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First published 1991

Copyright © Michael Pearce 1991

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: 9780008259440

Ebook Edition © JULY 2017 ISBN: 9780007483037

Version: 2017-09-12

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Footnote

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by Michael Pearce

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

Riding home from work on the back of his donkey one lunch-time, Fairclough of the Customs Department was shot at by two men. The shots were fired from a distance and missed, and the only damage from the incident resulted when the frightened donkey careered into a fruit-stall nearby and deposited both fruit and Fairclough on top of the stall-holder, who, since it was lunch-time, was sleeping peacefully under the stall.

Fairclough held court afterwards in the bar of the Sporting Club, which was where Owen caught up with him.

‘It was ghastly,’ he declared, drinking deeply from his tumbler. ‘There were squashed tomatoes everywhere. Mind you, they saved my life. It looked like blood, you see. All over him, all over me. They must have thought they’d got me.’

‘What I can’t understand,’ said someone else at the bar, ‘is why anyone would want to get you anyway. I mean, let’s face it, Fairclough, you’re not exactly important, and although everyone else in the Department regards you as a bit of a pig, I wouldn’t have said that feeling ran high enough for them to want to kill you.’

‘Perhaps there’s a woman in the case,’ suggested someone.

Fairclough, who was a lifelong bachelor, snorted and peered into his tumbler.

‘Unlikely,’ said someone else. ‘The only female he lets get anywhere near him is that damned donkey of his.’

‘Perhaps it’s an animal lover. After all, it is a very small donkey and a very large Fairclough. Perhaps after years of witnessing this unequal combat somebody has decided to take sides.’

‘Miss Crispley, perhaps?’ suggested someone.

There was a general laugh. Then someone noticed Owen.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘On the job already? I see you’re starting in a sensible place. The bar. We’ve got a suspect for you. Miss Crispley, of the Mission.’

‘Thank you,’ said Owen. ‘Or shall I begin with the donkey?’

Beyond what he had told everyone in the bar, Fairclough had little information to give. He always rode home for lunch on his little donkey and he always went that way. Both he and his donkey were creatures of habit. Yes, that would have made it easy for anyone who wanted to attack him.

‘Though why in the hell anyone should want to do that,’ he said, aggrieved, ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘You’re Customs, aren’t you?’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’ said Fairclough touchily.

Customs was one of the lowest ranking of the Departments and its members were sensitive on the issue.

‘I wondered if it could be a question of wanting to settle old scores?’

‘Look,’ said Fairclough, rosy with heat and indignation and, no doubt, drink, ‘all I am is a book-keeper. A high-level one perhaps, but basically that’s all I am. The returns come in from the ports and I put them together in a way that makes sense to Finance. It’s more complicated than it sounds but when you get down to it, that’s all it is. I have nothing,’ said Fairclough with emphasis, ‘absolutely nothing to do with the front end of the business. Smugglers are just a row of figures to me. And that,’ said Fairclough, ‘is the way I’d like them to stay.’

‘There’s been no recent row of figures of any particular significance?’

‘Not to do with smuggling, no. From the point of view of Finance, yes. There always is. But even those bastards haven’t got round to sending out shooting parties. Yet.’

‘If it’s not work it could be personal.’

‘Something in my personal life, you mean?’ Fairclough reflected, then shook his head. ‘Try as I might, I can’t find anything I’ve done bad enough for anyone to want to shoot me.’

‘Women?’

‘No,’ said Fairclough shortly.

‘Others?’

Owen was trying to find a way of referring to any other preferences Fairclough might have.

‘Bridge,’ said Fairclough.

‘What?’ said Owen, startled.

‘Bridge. I play a lot of bridge. And, of course, feelings sometimes run high. But,’ said Fairclough, weighing the matter, ‘not as high as that.’

‘Oh, good.’

Fairclough went on thinking.

‘No,’ he said at last, shaking his head. ‘No, I can’t say that anything comes to mind.’

‘Well, if it does, you’ll let me know, won’t you?’

‘You bet I will,’ said Fairclough. ‘I don’t want those bastards trying again.’

Owen could get little more out of him. He hadn’t even seen the men who had fired the shots. That piece of information had come from a passing water-carrier, who had seen two men step out from behind a stationary arabeah, fire the shots and then duck back in again. It had all happened so quickly that the water-carrier had barely had time to notice anything. He wasn’t even sure whether the men were dressed in Western-style clothes or in galabeahs.

‘I just heard the bangs,’ said Fairclough, ‘and then the bloody donkey was bucking all over the place.’

He cast a longing glance in the direction of the bar.

Owen took the hint.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’

Fairclough got up. At the last minute he was reluctant to go.

‘It’s a funny business, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Why would anyone want to kill me?’

‘It might be simply a mistake, of course.’

‘Mistaken identity, you mean?’

‘Maybe.’

Fairclough brightened.

‘That could be it,’ he said. ‘That could well be it.’

Privately Owen doubted whether it was possible to mistake Fairclough for anyone else. The image of a second pink little man in the habit of riding home on a donkey rose unbidden to his mind. He put it down firmly.

Even Fairclough, after a moment, began to have his doubts.

‘I don’t think it could be that, you know,’ he said worriedly.

‘Why not?’

‘I think they knew what they were doing.’

‘What makes you say that?’

Fairclough hesitated. ‘You’ll probably think I’m being fanciful,’ he said. ‘But—I think that recently I’ve been followed.’

‘Followed?’

‘Someone behind me. I’ve never seen anyone, mind. I’ve just sensed it. There’s a sort of feeling you have.’ He looked at Owen. ‘You probably think I’ve been imagining things.’

‘No,’ said Owen. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘I thought that myself—thought I was imagining it. So I took no notice. Told myself not to be so bloody daft. But then, this shooting …’ His voice tailed away.

‘It’s not so daft,’ said Owen. ‘It makes sense for them to do their homework.’

‘But then—you see, that means they knew what they were doing. Knew it was me, I mean.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘And then,’ said Fairclough, taking no notice, ‘this following business—’

‘Yes?’

‘There have been other cases, haven’t there? Recently, I mean. There’s been a lot of talk.’

‘I wouldn’t believe everything you hear.’

‘You see, that would explain it. The shooting, I mean. It might not be anything to do with me. Not personally, I mean. If it was—well, you know.’

‘No,’ said Owen, ‘I don’t.’

‘If it was something to do with, well, the present, well—situation.’

‘There’s no evidence of that,’ said Owen, ‘no evidence at all.’

‘I had to reassure the poor little devil,’ he explained.

‘Yes,’ said Garvin doubtfully. ‘The trouble is we actually want them to be a bit scared, don’t we? So that they’ll take precautions.’

Garvin was Commandant of the Cairo Police, a big man in every sense: big in terms of physical presence—he towered over Owen, who was himself a six-footer, big in reputation with the Egyptians—he had been in the country a long time and was known in the underworld to have a special eye, big in standing with the Consul-General.

They were at the Consul-General’s now. It was a reception for a delegation of businessmen newly out from London to which the Consul-General seemed to be attaching a lot of importance. Owen could see him now at the far end of the room deep in conversation with two of its members, both perspiring profoundly in their dark suits.

At any rate no one would be able to say he wasn’t talking to Englishmen, Owen thought. The current joke in the bar ran something like this: ‘Have you been to one of the CG’s receptions lately?’—‘Oh no. You see, I’m not an Egyptian.’

Gorst, the man who had recently replaced Cromer as Consul-General, was deeply unpopular with the expatriate British community. Although he had in fact served in Egypt before and was familiar with the country and its ways, he was something of a new broom, put in by the new Liberal Government in London specifically to liberalize the British regime in Egypt and to improve relations with the Khedive, Egypt’s hereditary ruler.

Cromer had in fact been the man who had ruled Egypt and for thirty years successive Khedives and their Prime Ministers had been forced to submit to his iron will. His regime had been by no means a bad one. Under him Egypt’s desperate economic problems, which had brought the British to Egypt in the first place to make sure they recovered their loans, had been largely resolved and he had introduced many much-needed reforms.

But after thirty years the Egyptians were beginning to feel that they would like to solve their problems themselves. The new Liberal Government in London was more sympathetic to nationalism than the previous Conservative Government had been, and Cromer’s heavy-handed approach had not commended itself. One of their first acts had been to replace him.

Anyone following Cromer would have had a difficult time. Gorst, with his new brief and new ways of doing things, soon ran into trouble. He was thought to be too pliable, too soft, too keen on the Egyptians. Personally, Owen thought he was all right. It was just that, new in the job, he lacked Cromer’s certainty, with the result that scruple and circumspection was easily misinterpreted as weakness.

As now.

There was something of a political crisis. The old Government had fallen. With all its faults it had been a good one. Its leader, however, had been a Copt. In a country where the bulk of the population was Muslim, a Christian Prime Minister could be only a temporary phenomenon.

So Patros had fallen. But who was going to take his place? Among the veteran politicians the jockeying was intense. Factions at court combined and recombined, lobbied and blocked. The Khedive could not make up his mind—had not been able to make up his mind for six weeks now.

‘Can’t you get the stupid idiot to get a move on?’ Owen had complained earlier in the evening to one of the Consul-General’s aides.

‘We’re trying to. The trouble is we can only suggest. He’s the one who has to actually make the appointment. It’s his big moment and he’s savouring every instant of it.’

‘Well, it’s making things bloody difficult.’

Because as the days went by it wasn’t only the tame politicians at court who began to manœuvre. In the political vacuum created by the interregnum other political forces began to stir.

For the first time there was an openly Nationalist Party, small yet but growing in support, growing fast enough to alarm the other political groupings, which began to take on a protective nationalist colouring too.

