The Last Cut Read online

  Once, though, he had made the connection with the water-seller, things began to fall into place. He had observed that the water-cart called regularly at the house to an extent hardly likely to be justified by the pretext that it was picking up gear. He had found that it was clearly picking up water and had followed it afterwards to the various points at which it disbursed it to the local water-carriers.

  Still, though, there were things that he could not understand. The greatest of these was the economics of it. The water that was being stolen was unfiltered water. True, it was then being sold as filtered water, fit for drinking, but even so the mark up must be minute. It was only gradually that he realized that to men like these the margin, however small, was significant. Where a man’s dreams of wealth turned on the difference between being a water-carrier and a man on a cart, milliemes mattered.

  In Omar Fayoum’s case the profit margin was greater anyway because the bulk of the water was sold as drinking water to businesses—cafés, for instance—in the Gamaliya which the pipes had not yet reached.

  Suleiman had not known this, had not known any of it, in the days when he had hung around the Gamaliya desperate for a sight of Leila. But Omar Fayoum, and the men about him, knowing his business in the Gamaliya, and forever seeing him there, ‘creeping around’, as they put it, had suspected that he did.

  When, therefore, his connection with Leila had become known, it was like a thunderbolt. Surely he would be able to worm the secret out of her; and if by then she was married to Omar Fayoum, it would be even worse.

  The marriage was called off at once; and to the collapse of Ali Khedri’s hopes in that respect was added the fear that the whole scheme was on the verge of being discovered.

  And by the son of his old enemy! This was the bit that Ali Khedri could not bear. Nor could he believe that it had come about by accident. To his diseased mind it was clear that his old adversary was pursuing him further, even here in the city, even here in the depths of his poverty.

  He had to hit back. And he had to hit back before time ran out, before they came and took him to a place where he might be able to think about revenge but would never be able to take it. He had to hit back; and to a man whose life was water, whose life, as he saw it, had been ruined by water, water was the obvious means by which to take his revenge. He would use the river, as Babikr had said, to avenge what was done by the river.

  Babikr had come to him as a gift from God; or, possibly,—and by this time he did not care—from Shaitun. He had called on Ali Khedri when he had come up to do his annual duty with the corvée. He knew the barrage and, even more to the point, was bound, as he had reminded Ali Khedri, to him by oath.

  For Ali Khedri, as for Suleiman, things were falling into place. Babikr might demur, but he was bound. Ali Khedri thanked God or Shaitun for the terms of the oath on which he had insisted. About the effect on others of his taking revenge in this way on his old adversary, he did not care. All else was consumed in the bitterness he felt for Al-Sayyid Hannam.

  And then it did not work. Babikr planted the bomb, the Manufiya Regulator was blown, but Al-Sayyid Hannam, though damaged, was not broken.

  He even had the gall to come to him, him, Ali Khedri, whom he had wronged so badly, asking—this was rich, so rich that it could not be chance, it must be cunning—for forgiveness.

  So back they were to things as they had been, with his old enemy triumphant, even, it seemed, on the verge of a greater triumph. For there could be no mistake about it now. The boy had found out. He had attached his infernal devices to the pipes on either side of the tap and that meant, Omar Fayoum said, that he would be able to show that there was no doubt about it.

  Unless, of course, he was stopped.

  And then they heard that the boy was again in the Gamaliya, there, at the very spot!

  It was their last chance to save themselves. More than that; for Ali Khedri it was another chance, and, yes, again, probably his last chance, to get even with his old adversary. For Al-Sayyid Hannam loved his boy. The man from the Parquet had said so. Loved him. Perhaps this, not the water, was the way to find revenge.

  ‘You sought revenge,’ said Owen coldly, ‘through harming innocence.’

  ‘Innocence? You call the boy innocent?’

  ‘He was but doing his job.’

  Ali Khedri was unconvinced.

  ‘He was put up to it,’ he said, ‘by his father.’

