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

“Did the men try to rob the boy?”

“No, effendi. They just beat him.”

“No knives?”

“None, effendi. Just clubs.”

Owen looked at Georgiades.

“They just wanted to scare him,” said the Greek.

“Looks like it, doesn’t it?” said Owen.

He turned sternly on Hamid.

“And all this time,” he said, “you watched and did nothing?” “Yes, effendi,” said the man humbly.

He rubbed one foot against his shin. As the horny sole scraped up and down there was a distinct rasp.

“There were four of them, effendi,” he said, “and they were all bigger and stronger than I.”

“You ought to eat more,” said Georgiades, inspecting him critically. “You could have shouted for the police,” Owen said to Hamid, still sternly but softening.

“Then they would have beaten me, ” said Hamid.

He put the foot back on the ground and examined it carefully. “Besides,” he said, “the friend was calling for the police. And, besides, I was told but to watch.”

It was hardly fair to expect heroics from a man paid a few milliemes an hour. Owen looked at Georgiades and shrugged. Georgiades grinned.

“Our friend keeps his feet on the ground,” he said, “in one sense at least.”

He turned to Hamid.

“So you watched,” he said. “Tell us what you saw.”

“The men went on beating the boy until they tired. Then one of the men said: ‘That is our work well done. Let us go now to the bath house and claim our reward.’ ”

Owen interrupted him.

“ ‘The bath house,’ you said? The hammam?”

“Yes, effendi. They said they would go to the hammam to claim their reward.”

“I don’t suppose,” said Owen, discounting the possibility even before he had said it, “that you followed them to the hammam?”

Hamid traced a long circle with his toe. Reluctantly he raised his eyes to Owen’s.

“Effendi,” he said. “I did.”

“What?”

“The boy was all right,” Hamid pleaded. “I heard him groan. There was a woman by, with onions, and I said: ‘Stay with the boy. His friend comes shortly with aid.’ ”

“Hamid!” said Owen, awestruck. “You have done well.”

“It was all right to leave the boy?” asked Hamid anxiously. “Not to watch?”

“On this occasion,” said Owen, “it was all right.”

“He would not have been able to do anything,” Hamid reassured him. “He had been well beaten.”

“It does not matter,” said Owen.

It did, however, matter to Hamid.

“I would not have left him otherwise,” he assured them.

“On this occasion,” said Owen, “it was justified.”

Hamid was inclined to pursue the point further but Georgiades laid his hand on the Arab’s arm.

“Tell us, ya Hamid,” he said conversationally, “what happened at the hammam?”

Hamid, happier now, stopped tracing patterns on the floor with his toe and looked up brightly.

“When we got to the hammam,” he said, “the men went in.” “Yes?” said Owen, with sinking heart.

“I waited outside lest they suspect I was following them.”

“You did not go in?”

“Oh no, effendi!” Hamid was shocked. “They would have seen me. Besides, it would have cost two piastres.”

“So you waited outside.”

“Yes, effendi.” Hamid beamed.

“And then?”

“Then the men came out,” said Hamid, “and went away. But I did not follow them this time.”

A thought struck him.

“Should I have followed them, effendi?” he asked anxiously. “No,” said Owen, resigned. “No, Hamid. You had done your best.”

“Thank you, effendi,” said Hamid, bursting with pride.

Owen took a deep breath.

“So you did not see the man they talked with,” he said, more in confirmation than in hope.

“Only when he came out with them,” said Hamid.

“You saw him, then?”

“Yes, effendi?” said Hamid, surprised.

Owen fought to keep himself in control.

“What did he look like? What did he say?” he snapped.

Then, realizing that two questions at a time were probably too much for Hamid, he calmed down.

“Tell me, ya Hamid,” he said, in as relaxed a tone as he was capable of, “did you by any chance hear him talking with the men?”

“Yes, effendi,” said Hamid, beginning to worry that he had said or done something wrong.

“Can you remember what was said?”

“The men were grumbling. One said to another: ‘Fifty piastres is not enough.’ Another said: ‘He promised us more.’ The man said: ‘That is all you get until I know you have done your work properly. Come to me tomorrow and I will give you the other fifty.’ The men went on grumbling but he would not give them more. ‘We will come back tomorrow,’ they said. Then they went away.”

Georgiades patted Hamid on the arm.

“You have done well,” he said, “to remember all that. Has he not?” he appealed to Owen.

“He has done very well,” Owen agreed, “and shall be rewarded for it. I do not suppose,” he said, looking at Georgiades, “that he also heard where these bad men were going to meet.”

“At the hammam,” said Hamid promptly.

“At the hammam? Indeed!” said Georgiades. “And I don’t suppose,” he went on, “that they said when this would be?”

“Oh yes they did!” said Hamid, confident again now. “At sunset tomorrow.”

“Would you know the men if you saw them?” Owen asked.

“Oh yes, effendi,” said Hamid fervently.

“And that other? The one they talked with?”

“Oh yes, effendi!”

“Then you have done well!” said Owen, patting him on the shoulder.

“You have done very well!” said Georgiades. “And I shall speak to the senior orderly about you and he will see that you eat well and drink well tonight. Then tomorrow you will help us and for that you will receive double pay. Which you richly deserve!”

He shepherded Hamid off along the corridor. A little later he came back mopping his brow.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I feel as if the heat is getting to me. I have this dream: I am the one sane man in a world of madmen. Or vice versa.”

“For God’s sake don’t let him lose himself,” said Owen.

“I won’t!” Georgiades promised. “Not till after. Then I’ll let him lose himself quick.”

“Keep him here overnight.”

“And all tomorrow as well. I’ve told Osman not to let him go out, not even for a pee. I’ve told Abdul Kassem not to let him out of his sight.”

Owen went across to the window and pushed open the shutters. The cool night air came in. He kept his face there for a moment.

“There is a faint chance that he won’t mess it up tomorrow,” he told the shutters. “Only faint. I’ve been in Cairo long enough to know that.”

“Faint,” Georgiades agreed. “But a chance.”

Nikos stuck his head in.

“There’s a message for you to ring your friend in the Parquet,” he said.

Nikos did not approve of such relations. He was a traditionalist as far as the department was concerned.

He looked pointedly at his watch.

“I am going home.”

“It was a warning,” said Nuri.

He had asked to see them when they arrived at the house the following morning. Their purpose was really to see Ahmed but Nuri’s man had waylaid them.

He received them this time in a small downstairs room he evidently used as a study or library. The walls, unusually for Arab rooms, were lined with books, most of them in French. There was a desk with carved ivory paperweights, cut in the figure of nude women. There was a Persian carpet on the floor, and there were two deep, comfortable, leather armchairs.

Nuri motioned to them to sit in the armchairs. He himself used the high-backed wooden chair at the desk. This gave him the advantage of height. The squat, square form seemed to loom over them.