westward from the Nile. Couldn’t crocodiles swim along it?’

‘There aren’t any crocodiles in the Nile either,’ said Owen. ‘Not these days. Not since the dam was built at Aswan. There couldn’t be.’

‘Or suppose they’d just stayed there? In the lake, I mean. Stayed there and bred?’

‘Someone would have seen them.’

‘Has anyone seen them?’

‘Well, Strabo reports—’ began McPhee.

‘Strabo? Is he one of your men?’

McPhee looked at him, astonished. ‘Strabo died two thousand years ago,’ he said.

‘Surely you have more up-to-date information?’ said the official.

‘I have,’ said Owen wearily. ‘The spot we are proposing is on the shore of Lake Karun. Where there is a luxury hotel. And good shooting and fishing. And no crocodile has been seen in a thousand years.’

‘You are sure about the shooting? The Consul was very specific on that point.’

‘Yes.’

The official eyed the clock. It was getting close to siesta time.

‘I suppose we could settle, then,’ he said reluctantly. ‘If you are sure about the crocodiles.’

‘Quite sure.’

‘Very well, then. It’s just that we wouldn’t want an unfortunate mishap. His Highness was very insistent about that. There is to be no unfortunate incident, he said.’

The party left Cairo early in the morning by train and arrived at Wasta just over an hour later. At Wasta they changed to a branch line which took them to Medinet-el-Fayoum. At Medinet they took the light railway to Abchaway, where an assortment of carriages was waiting for them.

They drove for an hour through a countryside which, although Owen had now lived in Egypt for several years was unfamiliar to him. What he knew was city and sand and river. But here were fertile green fields, burgeoning with grapes, figs, apricots, olives, corn and cotton and bursting with roses. Everywhere the fields were crossed by little canals and in the distance was a long turquoise streak which gradually revealed itself to be a lake.

The hotel was a row of roomy square tents along a stone terrace above the lake. Tied up to the bank were boats of all sorts, some rowing, some sailing, some as old as the Pharaohs, woven out of reeds, mere baskets on the water pushed along by paddles.

The vehicles stopped and the guests were shown to their tents by stooping, scarlet-cummerbunded suffragis. Afterwards, a cold lunch was served beneath the palm trees. Wines – not the perfectly respectable wine of the district but from Burgundy and the Loire – accompanied the food and beside each table was a bucket filled with ice and containing a welcoming bottle of champagne.

For this was no ordinary shooting party. When Nuri Pasha, Zeinab’s father, had heard who was to be present, his eyes had widened.

‘My dear boy,’ he had said, ‘you don’t think you could wangle me an invitation?’

But that was something that even the Mamur Zapt, Head of the Khedive’s Secret Police, could not do. Indeed, what he himself was doing there was open to question.

Tvardovsky was sitting at the table next to Owen. He was sitting alone, looking out over the lake, crumbling his bread roll nervously. Sweat was running down his face; where his hand had rested on the tablecloth there was a damp patch. He dabbed at his forehead with his napkin, then wiped round above his collar.

Suddenly, he threw down the napkin, got to his feet and walked down to the water. Owen gave it a moment and then went down to join him.

‘Why do they have to kill?’ demanded Tvardovsky.

‘Kill?’

Tvardovsky gestured towards the ducks nosing peacefully in and out among the reeds.

‘Why don’t they just leave them alone?’

Owen looked back up at the tables, at the pale, fat men in their new tropical suits and with their new sun helmets parked cautiously on the ground beside them, and laughed.

‘Looking at the marksmen,’ he said. ‘I think there’s a fair chance they’ll miss.’

Tvardovsky laughed too, a short, fierce laugh, more like a bark than a laugh.

‘They don’t usually,’ he said.

Some men had joined the group up on the terrace: His Highness himself and some of the princes, the Minister of Finance, the Governor of the Bank of Egypt, the Chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce and the Financial Adviser. His Highness seated himself in a plush red armchair and a man Owen didn’t know but guessed to be the new Russian Consul began to go round the tables bringing up their occupants for presentation to him. Afterwards, they were drawn aside into conversation with the other members of his party. There was no problem about language; all the Russians spoke French, as did, as a matter of course, all the Egyptian upper classes and all the senior officials.

Owen had thought that Tvardovsky might be out of it but when he saw the new arrivals he hurried back up to the terrace and inserted himself beside the Financial Adviser, who was, certainly, in this assembly, the man to talk to.

Owen returned to his table and went on with his lunch. Gradually the tables emptied and there was a general cluster in the middle around His Highness’s party.

After a while, Owen became aware that he was not the only one remaining on the periphery. At the table next to his was a woman in her early thirties, tall, slim, blonde and dressed in jodhpurs, an embroidered blouse and, incongruously, a dark veil.

‘I’ve been wondering about you,’ she said. ‘You’re not one of us and yet you don’t seem to be one of them. Which side are you on?’

‘I’m not on anyone’s side,’ said Owen, ‘who’s anything to do with finance. They won’t have me. Wisely.’

‘Dear, dear!’ said the woman. ‘I have a feeling you won’t get far in life.’

She belonged, presumably, to one of the financiers.

‘So what are you doing here?’ she asked.

‘Oh, I’m just here in a general capacity,’ said Owen, ‘as one of the Khedive’s servants.’

The woman looked at him closely, then laughed.

‘I understand,’ she said. ‘We have them too. People who serve the Tsar. In a general capacity.’

That evening there was a reception for the shooting party. Waiters moved among them carrying silver trays on which were thin-stemmed glasses of sherry, cut-glass tumblers of whisky and some other glasses containing a colourless liquid: vodka, Owen supposed, in deference to the visitors’ tastes.

One of the princes, Fuad, came across to him.

‘Not drinking?’

‘No.’

‘I suppose not.’ He looked across the terrace. ‘How’s Tvardovsky?’

‘All right. So far.’

The prince considered.

‘I think he’s an egg,’ he said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘An expensive Fabergé egg; but cracked.’

Owen found it hard to get to sleep that night. Partly it was the mosquito netting rigged up around the bed, which made it very hot. A sensible precaution, no doubt, in view of the proximity to water, but one that Owen, in Cairo, was accustomed to doing without. Partly, though, it was the noise the hyenas were making. He could hear them laughing all along the shore.

He slipped out of his bed and went to the door of the tent. Outside, the moonlight made it as bright as day. In Tvardovsky’s tent, however, next to his, there was a lamp still on. He stepped across and put his ear to the flap. Tvardovsky seemed to be working. He heard the rustle of papers and from time to time a low exclamation, as if the Russian was surprised at what he found.

Owen went back to his tent. Out behind the reeds the moon was silvering the water. A puff of wind ruffled the leaves of the palm trees along the terrace and a moment later broke up the silver into myriads of glittering fragments. Owen thought he heard the plop of a fish.

Over by the kitchen there was a sudden shout and then, clear in the moonlight, Owen saw a hyena loping away, carrying something in its mouth. Whoever had shouted did not bother to chase it and soon, out in the shadows, Owen heard the crack as the creature’s powerful jaws got to work.

And now there was a different noise. From one of the tents further along the row he could hear a woman’s soft moans. Well, that was what she was there for, presumably.