  ‘And what of those others whom you would have harmed along with Al-Sayyid Hannam?’

  The water-carrier shrugged.

  ‘Some of them came from your village. They remembered you in friendship. They will not do that now. They will think of you with anger. As a man who would have hurt his friends. And as a man who killed his daughter.’

  Ali Khedri started up.

  ‘I did not kill her!’ he cried.

  ‘No,’ said Mahmoud, speaking for the first time. Up till now he had been sitting there quietly, for the attack on the regulator was Owen’s business. Leila, however, was his. ‘No, you did not kill her. But I think you know who did.’

  Ali Khedri started to say something, stopped and looked at the ground.

  ‘You must have guessed,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Even if he did not speak of it when you left the meeting together, you must have guessed when you heard that Leila had not come back.’

  ‘She was nothing to do with me,’ said Ali Khedri defiantly.

  ‘She was your daughter. Even though others had taken her in. And that was sad, that Um Fatima, who in the goodness of her heart had taken her in, should by that same act make it possible for her to be killed. For surely she would not have gone with Ahmed Uthman if she had not come from his house and trusted him.’

  ‘She would have gone with any man,’ said Ali Khedri.

  ‘Not so. For she was pure in heart. She would not have gone with the boy. There were two men only that she would have gone with: her father and the man who in her trustfulness she thought was acting as her father. He had taken her in and had a right to tell her to come with him.’

  The water-carrier was silent.

  ‘Let me take you back, Ali Khedri,’ said Mahmoud, ‘to the afternoon of the day that Leila died, when you and Ahmed Uthman and Omar Fayoum talked for so long in the place where Omar Fayoum kept his cart; when all that you knew was that the boy might be close to discovering your secret about the water and that he loved the girl; and when you were still brooding in your heart upon the fresh wrong that you fancied your old adversary, Al-Sayyid Hannam, had done you and meditating your revenge by water. What I want to know is this: when you and Ahmed Uthman and Omar Fayoum talked for so long, did you talk about killing Leila?’

  He waited, but the water-carrier did not reply.

  ‘You were, I think, talking about the boy and what he had found out. And I suspect you talked about what you might do. Did that include killing your daughter?’

  Ali Khedri remained mute.

  ‘You would have feared that she would tell what she knew.’

  ‘She knew nothing,’ said Ali Khedri, speaking at last.

  ‘Why, then, was the marriage with Omar Fayoum broken off?’

  ‘Because of what she might find out.’

  ‘Yet she had not found it out when she was living with you?’

  ‘A daughter’s duty is to obey,’ said Ali Khedri.

  ‘And you thought a wife might not?’

  ‘Her heart was with the boy.’

  ‘You thought she would betray you?’

  ‘I do not know,’ muttered Ali Khedri.

  ‘Did you talk about that?’

  ‘I don’t know what we talked about.’

  ‘I ask,’ said Mahmoud, ‘for this reason: Uthman will die. You probably will die, too. Shall Omar Fayoum escape? Do the rich always go free in this world?’

  Chapter Thirteen
/>   One thing remained: to see that on the great day there was no trouble between Jews and gravediggers. Owen found the gravediggers sitting disconsolately in the shade of a tomb.

  ‘The Jews are doing it,’ they said.

  ‘It was their turn,’ said Owen. ‘And, besides, you have brought it on your own heads.’

  ‘It was his idea,’ one of them tried. ‘Why are you taking it out on us?’

  ‘You knew about it,’ said Owen.

  They did not really demur.

  ‘However,’ said Owen, ‘I am a man of mercy.’

  ‘You are?’

  They looked up hopefully.

  ‘Yes. And therefore although the Jews will still do it—’

  Gravedigger faces fell.

  ‘—I will put in a word for you on a job that will be more than equivalent.’

  ‘What is that?’ asked the gravediggers cautiously.

