The Mingrelian Conspiracy (5 page)

‘What difficulties?’

‘Well, dresses. That kind of thing.’

Paul glanced at his notes.

‘No, this has already been decided. The Consul-General’s wife—’

‘A March Past?’ suggested the Army, some time later. ‘March Past?’

‘The Khedive reviewing his troops.’

‘There may be international observers,’ said Paul. ‘I don’t think we should make our military presence too obvious. We could have a jolly procession, I suppose.’

‘The Khedive would like that,’ said Mr. Abd-es-Salem. ‘In fact, he would wish to take part in it himself. He could ride at the head with the Grand Duke in an open landau.’

‘Is that a good idea?’ asked Owen.

‘Why not?’ said Mr. Abd-es-Salem, surprised.

‘Because it would make it easy for someone to take a pot shot at him.’

‘The Khedive feels safe with his people,’ said Mr. Abd-es-Salem reprovingly.

‘I was thinking of the Grand Duke,’ said Owen hastily and untruly.

‘Surely there is no risk of that?’

‘Cairo is a city of many nationalities. And not all of them are sympathetic to Russia.’

‘Even so—’

‘The Balkan countries, for instance.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Mr. Abd-es-Salem thoughtfully. ‘The Balkans!’

‘The Mingrelians!’ added Owen, for the benefit of the Army.

‘My God, yes!’ said the major. ‘The Mingrelians!’

‘Round them up,’ said Shearer. ‘Round them all up!’

‘All of them?’ said Owen. ‘There are over twenty thousand people from various Balkan countries in Cairo alone. The place is like a miniature Balkans. It’s a potential powder keg, I can tell you. I think this visit is crazy. Why don’t we call the whole thing off?’

‘Call it off?’ said Mr. Abd-es-Salem, aghast. ‘His Royal Highness has set his heart on it!’

‘I’m afraid we’ve gone too far down the road to call it off now,’ said Paul. ‘Although I agree with you about the potential threat.’

‘Threat?’ said Mr. Abd-es-Salem, with considerable asperity. ‘Are you saying that the British can no longer maintain order? Even with an Army?’

‘Certainly not!’ said the major indignantly.

‘We can handle it,’ said Captain Shearer.

‘Can you?’ said Owen quickly. ‘Well, there’s a lot to be said for—’

‘No chance!’ said Paul firmly. ‘It has already been decided that the Mamur Zapt has overall responsibility for the security arrangements. But a good try!’ he added, turning to Owen.

‘You again?’ said the café owner. He was sitting with his legs heavily bandaged and propped across a chair in front of him.

‘I like coffee,’ said Owen.

‘You don’t think you could enjoy it somewhere else?’

‘I especially like it here.’

‘You get in the way, you know.’

‘You mean, the men won’t come while I’m here? Isn’t that a good thing?’

‘I don’t know. They’ll come again when you’re not here.’

‘I could leave someone with you.’

‘They’re big blokes.’

‘This is a big bloke.’

‘Hanging around all day drinking coffee?’

‘He could work for you. In fact, it would be better if he did. You could say he had come up from the country.’

‘Why don’t you just go away?’ said the café owner.

‘I’m like the other lot. I’m never going to go away.’

The café owner cursed softly.

‘You get me down,’ he said. ‘You really do.’

‘I’m your only way out,’ said Owen. ‘You’ll be glad of me. Later.’

‘A lot later,’ said the café owner. ‘When I’m in heaven.’

‘Even before. It’s just the next bit that’s hard.’

‘Why pick the hard way?’

‘Because if you pick the other way, it never ends. You don’t just pay once. You go on paying. You pay all the time. They come more often. And after a while they ask for more. And then more. And then more still. In the end you’re working only for them. All you’ve built up is theirs. Look, I know what it takes to build up a place like this, what it costs you. It costs you years of your life and you’ve only got one life. Going to give it all away, now, are you?’

‘I’m not giving anything away,’ said the café owner. ‘But I’m still thinking.’

‘Think on. Take the long view. You’ve had to take the long view, haven’t you, all your life? Otherwise you’d never have got where you are. Think long now. My way is hard at first but then there’s an end to it. The other way is easy today and hard tomorrow. And tomorrow goes on for a long time.’

‘The only thing is,’ said the café owner, ‘that I like the idea of there being tomorrows.’

