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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1997

Copyright © Michael Pearce 1996

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

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Source ISBN: 9780008259365

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2017 ISBN: 9780007485451

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

‘It’s called the Tree of the Virgin,’ said McPhee.

‘Virgin?’ said Owen.

‘After the Holy Mother,’ said McPhee severely.

‘Oh.’

‘It’s a sycamore, actually. Not, of course, a sycamore as we know it. Our sycamore is a sort of maple. The Egyptian sycamore is a species of fig.’

‘Fascinating!’

He glanced at his watch.

‘Well, if you’ll excuse me—’

‘You will call in on it?’

‘I certainly will.’

He certainly wouldn’t. For he was going to Heliopolis and getting there was difficult enough anyway. The new ‘city’ was five miles north of Cairo and beyond the reach of trams. A road was being built from the British barracks at Abbasiya but was not completed yet. Even if it had been, there would still have been problems. Arabeah, the city’s universal horse-drawn cab? Five miles? In this heat? The Effendi must be mocking. That left Cairo’s normal mode of transport, the donkey. Owen was not enthusiastic.

Consulted, McPhee had suggested the new electric railway.

‘It’s not finished yet.’

‘It’s out to Matariya. You wouldn’t have far to walk. Why don’t you ask them if they’ve got a buggy going out to the end of the line?’

‘Buggy?’ said the man at the Pont de Limoun. ‘Of course. Effendi! At once!’

Well, not quite at once. Second thoughts crossed the man’s face.

‘Tomorrow, that is. Bokra. Yes, tomorrow, definitely!’

‘Why not this afternoon?’

‘Impossible, Effendi. Some difficulties at the end of the line. Something to do with an ostrich, I believe.’

Owen shrugged and turned away.

A moment later the man came running after him.

‘Effendi! Effendi! A thousand pardons! I had not realized that you were the Mamur Zapt!’

Another man, more senior, was rushing after him.

‘A buggy, Effendi? To the end of the line? At once!’

‘I thought there were some difficulties?’

‘There are. Effendi, there are! In fact, we would be most glad of your help.’

‘I don’t know that I’ve a lot to contribute on ostriches,’ said Owen uneasily.

The man gave him a strange look.

‘Ostriches?’

‘Wasn’t it something to do with an ostrich?’

‘Not as far as I know. There’s a bit of trouble up there between the labourers and the villagers. And a man’s been killed.’

The man was lying huddled across the very last stretch of track that had been completed. Around him was a large crowd consisting equally of labourers and villagers, not, Owen was relieved to see, at each other’s throats. Among them was a foreigner in a helmet, who looked up with relief as Owen approached.

‘Monsieur le Mamur Zapt?’

‘Oui.’

He looked down at the man.

‘How did he get here?’

‘I don’t know. We found him here this morning.’

‘This morning!’

It was already noon.

‘I know! I’ve tried to get him moved, but—’

‘He’s not being moved!’ said one of the labourers flatly.

‘Just to one side. Then we could get on with—’

‘He’s not being moved!’

‘It’s taken all morning!’

‘That’s not my fault,’ said the labourer.

One of the villagers plucked at Owen’s arm.

‘Effendi, the heat—’

Owen knew what he was thinking. In Egypt, bodies deteriorated rapidly. They were usually buried the next day. The body would have to be prepared, arrangements made.

A man pushed through the crowd. He wore the white turban of the religious sheikh. He walked up to the man and stood looking down at him.

‘Pick him up!’ he said.

‘He stays where he is!’ said the leader of the labourers.

The sheikh stared him hard in the face.

‘God must be given his due!’ he said harshly.

The workman shuffled his feet uneasily but held his ground.

‘So must man,’ he said.

‘Look,’ said the foreigner in the helmet, ‘why don’t you let him have the body? The circumstances can be gone into later.’

‘It’s the law,’ said the workman.

‘He’s right,’ said Owen. ‘When there’s a death in suspicious circumstances the body has to be left untouched and the Parquet notified.’

‘Yes, but are the circumstances suspicious? Couldn’t it just be an accident?’

‘Accident!’ said the leader of the workmen. ‘This is no accident!’

‘He could have fallen, couldn’t he? Tripped over the track and—’

‘Broken his neck?’ said the workman derisively.

‘Well, yes, he could!’ said the man in the helmet. ‘Couldn’t he?’ he appealed to Owen.

‘Has the Parquet been sent for?’

‘Yes, first thing. As soon as we got here and found him. I don’t know where they are! Taking their time, I suppose, like everyone else in Egypt!’

At the back of the crowd a woman began ululating. From across the fields came answering cries.

‘Effendi!’ said the villager worriedly. ‘The women—’

‘Pick him up!’ ordered the sheikh.

‘Leave him!’ said the leader of the workmen.

The crowd began to murmur.

‘What do we care about the law?’ someone called out.

‘It won’t help Ibrahim, will it?’ shouted someone else, a villager.

The workmen looked at their leader uneasily.

‘He stays where he is!’ said the leader.

‘You’ve got the Mamur Zapt here,’ said the man in the helmet. ‘What do you need the Parquet for? Isn’t he good enough?’

The man looked Owen up and down.

‘No,’ he said.

Strictly speaking, he was correct. The Mamur Zapt was not the Parquet. All the same, Owen felt irritated.

‘He’s a troublemaker,’ the man in the helmet said aside to Owen. ‘That’s what it’s all about, you know.’

The crowd was stirring. Villagers and workmen were separating out.

The cries across the fields were getting closer.

‘Pick him up!’ said the sheikh.

The villagers surged forward. The workmen formed up in a line between them and the body. Both sides, Owen suddenly noticed, were armed with spades.

‘Wait!’ he said. ‘There is a way of wisdom in all this.’

‘The Law of God,’ said the sheikh threateningly, ‘does not wait on the Law of Man.’

‘Break the law,’ said Owen coldly, ‘and you will feel it.’

‘If there is a way of wisdom,’ said the villager hastily, ‘why not hear it?’

Owen guessed that he was the village omda, or headman, the man who was likely to feel the law most.

The leader of the workmen shrugged.

‘Why not?’ he said.

The sheikh hesitated.

‘No one here wishes to offend the Law of God,’ said Owen, ‘nor that of man, either. For no man wishes to see injustice. And it may be that there is injustice here. For I agree with my friend’ – he motioned towards the leader of the workmen – ‘that there is much here that needs explaining. On the other hand,’ he continued hastily, as the sheikh opened his mouth, ‘there are requirements of decency which must be observed.’

‘True,’ said the sheikh.

‘The women have their duties.’

‘Quite right!’ said the omda, thinking he saw the way that things were going.

‘But then,’ said Owen, ‘the men have their requirements too.’

‘They do?’

‘Yes. The men of the family, and those who have worked with him, will want to know that justice has been done.’

‘That’s right!’ asserted the leader of the workmen.

‘But—’ began the sheikh.

‘In the village, too,’ continued Owen quickly, addressing the crowd and bypassing the sheikh, ‘there will be men who say: “Let us proceed with circumspection, for there are dark and weighty things here.”’

‘Yes. No. You think?’ said the omda, spinning.

‘There speaks the man of experience!’ said Owen warmly. ‘And there will be others among you, leaders in the village, experienced, wise, who will think as he does!’

‘So?’ said the sheikh.

‘So?’ said the leader of the workmen.

In the nick of time it came to Owen.

‘Such wisdom should not lightly be set aside!’ he said sternly.