  ‘You know that after the Cut, the canal is to be filled in. For that, diggers will be required. It is a good job and will last many days. Now, I will see that you get the chance to do half; provided that I have no more trouble from you.’

  ‘Half the canal? That will take a bit of time. The usual rates?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Well, that’s not bad!’ said one of them.

  ‘In fact, it’s very good,’ said another.

  The gravediggers brightened.

  ‘Remember, only if I have no trouble!’ Owen cautioned.

  ‘Who is doing the other half?’

  ‘The Jews.’

  There was a long silence. Then one of the men said:

  ‘It would be the other end from us, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’d have to see that they didn’t do a bit of our half sneakily and then claim for it.’

  ‘I would see to that,’ Owen promised. ‘I will get the Effendi from the barrage to measure—he measures like the Prophet himself!—and determine the mid-point, so that there will be no arguing. And then I shall watch like a hawk to see that neither half—neither half!—is exceeded.’

  ‘We-ell…’ said the gravediggers, looking at each other.

  ‘We’ll have to think about it.’

  ‘Don’t think too long!’

  ‘Are you talking to the Jews too?’

  Owen nodded.

  ‘We’re on!’ said the gravediggers instantaneously.

  ***

  ‘But will the Lizard Man strike?’ asked the man from the Khedive’s Office worriedly.

  ‘There is no such thing as the Lizard Man,’ said Owen wearily, very wearily because on top of the excitements of the previous day he had been up most of the night checking last minute arrangements for the Cut, marshalling boats, reinforcing the police cordon, making sure that the canal bed was clear of idiots who were determined to drown themselves, and pacifying the Kadi, the Khedive, the Consul-General’s wife, and Zeinab, who had decided after a couple of hours that there were better things to do with one’s nights than standing around on a dam and wanted Owen to do them with her.

  ‘I heard there had been incidents,’ said the man from the Khedive’s Office uneasily.

  ‘You heard wrongly,’ said Owen shortly.

  ‘There was that attack on the Manufiya Regulator—’

  ‘The men responsible are in prison. And they are men not lizards.’

  ‘Oh, I know about that. But wasn’t there something else?’

  ‘A foolish attempt by a gardener and a ghaffir to stop the new canal from running through the Gardens!’

  ‘And there was an attempt to disrupt the Cut itself!’

  ‘There were two incidents. Neither was by a lizard. One was probably by a stray dog and the other certainly by an astray gravedigger who now languishes in jail.’

  ‘But there was this business about the girl—’

  ‘Nothing to do with it. An unconnected murder.’

  ‘But the body, I understand, was found beneath the Cone?’

  ‘Put there by a killer to distract attention and throw suspicion on someone else. You may assure His Royal Highness that there is no danger. From the Lizard Man or anything else.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said the man from the Khedive’s Office doubtfully. He, too, had had a hard night manoeuvring his master’s barge into a position which offered the best possible view but would keep him out of the way should anything go wrong with the tricky business of the Cut itself. The Khedive had at one time wanted to be the one whose boat made the actual breach and it had been very difficult to persuade him that that was traditionally the Kadi’s prerogative. His Highness had been convinced only when it was pointed out to him that the first boat through was the one that had to ride the turbulence.

  The Kadi himself had no need to be reminded of this fact.

  ‘Just make sure the damned thing doesn’t turn over!’ he kept saying; although his was not, in fact, the boat that would be making the actual breach. Tucked out of sight beneath the bows of the Kadi’s barge was a smaller vessel which would be sent on ahead, its crew shivering in their sandals.

  The river side of the dam was now a solid mass of boats jostling for position. When the dam was broken they would follow the Kadi through in a joyous and noisy convoy. Some would certainly sink, and the most that Owen could hope for was that they would sink far enough along the Canal not to disrupt proceedings. Fortunately, they had all done this lots of times before and knew what was expected of them.

