Michael Pearce - The Mingrelian Conspiracy

‘What’s that?’ said Selim.

‘I tried to tell you, but-’

A man was lying among the great jars used for storing water. As Owen looked, a foot twitched.

‘Effendi, he lives!’

‘Does he?’ said Selim, trying to get up. ‘I’ll soon see about that!’

The extreme heat continued. In the Bab-el-Khalk next day nothing moved. The orderlies sat stupefied, in the orderly room when they were on duty, outside in the courtyard when they were off. From time to time, Yusef, Owen’s own orderly, would pad along the corridor with a fresh pitcher of water, oppressed at the capacity of ice to diminish even in the few yards between the orderly room and Owen’s office. Owen, dripping at his desk, was considering whether to change his shirt.

Selim, bandaged, poked his head round the door.

‘They’re coming now, Effendi.’

Owen could hear the feet at the other end of the corridor, heard, too, a few moments later, Selim’s muttered aside.

‘Right, you bastard, now you’re for it!’

Two slightly apprehensive police constables appeared in the doorway with, between them, rather more apprehensive, the man who had been taken the day before at the cafe.

Owen looked him over. Nothing very special, just an ordinary fellah in a blue galabeeyah. But that, actually, was significant. It made it less likely that they were dealing with a political club. The Arabs tended to recruit from students and young effendi, or office workers. This man had never seen the inside of a classroom or an office. His hands were big and awkward. Scarred, too. Owen leaned forward and pushed back the man’s sleeves. The forearms were scarred also, just where you would expect, and the face, yes, not tribal marks, knife wounds. A tough from the back streets. Owen was almost sure already that this was a criminal gang, not a political one.

The nervousness, too. Members of political clubs might well be nervous when they were brought before the Mamur Zapt but theirs was a different kind of nervousness from that of the ordinary fellah. They were used to the big imposing rooms and the long corridors, which were not so very different from the ones they knew at college or work. If they were nervous it was because of the anticipated consequences, not about the circumstances in which they found themselves.

For the ordinary street criminal it was exactly the reverse. The consequences when they came would be accepted with the immemorial resigned shrug of the fellahin. It was the shock of an environment completely new to their experience that was so disorienting.

Even the toughest of street toughs was put out by the Bab-el-Khalk. There was very little space where they came from. Everything was close, local, intimate. Here in the great open spaces of the Bab-el-Khalk they lost their bearings. Everything was alien to them: the men in their uniforms, the formality, the emotional coldness. Probably most alien of all was the white man they had been brought before.

It was this second kind of nervousness that the man was showing. His eyes flickered compulsively from side to side. It was all new to him. He couldn’t make sense of anything.

‘What is your name?’

The man looked at him as if he had not understood. As, indeed, probably he had not. Owen doubted if he was taking anything in just at the moment.

Selim leaned over and tapped the man on the shoulder.

‘Come on, bright eyes, what’s your name?’

What exactly Selim was doing there Owen was not sure. He had appeared shakily that morning and taken up a position in the corridor outside Owen’s office, announcing that he wanted to ‘see it through’. What ‘it’ was Owen didn’t know. He had an uneasy feeling that Selim was expecting summary execution.

The man, however, seemed to find Selim’s intervention reassuring. Perhaps he was used to big constables tapping him on the shoulder.

‘Ali,’ he said.

‘What’s the rest of it?’

‘There isn’t any more.’

‘Come on, light of my eyes, don’t you have a family?’ enquired Selim.

The man seemed bewildered.

‘Not as far as I know,’ he said.

‘You must have!’ said Selim. ‘You don’t suddenly get dropped in the streets.’

‘I did,’ said the man.

‘Don’t know your mother?’

‘Nor my father, either,’ said the man.

Selim turned to Owen.

‘Real bastard, isn’t he?’

‘Just keep quiet, will you?’ He was beginning to regret Selim’s presence. ‘All right, then, Ali, if you don’t have a name, do you have a place? Where do you live?’

Again the bewilderment.

‘I don’t live anywhere,’ said the man. Then, as Selim stirred, he added hurriedly: ‘I just move around.’

‘One woman after another? That it?’ said Selim.

‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘That’s about it.’

‘It’s all right for some!’ said Selim.

‘Shut up! Where did you sleep the night before last?’ asked Owen.

‘At Leila’s.’

‘And where will I find Leila?’

‘Now we’re talking!’ said Selim.

Owen wondered whether to throw him out. On the other hand, he did seem to get the man talking.

‘I don’t know the name of the street,’ Ali said.

‘Give me the quarter.’

‘The Fustat.’

‘The Fustat is a big place,’ observed Owen.

The man shrugged.

‘If I wanted to find you, Ali, where would I ask for you?’

‘At Leila’s,’ said the man promptly, risking a joke and looking to Selim for approval.

Selim, however, did not approve.

‘ I’m the one that makes the jokes,’ he said.

The man tried another shrug, which, however, quickly lost confidence.

‘Where would I find you?’ asked Owen.

‘Near the ferry,’ said the man reluctantly.

‘If I asked for Ali with the scarred face, someone would know?’

‘Yes.’

‘I expect they’d all know,’ observed Owen. ‘A man like you!’ Ali responded to the invitation, lifting his shoulders proudly. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m pretty well known down there.’

‘And what about your mates? Are they pretty well known down there, too?’

The man froze.

Owen tried a new tack.

‘It’s a long way to Babylon,’ he said conversationally. Babylon, where the Coptic Ders were, was at the far end of the Fustat. ‘What are you doing up here?’

‘This is where the money is.’

‘Is there not money in the Fustat?’

‘Not this kind of money.’

‘Still, it’s quite a way from the Fustat. Do you often come up here?’

‘No,’ admitted Ali. ‘We usually keep south of the Citadel.’

‘But not this time?’

‘No.’

‘Why not this time?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose we were offered a job.’

‘Ah, you were offered a job?’

Ali closed his lips firmly.

‘You wouldn’t like to tell me who offered it you, would you?’

‘No. I would not.’

‘I would be very grateful.’

‘My mates mightn’t be grateful,’ said Ali.

‘Ah, yes, but if you helped me you would be out a long time before they were.’

‘They would still come out.’

‘It would be a long time, though. Of course, you’re going to be in for a long time. If you don’t help me.’

The man shrugged.

‘Well, you think about it. You’ll have a bit of time before we get to the trial.’

‘I don’t even need to think about it,’ said Ali.

Owen was virtually certain now that he was dealing with a criminal gang and not a political one. What Ali had said had clinched it. The criminal gangs, as opposed to the political ones, tended to identify with a particular territory and seldom moved off it. And the political clubs, whose aims were more focused, rarely accepted commissions.