The Girl in the Nile Read online

  “Let me put a question to you,” he said, bending towards him intently.

  Owen flinched slightly. This was, he supposed, how Mahmoud carried on when he was examining witnesses in the courts.

  “Go back to Leila’s body. Found by those two beggars and hidden under a boat. Now let me ask you: who besides the beggars knew about that?”

  “The boatman.”

  “And? Remember, the boatman was explicitly warned off. It was somebody else’s business.”

  “The Man’s?”

  “Exactly. The beggars were carrying out instructions. It was their job to look after the first part of the operation only. After that it was up to someone else. Someone who was going to undertake the second part of the operation: transferring the body to a more secure hiding place.”

  “You think that—?”

  Mahmoud laid a finger on his lips. He wasn’t having his cross-examination disrupted by an unruly witness.

  “Now let us look at it from another point of view. Leila’s body turns up in the tomb. Who—who do we know—knew about the existence of the tomb?”

  “Well, the fiki. But—”

  Mahmoud’s hand waved him firmly down.

  “All we know,” he said, cautioning Owen to mental discipline, “all we know is that from the time of the Marwash girl’s funeral he knew about the tomb. We know, because he put the Marwash girl’s body there.”

  “Strictly speaking,” said Owen—he could play this game too—“we don’t know that. We are just assuming that the fiki stage-managed the whole thing.”

  Mahmoud’s hand dismissed this.

  “I think we can accept Georgiade’s arguments. I agree with him. He had to get rid of the body in a hurry. What more likely than that he would turn to a place he already knew?”

  “He knew because he had already used it previously—to hide Leila’s body in.”

  “Correct!” snapped Mahmoud triumphantly. He stood for a moment, thinking.

  “There are other possible connections here,” he said, frowning. He looked at Owen. “One of them you may be particularly interested in following up. If the fiki is connected with the arms trade and also with the Man, then perhaps the Man is connected with the arms trade.”

  Owen sat up.

  “The Man is behind it?”

  “Taking a cut, more likely,” said Mahmoud, “as he does in most of the business along the river.”

  He was not, however, really thinking about that. That part of it he had, as it were, sectioned off and handed to Owen. It was the other parts that now engaged him.

  “The problem for us all along,” he said, brow furrowed, “has been the way in which the killing was carried out. It was essential to find the body because otherwise we couldn’t be sure. Well, we’re sure now. She was garotted. Now garotting, properly done as this was, requires a professional. Tell me,” he said, looking at Owen—resuming, in fact, his cross-examination—“if you wanted a professional garotter in Cairo, how would you go about finding one?”

  “I’d go to someone who could hire me one.”

  “Someone like—?”

  “The Man. Are you suggesting—?”

  “Why not?” Mahmoud sprang out of his chair again, blazing. “Why not?” he said. “It would make sense. It all hangs together. Disposing of the body might just have been part of it. We know the Man was involved with picking up the body and hiding it. Why shouldn’t he be involved with the rest of it as well?”

  “Providing the garotter—?”

  “Yes. Providing the garotter, disposing of the body—And that would explain why it took place where it did. It’s all in the Man’s territory. Where he has things under control, where he can lay on people. A garotter, beggars, a local middleman like the fiki—”

  “Will he talk?” said Owen.

  “He?”

  “The fiki.”

  “He might. He might.”

  “If he did,” said Owen, “you could get the Man.”

  Mahmoud now was irrepressible.

  “We’ll get him,” he said. “We’ll get him.”

  “There is another thing, too,” said Owen, watching him in his perambulations. “It could explain the garotter. No one had seen him on board. Because he never was on board. He came out from the shore, killed her and then went back. He was a local man.”

  Mahmoud stopped, transfixed.

  “Yes,” he breathed. “And to do that he would have had to have known where the dahabeeyah was going to moor for the night.”

  “Which means that it would have had to have been planned beforehand.”

  “Yes,” said Mahmoud exultantly.

  “Who decides where they’re going to moor for the night?”

  “Who gives the orders on the dahabeeyah?”

  “The Rais?”

  “Try again,” said Mahmoud.

  “Narouz.”

  ***

  “Who took the decision? The Rais, I suppose.”

  “He says the itinerary was mapped out ahead at the start of the journey.”

  “So it was, now I come to think of it,” said Prince Narouz. “But is that important?”

  “Yes. It affects where the dahabeeyah was moored on the night Leila Sekhmet was killed.”

  “And that matters?”

  “We think so,” said Owen.

  The Prince shrugged and looked at his watch.

  “So I wonder if you could tell me,” said Owen, “what made you decide to moor there that night?”

  “We were going to put the girls ashore there. I thought it would be less conspicuous than having them travel on with us to Bulak. It was, after all, roughly where we picked them up.”

  “You didn’t want people to know you’d had them on board?”

  “My dear friend,” said Narouz wearily, “of course not.”

  “You could have landed them that night.”