‘Well, no, but—’

‘Choose three men from among you.’ That should take some time. ‘Let them sit with me and with the omda’ – best to put him on the spot – ‘and with the man of God’ – that should take care of him – ‘and then let us take counsel in front of you all.’

‘But that will take—’ began the sheikh.

‘Effendi, the body—’ said the omda worriedly.

‘Rightly spoken! There is a need for haste. And therefore let the choosing of the men begin.’

He walked purposefully aside. The members of the crowd looked at each other hesitantly.

And then began choosing.

Phew! thought Owen.

Across the fields wove a column of women in black, ululating as they came.

‘So,’ said the Consul-General’s ADC, as they sat sipping their drinks on the verandah of the Sporting Club, ‘you referred it to committee?’

‘Instinct,’ said Owen. ‘My years of experience with the Egyptian bureaucracy have taught me that’s what you do with a crisis. Fortunately, the Parquet arrived soon afterwards and I was able to hand it all over to them.’

‘A pity,’ said Paul, reflecting, ‘since you were already involved.’

‘Ah, but that was by accident. It’s really nothing to do with me at all. Not the sort of thing I handle.’

He stopped.

‘Already?’ he said.

‘Actually,’ said Paul, ‘that was what I wanted to talk to you about.’

Salah-el-Din, the mamur of the new city, was waiting for him at the gate of one of the few houses that had been completed. It was a surprising house for an inspector of police, large, white-stuccoed and Indo-European in style. But the Syndicate had insisted on the house being in keeping with the character of the others in the development.

The new city was targeted at the very wealthy, who, apart from benefiting from the purity of the air, would also benefit from close proximity to the ruler of Egypt, the Khedive, who had a palace at Kubba.

The city was not built yet and it was pushing things to appoint a mamur this early, but the Syndicate behind the development had requested it in the interests of community relations, which was very splendid, and had offered to pay the mamur’s salary for the first two years, which was even more splendid.

They had gone so far as to put forward Salah-el-Din’s name. Garvin, the Commandant of the Cairo Police Force, was normally against that sort of thing, but Salah was a bright young chap and due for promotion and they would need someone special for the job anyway. The Khedive could be relied on to make difficulties; and the Syndicate’s wealthy clientele would certainly feel that they merited especially sophisticated policing.

Salah-el-Din, it was suggested, was just the man for the job. Unusually for an Egyptian, he had trained abroad, not, it was true, as a policeman but as some sort of lawyer (he had come unstuck in his examinations, which was why he had descended to become a policeman) and spoke French well enough to be able to liaise with the Syndicate (which was Belgian).

Owen knew very little about him beyond the fact that he played tennis. Rather well, in fact, as Owen had discovered a few weeks ago when he had played against him during a tennis party got up by the Consul-General.

‘Where did you find him?’ he had complained afterwards to Paul.

‘His name was suggested by the Baron.’

‘Baron?’

‘The one we’re sucking up to this afternoon, silly!’

Consulate tennis parties were rarely without political purposes. The Baron was the wealthy Belgian behind the Heliopolis Syndicate. Wealthy financiers who took an interest in Egypt were much to be encouraged.

A week or two later Owen had been invited to make up a doubles at the Sporting Club. The invitation had come from Raoul, a Belgian he had met at the tennis party and who was something to do with the Syndicate, and the other two were Paul and Salah-el-Din. It was then that Salah had issued his own invitation to Owen.

‘Come over,’ he had said, ‘and you can see how it’s all developing. The tennis courts should be ready by next week – they’re building a big new Sporting Park. Why don’t you come and christen them?’

Why not, indeed? And Owen had been on his way the day before when he had been so annoyingly diverted.

He made his apologies.

‘Not at all, my dear fellow!’ cried Salah-el-Din, leading him through the garden and up on to the verandah, where a jug of lemonade was waiting. ‘It was all very nearly rather nasty, I gather?’

‘Not so much nasty as irritating,’ said Raoul, already sitting at the table. ‘We lost a whole day! Actually,’ he said, correcting himself, ‘it could have got nasty. We have the Mamur Zapt to thank that it didn’t.’

He gave a polite half-bow in Owen’s direction.

‘What was it all about?’ asked the other member of the party carelessly. He was, Owen gathered, the son of a Pasha.

‘Trouble between the labourers and the villagers,’ said Salah-el-Din.

The Pasha’s son sat up.

‘Villagers?’ he said. ‘Have they been making a nuisance of themselves?’

He probably thought the villagers belonged to him. Which, until recently, they may well have done.

‘No, no,’ said Raoul. ‘It’s our own men.’

‘Actually,’ said Owen, ‘it was a body on the line.’

‘They could have moved it, though, couldn’t they?’ said Raoul, turning to him. ‘From what I gather, that was at the root of the trouble. If they’d let them take the body away there wouldn’t have been any bother!’

‘They were thinking of legal requirements, I believe,’ said Owen.

‘They were thinking of how they could get the day off!’

‘Put a body on the line?’ said the Pasha’s son.

‘No, no, I wouldn’t go so far as that. But make the most of it when there was a body on the line.’

‘They’re up to all sorts of tricks,’ said the Pasha’s son.

‘Well, I wouldn’t put it past them. We’ve been having some real problems with them lately. That’s where we’re hoping you’ll help us,’ he said to Owen.

‘I don’t reckon to intervene in labour disputes,’ said Owen.

‘What do you do?’ asked the Pasha’s son. ‘I’ve often wondered.’

‘I handle political things.’

‘But this is political!’ said Raoul. ‘There are some agitators who’ve got amongst them and we want you to root them out.’

‘The employers always think there are agitators,’ said Owen. ‘There seldom are.’

‘There are this time!’ declared Raoul. ‘We can identify them.’

‘We-ell—’

‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking. But we can prove it. There have been meetings between them and known Nationalists.’

‘Even if there have,’ said Owen, ‘that doesn’t constitute a crime. Nor, actually, does agitation.’

Raoul looked disappointed.

‘I must say I was hoping you’d take a different line. This development is very important to us. And to the country.’

‘Damned right!’ said the Pasha’s son.

‘We’ve spoken to your boss, the Consul-General—’

‘I work for the Khedive,’ said Owen.

‘We know all about that. As I say, we’ve spoken to the Consul-General—’

Government in Egypt was a thing of shadows. The formal ruler of Egypt was the Khedive and he had a government which answered to him. But since the British Army had stepped in, thirty years ago, to assist him to put down a rebellion, and then stayed, behind every Minister was a British Adviser and behind the Khedive was the British Consul-General himself. Government was a thing of shadows; but which was the substance and which was the shadow?

‘Yes,’ said Owen, ‘so I gather.’

‘Well, then—’

‘I’ll look into it.’

‘Thank you,’ said the Belgian, relieved. ‘That’s all we ask.’

‘However, I must repeat: I don’t reckon to involve myself in labour disputes.’

‘We’re not asking you to look into the labour side—’

I’ll bet, thought Owen.

‘It’s the Nationalist connection that worries us.’

‘The Nationalist Party is usually in favour of development.’

‘Ah, yes, but it’s not in favour of foreigners doing the developing.’

‘True.’

‘The fact is. Captain Owen – Gareth, may I call you—?’

‘Please.’

‘The fact is, we’re not against Nationalism. Far from it. But we’ve been aware for some time that someone is trying to stop this development. And we’ve got a pretty good idea who it is.’

‘I hope you’re going to put something stronger in this lemonade,’ complained the Pasha’s son.

Salah laughed.

‘After we’ve played!’

He clapped his hands and a young girl came out on to the verandah.

‘Some more lemonade, my dear.’

She bowed her head submissively and picked up the jug.