The moans quickened, became urgent and then sighed away, and then for a while all was quiet. Owen wondered whether to go back to bed but knew that if he went back too soon he would stay awake. He thought about going down to the lake. But there was always Tvardovsky.

He heard someone moving among the tents and then, to his surprise, for he had assumed she was otherwise engaged, he saw the blonde woman. She was wearing a long black kimono. Her feet were bare. He stepped back from the doorway. There was a swish of silk as she went past. Outside Tvardovsky’s tent she hesitated and then went in.

There were no moans this time, just what appeared to be a short, intense argument in a language Owen did not understand. Then the woman came out again, so quickly that he had no time to step back. She saw him standing there and smiled.

The next morning, after breakfast, the waiters arranged some armchairs beneath the palms and the financiers continued their discussion. Owen stayed on the terrace at his breakfast table. After a while, one of the waiters, a young, pleasant-looking man, came up to him.

‘You no talking?’ he said in English.

‘No.’

‘Why no talking?’

‘They’re talking about money.’

The waiter smiled.

‘You not got?’

‘That’s right,’ said Owen. ‘Not got.’

The waiter squatted down on his haunches, ready to drift into conversation in the easy way of the Egyptians. The pressure was off the waiters now and he could afford to relax.

‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘Not got.’

‘Got wife yet?’

The waiter looked glum.

‘Money first,’ he said. ‘Then wife.’

‘Same here.’

That was not quite true. There were other reasons preventing, or perhaps delaying, his and Zeinab’s marriage: the attitude the British Administration would probably take to one of its servants marrying an Egyptian, for a start. But then, Zeinab herself was uncertain. Did she want to marry an Englishman?

‘Welshman,’ pleaded Owen.

As Zeinab was not quite sure about the difference between the two, that made her even more uncertain. She knew that Wales was, or had been, like Egypt, an independent country and that, like Egypt, it had been conquered by the English. But where did that leave Owen? Was he, like so many young Egyptians, a secret Nationalist? But if so, how did he come to be Mamur Zapt? And what would happen when they found out? If Zeinab was doubtful about marrying one of the conquering English, she – ever the realist – was even more doubtful about marrying one of the losing Welsh, particularly, if as seemed to be the case, there was more than an outside chance that the English might garotte him.

The real obstacle, however, Owen suspected, was that having invested so much willpower in creating a life for herself as an independent woman, which took some doing in Egypt, she hadn’t got quite enough left to take the last step, making an independent marriage.

But would her father, Nuri, in fact object? He and Owen had always got along well. But getting on well was one thing, marrying a daughter quite another. Pashas like Nuri tended to view marriage as a means of political and financial alliance. It might suit him for the moment to have his daughter close to the Head of the Khedive’s Secret Police but that advantage would be only as temporary as a civil servant’s career. As for financial advantage, Nuri knew only too exactly how little Owen earned. So, yes, it was true what he had said to the waiter: they were in the same boat.

The waiter jerked his thumb in the direction of the financiers.

‘They lot of money,’ he said. ‘Why they want more?’

‘That’s the way of rich men,’ said Owen.

‘True,’ acknowledged the waiter, still brooding, however. ‘But why they here?’

‘Egypt not got,’ said Owen.

That was even more true. In fact, it was so true that Egypt’s international creditors had felt obliged to set up a commission, the Caisse, to make sure that they were repaid. The British had been installed, or installed themselves, as managers on behalf of the commission, and now it was a good question who really ran the country; the Khedive, Egypt’s nominal ruler, the British Consul-General, whose hand was on all the strings, or the Caisse.

The waiter was silent.

‘Egypt rich country,’ he said after a while, the sweep of his hand taking in the fields with their cotton and sugar cane and fruit. ‘Why not got?’

‘Ah, well,’ said Owen. ‘You’ll have to ask the Khedive.’

The waiter went into the hotel and returned with a newspaper, which he gave to Owen. It was a copy of Al-Liwa, the leading Arabic Nationalist paper. Ordinarily, he would have read it the previous night – one of the Mamur Zapt’s duties was to read all the newspapers – before publication – but because he had been away he had not been able to.

He looked at the newspaper and felt vexed. They had slipped up in his absence. There on the front page was a reference to the financiers’ visit. What were they here for, demanded Al-Liwa? Was it to suck yet more blood out of Egypt’s already dried-up veins? Well, if blood was what they wanted, blood was what they would—

Owen gave the newspaper back to the waiter. He was used to the sanguinary rhetoric of the Nationalist newspapers and it did not bother him. However, they had been trying to keep the visit secret. The negotiations were important and neither the British Administration nor the Khedive wanted them disturbed by any unfortunate incident.

‘Not got,’ said the waiter, jerking his thumb again, ‘because all money go out of country to people like them!’

If even ordinary waiters were saying such things, thought Owen, was it any wonder that other people were?

Tvardovsky kept, or was kept, apart from the other Russians. At lunch he came and sat with Owen.

‘How’s it going?’

‘They have no vision,’ said Tvardovsky. ‘They see only roubles.’

‘What do you see?’

‘I see fields of grain,’ said Tvardovsky. ‘This was once Rome’s granary. It could be again.’

‘Depending on what?’

‘Water,’ said Tvardovsky, ‘and pumps.’

‘And money?’

‘Well, naturally.’

‘People, too,’ said Owen.

‘Yes,’ granted Tvardovsky, ‘people are important.’ He looked at Owen. ‘You know the country,’ he said. ‘How would the people feel?’

‘I think they would need to feel part of it,’ said Owen.

‘And at the moment they don’t,’ said Tvardovsky. ‘That is because they are serfs.’

‘Well, not really—’

‘The next best thing to. We were serfs, too, in Russia,’ said Tvardovsky. ‘I was one. Or, rather, the son of one. So I know.’

‘I don’t think it’s quite the same in Egypt.’

‘They need to feel part of it. Will the British make them feel part of it?’

‘We have done a bit,’ said Owen.

‘No,’ said Tvardovsky. ‘The answer is no. But Russians could.’

Owen looked at the financiers on the adjoining tables.

‘You said they had no vision.’

‘Not these.’ Tvardovsky dismissed them with a contemptuous wave of his hand. ‘Others. Have you heard of a Russian named Kropotkin?’

‘No,’ said Owen.

‘He is a prince. But an unusually intelligent one. He says that cooperation, not competition, is the natural way of things. You British will not make the ordinary Egyptian feel part of things because you believe in competition. But that is not what the ordinary man wants. It is not natural to him. What is natural is cooperation. And that is what is needed here.’

‘And Mr Kropotkin will bring it?’

‘Alas,’ said Tvardovsky. ‘It may take a bit of time.’

After lunch the financiers, unused to the heat, returned to their tents for a siesta. Owen took a chair, however, and sat outside beneath an orange tree, where the foliage was thick enough to give dense shade. He could have gone back to his tent, next to Tvardovsky’s, but from here he could see better.

At about four the financiers began to emerge from their tents and make their way to the armchair area, where they were served afternoon tea. They drank their tea, as the Egyptians did, without milk.