And beyond them were other groups, less orthodox and less open: fundamentalist groups, bitterly resenting the imposition of a Christian as Prime Minister and determined to prevent it happening again; revolutionary groups eager to throw off hereditary class rule, the rule of the Pashas, as well as the alien rule of the British; the extremist political ‘clubs’ and the secret ‘societies’. Cairo in 1909 was a hotbed for such groups; and in the growing political tension they saw their opportunity.

Incidents began to occur. Hitherto peaceful demonstrations spilled over into violence. Stones were thrown. Bystanders attacked. Vehicles belonging to foreigners were damaged. There came the occasional report of a shop, usually belonging to a Copt, being broken into and set on fire.

There was a more sinister development. One or two senior people reported that on their way to and from work they had been followed. Nothing more than that. Just followed. But in the increasingly jumpy atmosphere that was enough.

Reports of followings flooded in, not just from the British but also from senior Egyptians. In the bar it was muttered that things were getting out of hand. The Consul-General should do something. He was as weak as water. Thank goodness the Army was standing by.

And now had come the thing Owen had been waiting for and fearing: the first shots.

‘It might be nothing to do with it,’ said Garvin. ‘Why would they pick on Fairclough? There are much more obvious targets.’

‘They’re usually guarded.’

‘Only people like the CG and the Khedive. One or two of the Ministers. You don’t have to go as far down as Fairclough. Any Adviser would do.’

All the big Ministries had a British ‘Adviser’ at the top of them, looking over the Minister’s shoulder. It was one of the ways in which Cromer had consolidated his power.

‘The clubs don’t always think like that. From their point of view any Britisher would do.’

‘They’d have to have some reason for choosing him. What reason could there be for choosing Fairclough? Political, that is.’

‘Or any other. The nearest I’ve got to a reason so far is enmity at bridge.’

Garvin laughed and tilted his glass in the direction of a passing waiter. One of the advantages of this being a reception for a European delegation was that alcoholic drinks were being served.

‘I don’t think it will be that. And I don’t think it will turn out in the end to be political either. Go on digging and you’ll find something else.’ There was a touch of condescension in Garvin’s voice.

‘Even if you’re right on this, you won’t be right for long,’ Owen insisted. ‘Things are hotting up. It’s only a question of time. Can’t we get the Khedive to get a move on?’

‘I’ll pass on your views to the CG,’ said Garvin and drifted away.

Putting Owen in his place.

The next day as Owen was walking home he had a distinct feeling that he was being followed.

He told himself that he was a fool, that he was imagining things. But the feeling persisted. He stopped beside a drinking fountain and as the water played into his cupped hands covertly looked behind him. He could see no one. There was only the long, dusty street of the Sharia Masr-el-Atika, completely deserted in the noonday sun. Nevertheless, the feeling persisted.

It was, actually, not uncommon for Owen to be followed. There would often be someone who wanted to have a word with him, to present a petition, make a complaint or lay information against somebody who was too shy to enter the imposing offices at the Bab el Khalk where Owen worked, preferring to wait until they could approach him in the time-honoured manner of the East, face to face, in public, in space which was common and where neither was at a disadvantage.

But this was not like that. Anyone like that would walk just a few paces behind so that the great one would become aware of their presence and when he was so minded turn and address them. But there was no comforting shuffle behind him, just the empty street. And yet the feeling that he was being followed burned into his shoulder-blades.

An old woman was sitting in the dust under the trees, guarding a huge heap of oranges. She was an old friend of Owen’s and he always greeted her, usually stopping to purchase a few oranges to make a drink with. The oranges were large and green and gave off a pungent smell.

‘You’re a strange man,’ she said today.

‘Why, mother?’

‘It’s a strange man who has two shadows.’

Owen thanked her for the warning, bought his oranges and went on.

He left the trees behind him and was walking now between old mameluke houses. Their walls rose directly from the street in a steep unbroken line until high overhead a row of corbels allowed the first floor to project out over the heads of the passers-by. Higher still, heavily-latticed oriel windows carried the harem rooms, where the women lived, a further two feet over the street.

At ground level, though, there was only the high, unbroken line of the wall and the occasional heavy, studded door barred against strangers. All the doors seemed shut. There seemed no escape from the street except that far ahead he could see a break in the line of the houses.

He suddenly felt an intense prickly sensation behind his shoulders.

Just ahead of him he could see a door which was not properly shut. He slowed down, hesitating.

The prickly feeling suddenly became overwhelming. He pushed at the door and then, as it swung back, leaped through it.

The door crashed back against an inside wall and then swung out again. As it closed he jammed his shoulder behind it and held it shut until he could pull the heavy wooden bolts across.

Then, sweating and feeling rather foolish, he stood looking into the inner courtyard.

At this time of day, with the sun directly overhead and the walls offering no shadow, it was, of course, deserted. Along one side, though, was a takhtabosh, a long recess with a carved wooden roof supported in front by pillars, which gave it a cool, cloister-like effect. This was where superior servants might be expected to sit and Owen was slightly relieved to see nobody there.

He walked down the takhtabosh to the other end. As he had hoped, there was a smaller door leading out on to a street beyond. It was one of the oldest tricks in the game in Cairo for a thief pursued by the police to dash in at one door and then immediately out at the other while the police were still requesting permission to enter by the first. Owen had often been thwarted by it himself.

The street beyond was a small back street in which there was nothing but one or two donkeys, hobbled and left to doze. The sand here was worn so fine that it was almost silvery and reflected the sun unbearably into his eyes.

Again Owen hesitated. It would be easy now to slip away through the side-streets. But the Mamur Zapt, Head of Cairo’s Secret Police, ought to be of sterner stuff. Reluctantly he turned left and went back parallel with the way he had come.

After a little way a narrow alley ran back between the houses. He leaped straight across it and braced himself against the opposite wall. Nothing happened. The alleyway was empty.

He began to walk deliberately along it, noting in passing anything which might offer protection, but keeping his eyes steadily on the daylight at the other end of the alleyway. If anyone looked into the alley he would see them first and the second or two it would give him, while their eyes got used to the darkness, would be all that he would have to get out of their line of fire.

He himself was unarmed; a situation which, he told himself fervently, he would remedy as speedily as possible, if he ever got out of this.

The light at the other end of the alleyway came nearer. He found himself sweating profusely.

It was getting so close now that if anyone appeared, his best chance was to jump them. He tensed himself in readiness.

He was at the entrance into the alleyway now. Directly ahead was the broad thoroughfare of the Masr el Atika.

For a moment he listened and then cautiously, very cautiously, he stuck his head out and looked up and down the street. At first it seemed deserted. But then, at the very far end, he thought he saw, just for an instant, two men. He had time to notice only that they were in European-style shirts and trousers, and then they were gone.

CHAPTER 2

‘Is this the way,’ demanded the note, ‘that the Khedive’s servants should be treated?’

Privately, Owen suspected it was. However, as the note had come from the Khedive himself he thought it politic to reply soothingly, deploring the insult offered to the Khedive and the injury suffered by his servants, and assuring His Highness that he would do all he could to track down the malefactors.

‘You’d better go, too,’ said Nikos, the Mamur Zapt’s Official Clerk. ‘It won’t do any good but it will look better that way.’

So Owen betook himself to the Khedive’s afflicted servant, Ali Osman Pasha. The previous day, on his way home from an audience with the Khedive, Ali Osman had been set upon by a mob. His arabeah had been overturned and he himself desperately injured. If his driver had not been able to sound the alarm, he would undoubtedly have been killed. He was now at home recovering from his wounds.

Owen walked in past the guardian eunuchs, named according to custom after flowers or precious stones, across the courtyard, his feet crunching in the gravel, and into the reception room, the mandar’ah, with its sunken marble floor and fountain playing. There was a dais at the back with large leather and silk cushions, on which a man was lying.

He groaned as he saw Owen and waved a hand. Slaves rushed to escort Owen across the room.

‘My dear fellow,’ said the recumbent man. ‘Mon très, très cher ami!’

‘I am sorry to see you so afflicted, Pasha,’ said Owen.

‘I was fortunate to escape with my life. They would have killed me.’

‘Outrageous!’

‘Sauvages! Jacobins!’

Like most of the Egyptian upper class, the Pasha habitually spoke French. He looked on the French culture as his own, identifying, however, more with Louis-Philippe than with the present Republic.

‘They shall be tracked down.’

‘And tortured,’ said Ali Osman with relish. ‘Flayed alive and nailed out in the sun.’

‘Severely dealt with.’

‘I would wish to be present myself,’ said the Pasha. ‘In person. Please make arrangements.’

‘Certainly. Of course, it may all take a little time … Legal processes, you know …’

Ali Osman raised himself on one arm.

‘Justice,’ he admonished Owen, ‘should be swift and certain. Then people know what to expect.’

‘Absolutely! But, Pasha, surely you would not wish it to be too soon? Might not your injuries prevent—?’

‘Grievous though they are,’ said Osman, ‘for this I would make a special effort.’

He collapsed on his face again and a eunuch hastily began to massage him.

‘May I inquire into the nature of your wounds?’ asked Owen.

‘Severe.’

‘No doubt. But—’ eyeing the pummelling Ali Osman was receiving from the eunuch—‘confined to the surface?’

‘The bruising goes deep.’

‘Of course. But—bruising only? No stab wounds?’

‘Some of them had knives. It was merely a matter of time.’

‘Yes. It was fortunate that your driver—’

Ali Osman interrupted him. ‘They let him off lightly. Why did they pick on me? Why didn’t they beat him? He’s used to it, after all; he wouldn’t have felt it as much.’

He seemed to be expecting an answer.