The Pasha’s son watched her depart.

‘Who’s that?’ he said.

‘My daughter.’

Owen was astounded. In all the years he had been in Egypt he had never been allowed to see a host’s womenfolk.

‘We try to bring her up in the modern way – having lived in Europe, you know.’

‘Damned good idea!’ said the Pasha’s son, eyes lingering.

Owen reckoned she was all of fourteen.

She returned with a fresh jug.

‘Fill me up!’ commanded the Pasha’s son, holding out his glass.

The girl walked straight past him and filled Owen’s glass.

‘Amina—’ began Salah-el-Din.

‘Don’t take it out on her,’ said the Pasha’s son. ‘I like a bit of spirit.’

Owen caught the girl’s eye as she went past. Fourteen she might be, but submissive she was not. In fact, from the look she had given him, he was having doubts about the fourteen.

‘I still don’t like it,’ complained Owen. ‘I don’t reckon it’s my job. It sounds like a straight labour dispute to me.’

‘Probably is,’ Paul agreed. ‘All the same, the Old Man would like you to take an interest.’

‘It’s not political.’

‘Listen,’ said Paul, ‘if someone as rich as the Baron asks the Old Man to do him a favour, then it is political.’

‘So you didn’t go there?’ said McPhee, disappointed.

‘Well, no, I’m afraid not,’ said Owen guiltily.

‘A pity. You were so close to it. And it’s a site of considerable religious interest, you know. The Virgin and Child are said to have rested under the tree on their flight into Egypt. In fact, according to some chronicles, Mary hid herself from Herod’s soldiers in its branches. There is a tradition that a spider spun its web over the entrance to her hiding place so as to conceal her.’

‘Really?’

‘Interesting, isn’t it? Echoes of both Robert Bruce and the spider and of King Charles in the oak! Extraordinary!’

‘Fascinating! Well, I must go, I can hear the phone in my office—’

It was from someone on the staff of the Khedive.

‘We understand you’re taking an interest in the progress of the new electric railway?’

‘A certain interest, yes.’

‘Quite a lot of interest, we hope. His Royal Highness is very concerned that the line is not advancing as rapidly as had been anticipated.’

‘I’m sure that the contractors will soon be on top of any problems.’

‘Technical ones, yes; but what about the political ones?’

‘Political ones?’

‘The attempt by certain people to use the Heliopolis project as an occasion to advance their own narrow Nationalist interests.’

‘In what way?’

‘By seeing that the project is never completed. His Highness has asked me to emphasize that he regards the success of the project as a matter of honour, both his own, and the country’s.’

‘I see.’

‘Good. His Highness hoped that you would.’

Owen had hardly put the phone down before it was ringing again. This time it was Muhammed Rabbiki, a veteran member of the National Assembly and an important figure in the Nationalist Party.

‘Ah, Captain Owen, a word with you. We understand that you’re taking an interest in this sad affair at Matariya?’

‘A limited interest, yes.’

‘But why limited? Important issues are at stake.’

‘Are there? All I know is that a man’s body has been found on the line, and that, of course, is a matter chiefly for the Parquet.’

‘Oh, Captain Owen, I’m sure you know more than that! How did the body come to be on the line? Who put it there? And for what reason?’

‘All these are, as I say, questions for the Parquet. My concerns are restricted to the political.’

‘But, Captain Owen, what if the answers to these questions are political?’

‘How could they be?’

‘Suppose the body were a plant? Designed to have a certain effect?’

‘What sort of effect?’

‘I am sure I have no need to tell you, Captain Owen. But one thing I can say with confidence, that it certainly is not intended to be in the interests of the workers, neither the workers on the Heliopolis project nor workers in general in Egypt.’

‘Aren’t you making too much of this, Mr Rabbiki?’

The politician chuckled hoarsely.

‘I’m just making sure that you don’t make too little of it, Captain Owen. And in order to make quite sure, I shall put down a question in the Assembly from time to time. We shall all be following your progress with great interest, Captain Owen.’

McPhee stuck his head in at the door.

‘About the Tree, Owen—’

‘Look, thanks, I’ve got something else on my mind just at the moment.’

‘But it’s to do with the business at Matariya.’

McPhee came worriedly into the room.

‘Apparently, there’s been a development. There’s a rather difficult religious sheikh in the village, it seems—’

‘Yes. I’ve met him.’

‘Well, he’s bringing the Tree into it.’

‘He’s what?’

‘Bringing the Tree into it. It’s a Christian site, you see, of particular interest to Copts, but not just Copts, Catholics too. The balsam—’

‘What the hell’s the Tree got to do with it?’

‘Well, he says it’s not just an accident that the man was killed at that particular spot. It’s within the zone of influence of the Tree, and—’

‘So, it’s become an issue between Muslims and Christians?’ said Paul.

‘That’s right. As well.’

Paul took another drink. Then he put down his glass.

‘Political enough for you yet?’ he said maliciously.

‘First, I’m going to arrest the bloody Tree,’ said Owen.

When Owen got out of the train, the ordinary steam-train this time, at Matariya Station, he could see ahead of him the broad white track which led to Heliopolis. Away on the skyline were half-finished houses and men busy on a large construction of some sort: the new hotel, he supposed.

Nearer at hand, over to his right, a pair of humped oxen, blindfolded, were working a sagiya, or water-wheel. Its groan followed him as he walked.

Far to his left, above the mud parapet which hemmed in the waters of the Nile, he could see the tall sails of gyassas, like the wings of huge brown birds, gliding along the river. Closer to was the great white gash of the advancing end of the new railway. It was somewhere over there that he must have been two days before.

The track led through a vast field of young green wheat, away in the middle of which an ancient obelisk thrust upwards at the sky.

McPhee, he told himself, would have loved it: both the biblical landscape and the reminder of something even older, the original Heliopolis, City of the Sun, where Plato and Pythagoras had walked and talked, buried now, perhaps even beneath this very field of wheat.

McPhee was not the ordinary sort of policeman. His interests were in the Old Egypt rather than in the New; in the Egypt of the Pharaohs and the Ptolemies and Moses rather than in the Egypt of the Khedive and the occupying British and the foreign developers.

Owen’s mind, however, was gripped more by the New Egypt than by the Old. For he was the Mamur Zapt, Head of Cairo’s Secret Police, responsible for political order in the city, and the chief threat to that order came from the new forces that were emerging in the country, to do with nationalism, ethnic and religious tension, and the growing impatience with the traditional rule of the Pashas.

If it were not for the fact that the Old Egypt had a habit of rising up every so often and giving the New an almighty kick in the teeth!

2

The Tree was in a bad way. It lay prone on the ground and although it was green at the top it was very brown underneath. Its bark was gnarled and twisted and much gashed where the irreverent, or, possibly, the reverent, had carved their names.

‘That’s why I had to put a railing round it,’ explained the man who claimed to be its owner, a Copt named Daniel.

There was a wooden palisade all round the Tree. It, too, was covered with names.

‘It costs ten piastres to put your name on,’ said the Copt.

‘Ten piastres!’ said Owen, aghast.

‘That includes the hire of a knife,’ said the Copt defensively, brandishing a large blunt-edged instrument.

‘But ten piastres!’

‘Think, Effendi!’ said the Copt persuasively. ‘Your name bound to a holy relic for perpetuity! That will surely count for something on the Day of Judgement!’

‘You don’t think overcharging may also count for something on the Day of Judgement?’

‘The Tree has many virtues, Effendi,’ said the Copt, smiling.

‘Evidently. But does it not, from what I hear, have vices, too?’

