“Good,” said Owen briskly. “Then I’ll leave that bit of it to you.” He looked at Brooker, who had been noticeably subdued throughout.
“Why the Sharia Mohammed Ali?” asked one of the officers. “Isn’t that rather a long way round?”
“It’s the broader street,” said Owen, “the best for a procession and the safest from the point of view of grenades.”
“Grenades,” said one of the officers, who hadn’t heard. “Bloody hell!”
“That OK, then?”
The party began to break up. Paul and John collared Owen to go for a drink.
“You can have another when this lot is all over,” said Paul. “In fact, you can have dozens. And I will join you!” he said fervently.
Although the encounter with Zeinab had not gone entirely satisfactorily and had ended, in Owen’s view, prematurely, it had restored him to a more balanced view of the world. He had even gone so far, the previous evening, as to instruct Nikos to transfer both Fakhri and the other men held in connection with the attack on Ahmed into the custody of the Parquet.
Because he was busy it was not until the next evening that he received a response.
“I’ve been trying to reach you all day,” said Mahmoud.
“Sorry!” said Owen. “I’ve been tied up pretty well the whole time.”
He thought he had better explain in case Mahmoud disbelieved him.
“I have a briefing session this morning. Two briefing sessions,” he said, remembering Guzman. “It’s the Return of the Carpet.”
“Oh,” said Mahmoud. “The best of luck. Glad it’s nothing to do with me.”
“That’s what they all say.”
The responsibility of the Carpet still hung over him. He knew its leaden weight would not go away until the affair was over.
“I wanted to apologize,” said Mahmoud. “I shouldn’t have gone on like that yesterday.”
“It’s all right.”
“I don’t know what got into me.”
“I thought it might be what Fakhri had said. You know, his helpful suggestion that I had been aware all the time what Nuri was up to and hadn’t bothered to share it with you.” There was a silence. “Something like that,” Mahmoud mumbled.
“Well, I hadn’t been aware.”
“Of course you hadn’t!” said Mahmoud warmly. “That’s what I told myself. But it was too late then.”
“It hadn’t been a good morning.”
He told Mahmoud about Guzman.
Mahmoud commiserated.
“I think we were both disappointed that the Fakhri lead didn’t seem to be getting us very far,” he said.
“That’s right,” said Owen. “For a moment I thought it was all falling into place. Have you got anywhere with him today?”
“No. I think he really has told us all he knows.”
“Pity.”
“Yes.”
“Not very helpful.”
“Not in itself,” said Mahmoud.
“What do you mean?”
Mahmoud hesitated.
“I had an idea,” he said. “Suppose somebody else wanted to stop Nuri’s little deal? Only they were not so concerned to limit themselves to beating.”
Owen was still thinking it over when Zeinab rang.
“In answer to your question,” she said, “the one you did not ask: Raoul loves me dearly. Which is very sad for him. ”
And rang off.
Owen now had two things to think about. Between the two he became very confused.
He summoned Georgiades.
“Mean anything?” he said, showing him the address Zeinab had given him.
“Yes,” said Georgiades instantly.
He went back to his office and returned with a file.
“It’s a printer.”
He took out a leaflet.
“You’ve seen this before,” he said.
He laid it on the desk in front of Owen. It was the leaflet Georgiades had been given by Ahmed.
“He printed that?”
“Yes. And other things.”
Georgiades put the file on his desk. Owen opened it. Inside was a selection of handbills, leaflets and pamphlets.
“All his own work,” said Georgiades.
They were of a violent, inflammatory kind, similar in tone to the one he had already seen.
Owen picked one out.
“They seem to have a thing about the Sirdar,” he said.
“About the British generally,” said Georgiades.
He showed Owen some more.
“About most people,” said Owen, turning them over.
“Not about Greeks,” said Georgiades. “They’ve left me out of it. So far.”
“Anti-Turk?” asked Owen.
“Why should he be anti-Turk? He’s a Turk himself.”
“Well, isn’t that interesting?” said Owen, thinking about other Ahmed connections.
“There’s a room over the shop,” said Georgiades. “Two men live there. Others go there.”
“You’ve got a man on the place?”
“I’ve got someone who calls in. Regularly.”
“Better have someone on it full time from now on. At least for the next week.”
The next day a vendor of religious knick-knacks took up position in the street where the printer lived. He suffered badly from ophthalmia and was almost blind. The little boys of the street could easily have stolen the things from his tray had it been worth it. The women took pity on him and brought him bowls of durra, especially when, in the heat of the afternoon, he stopped his fruitless patrolling and sat down in the shade with his back against the cool stone of the wall and his tray in front of him in the dust. There were similar figures along the street and another representative of God’s afflicted was not noticed.
The day before the Carpet returned, when the workmen were putting the final touches to the pavilions in the big square before the Citadel and the small shopkeepers along the Sharia Mohammed Ali were decking their shops with bunting, the two men moved out.
CHAPTER 12
The Khedive’s pavilion stood far down in the open space below the Citadel. From there the ground sloped upwards, first to the Market of the Afternoon and then to the Meidan Rumelah. After that it rose steeply and became the giant rock of the Citadel itself. At the top of the rock were the massive towers and ramparts of Saladin’s castle; and at the utmost top of the castle was the Mosque of Mehemet Ali, with its obelisk and soaring dome. From that great dome, built only a century before, a host of smaller minarets and domes descended in a sweep like the curve of a scimitar to the two other great mosques which stood left and right where the chief thoroughfare of the city, the Sharia Mohammed Ali, came out into Citadel Square.
In the early morning sunshine the Mameluke domes took on the colour of pearl and rose. Pageants were early in Egypt to avoid the fierceness of the noonday sun, and the people had been gathering since before six. Many of them had brought seats, not so much to sit on-the ground would do for that-as to stand on when the procession went past. They were kept well back from the Khedive’s pavilion by a fence of soldiers. Whenever they encroached beyond the fence they were turned back by mounted policemen on white horses.
The soldiers, too, had arrived early. First, the foot soldiers of the Egyptian Army, in their sky-blue, with white spats and scarlet tarbooshes. Then the artillery with their horse-drawn guns to fire the salute. The guns were ranged in line, the horses detached, and the crews set to preparing the pieces. Last came the cavalry, again in light blue, the staff conspicuous in white and gold.
Notables and foreigners arrived some time after. A space had been roped off for their carriages not far from the Khedivial Pavilion. Lesser notables stood in front of the pavilion, and there was a sort of tribune for those members of the diplomatic corps who had not been able to find an excuse for leaving Cairo that weekend. The pavilion itself was filled with chairs for the dignitaries, and soon they began arriving. The pashas had gold bands around their turbans, and among them, in robes of sacred green, was the Sheikh el Bekri, the Descendant of the Prophet. There were ministers and politicians and a number of officials in court dress. Among them, too, was the British Agent, in morning dress, and the Sirdar, resplendent in full dress uniform.