‘The man I put in is always there. He sleeps under the table. He doesn’t go home at night.’ Owen had a sudden pang of conscience. Selim wouldn’t care for this bit. ‘He never leaves you,’ he said, nevertheless, determinedly.

‘And he works?’

‘A big, strong man.’

‘You’re not doing this for my sake,’ said the café owner.

‘Of course not. There are other cafés.’

‘Why don’t you ask them?’

‘I’m asking you. I need someone like you.’

‘Stubborn?’

‘Greedy,’ said Owen. ‘Greedy to cling on to his own.’

The café owner laughed.

‘Well, you’ve got the right man,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe in giving money away.’

‘When it’s hard earned, it’s not easily given.’

‘That, too, is true,’ said the man. ‘Well. I’ll think about it.’

‘While you’re thinking,’ said Owen, ‘I could be doing something. If you would just give me a start.’

‘What is it you want to know?’

‘The name.’

The gangs usually left their name. It was normal, for example, to sign extortion notes. Not that the name in itself meant much. Arab taste for the lurid produced such names as ‘The Red Sword’, ‘Hand of Blood’ or ‘The Red Eye’; but the readiness of the groups to give their names made it easy to ascribe activities to the group and Nikos now had a file on most of them.

The name would probably be enough to tell Owen what kind of gang he was dealing with. He would probably be able to tell, for example, whether the gang was a straightforward criminal one or whether it was a terrorist one arising out of a political club.

Cairo seethed with political discussion, most of which took place openly in the cafés. You could have a good argument any night of the week almost anywhere. Some of it, however, took place privately in clubs specially formed for the purpose. These still met in cafés—that was what Cairo cafés were for!— but now it was in an inner room where members could more properly indulge their taste for the melodramatic. There were dozens of such clubs in Cairo and no dashing young effendi could afford to admit that he had never been to one.

Most of the clubs were heavily Nationalist and some were revolutionary. Of these, a small minority was committed to violent action now and sought to finance their activities by engaging in the protection racket.

‘I don’t know their name,’ said the café owner.

‘It would help me a lot. It could help you a lot.’

‘Help me to get my neck broken. No thanks.’

Another café, later. This was the life, Owen decided. It had always been a desire of his to obliterate completely the line between work and play, so that work would seem like play and play would carry the moral justification of work. In Cairo, where business was habitually transacted in cafés, that was easy. You had to meet a colleague? Where better than in a café? Offices were hot and hard edged, uncongenial to the Arab, who liked to pour the syrup of emotion over everything. They lacked conviviality, whereas to the Arab, conviviality was all.

At the table next to him two men stood up, shook hands, picked up their decorated leather briefcases and left. They had been discussing a contract for the delivery of sesame. The man remaining turned immediately, greeted some acquaintance at another table, pulled his chair across and lunged into an animated discussion of the merits of some Ghawazee singers at a place near the Clot Bey. So easily did business turn to pleasure. So, too, did it turn to politics. At the table on his other side some young effendi were arguing hotly about Egypt’s place in the world, asking why cultural importance, as evinced by the constant flood of tourists, was not reflected in political significance.

Across the tables he suddenly caught sight of Mahmoud and waved an arm. Mahmoud, however, had already seen him and was weaving his way through the tables to join him.

A relief!‘ he said, dropping into a chair. ‘I was in court all morning. And then some papers I need for tomorrow hadn’t arrived so I spent the afternoon chasing them. And then when they did arrive they weren’t what I wanted, so I had to start all over again. I’ve only just got away!’

No other lawyer, Owen suspected, whether Egyptian or British, would work through the heat of the Egyptian afternoon. Mahmoud, however, was a perfectionist and couldn’t imagine going into court unless he was absolutely sure of his ground; and absolutely meant absolutely. They talked for a while about the case Mahmoud was engaged on and then Mahmoud asked him what he was busy with.

Owen told him about the protection racket.

‘Cafés, now, is it?’ said Mahmoud. He knew, of course, about the gangs. If Owen’s work reached the stage of prosecution, it would be the Parquet who would handle it.

Owen nodded.

‘A new target. Rather a tempting one,’ he said, looking around. ‘Fat pickings.’

‘Political?’ asked Mahmoud. He knew about the clubs, too. Indeed, he almost certainly went to one himself.

‘I don’t know. I wish I could find out.’