From time to time someone came and led one of them off. Individual interviews had been arranged with the Governor of the Bank of Egypt and the Financial Adviser. ‘In the end,’ said Tvardovsky, ‘a financier has to work alone. We do not trust each other.’

Tvardovsky went for an interview, too. Owen accompanied him to the tent but did not go in.

Dinner was early in view of the shoot the next day. Tvardovsky sat at Owen’s table again. He drank heavily.

‘Steady on,’ said Owen. ‘We’re making an early start tomorrow, remember.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Tvardovsky. ‘The killing.’

It was still dark but in the tents the lamps were on. Suffragis hurried about carrying bowls of hot water for shaving and coffee for those who needed it. Up on the terrace a light breakfast had been prepared but the main breakfast would be later, after the shoot. People were already walking down to the water.

Owen emerged from his tent carrying a gun. Tvardovsky, coming out at the same time, regarded it distrustfully.

‘What’s that for?’ he said.

‘Protective camouflage,’ said Owen. He did not expect to use it. Duck-shooting was not what he was about.

Tvardovsky himself was gunless. Nevertheless, he walked down to the boats with the others.

They were flat-bottomed boats, like punts, suitable for the shallow water at the edge of the lake and for lying among the reeds. The boatman held the boats for the shooters to clamber in, two to a boat, with a boatman there to paddle and retrieve.

At the last moment there was a hitch. There were not enough boats to accommodate everyone.

‘I’ll sit this one out,’ said Tvardovsky.

‘So will I,’ said Owen.

‘No, no,’ said the maître d’hôtel. ‘No problem.’

He produced two more boats. They were of the basket sort, made of reeds. Empty, they seemed to lie on top of the water. Carrying someone, they sank down and water seeped in through the sides so that there was a little pool of water inside the boat, in which the person was sitting. After that, though, they sank down no more and the level of water remained the same, matching that outside.

‘Actually,’ said the maître d’hôtel, ‘you’ll find them more suited for shooting. The boatmen will be able to take you right in among the reeds and you’ll get a better shot.’

Tvardovsky shrugged and climbed in. That was the snag. The boat could only take him, not Owen. Owen was being marshalled towards a similar boat lying alongside. Tvardovsky looked up at Owen.

‘I won’t be far,’ said Owen.

Tvardovsky shrugged again.

‘Where gun?’ said the boatman.

‘No gun,’ said Tvardovsky.

‘No gun?’ The boatman turned to the maître d’hôtel, bewildered.

‘No gun,’ said the maître d’hôtel. ‘Just watch.’

The boatman exchanged glances with the man holding Owen’s boat. The shrugs were ever so slight.

Owen got into his basket. At once the water seemed to rush in.

‘All right,’ said the boatman, grinning. ‘Not sink.’

For a moment Owen was not so sure about that; nor about the general stability of the craft. It rocked crazily and he grabbed at the plaited gunwales on either side. Then the boat settled. He found himself sitting in water. After the first shock it was not disagreeable: pleasantly warm, almost languorous – sensuous, even. He settled the gun between his knees.

Then he remembered and cursed. He felt down into his pocket. Never mind that gun, it was the other one that mattered. He pulled it out, dried it against his tunic and then stuck it into his breast pocket.

His boatman gaped.

‘This one,’ he said, tapping the gun between Owen’s knees. He pointed to the small arm. ‘No need,’ he said, shaking his head.

‘I hope you’re right,’ said Owen. It hadn’t felt very wet. He hoped the chamber had not been affected.

The boatman pushed the boat out and then got in. He began to paddle.

In the other boats the boatmen stood up and poled their craft along. This close to the shore the water was very shallow and the trick was not to get out but to get in, among the reeds. This was where the basket boats had the advantage. The other boats had to hold themselves out on the edge of the reeds. The basket boats could go right in.

The boatman pushed the reeds aside with his paddle and edged through. Tvardovsky’s boat was just ahead of them.

‘You stay close to that,’ Owen directed.

The boatman nodded.

The reeds had closed all around them so that it was as if they were in a little enclave of their own. All they could see was the sky, which was, of course, all that they needed to see.

They settled down to wait. While they had been paddling out there the darkness had cleared and the sun was just coming up over the top of the reeds, a great ball of red.

The reeds were very still. But then, as the sun came up and the warmth began to touch the water, there were little rustles of movement. The lake was waking up.

The boatman reached forward and touched the gun.

Owen shook his head.

The boatman mimicked putting it to his shoulder and firing.

‘He doesn’t like shooting,’ said Owen in Arabic, jerking his head in Tvardovsky’s direction. ‘He just wants to watch.’

The boatman shrugged, accepting.

Tvardovsky sat sombrely in his boat, a little apart from Owen. Owen tried to catch his eye but Tvardovsky was staring into the reeds.

Suddenly there was a loud report and then from all along the shore, birds flew up into the sky. For a moment all was confusion as the birds scattered and squawked but then there were more reports and suddenly, from over to their right, the ducks came flying. They came with almost unbelievable speed, heading right across their front and out towards the centre of the lake.

At once, raggedly, almost in panic, the shooting started. From somewhere very near them, just beyond the reeds, a veritable barrage opened up.

Tvardovsky put his hands over his ears. The noise was deafening.

The fusillade seemed to have no effect on the ducks. They just flew on and on, an endless number of them.

But then suddenly they were gone. The shooting died away. The lake returned to its quietness. It was as if nothing had happened; only now, here and there among the reeds, Owen saw bunches of feathers and in the water the occasional floating spot of red.

The boatman gave an exclamation and then paddled the boat swiftly to one side. He poked the reeds apart with his paddle, reached out and lifted a bird, hanging limply, into the boat. He paused for a second, eyes searching the reeds and then drove the boat on again, just a few yards. Another bird was handed into the boat.

And then, surprisingly, two last birds came in towards them.

‘Effendi, Effendi!’

The boatman thrust the gun into Owen’s hands.

Almost without thinking, Owen put the gun to his shoulder and fired.

The birds swooped on and he thought for a moment that he had missed. Then first one and then the other seemed to check in mid flight and fall like stones.

The boatman whooped with delight and hurried the boat to where they had fallen and Owen was pleased, too, exhilarated. He had not meant to take part but then it had all happened so quickly, and he had not been able to resist.

The boatman retrieved the birds and showed them to Owen, smiling. Then he stowed them away with the other birds.

‘Hotel?’ he said, picking up the paddle.

‘Tvardovsky,’ said Owen, looking around him. ‘Where’s Tvardovsky?’

Everywhere were reeds. There was no sight of Tvardovsky.

‘The other boat,’ said Owen. ‘I need to find the other boat!’

The boatman shrugged but then reluctantly began to paddle back in roughly the direction they had come. Only, among the reeds, the direction was no longer clear. In this part of the lake they reached to head-high and grew so thickly that you could not see more than a yard or two in any direction.

‘Tvardovsky!’ Owen called. ‘Where are you?’

But there was no reply.

‘Ahmed!’ called the boatman. ‘Ahmed!’

From somewhere further off they could hear the sounds of the other boats returning, the delighted chatter of the sportsmen.

And then, floating out from behind the reeds, dyeing the water, came a little trail of red; not from a bird this time.