‘That is a calumny put about by the Muslims.’

‘But is there not some truth in it? For I have heard a man lies dead because of the Tree.’

‘That is a story got up by Sheikh Isa. For his own ends.’

‘Ah?’

‘He wishes to drive me out. So that he can take over custodianship of the Tree himself.’

‘But why would he want to do that? If the Tree lacks virtue? And isn’t the Tree a Christian relic rather than a Muslim one?’

‘It is a Muslim one too. As for the virtue, that would return if the Tree were in proper hands. Muslim ones. They say.’

‘And what do you say?’

‘That Sheikh Isa is a greedy old bugger who just wants to get his hands on the cash!’ said the Copt wrathfully.

‘The Tree is cursed,’ said Sheikh Isa. ‘Anyone can see that. Otherwise, why would it be lying on its side?’

‘Old age?’

Sheikh Isa brushed this aside.

‘The question is: why has it been cursed? And the answer is obvious. The Tree fell down a year ago. At exactly the time,’ said Isa with emphasis, ‘that they began to build this new city.’

‘So?’

‘Well, it’s plain, isn’t it? God doesn’t want them to build the city. It’s an abomination to him. So he cursed the Tree to show us his anger.’

‘Why does he abominate the city?’

‘I don’t presume to know God’s mind, but I can make a guess. It’s to be a City of Pleasure. That’s what they say, don’t they? Now God is not against pleasure, but I think his idea of pleasure may well be different from that of the Pashas. Do you think he wants to see such a holy place turned into a Sodom and Gomorrah?’

‘Holy place?’

‘Not here,’ said Sheikh Isa impatiently. ‘The Birket-el-Hadj.’

‘Ah, of course!’

The Birket-el-Hadj was the traditional rendezvous for the Mecca caravan. It was about three miles north of Matariya.

‘Do you think God wants a place like that just where they should be beginning to put their thoughts in order for the Holy Journey?’

‘Perhaps not. But, of course, fewer and fewer people are travelling that way now. They prefer to go by train—’

‘Train?’ roared Sheikh Isa, almost foaming at the mouth. ‘Go to Mecca by train?’

‘Just to the coast—’

‘Train?’ shouted Sheikh Isa. ‘They heap abomination upon abomination! Shall we stand idly by when God’s will is set at naught? Has he not sent us a sign that all can read? Does not the Fall of the Tree spell the Fall of the City—?’

‘Why don’t you just lock him up?’ said the Belgian uneasily.

‘On what grounds?’

‘Causing trouble.’

‘That’s not an offence.’

‘It bloody is in my eyes. Anyway, doesn’t the Mamur Zapt have special powers?’

‘He does. But it’s wisest if he uses them sparingly.’

‘I reckon it would be pretty wise to nip this thing in the bud. Before it gets out of hand.’

‘You don’t lock up religious leaders just like that.’

‘Religious leader? He’s a potty old village sheikh. Look, Owen, I just don’t understand you. This is a very important job and we’re behind schedule as it is, we’ve got to push things along. This business of the man on the line cost us a day and a half. And now you come along and tell us there’s a problem about a Tree!’

‘I’m just telling you to be careful, that’s all.’

‘Well, all right, we’ll be careful. Hey, I’ve got an idea! If that old man is bothered about the Tree falling down, why don’t we just lift it up again? Prop it up with stays? I could send a truck round, we could use a hoist—’

Matariya, although so near to Cairo, was in many respects a traditional oasis village, half hidden under a mass of palms, banana trees and tamarisks and clustered around an old mosque with crumbling, loop-holed walls and a crazy, tottering minaret. Probably because of the proximity to the gathering place for the Mecca caravan, many of the houses were pilgrims’ houses, their walls brightly decorated with pictures of the journey to Mecca.

Against one of the houses a many-coloured tabernacle had been erected beneath which old men were sitting on a faded carpet. In the middle of the carpet was a dikka, or platform, on which sat Sheikh Isa, intoning the Koran. At the edge of the carpet was a pile of shoes. A blind man was putting his foot into them to try and find his own by the feel.

The dead man’s house was just beyond the tabernacle, recognizable at once from the mourning banners. The mourning was still going on. Owen could hear the women’s voices in the back room, less frantic now, resigned.

A man in a dark suit and a tarboosh, the red, tasselled, pot-like hat of the Egyptian effendi, was just about to go into the house. He saw Owen, smiled and waited.

It was the Parquet man who had come out to the railhead two days before when Owen had been trying to prevent a confrontation over the body. They shook hands.

‘Asif Nimeri.’

‘You’re formally on the case now?’

The other day he had been sent merely because he was one of the duty officers. He was young and fresh and new, which was probably why they had sent him. Anything out of town on a hot day was for the juniors.

‘Yes.’

He looked at Owen curiously.

‘Are you taking an interest?’

‘Not really. Just making sure of some of the incidentals.’

‘Sheikh Isa?’

‘That sort of thing.’

The Parquet man laughed.

‘I think he’s harmless.’

‘So do I, really.’

‘You’re not directly interested in the case, then?’

‘No.’

Asif seemed relieved. Conducting his first case was problem enough without the additional difficulty of the Mamur Zapt.

‘I thought that since I was here I would look in. May I join you?’

‘Of course!’

They stepped into the house. It had only two rooms, the rear one, where the wailing was coming from, and the one they were in. It was small and bare. The only furniture was a mattress rolled up and stacked against the wall and some skins, not cushions, on the floor.

Two men came into the room, an old man, probably the father, and one much younger, the brother, or perhaps brother-in-law, of the dead man.

‘I come at a time of trouble,’ said Asif ceremoniously, ‘but not to add to it.’

‘Your grief is my grief,’ said Owen formally.

The men bowed acknowledgement. The older one, with a gesture of his hand, invited them to sit down. They sat on the skins.

A woman brought them water and a small dish of dates.

Asif complimented their host on the water and Owen praised the dates.

‘The water is good,’ admitted the old man.

‘The dates eat well,’ conceded his companion, ‘though not as well as the dates of Marg.’

‘God is bountiful!’ said Asif.

The men agreed.

Owen, used to the slow pace of Eastern investigation, settled back.

‘Although sometimes,’ said Asif, ‘the yoke he asks us to bear is heavy.’

‘True,’ asserted the old man.

‘Does our friend have a family?’

‘A wife,’ said the old man, ‘and two daughters.’

‘No sons?’ Asif shook his head commiseratingly.

‘The girls are still young.’

Which meant that the family would have to support them for some time yet. It would, but every extra mouth was a burden on the family.

They sat for a little while in silence.

‘Are you tax collectors?’ said the old man suddenly.

‘No!’ said Asif, startled.

‘Oh. We thought you might be.’

‘You come from the city,’ explained the younger man.

‘I am from the Parquet.’

The men clearly did not understand.

‘I am a man of law,’ Asif explained.

‘You are a kadi?’

‘Well, no, not exactly,’ said Asif scrupulously. It was not for a fledgling lawyer to claim to be a judge. Besides, the two systems were quite separate. Kadis were concerned with religious law, the Parquet, after the French model, with the secular and more modern criminal law.

‘Who is he?’ asked the older man, pointing at Owen.

‘I am the Mamur Zapt.’

‘Ah, the Mamur Zapt?’

They had obviously heard of him. Or, rather, they had heard of the post. The position of Mamur Zapt, Head of the Khedive’s Secret Police and his right-hand man, went back centuries. Only things were a bit different now. The Mamur Zapt was no longer the right-hand man of the Khedive; he was the right-hand man of the British, the ones who really ruled Egypt.