‘From my point of view it doesn’t matter much. Crime is crime.’

‘It matters to me. If they’re doing it for money, it ends there. If they’re doing it for political reasons, you ask what it’s going to issue in later. Bombs?’

‘You think this new burst of activity might be related to some particular issue that they have in mind?’

‘I’m wondering.’

Mahmoud, interested, sat thinking.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I can see it makes a difference to you. That is because you are always thinking about prevention. Well, that is good. Forestalling violence must always be good. So long as you yourself keep within the law. The law must always be supreme. Even expediency, which is, of course, the justification you can always cite, must bow to the law. Otherwise there is injustice, and that is a worse crime than violence, for violence is merely a fault of the individual, whereas injustice is a fault in the society.’

Mahmoud was a great legalist. He believed passionately in the law, which, of course, left him in rather an isolated position in Egypt. It even created difficulties for him as a Nationalist because, while it was easy enough to oppose the illegal British and the corrupt regime of the Pashas which had preceded it, he also opposed extra-legal action, such as violence. Peaceful demonstrations, he believed in; but then, as Owen frequently said to him (they spent many happy hours in cafés arguing the point), what demonstration in Egypt ever stayed peaceful?

‘Everyone is subject to the law,’ repeated Mahmoud stubbornly. ‘Even the British,’ he said sternly.

It gave Owen an opportunity.

‘About those complaints…’ he said.

‘Complaints?’

‘Those bloody fools in the café the other night.’

‘There was more than one complaint?’

‘Oh, yes. Not that it matters, now that they’ve both been withdrawn.’

‘Withdrawn? I didn’t know that the complaint had been withdrawn.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Have you been leaning on them?’ said Mahmoud, his cheeks beginning to tauten.

‘I wouldn’t say leaning; it was more confused than that.’ He wondered whether he should tell Mahmoud about the two conversations.

‘Anyway, it is prejudicing the inquiry,’ said Mahmoud. ‘And that is interfering with the cause of justice.’

‘These people were pretty prejudiced already.’

Mahmoud was silent. He was used, of course, to this kind of situation. But it made him angry.

‘The investigation continues,’ he said coldly.

‘Even if the originating complaint is withdrawn?’

‘It’s on the files now. Besides, we don’t need a complaint. We can proceed without it. It was a clear breach of public order.’

‘No one’s denying that. It’s just a question of what’s the appropriate action. Is it a matter for the civil courts? Or for the military ones?’

This was a mistake, for Mahmoud knew a lot more about the law than he did.

‘Both,’ said Mahmoud. ‘However, what the Army does is no concern of mine. I do not have any say in it. Nor do I expect the Army to have any say in whether there is a civil prosecution or not.’

‘Not “say”,’ said Owen. ‘ “Request”, more like. The Army requests the Parquet to leave the action in this case to its authorities.’

‘Well, if it cares to put in a formal request… I shall oppose it, though the decision, in the end, will not be up to me. It will go to the Minister. And I daresay,’ said Mahmoud bitterly, ‘if you are wondering, that your Legal Adviser will be able to persuade the Minister, as usual, that it is not in his interests to allow the matter to proceed. But I,’ he added furiously, ‘shall lodge a complaint.’

‘That’s four,’ said Owen.

‘Four?’ said Mahmoud, startled.

‘One from you; one from Shearer—that’s that difficult Army captain; one from the Mingrelians, and one from the Russian Chargé.’

‘Is he in it?’

‘He was in it. Now he’s withdrawn. In view of the Grand Duke’s visit,’ he explained, thinking this might mollify Mahmoud.

‘Grand Duke?’ said Mahmoud.

Owen told him what he knew about Duke Nicholas’s visit. Mahmoud shrugged his shoulders.

‘Excuse me,’ said one of the young effendi at the next table, ‘but I couldn’t help overhearing: this visit of the Russian Duke, what is its nature?’

‘Well, I gather the Khedive hopes to replicate an earlier visit, when the Duke’s uncle came to open the Suez Canal.’

‘Would you say it was cultural in purpose? Or political?’

‘Bit of both, I suppose. But cultural, mainly.’

‘There you are!’ The young man turned back triumphantly to his colleagues. ‘Cultural recognition leads to political recognition!’

‘What the earlier visit led to,’ said one of the young man’s colleagues, ‘was bankruptcy. And
that
led to the British taking over.’