The Mamur Zapt and the Camel of Destruction
Michael Pearce
In this classic mystery from the award-winning Michael Pearce, a powerful politician is murdered in Cairo in the 1900s and the Mamur Zapt is called in to investigateCairo, 1910. The end of the boom and everyone seems to have money troubles. Then one day a civil servant dies at his desk. Was it pressure of work or something nastier? The whiff of corruption is in the air, with even Gareth Owen, the Mamur Zapt, under suspicion…Owen’s investigation takes him to the heart of a sinister organization. But will he be up to taking them on? And will he be in time to stop the Camel of Destruction running through the city?
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1993
Copyright © Michael Pearce 1993
Michael Pearce asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination
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Source ISBN: 9780008259327
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2017 ISBN: 9780007484980
Version: 2017-09-05
Contents
Cover (#u344fa7ca-c3a3-5a2c-b5fd-d2ffe1a1f63f)
Title Page (#u4491ac3c-9d01-52c4-b226-8ea39b624ff9)
Copyright (#u6edf26c7-e154-5528-a2fc-94622a918d52)
Praise (#ulink_28efcce1-fe52-5d5b-865c-6b75b8908393)
Chapter 1 (#ucf9bf103-30d6-5954-a447-a3370959ab78)
Chapter 2 (#ua1de408a-f45f-55e4-90dd-af5cc76fd972)
Chapter 3 (#u846c8d66-d268-5299-8f7a-c75797d3b413)
Chapter 4 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Michael Pearce (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Praise (#ulink_3f1eba49-d3db-5729-b89f-5dcd5e223bcb)
‘Pearce summons up his vanished world with a finesse that’s dab, fond and droll. Impeccably done’
Literary Review
‘The Mamur Zapt’s sly, irreverent humour continues to refresh the parts others seldom reach’
Observer
‘Pearce’s secret policeman is implausibly likeable’
TLS
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_f947a58d-2e0e-5c97-8b09-a8720a57406a)
It was, alas, not uncommon for senior members of the Department to nod off in their offices, overcome by their exertions and the heat, so when Abdul Latif stuck his head through the door and observed Osman Fingari he thought nothing of it.
It was, however, decidedly unusual for them to be at their posts after two o’clock, when the city as a whole closed down for its siesta; so when, going round to make sure the shutters were closed, Abdul Latif found him still there at three, he was taken aback.
‘It’s not like him,’ he said in the Orderly Room. ‘He’s usually away by two.’
‘He’s usually away by half past eleven,’ said one of the other orderlies.
Abdul Latif felt called on to defend his master.
‘It’s these lunches,’ he said.
‘That’s right. Eat too much, drink too much–’
‘Drink too much?’ Abdul Latif was shocked. Osman Fingari was, so far as he knew, a strict Moslem.
‘He likes his drop.’
Abdul Latif disapproved of this and felt he should bring the conversation to an end.
‘We can’t leave him there,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s not proper,’ said Abdul Latif firmly. ‘Besides, I want to go to the souk.’
‘Then why not go? He can wake himself up, can’t he?’
Unfortunately, this was one thing that Osman Fingari could not do and so it was that the night porter found him still there when he made his rounds at seven o’clock. A cruder individual than Abdul Latif (night porters were paid less than orderlies), and taken by surprise, he said roughly: ‘Here, come on, you can’t do that!’ and shook Osman Fingari by the shoulder.
Whereupon Osman Fingari slid slowly out of his chair and fell to the ground.
‘Nasty thing in one of the offices,’ said Farquahar in the bar the following lunch-time. ‘Chap in Agriculture. Found by the night porter.’
‘Heart attack?’
‘I expect so.’
In the heat of Cairo such things were not unusual and conversation passed to other topics.
Owen, sitting at a table nearby, heard the remark but did not think it worth registering. People were dying all the time in Cairo. Not in Government offices, of course, or something would have had to be done about it. He had, in any case, more important things on his mind.
‘And then the bank manager said to me–’
His companion leaned back wearily.
‘Gareth,’ he said, ‘do you read the newspapers?’
‘Of course I read the papers. Damn it, it’s my job. Part of it,’ he amended.
One of the incidental duties of the Head of Cairo’s Secret Police, the Mamur Zapt, was to read the day’s press. Actually, he read it twice; before publication, to stop undesirable items from getting in, and after publication, to realize, resignedly, that they had.
‘The financial pages?’
‘Well, no.’
They consisted, so far as he could see, entirely of numbers; and on the whole numbers were not considered politically inflammatory.
‘You should.’
‘Cotton prices, contango, that sort of thing? No, thanks.’
‘Take cotton prices, for instance. Nothing interesting about them?’
‘Absolutely nothing,’ said Owen firmly.
‘You have not noticed that they are only half what they were a year ago?’
‘No.’
Cotton was Agriculture’s concern.
‘A half, you say? That’s rather a fall.’
‘It is. And since Egypt depends on cotton, it’s reduced the whole national income. By fifteen per cent.’
‘Hmm. Well, that does seem a lot. But manageable, manageable.’
‘That’s what your bank manager’s doing. Managing it.’
‘Yes, but–’
‘It affects the government finances too, of course. In a big way.’
‘Fifteen per cent?’
‘More.’
‘Well, that is a bit tough. It explains what they’ve been doing to my budget. I thought they were just being bloody-minded as usual.’
‘A thing like this,’ said his companion, who was aide to the Consul-General, ‘gives the bloody-minded their chance. The Old Man’s hospitality allowance has been cut by half. Half! How I’m going to manage that, I don’t know. All these damned visitors! They all expect a free drink, and they measure it in bottles, not glasses.’
‘Another one?’
Owen stood up and picked up Paul’s glass. Paul glanced at his watch.
‘A little one, please. I’ve got a meeting at three.’
Owen stopped, astonished.
‘At three?’
The siesta hour, or two, or three, was normally inviolate.
‘Yes. It’s to do, actually, with the financial pages. Perhaps you should come along.’
‘No, thanks. No-o, thanks.’
On the outside wall of the Governorate was a stout wooden box in which from time immemorial the humble folk of Cairo had deposited petitions, denunciations and information which they wished to bring to the attention of the Mamur Zapt.
The Mamur Zapt was no longer the powerful right-hand man of the Sultan he had been in the seventeenth century – indeed, there was no longer a Sultan – but lots of people did not know that and still insisted on writing to him.
They wrote to him about all sorts of things: the price of bread (risen a lot recently); which of the traders was giving short measure (all, but some more than others); the sexual habits of figures prominent in the city (entertaining and quite possibly accurate).
In among the grimy scraps of paper there were often brief, scribbled messages which were of great use to him in his secret service work.
These were the items to which he turned first: but the items he turned to second were the petitions, of which there were usually quite a lot. Many ordinary Cairenes, completely flummoxed by the Egyptian bureaucracy, which was of an Ottoman labyrinthineness, preferred to make use of the more personal mode of address which the Mamur Zapt’s box represented.
Owen insisted on handling all petitions himself. Often there was little he could do but he always made sure that, so far as they could be, issues raised were followed up. This was very popular with the ordinary folk of Cairo but less so with the bureaucracy, as Nikos, his Official Clerk, pointed out.
It was one of Nikos’s duties to empty the box every day and lay its contents on Owen’s desk. He did not like doing this as it meant going out of his office. He preferred to keep his distance from the hoi polloi.
That went for the contents of the box, too, which he was quite happy to leave to Owen to deal with. Occasionally, though, Owen needed his help; as this morning.
‘Read this. I can’t make head nor tail of it. If it’s a dowry, I don’t want anything to do with it.’
‘It’s not a dowry,’ said Nikos. ‘It’s a waqf.’
