Michael Pearce - The Donkey-Vous

“New in the country,” he overhead someone say. “Still wet behind the ears. A good job they’ve brought Garvin in now.”

Too trusting, was the charge. Even more deadly: “Too friendly with the Gyppies.”

Increasingly, though, the fingers began to be pointed at Mahmoud. He was, after all, formally in charge of the investigation. “Not really his show,” Owen’s defenders maintained on behalf of Owen. But it was inescapably Mahmoud’s show. He had been conducting the investigation since the hour of Moulin’s disappearance and what results had he to offer? You need time for an investigation like this, the Parquet’s defenders-and there were few of them in the British community-argued. “Gyppies always need time,” was the reply. “The forever bokra boys.”

Bokra. Tomorrow. Manana. It was unfair on Mahmoud, who of all people was the most businesslike and undilatory. But then, people weren’t thinking in personal terms. It wasn’t Moulin and Colthorpe Hartley who had been attacked but foreigners in general, not Colthorpe Hartley as an individual but the British community in Egypt as a whole. Mahmoud was an Egyptian and that was enough.

Meanwhile, they had to get on with their work. Mahmoud went through his questioning as meticulously as before but with the same result. No one had seen anything or heard anything: not even, this time, the old snake charmer, who merely stood shaking his head as if totally confused.

Like Moulin, Colthorpe Hartley had disappeared “into thin air,” as McPhee infuriatingly kept putting it.

The ransom note came and Lucy Colthorpe Hartley brought it out to them. It was in much the same terms as before and for the same amount. As before, it was signed “Zawia.”

“A hundred thousand piastres,” said Owen. “It’s a lot of money, Miss Colthorpe Hartley. Can you pay it?”

Lucy hesitated.

“I suppose we can,” she said, “if we sell a few things. A lot of things. Daddy isn’t as well off as you might think. But ought we to pay it?”

Owen took his time about replying.

“No,” said Mahmoud. “No, Miss Colthorpe Hartley, you should not pay it.”

Lucy looked at him.

“I know you’re right in principle, Mr. El Zaki. Still, when it’s your own father… ” She turned away and went back into the hotel.

“I wouldn’t press her,” said Owen.

“You see where you get if you give in,” said Mahmoud savagely. “After Moulin, Colthorpe Hartley. Give in over him and there will be another. And another, and another, until people refuse to pay.”

“Or until we catch them.”

“We haven’t made much progress so far.” Mahmoud looked weary.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Owen.

They walked across the street and into the Wagh el Birket, where they found a table outside a restaurant.

“I don’t understand it,” said Mahmoud, pulling a chair into the shade and sinking down tiredly. “You usually come across a loose end, something you can pull and go on pulling.”

“The loose end was the dragoman, wasn’t it?”

“In the case of Moulin, yes. But even then, pulling it doesn’t seem to have got us very far.”

“It doesn’t seem even a loose end so far as Colthorpe Hartley goes.”

“Except in so far as he might have been about to identify the dragoman who spoke to Moulin.”

“True.”

The boy brought coffee and two large tumblers of iced water.

“There could be a dragoman in it,” said Mahmoud, sipping the water first. “There’s obviously someone involved who knows the hotel well. That’s true for the latest one, too. Whoever took Colthorpe Hartley knew his habits well enough to be sure that he would be on the terrace at that particular time. So they’d have to be connected in some way with the hotel-”

“With the front of the hotel,” said Owen. “That’s all the knowledge they’d need. It could be someone on the street.”

“A vendor? Yes. Though don’t forget they also knew about Berthelot’s visits to Anton’s, which argues some inside knowledge. That’s more likely to be a dragoman than a vendor.”

“If it was a dragoman, though, would he be in Zawia?”

“Why shouldn’t he be in Zawia?”

“If it’s fundamentalist. Or nationalist.”

“Look,” said Mahmoud, “the only thing that makes you think it could be fundamentalist or nationalist is the name.”

“Yes, but the names usually mean something.”

“ ‘The Bloody Hand?’ ‘The Evil Eye?’ That means something?”

“ ‘Revenge of Islam.’ ‘Free Egypt.’ ‘Sword for the Oppressors.’ They mean something.”

Mahmoud could not restrain his exasperation.

“The only thing that makes you think it’s that sort of group is the name. And that could mean a variety of things. It doesn’t just mean a convent or religious center. It means-”

“Turning point. I know.”

“Corner.”

“You turn the corner and you get to something different. A different way of life. Revolution.”

“You still think it’s nationalist, don’t you?”

“I think it could be. Why else should it be aimed at foreigners?”

“It’s not aimed at foreigners. Moulin and Colthorpe Hartley have been taken not because they’re foreigners but because they’re rich.”

“They’re rich and foreign. A good target.”

“Tsakatellis-if he’s anything to do with it and not someone dragged in by some crazy association of Nikos’s-”

“Nikos is perceptive on these matters,” said Owen coldly. Too coldly. He hadn’t meant it to come out like that. “Anyway, doesn’t Tsakatellis support my argument? He’s foreign.”

“He’s not foreign!” Mahmoud made an angry gesture with his hand. Dismissive. Contemptuous.

“To an Islamic fundamentalist he’s foreign.”

“To a nationalist, too, I suppose?” Mahmoud suddenly boiled over. “Why are you so suspicious?” he shouted. “Why are you always so suspicious?”

“I’m not-”

“You don’t trust us! You are like all the British. You don’t trust Egyptians. You hate us!”

“For God’s sake-”

Mahmoud leaped to his feet and pounded his fist dramatically upon his chest.

“You don’t trust me! Your friend!”

Faces began to peer out of doorways. There was a succession of bangs as the shutters on the doors of the flats of the ladies of the night above began to be flung open.

“Sit down, for goodness’ sake!”

“You are cold! Deep down you are like all the British. Cold!”

“Sit down. Just sit down.”

“You drink coffee with me and then you do not trust me! Your friend.”

“Of course I trust you, I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about Zaw-”

Mahmoud stormed off.

Owen was left agape. This kind of thing had happened before. It was not, in fact, untypical either of Mahmoud or of Arabs. But it always took him by surprise. Something would happen to upset them and then suddenly out of a clear blue sky you’d have a raging storm. The good thing was that it was likely to blow away as quickly as it had come. Even so…

You expected more sense from Mahmoud. This kind of thing was ridiculous. To fly off the handle over a thing like this! It was only a suggestion, damn it all, and not such a bad one at that. It was all very well for Mahmoud to go on about it just being to do with the name but the names terrorist groups chose for themselves often were significant. OK, some of the student groups chose names straight out of the Boy’s Own Paper, they were very young after all, fifteen, sixteen, though that didn’t stop them kidnapping and garrotting. But the names of the serious groups often really did tell you something about the groups. It was a sort of declaration of their allegiances and purposes. Nikos knew more about this sort of thing than Mahmoud did. It was all very well for Mahmoud to talk so dismissively of Nikos’s crazy associations, but Nikos spent all his time dealing with Cairo’s uneasy political underworld and knew the way it worked. Mahmoud was just a straight crime man.