‘The great,’ said Owen diplomatically, ‘are the target for the world’s envy.’

‘Ah,’ said Ali Osman Pasha, ‘there you have it.’

He lay silent for a while.

‘Of course,’ he said suddenly, ‘they didn’t think of this themselves. They were put up to it.’

‘You think so?’

‘I am sure of it. And I know who is behind it.’

‘Really?’

‘Abdul Maher.’

‘Abdul Maher?’

‘Yes.’

‘But, Pasha—’

Abdul Maher was a veteran politician, an intimate of the Khedive, a noted public figure. He had occupied some post or other in the last dozen Governments.

The Pasha was looking at him solemnly.

‘I know,’ he said.

‘You must have some reason—’

‘Motive,’ said Ali Osman.

‘Motive?’

‘He wished to take my place. Supplant me in the Khedive’s favour.’

‘I see,’ said Owen, as light began to dawn. ‘And that would be particularly important just at the moment’

‘Yes.’ Ali Osman motioned to him to come closer. ‘This is for your ear alone, my friend,’ he breathed. ‘His Highness is close to making a decision. Very close. It has been difficult. He has had to choose between those he knows are loyal to him, those who have served him well in the past. And those others who claim—’ Ali Osman snorted—‘claim they speak for the new.’

‘But surely Abdul Maher—’

‘Belongs with the old, you think? Because he has been part of every Government for the last twenty years? You would be wrong, my friend. Because there is the cunning of the man. He claims he speaks for the new!’

‘I cannot believe that the Khedive—’

‘Of course not. The Khedive knows him far too well. But he is plausible, you see, not just to the Khedive but to others. He speaks well and some may believe him. So the Khedive—well, over the past week or so the Khedive seems to have been inclining to him. But yesterday he—His Highness, that is—told me personally that Abdul Maher is absolutely out.’

The Pasha looked at Owen triumphantly.

‘So, my friend, if Abdul Maher is out, someone else must be in.’

‘You don’t mean—’

Ali Osman smiled importantly.

‘I think, my friend, that I have reason to hope.’

Owen pulled himself together.

‘Well, Pasha, I can only hope you’re right.’

‘It is for the sake of the country, of course.’

‘Of course. And—and you think that Abdul Maher may have got wind of this—change of fortunes and tried to warn you off?’

‘Not warn,’ said Ali Osman reproachfully. ‘Kill.’

‘Attack, anyway. That Ali Maher may have been behind your unfortunate experience yesterday?’

‘Exactly,’ said Ali Osman with satisfaction.

Owen reflected.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Ali Osman.

‘I shall certainly treat your suggestions very seriously. I shall start investigations at once.’

‘Excellent.’ Ali Osman’s face clouded slightly, however. ‘How long do you think it would be before you were in a position to arrest him?’ he asked, a trifle anxiously.

‘Oh, a week or two. Say two or three. Perhaps four.’

‘You don’t think you could do it more quickly?’

‘I would have to complete my investigations.’

‘Of course. Of course.’

Ali Osman still looked unhappy, however.

‘You don’t think,’ he said tentatively, ‘you don’t think you could, oh, let it be known, publicly, I mean, that you are investigating Abdul Maher?’

‘Why would I want to do that, Pasha?’

‘Oh, the public interest. It would be in the public interest. The people ought to know.’

‘And the Khedive?’

‘The Khedive ought to know, too,’ said Ali Osman, straightfaced.

Owen smiled. He understood Ali Osman’s political manœuvres perfectly.

‘I am sure,’ he said, getting up to go, ‘that this is something you will manage very expertly yourself.’

‘Ali Osman?’ said Nuri Pasha incredulously. ‘The man’s a fool. He stands no chance whatever.’

‘He seems to think he does.’

‘The man’s a joke!’

‘The Khedive has given him a wink. So he says.’

‘Utter nonsense!’

Nuri looked, however, a little upset.

‘Abdul Maher has fallen out of favour.’

‘Abdul Maher never was in favour. The Khedive detests him.’

‘Ali Osman considers him his chief rival. He believes he was behind the recent attack on him.’

‘Ali Osman has a fertile imagination,’ said Nuri. ‘Unfortunately, it vanishes entirely the moment he gets in office.’

‘The attack, at any rate, was genuine.’

‘Was he much hurt?’ asked Nuri, with pleasure rather than concern.

‘Bruised a little.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Nuri.

‘That, actually, was why I’ve come to see you. There have been a number of such attacks recently. I wanted to be sure that you were all right.’

‘Thank you. As you see, I am clinging to life with the skin of my teeth. How is Zeinab?’

Zeinab was Nuri’s daughter and a more than close friend of Owen.

‘She is very well, thank you. She reinforces my concern.’

‘Have you any particular reason for concern?’

‘No. It is just that this could be a time for settling old scores.’

A few years before, Nuri Pasha had been the Minister responsible for carrying through the prosecution and subsequent punishment of some villagers who had attacked a party of British Officers, wounding two and killing one. The punishment, on British insistence, had been exemplary; and Nuri had never been forgiven for it.

Nuri shrugged his shoulders.

‘It is never not a time for settling old scores,’ he said. ‘That is one of the things one just has to get used to.’

‘Has anything come up?’

‘Not out of the ordinary.’

‘Threats?’

‘As always.’

Nuri passed him a note. It read: ‘To the blood-sucking Nuri: The people have not forgotten. Your time is coming. Prepare, Nuri, prepare.’

Owen passed it back.

‘You have been receiving notes like this for years.’

‘And ignored them,’ said Nuri, ‘confident in the assumption that the Egyptian is always more ready to tell what he is going to do than actually to do it.’

‘A reasonable assumption. In general. However, just at the moment I think I would avoid testing it.’

‘Have you a suggestion?’

‘How about a holiday? The Riviera? Paris?’

Nuri, a total francophile, shook his head with genuine regret.

‘Circumstances, alas, keep me here.’

Owen could guess what the circumstances were. Nuri was another of the ever-hopeful veteran politicians. Owen thought, however, that he might be disappointed this time, along with Ali Osman and Abdul Maher. He was too identified with the old regime. There was a need, after Patros, for someone who could satisfy the Nationalists—satisfy, without giving in to them.

‘Would you like a bodyguard?’

‘The police?’ said Nuri sceptically. ‘Thank you, no. I feel safer without. I have, in fact, taken certain steps already.’

Nuri directed Owen’s attention to two ruffians lurking in the bougainvillaea behind him. They were Berbers from the south and armed from head to foot. They beamed at him cordially.

‘I have no fears should there be an attack on me at close quarters. And when I go out I take two Bedawin with me as well. They are excellent shots and used to people attempting to shoot them in the back. No, the only thing that worries me is a bomb.’

‘Surely there is no question of that?’

‘There have been rumours,’ said Nuri.

There were indeed rumours. Cairo was full of them. Owen’s agents brought fresh ones in every day. They came from the Court, from the famous clubs—the Khedivial, frequented by Egyptians and foreigners, the Turf and the Sporting Club, frequented by the British—from the colleges and university, from the cafés and bazaars.

The ones from the Moslem University of El Azhar and the colleges were the most alarming but it was there that the gap between rhetoric and reality was at its greatest. Or so Owen hoped.

The ones from the Court were alarming in a different way, for they were almost exclusively concerned with the current manœuvring about the Khedive, with who had his favour, who didn’t, who might be in, who was definitely out. There seemed to be no sense of anything beyond the narrow confines of the Court, no awareness of the impact the delay was having on the country at large.

The rumours from the Club were testimony to the general jitteriness. Owen tended to discount them, not because they were insignificant—in certain circumstances they might be very significant indeed—but because he felt he knew them already and understood them.

It was the rumours from the cafés and bazaars that he gave most attention to, for they were a gauge of the temperature of the city. It was from them that he would learn if things were getting out of hand, if there was a danger of things boiling over.

At the moment he did not get that feeling. The city was tense, certainly, and, given its normal volatility, there was plenty of potential for an explosion. In a city with over twenty different nationalities, at least five major religions apart from Islam, three principal languages and over a score of minor ones, four competing legal systems and, in effect, two Governments, the smallest spark could set off a major conflagration. Owen always had the feeling that he was sitting on a vast, unstable powder-keg.

But he didn’t have that feeling more than usual. There was trouble in the city, yes, there were incidents, dozens of them, but he felt they would all fade away—in so far as they ever could fade away—if only the Khedive would stop his bloody dithering and form a new Government.

Until that happened he just had to hold on and damp things down. On the whole he thought he would be able to manage that. The Pashas were no great problem. After the attack on Ali Osman they would all be prudently keeping out of sight. The demonstrations, the stone-throwing, the attacks on property, they could all be handled in the normal way.

Even that following business was all right, so long as it stayed at following. It was only if it went beyond that that he would worry.

As in the case of Fairclough.

The attack on Fairclough, simply as crime, did not concern Owen. Investigating it was not his business. Nor was it, curiously, that of the police. In Egypt investigation of crimes was the responsibility of the Department of Prosecutions of the Ministry of Justice, the Parquet, as it was known.

What concerned Owen as Mamur Zapt were the political aspects of the affair. The Mamur Zapt was roughly the equivalent of the Head of the Political Branch of the CID in England. Only roughly, because the post was unique to Cairo and included such things as responsibility for the Secret Police, a body of considerable importance to some previous Khedives when they were establishing their power but now significant only as an intelligence-gathering network.

Fairclough as the near-victim of some private quarrel or dispute did not interest him; Fairclough as the near-victim of a terrorist attack was a very different matter.

Up till now there had been no conclusive evidence that it was one or the other. The Parquet’s investigations had so far failed to uncover any private grudge. Nor had they been able to unearth any further information about his attackers.