2

Reactions afterwards were strangely muted. His Highness had, fortunately, departed the previous evening. His office issued a statement of regret on his behalf but otherwise seemed surprisingly unconcerned.

‘As long as it’s kept out of the newspapers,’ they said offhandedly.

The Russians took a similar view.

‘These things happen,’ the Russian Consul said philosophically, ‘especially at shooting parties.’

The party itself dispersed after breakfast – a good, solid breakfast for the hunters, with grapefruit fresh from the tree, fish fresh from the lake, and devilled kidneys which were not fresh at all but seemed somehow appropriate.

The Khedive’s party left with them, including the princes, who had quite enjoyed the morning’s excitement but now that it was over saw no point in staying. Prince Fuad alone remained behind to wrap things up.

The authorities had, of course, been notified immediately and shortly after breakfast the local Mudir appeared. He came with an air of resignation, clearly expecting the worst. The little experience that he had had of dealing with the great had taught him that was what you usually got.

‘There’s been an accident,’ said Prince Fuad peremptorily.

The Mudir spread his hands in deprecation.

So he had heard. Regrettable, he said, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the ground in front of Prince Fuad’s feet. Yes, regrettable. Very. And of an effendi, too? Even more regrettable. But every cloud had a silver lining. At least, so he gathered, it was of a foreign effendi.

‘What difference does that make?’ demanded Prince Fuad.

Well, said the Mudir, gaining in confidence, or, possibly, garrulous through nervousness, it wasn’t like losing one of your own family. It wasn’t even like losing an ordinary Egyptian—

His voice died away as his lowered eyes suddenly caught sight of the Russian Consul standing beside Prince Fuad.

On the other hand, he babbled, desperately switching tack, the death of an effendi was always terrible. Even a foreign effendi. No, no – with sighing heart – that was not what he had meant—

‘What did you mean?’ asked Prince Fuad unkindly.

Well, floundered the Mudir, it wasn’t like the death of a mere fellah. Or – his eye scanned desperately – one of the waiters, say. That would have been of no account at all.

There Prince Fuad agreed entirely.

‘This was of an effendi, though,’ he pointed out.

Exactly! And that was why he, a humble Mudir, was glad to come and offer his services—

‘An accident,’ said Prince Fuad. ‘Got that? Right. Well, off you go—’

Owen was moved to protest.

Oughtn’t the Mudir at least speak to the boatman? After all, he had been in the boat when—

‘Why not?’ said the prince, looking at his watch. ‘And you go along with him to see he doesn’t get it wrong.’

The boatman, Ahmed, was still in a state of shock. He had been sitting opposite Tvardovsky, holding the boat still as the birds flew over. He had been noting the birds and seeing where they fell when suddenly he had become aware that Tvardovsky had slumped sideways and was hanging over the side of the boat and there was blood trickling down into the water, and blood seeping into the water in the bottom of the boat and blood trickling on to the boatman’s foot and—

And by this time it was pretty clear that they were not going to get much more out of him.

Owen made a last try.

Had he been conscious of the shot?

There had been so many shots. It had been just when the birds were flying over, at the height of the fusillade, in fact. He had not been conscious of any one particular shot, still less of the shot that had—

He began to shake uncontrollably.

‘Well, there you are,’ said Prince Fuad, who had joined them. ‘It was just when everyone was shooting and one of the shots went astray. That’s the trouble with amateurs. The shots could go anywhere. I said as much to His Highness. It’s not like a shoot in Scotland, I said – I had some very good shooting there last year with Lord Kilcrankie – when everyone knows what they’re doing. Anything could happen! Well, I think he took my point, and that’s why he stayed away. Just as well, we wouldn’t have wanted him getting mixed up in this kind of thing, would we? Would we?’ he asked the Mudir suddenly.

The Mudir, too, began to shake uncontrollably.

‘No,’ he managed to get out at last.

‘Of course, we had to have the shoot, though,’ said the prince, as they were walking away. ‘The Russians were absolutely insistent on it.’

They returned to the terrace.

‘He’s quite satisfied,’ Prince Fuad informed the Russian Consul. ‘Definitely an accident.’

‘Oh, good,’ said the Consul.

‘What else could it be?’ asked the Financial Adviser.

Owen made one last effort.

‘What about the guns? Oughtn’t we to call them in? Then the bullet could be checked against the guns to find out which—’

‘Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary!’ interrupted Prince Fuad.

‘Indeed not!’ cried the Russian Consul. ‘Think of the embarrassment it could cause!’

‘Well, yes, but—’

‘It was obviously an accident. What’s the point of apportioning blame?’

The Mudir was only too anxious not to apportion blame. He took Tvardovsky’s name and a few particulars from the Russian Consul and then made tracks as fast as he possibly could.

The incident, though unfortunate, might well have been forgotten had it not been for an unusual feature of the legal system. Under the Egyptian legal code, which was modelled on the French one, investigation of a potential crime was the responsibility not of the police but of the Department of Prosecutions of the Ministry of Justice, the Parquet, as it was known. The police would notify the Parquet of the circumstances and the Parquet would then decide whether they merited formal investigation, in which event a Parquet officer would be assigned to the case.

In the provinces the system was slightly different. The police came under the local governor, the Mudir, as he was called, and it was he who had the formal responsibility of notifying the Parquet when a crime was suspected.

The Mudir had, then, notified the Parquet of Tvardovsky’s death. Strictly speaking – or, rather, loosely speaking, which was the way more normal in the provinces – no notification was required as the death was the result of an accident. However, as the Mudir himself had remarked, the death of an effendi was different and it had loomed sufficiently large in his mind for him to include it in a report. The Parquet officer who had read the report had written back requesting further details. When these did not satisfy him, he announced that he was opening a formal investigation.

‘Of course,’ said the British Consul-General’s aide-de-camp, as he and Owen were walking into the hastily summoned meeting together, ‘it would have to be Mahmoud!’

In a country which tended to take a relaxed view of the conduct of business, Mahmoud El Zaki was an exception; although if you had said so he would have taken umbrage. He resented slights on his country. In private, however, he had to admit there was some truth in the charge; and, therefore, to make up for any deficiency he always worked with twice the zeal of anyone else.

‘Well, of course,’ said Prince Fuad huffily, ‘the Ministry of Justice can do just what it likes.’

That, unfortunately, was just what it couldn’t do: firstly, because the Minister was an appointee of the Khedive, who would speedily appoint someone else if the Minister showed too many signs of independence; secondly, because at the top of every Ministry, sitting next to the Minister, Egyptian, was an Adviser, British, whose advice it was unwise not to follow.

The Minister muttered something about judicial process once started being hard to stop.

‘Nonsense!’ said Prince Fuad. ‘The question is: who is boss? That’s all! Are we the process’s masters or its servants?’

‘Well,’ said the Minister unhappily.

‘Well,’ said the Adviser.

‘Mamur Zapt?’

Owen hesitated. It was sometimes difficult serving two masters: the Khedive, to whom in theory he was responsible, and the British, who had put him there.

