Michael Pearce - The Mamur Zapt and the return of the Carpet

Nikos sniffed. “They’ll be all over the law school by now.” “You’d be surprised at the indifference of people,” Georgiades said. “Business was not exactly brisk. If you want me to-” he said, turning to Owen.

“No. It’s not worth bothering.”

Owen picked up the handbill and examined it. Seditious leaflets were as common in Cairo as pornographic postcards. It was impossible to control them all and Owen usually contented himself with confiscating a sample and destroying the printer’s type. In the case of leaflets considered inflammatory, however, the working rule was to suppress the run completely. There was not much doubt that this one was inflammatory, but if it had already been distributed it was too late. “Have you come across any more of these?” he asked.

“No.”

“It’s funny no one else is distributing them,” said Nikos.

“Perhaps he’s the only one dumb enough?” suggested Georgiades. “That might mean the printer’s not got a proper distribution system set up yet,” said Nikos, disregarding him. He took the handbill from Owen. “I don’t recognize the printer,” he said. “Do you?” he asked Georgiades.

Georgiades shook his head. “He’s new.”

“That fits,” said Nikos.

“How did he get in touch with Ahmed?” asked Owen.

“Or Ahmed with him,” said Georgiades. “An interesting question.” He looked at Owen. “Want me to find who printed this?” “Yes,” said Owen, “and when you do find him, don’t do anything.” “You don’t want me to call on him?” asked Georgiades, surprised. “Not immediately. Not yet. Put a man on him. Not too obviously.” He could easily accommodate it within his budget. In Cairo it was the bribes that were expensive. The men came cheap.

Georgiades and Nikos had hardly left when Nikos was back on the phone.

“I’ve got a call for you,” he said. “Guzman. He wants to talk to you about thefts from Army barracks.”

He cackled loudly and put Guzman through.

“What is this I hear about dangerous lapses in military security?” said the harsh voice.

“I don’t know what you hear,” said Owen. “Do tell me.”

“Your memo to the British Agent-”

“I didn’t know you were on the circulation list,” said Owen.

“You should have put me on,” said Guzman. “The Khedive is interested.”

“Purely internal matter,” said Owen smoothly.

“Internal? Where threats to security are concerned? Perhaps to the Khedive himself? You yourself speak of risk to important people.” “Not the Khedive, surely?”

He wondered how Guzman had got hold of the memo. By the same means as Owen got hold of the Khedive’s internal memos, he supposed. Still, it was disquieting.

“What are you doing about it?” asked Guzman.

“Setting up appropriate liaison machinery, reviewing existing security arrangements, replacing where appropriate by new ones-that sort of thing,” said Owen.

“About time, too!” snapped the Turk.

“That is, of course, what the memo argues.”

“But you are responsible for security.”

“Oh no,” said Owen. “Not military security. I suggest you talk to the Sirdar.”

And he’ll bloody sort you out, he said under his breath.

“I shall,” said Guzman. “Meanwhile, how are you getting on with your own investigations?”

“Fine,” said Owen. “Fine, thanks.”

“Have you arrested the murderers yet?” “What murderers did you have in mind?” asked Owen.

“The Nuri murderers. That is your responsibility, isn’t it?” the Turk added sarcastically.

“Afraid not. The Parquet. The police,” Owen said airily.

“And Security?”

“There are, indeed, security aspects,” said Owen. “I’m looking into those. Hence my memo.”

There was a silence at the other end of the phone. Owen wondered whether Guzman had rung off. He was about to put the phone down when the Turk spoke again.

“The Khedive would appreciate more cooperation from the Mamur Zapt.”

Owen took that, correctly, for a threat.

“You can assure the Khedive of our fullest cooperation,” he said heartily.

Again there was a pause.

“I have not had your report yet,” said Guzman.

“That’s strange!” said Owen. “I sent it off.”

“To me?”

“Of course. Perhaps it’s stuck in your front office?”

“Or yours. Or perhaps you haven’t written it.”

“Oh no,” said Owen. “I have certainly written it. I think.”

“I shall complain to the Agent,” said Guzman, and rang off.

Owen sighed.

Nikos, who had been listening throughout, rang through again.

“Why didn’t you put him on to Brooker?” he asked.

In this outer part of Cairo the houses were single-storey. A low mud brick wall screened them and their women from the outside world. Beyond the houses was the desert, flat, grey, empty, except for a few wisps of thorn bushes.

Mahmoud met Owen in the open square where the buses turned.

“I thought it better like this,” he said. “Otherwise you’d never find it.”

He led Owen up a dark alley which narrowed and bent and doubled back on itself and soon lost its identity in a maze of other alleys threading through and connecting the houses. In the poorer suburbs there were no roads. The alleys were the only approach and these were thick with mud and refuse and excrement.

In the dark Owen could not see, but he could smell, and as he stumbled along, his feet skidding and squashing, he could guess. There were, too, the little scurries of rats.

The only light was from the sky. Out here there was no reflected glare from the city’s lights and you could see the stars clearly. The sky seemed quite light compared with the dark shadows of the alleys.

Occasionally you heard people beyond the walls and often there was the smell of cooking. Once or twice the voices came from the roofs where the people had taken their beds and lay out in the evening cool.

The alleys became narrower and the walls poorer and more dilapidated. There were gaps in them where bricks had fallen away and not been repaired. You could see the spaces against the sky.

Some of the bricks had fallen into the alleyways and there were heaps of rubble and other stuff that Owen had to climb over or wade through.

They came out into what at first Owen thought was a small square but in fact was a space where a house had fallen down. He heard Mahmoud talking to someone and then felt Mahmoud’s hand on his arm gently guiding him along a wall. There was a small doorway in the wall, or perhaps it was just a gap. Mahmoud slipped through it and drew Owen after him.

They were in a small yard. Over to one side there was a little oil lamp on the ground, around which some women were squatting. They looked up as Mahmoud approached but did not move away, as women usually would. They wore no veils, and in the light from the lamp Owen could see they were Berberines, their faces marked and tattooed with the tribal scars.

He followed Mahmoud into the house. There was just the single room. In one corner there was a low fire from which the smoke wavered up uncertainly to a hole in the roof, first wandering about the room and filling the air with its acrid fumes. On the floor was another oil lamp, and beside it two people were sitting, one of them a policeman. The other man looked up. He was gaunt and emaciated and plainly uneasy.

Mahmoud muttered something and the policeman left the room. They squatted down opposite the other man.

The smell of excrement was strong in the air. So was another smell, heavy, sickly, sweet. Owen recognized it to be hashish.

The man waited patiently.

Eventually Mahmoud said: “You travel the villages?”