A waqf was, Owen knew, a religious bequest or endowment. And that was nearly all he knew about it, except that the waqf fell under Islamic law (and was therefore nothing to do with him) and was extremely complicated.
‘I still don’t want anything to do with it.’
Waqfs were quite common. They were a traditional legal arrangement for the giving of alms. A waqf was an assignment in perpetuity of the income from a piece of property for charitable purposes, the upkeep of houses for the poor, for example, or the maintenance of mosques or hospitals or schools.
It could also, however, be used for the benefit of the founder’s family. The founder could provide for a salary to be paid to a member of his family to act as administrator or stipulate that surplus income be given to his descendants as long as they survived.
Such a system was, of course, open to abuse and over the centuries most possibilities for abuse had been thoroughly explored. From very early days it had been necessary to regulate the system and now, such was the number and scale of waqfs, that task was undertaken by an entire Ministry, the Ministry for Religious Endowments.
‘Not for me,’ said Owen firmly.
‘I will tell you about it,’ said Nikos, disregarding him.
‘It’s from a woman, whose husband benefited for many years from a waqf. He was a schoolteacher and ran a kuttub for small children. It had been in his family for generations. Anyway, he died and she expected the benefit to pass to their son. It didn’t.’
‘I thought these things went on forever?’
‘So did she. Apparently, though, someone invoked a clause she’d never heard of whereby on the death of her husband the benefit passed to a distant male relative. The relative turned out to be senile and was, she says, tricked into selling the benefit to a rich man who now wants to kick her out.’
‘I don’t think I can handle this. I’ll put her on to somebody in the Ministry.’
‘She’s already tried them.’
‘Well – all right, give me the letter. I’ll think about it.’
‘There’s just one other thing. She says several other people in the neighbourhood have recently lost their benefits in a similar way.’
‘The same man?’
‘She doesn’t say.’ Nikos handed back the letter. ‘It would be easy to find out. A walk round the neighbourhood. But, then, that’s something you like doing, isn’t it?’
The phone rang. It was Paul.
‘Gareth, the Old Man would like you to take a look at something.’
‘Yes?’
‘A man died in one of the offices last night.’
‘Yes, I think I heard someone say something about it in the bar.’
‘Did you, now? It’s certainly got around.’
‘What’s special about it?’
Owen, as Mamur Zapt, or what in England would be known as Head of the Political Branch, did not reckon to concern himself with routine crime, if this was a crime.
‘We don’t know there is anything special about it. It’s just that there’s been a reaction to it. A political reaction.’
‘Ah! Well, isn’t that something for you to bother yourself about, not me? I mean, if it’s just a heart attack–’
‘They’re saying it isn’t.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Ali Maher, Abdul Filmi, Al-Nukrashi. And others.’
Owen could understand now. The names were those of prominent politicians. Only one formally belonged to the new Nationalist Party but the others were Nationalist in sympathy and always ready to make the most of any issue which might embarrass the Government.
‘But surely the post-mortem–’
‘There isn’t going to be one. Unless someone says otherwise. A doctor has signed the certificate in the normal way. Natural causes.’
‘They why–’
‘Ali Maher says it’s a fix.’
‘What do the family say?’
‘They want to get on with it. You’ll have to move fast. The body’s being buried this evening.’
That was not unusual. Speed was necessary in the heat.
‘You want me to order a post-mortem?’
Paul hesitated.
‘I want you to take a look at things. Order one only if you think it’s really necessary. We don’t want this to get bigger than it needs to. That would be playing into Ali Maher’s hands.’
Owen, representing the British Administration, went to give his condolences. The family were surprised – they had always known Osman Fingari to be important but hadn’t realized he was that important – but flattered.
‘We knew he’d been doing well in the last year, of course.’
‘He’s had the house altered a lot.’
‘The mandar’ah! New marble entirely.’
‘And not the cheapest!’
‘Oh, he’s done well, all right. But then, he’s had to work for it.’
‘Yes, never home till late at night.’
‘Of course, it took its toll.’
‘Well, yes, that was it, of course, wasn’t it. In the end he paid the price.’
‘You could say he sacrificed himself for his work.’
‘Much appreciated,’ said Owen. ‘Much appreciated.’
They were in the funeral pavilion, which had been erected in the street in front of the house, greatly to the surprise of traffic which had intended to pass by. The tent was crowded, mostly with men in the stiff collar and dark suit and little red pot-like hat, the tarboosh, of the Egyptian civil servant.
‘Would it be possible to pay my respects?’ Owen asked one of the relatives.
‘Of course!’
They pushed their way out of the tent. The street was equally crowded. Apart from onlookers, and as the average Cairene was a great believer in onlooking there were plenty of them, those more intimately involved in the funeral procession were beginning to assemble. There were the blind men, the boys, and the Fikis to chant the suras. There were men with banners and men with torches, for this was evidently going to be a funeral in the old style.
The relative led Owen into the house. From one of the upper floors came the sound of wailing. Owen thought at first that it was the paid mourners but then a door opened and some black-clad women filed down the stairs. The wailing continued up above and he realized that it came from the women of the family.
He followed the relative up the stairs. Outside a door two Fikis were squatting reciting passages from the Koran. The relative pushed open the door and led Owen in.
The body lay in a bier with a rich cashmere shawl draped over it.
Owen advanced and bowed his head. He stood like that for a moment or two and then touched the relative on the arm.
‘May I look one last time on the face of someone who was dear to me?’
‘Of course!’
But, as he bent over the body, there was really no need to look; the smell by itself was sufficient.
‘It was straightforward,’ said Owen, ‘if you set aside nearly causing a riot, antagonizing the Ulama, provoking the Kadi, irritating the Khedive and raising uproar in the National Assembly. Not to mention upsetting a rather nice old couple still in a state of shock after losing their son.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Paul. ‘The others I can live with.’
‘And was it worth it, I ask myself? So he did take poison; where does that get us? Does it matter if he took poison? That’s his business, isn’t it?’
‘Well, not entirely. Why did he take poison? That’s the question they’re asking.’
‘How do I know? Girlfriend, boyfriend, personal problems, fit of depression, overwork – yes, and while we’re on that subject, can I just mention that I was up all last night trying to get the quarter to calm down.’
‘You poor chap! And can I just mention that I myself was up half the night trying to sort out something that was much bigger.’
‘What was that?’
‘The stupidity of bankers.’
‘Heavens, you’ll never be able to do anything about that. My bank manager – never mind my bank manager, what about this chap commiting suicide, what are we going to do about him? And, incidentally–’ a ray of hope gleamed– ‘why am I doing anything about it at all? It’s nothing to do with me. Suicides, murders – that’s the Parquet’s business, surely?’
In Egypt responsibility for investigating a suspected crime did not lie with the police but with the Department of Prosecutions of the Ministry of Justice, the Parquet, as it was known.
‘The Parquet will have to be involved, certainly. It’s a crime, of sorts, and they’ll have to be notified. They’ll check on the circumstances, etc., etc., and make a fine pig’s ear of it, no doubt, but their part of it really is straightforward. No, no, they can be left to get on with that bit. It’s the other bit–’
‘What other bit?’ asked Owen. ‘It sounds as if it’s just a question of managing the Assembly and that’s something you and the Old Man can do, surely? You’re doing it all the time!’
Paul did not reply at once. Owen hoped he was having second thoughts. He wasn’t.
‘I think you’d better stay with it, Gareth,’ he said.
‘Doing what?’
‘Asking yourself why Osman Fingari committed suicide. And why Ali Maher and Co. are so interested.’
There was, then, going to be not one investigation but two. This was, actually, nothing out of the ordinary, for Egypt was a country of parallel processes. There was, for example, not one legal system but four, each with its own courts. Knowledgeable criminals played off one court against another. If they were very knowledgeable, or rich enough to afford a good lawyer, they could often escape conviction altogether.