  “So I could. But I did not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Your questions,” said Narouz, “are beginning to border on the impertinent. However, I will tell you. I had hoped to prolong the pleasure of our voyage by one further day. And one further night, of course. I hope I make my meaning plain, even to a Mamur Zapt who appears to be at his obtusest this morning.”

  “The girls knew about the arrangement, did they? You had spoken to them about it?”

  “I really cannot recall. They certainly knew I did not intend to sail up and down that confounded river like the Flying Dutchman until the crack of doom. Two weeks is more than enough.”

  “Yet you wished to prolong it.”

  “You take me up,” said Narouz, “on trivialities. I am beginning to resent this cross-examination.”

  “The issues are important, Prince.”

  “I don’t think they are.” Prince Narouz stood up abruptly. “I don’t think they’re important at all. I see no point in continuing this tedious conversation.”

  ***

  Owen had just got back in his office when the phone rang. It was his friend Paul from the Consulate-General.

  “Hello, Gareth. This is an Official Warning. Well, not very official, actually, but definitely a warning. The CG says will you lay off Narouz. The Khedive has just been on to him. He says you’ve been harassing Narouz. Now, would a nice chap like you do a thing like that? Yes. I know you would. So please don’t. I thought you were supposed to be playing this down?”

  “I am. But it’s getting increasingly difficult. I told you about that bit in Al-Liwa, didn’t I?”

  “I thought you’d cut it out?”

  “I did. But it’s started coming out in other papers now. Illicit ones.”

  “Can’t you do something about that?”

  “Harass them, you mean?”

  Paul breathed heavily. “Just
keep the publicity down, will you? The Talks are at a delicate stage.”

  “They always are.”

  “No, they really are, this time. Two more days and we may have got it.”

  “The Agreement? Wouldn’t it have to be ratified?”

  “It would be better if it was ratified. But we could manage without it. The Khedive’s an Absolute Ruler, well, relatively Absolute, and can conduct Agreements on his own, provided we say so. So we don’t want him being upset by you doing the heavy stuff on Narouz.”

  “I’ll try not to. But look, we’re not going to be able to keep this quiet for very much longer. Even the news that an Agreement is on the cards is out in the radical press.”

  “Jesus!” said Paul. “Look, try and keep it down, will you? Just to the end of the week. That may well be enough.”

  ***

  It was, however, easier said than done.

  Nikos had had no difficulty in identifying the printer responsible for the radical pamphlet attacking Narouz and giving details of the incident on the dahabeeyah. He maintained a list of printers in the city, together with examples of their work. Provided the press was known, he reckoned to be able to attribute matter to printer within minutes.

  Because of the investment required, sizable in Egyptian terms even for a small press, most presses were known and it had not taken him long to trace the pamphlet to a particular printer who specialized in the production of radical material.

  What was much more difficult, however, was to establish the present whereabouts of the printer. Those who dealt in radical material moved often.

  Nikos, though, was an old hand at this game and shortly after Paul’s telephone call he entered Owen’s office triumphantly brandishing a slip of paper.

  “I had their distributors followed! They’re not even bothering to use a different collection point. They pick it up straight from the press. I suppose,” he said, “they’re so keen to get it out.”

  “Yes,” said Owen sourly. “They would be.”

  He picked up the piece of paper with the address.

  “Why!” he said in surprise. “It’s in Al-Gadira!”

  “Yes,” said Nikos, “the souk. It should be easy to find.”

  It took them a little time, in fact, because it was tucked away in a side street and in the back room of a shop. The front was occupied by a small tailor’s.

  Owen, accustomed to such raids, had brought with him both uniformed and, well, not exactly plainclothes, rather, undressed men. The constables were for breaking in should the premises be barred. They liked breaking into places. The undressed were for exactly such exigencies as this.

  They sauntered along the street beforehand trying to spot the place. Failing to spot it, they began to make discreet inquiries. However discreet, inquiries were inquiries and it would be only a very short time before the printer got wind of them.

  Fortunately, a man was seen emerging from the tailor’s shop carrying a bundle of pamphlets. He was, wisely, not approached but allowed to proceed to the end of the street where Owen’s uniformed detachment was waiting, pretending to be interested in some quite other establishment, to the anxiety of its proprietor.

  The constables arrested him. They liked that sort of thing, too.

  Owen sent his undressed men to the rear of the shop and then marched quickly along the street with his constables.

  They took the tailor by surprise. He had not time to warn the inner room. Owen went straight on through.

  Inside was a man in a skullcap working a press. On the floor roundabout were piles of the illicit pamphlets.

  “Yours?” asked Owen, showing the man one of the pamphlets.

  The man shrugged and folded his arms, waiting for the inevitable.

  The constables began to carry out the confiscated material.

  Owen went through a rear door and called in his other men. They set to work dismantling the press. It was the loss of the font that was irreparable. That, for a printer, was the real punishment. A spell in prison was neither here nor there, a mere occupational hazard.

  There was a small table beyond the press, on which were several sheets of handwritten material. Owen glanced through them. They appeared to be copy for the next number: radical, but not, so far as Owen could see on a cursory glance, touching on the Leila affair.