  He checked the earth dam for the last time. The Jews had done their work, shaving the wall of the dam to the point where a boat could crash through it, and were now standing resting on their wooden spades.

  ‘Okay,’ said Owen. ‘Get them away!’

  The police closed round them and hustled them out of sight. There had been no trouble. The Muslim gravediggers were sticking to the deal.

  Macrae was standing nearby with a bottle in his hand. He held it out to Owen.

  ‘Have a wee drappie!’ he invited. ‘It’s a cauld night!’

  Well, by Egyptian standards it was. Owen accepted gratefully.

  From along the river bank came the skirl of pipes; bag, not water.

  ‘It’s the Camerons!’ cried Macrae.

  Not so; into sight came a native Egyptian band, complete with drums, cymbals, hautboys, oods, nays—and bagpipes.

  ‘Canna ye tell the Camerons, man?’ said Ferguson, scandalized.

  ‘Ay, but—’ said Macrae, puzzled. Then: ‘Look at the pipes!’ he cried. They were genuine Scottish bagpipes, still covered with the tartans of the clans they had served.

  ‘All the music shops have them,’ said Owen, taking another swig.

  ‘Just cut out the drink!’ advised Zeinab, appearing with Labiba Latifa. ‘You know you’ll be useless!’

  ‘I must thank you for your efforts on behalf of Suleiman, Captain Owen,’ said Labiba, smiling. ‘Now, about circumcision—’

  ‘I have been talking to Mahmoud about it,’ said Owen hurriedly. ‘He’s just over there, I believe.’

  ‘Is he?’

  Labiba plunged into the crowd. Zeinab stayed to address him; forthrightly, it appeared, from the emphaticness of her gestures. However, he couldn’t hear a word because at that moment the Kadi’s barge fired off its cannon. Immediately there were answering sallies from the barges round about and drums began to beat on all the smaller boats. Rockets whizzed into the sky. Humbler fireworks began to crackle along the banks of the canal, their sparks and stars illuminating the faces of the onlookers.

  In a momentary lull he heard a familiar voice.

  ‘But I did see him!’ it insisted.

  It was the man from the Khedive’s Office, this time in company with Paul.

  ‘I am sure you did,’ replied Paul soothingly.

  �
��But you said he was being tortured!’

  ‘I did, yes.’

  ‘You spoke of some Glass House!’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘And now he is here!’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Paul, ‘but it is what he is here for.’

  ‘What is he here for?’

  Paul glanced around and then took him conspiratorially by the arm.

  ‘You see that mound of earth?’

  ‘The Bride of the Nile, yes.’

  ‘Well, that’s it.’

  ‘You are going to put him there?’

  ‘Spread-eagled. So that he can see the water coming towards him.’

  ‘They are usually killed first,’ said the man from the Khedive’s Office doubtfully.

  ‘Yes, but it’s better this way, don’t you think?’

  ‘Well, yes. I suppose so. But, look, it’s usually a woman. They’re best for this kind of thing.’

  ‘I agree with you entirely. It was just that in this case I thought—you know, considering what he had done: the insult to the Khedive, the connection with the river—’

  ‘Using the river to punish for the river?’ said the Khedive’s man, impressed. ‘Well, yes, that is imaginative. I will go and tell His Royal Highness to look out for it as his boat goes through. He probably won’t see anything, but—’

  He hurried away. Paul seized Macrae by the arm.

  ‘Have you got some whisky?’

  ‘Why, yes, man,’ said Macrae hospitably, offering him the bottle.

  ‘No, no. You see that chap there?’

  He pointed to the pink young man.

  ‘Yes. He’s my assistant.’

  ‘It should be easy, then. Look, what I want him to do is drink half a bottle—’

  ‘Half a bottle! But—’

  ‘These are instructions from the Consul-General,’ said Paul impressively. ‘The new Manufiya Regulator depends on it!’

  ‘It does?’

  Macrae shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment but strode purposefully towards the pink young man.