The Men Behind (8 page)

The messenger was a cheerful Sudani from the south, middle-aged and sensible looking.

“Hello,” said Owen. “You’re far from home, aren’t you? Where is it you come from?”

“Dongola, effendi.”

“Then you
are
a long way from home. I’ve been there once but it was a long time ago now.”

“It’s even longer since I was there,” said the messenger. “The Pasha brought me as a boy to his estate at Hamada, where I have been ever since. That is where my wife and children are too. But for the last four years I have been at the Pasha’s house in the city.”

“Long enough to know your way around,” said Owen.

“I know the city pretty well. The Pasha often makes use of me.”

“He has sent a lot of messengers to me lately but I have not seen your face before.”

“No. But this time is different.”

“Why is it different?”

“He wants to be sure the message reaches you.”

“His messages have always reached me.”

“So they should. But this message is important and he wanted to be sure.”

“You know what the message was?”

The man hesitated. “The Pasha does not tell me these things,” he said, “nor can I read them.”

“But you know.”

“Well…” said the man.

“The Pasha believes he has been followed by bad men.”

The messenger nodded.

“Were you with the Pasha when he was followed?”

“No. Hamid was.”

“He has spoken of it?”

“A little.”

“About being followed?”

“He told us about it when he got back. He said the Pasha was disturbed.”

“Did he himself see those who followed?”

“Suleiman was with him. The Pasha said: ‘Do you see those two men?’ They both looked and Suleiman thought he saw the men. Hamid was not sure. The Pasha said: ‘I saw them before, in the Midan Nasriyeh. Now I see them again. Let us go home quickly. Tell me if you see them again.’ ”

“And did they see them again?”

“No. Suleiman thought they might have seen them looking and knew they were on their guard. But the Pasha was mightily disturbed and hurried home.”

“Tell him I will come,” said Owen.

“You are wasting your time,” said Nikos, when Owen went back to the office to fetch his hat. “He’s imagining it. It doesn’t fit the pattern.”

“What do you mean?”

“It is only people like Mr. Jullians who are followed. People who serve the Administration. Not Pashas.”

“Pashas sometimes serve the Administration.”

“Ali Osman?”

“He was a member of the Government.”

“Pashas are not part of the pattern,” Nikos repeated stubbornly.

All the same, Owen went.

He found Ali Osman, as before, lying on the dais, plumped up by cushions and surrounded by servants. The Pasha’s eyes lit up when he saw Owen.

“Ah! The Khedive has sent you?”

“I am afraid not. Not on this occasion. I came in response to your own message.”

“Ah well. It doesn’t matter.”

Ali Osman seemed, however, downcast.

He waved a plump hand and servants arranged the cushions for Owen to sit on the edge of the dais.

“It is good of you to come, old fellow,” said the Pasha. “Things are getting serious.”

“Abdul Maher—?”

“
Not
Abdul Maher,” the Pasha said soberly. “Not this time.”

His own description of what had happened matched the other ones Owen had received, was similar, indeed, to his own experience. It was sufficiently similar to incline Owen to take it seriously, despite what Nikos had said. At the same time it was as sketchy as all the other accounts and there might be nothing in it.

“I need your help, Captain Owen,” said Ali Osman Pasha, “badly.”

He clapped his hands. Two servants came into the room carrying an object covered with a cloth. They put it on the dais beside Owen and removed the cloth. It was a marvelous old mosque lamp of enameled glass made at the end of the Middle Ages with a workmanship which had not been equaled since.

“For you,” said Ali Osman.

Owen took it in both hands.

“It is exquisite,” he said. He was not a true collector but even he could see at once what a remarkable piece it was. “Exquisite!”

He put it down regretfully.

“Alas, Pasha, much, very much, as I would like to, I cannot accept it. These tiresome English customs, you know. It is our masters at home. They are so afraid of our falling into the delightful ways of the East that they make it a rule that no one in Government employment can accept or give presents.”

“Oh, it’s not a present,” said Ali Osman, “it’s a loan. Think of it as a loan, a long loan. And if it worries you, you can lend it yourself to the Collection in the Museum until such time as you leave Egypt, when you can take it with you as a small memento of your time here.”