A similar parallelity could be observed in Government, though here there were only two Governments and not four. One, the formal one, was that of the Khedive; the other, the real one, was that of the British, who had come into Egypt twenty years before to help the Khedive sort out his finances and were still helping. Every Minister, Egyptian, had an Adviser, British, right beside him. The Prime Minister did not; but found it politic to draw abundantly on the wisdom of the Consul-General before adopting a course of action. The system worked surprisingly well. From the British point of view, of course.
Mohammed Fehmi, the Parquet lawyer appointed to handle the case, was an experienced hand. The following morning he called on Owen in his office.
‘Coffee?’
‘Please.’
‘Mazboot?’
Mohammed Fehmi, like most Egyptians, preferred it sweetened.
‘About this case now–’
‘Sad.’
‘Oh yes. Very sad. But straightforward, I would think, wouldn’t you?’
Mohammed Fehmi’s alert brown eyes watched Owen sharply across the cup.
‘Oh yes. Straightforward, I would say.’
‘I was wondering–’ Mohammed Fehmi sipped his coffee again– ‘I was wondering – the nature of the Mamur Zapt’s interest?’
‘General. Oh, very general,’ Owen assured him. ‘I wouldn’t be thinking of taking, um, an active interest–’
‘I would always welcome a colleague–’
‘Oh no. Quite unnecessary, I assure you. Every confidence–’
Mohammed Fehmi looked slightly puzzled.
‘Then, why, may I ask–?’
‘Am I involving myself at all?’ Owen saw no reason why he should not speak the truth. ‘It’s not so much the case itself – that I leave entirely to you – as the possible reaction to it. Politically, I mean.’
‘A fonctionnaire? Civil servant?’
Mohammed Fehmi was still puzzled. However, he shrugged his shoulders. This was evidently political in some strange way and politics was not for him. He was not one of the Parquet’s high fliers.
He had picked up, however, that Owen was leaving the conduct of the investigation to him, and visibly relaxed.
‘After all,’ he said, ‘a simple suicide!’
‘Exactly.’
‘The post-mortem – quite definite.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘I’ll just have to find out where he got it from. And why he took it, of course.’
‘Up to a point.’
‘Oh yes,’ Mohammed Fehmi assured him swiftly. ‘Only up to a point. Otherwise you find yourself into personal matters, family matters, even social matters, that are best left alone.’
‘Quite so.’
‘No,’ said Mohammed Fehmi, finishing his cup and sucking up the last mixture of coffee grounds and sugar, the sweet and the bitter, the taste of Egypt, ‘no, the only puzzling thing about it is why the doctor signed the certificate in the first place.’
Owen called the doctor in. He was a small, shabby man with worried eyes and a lined, anxious face.
‘How did you come to miss it?’
‘I didn’t miss it.’
‘You wrote the certificate knowingly?’
The doctor shrugged.
‘You know, of course, what this means?’
The doctor shrugged again. ‘You do it all the time,’ he said quietly.
‘Sign certificates you know to be false?’
‘It spares the family.’
‘You know why we have the system of certification?’
‘Of course. To prevent abuses.’
Egypt was a country of many abuses.
‘And you still thought you would sign the certificate?’
‘The parents are old. He was their only son. The shock of that was enough without the other.’
‘The other?’
‘Suicide.’
‘Are you sure it was suicide?’
‘What else could it be?’
‘The Under-Secretary,’ said Nikos. ‘The Ministry of Agriculture.’
Owen picked up the phone.
‘Captain Owen? I understand you’re handling the Fingari case?’
‘Well, of course, the Parquet–’
‘Quite so, quite so. But – I understand you’re taking an interest?’
‘Ye-es, in a general way.’
‘Quite so. I was wondering – the circumstances – a bit unfortunate, you know.’
‘Yes?’
‘The Office. The Ministry.’
‘I don’t quite–’
‘Bad for the Department. A bit of a reflection, you know.’
‘Well, yes, but–’
‘I was wondering – just wondering – if it could be moved. Out of the office, I mean.’
‘Surely it has been moved?’ said Owen, startled. ‘It was taken for post-mortem. And before that, the funeral. I saw it myself–’
‘No, no. I don’t mean that. Not the body. The – the incident, rather.’
‘I don’t quite follow–’
‘Moved. Out of the Ministry altogether. Somewhere else. Into the street, perhaps. Or at any rate another Ministry. Public Works, perhaps.’
‘Finance?’
‘Yes. No, on second thoughts. The follow-up could be, well, unfortunate. No, no. Public Works would be better.’
‘Well, yes, but–’
‘You will? Oh, thank you.’
‘An apéritif, perhaps?’
He had met them, as they had suggested, in the bar at the Hotel Continentale. There was an Egyptian, who must be Abdul Khalil, a Greek, Zokosis, presumably, and someone harder to place but definitely a Levantine of sorts, who would be Kifouri.
The waiter brought the drinks: sweet Cyprus wine for Zokosis and Kifouri, a dry sherry for Owen and coffee for Abdul Khalil.
‘As I mentioned over the phone, Captain Owen, we’re businessmen who have quite a lot of dealings with Government Departments. I think you’ll find that Mr Stephens would be prepared to vouch for us–’ Stephens was the Adviser at the Ministry of Finance– ‘and I think it is a mark of our standing that the Minister invited us to join the Board. I mention this so that you will know we are bona fide and also that we are not the sort of men who would want to waste the time of a busy man like yourself.’
Owen bowed acknowledgement.
‘In any case, our concern is, what shall I say, marginal, peripheral, which is why we thought it best to meet informally rather than call on you at your office.’
Owen muttered something suitably non-committal.
‘You are, we understand, taking an interest in a recent sad case of suicide. A man in one of the Departments.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, now, we naturally wouldn’t wish to interfere in any way, believe me, in any way, with your conduct of the investigation – that would be quite improper – and our interest is, as I have said, marginal. However, we knew Mr Fingari and quite recently have been having a number of dealings with him–’
‘Dealings?’
‘A businessman’s way of talking. Conversations, rather. Yes, conversations. Mr Fingari, you see, represented the Ministry on the Board. And naturally, in view of recent developments–’
‘Yes, recent developments,’ echoed the others.
‘That, actually, is why we wanted to have an informal word with you. You see, negotiations are at a critical stage–’
‘And it’s important to carry the community with us. The business community, that is.’
‘And with confidence so low–’
‘It is really a very inopportune moment for him to die.’
‘Most difficult.’
‘Now if only he could have died a day or two later–’
‘You don’t think that could be arranged by any chance, Captain Owen? After all, it makes no real difference. He’s dead anyway, isn’t he?’
‘The family–’ Owen began.
‘Leave that to us. I’m sure that could be arranged. We’ll talk to them, Captain Owen.’
‘But–’
‘Look at it like this; it’s actually giving the poor chap a few extra days of life. Don’t be hard-hearted, Captain Owen. Don’t deny him that! Think of the poor fellow, think of his family–’
‘You want me to alter the date of his death?’
‘Well, that would be most kind of you, Captain Owen. Most kind.’
‘It’s the family, you see.’
‘Distressed, naturally.’
‘It is a very respectable family,’ said Ali Hazurat earnestly. ‘Otherwise Mr Hemdi would not wish his daughter to marry into it.’
‘But–’
‘The arrangements were all made. The wedding contract was about to be signed. My nephew was looking forward–’
‘A dowry?’
‘Considerable. It was a great opportunity for my nephew. And now, alas–’
‘But surely the wedding can go ahead? After a suitable period, of course. Your nephew was not that closely related to Osman Fingari.’
‘It reflects on the family, you see. It’s making Mr Hemdi think again.’
