There was pandemonium in the yard as the workmen dropped their work and jumped hastily out of the way. Jalila stood for a moment, hands on hips, enjoying the panic, then walked across, picked up the snake and put it back in the cistern.
“I hope that one was milked,” said Owen.
“Maybe,” said Jalila. “Maybe not.”
“Can we talk?”
Jalila led him up the stairs and then up another flight round the side of the building and so on to the roof. Some rolled up mattresses suggested that like many Cairo roofs, especially in hot weather, it was used for sleeping.
“You were not, of course, up here the night the Bimbashi was put in the cistern?”
“I was at the Zzarr.”
“Of course. Was-was-” he was not sure of her circumstances-“anyone else up here?”
“My father was sleeping with Ali Haja’s widow. In another house.”
“I was wondering if anyone had heard anything. People on other roofs, perhaps.”
“If they did, no one has said so.”
“Isn’t that strange? A hot night, in the open. Surely someone must have heard.”
“No one has said anything. I do not know if that is strange.”
“It is, of course, possible that no one heard anything. If that were so it would be because the men came quietly. And if that were so, it would be because they knew their way, or at least, one of them did.”
“Many people know the yard.”
“And the cistern?”
“They might if they had come here on business. To see my father.”
Owen was disappointed. He had hoped he was narrowing things down.
“Even so,” he said, “it means they must have known the Gamaliya. More, this part of the Gamaliya. And I think that is true, for they knew of the Aalima, and they knew which house was the Copt’s.”
Jalila wriggled her toes. Not surprisingly, thought Owen. The roof was so hot that even to put your hand on it was painful.
Jalila was bare-faced as well as bare-footed. Interesting, that. Poor women usually wore a veil. Perhaps snake-catchers’ daughters were so low in the social hierarchy that they fell even below that level.
Jalila, now he came to consider it, had a pleasant face, not Arab-aquiline like Zeinab’s but broad and round.
“Where does your father come from, Jalila?” he asked.
“Here.”
“And his father?”
“Here. We have always been here.”
“It is the face. It does not seem a northern face.”
“They say we originally came from Suakin.”
“Ah!”
A port city. Therefore, probably mixed. He fancied he saw something Somali in her features.
“You like my face?”
“Yes. It is a pretty one.”
Jalila wriggled her toes again.
“I like this kind of conversation,” she said.
“Don’t get much of it among the snakes, I suppose.”
A woman came out on to a roof opposite.
“That’s your reputation gone!”
“My father will beat me, perhaps.”
“Tell him the Mamur Zapt says that would be unwise.”
“If I tell him that, he will be troubled. He thinks it best to have nothing to do with the great.”
“A wise man. A wise daughter, too, and that is why I have come to you. Jalila, I need to know what happened in the courtyard the night the Bimbashi came.”
“He fell asleep.”
“You drugged him. That I know. It is the next bit that interests me. He was taken from the courtyard. How?”
“Men came.”
“Into the yard?”
“Yes. It is forbidden but they came all the same. The Aalima was very angry.”
“Did you see them?”
“Not well. I was on the other side of the courtyard. I had just filled my bowl. I heard the women cry out and I looked up and they were just lifting him, high up on their shoulders. And then they ran through the arch into the other courtyard.”
“What happened then?”
“I heard a great shout, and then men were crying out.”
“You did not see?”
She shook her head.
“The Aalima came out at that point. She called us to her and said: ‘What is this?’ And we told her, and she was very angry.”
“How many men were there?”
“Five. Two of them were holding the chair. One was telling them what to do. The others-I do not know. Perhaps they were holding the chair, too.”
“The one who was telling them what to do: was he a lowly man:
Jalila looked surprised.
“Lowly? Not especially.”
Oh, well. It might not have helped much-there were a lot of lowly men in Cairo-but it would have been nice to have had corroboration.
“Could you describe him to me?”
Not very well. It had been dark, she had seen them briefly and through a crowd. They had looked, well, ordinary. Big, perhaps. Would she recognize them if she saw them again? She shook her head doubtfully.
“Jalila, if you do see them-and you may see them, for one at least is from the Gamaliya-and you let me know, it will be to your advantage.”
“If I see them, I will let you know,” said Jalila, “but it will not be for money.”
Mahmoud came to Owen’s office that afternoon. It was the afternoon because it was then that the Bab-el-Khalk was empty and there would not be many to witness what Nikos considered his disgrace. He had, of course, demurred but Owen had not given him sufficient time to be able to organize his defences in terms either of a last-ditch appeal to higher authority or of tampering with the files. All he could do was sit and simmer.
When Mahmoud was shown in, he was distantly polite. There would be no confrontation-that was not Nikos’s way-but there would be no assistance either. If Mahmoud could find what he wanted, well and good, or, rather, ill and bad, but he would have to find it for himself.
Mahmoud understood the situation perfectly and was courtesy itself. He also understood filing systems, which was something Nikos had not banked on and was particularly exasperating. A few minimal inquiries and he was on his way. Nikos folded his arms and settled down to watch. There was always the chance that Mahmoud would find it off-putting.
Provokingly, Mahmoud seemed entirely at ease.
Owen, prudently, left them to it and went away to work in his own office. Some three hours later, Mahmoud appeared in his doorway. A brooding Nikos hovered just behind him.
Mahmoud came in and put a piece of paper on his desk. It was an official memorandum and came from the Commandant of the Cairo Police. It said:
This is to confirm our conversation in my office this morning, namely that you are hereby authorized and instructed to conduct an inquiry into the degree and prevalence of corruption in the Cairo City Police Force.
It was addressed to Mustapha Mir, the Mamur Zapt, and was signed P. Wainwright, Commandant of Police.
Chapter 9
Garvin dismissed it contemptuously. “Wainwright was as weak as water. Mustapha Mir could twist him round his little finger. He wrote the memo himself and got Wainwright to sign it.”
“That may be,” Mahmoud said to Owen later, “but you can’t just dismiss it. On the face of it, it confirms Philipides’s story: there was an investigation going on into the corruption in the Police Force, it was being conducted, quite properly, by the Mamur Zapt, and Philipides might well have been acting as agent provocateur. What evidence there is supports Philipides.”
“The two were in it together,” said Owen. “Mustapha Mir and Philipides.”
“Three,” said Mahmoud. “And Wainwright.”
“Mir could twist him round his little finger.”
“So Garvin keeps saying. But if he could,” said Mahmoud, “it’s the first case I’ve met of a senior British officer doing what an Egyptian told him.”
“You’re not saying that Garvin is making this up?”
“I’m just following normal procedure,” said Mahmoud, “checking the evidence. I’ve checked Philipides’s and I’ve found it corroborated. I’ll try and do the same for Garvin’s. It doesn’t help that he refuses me access to Wainwright’s files.”