The Mingrelian Conspiracy Read online

  ‘It’s a bit hit-and-miss.’

  ‘You get a feel.’

  ‘Any particular feels?’

  ‘Well—’ said Georgiades, looking round evasively for the waiter.

  ‘I’ve been thinking. Maybe the best chance we’ve got is catching them at the start of the process. You know, after the first visit.’

  ‘After they’ve left their visiting card? It’s a bit late then, isn’t it? People might be even less inclined to talk.’

  ‘At least we’d have something to go on. Now, in fact, there was a place yesterday—’

  ‘Jesus!’ said Georgiades, scrambling up. ‘It’s Rosa!’

  A very young, thin slip of a girl was standing beside them, arms akimbo, eyes blazing.

  ‘I thought you were supposed to be meeting me?’

  She gestured towards a pile of packages on the pavement.

  ‘On my way! I was on my way!’

  ‘You were sitting here. He spends all his time these days,’ she said to Owen, ‘sitting in cafés.’

  ‘I was working!’ protested Georgiades.

  ‘In a café? Since when is sitting in a café work?’

  ‘It’s what all the bosses do,’ said Georgiades. ‘As soon as they get anywhere, that’s what they do. Sit down in a café all day.’

  ‘Yes, but you haven’t got anywhere yet.’

  ‘I’m anticipating,’ said Georgiades.

  Owen felt the need to intervene on his behalf.

  ‘It’s my fault, really,’ he said. ‘I caught his eye—’

  ‘He was going to sit down anyway,’ said Rosa. ‘Before he saw you. I was watching.’

  ‘You were watching?’ said Georgiades. He turned to Owen.

  ‘Hey, she ought to be in this business, not me!’

  ‘Why don’t you join us?’ suggested Owen. ‘You must be tired after carrying all that lot. Tell you what, you sit down and have a cup of coffee, and I’ll pay for an arabeah to take you home.’

  ‘Well—’ said Rosa, weakening. But only for a moment.

  ‘Take us both home,’ she stipulated. ‘I don’t want to carry all these damned packages up the stairs. Besides,’ she said generously, ‘he’ll be tired after all this work he’s been doing.’ Owen held a chair for her. Rosa sat down, pleased. She had a soft spot for Owen. In fact, she told herself, she might well have decided to marry him, not Georgiades, at the time of the wretched business of her father’s kidnapping, had she not known about him and Zeinab. Rosa stood rather in awe of Zeinab, not because she was a great lady, the daughter of a Pasha, no less, but because she had somehow solved, or seemed to have solved, the problem of being an independent woman in a man’s world. She took Zeinab secretly as her model. Zeinab, for instance, would have made no bones about sitting down in this café, populated as it was entirely by men.

  Rosa sat and lifted her chin.

  She could only, Owen thought, be about sixteen even now. She had married Georgiades (and this was exactly the way to put it, since he had not had much say in the matter) when she was only fourteen. Rosa had sworn blind that she was fifteen, although her parents had been equally convinced that she was fourteen. Fourteen was, in any case, quite allowable in Cairo and Rosa had received unexpected support from her grandmother, who was a little vague about when she herself had married but thought it was young and thoroughly approved Rosa’s following tradition. This was exactly what Rosa had no intention of following. Her grandmother would certainly not have approved of her sitting here; which made it, of course, all the more enjoyable.

  ‘He really is working, you know, when he’s in these cafés,’ said Owen, determined to do his best for Georgiades.

  Rosa nodded, and then thought. She was as sharp as a knife, an implement which she had threatened to use on Georgiades if she caught him straying, and it didn’t take her long to work out that two and two make four.

  ‘It’s protection, is it?’ she said. ‘The cafés?’

  Rosa knew all about the protection racket. Her family had a business. They dealt in such things as lacquered boxes, old jewellery, Assiut shawls and ancient Persian amulets. One day the gangs had called.

  ‘You’re going about it the wrong way,’ she said. ‘Sending him round the cafés. They’ll be too frightened to talk. You’ve got to be able to offer them something.’