Owen laughed. “You are very persuasive, Pasha, and I can see how successful a Parliamentarian you must be. But even a loan—well, I’m afraid not. Though I shall retain the memory of your kind gesture and take
that
away with me as a delightful memento of our friendship.”

Ali Osman let the lamp remain on the dais as continuing blandishment.

“In any case,” said Owen, “it would make no difference to our eagerness to offer you as much protection as we can. I can certainly arrange a bodyguard, if you wish. However—”

It was then that he had made his suggestion, the same one he had made to Nuri. Might not this be a good time for a fatigued public servant to take a vacation, either abroad or on his estates? At any rate, away from Cairo.

Unlike Nuri, Ali Osman did not at once dismiss it.

“You think so?” he asked.

“If the Khedive can spare you.”

“Alas,” said Ali Osman gloomily, “the Khedive seems able to spare me only too easily.”

Owen caught sight of Fairclough across the bar. There was a crowd of people in between them and Owen wasn’t sure that Fairclough had noticed him. However, a little while later Fairclough touched him on the shoulder.

“Owe you one for stepping in the other day. That silly beggar would have gone on forever. What’ll you have?” As Fairclough bore his glass away for a refill, Owen wondered whether a drink constituted a present. A drink was acceptable, wasn’t it? Why not Ali Osman’s beautiful lamp? Try as he might, he couldn’t persuade himself. Ali Osman’s lamp was not like that.

He sighed.

“Terribly sorry, old man,” said Fairclough, appearing beside him. “It’s taken bloody ages. They had to go to the storeroom to fetch some more and that meant getting the key from the Effendi and all that sort of thing.”

“That’s OK.”

He raised his glass.

“Cheers,” said Fairclough, drinking deep.

He put the glass down.

“Been thinking,” he said. “Wondering why they picked on me. But maybe it wasn’t like that. Maybe it was a question not of picking
on
me but of picking
out
. Different thing. You see, if it’s not a matter of what a chap’s done but just of him being British, anyone British would do. But there’s still the question of why pick this one and not that one.”

“A matter of luck, I would say.”

“Yes, but there must be something that makes them notice you. I mean among all the others. Now, I don’t flatter myself I’m a particularly noticeable chap—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that!”

“—but there must be something. So I’ve been asking myself what it was.”

“And have you found the answer?”

“Yes,” said Fairclough triumphantly. “The salt business.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Salt—you know, the stuff you put on your dinner.”

“That’s what I thought you said. But—?”

“I had a big role, you see. Well, maybe not that big. I had to go down and look at the stuff. Make sure the figures tallied. But I thought that’s when they might have seen me. Otherwise I’m just in an office. I mean, no one sees me.”

“Let’s get this straight,” said Owen. “You had to go somewhere—”

“Hamada,” said Fairclough, “in Minya Province. That’s where it was.”

“Hamada. To see some salt. Now why exactly,” said Owen cautiously, “was that?”

“Contraband. It’s all the stuff they confiscated during the time of the Salt Monopoly. I had to value it.”

“I thought the Monopoly had ended?”

“It has. It was abolished in 1904. But there’s still all the stuff they confiscated when it was in operation. It’s a hell of a place round there, I can tell you. You see, there’s all these naturally occurring salt deposits which the Bedawin have been using for hundreds of years. When the Government gave the salt trade away as a monopoly to some foreign company the Bedawin couldn’t understand it at all and carried on as they always had done.”

“Christ, yes!”

Owen was beginning to remember. Before 1904 salt other than the company’s was considered contraband and possession of it was an offense. The prisons of Upper Egypt were full of poor fellahin and Arabs whose only crime was the possession of salt. It was, of course, precisely that which had led Cromer to abolish the Monopoly.

“It’s a hell of a place,” said Fairclough, “around Hamada. The Thieves’ Road passes right by. There’s cattle-rustling from the south, camel-rustling from the north, and bloody brigands in the sugar cane.”

“Not to mention salt smugglers,” said Owen. “All the same, wasn’t that all in the past? The salt smuggling, I mean? Now that the Monopoly’s gone, they can surely do what they like? Why should they have anything against you, if that’s what you’re saying? All you’re doing is putting a price on it.”

