Michael Pearce - The Donkey-Vous

“Maybe he wants to bypass the system.”

“He’ll have a job!” said Owen, speaking from painful personal experience.

Georgiades sat for a while brooding. Owen suspected it was because he didn’t want to go out into the heat again too quickly.

“Look at it another way,” said Georgiades, settling himself comfortably: “What sort of business are Berthelot and Chevenement likely to be interested in?”

“Whatever business Moulin is interested in. And we’ve got a pretty good idea of that. Construction, building-”

“Contracts?”

“Yes.”

“The dam contracts?”

“They’ve been allocated already. They were allocated before he arrived. Paul says there might be a subcontract going, a big one to construct a masonry apron, which they might let the French have as a sop. He thinks Moulin’s interested in that.”

“Well, maybe that’s it.”

“The trouble with that,” said Owen, “is that all the action is somewhere else. It’s all Diplomatic now. Government to Government. Foreign Office to Foreign Office. Not for small fry like Berthelot and Chevenement.”

“Maybe they’re just jockeying for position in the tendering?” suggested Georgiades.

“If they are, why not do it in the right place? There’s no point in wasting time on the Khedive. He’s not going to have any say in it whatsoever.”

“I keep coming back to Berthelot,” said Georgiades. “What’s he doing going to see the Khedive? Chevenement I can understand. Private business and good luck. But Berthelot?”

“They’re both in it together, whatever ‘it’ is. Only I should think they’ve got different roles. She makes the first contact, he follows it up.”

“Has he got enough…? I mean, does he know enough to follow it up?”

“I think that they’d have to refer pretty soon to Moulin. And that’s a point! When I first spoke to Berthelot I asked him if any of Moulin’s business friends had been in contact with him. He promised to check but never did.”

“It would be interesting to know who they were. Then we’d get some idea of where particularly his business interests lie. Maybe I’ll have a look at that,” said Georgiades.

“OK. And while you’re doing that, take a look at something else, will you? I’m getting a picture in which Chevenement makes the first contact, then brings Berthelot in. At a very early stage, right at the start, probably, she gets the Khedive’s blessing. That maybe is why she takes him to meet the Khedive. Now they’re going to have to follow that up, which means him meeting other people. Maybe when he meets the Khedive he gets introduced to these people. Even so, he’s going to have to meet them again to get negotiations started. I don’t know if it’s possible for you to find out who these people are. Other visits Berthelot’s been paying. But you might take a look at it.”

“Could the Princess Samira come into this?”

“How?”

“Well, suppose they didn’t meet the people who were going to follow it up for the Khedive when they went to see him. After all, it would take time, and while I don’t go along with the arabeah-drivers altogether, I don’t see the Khedive wanting to spend all the time he has with Chevenement on business matters. In that case he might want to find some other way in which she could meet them. You said he asked the Princess to invite her. Maybe that’s where she made her first follow-up contact. After that there would be another one, this time with Berthelot.”

“I’ll ask Zeinab if she can give me the names of people who’ve been at Samira’s soirees recently. She’s not going to like it, though.”

“I’m going to have to try to get out of the arabeah drivers a list of all the people Berthelot’s been to see. All the places, too, because the drivers are going to know places, not people. To get the people I’m going to have to follow it up. It’ll take hours. In this heat, too! Do you think I like that?”

“Yes, but you’re paid to like it and Zeinab’s not.”

“From what you told me earlier,” said Georgiades, “I think the Lady Zeinab is going to insist on payment too.”

Madame Moulin was waiting for him in the grand central hall of the hotel, under the glass dome. She was having coffee with the French Charge and Mahmoud. There was no sign of Berthelot.

She was in her early or mid-seventies and was wearing a long black gown which even Owen could see belonged to the last century. Her hair was gray and tied up behind in a severe bun. She had been traveling continuously since she had received news of her husband’s disappearance and had arrived only that afternoon; but the eyes which registered Owen’s entrance were bright and alert.

“Cap-tain Owen. Le Mamur Zapt,” the Charge introduced him.

Owen took her hand.

“ Enchante de faire votre connaissance, Madame. I am only sorry that it should be in such circumstances.”

The old lady inclined her head graciously. Then the head came up and the sharp eyes regarded him appraisingly.

“ Vous etes capitaine, Monsieur?”

“Oui, Madame.”

“Du militaire?”

“ Oui, Madame. I was in the Indian Army before coming to Egypt.”

“ Vous avez tue?”

Owen was taken aback. Had he killed? Well, yes, he had, but it was not something he liked to be asked quite so definitely.

“ Oui, Madame. Je le regrette. ”

“We all regret it,” replied the old lady, “but sometimes it is necessary.”

She completed her inspection.

“C’est un brave homme!” she announced to the Charge.

“Of course!” said the Charge enthusiastically.

“He has been tried in action,” said Madame Moulin. “That is what makes a man. Not sitting about in offices.”

“Of course!” agreed the Charge, slightly less enthusiastically this time.

“It is something I am always telling Monsieur le President. My cousin’s husband, you know. ‘Gaston,’ I say: ‘what has happened to our young men? All they think about is drinking wine and chasing women and sitting about in offices.’”

“And what does Monsieur le President reply?” asked Owen.

“ ‘Monique,’ he says: ‘young men have always drunk wine and chased women.’ ‘But not sat about in offices!’ I say. We are becoming,” said Madame Moulin triumphantly, “a race of degenerates.”

“Oh la la!” said the Charge, and clicked his tongue reprovingly.

“A nation of degenerates,” Madame Moulin repeated with emphasis, looking fiercely in his direction.

Owen, who got along well with the Charge, despite present difficulties, tried to rescue him.

“But, Madame,” he said, “we serve our country in different ways. The skills the diplomat needs are not those of the soldier.”

“I am not talking of skills,” said the old lady dismissively. “I am talking of character.”

There was a little silence after that. It was Madame Moulin herself who broke it.

“And what, precisely, are the skills which you yourself bring to this sad affair, Monsieur le Capitaine? Those of a soldier?”

“Certainly not. Those days are long behind me.”

“Then…?”

It was the sort of question which the French-and the Egyptians-were always asking and one which Owen found it very difficult to answer. Both countries had a tradition of professionalism which made it hard for them to see the obvious advantages of English amateurism. Owen decided to shift the question slightly.

“I am assisting Mr. El Zaki,” he said. Seeing from Madame Moulin’s expression that this needed amplifying, he added, “I look after the political side.”

“Ah? So this has a political side?”

“No, no. Not necessarily. It’s just that it may have. It could possibly have. It is just a precaution. My role is very minor. Mr. El Zaki-”