‘What brings you here?’

‘My friend has some questions to ask,’ said Owen diplomatically.

‘They are not my questions but the law’s questions,’ said Asif. ‘When a man dies in the way that our friend did, they cannot be left unasked.’

‘True,’ said the old man. ‘Ask on.’

‘The first question,’ said Asif, ‘is why, after the evening meal, when all was dark, did he rise from his place and go out into the night?’

‘I do not know.’

‘Was it to meet someone?’

‘I do not know.’

‘Did he not say?’

The two men looked at each other.

‘All he said was that he had to go out.’

‘Did he often do thus in the evening?’

‘Not often.’

‘Were you not surprised?’

‘We thought he was going to sit with Ja’affar.’

‘Did he often sit with Ja’affar?’

The old man hesitated.

‘Sometimes.’

‘But when he did not return, did you not wonder what had befallen him?’

‘Why should we wonder?’

‘What, a man goes out into the night and does not return, and you do not wonder?’

‘What a man does at night is his own business.’

Owen caught Asif’s eye and knew what he was thinking: a woman.

‘And when the morning came and he still had not returned, you still did not wonder?’

‘We thought he had gone straight to work.’

‘After spending the night with Ja’affar?’

‘Yes.’

‘A strange village, this!’ said Asif caustically. ‘Where the men spend the night with the men!’

The younger man flashed up.

‘Why do you ask these questions?’ he said belligerently.

‘Because I want to know why Ibrahim was killed.’

‘That is our business,’ said the brother. ‘Not yours!’

‘It is the law’s business.’

‘Whose law? The city’s?’

‘There is but one law,’ said Asif sternly, ‘for the city and for the village.’

‘It is the city that speaks,’ retorted the villager.

‘These are backward people!’ fumed Asif, much vexed with himself, as they walked away.

‘The ways of the village are not the ways of the town,’ said Owen.

‘I know, I know! I am from Assiut myself. That is not a village, I know, but compared with Cairo—’

‘You did all right,’ said Owen reassuringly.

‘I should have—’

‘Well, Ja’affar, you work late!’ said Asif.

‘I do!’ said Ja’affar, his face still streaked with sweat.

‘It is not every man who works so long in the fields!’

‘Ah, I’ve not been in the fields. I work at the ostrich farm.’

‘Ostrich farm?’ said Owen.

‘Yes, it’s over by the station. You would have seen it if you’d gone out the other side.’

‘And what do you do at the ostrich farm that keeps you so late?’ asked Asif.

‘I feed the birds. You’d think they could feed themselves, wouldn’t you, only if you don’t give them something late in the afternoon they make such a hell of a noise that the Khedive doesn’t like it.’

‘The Khedive can hear them all the way from Kubba?’

‘So he says.’

Ja’affar removed his skull cap and splashed water over his face. A woman came and took the bowl away.

‘So what is it?’ he said. ‘Ibrahim?’

‘That’s right.’

‘He was a mate of mine. We used to work at the farm together.’

‘The ostrich farm?’

‘Yes. Only then the chance of a job on the railway came along and he took one look at the money and said: “That’s for me!” I warned him. I said: “They don’t give you that for nothing, you know. They’ll make you sweat for it.” And, by God, they did. He used to come back home in the afternoon dead beat. Too tired even to lift a fìnger!’

‘Too tired to go out?’ said Asif. ‘In the evenings?’

Ja’affar was amused.

‘There’s not a lot to go out to in Matariya,’ he said drily.

‘We heard he liked to go out and chat with his friends.’

‘Ah, well—’

‘You, for instance.’

‘He used to occasionally. He’s not done it so much lately. Not since I got married and he—’

He stopped.

‘Found someone more interesting?’

‘Well—’

‘Just tell me her name,’ said Asif.

A man came to the door.

‘Yes, he used to come here,’ he said defiantly. ‘Everyone knows that. And, no, he didn’t come here just to taste the figs from the fig tree. There’s no secret about that, either. What do you expect? A man’s a man, and if his wife—’

‘Did he come here on the night he was killed?’

‘How do I know?’

‘You live here, don’t you?’

‘No, I live on the other side of the mosque.’

He was, it transpired, the woman’s brother, not her husband.

‘She’s lived here alone ever since her husband died.’

Asif asked to speak with her in her brother’s presence. This was normal. It was considered improper to speak to a woman alone. Indeed, it was considered to be on the verge of raciness to speak to a woman at all. Questions to women, during a police investigation, for instance, were normally put through her nearest male relative.

The woman appeared, unveiled. This at once threw Asif into a tizzy. He had probably never seen a woman’s face before, not the face of a woman outside his family. This woman had a broad, not unattractive, sunburned face. Things were less strict in the village than they were in the city and when the women were working in the fields they often left their faces unveiled. Even in the village, Owen had noticed, they did not always bother to veil. Sheikh Isa, no doubt, had his views about that.

She was as defiant as her brother.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘he used to come here. Why not? It suited him and it suited me.’

Asif could hardly bring himself to look her in the face. Although she obviously intended to answer his questions herself, he continued to direct them to her brother, as he would have done in the city.

‘Did he come on the night he was killed?’

‘Yes.’

‘And’ – he wavered – ‘stayed the night?’

‘He never stayed long.’ She laughed. ‘Just long enough!’

‘Jalila!’ muttered her brother reprovingly.

Asif was now all over the place.

‘How – how long?’ he managed to stutter.

‘How long do you think?’ she said, looking at him coolly.

Owen decided to lend a hand.

‘The man is dead,’ he said sternly.

The woman seemed to catch herself.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘He died after leaving you.’

‘Yes,’ she said quietly.

‘He left you early. Did he say where he was going?’

‘He said he was meeting someone.’

‘Ah! Did he say who?’

‘No. And,’ said the woman, bold again, ‘I did not ask. I knew it wasn’t a woman and that was all I needed to know.’

‘How did you know it wasn’t a woman?’

‘Because it wouldn’t have been any good,’ she said defiantly. ‘Not after what he’d done with me. I always took good care to see there wasn’t much left. For Leila.’

‘Leila?’

‘That so-called wife of his.’

‘Why so-called?’

She was silent.

Then she said vehemently: ‘He should have married me. Right at the start. Then all this wouldn’t have happened.’

The tabernacle was now empty. The pile of shoes had gone. The square was almost empty. The heat rose up off the sand as if making one last effort to keep the advancing shadows at bay. The smell of woodsmoke was suddenly in the air. The women were about to cook the evening meal.

Owen wondered how late the trains back to the city would continue to run. Asif, too, was evidently reckoning that the day’s work was done, for he said:

‘Tomorrow I shall question the wife’s family.’

They turned aside for a moment to refresh themselves at the village well before committing themselves to the long walk back across the hot fields to the station.

‘It could be a question of honour, you see,’ said Asif, still preoccupied with the case. ‘The wife has been dishonoured and so her family has been dishonoured.’

‘You think one of them could have taken revenge?’

Revenge was the bane of the policeman’s life in Egypt. Over half the killings, and there were a lot of killings in Egypt, were for purposes of revenge. It was most common among the Arabs of the desert, where revenge feuds were a part of every tribesman’s life. But it was far from uncommon among the fellahin of the settled villages too.

‘Well,’ said Asif, ‘he was killed by a blow on the back of the neck from a heavy, blunt, club-like instrument. A cudgel is the villager’s weapon. And, besides—’

He hesitated.

‘Yes?’

‘It looks as if it was someone who knew his ways. Knew where to find him, for instance. Knew he would not be staying. Knew him well enough, possibly, to arrange a meeting. That would seem to me to locate him in the village.’