  ‘We are offering them something: defence.’ Rosa shook her head.

  ‘It’s too risky,’ she said. ‘You might catch the gang, you might not. If you don’t, and they’ve talked to you, then they’re in trouble. Why take a chance?’

  ‘Because otherwise they have to pay. And go on paying.’

  ‘You ought to go about it in a different way. Don’t let them think they’re talking to you. Why don’t you have him go round pretending to sell insurance? Insurance against loss? They’ll all be interested in that. They’ll want to know what it covers. It would at least get them talking. And then he might be able to lead them on. He’s good,’ said Rosa, looking unforgivingly at the pile of packages beside her, ‘at leading people on.’

  ***

  Owen sent them off in an arabeah, the universal one-horse cab of Cairo, and settled down to wait for the bill. You could wait a long time for that and meanwhile his eyes wandered relaxedly over the scene in front of him. The Ataba-el-Khadra was the meeting place of two worlds. The Musky led straight up from the Old City and you went down it if you were a European wanting to visit the bazaars, or came up it if you were a native intending to visit the shops in the European quarter or, more likely, catch a tram. The Ataba was the terminus for most of Cairo’s tram routes and at any hour of the day or night the square was full of trams, native horse-drawn buses, arabeahs and camels bringing forage for the horses. It was also full of street hawkers selling brushes (why?), ice-cream, lemonade, water, sponges, loofahs, canes (no young effendi from one of the big offices was properly dressed unless he carried a cane), hats (the pot-like tarboosh of the Egyptian) and sugar for instant consumption. The two biggest industries, however, were selling pastries and selling Nationalist newspapers. Cairenes, lacking confidence, perhaps, in their public-transport system, believed in stocking up before embarking on a journey. But they also believed in not making a journey at all but just sitting around, and when they sat around, they liked to sit in a café and read scurrilous Nationalist newspapers. Just behind the Ataba were the big offices of Credit Lyonnais and the Mixed Tribunals and beyond them the headquarters of the Anglo-Egyptian Bank, and the countless young men who worked in them were all avid Nationalists.

  Owen looked around at the crowded café and thought: if other cafés, why not this one?

  He knew the proprietor of the café and beckoned him over.

  ‘Tell me, Yasin,’ he said. ‘Do you pay protection?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said the proprietor.

  ‘Is that because they have not asked? Or because you have not agreed?’

  ‘If they asked,’ said Yasin, diplomatically but evasively, ‘I would reply: I need no protection, for the Mamur Zapt sits every night at my tables.’

  ***

  The first stage of the café evening was coming to an end and at several tables people were standing up and shaking hands. It was time to be firm about that bill. Or perhaps, just before he left, an apéritif?

  ‘How about an apéritif?’ said a familiar voice, and Paul dropped into a chair beside him.

  ‘I reckon you owe me one,’ said Owen, ‘after that meeting this morning.’

  ‘Bloody awful, wasn’t it? It’s high time the Army went on manoeuvres. Preferably at the bottom of the Red Sea.’

  ‘What’s all this business about unifying the policing? I don’t like the sound of it.’

  ‘It won’t get anywhere. The Old Man will kill it dead.’ Paul was one of the Consul-General’s aides and frequently, as this morning, chaired meet
ings on his behalf.

  ‘Will he, though? If they really push?’

  ‘They’ll only get his back up. He’ll see it as trespassing.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘It won’t get anywhere. At the end of the day, the Old Man’s a politician, and the one empire politicians will really fight for is their own. You can go back to sleep.’

  Paul sipped his apéritif.

  ‘All the same,’ he said reflectively, ‘on something like this it might be best if you didn’t.’

  ‘The gangs?’ Owen was surprised. ‘I really don’t think, Paul, you need worry too much about the guns. It’s pretty small—’

  ‘Guns?’ said Paul, so steeped in the ways of the city that he considered himself a born-again Cairene. ‘Who the hell cares about guns? It’s the cafés I’m thinking of.’

