McPhee was disappointed afterwards.
“But, Owen,” he complained, “didn’t you see?”
“Well, of course I did,” said Owen defensively, “but-”
“The vestments? You must have noticed alb, amice and girdle?”
“Alb?”
“The long white gown.”
“Amice?”
“A square of white linen. Worn formerly on the head. Now on the shoulders.”
“She wore a sort of hood. That it?”
“Yes. And did you notice-I thought it was very significant-that when she served at the altar-”
“Altar? Oh, that table, you mean.”
“Really, Owen!” said McPhee severely. “I thought you told me that your father was a minister in the Church of England?”
“Yes, but, well, it’s not the same, is it? I mean, an altar is something you find in church-”
“Ah! But that’s it, you see. For them it was the same thing as being in a church. The offerings-”
“The animals, you mean? That old ram-?”
“Think of Abraham. Animals came before money, you know.”
“It seemed pretty gory to me.”
“But that’s just what I’ve been saying! Religious elements- I do wish you’d observed it more closely, Owen. I was particularly anxious that you confirmed my perception that when she was engaged on ceremonies at the altar she raised her amice, raised it above her head; I mean, that’s terribly significant: Capuchin, would you say, or Dominican?”
“Yes, but the gore-”
“Religious elements, Owen, but pre — Christian at the core. Cultic influence, I am sure. Baal, perhaps? Or perhaps Tammuz?”
“Well, I couldn’t say, offhand-”
“Didn’t you ask her anything?”
“We didn’t have a lot of time,” said Owen feebly. “She said she’d answer my questions tomorrow.”
“Well, mind you ask her that. Even so, Owen, a missed opportunity!” McPhee shook his head sadly. “A missed opportunity!”
“I spoke to Jalila.”
“Jalila?”
“She’s the one with the bowl.”
“Charming girl, charming. But it’s a pity you didn’t speak to one of the acolytes.”
“Acolytes?”
“Deaconesses, I call them. The ones with the maniples.”
“Oh!”
“I did ask Jalila-Jalila you said her name was? — about them. I asked her if they were virgins.”
“And what did she say?”
“ ‘Virgins born, effendi.’ ” McPhee frowned. “But that, of course, is not quite answering my question.”
“Well, I’ll ask it,” said Owen, “if I get an opportunity.”
“And the initiates.”
“What about the initiates?”
“Ask if they were virgins, too.”
“I don’t think I can go around asking everybody if they’re a virgin.”
“Well, perhaps not,” said McPhee, disappointed. “Only it would be so interesting to know.”
“It certainly would,” said Owen.
Selim was disappointed too.
“They shut the gate,” he complained. “Just when it was getting interesting.”
“You missed the best part,” said Aisha.
“There’s luck for you!” said Selim, crestfallen. “I was hoping that the next time I went round-”
“Next time?” said Owen.
“Well, that first time when I went to you, I didn’t go straight to you, if you know what I mean-”
“We know what you mean,” said Aisha.
“I thought there might be trouble later on, so I took a look around-”
“Look?” said Aisha.
“Well, all right, maybe a touch too, here and there.”
“Someone gave me a touch,” said Aisha.
“You?” said Selim, eyes starting out of his head. “You?”
“Of course it might have been someone else,” said Aisha, eyes smiling meekly over her veil.
Chapter 7
"Is that Mustapha?”
“Speaking.”
“The line is bad. I wasn’t sure it was you.”
“The line is always bad. It is best not to use it.”
“I had to use it. Mustapha, I must warn you. They have seized Hassan.”
“So?”
“He is being questioned.”
“What can he say?”
“He can tell them things that lead to us.”
“Hassan is too clever to do that. And if he did, we could always deny them.”
“Mustapha, I’m afraid you don’t understand. Abdul Bakri has talked. They know he has given money to Hassan. It will lead to us.”
“ ‘They’. ‘They’. Who are ‘They’?”
“Garvin. Mustapha, he has had Hassan in-”
“Garvin is ‘he’, not ‘they’. Who are the others?”
“Mustapha-”
“Not Wainwright Pasha, I take it? No? The Consul-General, then? Is it someone around the Consul-General?”
“I–I do not think so, Mustapha. I do not know. Mustapha, I-”
“But this is important. Please. Are there others? Or is it just Garvin?”
“Perhaps it is just Garvin.”
“Ah!”
“But, Mustapha, it does not make any difference. He will soon tell others.”
“It makes a lot of difference. I need to know what is behind this. If it is just Garvin, well, I will go to Wainwright Pasha at once and knock this canard on the head. People are always saying things against us. That is the nature of our job. It has happened before, it will happen again.”
“But, Mustapha, this is not anyone saying this, it is Garvin.”
“One unsupported man, new to Cairo, credulous. What does he know about our world? People tell us things, we listen, because that is the nature of our work, but we do not always believe them. They offer us money and sometimes we take it, because that, too, is the nature of our work, but our intention may be different from theirs. Wainwright Pasha knows all this but Garvin, what does he know? A simple policeman from Alexandria!”
“Mustapha, I do not think he is that simple.”
“It is the nature of his work that is simple. Compared with ours.”
“Mustapha, I still worry-”
“And I worry, too. But not for the same reason as you. If things are as you say they are, then I do not worry. It is if there are things behind them that I worry.”
“I hope you are right, Mustapha…But, please, what shall I do?”
“Do not phone me again, that is the first. The second is: carry on with your work and do not fear. But the third is: let me know the moment you think it is they and not he that we have against us.”
“An open-and-shut case, I would have thought,” said Owen, laying the transcript back on the table. Police office ink faded quickly in the light and heat of Egypt and the writing was already brown, although it had been written only five years before. “It’s a virtual confession, surely.”
Mahmoud picked the transcript up and looked at it again.
“There are problems about using this kind of evidence in court,” he said. “Were the words accurately recorded? Were they recorded at the time? Have the speakers been correctly identified?”
“You’ve got the sworn statements of the recorders here,” said Owen, tapping a folder which lay before him on Mahmoud’s desk. “Signed, dated, witnessed. They were people who knew the voices, too.”
“Oh yes,” said Mahmoud. “Garvin had it all worked out.”
“Well, then-”
“But shall we see what Philipides says?”
Philipides was thin, almost painfully so. The prison report spoke of ulcers. Owen judged he was a worrying man. The small mouth beneath the neat moustache occasionally twitched involuntarily.
He still denied the charges. Not so much the facts as their interpretation. Yes, his orderly, Hassan, had approached Sub-Inspector Abdul Bakri and solicited money in return for a promise of promotion; but this was merely part of a carefully planned, and officially inspired, attempt to probe allegations of corruption in the Cairo Police Force. As Mustapha Mir, the Mamur Zapt of the time, would confirm.
The offer of promotion was not, then, genuine? Mahmoud asked. Certainly not; and the money would have been returned, with a severe warning.