Owen nodded.

‘And if that’s the case,’ he said, ‘you’re going to have to move quickly. Otherwise the other side will be taking the law into their own hands.’

The trouble with revenge killings was that they had two sides. One killing bred another.

‘Tomorrow,’ promised Asif.

A man came round the corner of the mosque and made towards them. He was, like Asif, an Egyptian and an effendi and wore the tarboosh of the government servant. Unlike him, however, and unusually for the time, he wore a light suit not a dark suit and was dressed overall with a certain sharpness. Everything about him was sharp.

He recognized Owen and gave him a smile.

‘Let me guess,’ he said; ‘the railway?’

He turned to Asif.

‘Asif,’ he said softly. ‘I am sorry.’

Asif looked at him in surprise.

‘They have asked me to take over. Why? I do not know. But it is certainly no reflection on you.’

Asif was taken aback.

‘But, Mahmoud, I have only just—’

‘I know. Perhaps they have something more important in mind for you.’

Asif swallowed.

‘I doubt it,’ he said bitterly.

He got up from the well.

‘I will put the papers on your desk,’ he said, and walked off.

Owen made a movement after him but Mahmoud put a hand on his arm.

‘Let him go,’ he said. ‘It’s better like that.’

‘He was doing all right,’ said Owen.

‘I think he’s promising,’ said Mahmoud. He sighed. ‘I wish they wouldn’t do things like this. It hurts people’s pride.’

Mahmoud El Zaki was a connoisseur in pride. That was true of most Egyptians, thought Owen, but it was especially true of him. Proud, sensitive, touchy – all of them qualities likely to be rubbed raw by the situation that Egyptians were in: subordination of their country to a foreign power, subordination in government, subordination in social structure.

And the wounds were aggravated by what at times seemed an excessive emotionality. For a people so prickly they were surprisingly tender. Excessively masculine in some respects, they were sometimes surprisingly feminine. They were never in the middle; unlike the solid, stolid, sensible English, thought Owen. He himself was Welsh.

He and Mahmoud knew each other well. They had often worked together and had, a little to their surprise, perhaps, developed a rapport which survived political and other differences.

They watched Asif set out along the track across the fields.

‘You’ll need to pick things up quickly,’ said Owen. There’s a danger of a tit-for-tat killing.’

‘The man’s family?’

Owen nodded.

‘The brother especially. There’s another woman involved. They think he was killed because of that.’

‘Her husband?’

‘No. She’s a widow. The wife’s family. Asif was going to take a look at them tomorrow.’

‘I’ll do that myself. I’ll come out tomorrow morning. However, I’ve arranged to do something else first.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m going to talk to the railway people.’ He looked at Owen. ‘You wouldn’t care to accompany me, would you?’

Owen knew exactly why he was asking that. Any investigation involving foreigners was potential political dynamite. Most foreigners doing business in Egypt were protected by special provisions of the legal code, forced on the Egyptian government in the past by foreign powers. No European or American could even be charged unless it could be shown that he had committed an offence not against Egyptian law but against the law of his own country. Even when a charge was accepted, he had to be tried, in the case of a criminal offence, by his own Consular Court, and in civil cases by the Mixed Courts, where there would be both foreign and Egyptian judges.

And those were merely the formal protections. Informally, there were jugglings for reference, disputes about nationality and the use of cases as pretexts for the assertion of national interests. In such circumstances the cards were always stacked against the unfortunate policeman; and especially so if he happened to be Egyptian.

It made sense, then, for Mahmoud to ally himself with the Mamur Zapt. It protected him personally against political comeback and increased the chances of successful prosecution. At the very least it meant that the Belgian-owned Syndicate would not be able to fob him off without even listening to his questions.

Owen was quite willing to allow himself to be used. Like many of the British officials, like, indeed, the Consul-General himself, he had considerable sympathy with the Egyptians over this issue of legal privileges, the Capitulations as they were called.

But only up to a point. The Parquet, too, had its political agenda. The Ministry of Justice was the most Nationalist of all the Ministries and the Parquet lawyers were Nationalist to a man. Mahmoud himself was a member of the Nationalist Party. Might not the Parquet be seeking to use the case for its own political ends?

‘Why have they put you on the case?’ he asked.

Mahmoud smiled.

‘Why have they put you on the case?’ he countered.

3

‘There is this Tree,’ said the site foreman doubtfully.

‘Tree?’ said the man-higher-up-in-the-Syndicate, Varages, another Belgian. ‘What Tree is this?’

‘I gather there’s been some problem,’ said the site foreman, looking at Owen.

‘Is it in the way or something?’ said Varages.

‘If it’s a case of compensation—’ said one of the lawyers.

The Belgians had brought two lawyers. They had also insisted that the foreman could only be interviewed in the presence of someone high up in the Syndicate. It was likely that Varages was another lawyer. With Mahmoud, that made four of them. This meeting wasn’t going to get anywhere, decided Owen.

‘The Tree, actually, is beside the point,’ he said.

‘I thought you told me I had to look out?’ said the foreman.

‘That was because of the attitude of a local sheikh—’

‘That awkward old bugger?’

‘If it’s a question of compensation—’ began the lawyer again.

‘Pay him and let’s get the Tree moved,’ said Varages impatiently.

‘It’s not—’

‘Can we get the ownership straight?’ cut in the other lawyer. ‘It belongs to this old sheikh—?’

‘No,’ said Owen. ‘It belongs to a Copt. His name is Daniel. But—’

‘Ah, the ownership is disputed? Well, that gives us our chance, then. It will have to be settled in the courts. A Copt, you say? And a sheikh? That will be the Native Tribunals, then—’

‘I wouldn’t recommend that,’ said the other lawyer. ‘Not in the circumstances. Much better to get it referred straight to the Mixed Courts—’

‘On the grounds that the Syndicate is a party? Well, yes, of course, that is a possibility–’

‘Listen,’ said Varages, ‘we don’t want to get this tied up forever in the courts. We’ve got to get on with it. How long is it all going to take?’

‘About four years.’

‘Four years! Jesus! Can’t you speed it up a bit?’

‘If the Syndicate cared to use its influence—’

‘What would it take then?’

The lawyers looked at each other.

‘Two years?’ one of them ventured.

‘Two years? Listen, two months would be too long! We’ll have to do something else. Or rather – yes, that’s it. Why don’t we just dig up the Tree and argue about it afterwards? It wouldn’t matter then how long you took—’

‘Dig up the Tree of the Virgin,’ said Owen, ‘and you’ll have the whole desert in flames!’

‘Did you say the Tree of the Virgin?’ asked one of the lawyers.

‘Yes, it’s—’

‘The Tree of the Virgin?’ said the other lawyer. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, but–’

‘Does that make a difference?’ asked Varages.

‘It certainly does. Captain Owen is quite right. The desert would be in flames. However, that is not the real difficulty.’

‘Not the real difficulty?’ said Owen.

‘No. Not from a legal point of view. The fact is – correct me if I’m wrong,’ he said, looking at his colleague, ‘the fact is that, well, the Tree doesn’t belong to either the sheikh or the Copt—’

‘The Copt’s put a railing round it,’ said Owen.

‘Who does it belong to, then?’ asked Varages.

‘The Empress Eugenie.’

‘Just a minute,’ said Varages, ‘the Empress Eugenie? Of France?’

‘That’s right. The Khedive gave it to her. In 1869. When she came to open the Suez Canal.’

‘Gave it to her?’

‘Yes. As a present.’

There was a moment’s stunned silence.