They had, however, recovered two of the spent bullets and sent them to the Government Laboratories for examination. First analysis had failed to match them with any gun used in previous terrorist attempts.

This was quite significant, as in Egypt terrorists tended to cling on to their firearms, using them repeatedly and making no effort to cover their tracks by employing new ones. It was a pattern of behaviour inherited from the country’s rural areas, where a gun was a treasured possession, jealously guarded and preserved, bound together with bits of wire, until it was long past an age of decent retirement.

If a private quarrel was ruled out, this suggested that a new terrorist group was beginning to operate, a hypothesis Nikos favoured on other grounds.

‘They’re inexperienced,’ he said. ‘They fired from too far away.’

Beginners often did that, either because they were nervous or because they did not know the characteristics of their weapons. Small arms were effective only at very close range. The most successful assassination attempts occurred when the assailant ran right up to the victim and shot him at point-blank range, a fact which it was very useful to know when arranging protection for the Consul-General or Khedive.

Of course, such evidence was very speculative and Nikos, who took a detached view of such things, was really waiting for other evidence to come along; such as another attack.

Meanwhile, he was attempting an analysis of the reports of following that had come in. There were dozens of them.

‘Nearly all of them imaginary,’ he complained.

‘Mine wasn’t bloody imaginary,’ said Owen.

‘Wasn’t it?’

‘Of course it bloody wasn’t, I saw two men.’

‘Yes, but were they anything to do with it?’

‘Of course they were something to do with it!’

‘How do you know? They were just standing there. They might have been buying a camel or something.’

Owen, who found Nikos’s pedantic logic very tiresome on occasions, resisted a temptation to kick his ass.

‘Anyway,’ said Nikos, ‘you haven’t described them properly.’

‘What do you mean, I haven’t described them properly?’

‘No detail.’

‘There wasn’t time to notice detail.’

‘They didn’t just disappear. They must have walked away. That would take time.’

‘A couple of steps?’

‘Long enough to see something.’

‘Not from where I was. My view was interrupted.’

‘It was a chance,’ said Nikos accusingly.

‘Look,’ said Owen, ‘there was a reason why I didn’t stand out in the middle of the street and examine them carefully. It was that I didn’t want to get a bullet in my head.’

Nikos bent prudently over the papers on his desk.

Owen stalked indignantly over to the earthenware pot standing in the window where it would keep cool and poured himself a glass of water. He picked up a copy of the Parquet’s first report and settled down to read it.

A few moments went by. Then Nikos coughed slightly.

Owen looked up.

‘Young or old?’ said Nikos.

‘What?’

‘Young or old? Those two men. Were they young or old?’

‘Young, I think.’

‘Galabeahs?’

‘Shirt and trousers, I think.’

‘Short, fat, tall, thin?’

‘About medium, I’d say. Slightly built, perhaps.’

‘Young,’ said Nikos.

‘Probably. It would go with them being inexperienced.’

‘They needn’t be the same two. The group as a whole might be young. In fact, it probably would be.’

‘What about the other cases?’

‘The other reports? Nine-tenths imaginary or so vague as to be useless. About six worth looking at.’

‘Including mine?’

‘You’re on the margin.’

‘Fairclough’s?’

‘No detail on the following. Useful detail from the shooting, though not much of it.’

‘What did you get from the others?’

‘Two people, nearly always. Men, young, Western-style clothes.’

Owen thought for a moment.

‘That could be good,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘It could mean there’s only one group operating. If it’s the same pattern in each case.’

‘It’s the same pattern, I think.’

‘I hope it is. That would make things a lot easier.’

‘Did you think it wasn’t?’

‘No, no, not particularly. You always worry in a situation like this, with general unrest, that they might all start coming at you, from all sides. It’s much easier if there’s only one group to handle.’

‘You’ve still got the general restiveness to cope with.’

‘Yes, but you handle the two in different ways. The general stuff is all right provided you keep a sense of proportion. You’ve not got to let it get out of hand but at the same time you’ve not got to overreact. If you start thinking they’re all bloody terrorist groups you tend to overreact. But that only makes it worse because it provokes people, and then what starts as a demonstration becomes a bloody riot.’

‘You don’t think demonstrations might grow into terrorism if they’re not put down?’

‘No,’ said Owen.

‘I hope you’re right,’ said Nikos. ‘We’ll soon see, won’t we?’

Keeping a sense of proportion was all very well but it wasn’t only Owen who had to guard against overreacting. The next morning he had a meeting at the Residency and when he came out he found that the Army was building roadblocks in all the neighbouring streets.

‘What the bloody hell is this?’ he asked the sergeant who seemed to be in charge.

‘Defences, sir,’ said the sergeant.

‘Defences? What the hell against?’

‘Search me, sir, I don’t know. All them Arabs, I expect.’

An Egyptian who had been at the meeting with Owen and had followed him out emerged on to the street and turned right, where he walked straight into a roadblock.

‘’Ere, where do you think you’re going?’ asked the corporal manning it.

‘Along to the Ministry.’

‘Not this way, you’re not.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I bloody say so, that’s why not. And because I’ve got this—’ the corporal patted the butt of his rifle—‘to back me up.’

‘But I’m only going to the Ministry!’

‘’Ard luck.’

‘I work there.’

‘You’ll just have to work somewhere else.’

‘But—’

The Egyptian looked around in bewilderment. Owen stepped forward.

‘I must get there at once,’ said the Egyptian. ‘I’ve got an important meeting!’

‘Why don’t you just go away?’ suggested the corporal.

‘Hallo, Mr Fahmy,’ said Owen. ‘Can I help?’

The Egyptian made a bemused gesture.

‘This is the Minister of the Interior,’ said Owen.

The corporal flinched.

‘Sorry, sir,’ he said, as much to Owen as to the Minister. Although Owen was not in uniform—he was, in fact, on secondment from the Indian Army—the corporal knew at once that he was an Army officer.

‘He needs to get to the Ministry,’ said Owen. ‘Obviously.’

The corporal looked troubled.

‘I—I know, sir,’ he said. ‘The trouble is, I’ve been instructed not to let anyone pass along this street. Orders, sir.’

The sergeant, who had followed Owen along when he saw how things were going, intervened.

‘You go and fetch Captain Fenniman,’ he told the corporal. ‘I’ll look after things here.’

Relieved, the corporal took himself off.

‘Sorry, sir,’ said the sergeant, including Fahmy in his ‘sir’. ‘Would you mind waiting a minute?’

‘I’m as much in the dark as you,’ Owen said to Fahmy.

Fahmy shrugged.

The corporal came hurrying back with a young officer in tow.

‘Yes?’ he said sharply.

‘This is Mr Fahmy, Minister of the Interior,’ said Owen. The captain nodded politely. ‘He wants to be allowed to get to the Ministry.’

The captain hesitated.

‘I think he should,’ said Owen.

Fenniman made up his mind.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Hawley, will you escort this gentleman through our blocks? Bennett, you stay here. Sorry to inconvenience you,’ he said to Fahmy. ‘But you’ll understand that we have to take precautions.’

The Egyptian shrugged again. As he went off with the sergeant he gave Owen a wry smile.

‘I don’t understand why you’ve got to take precautions,’ said Owen.

‘Haven’t you heard? There’s been an attack on a senior member of the Administration. More are on the way, apparently.’

‘Senior member of the Administration?’

‘Apparently.’

‘Fairclough?’

‘I think that’s his name.’

‘Fairclough isn’t a senior member of anything. Except possibly the bridge club.’

‘Oh? Well, that’s what I heard.’

‘There’s been an attack, certainly. But why the hell all this?’ Owen indicated the barricades.

‘Guarding the Residency. The CG could be the next target.’

‘This isn’t your bright idea, is it?’

‘It seems a good idea to me,’ said Fenniman defensively.

‘It’s a stupid idea,’ said Owen.

‘Oh? And what exactly do you know about it, Mr—?’

‘Owen. The Mamur Zapt. Responsible for law and order in this bloody city. Which you are messing up.’

Owen steamed back into the Residency. His friend Paul, the Consul-General’s personal aide, who had been secretarying the meeting, was still packing up. Owen told him about the barricades.

‘Jesus!’ said Paul. ‘All we asked for was an extra couple of guards.’

Owen told him about the Minister.

‘The bloody fools! I’ll get on to him at once and apologize.’

‘Can’t you do something about the barricades?’

‘You think they’re a bit de trop?’

‘I bloody do.’

They went back to Paul’s office. Paul rang up the Commander-in-Chief’s office and asked to speak to one of his aides.

‘John? Is that you? What’s going on? Have you declared war or something?’

‘Not as far as I know. We can’t, anyway, because I’m playing tennis this afternoon.’

‘Who’s responsible for putting these barricades all over the place?’

‘Barricades?’

Paul told him.

‘Sounds like Hardwicke to me. Want me to have a word with him?’

‘Yes. I have a friend of yours here, an old foe from the tennis courts, who thinks they merely add to the already overwhelming difficulties of his life.’

‘If he’d only leave Zeinab alone, he’d have a lot less difficulty in his life.’

‘I’ll tell him that. Oh, I think he’s heard. Oh, and, John, one more thing: it would lessen the difficulties in my life if the Army stopped arresting Ministers of His Royal Highness’s Government.’

‘That the barricades too? OK, I’ll see what I can do. Ring you back.’

Within a few moments he rang back.

‘It was Hardwicke. And I’m sorry to say he’s being difficult. He says the CG requested it.’

‘All we requested was an extra guard. I sent the memo myself.’

‘He’s digging his heels in. If the CG is changing his mind he’s got to be told formally.’