‘Well, I’m sorry about that, but–’
‘It’s the shame, you see. Suicide! No one will want to marry into a family with suicides.’
‘I’m afraid I really don’t see what I can do–’
‘Couldn’t you,’ pleaded Ali Hazwat, ‘just call it something else? An accident, perhaps?’
‘He took prussic acid.’
‘By mistake! Couldn’t it be by mistake? He thought it was something else. The wrong bottle–’
‘Well, at least there’s going to be no doubt about the circumstances,’ said Paul.
‘No?’
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_70a8fce0-d51f-5178-9751-ee45c0fafa51)
‘Alone? Certainly not!’ Mr Istaq was shocked.
‘I do not wish to trouble Mr Fingari, you see.’
‘Well, no, there’s been enough trouble as it is.’
‘And he’s very frail, so I thought–’
‘Well, yes, but – alone! What can you be thinking of, effendi? She is a decent Muslim girl.’
‘It was just that in the circumstances–’
‘Why do you want to see her, anyway, effendi? What can a woman know? Why not ask me? I will do what I can to help you.’
‘Well, thank you, it is very kind of you, Mr Istaq. But then, you see, you would not be able to help me in quite the same way. After all, though a relative, you did not actually live in the house and therefore would not know–’
‘Yes, but alone! With a man! No, really, effendi–’
Mr Istaq, hot, bothered and worried in equal proportions, took some time to be persuaded. He was, when all was said and done, the relative who had shown Owen the body and felt that he bore some responsibility for the consequences.
But then, he was also the closest and most senior male relative and, given old Mr Fingari’s frailty, it all devolved on him anyway. He was a simple journeyman tailor and all this was a bit much for him.
He knew, however, what was proper. And it was not proper to let his niece talk to strange men. Aisha was inclined to be headstrong, anyway. His brother had always given her too much scope. That was all very well, things were not, perhaps, what they used to be, but who would want to marry a woman used to having her own way? And it was likely to be him, Istaq, who would be left with the problem of marrying her off.
In the end a compromise was reached. Owen was allowed to interview her but in Mr Istaq’s presence.
Owen had always known this was the most likely outcome. It was customary in Egypt for female witnesses to be interviewed through their father or husband or a near male relative. He had, however, hoped to avoid it in this case.
The girl appeared, heavily veiled and dressed from head to foot in decent, shapeless black. All that could be seen of her was her eyes, which were suitably cast down.
‘Miss Fingari, I am sorry to trouble you further in such sad circumstances but there are one or two things I would like to ask you.’
The girl moved slightly and Mr Istaq cleared his throat.
‘You saw your brother every day, of course?’
Mr Istaq looked at Aisha, hesitated and then reluctantly admitted that this was so.
‘Had you noticed a change of spirits in him lately?’
‘No,’ said Mr Istaq confidently.
‘Had he seemed at all worried?’
‘No.’
‘Perhaps a little depressed occasionally?’
‘No.’
The girl had not yet spoken.
‘I ask,’ said Owen, ‘because I am wondering what could have brought him to this sad state of mind?’
He put it as a question and then waited, looking inquiringly directly at the girl.
She did not reply. Mr Istaq, not quite sure how to respond, muttered uncertainly: ‘No sad state’.
‘Had he ever talked to you about problems at work?’
‘Certainly not!’ said Mr Istaq, shocked.
‘Or problems not at work. Not at home, of course, but in his private life?’
‘No,’ said Mr Istaq firmly.
‘I wonder,’ said Owen, ‘if there had been any changes lately in his way of life?’
‘No,’ said Mr Istaq.
‘But that is not true, Miss Fingari,’ said Owen, still addressing himself to the girl although she had not yet spoken. ‘Everyone knows that there had been changes in his way of life. He had had a lot done to the house, for a start.’
‘No changes!’ snapped Mr Istaq, caught off balance.
‘But there had been!’ said Owen, wide-eyed. ‘The man-dar’ah – new marble! And I think the better of him for it. So often people rise in the world and forget their family. But was Osman Fingari like that?’
‘No,’ said the girl firmly.
‘No,’ echoed Mr Istaq.
‘Everyone says he loved his parents.’
‘He did,’ said the girl.
‘He did,’ said Mr Istaq.
‘But they were old, Miss Fingari, and he would not have wanted to trouble them. So did he discuss his problems with you, I wonder?’
‘No,’ said Mr Istaq.
The girl said nothing. Her eyes, though, were now raised and she was looking at Owen directly.
‘You see, when men are brought to such a desperate pass, when they are in a state so desperate that they can contemplate a thing like this, it is often because they feel themselves quite alone. Did Osman Fingari feel himself so alone, I ask myself.’
The girl’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Was there no one he could turn to? No one in the whole wide world?’
‘Why do you ask these things,’ the girl suddenly burst out. ‘What business is it of yours? What do you care about my brother?’
‘Aisha!’ cried Mr Istaq, scandalized. ‘Be quiet, girl! You have said enough, more than enough!’
Things were worse even than he had feared. The girl had no idea how to behave.
‘You do not address your elders like that!’
The girl dissolved in a flood of tears.
Both men were at a loss.
‘Now, now!’ said Mr Istaq, chiding but at bottom kind-hearted. He had overdone it. The girl wasn’t used to being corrected. ‘It’s all right! I think we had better stop,’ he said to Owen.
‘Of course!’ Owen could have kicked himself. ‘I am sorry, Miss Fingari. I have no wish to distress you. I have to ask these things. You see, sometimes it is something inside a person that makes them do a thing like this and sometimes it is something outside–’
‘I think we had better stop,’ said Mr Istaq.
Owen, dissatisfied with himself, stopped for a coffee round the corner. He was sitting at a table sipping it when a small boy touched him on the arm. Automatically he felt in his pocket.
‘No, no, effendi!’ protested the small boy. ‘Not that! At least, not just that. Perhaps afterwards – when you have heard my message.’
‘You have a message for me?’
‘Yes, effendi, though I must say, I’m a bit surprised at it, because she’s not been that way before.’
‘Just a minute,’ said Owen. ‘Who sent you?’
‘Aisha.’
‘Miss Fingari?’
‘That’s right. Only we call her Aisha.’
‘What’s the message?’
The little boy reflected. ‘I ought to bargain with you–’
‘Twenty milliemes?’
‘Say, twenty-five.’
‘Twenty-five it is.’
‘Right, then. She wants to see you. Not with her uncle.’
‘Does she say where?’
‘She does. But, effendi, she does not know much about this sort of thing and I do not think that what she proposes is a good idea. She says she will go to the souk and you can meet her on the way. But, effendi, that is not the way to do it.’
‘What is the way to do it?’
‘For that, effendi, I would need the full half piastre.’
‘A fee which fits your talents. For a suitable place no doubt I could find such a sum, exorbitant though it be.’
‘In this world one has to strike hard bargains,’ said the small boy sententiously.
‘Yes, indeed. What do you suggest?’
‘There is a ruined house nearby–’
‘Is it decent enough for Miss Fingari?’
Places like that were used as lavatories.
‘No, but there is a doorway where you would not be seen. It is not very comfortable for your purpose–’
‘My purpose is only conversation.’
‘Well, of course, it’s early days yet–’
The boy led him to the spot. It was a place where two or three tenement buildings had crumbled down together. This was not unusual in Cairo. Houses were often made of sun-dried mud brick and in the rains sometimes dissolved.
The boy picked a way through the rubble, squeezed through a gap between two crumbling walls and brought Owen to an archway set deep below ground level in what remained of the side of a building. It had, perhaps, once led into a cellar.
‘Wait there!’ he said.
A few moments later, Aisha’s veiled form appeared in the gap and stood before the archway uncertainly.
