The Girl in the Nile Page 14

  “He must have had somebody on the boat,” said Owen.

  “It looks like it.”

  “Who killed her and threw the body overboard.”

  “Don’t we have difficulties there?” asked Mahmoud. “Surely if it was thrown overboard there was no guarantee that it would finish up on shore where the Man could send someone to fetch it. It could just as easily have gone on to Bulak bridge. Or beyond, for that matter.”

  “How far offshore was the dahabeeyah?”

  “Not far. It was moored for the night.”

  “Could the body have been dumped straight onto the shoal?”

  “They would have had to have taken it ashore.”

  “A rowing boat, perhaps?”

  “Surely someone on board would have seen it?”

  “Perhaps they were looking the other way.”

  “Deliberately, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “They might have been told to.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” said Owen thoughtfully, “it would figure. The body was high up on the shoal, wasn’t it? We wondered how it had got there. We thought it might be a bow wave from a steamer.”

  “So we did. Yes,” said Mahmoud, “that would figure.”

  ***

  “So we’re going to have to deal,” concluded Owen.

  Garvin looked dubious.

  “It’s pretty definite that he’s got the body. And if we want it, that’s what we’ve got to pay.”

  “Do we want the body?” asked Garvin. “That much?”

  “How else are we going to find out how she was killed?”

  “It’s a lot of money.”

  “It would need a supplementary allocation. I’m over the top on that budget as it is.”

  Garvin pursed his lips.

  “I put in for a supplementary allocation only last week,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘What, another?’”

  “Well, I can’t see any other way of doing it.”

  “I can just see them,” said Garvin, “when I go along. ‘Please can I have a supplementary allocation.’ ‘What, another?’ ‘Yes, it’s to buy a body, you see.’ It would look bad on paper, Owen. These accounts go back to London. There are MPs who crawl over everything we do. They’d spot it and say, ‘What the hell is this?’ They’d think it was the Mahdi’s skull all over again.”

  The Mahdi’s skull had been a cause célèbre. At the conclusion of the Sudan wars, shortly before, the victorious British general, Kitchener, had smashed the tomb of the defeated enemy and claimed his skull as a souvenir. It had been alleged in London, possibly truthfully, that he had intended to make a drinking tankard of it.

  “Well, how else am I going to find the money? Narouz has said he’ll help but in the circumstances—”

  Garvin looked at him quickly.

  “Yes,” he said. “In the circumstances. You really think—?”

  “Well,” said Owen, “it looks like it.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Garvin. “This is going to look bad. It could be very awkward. We don’t want it turning up just when—”

  “We’re not there yet,” said Owen defensively.

  “Suppose it comes up just when we’re about to sign the Agreement? It could blow the whole thing. You’re supposed to be keeping it under control, Owen. What the hell are you doing?”

  “Look, I’m not—” Owen began but decided it was a waste of time. “What about this money?” he asked.

  “Don’t like it,” said Garvin. “It would look bad in the Accounts. ‘Item: one body. Purchased for the Mamur Zapt. Private use of.’ No,” said Garvin, shaking his head, “it wouldn’t look good at all. I really don’t think I could support a bid for a supplementary allocation. Not in the circumstances.”

  ***

  “I’m afraid not,” said Prince Narouz, shaking his head regretfully. “Not in the circumstances.”

  “But only two days ago—”

  “Circumstances have changed.”

  “In two days?”

  “Things are very fluid just at the moment.”

  They were sitting again on the terrace at the Continental. The sun was still bright and the Prince was wearing huge, dark green sunglasses. The tables were filling up for afternoon tea. A party of French tourists arrived from the bazaars and made their way up the steps. One of them was a strikingly beautiful woman in her mid-thirties. The dark green glasses followed her progress indoors.

  “Why have they changed?”

  “Oh, well,” said the Prince vaguely. “You know.”

  “The Agreement?”

  “That, too.”

  “It’s near signing?”

  “They think so,” said the Prince caustically. “Personally, I don’t believe my uncle will be able to bring himself to do it when the moment actually comes. The prospect of having the British here for another twenty years! Frightful!”

  The Prince looked at Owen, laughed archly and placed a placating hand on Owen’s.

  “Or so my uncle will think. Of course, I myself see it differently. I would be only too delighted if the British were to remain.”

  And had, no doubt, been communicating that fact very successfully, thought Owen bitterly.

  “A breath of Western air, my dear fellow,” said the Prince. “That’s what Egypt needs. Cars, bridges, roads, factories: we need to step through into the modern age.”

  With plenty of contracts for British firms. The Prince, thought Owen, knew how to play his hand.

  “So you have changed your mind,” he said.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that!” the Prince protested. “No, no, my dear fellow, I am still eager to help. You can count on me, believe me. But things are—delicate, just at the moment. Let’s not rush. More haste, less speed. Although”—the Prince turned reflective—“speaking as a driver, that is a phrase I have always found puzzling.”

  “The offer might not remain open.”