  Chapter Two

  Later the same day Owen had moved on to the second stage of the café evening and was comfortably enjoying an after-dinner coffee outside a crowded Arab café when an orderly, who knew his habits, brought him a hurried message from the Deputy Commandant of Police. It said:

  Can you get down to the Ezbekiyeh quick? Trouble at a café. I’ve got my hands full at the Citadel. McPhee.

  Trouble at a café, thought Owen. Christ, they’re keeping on the go. But when he got to the place he found it was nothing to do with protection but just an ordinary common or garden incident such as disfigured Cairo’s streets most weekends. The Ezbekiyeh contained a number of houses of ill repute and was much frequented by British soldiers. Opposite the balconies from which scantily dressed ladies suggested their all were some very low-class cafés in which yet insufficiently aroused clients could sit and gaze.

  And drink. Which was exactly what a bunch of Welsh Fusiliers had been doing until they had spotted at the next café a group of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light. Relations between the regiments were not cordial, a matter, apparently, of the condition in which the DCLI had once left some barracks when the Welsh were due to move in, and merry banter was exchanged. As the evening wore on, and more drink was consumed, the banter became less merry. Remarks were made which, the Welsh considered, reflected on their nation (‘Couldn’t kick a ball near the posts, never mind through them’) and they had risen to defend theirs and their country’s honour. In the ensuing fracas a surprising number of bottles had been broken and a considerable amount of furniture damaged; so, too, had been a considerable number of soldiers.

  The police had been summoned and a constable had indeed arrived but had wisely confined himself to the role of a spectator. When he saw Owen he fell in—behind him—with considerable relief.

  Owen had no great desire to get involved in a brawl either. He doubted very much if the contestants were in a condition in which they could respond to the voice of command, much less a civilian voice of command; and then what would he do? He advanced slowly down the street towards them.

  The fighting seemed, fortunately, to have reached a slight lull. Those still on their feet paused for a moment, breathing heavily. They were just about to resume, however, when a voice came sharply from the other end of the street: ‘Stop that at once!’

  The combatants looked up, surprised.

  A slight, smartly dressed man came out of the darkness towards them.

  ‘Stop that at once! Stand apart!’

  ‘Blimey!’ said one of the soldiers incredulously. ‘A Gyppie!’

  ‘Bloody hell!’

  ‘’Ere,’ said another voice, ‘what do you think you’re doing? Ordering us around?’

  ‘He needs bloody straightening out.’

  ‘He bloody does!’

  They began to move towards him.

  Owen, in a fury now, and forgetting himself, started forward.

  ‘Cut that out! None of that! Get back! Get back at once!’

  ‘Christ!’ said one of the soldiers. ‘Here’s another one!’

  ‘He’s bloody British, though.’

  ‘I am bloody British,’ snapped Owen, ‘and tomorrow morning I’ll have you bloody lot on jankers. I’ll have you bloody running round and round the parade ground until your bloody balls drop off—’

  ‘He speaks a bit like an officer,’ said one of the men doubtfully.

  ‘What’s he in civvies for?’

  ‘Must be off duty.’

  ‘—and drop on the ground and lie there till they fry—’ raged Owen.

  The men, impressed, stopped fighting.

  ‘That was lovely!’ said one of the Welshmen. ‘A bit poetic!’ A group of men in uniform suddenly appeared at the end of the street.

  ‘Christ!’ said one of the soldiers. ‘We’re for it! It’s the jelly-babies!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ shouted a voice that was vaguely familiar. The Military Police came down the street.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Owen recognized the voice now. It was Shearer.

  ‘These men have been disturbing the peace,’ said the Egyptian.

  ‘Oh, have they? We’ll soon see about that! Get their names, sergeant!’

  ‘I would like a copy, please,’ said the Egyptian.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It would save me having to do it for myself.’

  ‘I’m handling them,’ said Shearer. ‘It’s no concern of yours.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is,’ said the Egyptian.

  ‘Oh?’ said Shearer. ‘And who the hell are you?’

  ‘Can I introduce you?’ said Owen, stepping forward. ‘Mr. Mahmoud El Zaki, Captain Shearer. Mr. El Zaki is a member of the Parquet and is, presumably, the officer investigating this case.’