‘Miss Fingari–’
‘I shouldn’t have come here like this. Ali is horrible. Go away, Ali! Mind you go right away! It’s not what you think.’
She came forward determinedly and stepped into the archway.
‘I shouldn’t be doing this. But I had to see you.’
‘It is about Osman?’
‘Yes.’
Under the archway it was dark. Instinctively, she retreated deeper into the shadow. He could not see her eyes but he could tell from the position of her body that she was looking up at him.
‘You hurt me,’ she said, a little shakily, ‘when you said he felt alone.’
‘I don’t know that. It was just–’
‘It was true. Oh, it was true. It must have been true. I tried! But–’
‘You must not blame yourself, Miss Fingari. It is not always possible to break through.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I should have tried harder. I became impatient. When he came home–’ She broke off.
‘When he came home–?’
‘Sometimes he had been drinking. Oh, it’s not such a great fault, I see that now; but it was so different, so – so unexpected. He had always been – he had always behaved properly–’
‘He was a strict Moslem?’
‘Not strict, but – but he did what he should. Until–’
‘Recently?’
‘Yes.’
‘You saw a change in him?’
‘Yes.’
‘What sort of change, Miss Fingari?’
‘He became – not disorderly, but not so ordered. He would come home late. He never used to do that. Now he did it often. He wouldn’t say where he had been–’
‘You asked him?’
‘Yes. We were close. We had been close. He would talk to me when he wouldn’t – He didn’t always feel he could – talk to my parents.’
‘What did he talk about, Miss Fingari?’
‘Oh, nothing much. This goes back a long time. To when he was at school. If something had gone wrong during the day, if someone had been unkind to him, he would run home and pour it all out to me. I was his big sister and – and I remained so even after he started work.’
‘He still talked to you?’
‘Yes. Perhaps even more so. Our parents were growing older. They did not always understand the sort of things he was doing at work–’
‘But you did?’
‘No!’ She laughed. ‘How could I? A woman? Shut up in the house all day. All I knew was the family and the souk. But I had friends, other girls, and they talked about their brothers and I – I learned something, I suppose. Anyway, he felt he could talk to me.’
‘And then he stopped talking to you? When was this?’
‘It was not – not suddenly, not like that. It just – built up over time.’
‘But when did it start? When did you first become aware that you could not talk to him as you used to?’
‘I – I don’t know. Recently. The last few months.’
‘Since he joined the Board?’
‘No. Yes, I suppose,’ she said, surprised. ‘But, effendi, he was not like that. It was not because he became proud. Oh, he was proud of being appointed to the Board, he was very proud of it – and so were we all – but it wasn’t – that wasn’t the reason.’
‘He did change, though?’
‘Not because of that.’
‘Why are you so sure?’
‘Because I know him. And – and because he did talk to me about that, about the people he met – they were very famous people, effendi, even I had heard of them – about the places he used to go to. No, it was not that, it was – afterwards.’
‘Afterwards?’
‘About the time he started coming home later.’
‘That was some time after he had joined the Board?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you any idea, Miss Fingari, why that was? Why did he start coming home late?’
‘He – he was meeting someone. I – I thought it was a woman and teased him. But it wasn’t. He said it wasn’t. And then–’
‘Yes?’
‘That was when he started to come home smelling of drink. I knew then that it was not a woman, that it was someone who was bad for him. I was angry with him, I told him he must not see them, but he said – he said he had to see them–’
‘Had to?’
‘Yes. He said it was business and I said what sort of business was it if it was in the evening and he came home smelling of drink after it and he became angry and said I did not understand. And after that he would not speak with me.’
She began to sob.
‘If I had not been so fierce, perhaps he would have spoken to me. Perhaps I would have been able to help him, save him–’
‘You must not blame yourself, Miss Fingari.’
‘But I do blame myself!’ she said, sobbing. ‘I do blame myself. You were right when you spoke of him being alone. He was alone, and he would not have been if I–’
‘You did what you could, Miss Fingari.’
‘No, not what I could!’
There was a little spasm of sobbing in the shadows. He moved towards her uncertainly, intending to comfort her, but then she stepped forward herself and seized him by the arms.
‘But if I am to blame,’ she hissed, ‘so are they! They brought him to this! You said there was something outside himself. Someone. There was!’
‘Miss Fingari, these may just have been friends–’
‘No. He was different after he had been with them. He began to be different all the time. There was a change, oh yes, there was a change!’
‘You said he was more lax in his behaviour–’
‘No, not lax. Not just lax. Different. They were bad men, Owen effendi. They changed him. He had always been a good man, a good son, a good brother …’
She began to weep steadily.
‘Effendi, you are too rough with her,’ said a voice from outside the archway. ‘Didn’t I tell you she doesn’t know about this sort of thing?’
The sobbing stopped abruptly. There was a sharp intake of breath.
‘Ali, you are disgusting!’ said Aisha, and stalked out into the sunlight.
‘First, it was the kuttub. Then it was the hospital. Then it was the Place for Old People. I tell you, they’re determined to get you one way or another. Next thing, it will be the cemetery!’
‘Next thing it will be the mosque. That comes before the cemetery.’
‘It already is the mosque. Have you talked to Sayid ben Ali Abd’al Shaward lately?’
‘Not him too! I tell you, they’re determined to get us one way or another. The little we’ve got, they want to take away! That’s how it always is for the poor man.’
A general mutter of agreement ran round the circle squatting round the barber’s chair.
‘Abd el-Rahim is not a poor man!’ someone objected.
‘I’m not talking about Abd el-Rahim,’ said the barber, flourishing his scissors. ‘I’m talking about us!’
‘Watch it!’ said the man in the chair, flinching as the blades flashed past his ear.
The barber ignored him and turned to address the assembly.
‘Don’t you see? We’re the ones who are going to lose out. They’ll take the kuttub away. Well, you’ll say, I don’t mind that; my children are grown up. But then, what about the hospital? What about the Place for Old People? You will mind that one day!’
‘What about the mosque?’ muttered someone.
‘You can always go to another one,’ said someone else.
‘Yes, but that’s my point,’ said the barber. ‘You can always go to another one. Your children can go to another kuttub, you can drag your aching bones to another hospital or your old bones to another Place for Old People, but they’ll be somewhere else!’
‘Are you going to cut my hair or not?’ asked the man in the chair.
The barber turned back to him hurriedly.
‘What will become of the neighbourhood,’ he asked over his shoulder, ‘if they take all our amenities away?’
‘It’s going downhill anyway,’ said someone. ‘It’s been going downhill ever since those Sudanis moved in.’
‘It will go downhill a lot faster if there isn’t a kuttub and a hospital,’ said the barber, declining to be diverted. The Sudanis were customers of his.
‘The Shawquats have always had that kuttub,’ said someone ruminatively.
‘And done very well out of it,’ said someone else sceptically.
‘Yes, but it’s terrible to take it away just when they need it, now that the old man’s died.’
‘They’ve still got a piastre or two, I’ll bet. I shan’t be shedding any tears for them.’
‘It still doesn’t seem right. They’ve always had it.’
The barber swung round excitedly.
‘We’ve always had it. The waqfs were set up to benefit us. And now they’re being taken away. All right, the Shawquats have done well out of it, and so has Sayid ben Ali Abd’al Shawad; but we’re the ones who are going to lose!’
‘He’s cut me!’ shouted the man in the chair.
‘It’s nothing! Just a scratch!’
‘I’m bleeding!’
‘He moved! Didn’t he move?’ the barber appealed to the crowd.
‘I didn’t move! I haven’t moved at all!’
‘My God, he’s dead!’ said a caustic voice from the back of the crowd.
Owen eased himself out of the circle. With his dark Welsh colouring and in a tarboosh he looked like any other Levantine effendi: a clerk, perhaps, in the Ministry of Agriculture.