‘I’ll send him a chitty.’

‘That won’t be enough. He wants a meeting.’

‘A meeting! I’ve got too many of those already.’

‘With the CG.’

‘He’ll be lucky! The Old Man’s off to the coast this afternoon.’

‘He won’t move without a meeting.’

‘Oh, very well. We’d better have one, then. I’ll fix it up. And as for you, boyo,’ Paul said to Owen, ‘you’re going to have to repay me for this. Richly.’

The Army had erected barricades not just round the Residency but at other ‘strategic points’ in the city. As Owen discovered when he returned to his office. These included the railway station.

‘Sheer bloody lunacy,’ Owen complained at the meeting the next day. ‘There’s a Hadji due back from Mecca and they’ll all be meeting him off the train and then processing back to his house.’

‘They’ll just have to do without the processing this time,’ said the Brigadier grimly.

‘If you try and stop it, there’ll be a riot.’

‘We know how to handle that.’

‘We’ve got enough on our plate without that,’ said Paul, chairing the meeting in the unavoidable absence of the Consul-General.

Brigadier Hardwicke, at the personal request of the Consul-General, relayed through Paul, had reluctantly agreed to remove the barricades around the Residency. He was digging his heels in, however, over the other barricades.

‘This is a particularly tense time in the city,’ Owen said. ‘We don’t want to do anything provocative.’

‘If they’re shooting our people,’ said the Brigadier, ‘we need to teach them a lesson they won’t forget.’

‘We need to teach the people who are doing the shooting, not the others. If we come down heavily on the others, all we’ll do is drive them into supporting the extremists.’

‘You’re soft, Owen, said the Brigadier.

‘I’ve seen it in India,’ said Owen, who knew that the Brigadier’s own service had been confined hitherto to the Home Counties. ‘It didn’t work there either.’

The argument continued for some time. Eventually Paul, who had been following it with delight, pronounced the verdict on behalf of the Consul-General: the barricades were to come down.

‘You might as well confine the Army to barracks,’ said the Brigadier.

‘As a matter of fact,’ said Owen, who was in an unforgiving mood, ‘that might be an excellent idea.’

‘If that’s what you want,’ said the Brigadier, rising from the table in a fury, ‘then you can have it.’

‘Do we need to go that far?’ asked Paul.

‘Yes,’ said Owen.

The Brigadier walked out. As he reached the door he paused and looked back over his shoulder.

‘You’d better be right, Owen,’ he said. ‘Because if things go wrong now …’

Paul saw him out and then returned for his papers.

‘I would not ordinarily agree with the Brigadier,’ he said. ‘However, on this particular point …’

Nikos brought the note in at once. It had been scribbled in haste and read: ‘Am being followed. Have gone into Andalaft’s. Will stay there until you come. George Jullians.’

Owen knew Jullians. He was a judge in the Mixed Courts, a calm, experienced man, unlikely to take alarm without cause.

‘Tell Abdul Kerim to come,’ he said, ‘and send me two trackers.’

Andalaft’s was in the Khan el Khalil, among the bazaars. It was a shop for connoisseurs. It had only a small stock of tourists’ brass and embroideries. Andalaft’s real interest was in old enamels, in Persian jewellery and lustre-ware and in old illuminated Korans.

When Owen went in he was talking quietly to Jullians at the back of his shop. They were fingering lovingly a fine old Persian box, set with large turquoises and used for containing a verse of the Koran.

Andalaft put it down and came to greet Owen.

‘The Mamur Zapt,’ he said. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come. I didn’t know if my messenger would find you.’

Jullians glanced at his watch. ‘It didn’t take you long,’ he said. ‘They may still be there.’

‘You’re definite, are you?’ asked Owen.

Jullians nodded. ‘Pretty sure,’ he said. ‘I think they’ve done it before. Yesterday I had a strong sense of being followed and saw these two men. I saw them again today. I tried to shake them off but couldn’t. So I dodged into Andalaft’s.’

‘Mr Jullians often comes here,’ said Andalaft softly.

‘They may even know that,’ said Jullians. ‘It depends on how long they’ve been following me.’

Andalaft looked at Owen.

‘We have another exit,’ he said. ‘Mr Jullians could have left in safety.’

Jullians shrugged. ‘They’d only catch me some other time,’ he said, ‘perhaps when I was less prepared. I thought if I could get a message to you, you might be able to catch them. That’s really the only way, isn’t it?’

‘There may be others,’ said Owen. ‘I’d like to catch them too.’

‘OK,’ said Jullians. ‘Well, I’m ready.’

‘I’d like you to point them out to us. Perhaps we can use your back door?’ he said to Andalaft. Andalaft nodded. ‘And then—do you feel up to walking on?’ he asked Jullians.

‘So that you can make sure?’ Jullians swallowed. ‘Very well. You’re quite right. You can’t arrest a man just on my word. Only …’

‘Don’t worry. I’ve got two trackers outside. They’ll stay close.’

‘OK,’ said Jullians.

Abdul Kerim had come into the shop with Owen. He was good at this sort of thing, though not as good as the trackers. It took considerable expertise to follow someone in the city, especially in the crowded bazaar area. Owen sent him out to fetch the trackers to the back of the shop. They were waiting when Owen emerged with Jullians.

Jullians pointed out the two men. They were standing some way up the street, apparently deep in conversation. Owen, mindful of Nikos’s comments, took a good look at them. There was little to distinguish them from hundreds of others. They were Egyptians—Arab not Copt—in their early twenties and wearing shirt and trousers. He tried to fix their faces in his memory but knew that the trackers would do it better.

‘OK now?’

Jullians nodded and went back into the shop. He was pale but seemed determined. He probably had a strong sense of duty. You needed one to be a judge in Egypt.

A little later he must have emerged from the front entrance, for the two men looked up and began to move unobtrusively down the street. Even more unobtrusively the trackers fell in behind them.

Owen, waiting in a side street, looked for the guns as the two men went past. They would have to be in their shirts but the shirts were loose and he could not really tell.

He had been wondering how to use Abdul Kerim. He would like him to be pretty close, in case of accidents, but not so close as to constrict the trackers. The Khan el Khalil was crowded and they would have a difficult enough job as it was.

He himself kept well back. Provided they didn’t know him, and there was no reason why they should (unless they had been the two who had followed him? Were they? He couldn’t be sure), there was nothing to make Owen stand out. He was wearing a tarboosh, the pot-like hat with a tassel of the educated Egyptian, and with his dark Welsh colouring could easily be taken for a Levantine.

There was the doubt, though, about whether the two men knew his identity, so he kept well back. In any case this kind of thing was best left to the trackers.

He didn’t find it very easy to leave it to them, however. He was taking a risk, a risk with Jullians’s life. It was always open to him to pick the two men up. The fair-minded Jullians might object that it would be improper to charge merely on his say-so, but other judges might well think differently.

Besides, if the two men were out of the way, only temporarily, until the political crisis was over, that might be enough.

Well, it wouldn’t really be enough. If they were terrorists, real or potential killers, they had to be got. Arresting on suspicion and then releasing wouldn’t do.

Besides, there might be more of them.

Going through the crowded bazaars, Owen found it difficult to keep them in sight. Occasionally he lost them for a few moments. When he did, and when he saw them again, he was relieved to see that the trackers were always with them, back a little and always with people in between, but near enough.

Owen doubted whether an attack would be made in the bazaars. It would be easy to escape but interference was always likely. They would probably wait until Jullians reached the more open streets. Still, if they started moving up, the trackers would know what to do. They would intervene at once. Risk with Jullians’s life was acceptable but only up to a point.

Jullians was leaving the bazaars now. The two men were still making no attempt to approach.

An arabeah came up alongside Jullians. Owen cursed and began to run forward. He hadn’t allowed for this!

Somebody got out of the arabeah and embraced Jullians effusively. They began talking animatedly. They obviously knew each other.

Owen hastily stopped running and hoped he had not been noticed.

The two men had been taken by surprise too, for they stopped for a moment as if at a loss and then turned quickly into a nearby shop.

He didn’t see the trackers at all.

He caught Abdul Kerim’s eye, however. Abdul Kerim was standing in a doorway. He nodded slowly.

Jullians was trying to walk on but his friend, a portly Egyptian, was stopping him. He was clearly trying to persuade Jullians to get into the arabeah with him. He insisted. Jullians declined. Jullians made as if to go, the Egyptian seized his arm. He began almost dragging him towards the arabeah.

In any other country it would have looked almost sinister. In Egypt it was quite normal. Egyptians carried hospitality almost to the point of it being a vice. If you had something and your friend refused to share it, you were really quite hurt. It might be a meal, a pot of coffee or an arabeah. If you had it and you met a friend he had to share it.

Jullians looked despairingly over his shoulder.

The friend could not be denied. Jullians made a little apologetic gesture with his hand and climbed into the arabeah.

Everyone was undecided: the two men, the trackers, Abdul Kerim, Owen.

The arabeah-driver cracked his whip and the arabeah began to roll off down the street.

The two men turned away.

Owen made up his mind. He signalled urgently to the trackers to keep with them. Abdul Kerim he sent after the arabeah.

The friend seemed harmless but it was as well to be sure. The arabeah was proceeding at a steady walk. Abdul Kerim would have no difficulty in keeping up with it. Even if it increased its pace he would probably be able to stay with it, which was certainly not true of Owen himself.

He waited until they had all departed and then went back to his office.

Abdul Kerim was the first to return. He reported that the friend had delivered Jullians to his own doorstep. He had seen Jullians get out and go in.

Jullians rang next. He was very apologetic.

‘It couldn’t he helped,’ said Owen.

‘Did you get them?’

‘That remains to be seen.’