“Yes, but they think it’s theirs. Which, in a way, it is, of course. They think the Government’s taken away what rightfully belongs to them.”

“Yes, but they’re not going to blame you for that, surely?”

“As far as they’re concerned, I’m the Government,” said Fairclough dolefully.

“Christ, that’s down in bloody Hamada!”

“It’s the only time I’ve been out of the office, you see. They sent me down there specially.”

“I don’t think that’s got anything to do with it. I think the reason why you got picked out was simply that you were the one they saw riding past.”

“Dare say you’re right.” Fairclough examined his glass. “Got an apology to make,” he said. “All that stuff. The women, you know. You don’t want to hear about that kind of thing. Sorry to inflict it on you.”

“You didn’t,” said Owen. “It was that bastard, Mohammed Bishari.”

“All the same,” said Fairclough. He looked into his glass. “Needs of the flesh,” he mumbled.

“I let it go on too long,” said Owen. “I didn’t want to butt in because it’s really the Parquet’s business. They’re supposed to be conducting the investigation.”

“Thought you were?”

“Formally it’s their responsibility. I just—look over their shoulder.”

“Glad somebody’s looking,” said Fairclough. “Don’t want the damned thing to happen again.”

“Salt?” said Mohammed Bishari incredulously. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s got anything to do with it. I think the reason why they picked him out was simply that he was riding past.”

“Glad you said that,” said Owen. “I thought the last time we met that you were on a different tack.”

Bishari had the grace to look embarrassed. “Sometimes you have to take a different line,” he muttered.

They were sitting, amicably enough, at a table outside a small café. Reflecting in the bar on the part played by hospitality in easing social communication, his conscience stirred by the conversation with Fairclough, Owen had come to the conclusion that it was time to do the equivalent of buying the Parquet investigator a drink.

Unfortunately, Mohammed Bishari did not drink; and when Owen had made tentative approaches towards a social
rapprochement
they had been rebuffed. That they were there at all, and sitting amicably, was due to the efforts of the third person at the table, a friend of Owen’s, Mahmoud el Zaki.

Mahmoud, like Bishari, was in the Parquet. He was a younger man than Bishari but already higher than him, something which might make for difficulty if he interceded too openly.

“It doesn’t have to be a formal meeting,” Owen had said. “In fact, it would be better if it wasn’t. Couldn’t you arrange an accident?”

Mahmoud’s fancy had been tickled by this and he had arranged it with gusto. It had been easy to find a pretext for inviting Bishari to take coffee with him. And it was only natural that Owen, passing by, should pause to greet his friend. Equally natural that he should be invited to join them for coffee.

“What tack did you think Mohammed was on?” asked Mahmoud.

“It’s this Fairclough case,” said Owen.

“The man on the donkey?”

“Exactly. The victim, as we both now agree, of a terrorist attack. In his questioning, though, Mr. Bishari was probing the possibility of private motives.”

“One has to explore all avenues,” Bishari said defensively, “especially when, as in this case, there turns out to be a history.”

“But I take it that now you are satisfied that the examples belong to history?”

“History has a way of repeating itself,” said Mohammed Bishari drily.

“And although the examples may belong to history, their effects may not,” said Mahmoud.

“I don’t think it was like that here,” said Owen.

“You would be inclined to discount such effects, though, wouldn’t you, Captain Owen?” said Mohammed Bishari.

Owen guessed this was a reference to his own relationship with Zeinab.

“I just take a look at the facts of the case,” hè said, “and when I see terrorism I don’t try to conceal it.”

There was an awkward little silence. Then Mahmoud said, as if
à propos de
nothing: “I think I have heard of the case.”

Owen knew this was a warning. The Parquet’s policy in the matter would almost certainly have been discussed at high level within the Department, in which case it was quite possible that Mahmoud had been party to the discussion. He was telling Owen to keep off.

Owen knew he had to take the hint. He looked at Mohammed Bishari and smiled.

“I think in any event that Mr. Bishari and I had reached a compromise,” he said. “The strain was obviously telling on Fairclough and Mr. Bishari felt obliged to adjourn his questioning until he was in a better state of health. While Mr. Bishari’s inquiries are interrupted I shall naturally proceed with my own.”