‘It’s a bit of the Camels, old boy,’ said Barclay, of Public Works, that evening at the club.
‘Camels?’ said Owen, bewildered. So far as he had been aware, they had been talking about the destructiveness of road development in an urban environment.
‘Well, Camel at least. Have you heard of the Camel of Destruction? No? It’s a figure from legend, a sort of Apocalyptic Beast. At the beginning of the world, or soon thereafter, it ran amok and threatened to destroy everything. And if you’ve ever seen a camel going wild among a lot of tents you’ll know that that means everything, but everything!’
‘We’ve got past the tent stage now, Barclay,’ said someone superciliously.
‘Yes, but we haven’t done away with the Camel of Destruction,’ said Barclay. ‘Oh no, my goodness we haven’t. Just look around you! Beautiful buildings being pulled down, monsters being put up.’
‘I’d assumed that was all your doing, Barclay,’ said the supercilious one. ‘You’re responsible for planning, aren’t you?’
‘I may be responsible,’ said Barclay, ‘but there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘In Cairo,’ said someone else, ‘money is the only thing that talks.’
‘Well, of course, it’s a complete racket,’ said Barclay.
‘They have to submit plans but then if we turn them down, they can proceed all the same. There’s nothing we can do.’
‘Don’t you have to give planning permission?’
‘No. Take the Hotel Vista, for instance. You’ve seen that big block on the corner of the Sharia El Mustaquat? They sent us the plans. Anyone with half an eye could see they wouldn’t do. The foundations were unstable, the retaining walls – well! We condemned it on grounds of public safety. The next thing we heard, it was going straight ahead.’
There was a general shaking of heads.
‘Mud for mortar. No wonder they come down as fast as they go up!’
‘And there are still plenty going up!’
‘Not as many as there were.’
In the boom of recent years a frenzy of building had overtaken the city. Rows of houses were pulled down; great blocks were run up. And then, when they were only half way up, and neither up nor down, the money had run out. With the general tightening of credit, projects were abandoned all over Cairo, leaving the city looking like one huge derelict building site.
‘There are a few still going ahead,’ said Barclay. ‘One or two of the bigger projects where they’ve borrowed a lot of money and the banks are pressing them and unless they get something back quick they’re sunk.’
‘Anyone buying up land for the next round yet?’ asked Owen. ‘When it all starts up again?’
‘No need to do that,’ said Barclay. ‘There’s land a-plenty. Why do you ask?’
‘Just wondering,’ said Owen.
Later in the evening he found himself standing next to Barclay at the bar.
‘Heard anything about any development in the Derb Aiah area?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Barclay, ‘and I wouldn’t want to. It’s a nice old part – do you know it? Lots of nice old houses. Rabas, not Mameluke – it’s not rich enough for that. Really old, sixteenth–century, I would say, some of them. Some fine public buildings, too, only they’re very small and tucked away among the houses so it’s easy to miss them. A mediæval hospital, tiny, but, well, I’d say unique. Take you over there, if you like, and show you.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Owen. ‘Next week perhaps?’
‘Friday? Fine! It’d be a pleasure.’
Passing Barclay’s table later in the evening, he caught Barclay looking up at him meditatively.
‘I say, old chap, you’ve got me worried. There isn’t anything going on in the Derb Aiah area, is there? I’d hate that part to be spoiled.’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘The only thing I can think of,’ said Barclay, ‘is that someone might be being very smart and thinking a long way ahead.’
‘What might they be thinking?’
‘They might be thinking about the new road there’s talk of on the east side of the city.’
‘What new road is this?’
‘It’s no more than a gleam in the eye, really. But it’s the Khedive’s eye.’
‘There are lots of gleams in his eye,’ said Owen dismissively.
The Khedive’s ambition to emulate the great predecessors who had done so much to modernize Egypt was well known.
‘But the money always runs out. Yes, I know,’ said Barclay.
‘It’ll never happen,’ said Owen confidently.
‘Perhaps someone thinks that this time it will.’
‘Yes, but even if it does … I mean, that would be over on the east side of the city, or so you said. It wouldn’t affect the Derb Aiah.’
‘It might. That’s why I said it might be someone who was looking ahead. They might be thinking that the next road after that would be one thrown across the north of the city to join the Clot Bey. Right through the Derb Aiah.’
‘But that – that’s so speculative!’
‘That’s how speculators make their money. By speculating.’
‘It’s– It’s–’
‘It’s unlikely. Yes, I know. It’ll probably never happen. But you did ask.’
‘Yes, I did. And thanks for telling me. Though I don’t think, in fact–’
‘I hope I’m wrong. Let’s drink to me being wrong. I wouldn’t want to see the Derb Aiah turned into a building site.’
‘Cheers!’
A thought struck him as he put down his glass.
‘That other road, the one on the east side of the city: what line would it take?’
‘It would drop south from the Bab-el-Futuh and come out in the Rumeleh, roughly at the Bab-el-Azab.’
‘But that would go straight through the Old City!’
‘Yes.’
‘It would cause a riot!’
Barclay looked into his beer.
‘Ah yes, I dare say. But that would be something for you, old boy, wouldn’t it?’
‘It’s all right,’ said Paul soothingly.‘It will never happen. The money won’t be there. It never has been, it never will be, and it certainly isn’t there at the moment. And, talking of money–’ he glanced at his watch– ‘I’ve got to go to another of these blessed meetings. You wouldn’t like to come along, would you?’
‘No,’ said Owen.
‘You could sit at the back. It would be good preparation.’
‘Preparation? What for?’
‘Sitting at the front. That’s the first item on the agenda for today, you see.’
‘The Mamur Zapt? About time too!’ said Abdul Aziz Filmi.
The meeting was being held at the Consulate–General, an indication of its importance, as were the people present. Apart from Abdul Aziz, who was the sole representative of the Opposition, there were half a dozen prominent politicians. Owen realized later that they were the senior mentors of the Assembly’s Finance Committee.
There was the Minister there, his Adviser, British, so it must be important, the Governor of the Bank of Egypt, British, one or two foreign bankers and Paul, representing the Consul-General.
‘I don’t agree with you,’ said the Minister sharply. ‘And isn’t it anticipating the agenda? I thought we were going to discuss this.’
‘Captain Owen is not attending as a participant member,’ said Paul smoothly. ‘He has observer status only.’
‘That’s precisely the trouble,’ said Abdul Filmi. ‘This committee’s full of observers. No one is actually doing anything.’
‘There, I think, you’re failing to anticipate the agenda, Mr Filmi,’ said Paul. ‘Shall we begin?’
The subject of the meeting was the current difficulties of the Agricultural Bank. The Bank had been set up a few years before to address the problems of Egypt’s cotton-producing fellahin, or peasants. Chief among these was their chronic indebtedness.
They borrowed to buy the land in the first place; they borrowed to buy seed and fertilizer; and they borrowed in order to live when their returns fell short of their costs. The trouble was that they borrowed from local moneylenders at rates of interest so high as to make it virtually impossible for them ever to repay.
The Agricultural Bank was intended to cut through all this. It lent only to Egyptians (the foreign bankers were not too happy about this), it lent only to fellahin and not to rich landowners (the Minister was not too happy about this) and it lent at low rates of interest (none of the bankers were happy about this). However, it worked.
For a time. But then international cotton prices fell, the boom came to an end, interest rates rose and everyone was in trouble. The Bank was in trouble.
‘Over-lent,’ said one of the foreign bankers.
‘Under-secured,’ said another.
And so, only more so, were the fellahin. A few weeks before, the Bank had started foreclosing on its loans.
‘Outrageous!’ fumed Filmi.
‘Devastating!’ murmured the politicians.
But fortunately the fellahin did not have votes.
