Michael Pearce - The Snake Catcher’s Daughter

Mahmoud jumped up at his approach and threw his arms around him, Arab style.

“It’s been so long!” he said enthusiastically (about a week). “What have you been doing?”

“As little as possible,” said Owen.

“I know! The heat! It’s been impossible in the courts. Two witnesses collapsed yesterday. Mustapha Kamil”-one of the senior judges-“said he’d have to bring the sessions to an end early if things didn’t improve. I’d be against that, though,” added Mahmoud seriously. “It would merely add to the backlog. We’re six months behind as it is.”

Mahmoud was a strong believer in hard work and efficiency. He and Garvin were birds of a feather.

“It can’t be long before the sessions end anyway, can it?”

“Two weeks. But really, there’s so much still to get through, we ought to extend it.”

“That would be popular!”

He sometimes thought Mahmoud was a bit unyielding. A broad smile spread over Mahmoud’s face, relaxing the intensity.

“It doesn’t stand a chance!” he said.

The waiter took their orders.

“At any rate,” said Mahmoud, “it will give us plenty of time to settle the Garvin affaire.”

“Is it the Garvin affair?” asked Owen. “Or is it the Philipides affair?”

Mahmoud shrugged.

“It’s the corruption affair. That’s the only way to look at it. We don’t make any judgements until we’ve had another look at the evidence.”

“Where are you going to start?”

“With the original sub-inspector. That’s ultimately where the charges came from. His name’s Bakri.”

“Mind if I sit in?”

“Not at all.” Mahmoud hesitated. “But as a friend,” he said, “a colleague. Not as an official observer.”

“I thought that had been agreed?”

“It has and it hasn’t. What’s been agreed is that your status must be informal. But the people making the agreement were not-well, they were politicians, not lawyers. ‘Observer’ expressed what they thought they meant. But there is no provision under the legal system for an observer. In a case like this I think it’s important to keep to the letter of the law. So, no observers. But as a friend and colleague you are most welcome.”

“Doesn’t it amount to the same thing?”

“In practice, with you, yes. But the judicial system must be free, and be seen to be free, from political interference. It’s a question,” said Mahmoud firmly but, looking at Owen, a little anxiously, “of principle.”

Mahmoud was strong on principles.

“There must be no British finger in the scales,” he said determinedly.

Abdul Bakri was still a sub-inspector.

“No, it didn’t go through,” he said. “Then or later. When you’re involved in something like this, you know, they don’t forget. People don’t like it.”

“Those who were involved at the time may not have liked it,” said Mahmoud. “But they’re all gone, surely?”

“No one likes it,” said Abdul Bakri dispiritedly. “When you’ve done it once, whoever’s your boss after that thinks you’re going to do it again.”

“It will only worry them if they’ve got something to hide.”

“We’ve all got something to hide,” said Abdul Bakri. “Everyone bends the rules at some time.”

Mahmoud, who never bent the rules, was shocked into silence for a moment.

“It’s your mates, too,” Abdul Bakri went on. “They don’t like it.”

“They’re the ones who benefited!”

“Well, I don’t know about that.”

“They didn’t like having to pay for promotion, surely?”

“Well, at least you knew where you were. Forty pounds would get you an inspectorship. All you had to do was to save up. Cost you a bit, of course, but then you wouldn’t want everybody becoming an inspector. The point is, if you could find the money, you were all right. There was none of this funny business of people deciding how good you are. You see, that sort of thing makes it really chancey. You might have served in the force for twenty years and then someone comes along and says: ‘No, you can’t be an inspector because you’re too lazy’ or not clever enough. Now, I don’t call that fair at all. Whereas if all you had to do was find the money, it couldn’t go wrong, could it?”

“I see,” said Mahmoud. “And you’re still a sub-inspector.”

“That’s right,” said Abdul Bakri, aggrieved. “Spoiled my chance of promotion, that’s what he did, Garvin effendi!”

“You could have said nothing,” Mahmoud pointed out.

“Fat chance of that!” said Abdul Bakri. “He had me in his office and he said: ‘Forty pounds, Abdul Bakri? What’s that for?’ Well, I tried to put him off, but he said: ‘It wouldn’t be, by any chance, to purchase an inspectorship, would it?’ Well, after that…‘I know all about it,’ he said. ‘So you’d better just tell me.’ There wasn’t much I could do, was there? He had me.”

“Did he remind you of your rights?”

“Rights?” said Abdul Bakri incredulously. “Look, let me tell you, a sub-inspector’s got no rights. Not in the police force, he hasn’t.”

“Attempted bribery is an offence,” said Mahmoud severely.

“Don’t I know it! That’s just what Garvin effendi said. He said, ‘It’s prison for you, my lad, if you don’t do what I say.’ I said, ‘What about the money?’ He said, ‘You’ve had that.’ Well, I mean, forty pounds is a lot of money, it was all I had. It wasn’t really mine, either. I mean, it was Leila’s jewellery and she hadn’t been too pleased in the first place. If it had gone for good, well, she’d have killed me. Prison, I didn’t mind; well, at least you’ve got food and a roof over your head, haven’t you, but to have Leila forever on my back- ‘Well, all right, effendi,’ I said, ‘I’ll do what you want!’ ”

“And what did Garvin effendi want?”

“He said, ‘Who have you been dealing with? Have you been talking to Philipides direct?’ And I said, No, it had all been done through Philipides’s orderly, Hassan. So he said: ‘Right then, you tell Hassan that you’re a bit worried about going on with it because you’ve heard that Garvin effendi knows all about it.’ ‘Effendi,’ I said, ‘have you got it right? The first thing Hassan will do will be to tell Philipides.’ ‘That’s right!’ said Garvin effendi, and gave that little smile of his. Anyway, I did what he told me and Hassan went as white as a sheet and rushed off. The next day, he was back with the forty pounds, well, thirty-nine pounds, in fact, and said, ‘Here you are, we don’t want to know any more about it.’ ”

“Thirty-nine pounds?”

“That bastard, Hassan, was taking his cut. Got his fingers burnt that time, though, I can tell you. Garvin effendi said, ‘You go to Hassan and tell him you want all the money or else there’ll be trouble. And tell him he’s got to bring it to you at the police station tomorrow morning.’ Well, I did, and Hassan didn’t like it, but he brought the money. But what he didn’t know was that Garvin effendi had got two men in the next room listening in. So, he had him cold,” said Abdul Bakri, “and after that the thing just rolled.”

“Are we going to talk to Hassan?” asked Owen, as they walked back.

“We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because he disappeared.”

“Fearing the worst?”

“Or because of intimidation.”

“Yes,” said Owen, “I gather there was a lot of that going on.”

“On both sides,” said Mahmoud, “judging by Abdul Bakri’s account.”

“Well, I had to say something. So I said something came over me at the full moon. I thought my husband was a pig and wanted to engage in unnatural practices with me. ‘What sort of practices?’ she said.”