Michael Pearce - The Mamur Zapt and the Donkey-Vous

‘Yes,’ said Mahmoud, ‘they know something. But how much do they know?’

‘They know how he disappeared.’

‘Yes,’ Mahmoud admitted, ‘they might know that.’

‘They said he didn’t come down the steps.’

‘They didn’t quite say that. Anyway, I believe the snake-charmer.’

‘The charmer said the old man had been helped down. We haven’t been able to find anyone who helped him.’

‘Not on the hotel staff. It might have been a guest.’

‘We could ask around, I suppose. It won’t be popular with the hotel.’

‘A crime has been committed,’ Mahmoud pointed out. When in pursuit of his duties, he was not disposed to make concessions.

‘We don’t know that yet.’

‘At least we could try the ones on the tables nearest him.’

‘If we could find out who they were.’

‘The waiters will have a good idea. They’ll be intelligent in place like this. I’ve got them making a list.’

‘Even if we knew,’ said Owen, ‘would it help much? I mean, it might have been just a casual thing. Somebody saw him trying to get down the steps and helped him out of kindness.’

‘We’d know definitely that he came down the steps. It would confirm the charmer’s story.’

‘And challenge the donkey-boys’.’

‘Yes. We would be back to the donkey-boys.’

‘But they’re not talking. Why aren’t they talking?’

‘Why should they help the authorities? Especially if they’re not their authorities.’

‘Well, hell, they’re the only authorities they’ve got.’

‘The one thing Egyptians have learned over the centuries,’ said Mahmoud, ‘if they’ve learned anything over the centuries, is to keep clear of the authorities, never mind who they are. Anyway,’ he added, ‘there’s probably another explanation.’

‘Which is?’

‘They’ve been paid to keep their mouths shut.’

‘Like the charmer?’

‘No. He’s not been paid. He’s just frightened.’

‘You think someone’s frightened him?’

‘Possibly.’

‘And paid the donkey-boys?’

‘Possibly.’

‘So you think it was a kidnapping, then?’

‘I haven’t got that far yet. I’m waiting for the note.’

It came just before midnight. McPhee emerged from the hotel and walked slowly across to them. He was carrying a slip of paper in his hand which he laid on the table in front of them. Owen read it by the light of one of the standard lamps. It was in the ornate script of the bazaar letter-writer.

Mr Yves Berthelot.

Greetings. This letter is from the Zawia Group. We have taken your esteemed uncle. If you want to see him again you must pay the sum of 100,000 piastres which we know you will do as you are a generous person and will want to see your uncle again. If you do not pay, your uncle will be killed. We will tell you later how to get the money to us.

Meanwhile, I remain, Sir, your humble and obedient servant

The Leader of the Zawia Group.

‘Zawia?’ said Mahmoud. ‘Have you heard of them?’

‘No,’ said Owen, ‘they’re new.’

‘Taking tourists is new, too,’ said McPhee.

‘Yes. It doesn’t look like the usual kind of group.’

‘I take it you’ll have nothing in the files?’ said Mahmoud.

‘I’ll get Nikos to check. I don’t recognize the name but maybe we will.’

‘How did it come?’

‘It appeared in Moulin’s pigeonhole. Berthelot found it when he went to check the mail. I’ve had him checking it at regular intervals.’

‘Presumably it was just handed in?’

‘Left on the counter when the receptionist was busy.’

‘He didn’t notice who left it?’

‘No.’

Mahmoud sighed.

Owen looked along the terrace. The conviviality at the far end had developed into quite a party. Corks were popping, people laughing, suffragis bustling with new bottles. The general gaiety spread far out into the night. At the intervening tables people were sitting more quietly. They were mostly in evening dress, having come out into the cool air after dinner. They looked relaxed, confident, immune. But from somewhere out in the darkness something had struck at these bright, impervious people: struck once and could strike again.

CHAPTER 2

‘Even if it is a kidnapping,’ said Owen, ‘there’s no need for me to be involved.’

‘Oh?’ said Garvin. ‘Why not?’

Garvin was the Commandant of the Cairo Police. It was an indication of something special that he was taking an interest in the case. Normally he left such matters to his deputy, the Assistant Commander, McPhee.

‘It’s not political.’

‘If it’s a Frenchman,’ said Garvin, ‘then it is political.’

‘Zawia?’ said Nikos. ‘That’s a new one. It’s not the usual sort of name, either.’

Most of the kidnappings in Cairo were carried out by political ‘clubs’, extremist in character and therefore banned, therefore secret. It was a standard way of raising money for political purposes. The ‘clubs’ tended to have names like ‘The Black Hand’, ‘The Cobra Group’ or ‘The Red Dagger’. Owen sometimes found the political underworld of Cairo disconcertingly similar to the pages of the Boy’s Own Paper . There was in fact a reason for the similarity. Many of the ‘clubs’ were based on the great El Azhar university, where the students tended to be younger than in European universities. In England, indeed, they would have been still at school, a fact which did not stop them from kidnapping, garrotting and demanding money with menaces but which led them to express their demands in a luridly melodramatic way.

‘Zawia?’ said Owen. ‘I don’t know that word. What does it mean?’

‘A place for disciples. A—I think you would call it—a convent.’

‘A place for women?’

‘Certainly not!’ said Nikos, astonished yet again at the ignorance of his masters. Nikos was the Mamur Zapt’s Official Secretary, a post of considerable power, which Nikos relished, and much potential for patronage, which Nikos had so far, to the best of Owen’s knowledge, not thought fit to use. ‘It is a Senussi term.’

The Senussi were an Islamic order, not strong in Egypt, but strong everywhere else in North Africa.

‘It also means corner, junction, turning-point.’

‘Turning-point?’ said Owen, alert to all the shades of significance of revolutionary rhetoric. ‘I’m not sure I like that.’

‘I’m not sure I like it if it’s a convent,’ said Nikos. ‘Particularly if it’s a Senussi one.’

Midway through the morning Nikos put a phone call through to him. It was one of the Consul-General’s aides. Since the British Consul-General was the man who really ran Egypt Owen paid attention. Anyway, the aide was a friend of his.

‘It’s about Octave Moulin,’ his friend said.

‘Moulin?’

‘The one who was kidnapped. I take it you’re involved?’

‘On the fringe.’

‘If I were you I’d move off the fringe pretty quickly and get into the centre.’

‘Because he’s a Frenchman?’

‘Because of the sort of Frenchman he is. His wife is a cousin of the French President’s wife.’

‘The French Chargé was round pretty quickly.’

‘He would be. They know Moulin at the Consulate, of course.’

‘Because of his wife?’

‘And other things. You know what he’s doing here, don’t you?’

‘Business interests?’

‘The Aswan Dam. He represents a consortium of French interests who are tendering for the next phase.’

‘I thought it had gone to Aird and Co.?’

‘Well, it has, and the French are not too happy about that. They say that all the contracts have gone to British firms and they wonder why.’