‘Ordinarily,’ he said, ‘I would side with Prince Fuad. However, I think that in this case we have to remember that the eyes of the world may be upon us. This was the death of someone who was being invited in to invest in Egypt’s prosperity, and if we seem to be taking it too lightly, other investors may be deterred.’

‘I do think the Mamur Zapt has a point there!’ declared the aide-de-camp.

‘So do I!’ said the Adviser.

‘I’m afraid so,’ murmured the Minister.

‘Well,’ said Prince Fuad crossly, seeing that he was outgunned, ‘what are we going to do about it, then? Couldn’t you tell your people merely to go through the motions?’ he asked the Minister. ‘I mean, that’s what they usually do, don’t they?’

The Minister murmured something about the officer in question being particularly zealous.

‘Would you like me to speak to him?’ demanded Prince Fuad.

‘No!’ said the Minister, who knew Mahmoud and knew that if Prince Fuad spoke to him in his usual way, he was likely to speak back.

‘I agree,’ said the aide-de-camp quickly. ‘The less the Khedive’s office is seen to have to do with this, the better!’

‘There’s something in that,’ conceded Prince Fuad. ‘However, we are still left with the question of what we’re going to do. We can’t just leave the Parquet to run wild on a thing like this.’

‘Nor should we,’ said the aide-de-camp. ‘I have a suggestion. This is the death not just of an effendi but of a foreign effendi. Given the circumstances, it is likely that if a case comes to court, it will fall under the Capitulations.’ The Capitulations were a system of privileges granted to foreign powers which, among other things, gave their citizens the right to be tried under their own national courts. ‘Would it not be wiser if a representative of the Capitulatory Powers was associated with the case from the start?’

‘That would certainly please the Russians,’ said the Adviser.

‘It would have to be someone we could trust,’ said Prince Fuad.

‘Quite so; and for that reason I was thinking of someone in the service of the Khedive who would also be acceptable to the Powers: the Mamur Zapt.’

‘You’ve landed me in it,’ said Owen accusingly, as he walked away from the meeting with the aide-de-camp.

‘You were already landed,’ said the aide-de-camp, Paul, whom he had hitherto considered his friend.

‘You do not usually join me in my investigations,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Why this one?’

‘An important person, I suppose.’

‘And yet they seemed prepared to let the whole matter drop.’

‘I think they would have let it drop if you hadn’t started asking questions.’

‘But is not an important person an important person whether I ask questions or not?’

‘I think the important thing may be that he was foreign.’

‘But that is wrong. The law is the same whether a man is foreign or not.’

‘Quite.’

‘Or should be.’

‘Exactly so.’

They were waiting on the platform of the Gare Centrale. On learning that Owen was going to join him in his inquiries, Mahmoud, scrupulous as ever, had sent him a note saying that he was going down to the Fayoum to see the spot where the incident had occurred and inviting him to accompany him.

‘What was it in the report that made you ask questions?’ asked Owen.

Mahmoud looked slightly ashamed.

‘I was angry,’ he admitted. ‘It was such a slack piece of work. An accident, yes, but even with an accident there are details that should be included. The death of a visitor to our country, a guest, you could say – one needs to be satisfied. All the more when it is a shooting. An accident, maybe, but even when the shooting is accidental, someone is responsible. The Mudir made no effort to find out who had fired the gun. That is deplorable. He should have called in the guns at least—’

‘I did suggest that.’

‘You did?’

‘Yes. They didn’t feel it was necessary.’

‘Who didn’t feel it was necessary?’

‘Prince Fuad. The Russian Consul.’

‘What is it to do with them?’

‘Strictly speaking, nothing, I suppose. However, if you’re a humble Mudir—’

‘I know, I know.’ Mahmoud frowned. ‘But it is wrong all the same,’ he burst out excitedly – dereliction of duty always excited him. ‘A Mudir should have pride, he should have a sense of his responsibilities, he should—’

Mahmoud stopped and shook his head.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘He is only a Mudir after all. And in the provinces the older relationships still—’

He stopped again.

‘But that is what is wrong! It is what is wrong with the country, too. There is still the old deference to the Khedive, to the Pashas. It gets in the way of doing things properly. And until we start doing things properly, what hope has the country of advancing? All right, he is only a Mudir, but—’

‘Even if he had called the guns in,’ said Owen placidly, ‘all that it probably would have shown us was that it was one of the financiers. And I don’t think they were very anxious to show that.’

‘But that, too, is wrong. You cannot have the law applying to some people and not others. We would have treated him fairly. We understand about accidents. Why cannot they trust us?’ said Mahmoud bitterly.

‘They do trust you,’ said Owen quickly. ‘Of course they trust you!’ It could come out of the blue, this touching of the Egyptian nerve.

‘Even from their point of view it is a mistake. It makes you ask questions. It made me ask questions. When the Mudir couldn’t answer them I went round to the Russian Consulate, because Tvardovsky was, after all, one of their nationals, but they – well, it wasn’t as if they weren’t interested, rather that they suddenly closed down. They wouldn’t tell me anything. And then I went to the Khedive’s office – the Khedive was the host, after all – and got the same response from them. They wouldn’t even give me a list of who was there. And so I thought: why won’t they? Is it that they have something to hide?’

They arrived at the hotel in late mid morning. It was beginning to get very hot and people were already returning from excursions along the bank of the lake. The hotel, which had been emptied of its guests to accommodate the Khedive’s party was full again with its normal clientele: Greek and Levantine businessmen escaping the heat of the city with their families, old hands of the Administration who had done all the sights and were looking for something green, somewhere, perhaps, that would remind them of England, a few foreign tourists complete with Kodaks.

They went at once down to the lake. The foreshore was now lined with boats. Fishermen were shovelling their catch into wickerwork baskets. Every so often one of them would lift a basket on to his shoulder, step over the side of the boat and splash ashore. Gulls would swoop down even as he was carrying and snap at the fish. The baskets were taken to an outbuilding of the hotel, where the fish were emptied out on to the floor. Through the open door Owen could see the grey-and-silvery pile growing and growing.

The heaps of fish inside the boats were diminishing rapidly. From time to time one of the fish would give a squirm and a jump and then fall back again. Some of the fishermen had turned to coiling their ropes and spreading their nets out on the ground to dry.

Mahmoud went across and began to talk to some of them. They pointed along the bank to where the shoot had taken place. The reeds were thick at this point, about six feet high and spreading out in a little headland. The shoot had taken place just off the headland. Around the other side, where ducks crowded in such numbers as to make the water white.

Mahmoud climbed into one of the punt-like boats and two of the boatmen prepared to paddle him over. He asked Owen to go with him.

The men had been on the shoot itself, in the boats where the bulk of the party had been stationed, in the open water beyond the headland, just at the edge of the reeds, where the reeds would conceal them. They were describing to Mahmoud what had happened, putting their arms up to mimic the shooting.

It hardly seemed possible it could be the same place. Then the air had been torn by shooting, there had been a kind of tension. Now everything seemed incredibly peaceful. Ducks were dawdling in and out of the reeds, hardly bothering to register their presence. The sun was warm on the woodwork, the blue lake sparkled in the sun, as still as a mirror. He found it hard to reconcile with his memory.

‘Of course,’ he said to Mahmoud, ‘we weren’t out there. We were in there.’