‘A financial disaster!’ said the British, who were there, after all, to help the Egyptians avoid financial disasters.
The Bank, in their view, was underfunded. This was not the view of the foreign bankers, however. Nor was it the view of Abdul Aziz Filmi. The money was there, all right. Or should have been there.
‘Where has it gone?’
‘Costs of the recession,’ said the Governor of the Bank of Egypt.
‘Administrative expenses,’ said the Adviser.
‘Inefficiency and waste,’ said the overseas bankers.
‘Corruption,’ said Abdul Aziz Filmi.
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_b5179dfc-1221-5321-b88e-ad558b534281)
‘And what exactly was the nature of Mr Fingari’s work?’ asked Owen.
The Under-Secretary, behind his desk, began to shuffle papers.
‘His work? Oh yes. Well, very important. This is an important Department, Captain Owen. New, but important. Our budget does not really reflect … Of course, you can’t do much with £20,000 (Egyptian). Not if you have to cover the whole country. And not with something like Agriculture. But it’s an important Department.’
‘I see.’
‘We do our best. Of course, with the Khedivial Agricultural Society–’
‘The Khedivial Agricultural Society?’
‘Yes. A very vigorous body. Set up by the Khedive himself a few years ago. With the help of some of your own distinguished compatriots.’
‘The Society comes under your Department, does it?’
‘Oh no, no. Quite independent. Private, you might say. And vigorous, very vigorous.’
‘It promotes discussion, I take it?’
‘Oh yes. Very ardent discussion, yes. And also–’
‘Yes?’
‘It sells.’
‘It engages in business on its own account?’
‘Yes. It sells seed. It has an arrangement with the Agricultural Bank.’
‘I see.’
‘Yes. And – and services, too. It sells services. Veterinary services, pest control … Excellent services, Captain Owen. Of course, we don’t quite have the money ourselves …’
‘What is the relationship between the Society and your Department?’
‘Oh, good. Very good.’
‘Yes, but what does the Department do that the Society does not do?’
The Under-Secretary regarded him thoughtfully.
‘Manure,’ he said.
‘The Department supplies manure?’
‘No, no. The Society does that. Too. That’s another service they offer. And fertilizer.’
‘But then what does the Department do?’
‘Paperwork,’ said the Under-Secretary. ‘Yes, paperwork.’
‘I see. And that’s what Mr Fingari was doing?’
‘Yes.’
‘May I see his office?’
The Under-Secretary summoned a minion to conduct Owen along the corridor but then, unusually, accompanied Owen himself. On the way they acquired several other minions.
The office was of the sort common in the Ministries; high-ceilinged, because of the heat, dark because of the heavy shutters, and oddly green because of the light filtering through the green slats of the shutters. From the ceiling was suspended a huge fan.
Owen glanced at the papers on the desk.
‘All to do with the Agricultural Bank,’ he said.
‘Well, of course; he was the Department’s representative.’
‘Was there anything special that he was engaged with?’
‘No,’ said the Under-Secretary, ‘no, I don’t think so.’
‘I was under the impression that there was.’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
The Minister and the minions departed, leaving Owen alone in Osman Fingari’s office. He went through the desk systematically and then began on the filing cabinets. They were half empty.
He went back to Osman Fingari’s desk and sat down. A turbaned head appeared round the door.
‘Would the Effendi care for some coffee?’ asked Abdul Latif.
The Effendi certainly would.
Abdul Latif disappeared and then came back with a tray on which was set a small brass cup and a large brass coffee-pot.
‘This was how Fingari effendi liked it.’
Owen lifted the lid of the pot. Turkish. He poured some out.
‘Sugar in the right-hand drawer,’ said Abdul Latif.
‘I see you are a man who knows his Effendi’s ways.’
‘I did his office,’ said Abdul Latif proudly.
The dramatic events of the past week had seen a great rise in his status in the orderly room.
‘And very well, too,’ said Owen, looking around.
‘I like to keep on top of things,’ said Abdul Latif modestly, pouncing on a spot of coffee on the tray with his duster.
‘And do you also bring the mail?’
‘I do.’
‘What a weight to carry!’ said Owen, shaking his head.
‘A weight to carry?’ said Abdul Latif, surprised.
‘But what did he actually do?’ asked Owen.
He was talking now to one of Osman Fingari’s colleagues.
‘The Bank–’
‘All his time?’
‘Preparation–’
‘All his time?’
The man capitulated.
‘Perhaps he wasn’t very busy,’ he admitted.
‘Are you all like that? Not very busy?’
‘We should be so lucky!’ said the man bitterly. ‘There are only twenty of us and we have to cover the whole country. They’ve got more in the Agricultural Society!’
‘Then how is it that Fingari wasn’t?’
‘Perhaps – he’s joined us only recently, perhaps he’s not had time to pick things up–’
‘How recently?’
‘Six months. Before that he was at Public Works.’
‘He came to you from Public Works?’
‘Yes. He was brought in specially. So that he could represent us on the Bank. To be fair, he had the background–’
‘Banking?’
‘Control of public expenditure.’
‘And none of you have that background?’
‘Not to the same extent. Public Works is large. We are – small.’
‘What did he do with the rest of his time? When he wasn’t working on the Bank?’
‘I don’t know. None of us know. He kept himself to himself.’
‘Did anyone work with him?’
‘No. His work was, as I have said, very specialized.’
‘So you wouldn’t know anything about these negotiations he’s been engaged in?’
‘Negotiations? I didn’t know he had been engaged in any. What sort of negotiations?’
‘I’m like you: don’t know anything about it.’
‘He’s certainly been going out a lot lately,’ said the man thoughtfully. ‘But we thought – you know, lunch and all that sort of thing–’
‘You don’t know any of the people he used to meet?’
The man shook his head.
‘We didn’t really like to ask him. Thought they might be people he’d worked with when he was at Public Works.’
‘No names?’
‘They’d be in his desk diary. We’re supposed to record–’
‘It doesn’t seem to be here,’ said Owen, searching.
‘Isn’t it? It ought to be. Ya Abdul!’
Abdul Latif appeared in the doorway.
‘Fingari effendi’s Green Book: have you seen it?’
‘It should be on the desk,’ said Abdul Latif, coming into the room.
The Ministry of Agriculture was, as it happened, in the same building as the Ministry of Public Works, occupying part of a corridor on the top floor at the back, which indicated, in the subtle way of the Civil Service, its status as a parvenu.
The building was in the Ministerial Quarter, the Kasr-el-Dubara, which was itself in the same state of incompleteness as the rest of Cairo. Half of it consisted of grubbed up gardens and abandoned foundations, a memento of the recent land-boom, in which the part on the river bank was to have been developed as a fashionable residential area.
The other half of it had already been developed with imposing new Government buildings, set out in French-style ornamental parks with formal flowerbeds and cool promenades of trees.
Owen had intended taking to the promenades but as he came round the corner of the building he saw in front of him the handsome, if rather stolid, edifice of the Ministry of Religious Endowments. Since he was in the neighbourhood …
‘I would like to check the details of a waqf I am interested in,’ he told the clerk at the Reception desk inside. ‘It’s in the Derb Aiah area.’
The clerk, a Nikos in embryo, looked at Owen sniffily.
‘We do not classify them by areas,’ he said.
‘How do you classify them?’
‘By names.’
‘Shawquat.’
‘What sort of name is that?’
‘It’s the name of the beneficiary.’
‘Ah, we don’t classify by the names of beneficiaries. We classify by the name of the original endower.’
‘Mightn’t he be named Shawquat, too?’
‘He might; but then, again, he might not.’
‘Try under Shawquat,’ said Owen.
The clerk took his time.
‘There are several Shawquats.’
‘Fine. I’ll look at them all.’
‘The files would be too heavy to bring.’