‘It’s still there!’ said Owen. ‘I saw it yesterday!’

‘Yes. She didn’t want to take it with her.’

‘And it – it still belongs to her?’

‘In theory, yes.’

‘We could ask the courts to pronounce,’ said the other lawyer eagerly.

‘How long would that take?’ asked the site foreman.

‘Oh, about eight years.’

‘I don’t think we’d better move the Tree,’ said Varages.

‘I would strongly advise against it.’

‘The French wouldn’t like it.’

‘They wouldn’t, indeed. They might even, I go so far as to suggest, see fit to treat it as a casus belli.’

‘Moving the Tree? A cause of war?’

‘It cannot be ruled out. As Captain Owen will know better than anybody, the French have always resented their exclusion from Egypt by the British. They might see this as an opportunity to reassert their influence.’

‘I don’t care who runs Egypt,’ said Varages, ‘just so long as I can get on with my job. Which happens to be building a railway. What are we going to do about this Tree?’

‘The Tree, actually, is beside the point,’ said Owen desperately.

‘It certainly is,’ said Mahmoud.

At the last moment the Syndicate had made difficulties. It had no objection in principle to meeting a representative of the Parquet and answering any questions he might care to put, but it failed to see any reason, beyond the purely adventitious one of where the body was found, why it should be expected to answer questions bearing on the circumstances of the man’s death.

True, the man had been part of its workforce. But the death had occurred off the company’s premises and out of company time, while, in fact, the man had been at home and in his native village. The death was, surely, a private or domestic matter, on which the company could hardly be expected to be able to throw any light.

Nor was it reasonable for the Syndicate to be asked to make working time available for Mahmoud to question the workmen. If the death had resulted from an accident at work that would have been quite another matter. The Syndicate would have been glad to comply. But it had already lost a lot of valuable work time as a result of the accident of the body having been found where it had been and it was loath to lose any more.

Besides, if the death arose, as it appeared it did, out of private or domestic circumstances, what was the point of questioning the man’s working colleagues about it? What light could they be expected to throw on the incident?

In vain had Mahmoud put forward reasons. The Syndicate’s lawyers had merely raised further objections.

At last he had looked at Owen despairingly.

‘I think that the reason why the Parquet has asked for this meeting,’ said Owen, ‘is that it is in the Syndicate’s interests.’

‘How so?’ asked the lawyers.

‘Because while the circumstances of the man’s death remain undetermined, all sorts of stories are getting around. He is concerned that some of these could have an effect on your workforce.’

It was then that the foreman had mentioned the Tree and they had begun on their detour.

‘The Tree,’ said Owen, perspiring and making one last valiant attempt, ‘is not in the way. You do not have to move it. In itself it is nothing. It is the way it might be used that is important.’

‘To create mischief, you mean?’ said the foreman.

‘We certainly wouldn’t want that,’ said Varages, frowning.

He glanced at the lawyers.

‘What do we have to lose by letting him ask questions?’

‘I think we should maintain our position,’ one of them said. ‘Strictly speaking, it is nothing to do with us. There is nothing that points to a connection between the man’s death and the railway.’

‘Oh, yes, there is,’ said Mahmoud. ‘We have found sand in the man’s clothes and superficial lesions consistent with the body having been dragged. We do not think he was killed at the place where he was found. He was killed somewhere else and dragged there. And the question is why? The answer, surely, is to make precisely the connection between the killing and the railway that you deny exists.’

‘The money is good,’ conceded the labourers.

‘But the work is hard.’

‘Heavy, is it?’ said Mahmoud sympathetically.

‘It’s more that they keep you going.’

‘They keep you going in the fields,’ said one of the men.

‘Yes. But it’s at a sensible pace. On this job they make you go faster than you’d like.’

‘That’s because they want to get it finished. The Khedive, they say, has fixed the day he wants to travel on it.’

‘Why can’t he wait a bit?’

‘He’s got some big do on, I expect.’

‘Well, if he wants to travel to the city, why can’t he go by coach and horses, the way he’s always done?’

‘He’s in a hurry, I suppose.’

‘All he needs to do is set out earlier. Then he’d get there at the same time.’

‘Ah, but that’s not it. Speed’s the thing today.’

‘Well, I don’t see why we need it.’

‘You’re a man of the past, Abdul. Egypt’s bursting into the future. Or so they say.’

‘Well, I wish they’d burst without me. There’s no point in working this hard. It’s worse than when they had the curbash.’

The curbash was the heavy whip the Pashas had used to force labour. One of the first acts of the British when they arrived had been to abolish it.

‘You wouldn’t want the curbash back, would you?’

‘I don’t reckon it’d make much difference.’

‘I reckon you’d feel the difference!’

‘Curbash, money, it’s all the same,’ remarked another of the labourers. ‘It’s all a whip held over the head of the poor.’

Mahmoud had been allowed to address them during their break. This was another bone of contention. It was usual in Egypt to work till early in the afternoon and then, if you were an office worker or a labourer, stop for the day. Shopkeepers would work again in the evening when it became cooler. The Syndicate, however, had insisted that the workforce on the railway work through till late afternoon, stopping for a brief break at noon when the sun was at its hottest.

The men were sitting in the shade now, eating their bread and onions.

‘Ibrahim found the work hard, so they say,’ said Owen.

The leader of the workmen looked at him.

‘Do they?’

‘Yes. In the village. They say he used to get home too tired to do anything.’

‘He used to do his share.’

‘It’s not entirely true, though. There was a woman he used to go to.’

‘Was there?’

‘He didn’t speak to you about it?’

‘No.’

‘I expect he saved a bit for that,’ said one of the workmen. ‘You’d do that, wouldn’t you, Abdul?’

‘I bet he’d work fast enough then,’ said another of the men. ‘There’d be no need for someone to be standing over him with the curbash when it comes to that kind of work!’

There was a general laugh.

‘Why wouldn’t you let them move the body?’ Mahmoud asked the leader.

‘He was murdered, wasn’t he? You could see it. His neck was broken.’

‘You wanted the Parquet to take a look at it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘That’s what they’re supposed to do, aren’t they?’ retorted the man.

Which was certainly true. Only it was a little surprising that the man should be so punctilious. Few Egyptians would have been. The Parquet was – in Egyptian terms – relatively new, having been created only some thirty years before when the government, anxious to introduce a modern legal system, had simply translated the French Penal Code and adopted it and French legal procedure lock, stock and barrel. Many Egyptians still harked back to the system which had preceded it and which had prevailed for centuries, a system of village watchmen, ghaffirs, and in which the local mudir, or governor, was judge, jury and, frequently, executioner. The Mamur Zapt had been part of that system, which accounts for the fact that the Matariya villagers had heard of him but not of the Parquet.

Yet here was someone, ordinary labourer and probably a villager, invoking the absolute letter of the – for many Egyptians – still newish law!

It was a small thing, perhaps, but it set Owen’s mind wondering. He knew little about employment law (and was damned sure that very few Egyptians did) and not much about labour disputes. Maybe it was different in the more modern industries. Maybe the workers’ leaders there did know something about the modern legal system. Maybe that was why the workmen, very sensibly, chose them.

Perhaps he was making too much of it. He looked at the workmen’s leader. He was a youngish man in his thirties, with a thin, sharp face and a wiry body. He was certainly intelligent.

The doubt began to niggle at Owen’s mind again. Too intelligent? He did not know what the workmen in Egypt’s newer industries – the railways were, of course, one of Egypt’s newer industries – were like but suspected that they might well be sharper than the average. But that would surely be true only of the more skilled trades, the engine drivers and signalmen and repairmen. It wouldn’t necessarily be true of the labourers working on the track.