He pointed vaguely towards the reeds.

‘We?’ said Mahmoud.

‘Tvardovsky and I. In two separate boats.’

‘Just the two of you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why was that?’

‘We had different boats. They could go in among the reeds.’

‘How did you come to have different boats?’

Owen shrugged.

‘Accident. Maybe we arrived later than the others. The other boats were all taken.’

Mahmoud took the boat over to the reeds and peered in. They were impenetrable to a boat like his.

‘How would you see to shoot?’ he asked.

‘You would be shooting upwards. You would see the birds against the sky.’ He tried to remember. ‘You wouldn’t have long. Of course,’ he added, ‘Tvardovsky wasn’t shooting.’

Mahmoud sat there for some time thinking. Then he told the boatmen to take the boat back to the land. There Owen saw him talking to the man who had been Tvardovsky’s boatman.

He came back towards Owen.

‘You were in a separate boat,’ he said. ‘Where is your boatman?’

Owen looked around and couldn’t see him.

Mahmoud spoke to some of the men.

‘He’s gone to visit his mother,’ he said.

The boats had finished emptying their catch now. The nets had been spread out along the bank. There was a stink of fish in the air. Some of the men had gone to sit in the shade of a large boat that had been drawn up out of the water. Mahmoud stayed talking to them for some time.

Owen wandered along the bank. He came to a small bay where flamingoes were paddling on the lake. Beside them was a pair of pelicans. As Owen watched, one of the pelicans stooped down into the water and came up with a fish. Owen saw its tail disappearing into the bird’s beak as it was swallowed. It was a large fish and made a bulge in the pelican’s neck. With horrified fascination Owen watched the bulge wriggling as it went down.

The Mudir was sitting under a palm tree chatting to some waiters. Mahmoud went across to greet him and then brought him back to a table on the terrace, where he summoned coffee. The Mudir sat down uneasily. While a Parquet officer did not count as the great, the Parquet itself was a mysterious object over the horizon from which from time to time incomprehensible reproofs would come like a bolt from the blue.

‘The man was dead,’ he said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. ‘What need of a postmortem?’

‘To establish the cause of death.’

‘He was shot. There is no puzzle about that.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘And, besides, he was a foreign effendi.’

‘So?’

The Mudir shrugged.

‘You don’t mess about with foreign effendis,’ he said, ‘even when they’re dead.’

‘You have a responsibility,’ said Mahmoud sternly, ‘to establish how he died.’

‘I know how he died! He was shot. There!’ The Mudir clapped his chest dramatically.

‘At what range?’

‘What range?’

‘How far away was the person who fired the shot?’

‘Well, hell, I don’t know. It was among the reeds and—’

‘The postmortem might be able to tell you that.’

‘But can’t we guess? The shot must have been fired from one of the boats and—’

‘The boats were scattered. I know, because I asked the boatmen. If we knew the range, it might help us to establish which boat.’

‘Anyway,’ said the Mudir lamely, ‘there was no ice.’

‘Ice? What’s that got to do with it?’

‘To pack the body in. If we wanted to preserve it for a postmortem. It’s very hot at this time of year and—’

‘But there was plenty of ice! The hotel had lots of it.’

‘Ah, yes, but that was ice for putting in drinks. You couldn’t use that. Not for a foreign effendi. It would be disrespectful.’

‘So what did you do with the body?’

‘I let the effendis have it.’

‘You what?’

‘I let the effendis take it away. They said they would see to all that was necessary. And I said to myself, yes, surely that would be best, for they will know what is proper. Who am I to say what rites should be used for a foreign effendi? You can’t expect a Mudir to know everything.’

‘You let them take it away? Just like that? Without even getting a doctor to sign a death certificate? Have you no notion of procedure, man?’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ protested the Mudir, stung. ‘These were foreign effendis, great and mighty. And, besides, Prince Fuad said if I didn’t get a move on, he would kick my arse.’

‘There is a procedure to be followed,’ lectured Mahmoud, ‘and you, the Mudir, should be seeing that it is followed. No one is above the law. Neither foreign effendis nor Prince Fuad.’

‘You try telling Prince Fuad that!’ said the Mudir.

3

The tables on the terrace were filling up now for lunch. White tablecloths gleamed, silver serviette rings shone. Ice buckets smoked, ice chinked in glasses. Mahmoud had gone into the hotel to see if he could obtain a list of the people who had been there on the weekend when Tvardovsky was shot. Owen was reading the wine list.

A man came out on to the terrace. He stopped when he saw Owen and then came across to him.

‘Why, Captain Owen,’ he said, ‘what brings you here? Taking a break? Oh, no,’ he smiled, ‘I was forgetting: you will be here on business. This sad Tvardovsky affair!’

Owen did not recognize him.

‘Mirza es-Rahel,’ said the man helpfully. ‘I work for Al-Liwa.’

‘I know your writing, of course,’ said Owen, ‘but the face—’

They shook hands. It was true. He did know his writings. And very scurrilous they were, too. The man seemed to have a knack of unearthing scandalous stories about the royal family and the politicians with whom the Khedive surrounded himself. But the face was unfamiliar.

Which was surprising, for Owen thought he knew most of the important Nationalist journalists who worked in the city.

‘I’m based in Alexandria,’ the Egyptian explained.

That, too, was surprising: for it was Cairo that was the hub of government, the place where the Khedive and his ministers resided, and where one would naturally expect to find journalists of Mr es-Rahel’s ilk. He said as much.

‘But it is Alexandria where the money is,’ said the Egyptian, smiling again, ‘and I have always found the financial connection the most promising of threads to pursue.’

‘Not sex?’

‘That, too,’ Mr es-Rahel conceded. ‘But sex is for pleasure: money is something you take seriously.’ He laughed. ‘Or, at least, the Pashas who rule us do.’

‘And which is it that brings you here, Mr es-Rahel? Business or pleasure?’

‘Pleasure. Though not, I’m afraid, of the sexual kind. Merely taking a break. I was feeling a bit jaded. Alexandria, you know, fills up at this time of year with holiday-makers. I felt a day or two in the quiet by the lake would do me good.’ He looked across to the main building and saw Mahmoud coming out of a door. ‘You are here with Mr El-Zaki?’

‘Yes.’

‘Seeing that he does not find out too much?’

The conciliating laugh took the sting out of his words.

‘Helping him.’

‘I am sure he will need help. With so many obstacles in his way.’

‘Are there?’

‘Well, yes, Captain Owen. You know that as well as I do.’

‘What sort of obstacles?’

‘The usual ones. The ones that always block Egypt’s attempts at freedom.’

‘The Capitulations, you mean?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I am not sure they are relevant here.’

‘No?’

‘In any case,’ said Owen, ‘there’s not a lot I can do about them.’

‘Perhaps not. But, you see, Captain Owen, if you were really helping Mr El-Zaki, it would make his task a great deal easier. That is why I asked what was your role in the case.’

‘Why are you interested in Tvardovsky?’

The journalist spread his hands.

‘The general good, Captain Owen. The general good. This is a sad loss to Egypt.’

‘A sad loss?’

Es-Rahel caught the note of incredulity and stared.

