Michael Pearce - The Mamur Zapt and the Night of the Dog

“There must have been someone else involved at some point. Someone put him up to it.”

“Well, do we know that? Are we sure? Maybe he just heard about the Andrus business and took it into his head to avenge it. All by himself.”

Mahmoud happily following a logical trail was a different Mahmoud from the one sensitive to charges of Egyptian incompetence. He had forgotten all about his previous difference with Owen and was now totally caught up with his argument.

“It’s a possibility,” said Owen. “I don’t know I’d go any further.”

The intuitive, Welsh side of Owen always responded to Mahmoud’s Arab inspirationalism; the pragmatic English side damped it down.

“But do you think it’s worth trying?”

“Well-yes.”

“OK, then,” said Mahmoud. “Will you help me?”

The Parquet, true to its French origins, was completely secular and made no distinctions among Cairo’s many religions. Mahmoud, however, like most of the Parquet lawyers, was Moslem. Usually this didn’t matter because the Parquet confined itself to criminal offences and there was no religious dimension involved. Occasionally, however, there was and then, Cairo being Cairo, the Parquet trod very carefully. Mahmoud clearly thought this was one of those times.

“You see,” he said, “it’s the church.”

How would it look if a Moslem took his men into a Christian church on the pretext, as the Copts would see it, of conducting a search? Wouldn’t it come perilously close to desecration? Almost as close, say, as putting a dog in a tomb?

But would it look any better if a Christian Mamur Zapt were to do it? In Cairo there was almost as much difference between Christian and Christian as there was between Christian and Moslem. And the Mamur Zapt wasn’t even an Egyptian Christian.

There was another thing, too. So far he had been able to maintain a claim to even-handedness on the grounds that he treated both sides, Moslems and Copts, with equal severity. Wouldn’t this be seen as tipping the balance?

Mahmoud was watching him anxiously.

If Zoser was hiding in the church and they caught him it would be worth it. But suppose he wasn’t? They would have stirred up trouble for nothing. Just at a time when the Copts were especially sensitive.

Wouldn’t it be better if Mahmoud did it? After all, it was the Parquet’s business. Treat it as he would any ordinary issue and any ordinary criminal. If it had been a brothel or a gaming club Mahmoud wouldn’t have hesitated. He would have sent his men in at once. Why couldn’t he do that now?

But as soon as he posed the question, Owen knew the answer. Mahmoud was quite right. He couldn’t do it. The Copts would object very strongly if Owen were to invade the church; but if Mahmoud did it they would riot.

“OK,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

They moved fast.

This time they were taking no chances. Owen did not even go back to his office. He got Georgiades to bring his men to the Bab es Zuweyla and only then told Georgiades what he had in mind.

“OK,” said Georgiades instantly.

He looked at Mahmoud.

“How many men have you got?”

“Ten.”

“Get some more. Enough to put a ring round the church.”

“I’ve got enough to watch the roads.”

“Yes,” said Georgiades, “but he won’t use those.”

Mahmoud found some more men and Georgiades showed him where to station them. Mahmoud was quite content to follow Georgiades on this. Good investigator though he was, he preferred to leave this side of the business to others. Georgiades would handle it better.

“If he comes running out,” said Georgiades, “at least they’ll see him now. Though whether they’ll be able to do anything about it if they do see him…”

Georgiades had no high opinion of the police.

He gathered his own men into a little bunch and gave them careful instructions. He had used them before and they knew what to do. Intelligence was the thing in a case like this, not brawn. Intelligence-and speed. It would have to be done quickly. The more time they took, the more time there was for a crowd to gather. What Owen wanted was to be in and out fast.

The men rushed in and fanned out quickly. At least there wasn’t a service going on. A few black-gowned priests looked up startled. For a moment or two they couldn’t understand what was happening. Then one of them rushed off.

One of Georgiades’s men intercepted him.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To fetch the Father,” the priest snapped at him.

“You stay here,” said the man.

The priests were shepherded into a little knot. They seemed completely bewildered. Bewildered first and then angry. It was not long before they began to complain.

As the angry voices rose higher and higher other black-gowned figures came in. Among them was an impressively-dressed figure whom Owen recognized to be the Father of the church. He went across to him.

“I am sorry, Father, that this should be so,” he said. “We will not be long.”

“Why are you here?”

“We are looking for an evil man.”

“Here? In the church?”

“I am afraid so.”

“But why here? What reason have you to look here?”

“One has told us.”

It was easier to put it that way. To say that they were here only because of a hunch would not do at all.

“It is an outrage!” the Father said angrily.

“We will not be long.”

Owen walked away. The Father joined the other priests. They crowded round him and began to talk excitedly.

“Have you thought what the Metropolitan will say?” said Georgiades in an aside as he hurried past.

The Metropolitan was the head of the Coptic Church in Egypt. He would not be pleased.

“And the Patriarch?” said Georgiades, the next time he went past.

The Patriarch. Owen had forgotten about him. The Patriarch was head of the whole Coptic Church, including the Abyssinian one, which was Coptic too. Abyssinian. There could be an international complaint. The Patriarch would use the country’s ambassadors. They might go straight to the Foreign Office. The British Government would have to respond. And the British Government, churchgoers like Postlethwaite, would hardly be likely to take kindly to one of its servants invading a church. A Christian church, too.

Owen cursed himself for having been so foolhardy as to get involved in this affair. Why hadn’t he stayed out of it? Got Mahmoud to go in? Even if Mahmoud had refused, would it have mattered so much? They could always have had the church watched and perhaps picked up Zoser when he came out. If he was there, that was. He might not even be there and the whole thing would have been for nothing and all he would have got out of it would have been kicks. This, he told himself, is a big mistake.

It began to look increasingly like it. Georgiades had split his force into two. The first group had taken up position in all the key intersections so that they could control anyone who attempted to pass. The second group had moved immediately into the hekals, the Coptic apses, of which there were many, screened off from the rest of the church by fine, heavily-pictured screens. Beyond there was the baptistery and beyond this a whole host of little rooms used by the priests. The men went methodically through these. They knew what to do. They were used to the job. They performed similar raids every week; not on churches, admittedly, but on printers’ premises, warehouses, gambling dens, brothels and private houses. Garvin himself, before he became Commandant, had been responsible for training them. He had needed expert searchers for his battle against the drug traffic. There were none and he had had to train them. Once trained, they could be used for other things too.