Michael Pearce - The Fig Tree Murder

‘He’s a friend of the Club Secretary. A close friend.’

‘Zenakis?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I know Zenakis.’

‘That’s what I’m saying.’

There was a long silence.

‘Look, Owen-’

‘If you’re going to ask me to handle this with sensitivity, you’ll have to try again.’

‘I wasn’t going to-Look, you’ve got this all wrong.’

‘So have you. So,’ said Owen, ‘have you!’

‘I know you’re sore. I shouldn’t have said what I did the other morning. OK, I’ve got it wrong. But you’ve got it wrong too.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Yes. It wasn’t your people who broke up the demonstration, I accept that. But’-he took a deep breath-‘it wasn’t ours either. I swear we don’t know anything about it.’

‘No?’

‘If for no other reason than that it wouldn’t be in our interest. We’re nearly there, as I said the other morning. All we want to do is to wrap it up and get out. Besides-’

‘Keep trying.’

‘Zenakis is not the Syndicate. He’s not ours. The Racing Club is quite separate. All that side is. All the gambling bit. They’re clients of ours, customers. It’s a separate organization. It’s nothing to do with us. Honest!’

There was racing the next day at Heliopolis and the gang turned up in force; so, in even greater force, did Owen’s men, and arrested the lot of them.

‘What’s all this about?’ they said in injured tones. ‘We haven’t done anything yet!’

‘What about breaking up that demonstration on Wednesday?’

‘That doesn’t count!’ they protested. ‘That’s not a real crime. People do it all the time. Besides, it was just an extra, not our real line of business at all.’

‘We work the racetracks,’ explained someone helpfully.

‘Yes, I know,’ said Owen.

‘Who the hell are you, anyway?’ said someone belligerently. ‘You’re not police, we know the police.’

‘I am the Mamur Zapt.’

‘What’s it got to do with you?’

‘Abdul, don’t you think you could shut up?’ counselled one of the older members of the gang worriedly. ‘If he’s the Mamur Zapt, he might do things differently from the police.’

He certainly might. One of his predecessors, Zeini Barakat, infuriated by just such a gang, had ordered their testicles to be cut off and fed to the hawks that hovered above the Citadel. That had, admittedly, been four hundred years before, but you never knew with Mamur Zapts and the gang was impressed.

‘You don’t want to bother with us, Effendi,’ they said conciliatorily. ‘We’re just a small-time gang.’

‘It’s true I don’t want to bother with you,’ agreed Owen. ‘I’ve got more important things to do. And therefore I shall release you. Once you’ve told me what I want to know.’

‘What do you want to know, Effendi?’

‘Who asked you to break up the demonstration.’

The gang consulted among themselves.

‘It came through our boss.’

‘Figi?’

‘Well-’

‘Is Figi here?’

Figi, as is the way with bosses when there is trouble around, was not.

‘No matter. Let Figi know what I want. And meanwhile you stay here.’

No need to inquire too closely into how they would contact Figi. They would probably bribe a prison official. But the message would get through.

‘Stay here? But, Effendi, if we stay here we won’t be able to do any work.’

‘That’s exactly what I was thinking,’ said Owen.

The point evidently occurred to Figi, too, for that afternoon a message came up from the cells that the gang wished to speak to Owen.

‘Well?’

‘Effendi, it’s not fair. While we’re in the caracol we can’t do any work and Figi doesn’t get any money.’

‘True,’ said Owen.

‘He wishes to protest.’

‘All he has to do is give me the name.’

‘He has sent the name. But he wishes to protest.’

‘I note the protest. What is the name?’

‘Roukoz. He works at Heliopolis and-’

‘I know the man,’ said Owen.

‘Roukoz,’ said Owen, ‘here is a bad thing that I have heard: friends tell me that it was you who ordered the attack on the demonstration on Wednesday.’

‘Effendi, your friends lie! Would I do a thing like that? A humble, hard-working, peace-loving father of six? Those who say that are villains!’

‘Would you like to tell them so?’

‘Effendi, outraged by calumny and injustice, I would!’

‘They await you in the caracol.’

‘On second thoughts, Effendi-’

‘Who told you to contact the gang?’

‘Effendi, I know no gang.’

‘You have never spoken to them?’

‘Never!’

‘Not the other day at Heliopolis? The day of the grand reception?’

‘Certainly not!’

‘Well, that is strange. For I saw you speak to them myself. And so did the Chief of all the Police.’

Roukoz swallowed.

‘It is easy to make a mistake, Effendi-’

‘So it is,’ Owen agreed. ‘And that’s exactly what you have done. Now tell me: who told you to get the gang to break up the demonstration?’

Zenakis advanced across the room with outstretched hand. ‘The Mamur Zapt again? What a pleasure!’

‘It is indeed!’ agreed Owen. ‘Shall we go into your office?’ Zenakis, once he had taken the measure of the situation, did not seriously attempt to deny responsibility.

‘This is Cairo, after all,’ he said with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘Completion of the railway is important to us. And the Nationalist campaign was gathering momentum.’

‘You leave the Nationalists to me!’

‘Ordinarily we would. But we knew your hands were tied.’

‘ “We”?’

Zenakis hesitated.

‘ “I”, I should have said.’

‘You acted on your own responsibility?’

‘Within the broad remit given me by the committee. But I take full responsibility for what happened the other night and if apologies are called for, I apologize.’

‘How far did the committee know what you were doing?’

‘They have given me, as I say, a broad remit.’

‘Who is on the committee?’

Zenakis gave him several names.

‘A strong committee,’ Owen commented.

The list contained several Pashas and relatives of Pashas-Malik was there-and also two members of the Khedive’s own family. Owen could see now why Zenakis appeared so confident.

‘I take full responsibility,’ said Zenakis. ‘If error there was, it was mine. However, it was done with the best intentions. We felt you needed some help. Sometimes,’ he said, eyes twinkling, ‘one would be glad of help but is unable to ask for it.’

‘If I need help,’ said Owen, ‘I’ll ask for it!’

Inwardly, he fumed. There was nothing he could do. Zenakis had admitted responsibility and yet it would be difficult to take action against him. Breaking up a demonstration, in Cairo, was hardly a crime. Even Mahmoud would hesitate about initiating legal proceedings. And where would it get him? In the unlikely event of Zenakis being found guilty, he would be pardoned at once by the Khedive. And was Zenakis the man really responsible anyway? Wasn’t he just covering up for the committee?

Zenakis took him by the arm.

‘Now that’s over, how about a drink? And have you thought again about membership?’

There was trouble at the Tree. So said Salah-el-Din’s cryptic message. It also said that he would hold the fort until Owen got there. But he suggested that he hurry.

At the Tree, Owen found the rival camps bristling. The Copts, truculent, were drawn up on one side, ostentatiously examining their knives; the Sons of Islam, even more truculent, on the other, holding their daggers up to the setting sun and commenting loudly on the way in which it dyed their blades red. In the middle, not at all truculent, but distinctly apprehensive, were Owen’s guards, presided over temporarily by the determined Salah-el-Din. On the outskirts of it all, for some reason that Owen could not fathom, was Salah-el-Din’s daughter, Amina, sitting on a horse.