  “You think so?” The Prince looked at him thoughtfully. “You think so?”

  “There might be others.”

  The Prince turned it over. Turned it over thoughtfully.

  “I can see there is a risk. However”—he smiled charmingly—“it is a risk I am prepared to run.”

  “So you won’t help after all?”

  “I’m afraid not. Not just now. Not in the circumstances.”

  Owen could see it all. The Prince, once again, had scented the possibility of wriggling off the hook. The British had refused to buy the body. Why should he stick his own neck into the noose? If he didn’t find the money, perhaps no one would find the money. The body would remain where it was. What did it matter if there was a leak in the Press? They wouldn’t be able to prove anything. Why not just leave things alone?

  And meanwhile cast a little bread upon the waters. A hint here, a hint there. A suggestion that the Khedive was not perhaps entirely dependable. A reminder of his own Western sympathies. An intimation of trade concessions, contracts for British firms.

  No wonder, thought Owen bitterly, that Garvin had backed off.

  There would be no deal with the Man; that was plain.

  Unless—

  Owen stopped in his tracks.

  Unless Narouz made one of his own.

  ***

  Owen sat cursing himself. What folly! What utter folly! To go to the one man in the world most interested in seeing that the evidence never came out and then to put into his hands the means of ensuring that it never could come out! How had he come to do a thing like that?

  He knew what had put the idea in his head. It had been that first visit to the police station, when the Prince had dangled money in front of the local chief. He had been prepared to put his money down then. Why not, Owen had thought, get him to put his money down late
r, when it could really do some good?

  When he had gone to him, the Prince had in fact at first turned the suggestion down. It hadn’t really bothered Owen; it had just been something to try.

  But then when Narouz had himself raised it and indicated that he had changed his mind, it had suddenly come to seem a good idea.

  Perhaps Narouz had even then been playing a game with him. Perhaps even then he had no real intention of finding the money for the body, or at least not of presenting Owen with it.

  But, looking back on the conversation, Owen did not think so. The offer had seemed genuine. Something had been troubling Narouz. It might simply have been the fear of publicity. Owen had a feeling, though, that it was something else. Narouz had spoken of family worries.

  Whatever it was, Narouz had switched again. But this time there was a difference. He now knew almost for certain that the British were not prepared to find the money. That meant the way was now open for him to strike a private deal.

  And he, Owen, had given him the information! What a fool! What an idiot!

  What could he do now? Nothing, as far as he could see. Narouz had the information. All he had to do was strike a bargain. And once he’d got the body, that was that. He would dispose of it and a key item of evidence would be gone for good.

  It was all very well Mahmoud saying they didn’t need the body. In theory that might be true. If the other evidence was good enough they could secure a conviction on that alone.

  But could they ever secure a conviction on that basis against an heir to the throne? He would be defended not just by the best lawyers in Egypt but probably by the best lawyers in France. The case would have to be watertight. And without incontrovertible evidence that Leila was dead, would it ever be watertight enough?

  It wouldn’t even get to prosecution. The whole weight of the State would be ganged up against it. The Khedive, the Minister of Justice, the Parquet, the British—the British would be against it, too, particularly if this damned Agreement was still on the cards. It wouldn’t have a chance, in the circumstances, of even reaching the courts.

  In the circumstances. That was what they had both said. Both Garvin and Narouz. Now he was saying the same thing. It was what anyone would say, anyone used to politics or business or the world of affairs generally. When you had been in that world for a while you knew the way things would go.

  So?

  What was he saying? Was he saying that when you knew the way things would go, you went along with them? Wasn’t that being defeatist?

  Well, no, not really. It was being sensible; it was being realistic. If you were involved in things at a senior level, whether it were as an administrator, a Minister or even as a senior policeman, you had hundreds of things on the go at any one time. And if you knew that pushing one particular thing was going to get you nowhere you didn’t waste time going on pushing it; you left off and started pushing something else. That way you got something done, at any rate.

  So did that mean he ought to forget about Leila? That was what Garvin was more or less saying; that was what, he suspected, Paul would say.

  What it boiled down to was a question of priorities. A set of priorities went with the job and if you took on the job you took on the priorities. His priorities were pretty plain. The Mamur Zapt was in charge of law and order in Cairo and that meant keeping the city quiet and stopping them all from getting at each other’s throats. And in the circumstances that was pretty difficult and—

  In the circumstances. There he was again.

  Zeinab had said something about that. She had said he was too much a man of circumstances, that when the circumstances changed, he changed.

  Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she? It was easier for a woman. A woman’s world was more private, she was in charge of it in a way that you couldn’t be if you were a man. In a man’s world you were forever running up against things. Yes, you were more interested by circumstances. They kept bloody coming up and hitting you in the face.

  He couldn’t ignore circumstances. They were part of his world; they were his world. And he liked his world, damn it!

  So what was he going to do about Leila? If anything.

  ***

  Zeinab announced that she was taking Owen to the theater.