‘I’ll look at them where they are.’
Reluctantly, the clerk took him into a back room, very large, occupying the whole of one floor of the vast building.
‘Thank you. How are they organized?’
‘In files.’
Owen considered whether to pick the clerk up, shake him and drop him. But this was not one of the Ministries with an English Adviser, it was a Ministry which, in view of the nature of its business, history mixed with religion, the English thought it politic to leave alone. So he didn’t.
‘Arranged alphabetically by the initial letter of the name?’
‘Of course.’
The clerk went off. As he disappeared behind the stacks Owen heard a voice say softly in Arabic:
‘Is that courteous?’
‘It is only a foreign effendi–’
‘Then that is worse. For in that case you are representing not just the Ministry but also our country: and what will the foreign effendi think of a country whose servants behave as you have just been doing?’
‘I said nothing–’
I heard what you said. And now I will tell you what you will do. You will go round and you will collect all the files that the effendi needs and you will take them to him.’
I–’ began the clerk, but then stopped abruptly.
He began to bring Owen files at speed.
Owen went round the stack to thank his benefactor. He found a young Egyptian, smartly dressed, not in the usual dark suit of the office effendi, but in a light, white, French-style cotton suit and a red tie exactly chosen to go with his red tarboosh.
He was sitting at a table reading one of the files but looked up politely as Owen approached. His eyes opened wide in surprise and he jumped up.
‘Mon cher ami!’
‘Mahmoud!’
‘I didn’t realize–’
They embraced warmly in the Arab fashion.
‘But why,’ demanded Mahmoud, disengaging himself, ‘did you put up with him?’
‘Well, I thought, this is a special Ministry–’
‘But why did you think that?’
‘The religious connection–’
‘But you mustn’t think that! It is just a Ministry like any other. You mustn’t expect less than you would from other Departments. That is to insult it.’
‘It’s not that, exactly–’
‘But this is important! If you do not apply the same standards, is it because you think this is only an Egyptian Department, it’s not a proper one?’
‘No, no. Certainly not! Look, it’s not worth bothering about.’
‘But it is, it is,’ cried Mahmoud excitedly. ‘You put up with it because you say, “They are only Egyptians, you can’t expect anything better;” and that is bad, that is to wrong us, to insult us–’
‘I don’t do anything of the sort–’
‘It is to apply a double standard, one for the English, another for the Egyptians!’
‘Nonsense!’
‘Tell me,’ said Mahmoud fiercely, ‘would you expect the same service if you were in England?’
It was a long time since Owen had been in England. He considered the matter honestly.
‘Yes,’ he said firmly.
‘Yes?’
Mahmoud stopped, astonished.
‘They’re the same the whole world over.’
‘They are?’
‘They are.’
‘Well …’ said Mahmoud, deflating. ‘Well … All the same,’ he shot out as the unfortunate clerk scurried past, ‘the service here needs improving!’
They were old friends and had, indeed, worked together on several important cases. Mahmoud was a lawyer, a rising star of the Parquet.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Owen.
‘Working up a case,’ said Mahmoud. ‘It starts tomorrow.’
‘I didn’t know you were an expert on waqfs.’
‘I’m not. That’s why I’m going over it again before I get in court.’
‘Can I get some free legal advice? No, I’ll tell you what, I’ll pay for it. I’ll take you out to lunch.’
‘You don’t need to pay for it,’ said Mahmoud, ‘but lunch would be a pleasure.’
They agreed to meet at one and for the rest of the morning Owen worked on the files the clerk had brought him, after which he was little the wiser.
‘It is complicated,’ Mahmoud admitted over lunch, ‘but basically what you want to know is: can a waqf be set aside?’
‘That’s right.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘Well, you tell me. Public interest?’
Mahmoud shook his head.
‘Not a chance. There is an issue of public interest, since the endowment was established for the benefit of local children. But if the endowment has merely been transferred, the issue does not arise.’
‘If it’s a developer, he’s going to close down the school.’
‘You’d have to wait until it was clear that was what he was going to do.’
‘It would be too late, then. He’d have demolished the building.’
‘It wouldn’t matter anyway because he could always say he was going to open another school somewhere else in the neighbourhood.’
‘What about the argument that the relative didn’t know what he was doing when he sold the benefit? The Widow Shawquat said he was senile.’
‘She’d have to be able to prove that.’
‘I don’t know that she’d be very good at proving anything. Not if it came to a real legal wrangle with lawyers. The other side would be able to afford good lawyers and she wouldn’t.’
‘I’d do it myself,’ said Mahmoud, ‘only I’m going to be tied up for at least two months. This is a big case.’
‘Oh heavens, no; I wasn’t dreaming of involving you to that extent. In fact, I wasn’t really thinking of involving the Widow Shawquat if I didn’t have to. I was wondering if I could appeal myself.’
‘As Mamur Zapt?’ Mahmoud frowned. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you. The Ministry is nationalist, not in my way but in a different way. They would be prejudiced from the start.’
‘What do I do, then? Someone’s got to formally appeal, presumably?’
‘Yes. But it ought to be someone who would impress the Ministry of Religious Endowments. Someone preferably of religious weight. And that, cher ami,’ said Mahmoud drily, ‘is not you.’
The Agricultural Bank occupied the first and second floors of a large modern building in the Ismailiya Quarter. The ground floor was occupied by a furrier’s, which in the climate of Egypt might appear to err on the optimistic side. The Ismailiya, however, was the fashionable European quarter and its purchasers were thinking more of France than they were of Egypt.
Owen asked about access to the Bank.
‘We don’t deal directly with the public,’ said the clerk to the Board loftily.
He was another Copt, like Nikos. The original inhabitants of the city, before even the Arabs, the Copts seemed to take to administration naturally and settled in the Ministries like water finding its own level.
The Arabs couldn’t understand it at all. They thought they had defeated them and now here they were being governed by them! It was another of the little things that didn’t help the popular attitude towards the Civil Service.
‘How do you deal with them, then?’ asked Owen.
‘We lay down policy.’
I thought you made grants to fellahin?’
‘We do that through the omda.’ The village headman.
‘And you don’t go out to the villages yourselves?’
‘I believe some people do.’
He brought Owen minutes of the Board’s meetings and papers recently considered.
‘Self-explanatory, I think.’
Owen detained him.
‘The thing I’m trying to establish is Mr Fingari’s exact role.’
‘He represented the Ministry.’
‘I know. What did he do?’
‘He expressed the Ministry’s viewpoint.’
‘Which was?’
The clerk gestured towards the papers.
‘It’s all in the minutes,’ he said.
A Greek, expensively dressed and with an air of seniority, came through the door. Owen recognized him. It was Zokosis, one of the businessmen who had invited him to meet them at the Hotel Continentale. He shook hands.
‘I hope Petros has been helping you?’
‘We have some way to go.’
‘Ah!’ He sat down. ‘Try me.’
‘Thank you. I’m trying to establish what Fingari actually did.’
The Greek laughed. ‘Good question,’ he said. ‘At least, I think so. I wonder what any of them do. Well, look, all I can do is tell you what he did for us. He attended Board meetings once a month. Meetings usually occupy the whole morning.’
‘And in between?’
‘Well, of course, there would be papers to read. Possibly he even drafted one or two papers. Although off-hand I can’t … I’ll get Petros to check.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I really can’t recall …’
‘You know, Mr Zokosis, you surprise me. You gave me the impression at the Continentale that his work was important.’
‘Did I? A businessman’s way of talking, perhaps.’
‘You wanted me to change the date of his death.’
‘Not quite as crudely as that, I hope. But certainly his death was inconvenient to us. You see, we were just negotiating – we thought we had negotiated, in fact – an important arrangement with the Ministry and we didn’t want to go through all that again.’
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