‘Why, yes, Captain Owen. Mr Tvardovsky was a man who might have done a great deal for Egypt.’

‘That was the point of the gathering, certainly.’

‘Ah, yes, but you know how these things go. So many people there who were not really interested in Egypt, interested only in how much money they could make out of it. Mr Tvardovsky was not like that.’

‘You knew Tvardovsky?’

‘Of course.’

‘Of course?’

‘We journalists mix in a variety of circles.’

‘Including that of millionaire financiers?’

‘Well, perhaps not directly,’ the Egyptian admitted. ‘But we do sometimes meet them in other circles.’

‘Such as?’

‘Émigré ones.’ Mr es-Rahel smiled. ‘Radical ones, Captain Owen. But then, the Mamur Zapt wouldn’t know about that sort of circle, would he?’

Mahmoud joined them.

‘Ah, Mr El-Zaki!’ said the journalist warmly. ‘And how are you getting on with your inquiries? Successfully, I hope. Mr Tvardovsky was such a sad loss to us all!’

Mahmoud looked at him distrustfully.

‘Mirza es-Rahel,’ said the journalist, shaking hands.

‘He works for Al-Liwa,’ said Owen.

‘Oh.’

Mahmoud was not on easy terms with the press. Partly it was his natural caution. As a Parquet lawyer, Mahmoud had had too much experience of journalists not to know that anything he said would be taken down and used in evidence against him. But partly, too, it was a slightly puritanical dislike of their overstatement and distortion. Why couldn’t they just put it down straightforwardly and rationally – like a law report, for instance?

‘I was just urging Captain Owen to give you all the help he could,’ said es-Rahel.

‘Oh, yes?’ said Mahmoud distantly.

‘I am afraid you will need it,’ said the journalist, ‘with all there is ranged against you.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘You can, of course, count on our support. But in a case like this the Mamur Zapt’s support, if indeed, you have it, will count far more.’

‘Well, thank you,’ said Mahmoud.

For Mahmoud, as for most Cairenes, Africa began one mile south of Cairo. In the wilderness that was the provinces, what hope was there for observance of proper procedure? For efficiency and competence of any sort? For rationality itself?

‘Be fair!’ remonstrated Owen. ‘He’s only a Mudir. And when he’s up against someone like Prince Fuad —’

‘That is true. It is wrong for me to blame the ones lower down when it is those at the top who are at fault. What you said is true. It is not the Mudir who is to blame, it is those who have made him what he is!’

He brought his fist crashing down on the table. A waiter, misunderstanding, hurried to replenish their coffee pot.

‘It is not the man who is at fault, it is the system. The Pashas, with their interest in keeping people ignorant, the Khedive, the British—’

‘Quite right!’ said the waiter warmly.

‘What?’

Caught off balance, Mahmoud stared up at him.

‘It’s what I always say myself.’

It was the waiter that Owen knew, the one he had had his long conversation with on the occasion of his previous visit to the hotel, that morning when the financiers had been talking under the trees and he himself had been sitting, then as now, up here on the terrace.

‘It’s the rich man that gets syrup on his figs, the poor man has to do without.’

He poured them some coffee.

‘Take this coffee, for instance. Do you think I get coffee like this? Well, I do, as a matter of fact, because I work in the hotel now and we help ourselves. But when I’m at home, do you think I drink like this? No, it’s bitter black tea for me, and that’s the way it is with the world. The rich get what’s going and the poor are left to fend for themselves.’

‘Yes, well—’

The waiter dropped on to his heels, part of the conversation now.

‘Take that foreign effendi, the one who was shot. Did the Mudir want to know? Not a bit of it. In fact, the less he knew about it, the better. But when my sister’s son was caught stealing grapes, the Mudir was on to him in a flash. “It’s you for the caracol,” he said. Caracol! What did he want to put him in the caracol for, for a thing like that? A clip over the ear would have done. Or a touch of the stick, like the old Mudir used to do. “You’re making him a criminal,” I said. “I’m bloody stopping him from becoming one,” the Mudir says. Well, that’s all very well, but what about those rich men who were here the other day? They were stealing grapes if anyone was. But was anybody doing anything about them? Well, maybe someone was, for one of them got shot, didn’t he? Though he was the wrong man and they should have shot someone else—’

‘Just a minute,’ interrupted Owen: ‘Why? Why was he the wrong man?’

‘Well, he was all right, wasn’t he? A bit lacking in the brain-pan, perhaps, the way he talked sometimes and the way he poked around in places, but harmless. You could see he meant well. When he went into shops or the bazaar he used to talk to people—’

‘Shops?’ said Owen. ‘Bazaar? Where was this?’

‘Medinet. He used to go there regularly. There was an old woman he used to stay with. As batty as he was. Foreign, of course, like him. Well, you can’t get away from them, they’re everywhere in Egypt. But—’

‘He’d been here before?’

‘Not here. Medinet. And over at Lahoun. He was always over there at the Labyrinth. Wouldn’t have been surprised if a crocodile had had him one of these days, if half what they say is true.’

‘What do they say?’

‘They say they haven’t gone, you know.’

‘They—?’

‘The crocodiles. They say they’re still there somewhere. Tucked away underground in that Labyrinth. And they’ll have you as soon as look at you if you don’t watch out. People wandering around on their own. Like him. Tempting fate. Though fate’s a funny thing, isn’t it? It wasn’t the crocodiles that got him in the end. Although what happened to the body? They say that daft Mudir gave it away. You can never be sure about these things. Maybe the crocodiles did get him after all. A pity, though, it was him and not one of the others. Everybody knew him and—’

‘Everybody knew him?’ said Mahmoud later, as they climbed up into the carriage that was taking them back to the train.

Medinet spread along both banks of the Bahr-el-Yussuf. If it was a canal, as some argued, it was an unusual one, for the water rushed along it as swiftly as in a river. The current was so powerful that the water-wheels which fed the town were worked directly by it. The houses, too, were interesting, many of them as grand as Cairo Mameluke houses, with stuccoed fronts and graceful balconies trailing roses and figs and vines.

The house they were looking for was one of these, fronting, or possibly backing, on to the Bahr-el-Yussuf itself. While the porter went off to find out if the Sitt would see them, they waited in a mandar’ah, or reception room, which had a sunken, tessellated floor and a dais at one end with large worn cushions on which they could sit.

They were taken, though, to the takhtabosh, which was a kind of recess off the small central courtyard, with an open front and a single column supporting a central arch. There was an open gateway on to the river and the takhtabosh was situated so that it would catch something of the river breeze.

The Sitt was an old frail lady, who received them with the manner of a grande dame of the previous century, an impression deepened by the fact that she addressed them in French. It was not the French of France, however, nor even the French of Egypt.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I come from Russia. We came here many years ago when my husband’ – the voice faltered a little – ‘had to leave Russia. It was after Alexander came to the throne. My husband’s family was not popular with the Romanovs. It never had been. One of his forebears took part in the Dekembrist insurrection, a fact of which’ – she lifted her head and looked them straight in the eyes – ‘I am very proud. Anyway, he had to leave Russia. He set up a business in Alexandria, importing and exporting, and we lived there until he retired. He had always loved this part of Egypt, the water, the birds, the roses, and so we bought this house. And I have lived here ever since.’