  “Not another New Roses, is it?” asked Owen suspiciously.

  “It is by Gamal, as it happens,” said Zeinab haughtily. “At least, the translation is by him. The original play is by an Englishman, though what Gamal is doing translating plays by Englishmen I cannot think. It is called Love’s Labour’s Lost.”

  “Love’s Labour’s Lost? But that’s by Shakespeare.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” said Zeinab. “But I thought from the title that it might have something special to say to you. That is not the only reason why we are going, however.”

  “No?”

  “You remember you asked me to see if I could find out who it was that had sent the news item about Leila in to Al-Liwa.”

  “If you could do it discreetly, yes.”

  “Naturally. Well, I talked to Gamal’s journalist friends. Most of them work on the arts pages and don’t know much about the rest of the paper. But one of them is a copy editor, I think that is what he is called, and he told me that he thought the item had come in from a friend of Leila’s.”

  “Did he know his name?”

  “He wasn’t sure. He thought he had seen him, though, at Gamal’s soirées. He had usually been with a girl, an Arab girl, which was unusual, of course, and had made him stand out.”

  “Leila?”

  “Probably. Anyway, he saw him again in the office at Al-Liwa just before the item appeared. Or would have appeared if you had not crossed it out. So he thinks perhaps it came from him.”

  “Could he check?”

  “No. He says you don’t check things like that at a radical paper like Al-Liwa.”

  “Fair enough. It would be useful to have the bloke’s name, that’s all.”

  “Well—” said Zeinab, looking smug.

  “Well, what?”

  “I had an idea. Do you remember that when we were talking to Gamal and his friends they mentioned some of the men that Leila had gone around with?”

  “Suleiman.”

  “And others. Well, one of them—you remember?—was a journalist.”

  “So he was. But I don’t remember—”

  “Hargazy. That was his name. Anyway, I checked. And—” Zeinab paused dramatically.

  “Yes?”

  “He works for Al-Liwa.”

  “Does he now? Does he now?”

  “Yes,” said Zeinab, pleased with the effect. “Not all the time. He is not on their permanent staff—they don’t have many permanent staff, of course, because you put them in prison—”

  “No, I don’t. Al-Liwa doesn’t make any money; that’s why they don’t have many permanent staff.”

  “Anyway. Hargazy just does the occasional article for them. He covers demonstrations, that sort of thing, Gamal’s friend said.”

  “I’ll take a look at him.”

  “We’ll take a look at him. That is why we are going to the theater. I’ve asked Gamal to invite him specially. And, just to be sure, I’ve asked Gamal’s friend, the one who works in Al-Liwa, to be there too.”

  “My God!” said Owen. “Anything else?”

  “Not at the moment,” said Zeinab.

  Owen kissed her. That much, at least, she allowed.

  ***

  The Arab Theater was a barnlike building which on its better days could seat an audience of two hundred. This was not one of its better days. The Arab predilection for drama, at least in personal relationships, did not extend to a taste for Shakespeare’s comedies translated into Arabic, and the house was less than half full.

  The first three rows
, seated in rather tatty red plush armchairs, were occupied by Gamal’s friends and supporters and were respectable, at least in terms of numbers. It was on the wooden benches behind that the gaps appeared. They were, in fact, mostly gap.

  Behind them was a row of flimsily partitioned wooden boxes. Half of them, the ones with wooden grilles, were for the women. The others were for the nass taibin, the really well-to-do.

  This presented a problem for Zeinab, who was quite definitely a woman but didn’t like to sit invisible and fenced off from her friends. She was, however, also well-to-do, so she compromised by sitting in the open box next to the screened harem ones.

  She was, though, the only woman doing this and attracted pointings-out and mutterings, not to say ribaldry. She had made a gesture in the direction of decency by wearing a veil, behind which she sat disdainfully. She was, nevertheless, not entirely comfortable.

  Gamal and one or two of his friends had joined them in the box and Gamal was not entirely comfortable either, though for different reasons.

  “They are not laughing,” he said. “This is terrible!”

  “They are enjoying it quietly,” said Owen soothingly.

  “Yes, but—are they not seeing the jokes? Haven’t I brought them out sufficiently?”

  “It’s not always easy to get the jokes. Even in the English.”

  “I should have brought them out more.”

  “That’s not so easy. So many of them are based on wordplay, puns.”

  “But you see, that’s why I chose the play. Arabic has a tradition of wordplay, too. I thought I would bring out the affinity between Elizabethan English and classical Arabic.”

  “You have,” Owen assured him, “you have!”

  Zeinab followed the play with interest.

  “I like that bit,” she said. “When she sends him away to make jokes in a hospital. ‘To move wild laughter in the throat of death.’ Yes, I like that.”

  “I agree with him,” said Owen. “Twelve months is too long.”

  “What I don’t like,” said Zeinab, “is having men play the women’s parts.”

  “You have to do that,” said Gamal. “It’s unseemly to have women onstage.”