  If so, it would be very speedy. In Egypt the police had no powers of investigation. They merely reported a case of suspected crime to the Department of Prosecutions of the Ministry of Justice, the Parquet, which then assigned one of its lawyers to conduct the investigation.

  ‘There is no case,’ said Shearer. ‘It’s an internal matter for the Army.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said the Egyptian. ‘Since the incident has been formally reported a file will have been already opened.’

  ‘I suggest you close it, then.’

  ‘That will not be possible.’ Shearer looked at Owen.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s right. Once the process has been formally initiated it rolls on until it’s formally closed.’

  ‘How do I go about getting it formally closed?’

  ‘A request has to go in from the administration. Get your people to contact Paul Trevelyan.’

  Shearer made a note of the name.

  ‘He’s the chap who was chairing the meeting this morning,’ said Owen.

  Shearer frowned.

  ‘Meanwhile,’ said Owen, pointedly, ‘you are obliged to cooperate with the Parquet.’

  ‘The names, please,’ said the Egyptian. Shearer gave in with an ill grace.

  ‘Give him a copy when you’ve finished,’ he said to the sergeant. ‘You lot,’ he said, turning on the soldiers, ‘had better get back to barracks. You’re a bloody disgrace. I’ll deal with you in the morning.’

  ‘Better send them separately,’ advised Owen. ‘Otherwise they’ll start fighting again.’

  ‘They’d better bloody not! You’re right, though, it’s best to make sure. You lot,’ he said to the DCLI, ‘get started. Sergeant, take half your men and go with them. You shower,’ he said to the Fusiliers, ‘start in ten minutes. Corporal, see they don’t cause any more trouble.’

  ‘The list, sir,’ said the sergeant, giving it to the Egyptian. He did not normally reckon to say ‘sir’ to Egyptians but this situation seemed a bit complicated, and then there was the other funny bloke standing by whom Shearer seemed to listen to.

  ‘Thank you.’ The Egyptian hesitated. ‘Are you not going to take the names of witnesse
s?’ he asked, puzzled. ‘You spoke of Army legal processes.’

  ‘Not necessary, I think,’ said Shearer.

  The Egyptian raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. He took out a notebook and went over to the owner of the Fusiliers’ café.

  ‘Will you want to talk to me?’ asked Owen.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ said the Egyptian, over his shoulder.

  Shearer frowned.

  ‘I don’t think that’s right,’ he objected. ‘You ought not to be called on to give evidence against our own people. It puts you in an awkward position.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Owen. ‘I’m used to that!’

  Shearer hesitated and then, as the Egyptian did not appear to be disposed to go at once to Owen, which was what Shearer half expected, said good night and went after the departed DCLI.

  Owen found himself standing next to the Fusiliers.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ said one of them, recognizing a countryman. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Machen.’

  ‘Are you, indeed, sir? I’m from Caerphilly.’

  ‘And I’m from Llanbradach, sir,’ put in another of the Fusiliers.

  ‘I know it well,’ said Owen.

  ‘And I know Machen, sir. My aunt is Mrs. Roberts, of the Post Office, sir.’

  ‘Mrs. Roberts?’ It was a hundred years since Owen had been in Wales. But vague memories of his childhood began to stir. ‘I remember her, I think. How is she?’

  ‘Not very well, sir. She’s getting on a bit now. She’s more or less given up the Post Office. She leaves it mostly to Blodwen now.’

  ‘Blodwen?’

  ‘Her daughter, sir. You remember her?’

  ‘I think I do. A tiny little thing?’

  ‘Not so tiny, now, sir.’

  ‘She’s married, sir,’ said another of the Fusiliers.

  ‘Heavens! Well, it was a while ago. I left for India when I was eighteen.’

  ‘We thought you’d been in the Army, sir. It was the way you spoke.’

  The corporal came up.

  ‘All right, you lot,’ he said. ‘On your way!’

  ‘Sorry about the bother, sir,’ said one of the Fusiliers as they left. ‘Those English bastards called us Welsh bastards!’