One of the trackers was the next to contact him. They had followed the two men into the Law Schools but there, in the crowded buildings with their many corridors, they had lost them. One of them was staying there in the hope of seeing them again, but for the moment they had lost them.

Owen told the other tracker to go back there too and stay there for a few days.

‘If they’re students,’ he said to Nikos, ‘they’ll see them sooner or later. If they’re not students and just using it as a cover that makes it more difficult.’

There for the moment they had to leave it; but Nikos rejoiced in the accession of hard data: properly observed, as he pointed out to Owen.

‘There is, of course, another thing that is becoming clear,’ he said. ‘The more examples you get, the more evidence you have, not just about the followers or attackers but also about the sort of people who are followed or attacked.’

‘Well?’

‘Every single one so far has been in Government service—a civil servant.’

CHAPTER 3

‘I don’t think I like that,’ said Paul.

‘Of course, there’s not much to go on yet.’

‘Not many people dead, you mean?’

‘There isn’t anybody dead yet. All we’ve got to go on is one attempted shooting and several cases of suspected following. It’s early days.’

‘Look,’ said Paul, ‘you may take a detached view but there are a lot of people who won’t. All civil servants for a start.’

‘Do they have to know?’

‘Don’t you think they ought to be warned?’

‘I’m wondering. You see, it’s like this. At the moment we’ve got, I think, only one terrorist group operating. They’re different from the usual terrorist group in that the usual group concentrates on one particular target, the Consul-General, say, whereas this group aims at a whole class. I suppose they think that way they’ll undermine morale over a much wider area.’

‘They’re dead right,’ said Paul.

‘But the point is there’s only one small group. And while it stays like that we’ve got a hope of localizing it. Now if we warn everybody, it’s not just the civil servants who are going to hear. What I’m worried about is if the idea gets around—have a civil servant for breakfast—other groups are going to say, what a good idea, we’ll join in.’

‘You don’t think they’ve got the idea already?’

‘No. As I say, I think there’s only one group operating. Maybe some people are beginning to put two and two together and are saying, hello, they’re having a go at the British, but it’s at a very general level. They’re not saying, Christ, I’m a civil servant and they’re after me.’

‘How long do you think it will be before they get that far?’

‘Maybe long enough for us to get the group.’

They were having a drink at the Sporting Club after playing tennis. They had, in fact, been standing in for John and his partner, another officer, both now confined to barracks. John was not happy.

‘It’s a pity you let those two go,’ said Paul. ‘You should have picked them up while you could.’

‘I wasn’t sure. Jullians might have been imagining things. Think what a fuss the Press would have made if we’d picked the wrong people up.’

‘You control the Press, don’t you?’

Press censorship was another of the Mamur Zapt’s functions.

‘I don’t control it. I just cut bits out.’

‘That would do.’

‘No, it wouldn’t. Those are the bits that get around quickest.’

‘It would have been worth the risk.’

‘I wanted to get the rest of the group.’

Paul ruminated.

‘I suppose you’re right. You’ve got to balance risks. However, Gareth, I’m beginning to worry about you. You’re taking an increasingly cold-blooded view of things. It’s not like you. I shall ask Zeinab to straighten you out.’

‘It’s not something I like.’

‘No. Well, going back to this question of warning people. I’m still not happy about letting them go as unsuspecting lambs to the slaughter. You know about it and I know about it. Oughtn’t others too, so that they could take precautions?’

‘What precautions could they take?’

‘See they’re not being followed. Stay at home. I know it’s not much, but oughtn’t they to have the chance? The ones most at risk, at any rate?’

‘The judges?’

‘For instance.’

Owen sipped his drink thoughtfully.

‘The trouble is,’ he said, ‘where do you draw the line? Would you have said Fairclough was most at risk? Don’t we leave ourselves open to the charge of looking after the people at the top and letting the poor devils at the bottom, the Faircloughs, fend for themselves?’

Paul was silent. After a while he shrugged.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘so what are we going to do? Leave well alone?’

‘I’m not too happy about that either,’ Owen admitted.

Paul went on thinking.

‘What we could do,’ he said, ‘is issue a confidential warning to Government employees to lie low generally for the duration of the present political emergency. We could tie it to that, not to any terrorist activity. You know, say that choice of a government is a matter for the Egyptians only, that it’s best if the British are seen to be having nothing to do with it, that in the circumstances, just for the time being, while the crisis remains unresolved, it might be better if everyone kept out of sight.’

‘Like the Army?’

‘Like the Army.’ Paul brightened. ‘That’s it! It will look as if we have got a policy. I’ll get the Old Man on to it first thing in the morning.’

‘It’ll make the Army happier too.’

‘Yes.’ Paul looked at him reflectively. ‘Although, you know … Are you sure you wouldn’t like to change your mind? In the circumstances.’

‘About keeping the Army out of it? Quite sure,’ said Owen.

Fairclough sat uncomfortably on his chair, a worried expression on his face. Dark smudges of moisture were spreading out almost visibly beneath the armpits of his suit. It was very hot in the room. A fan was going but with three people in the small space the temperature had risen uncomfortably.

The Parquet official, Mohammed Bishari, had almost completed his questioning. Owen wondered why he was there. It was not usual for the Parquet to invite him to sit in on its cases. However, he had wanted to find out from Mohammed Bishari how the case was going anyway, so had come readily enough.

Mohammed Bishari was a wiry, intense little man in his early forties. They would have put one of their most experienced men on the case since it involved a Britisher.

He had been taking Fairclough through the events on the day of the shooting, concentrating on the homeward ride. He was very thorough. He had even asked Fairclough where the donkey was tethered during office hours.

He was coming to the end of that part. He must have asked Fairclough those questions before since they were written up in his preliminary report, a copy of which had been sent to Owen. Fairclough hardly needed to think to answer them. What Bishari was doing, presumably, was confirming things for the record.

The report drawn up by the Parquet official was very important in the Egyptian judicial system. The Egyptian system was based on the Code Napoléon and, as in France, the Parquet had the responsibility not just of investigating but also of preparing the case and carrying through any prosecution. The court often decided issues on the basis of the Parquet’s report, or procès-verbal, rather than on the basis of testimony in court, which in Egypt was probably wise.

Something in Mohammed Bishari’s voice warned Owen to pay attention. He was asking now about Fairclough’s private life, whether there was anyone in it who might bear him a grudge.

Fairclough didn’t think so.

‘Servants?’ asked Mohammed Bishari casually. ‘Servants in the past?’

Again Fairclough didn’t think so.

‘Someone you’ve dismissed?’

Fairclough thought hard.

‘I’ve only had three servants all the time I’ve been here,’ he said. ‘There’s Ali—he’s my cook, and I’ve had him ever since I came. He was Hetherington’s cook and he passed him on to me when he went to Juba, because Ali didn’t want to go down there. I’ve had one or two house-boys. Abdul, that’s the one I’ve got now, I’ve had for a couple of years.’

‘Eighteen months,’ said Mohammed Bishari.

‘Well, he’s all right. No grudge there.’

‘Before him?’

‘Ibrahim? Well, I did sack him. Beggar was at the drink. I marked the bottle and caught him red-handed. But that kind of thing happens all the time. You don’t bear grudges. Not to the extent of killing, anyway.’

‘You didn’t beat him?’

‘Kicked his ass occasionally. Have you talked to him? He doesn’t say I did, does he?’ Fairclough looked at Mohammed Bishari indignantly.

‘He does say you did, as a matter of fact,’ said Mohammed Bishari. ‘But they all say that and I didn’t necessarily believe him.’

‘Well, I bloody didn’t,’ said Fairclough. ‘I don’t believe in that sort of thing. Ask Ali.’

‘We have. On the whole he confirms what you say.’

Fairclough snorted.

‘However,’ said Mohammed Bishari, ‘Ibrahim also told us something else, which, admittedly after a considerable time, Ali also confirmed. While Ibrahim was with you, he undertook various errands for you. He used to fetch women, for example.’

Fairclough flushed and looked at his shoes. ‘Needs of the flesh,’ he muttered.

‘Quite so. We don’t need to go into that. Nor where he got the women. However, on one occasion there was some difficulty. A woman had come to you while her husband was away. When he got back, neighbours told him. He came round to see you.’

‘He was about off his rocker,’ said Fairclough. ‘Foaming at the mouth, that sort of thing. He had a bloody great knife. It took three of us to hold him—Ali, Ibrahim and me.’

‘You gave him some money. Quite a lot.’

‘Poor beggar!’ said Fairclough.

‘In fact, you gave him too much. Because when he had cooled down he realized that you were worth more than his wife was. He divorced her and kept coming back to you.’

‘Only once or twice. His wife came back too. Separately, I mean, after he’d got rid of her.’

‘You paid her too?’

‘Nothing much. Either of them.’

‘Enough for it to matter. Enough, after a while, to make you say you were going to stop it.’

‘Couldn’t go on forever,’ said Fairclough.

‘You refused to pay any more?’

‘That’s right.’ Fairclough looked at him incredulously. ‘You’re not saying that old Abdul—!’

‘He might be considered to have a grudge.’

‘Yes, but old Abdul—!’

‘He came for you with a knife.’

‘Yes, but that’s different. Anyway, it had all blown over.’

‘You had just stopped giving him money,’ Mohammed Bishari pointed out.

‘Yes, but—’ Fairclough looked at Mohammed Bishari and shook his head. ‘I just don’t believe it,’ he said.

Neither did Owen. Nor, he suspected, did Bishari. The Parquet man, however, went on with his questions, continuing on the same line. Were there other men who might have a similar grievance? Fairclough thought not. In fact, he was pretty sure. But Ibrahim had been on other errands for him, surely? Well, yes, that was true. But he didn’t think husbands were involved.

