Death of an Effendi Page 3

  ***

  ‘Well, of course,’ said Prince Fuad huffily, ‘the Ministry of Justice can do just what it likes.’

  That, unfortunately, was just what it couldn’t do: firstly, because the Minister was an appointee of the Khedive, who would speedily appoint someone else if the Minister showed too many signs of independence; secondly, because at the top of every Ministry, sitting next to the Minister, Egyptian, was an Adviser, British, whose advice it was unwise not to follow.

  The Minister muttered something about judicial process once started being hard to stop.

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Prince Fuad. ‘The question is: who is boss? That’s all! Are we the process’ masters or its servants?’

  ‘Well,’ said the Minister unhappily.

  ‘Well,’ said the Adviser.

  ‘Mamur Zapt?’

  Owen hesitated. It was sometimes difficult serving two masters: the Khedive, to whom in theory he was responsible, and the British, who had put him there.

  ‘Ordinarily,’ he said, ‘I would side with Prince Fuad. However, I think that in this case we have to remember that the eyes of the world may be upon us. This was the death of someone who was being invited in to invest in Egypt’s prosperity, and if we seem to be taking it too lightly, other investors may be deterred.’

  ‘I do think the Mamur Zapt has a point there!’ declared the aide-de-camp.

  ‘So do I!’ said the Adviser.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ murmured the Minister.

  ‘Well,’ said Prince Fuad crossly, seeing that he was outgunned, ‘what are we going to do about it, then? Couldn’t you tell your people merely to go through the motions?’ he asked the Minister. ‘I mean, that’s what they usually do, don’t they?’

  The Minister murmured something about the officer in question being particularly zealous.

  ‘Would you like me to speak to him?’ demanded Prince Fuad.

  ‘No!’ said the Minister, who knew Mahmoud and knew that if Prince Fuad spoke to him in his usual way, he was likely to speak back.

  ‘I agree,’ said the aide-de-camp quickly. ‘The less the Khedive’s office is seen to have to do with this, the better!’

  ‘There’s something in that,’ conceded Prince Fuad. ‘However, we are still left with the question of what we’re going to do. We can’t just leave the Parquet to run wild on a thing like this.’

  ‘Nor should we,’ said the aide-de-camp. ‘I have a suggestion. This is the death not just of an effendi but of a foreign effendi. Given the circumstances, it is likely that if a case comes to court, it will fall under the Capitulations.’ The Capitulations were a system of privileges granted to foreign powers which, among other things, gave their citizens the right to be tried under their own national courts. ‘Would it not be wiser if a representative of the Capitulatory Powers was associated with the case from the start?’

  ‘That would certainly please the Russians,’ said the Adviser.

  ‘It would have to be someone we could trust,’ said Prince Fuad.

  ‘Quite so; and for that reason I was thinking of someone in the service of the Khedive who would also be acceptable to the Powers: the Mamur Zapt.’

  ***

  ‘You’ve landed me in it,’ said Owen accusingly, as he walked away from the meeting with the aide-de-camp.

  ‘You were already landed,’ said the aide-de-camp, Paul, whom he had hitherto considered his friend.

  ***

  ‘You do not usually join me in my investigations,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Why this one?’

  ‘An important person, I suppose.’

  ‘And yet they seemed prepared to let the whole matter drop.’

  ‘I think they would have let it drop if you hadn’t started asking questions.’

  ‘But is not an important person an important person whether I ask questions or not?’

  ‘I think the important thing may be that he was foreign.’

  ‘But that is wrong. The law is the same whether a man is foreign or not.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Or should be.’

  ‘Exactly so.’

  They were waiting on the platform of the Gare Centrale. On learning that Owen was going to join him in his inquiries, Mahmoud, scrupulous as ever, had sent him a note saying that he was going down to the Fayoum to see the spot where the incident had occurred and inviting him to accompany him.

  ‘What was it in the report that made you ask questions?’ asked Owen.

  Mahmoud looked slightly ashamed.

  ‘I was angry,’ he admitted. ‘It was such a slack piece of work. An accident, yes, but even with an accident there are details that should be included. The death of a visitor to our country, a guest, you could say—one needs to be satisfied. All the more when it is a shooting. An accident, maybe, but even when the shooting is accidental, someone is responsible. The Mudir made no effort to find out who had fired the gun. That is deplorable. He should have called in the guns at least—’

  ‘I did suggest that.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes. They didn’t feel it was necessary.’

  ‘Who didn’t feel it was necessary?’

  ‘Prince Fuad. The Russian Consul.’

  ‘What is it to do with them?’

  ‘Strictly speaking, nothing, I suppose. However, if you’re a humble Mudir—’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Mahmoud frowned. ‘But it is wrong all the same,’ he burst out excitedly—dereliction of duty always excited him. ‘A Mudir should have pride, he should have a sense of his responsibilities, he should—’

  Mahmoud stopped and shook his head.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘He is only a Mudir after all. And in the provinces the older relationships still—’

  He stopped again.