He was probably making too much of this. Only the Belgians had spoken of agitators, and he had dismissed it as the kind of thing foreign contractors would say. And so far he had seen absolutely no sign of this man being an agitator in their sense. He had directed attention to a body, that was all, and insisted that the due process of the law should be observed. Nothing wrong with that; it was just that in Egypt, a country of many murders and much casualness about death, it was a bit unusual.

He reproached himself. A man did exactly as he was supposed to do and it struck him as odd! What were things coming to!

The niggle, however, remained. What it came down to was, why had the man done it? Normal zeal for the public good? Compassion for the dead man, anger at the killing of a friend? Or could it be, could it just be, that someone saw in the death an opportunity to exploit the situation for their own ends, that the Khedive’s charges of political manipulation on the part of the Nationalists were not entirely without foundation?

The men finished their break and went back to their work. Mahmoud, lunchless, set out for the village. He was probably the only man in the Parquet, and, possibly, Cairo, who reckoned to work through the heat of the day.

Owen took a buggy back to the Pont de Limoun and then an arabeah up to the Ismailiya Quarter, where, among the ‘butterfly shops’, he hoped to find Zeinab.

The ‘butterfly shops’ were open only in the season and were kept by dressmakers, milliners and purveyors of general unnecessaries who had come over from Paris specifically for the occasion. Fashionable Egypt was oriented heavily towards Paris, and the goods were the latest in the Paris shops. They were also the most expensive in the Paris shops and Owen frequently wondered what Zeinab was doing in them. She received an allowance from her father, a wealthy – or so she claimed – Pasha. He denied it, but then these things, thought Owen, were relative. A dress from one of the ‘butterfly shops’, which cost more than Owen’s pay for the whole year, probably seemed like nothing to him. He could deny his daughter, his illegitimate child by his favourite courtesan, nothing. Not that it would have done much good if he had, she would simply have gone ahead all the same, bought it and charged it to his account.

Owen walked into the most likely shop and stood dazed and uncomprehending among the dresses. When it came to shopping, Zeinab reckoned he was good for lunch and not much else.

Yes, said the assistant, she was in the shop. She was trying on a dress and would be with him shortly.

‘Monsieur désire une boisson, peut-être?’ said the assistant.

Yes, Monsieur did désire une boisson, and stood sipping it while he waited for Zeinab.

Several other assistants were in the shop, ladies of considerable beauty and indeterminate nationality and all of them dressed in black. Nearly all of them wore veils, in deference to Muslim susceptibilities. Not too much deference; the veils were thin and filmy and suggested as much as they concealed.

There were, however, some women in traditional dress, wearing long, black, shapeless robes which came down to their feet and long veils which covered their head – the hair was a particularly erotic zone for Arabs – and came down to their waists. They stood incongruously among the skimpy and revealing European fashions, apparently as out of place as Owen himself.

One of them had a young girl with her, dressed not, however, in the traditional clothes but in something straight from Paris. The dress suggested youthfulness, childishness, almost, but the figure beneath was far from childish. Owen was still trying to work it out when she turned and looked at him.

Like the other women, she wore a veil, only this was neither the traditional one of her mother nor the usual Parisian one, but a Turkish one which covered the lower part of the face and revealed the eyes. Above the veil her eyes looked at Owen warmly and with recognition.

Salah-el-Din came into view, accompanied by the man he had introduced Owen to the other day, the Pasha’s son.

‘Captain Owen! What a pleasure! You have met Malik, of course.’

They shook hands.

‘We can go there together,’ said Malik.

Where was it that they might be going? The only other engagement that Owen had that day, so far as he could remember, was a routine meeting about an application for a gambling licence, and the only reason why he remembered it was that, unusually for Cairo, it was being held in the afternoon.

‘My wife; my daughter, whom you met, if you remember.’

The mother muttered a polite greeting in Arabic. The daughter advanced on Owen with outstretched hand.

‘Enchanté, monsieur! C’est un très grand plaisir—’

‘A charming dress, don’t you think? It’s important to hit the right note—’

‘You could try it a bit shorter,’ said Malik.

Salah laughed, unoffended.

‘You would think that!’ he said.

The mother gave her head a decided shake.

‘How about a drink?’ Malik said to Owen.

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Owen, seeing Zeinab, tall, slim and elegant, sweep down the stairs at the back. ‘I’ve a previous engagement.’

‘Don’t blame you,’ said Malik, following the direction of his eyes.

Zeinab came towards them. Owen was jealously pleased that she wore a veil, a French-style one that covered all her face except for the sharp, rather beaky chin. Zeinab’s father always claimed that there was some Bedouin blood in the family, although he was not entirely sure how it got there.

‘Greek?’ said Malik. ‘Not Circassian, anyway. You ought to try Circassian.’

Zeinab walked on past them. Owen caught up with her just as she went through the doors.

‘I don’t like your friends,’ she said.

‘They’re not exactly my friends. One of them’s the new mamur out at Heliopolis.’

‘Who’s the girl?’

‘His daughter. I can’t figure her out,’ admitted Owen.

‘I can!’

Zeinab was silent for a moment. Then she said:

‘How can a mamur afford to shop at Anton’s?’

‘That’s what I’m wondering,’ said Owen.

‘I shall tell Anton that he needs to be more selective in his clientele. He can start by throwing out that other man.’

‘Malik? He’s a Pasha’s son!’

‘Good!’ said Zeinab gleefully. ‘In that case I shall certainly ask Anton to throw him out!’

Owen was a little taken aback when he returned to his office to find that the venue for his meeting had been changed. It was now to be held at the Savoy Hotel, which was roughly where he had just come from. His meetings were not normally held at the Savoy Hotel, but he had hopes that this might create a precedent.

At the meeting were a representative of the Ministry of Justice, McPhee, the Deputy Commandment of Police, two lawyers and Malik appearing for the appellants, and himself, and the subject of the meeting was an application to open new premises under the licensing laws.

Or, rather, not quite an application.

‘A formal application will be made later,’ said one of the lawyers, smiling. ‘At this stage all we are doing is testing the ground. We are seeking to establish whether there would be any objection in principle to an application such as ours.’

‘The government’s policy is to restrict the number of gambling houses,’ said McPhee severely.

‘And quite rightly, too. There are far too many low dens where the practices are, frankly, far from commendable. Our application is not of that sort. It relates to the opening of a casino in the Palace Hotel at Heliopolis.’

‘Palace Hotel?’ said McPhee, puzzled. ‘There isn’t one!’

‘It’s being built.’

The man from the Ministry of Justice, an Egyptian, looked at his papers.

‘A casino wasn’t mentioned in the original planning application,’ he said.

‘Well, no. It has only recently come home to us how attractive an additional amenity it would be.’

‘It’s the government’s policy not to allow new premises to be opened,’ said McPhee.

‘But surely that only applies to Cairo proper, where there is already too great an abundance of such places? We are talking about the New Heliopolis, where there isn’t even one at the moment!’

‘It is a general restriction,’ said the man from the Ministry of Justice.

‘But how can it apply to a place like the New Heliopolis, which wasn’t even projected when the legislation was framed?’

‘The legislation covers future development.’

‘I put the question because of the special character of the Heliopolis development. It is to be a City of Pleasure. That was stated explicitly at the stage of the initial planning application. I would suggest that approval of the initial concept implies approach of consequent developments.’

‘I would challenge the view that a casino is a consequent development,’ said Owen. ‘Amenities in general, yes, a casino in particular, no.’

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