As the probing continued, Fairclough became more and more uncomfortable.

‘Doesn’t look too good, does it?’ he said suddenly. ‘All these women. Fact is, I’m not very good with ordinary women. Can’t manage the talk. Need sex, of course, every man does. But can’t manage the patter.’

‘Ordinary women?’ said Mohammed Bishari.

‘That’s right.’

‘Ordinary English women,’ said Bishari.

‘I don’t think we need to go into this, do we?’ Owen interposed. ‘Mr Fairclough has been very frank about a particular form of social inadequacy he suffers from. Surely there is no point in pressing that further?’

‘Would you allow me to be the judge of that, please, Captain Owen?’ said Bishari, looking at him coldly.

He continued with his questions. It was obvious that Ibrahim had provided him with a whole list of women he had procured. He went through them one by one.

Fairclough had turned a permanent brick-red.

Owen could not see what Bishari was playing at. Was he just trying to humiliate Fairclough? Was this some kind of personal Nationalist revenge?

He felt obliged to intercede again.

‘I fail to see the point of these questions, Mr Bishari,’ he said.

The Parquet man looked up, almost, strangely, with relief.

‘Are you questioning my conduct of the case, Captain Owen?’

‘I am questioning the purpose of these questions.’

‘Mr Fairclough has been attacked. They bear on the issue of possible motive.’

‘Surely the motive is clear? This is a terrorist attack.’

‘So you say, Captain Owen. But how can we be so sure? It seems to me that the reasons for the attack could well lie in Mr Fairclough’s private life.’

So that was it! The Parquet had decided that this was potentially a political hot potato and didn’t want to have anything to do with it. They couldn’t refuse to handle it but by handling it in this way, treating it as a purely domestic matter and denying that there was any terrorist connection at all, they hoped to force the British into taking it out of their hands altogether.

And incurring any possible odium.

Mohammed Bishari was watching him.

‘Of course, if you object to my conduct of the case it is always open to the Administration to terminate my connection with it.’

And that, from the point of view of the Parquet, would be even better. If the British could be persuaded, or provoked, into rejecting them publicly then they would not only escape odium, they might even gain credit in the eyes of the Nationalists.

Owen smiled sweetly.

‘Far from objecting to your conduct of the case, I am looking forward to an extended opportunity to study the obvious talent of the Parquet in action. Just for the moment, however, I am sure you will agree that Mr Fairclough has been under very considerable strain recently and would benefit from a recess: quite a long one, I think, will be necessary.’

Paul rang.

‘There’s a perfectly loathsome fellow I would like you to meet.’

‘No, thanks,’ said Owen. ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind.’

‘I know you are saving Cairo. And ordinarily I would not dream of interrupting you. But this abominable creature has been left on my hands and he will insist on seeing the night life of Cairo.’

‘Look—’

‘I am all for letting him go on his own in the hope that he won’t come back. However, the Consul-General and the Khedive take a different view. He’s a member of that delegation that’s visiting us and they think he ought to have an escort. Given the present situation. And the fact that they think they can get some money out of him.’

‘Can’t you escort him?’

‘No. I’m already escorting somebody else. The one I’m escorting is a Temperance Performer and I don’t think she and Roper would mix.’

‘What about young Bowden?’

‘Young Bowden’s too young. I like to think he doesn’t know the sort of places Roper is bent on going to. And he wouldn’t be up to it anyway. Roper’s a hard case—he’s spent some years in the diamond fields down south. Things could get out of hand. We need someone more mature and used to rough-houses.’

‘McPhee?’

McPhee was the Assistant Commandant of the Cairo Police.

‘Used to knocking people around, certainly. But is he mature? He always strikes me as rather prim. Puritanical, too. I don’t think he and Roper would get on.’

‘I don’t think I’d get on with him either from what you say.’

‘Ah, but you have the brains to subdue personal feeling in the call of duty.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘The Old Man does. Owen’s just the chap he said.’

‘I’ll bet.’

‘True. He thinks it requires a political touch, you see. And he has a high regard for your political touch.’

‘Why the hell does it require a political touch?’

‘Because Roper has powerful friends. He’s been sent out here by some Syndicate or other who are interested in the Streeter Concession.’

‘Emeralds? I wouldn’t have thought there was enough of them to interest anyone big.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so either. However, the Khedive does. The prospect of money, any money, is enough to send him into a tizzy. And the Old Man is just playing along. If the Syndicate finds there are more emeralds than Streeter thinks, then that’s good. Good for the Syndicate, certainly, good for Egypt, possibly. If it doesn’t, then at least the subject will have occupied the Khedive’s mind for a time and kept him out of the Old Man’s hair. So that would be good too. I don’t know about the emeralds, but Roper’s certainly valuable property. And has to be guarded.’

‘Oh Christ,’ said Owen resignedly.

‘Please please please please. And if that’s not enough, the Old Man says it’s an order.’

Owen made one last attempt.

‘How about the Army? Surely some young officer—?’

‘Confined to barracks,’ said Paul. ‘You suggested it. Remember?’

So that evening Owen found himself escorting the impossible Roper round Cairo’s night spots. They started with the dancing-girls since that was where Roper wanted to start: ‘The best, mind, the best.’ Owen took him at his word and led him to a place below the Citadel, since that was the quarter where the Ghawazi gipsies lived, who provided the best dancing-girls in the country.

Roper was not, however, interested in the finer points so they moved on to the Sharia Wagh el Birket. The Sharia was picturesque in its way. One side of it was taken up by arcades with dubious cafés beneath them. The other side was given over to the Ladies of the Night. All the upper rooms had balconies; and every balcony had a Lady.

They drooped alluringly over the woodwork and because the street was so ill-lit, indistinct suggestion prevailed over close analysis. The men sitting at the tables of the cafés opposite gathered only a heady impression of light draperies trailing exotically from lofty balconies under the deep night blue of Egypt, while from the rooms behind lamps with rose-coloured shades extended diffuse invitation.

‘I like a bit of class,’ said Roper, impressed.

They went into a club beneath the balconies and watched a plump girl doing a belly-dance.

‘God, man, look at that!’ breathed Roper.

Aware of his interest, the plump girl wobbled closer. Although inexpert, she had mastered sufficient of the traditional art to give the impression of being able to move the four quarters of her abdomen independently. Roper, considerably the worse for wear by this time, made a grab at her.

The girl, used to such advances, evaded him with ease. Her tummy settled down to a steady, rhythmic rotation.

Roper made another lunge. This time he caught her by the wrist.

‘Not here, sweetie!’ said the girl. ‘Upstairs.’

She led Roper away.

Owen beckoned the barman over.

‘It would be a mistake if too much happened to him. OK?’

The barman nodded and disappeared into an inner room.

A moment or two later he re-emerged and took up his position impassively. However, a glass suddenly materialized beneath Owen’s arm.

‘For the Mamur Zapt,’ the waiter whispered confidingly.

Owen was not altogether pleased at being so famous. But Cairo, at that time a small city, was like a village.

A dancer came over and sat in the chair opposite him.

‘Hello, dear,’ she said.

‘No thanks.’

‘Oh, don’t be like that.’

‘I’m the one who’s got to stay sober.’

‘Yes,’ said the girl, ‘you’ll need to. Your friend won’t.’

Roper had been drinking three or possibly four to Owen’s one. Owen was counting on him lapsing into insensibility before long. That was the only prospect he could see of the evening ending.

‘Where are you from, love?’ inquired the girl.

‘Caerphilly.’

‘Oh.’ The girl was plainly disappointed. ‘I thought for a moment you came from near me.’

‘Tyneside?’

‘Durham.’

‘The accents can be a bit similar.’

The plump girl brought Roper back.

‘That was all right,’ he said to Owen.

‘A last drink.’

‘Hell, no, man. Haven’t started.’

The dancing began again. This time the second girl was on stage. She was less expert than the plump girl but by this time, no doubt, distinctions were escaping Roper. The café as a whole, mostly Arab, favoured plumpness and the applause was muted. Disappointed, the girl came towards Roper. The two went off together.

Owen was fed up. He was one of those people who wake very early in the morning and had been up since five. Conversely, he always fell asleep early in the evening. Or would if he could.

He felt a light touch on his arm. It was a gipsy girl.

‘I saw you at the Citadel,’ she said.

‘What are you doing over here?’

‘Business is better.’

Owen felt his pockets. The girl laughed.

‘You’re safe,’ she said. However, as she kept her hand on his arm he took the precaution of transferring his wallet to the button-down pocket of his shirt.

The girl laughed again.

‘That wouldn’t stop me,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you just give me some?’

‘Would you content yourself with that?’

‘Yes.’

Owen gave her some money.

‘Thank you.’ She looked around. ‘They’re all busy,’ she said. ‘I’ll stay here and talk to you for a moment.’

The gipsies worked in gangs. Unusually in this Muslim country they used both men and women. The women distracted attention while the men slipped round. Of course, the women were quite capable of picking a pocket themselves.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Soraya. Would you like to come with me?’

Owen shook his head regretfully.

‘It would be nice,’ he said. The Ghawazi girls were noted for their accomplishments. They were without exception strikingly pretty, with thin aquiline faces, long black hair and dark lustrous eyes. They did not wear veils. And what aroused Arab men almost beyond endurance was a general sauciness, a boldness which was almost totally at odds with the self-subjection normally required of Muslim women.

‘I’m with someone,’ he explained.

‘Yes,’ said the girl. ‘I saw him. He did not like the dancing at the Citadel.’

‘He is a stranger here. He does not know.’

‘You are not like him.’