  “Where do you put your old copy?” he asked the printer.

  The printer shrugged and remained mute.

  There were some big wicker baskets by the door, which served as dustbins. Owen tipped their contents out onto the floor and began to go through them carefully.

  He found the copy for the Narouz number. It consisted of several carefully handwritten sheets in Arabic. He smoothed them out to make sure.

  “Who brought you this?” he asked the printer.

  The printer did not even bother to shrug.

  Owen didn’t waste any more time on him but went immediately into the front room of the shop where one of his constables had the tailor pinioned against the wall.

  “Your name?” he said to the tailor.

  “Abdul Hamid.”

  “Do I know you, Abdul Hamid? Have you been in trouble before?”

  “No,” said the man.

  “I hope that is true. Do you own this shop?”

  “Yes, effendi.”

  “You know, then, to whom you have let it. You know what he publishes. You are, therefore, held responsible under the law.”

  “Yes, effendi,” said the man sadly.

  “The minimum punishment is a heavy fine.”

  “I cannot pay a fine, effendi,” said the tailor. “Look around you.”

  It was indeed a poor man’s shop.

  “Then you will have to go to prison.”

  “So be it.” The man’s shoulders drooped.

  “I can make it lighter,” said Owen, “but for that I should need something in return.”

  “Alas,” said the tailor, showing the palms of his hands, “I have nothing to give.”

  “It is not money I want,” said Owen. “It is your memory.”

  “My memory?” said the tailor, surprised.

  “I need to know about the men who have visited this place.”

  “Effendi,” said the man hesitantly, “I would help you. I have no wish to go to prison. I do not own this shop, I rent it, and if I went to prison I would not be able to keep up with the payments. I would lose all I have. I will help you if I can. But, effendi, there have been so many people coming and going, especially in the last few days, that I cannot remember them all.”

  “No matter. If you do your best, that is enough. Go with this man”—he indicated one of the plainclothes men—“the Bab el Khalk. As for Nikos. Tell him all you know. And I shall be content.”

  The tailor bowed his head in acknowledgment and left the room with the plainclothes man.

  Owen waited until the room had been cleared. As the last pamphlets were being removed, one of the policemen said:

  “We’ve got this lot, anyway.”

  “It’s too late,” said Owen, slipping the handwritten copy into his pocket, “they’re all over the place already.”

  They were. Zeinab handed him a copy when he went to her flat that evening.

  “Read it,” she said with satisfaction.

  “I have already,” he said, handing it back. “Where did you get hold of that?”

  “Hargazy gave it me,” she said.

  “Hargazy?”

  “That friend of Gamal’s who knew Leila. We met him after the play, remember. The one who probably wrote that article for Al-Liwa.”

  “Yes, I remember. Hates us.”

  “He doesn’t hate you particularly,” said Zeinab. “Or the British. It’s Narouz he hates, Narouz, the Khedive, the whole lot of them.”

 
“The Pashas? Your father?”

  “My father is different.”

  “You’re different, too, evidently. He doesn’t hate you.”

  “I told him I would help him. To tell the world about Leila.”

  “And this is part of it, is it?” said Owen, looking at the pamphlet she still held in her hand. “Telling the world?”

  “It’s a good start,” said Zeinab with satisfaction.

  “Do you know how I have been spending the morning? I’ve been raiding the printer who produced this.”

  “You’re a confused man,” said Zeinab, “who doesn’t know right from wrong.”

  “Closed him down, too. He won’t be producing any more of this sort of stuff for a while,” he said, tapping the pamphlet with his finger.

  Zeinab got herself up on the divan, curled her legs up under her, and began to smolder.

  “If you wish to be my enemy,” she said, “so be it.”

  “I don’t wish to be your enemy. I am as anxious as you are to see whoever killed Leila caught.”

  “In that case,” said Zeinab, “why don’t you arrest Narouz?”

  “Because—” said Owen, and stopped.

  He had been about to say that the evidence was as yet insufficient, that there was still room for doubt, that until a person was proved guilty he must be treated as innocent. But then he stopped.

  “Because?” asked Zeinab.

  “Because it’s—it’s not yet the right moment,” he finished lamely.

  “I know why it’s not the right moment,” said Zeinab, gathering in fury. “It’s because of this Secret Agreement of yours. Secret Agreement, pah! Which everybody knows about and has been the talk of the bazaars for weeks! Even my hairdresser knows that the Agreement is to be signed on Friday. Friday! The Moslem sabbath! That is a fine day to sign an Agreement on! If that doesn’t bring people onto the streets, nothing will.”

  She paused to draw breath.

  “The Agreement is a consideration, I admit—”

  “‘Consideration?’ What are these men’s words when a woman lies dead?”

  “But not the only one, of course.”

  “No? I am glad to hear it. For I thought for a moment that it was. And if it was, then let me tell you that you are making a great mistake. For if the people are angry because an injustice has been done, then it is no use making Agreements.”