‘You kept in touch, however, with some Russian friends, Tvardovsky—’

‘Ah, yes,’ she said, ‘poor Tvardovsky! He always came to see me when he was in Alexandria on business. He made a point of it. He said our house was full of beautiful things. Come,’ she said, ‘I will show you them.’

She stood up, with difficulty, and, supporting herself on a stick, led them through the house: into the mak’ad, the high central hall, with its decorated ceiling and its kamarija windows, consisting of tiny pieces of coloured glass set in panels of pierced plaster taking the shapes of arabesques or flowers, or even a phoenix, which threw a brilliantly coloured reflection on the ground; up into the old harem, with its box-like meshrebiya windows; down into the ka’ah, with its inlaid cupboards and irregular recesses for holding china.

They did hold china: lots of it. Everywhere there were beautiful bowls and vases, huge, richly decorated plates, some from the time of the Mameluke Sultans, others even older. From classical Greece, perhaps?

‘Oh, no! Here. The Fayoum. Not Greek Greek but Egyptian Greek. The Fayoum is a treasure trove of such things and these are some of its treasures.’

They went into another room with a sunken floor and a fountain playing in the middle of it. A wooden mastaba, or bench, ran along one wall. Leaning against the opposite wall, so that you could sit on the mastaba and study them, were some wooden panels with faces painted on them.

‘Mummy portraits,’ said the old lady. ‘The panels were inserted over the mummy wrappings. The portrait was a likeness of the dead person.’

‘Where do they come from?’

‘Near here. Over at Hawara. There was an archaeologist working there. His name was Petrie. He often used to stay at our house and my husband got to know him well. The best ones have gone to museums, but there were some that were damaged or even in pieces. He let us have some of those and my husband had them made good. If you look carefully you can see the joins. But if you are looking that carefully you can also see beyond the joins to what was there in the first place. And what was there was, well – you can see for yourselves.’

The faces seemed to leap out at you. They hadn’t the stylized, dead look of much classical portraiture but were individual, strong, vivid, as if their subjects might have started up a conversation with you at any moment. The eyes were large and rounded, the eyebrows arched. The hair was short and curly. They were the sort of faces that you might see today at any Mediterranean resort.

‘Encaustic on limewood. Some are tempera. I prefer the encaustic. The colours are richer. But what is so nice is that it’s a mixture. Just like Egypt. This one, for instance. It’s obviously Greek in its treatment of the face and the way it poses the figure. But the hairstyle and the jewellery are pure Rome.’ She bent and peered at it. ‘Mid-Antonine, I would say. But the context, the atmosphere – surely, entirely Egyptian!’

She stepped back.

‘My husband loved them. And so did Tvardovsky. He used to sit here for hours looking at them. Funny, that – that he, the son of a serf –’

She looked at them.

‘Did you know that? His father was a serf on our estate. My father freed him when the Emancipation Act went through. He still went on working on the estate, though, and Tvardovsky grew up there. My father paid to have him educated – he was always very clever, you could see it from the start. When he left school he worked for us for a time, not in the fields – that would have been a waste – but in the office. He was often in the house and I think it was there that he acquired his love of beautiful things. My mother used to take him round and tell him about them. Of course, he didn’t stay with us for long. He went away and became rich, and we—’

She laughed.

‘Well, I married Boris. He didn’t exactly become poor but he had to leave Russia in a hurry. We lost touch with Tvardovsky but then, years later, he found us again.’

She shook her head.

‘Poor Tvardovsky! He was a lovely man.’

‘We are investigating his death.’

‘And so you should!’

‘It may, of course, have been an accident.’

‘It was no accident,’ she said firmly.

‘You say that very definitely.’

‘I feel it in my bones.’

‘But is there any other reason? Had he enemies?’

‘For anyone in Russia interested in democracy,’ she said, ‘there is always one enemy: the Tsar.’

Among the stalls selling such things as onions, sugar cane and poultry (live) which made up the bazaar at Medinet, Tvardovsky was, as the waiter at the hotel had said, well known; but the most useful information came from the barber, holding court under the trees behind them, his bowls and instruments spread on the ground beside him, his victim sitting apprehensively on a dilapidated, wickerwork chair, and an admiring circle of supporters squatted round. The man to talk to, he said, was the Sheikh of the madrissa.

‘Sheikh’ was an honorary title given to religious leaders. The school, however, was not one of the traditional ones, where only the Koran was taught, but one of the new government ones which had a wider range of subjects. The respect that the title suggested became understandable at once when they rounded a corner and saw two boys ahead of them dressed in Eton jackets and turn-down collars.

‘This is what English boys wear?’ asked Mahmoud, impressed.

‘Not where I was,’ said Owen.

The madrissa, they said, was on the edge of the town. It had closed now for the day but the Sheikh would still be there, outside on a bed, resting. They offered to show the way.

As they walked along, one of the boys said to Owen: ‘I know you.’

‘I don’t think you do,’ said Owen.

‘You are the Mamur Zapt.’

‘How did you know that?’ asked Owen, astonished.

‘My uncle is a waiter at the hotel where the effendi was shot and he told me that there was one there who stayed behind afterwards and was the Mamur Zapt.’

‘Even so, how—?’

The boy put on an imitation of what even Owen could see was an Englishman, although he could not see how it applied to himself.

Mahmoud laughed.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Owen, ‘then you must be the boy who was stealing grapes?’

‘It’s a lie!’ said the boy. ‘They fell off by themselves. I found them in the road.’

‘I thought you were put in the caracol?’

‘The Sheikh spoke for me.’

‘It is bad,’ remonstrated Mahmoud, ‘that a boy like you, who is evidently high in the Sheikh’s esteem, should be found doing a thing like that.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have been found if the ghaffir had not crept up behind the wall. And he certainly wouldn’t have caught me had it not been for the fiki.’

‘Fiki?’

‘He came up the other way through the bushes and when I lingered to exchange words with the ghaffir—’

‘The ghaffir should have been treated with respect!’

‘He is old and fat.’

‘Even so. He was but doing his duty.’

‘He does his duty when it comes to boys and grapes. But grapes are a small thing. What when it comes to big things? Then he sits on his big fat behind and does nothing. He is not like the Sheikh, who speaks the same words to big as to small.’

‘You think well of the Sheikh, then?’

‘When the man comes from the Ministry, I will speak up for him.’

‘That, I am sure, he will be grateful for.’

The boy gave him a sideways look.

‘It is not a small thing. The Sheikh’s dues depend on the man from the Ministry. But when he questions the others, they will not speak up. But I will speak up. I will give the right answers and then the man from the Ministry will know that our Sheikh is a good Sheikh.’

‘That is highly laudable. Be sure, though, that they are the right answers.’

‘There will be no problem about that; for I am at the head of my class. The Sheikh says that great things lie ahead of me. If I do not steal grapes.’

They walked on a little way in silence. Then the boy said: ‘I am going to be a lawyer when I grow up.’

‘My friend is a lawyer,’ said Owen, indicating Mahmoud. ‘He is from the Parquet.’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.