  ‘But that is what is wrong! It is what is wrong with the country, too. There is still the old deference to the Khedive, to the Pashas. It gets in the way of doing things properly. And until we start doing things properly, what hope has the country of advancing? All right, he is only a Mudir, but—’

  ‘Even if he had called the guns in,’ said Owen placidly, ‘all that it probably would have shown us was that it was one of the financiers. And I don’t think they were very anxious to show that.’

  ‘But that, too, is wrong. You cannot have the law applying to some people and not others. We would have treated him fairly. We understand about accidents. Why cannot they trust us?’ said Mahmoud bitterly.

  ‘They do trust you,’ said Owen quickly. ‘Of course they trust you!’ It could come out of the blue, this touching of the Egyptian nerve.

  ‘Even from their point of view it is a mistake. It makes you ask questions. It made me ask questions. When the Mudir couldn’t answer them I went round to the Russian Consulate, because Tvardovsky was, after all, one of their nationals, but they—well, it wasn’t as if they weren’t interested, rather that they suddenly closed down. They wouldn’t tell me anything. And then I went to the Khedive’s office—the Khedive was the host, after all—and got the same response from them. They wouldn’t even give me a list of who was there. And so I thought: why won’t they? Is it that they have something to hide?’

  ***

  They arrived at the hotel in late mid morning. It was beginning to get very hot and people were already returning from excursions along the bank of the lake. The hotel, which had been emptied of its guests to accommodate the Khedive’s party was full again with its normal clientele: Greek and Levantine businessmen escaping the heat of the city with their families, old hands of the Administration who had done all the sights and were looking for something green, somewhere, perhaps, that would remind them of England, a few foreign tourists complete with Kodaks.

  They went at once down to the lake. The foreshore was now lined with boats. Fishermen were shovelling their catch into
wickerwork baskets. Every so often one of them would lift a basket on to his shoulder, step over the side of the boat and splash ashore. Gulls would swoop down even as he was carrying and snap at the fish. The baskets were taken to an outbuilding of the hotel, where the fish were emptied out on to the floor. Through the open door Owen could see the grey-and-silvery pile growing and growing.

  The heaps of fish inside the boats were diminishing rapidly. From time to time one of the fish would give a squirm and a jump and then fall back again. Some of the fishermen had turned to coiling their ropes and spreading their nets out on the ground to dry.

  Mahmoud went across and began to talk to some of them. They pointed along the bank to where the shoot had taken place. The reeds were thick at this point, about six feet high and spreading out in a little headland. The shoot had taken place just off the headland. Around the other side, where ducks crowded in such numbers as to make the water white.

  Mahmoud climbed into one of the punt-like boats and two of the boatmen prepared to paddle him over. He asked Owen to go with him.

  The men had been on the shoot itself, in the boats where the bulk of the party had been stationed, in the open water beyond the headland, just at the edge of the reeds, where the reeds would conceal them. They were describing to Mahmoud what had happened, putting their arms up to mimic the shooting.

  It hardly seemed possible it could be the same place. Then the air had been torn by shooting, there had been a kind of tension. Now everything seemed incredibly peaceful. Ducks were dawdling in and out of the reeds, hardly bothering to register their presence. The sun was warm on the woodwork, the blue lake sparkled in the sun, as still as a mirror. He found it hard to reconcile with his memory.

  ‘Of course,’ he said to Mahmoud, ‘we weren’t out there. We were in there.’

  He pointed vaguely towards the reeds.

  ‘We?’ said Mahmoud.

  ‘Tvardovsky and I. In two separate boats.’

  ‘Just the two of you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘We had different boats. They could go in among the reeds.’

  ‘How did you come to have different boats?’

  Owen shrugged.

  ‘Accident. Maybe we arrived later than the others. The other boats were all taken.’

  Mahmoud took the boat over to the reeds and peered in. They were impenetrable to a boat like his.

  ‘How would you see to shoot?’ he asked.

  ‘You would be shooting upwards. You would see the birds against the sky.’ He tried to remember. ‘You wouldn’t have long. Of course,’ he added, ‘Tvardovsky wasn’t shooting.’

  Mahmoud sat there for some time thinking. Then he told the boatmen to take the boat back to the land. There Owen saw him talking to the man who had been Tvardovsky’s boatman.

  He came back towards Owen.

  ‘You were in a separate boat,’ he said. ‘Where is your boatman?’

  Owen looked around and couldn’t see him.

  Mahmoud spoke to some of the men.

  ‘He’s gone to visit his mother,’ he said.

  The boats had finished emptying their catch now. The nets had been spread out along the bank. There was a stink of fish in the air. Some of the men had gone to sit in the shade of a large boat that had been drawn up out of the water. Mahmoud stayed talking to them for some time.

  Owen wandered along the bank. He came to a small bay where flamingoes were paddling on the lake. Beside them was a pair of pelicans. As Owen watched, one of the pelicans stooped down into the water and came up with a fish. Owen saw its tail disappearing into the bird’s beak as it was swallowed. It was a large fish and made a bulge in the pelican’s neck. With horrified fascination Owen watched the bulge wriggling as it went down.