‘I hope not.’

He tried out a few words of Egyptian Romany on her. She looked at him in surprise.

‘You speak our tongue?’

‘A little.’

The language spoken by the Egyptian gipsy was not pure Romany. Much of it consisted of Arabic so distorted as to be unintelligible to the native Egyptian. Some of the words, however, were of Persian or Hindustani origin, and this interested Owen, who had served in India before coming to Egypt.

He told her this.

‘I am a Halabi,’ she said, meaning that she was one of the gipsies who claimed Aleppo in Syria as their place of origin.

‘Have you been there?’

‘No.’

Roper returned, weaving his way unsteadily through the tables.

‘Hello!’ he said. ‘Who have you got there?’

‘Her name is Soraya.’

‘How about coming upstairs with me?’ he said.

Soraya considered.

‘I would prefer to go with you,’ she said to Owen.

‘You can bloody come with me,’ said Roper.

He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a wad of banknotes.

‘Here!’ he said. ‘Do you want some of these?’

Soraya’s eyes glistened.

‘No knives!’ warned Owen.

‘Just keep out of it,’ said Roper. He grabbed the girl by the arm.

She pulled a knife out of her sleeve and slashed him across the hand. Roper swore and let go of her arm. She snatched the bank-notes, ducked under his arm and was gone.

‘What the hell!’ said Roper, dazed.

He sat down heavily in his chair and looked at his hand. A film of blood spread slowly back to his wrist.

‘Well, damn me!’ he said.

‘Want a handkerchief?’ said Owen.

‘What do you think I am?’ said Roper. ‘Some kind of pansy?’

‘To tie it up,’ said Owen, ‘so that the blood doesn’t get on your suit.’

Roper swore again.

‘She a friend of yours?’ he said to Owen.

‘Not until now.’

Roper went on looking in dazed fashion at his hand. Suddenly he thumped on the table.

‘Drink!’ he said. ‘Drink!’

The waiter brought him a whisky, which he downed in one.

‘That’s better!’ he said. ‘Bring me another!’

The waiter caught Owen’s eye.

‘Bring him another,’ said Owen. ‘Make it a special one.’

Roper drank that too. Owen waited for him to fall. Instead, he clutched at the table and steadied himself. He seemed to be trying to think.

‘She bloody knifed me!’ he muttered. He looked at Owen. ‘Friend of yours, wasn’t she? Well, she’s no friend of mine!’

He lunged across the table at Owen. Owen caught his arm and held him there.

‘Shut up!’ he said. ‘You’re going home!’

‘Am I hell!’

Roper tried to throw himself at Owen, missed, and fell on the floor. Owen put a foot on his throat.

‘Get an arabeah,’ he said to the waiter.

He held Roper there until the arabeah came. Then he stooped down, hauled Roper upright and pushed him towards the door.

A waiter plucked at his arm.

‘The drinks, effendi.’

Owen put his hand in his pocket, thought better and put it in Roper’s pocket.

Roper suddenly tore himself away. He caught hold of a table and hurled it across the room, then swung out at an Egyptian who had been sitting at it. As the man fell, the waiters closed in.

The knot of struggling men edged towards the door. Just as they got there Roper went limp. He stood motionless for a moment, then bent forward and was violently sick.

The waiters sprang back, cursing.

Roper slowly collapsed until he was kneeling on the ground in the doorway both hands pressed to his middle.

‘Christ, I feel awful!’ he said.

The second girl, the Durham one, came forward and put a hand under his elbow.

‘Come on, love,’ she said.

Roper got to his feet and looked around dazedly.

‘Christ, I feel awful,’ he said again.

With the plump girl helping on the other side, the Durham girl manœuvred him out of the door. An arabeah was drawn up, waiting. As they tried to get him inside he collapsed again and fell under the wheels, groaning.

Owen bent down, caught him by the collar and tried to lift him up. The girls, used to such scenes, pulled Roper’s arms over their shoulders and took his weight. At the last moment, however, he lurched and they all fell into a heap. Owen was pulled down too and found his nose pressed deep into the plump girl’s warm, soft flesh.

‘Owen!’ It was McPhee’s surprised voice. ‘Owen! What on earth—’

‘Give us a hand, for Christ’s sake!’

They eventually succeeded in bundling Roper into the arabeah. Owen took the money out of Roper’s pocket, paid the waiters and gave some to the girls. They would probably have picked Roper’s pockets anyway.

He was about to get into the arabeah himself when he suddenly had a strong sense that somebody was behind him. He looked up quickly. There was no one there. For a moment, though, he had the impression that somebody was standing in the shadow. But then in Cairo there was always somebody standing in the shadow, waiting.

CHAPTER 4

Owen was sitting at his desk in the Bab el Khalk when he heard a cru-ump. He knew at once what it was.

He stayed sitting. Within minutes bare feet came scurrying along the corridor. A man burst into the room.

‘Effendi! Oh, effendi!’ he gasped. ‘Come quick! It is terrible.’

‘Take me,’ said Owen.

They hurried along the Sharia Mohammed Ali and then branched off left into a maze of small streets, heading in the direction of the Ecole Khediviale de Droit, the Law School. There was confused shouting and a whistle blowing perpetually. There was a great cloud of dust which made Owen gasp and choke, and men running about in the cloud.

The explosion had demolished the entire corner of a building. A wall swayed drunkenly. Even as Owen watched, it crumbled down to join the pile of rubble which lay in a slanting heap against what was left of the building.

A fresh cloud of dust rose up. When it cleared, Owen saw that men were already picking at the rubble. A sharp-eyed, intelligent workman was directing operations, getting the men to pile the rubble to one side.

‘Is anyone under there?’ asked Owen.

‘God knows,’ said the man. ‘But it was a café.’

A woman started ululating. Through the ululation and the shouting and the screaming the whistle was still blowing. Owen looked up. A police constable was standing in a corner of the square, his eyes bulging with shock. He had a whistle in his mouth which he kept blowing and blowing.

‘Enough of that!’ said Owen. ‘Go to the Bab el Khalk and see the Bimbashi and tell him to bring some men.’

The constable stayed where he was. Owen gave him a push. The man collected himself and ran off.

There were more galabeahed figures pulling at the rubble now. The subsidiary pile of debris was growing. A few broken parts of furniture had joined the stones.

Owen suddenly became aware that there were other people in the square besides the workers. A peanut-seller lay on his back in the dust with a little crowd around him. He was moaning slightly.

Not far from him an injured water-carrier had been dragged into the shade. His bags of water had left watery trails behind them as they had been dragged with him. Presumably the sellers had been passing when the explosion had occurred.

There were youngsters in European-style clothes, students from the Law School probably. Some were supporting fellow students, others pulling at the rubble.

A large man in a blue galabeah, his face white with dust, went past holding his head in his hands. Two men went up to him but he shook them off and continued wandering round the square in a daze.

A young man in a suit knelt beside a man bleeding from the leg. He was tearing strips from the man’s undershirt and binding them round the wound: fairly expertly.

‘Are you a doctor?’ Owen asked.

‘Student,’ the man said briefly over his shoulder.

‘What happened?’

‘An explosion. There, in the café.’

‘Did you see it?’

‘Heard it. We were on our way there.’

‘It’s a student café, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Christ!’ Owen had a sudden vision of a crowded café and bodies buried under the rubble.

‘It shouldn’t have been too bad. The café’s empty at this time of day. A lecture was just finishing.’

‘What’s your name?’ asked Owen.

‘Deesa.’

Owen took note of the name and then went over to help the rubble-workers. They were pulling at a huge beam. He got men to hold the beam while he organized others to pull away the stones which were trapping it. It came clear and they lifted it away.

A large fair-haired man came into the square with a small troop of constables.

‘Good heavens!’ the man said.

‘Hello,’ said Owen. ‘It was a café with students. There may be some under here.’

‘Right,’ said the man, and began organizing his constables. They formed a chain and began passing debris along it. The constables were simple peasants from the villages and used to this sort of work. One of them, incongruously, began to sing.

After a while Owen left the rubble work. McPhee, a Boy-Scoutish sort of man, was better at this kind of thing than he was. The work of clearing the debris was now proceeding systematically. The sharp-faced, intelligent workman who had got started in the first place was now burrowing deep into the rubble.

The square was filling up with people, eager to help but getting in the way. Owen pulled a constable out and sent him for more help. He tried to get the crowd to keep back. Then, seeing that was useless, he borrowed McPhee’s idea and formed them into chains, getting them to clear away the subsidiary pile, which was threatening to topple back on to the rubble.

So far he had seen very few injured people.

The student he had been talking to had finished his bandaging and came over to stand beside Owen.

‘Are you sure it was empty?’ Owen asked.

‘Not empty,’ said the student. ‘Emptyish.’

He interrupted the large man with the white, dusty face as he went past for the umpteenth time.

‘Ali,’ he said. ‘Come here.’

Ali stopped obediently. The student took hold of his head and stared into his eyes. Then he released him.

‘Concussed,’ he said.

‘You’re not a law student,’ said Owen.

‘No, medical. I was visiting friends.’

‘Why,’ said Ali, in a tone of surprise, ‘it’s Deesa.’

‘Yes,’ said the student, ‘it’s Deesa. What happened, Ali?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the man. ‘I came to the door to take some air and then suddenly it was as if a giant put his hand to my back and pushed me. I fell into the street and lay there and when I looked up the building had gone. Where did it go to, Deesa?’

‘It fell down, Ali,’ said Deesa. ‘That is all that is left.’ He pointed to the rubble.

The big man shook his head disbelievingly.

‘When I looked up, it had gone,’ he repeated. ‘Where did it go to, Deesa?’

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