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

For another thing, there was this unfortunate business of the harem. “I really must apologize," he began. “I had no idea you were-” And stopped.

“A member of the harem?” she finished for him icily. “I am not. Any more than you are one of Guzman’s eunuchs.”

There was a delighted intake of breath in the corridor. Owen wondered who was listening. Indeed, now he noticed it, there was such a silence along the corridor that probably everybody was listening.

He got up and shut the door. That made it almost unbearably hot, so he turned on the fan. That levitated the papers on his desk. He made a grab at them and weighted them down with a couple of files. Some of them, however, escaped on to the floor.

He felt he was being excessively clumsy; in all ways.

He looked up and found large dark eyes regarding him with definite amusement.

“Anyway,” he said firmly, pulling himself together, “I am sorry.” "It was a little unexpected,” she said.

“It was a mistake,” said Owen. He felt an urgent need to explain. “We were chasing a man. One of my people thought he came into the house.”

“Perhaps he did,” she said cooperatively. “It’s a favourite trick in Cairo for pickpockets being chased to run into the courtyard of an old house. There’s usually a second entrance. They run in one and then straight out the other.”

“My man’s experienced,” said Owen. “He ought to have looked out for that.”

“How could he? Unless he had run into the courtyard himself.” “He had to be careful. The other man had grenades.”

“Yes,” she said, “so I heard.”

It must be all over Cairo now, he thought bitterly.

There was a little silence. Then she said: “But that didn’t stop you from sending your men in.”

“No.”

“I was in the house,” she said. “So were others.”

“It was a risk,” he admitted.

“Yes,” she said. “It was. For us!”

“I had to take it,” said Owen.

The dark eyes regarded him soberly. Then, suddenly, again there was the flicker of amusement.

“How definite of you!” she said drily. “And how British!”

Owen began to feel like McPhee again.

“I am sorry,” he said again.

Then, feeling that he was being unnecessarily defensive: “You were in the house. I take it you were visiting?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. Relenting, she added: “I wasn’t really visiting them, but since I was in the house I thought I’d better call on them. It means so much to them when someone calls. They lead such boring lives.”

Owen wondered if she had been seeing Guzman and felt an unreasonable pang of jealousy.

“You remember that girl? Leila? The one my father made pregnant?”

“Mustafa’s wife’s — ”

“So that’s his name, is it?” she said. “Yes. That one. Well, my father is not such a monster as you think. He always looks after the women. He asked Guzman to take her in as a washerwoman. Guzman is an old friend of his. They worked together for the Khedive even before my father became a minister. I was coming to see how she was.”

“I thought she was staying with relatives?”

“She is. She comes in daily. They live not far from here. They are very poor. They couldn’t manage if she didn’t work.”

“Mustafa spoke of others providing. Did he mean your father?” “Surely not,” she said. “He would never accept anything from my father. That’s why my father had to be indirect.”

Sometimes it seemed to Owen that the whole of Egypt was bound together by intricate, interlinked systems of obligations, favours and rewards, subtle reciprocities, often to do with family, which connected people in unexpected ways. It was an immensely powerful moral system and if you lived in Egypt you could not escape its pressure. “This is my brother’s son,” Yussuf had said one day, presenting a grubby little urchin, and Owen had known that he was expected to do something about it. McPhee had found the boy a place in the stables and Yussuf’s standing with his family had been saved. For someone like Nuri the system’s imperatives probably counted for more than those of the courts.

“I wanted to see you,” said Zeinab, and then broke off.

“Yes?” said Owen, expecdng it to be something to do with her father.

“It’s about Aziz.”

“Aziz? The Syrian?”

“Yes. The one whose house you raided yesterday.”

“And rightly, too, this time,” said Owen. “That’s how we came upon the grenades.”

She waved a hand dismissively.

“You know him, too?”

“His wife. She is Raoul’s wife’s sister.”

Owen remembered Raoul from Fakhri’s party and felt another pang of jealousy. He wondered what, among this web of relationships, was the nature of Raoul’s relationship with Zeinab.

“She came to see Raoul this morning. She is very worried.”

She hesitated.

“And what precisely is she worried about?” asked Owen, remembering the face he had seen at the door.

“Aziz has been foolish,” Zeinab said. “She is worried that now you have found out about him you will pursue him. He will make another mistake and then you will put him in prison.”

If only it was so simple, thought Owen. Out loud he said: “If he deals in grenades he must expect to be in trouble.”

“He would like to stop. He only began it because he needed the money.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“Yes, but in his case it was different. When he first came to Cairo, about ten years ago, he worked very hard and built up a legitimate business. Then one of his partners suddenly pulled out leaving him with huge debts. He had young children and did not know where to turn. The chance came up, he took it, it helped-”

“And then he couldn’t stop,” said Owen.

“He can stop. He wants to stop. Only…”

“Only what?”

“He’s frightened.”

“Of me?”

“Not of you. His wife is frightened of you.”

“Thanks. What’s he frightened of?”

She looked at him carefully, as if making a judgement. The decision was reached.

“One of the clubs.”

“Which?” “I don’t know.”

Zeinab pushed back the edge of the scarf where the heat was making it stick to her face.

“I know only what she told me,” she said. ‘‘That’s why she came to see Raoul this morning.”

‘‘And Raoul told you to come and see me?”

“No,” she said. “Raoul does not know I am seeing you. She talked to me afterwards. I decided to come and see you.”

Owen considered.

“What would Raoul’s advice have been?”

“The usual, I expect,” she said. “To pay and keep quiet.”

“But you thought differently?”

“I am sorry for the woman,” she said. “She is expecting another child. She has had two miscarriages already.”

Owen was thinking about what Garvin had said. About building up his own map of Cairo.

“I might not pursue Aziz,” he said, “if Aziz could help me occasionally.”

Zeinab shook her head. “He’s too frightened.”

“No one would know.”

“He would still be too frightened.”

Owen nodded slowly. There was no need to press.

“I might leave him alone anyway,” he said. “He’s a small fish.” “Thank you.”

“Was that what you wanted?” he asked. “What you came for?” “Ye-es. And to give you the information.”

“About the club? It’s interesting,” he said, “but I need to know more. Its name, for instance. Would his wife know?”

“You are not to approach her!” she said fiercely. “She is frightened enough already.”

“Could you find out? She might talk to you.”

“You are asking a lot.”

“It was your father,” he pointed out. “And he might still be at risk.”