  ***

  The Mudir was sitting under a palm tree chatting to some waiters. Mahmoud went across to greet him and then brought him back to a table on the terrace, where he summoned coffee. The Mudir sat down uneasily. While a Parquet officer did not count as the great, the Parquet itself was a mysterious object over the horizon from which from time to time incomprehensible reproofs would come like a bolt from the blue.

  ‘The man was dead,’ he said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. ‘What need of a postmortem?’

  ‘To establish the cause of death.’

  ‘He was shot. There is no puzzle about that.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘And, besides, he was a foreign effendi.’

  ‘So?’

  The Mudir shrugged.

  ‘You don’t mess about with foreign effendis,’ he said, ‘even when they’re dead.’

  ‘You have a responsibility,’ said Mahmoud sternly, ‘to establish how he died.’

  ‘I know how he died! He was shot. There!’ The Mudir clapped his chest dramatically.

  ‘At what range?’

  ‘What range?’

  ‘How far away was the person who fired the shot?’

  ‘Well, hell, I don’t know. It was among the reeds and—’

  ‘The postmortem might be able to tell you that.’

  ‘But can’t we guess? The shot must have been fired from one of the boats and—’

  ‘The boats were scattered. I know, because I asked the boatmen. If we knew the range, it might help us to establish which boat.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said the Mudir lamely, ‘there was no ice.’

  ‘Ice? What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘To pack the body in. If we wanted to preserve it for a postmortem. It’s very hot at this time of year and—’

  ‘But there was plenty of ice! The hotel had lots of it.’

  ‘Ah, yes, but that was ice for putting in drinks. You couldn’t use that. Not for a foreign effendi. It would be disrespectful.’

  ‘So what did you do with the body?’

  ‘I let the effendis have it.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I let the effendis take it away. They said they would see to all that was necessary. And I said to myself, yes, surely that would be best, for they will know what is proper. Who am I to say what rites should be used for a foreign effendi? You can’t expect a Mudir to know everything.’

  ‘You let them take it away? Just like that? Without even getting a doctor to sign a death certificate? Have you no notion of procedure, man?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ protested the Mudir, stung. ‘These were foreign effendis, great and mighty. And, besides, Prince Fuad said if I didn’t get a move on, he would kick my arse.’

  ‘There is a procedure to be followed,’ lectured Mahmoud, ‘and you, the Mudir, should be seeing that it is followed. No one is above the law. Neither foreign effendis nor Prince Fuad.’

  ‘You try telling Prince Fuad that!’ said the Mudir.

  Chapter Three

  The tables on the terrace were filling up now for lunch. White tablecloths gleamed, silver serviette rings shone. Ice buckets smoked, ice chinked in glasses. Mahmoud had gone into the hotel to see if he could obtain a list of the people who had been there on the weekend when Tvardovsky was shot. Owen was reading the wine list.

  A man came out on to the terrace. He stopped when he saw Owen and then came across to him.

  ‘Why, Captain Owen,’ he said, ‘what brings you here? Taking a break? Oh, no,’ he smiled, ‘I was forgetting: you will be here on business. This sad Tvardovsky affair!’

  Owen did not recognize him.

  ‘Mirza es-Rahel,’ said the man helpfully. ‘I work for Al-Liwa.’

  ‘I know your writing, of course,’ said Owen, ‘but the face—’

  They shook hands. It was true. He did know his writings. And very scurrilous they were, too. The man seemed to have a knack of unearthing scandalous stories about the royal family and the politicians with who
m the Khedive surrounded himself. But the face was unfamiliar.

  Which was surprising, for Owen thought he knew most of the important Nationalist journalists who worked in the city.

  ‘I’m based in Alexandria,’ the Egyptian explained.

  That, too, was surprising: for it was Cairo that was the hub of government, the place where the Khedive and his ministers resided, and where one would naturally expect to find journalists of Mr. es-Rahel’s ilk. He said as much.

  ‘But it is Alexandria where the money is,’ said the Egyptian, smiling again, ‘and I have always found the financial connection the most promising of threads to pursue.’

  ‘Not sex?’

  ‘That, too,’ Mr. es-Rahel conceded. ‘But sex is for pleasure: money is something you take seriously.’ He laughed. ‘Or, at least, the Pashas who rule us do.’

  ‘And which is it that brings you here, Mr. es-Rahel? Business or pleasure?’

  ‘Pleasure. Though not, I’m afraid, of the sexual kind. Merely taking a break. I was feeling a bit jaded. Alexandria, you know, fills up at this time of year with holiday-makers. I felt a day or two in the quiet by the lake would do me good.’ He looked across to the main building and saw Mahmoud coming out of a door. ‘You are here with Mr. El Zaki?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Seeing that he does not find out too much?’

  The conciliating laugh took the sting out of his words.

  ‘Helping him.’

  ‘I am sure he will need help. With so many obstacles in his way.’

  ‘Are there?’

  ‘Well, yes, Captain Owen. You know that as well as I do.’

  ‘What sort of obstacles?’

  ‘The usual ones. The ones that always block Egypt’s attempts at freedom.’

  ‘The Capitulations, you mean?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I am not sure they are relevant here.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘In any case,’ said Owen, ‘there’s not a lot I can do about them.’