Michael Pearce - The Snake Catcher’s Daughter

“Well…all right, then. Perhaps someone ought to look into it.”

“Fine!” said Garvin. “Tell me how you get on.”

“Hey! You’re not asking me to do it, are you?”

“You surely don’t expect McPhee to investigate himself?”

“It’s not political.”

The Mamur Zapt concerned himself only with the political. He was the equivalent of what back in England would be head of the political branch of the CID. He was, however, also much more. The Mamur Zapt had traditionally-for many centuries, indeed-been the ruler’s righthand man, the chief of his secret police, the means by which he maintained himself in power. If he was so lucky. Caliphs came, Khedives went, but the Mamur Zapt went on forever.

Even when the British had come, thirty years before, the Khedive had insisted on retaining the post. Without it, he felt nervous. The British had agreed, insisting only that they nominate the occupant of the post. That, of course, had slightly changed matters. Formally, the Mamur Zapt, with his control of Cairo’s vast network of informers, spies and underground agents, was still responsible to the Khedive. In actual fact, he was responsible to the Head of the British Administration, the British Consul-General.

If, that is, he was responsible to anybody, which Consul-General, Khedive, Khedive’s Ministers, Opposition Members, Nationalists, British Government, Commander-in-Chief (British) of the army (Egyptian) and Garvin sometimes felt inclined to doubt.

All crime other than political was the responsibility not of the police, under the French-style system of law which operated in Egypt, but of the Department of Prosecutions of the Ministry of Justice, the Parquet, as it was known.

“You’re not suggesting the Parquet handle this?” said Garvin, aghast. “Investigating a British officer? A member of the Administration? Oh dear, no!” He shook his head. “I don’t think we could have that. It would set an undesirable precedent. The C-G wouldn’t like it. The people at home wouldn’t like it. Goodness me, no. They wouldn’t like it at all.”

“We are not investigating McPhee, surely!” Owen protested.

“Well, perhaps not directly,” Garvin admitted. “It’s more the circumstances.”

“I don’t call that political.”

Garvin raised his eyebrows.

“Setting up a member of the British Administration? Not political? If that’s not political,” said Garvin, “what is?”

“No, really, Owen, he’s determined to get rid of me!” said McPhee heatedly. “He’s been out to get me ever since they transferred him from Alexandria. I was in charge when he arrived, just temporarily, of course, and he didn’t like the way I was doing things.”

“Well-”

McPhee held up his hand.

“I know what you’re going to say. Perhaps we weren’t the most efficient of outfits. But is that so bad, Owen, is it really so bad? People knew where they were. They knew what to expect. A way that is traditional, Owen, is a way that is invested with a lot of human experience. You discard it at your peril.”

“True. On the other hand-”

“I know what you are going to say. Not all tradition is good. The courbash, for instance.”

“Well, yes.”

The courbash was the traditional Egyptian whip. One of the first acts of the British Administration had been to abolish flogging.

“Well, of course, I’m not against abolishing the use of the courbash. It was a humane measure carried out for humane motives. But not all reform is like that. Sometimes it’s carried out for piffling, mean little reasons. To improve efficiency, for instance. I ask you, where would we be if everything we did was subjected to that criterion?”

Not here, thought Owen. Neither you nor, probably, I. “It’s so mean-spirited. He looks around at the richness of life and then talks about efficiency!”

“He’s got to run a police force, after all.”

“But why doesn’t he run it in a way people want?”

“What do they want?”

“Humanity,” said McPhee, “not efficiency.”

“I dare say. Look, I don’t think he’s particularly out to get you. In fact, it’s the other way round. He thinks somebody is trying to set you up and he wants to stop them.”

“Who on earth would want to set me up? Garvin apart, that is.”

“You’re a senior figure in the police. Lots of people. People you’ve arrested.”

“They don’t blame me. The common criminal is a decent chap.”

Owen sighed.

“In Cairo, at any rate,” said McPhee defensively. “Anyway, he doesn’t blame me, he blames fate.”

“You don’t think he might personalize fate a little?”

“No one’s out to set me up,” said McPhee firmly. “It’s just another of Garvin’s fantasies.”

“Some things do need explaining, though. How you finished up in the snake pit, for instance.”

“I don’t think that was anything to do with the witch,” said McPhee.

“Witch?”

Oh dear, thought Owen.

“Osman told me,” said McPhee.

“That there was going to be a Zzarr?”

“Yes.”

“And he invited you to it?”

“No, no. Quite the reverse. He didn’t want me to come. In fact, he was most unwilling to talk about it.”

“But he did?”

“I prised it out of him. He had come, you see, to ask me for time off. To prepare for a ceremony, he said. Well, naturally, I asked what sort of ceremony. To do with a female cousin, he said. A circumcision, I asked? At first he said yes, but then it transpired the girl was twenty so I knew he couldn’t be telling the truth. In the end I got him to confess. It was a Zzarr. His sister was suffering from a mild case of possession. At least, that’s what they thought. A Zzarr, I said! My goodness me!” He looked at Owen. “They’re immensely rare, you know. I’ve heard of them before and, indeed, once I nearly came upon one. So when I heard about this one I was tremendously excited and demanded that he tell me where it was being held.”

I’ll have a word with Osman, Owen said to himself.

“It was in one of those houses on the edge of the Gamaliya, a big old house with both an outer courtyard and an inner one.”

“Could you show it me?”

“Well, I suppose I could. But I’d rather not. They placed me on my honour, you see-”

“They also drugged you.”

“Well…I’m not sure they did. Someone did, certainly. But not them. I was there on a basis of trust. Which was mutual.”

“You made a bargain with them?”

McPhee hesitated.

“Well, not initially.” He looked uncomfortable. “There was, I’m afraid, an element of deception. On my part. I told them, you see, that it was a police raid. I pretended to have men with me. I demanded to see what was happening. They said it was out of the question. Very well then, I said, I will have to call my men. There was a bit of humming and ha-ing but eventually they said I could take a look through a window. I did and, my goodness me, Owen, it was fascinating! A ring of women, robes, candles, dancing-”

“And then?” Owen prompted.

“Then all the candles went out. There was a great hubbub and lots of people came jostling me and told me I had to leave. And then the priestess came out-”

“Priestess?”

“Aalima. The witch. Well, I call her a priestess because, really, it was all most religious. It does have a religious basis, you know, Owen, there were religious sheikhs there, not in the Zzarr itself, of course, but in the courtyard outside-”

“The Aalima?” prompted Owen.

“A most striking lady, Owen, most striking. Well, at first she absolutely refused. Said it was completely out of the question. And then I said that in that case I would have to arrest them.”