The Mingrelian Conspiracy (8 page)

‘There are some things about it I don’t like,’ said Nikos.

‘Such as?’

‘Size. Big enough to blow up a small house. What would it be needed for?’

‘Ordinary demolition work?’

‘Then why the secrecy?’

‘Tomb?’

‘All they need for that is a couple of sticks of dynamite.’

‘What else, then?’

‘A café? A recalcitrant café?’ Nikos spread his hands. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I’m uneasy. It doesn’t fall into any of the usual patterns.’

This, for Nikos, was the most heinous fault of all.

‘Who’s buying it, for instance?’ he said.

‘One of the clubs?’

‘They’ve usually got their own supplies.’

‘A new one, then?’

‘Well,’ said Nikos, ‘if that’s so, and they’re going straight for explosives, that’s very worrying. It’s all the more reason why we should follow it up. Look, I could at least ring round and see if any of the regular suppliers know anything about it.’

‘Well, I’ll tackle Customs,’ said Owen. ‘But that’s all!’ he said warningly. ‘We have to keep a sense of priorities.’

Jesus, there he was again! It was a disease.

Owen thought about it hard, then took the train to Port Suez. It would cost him, there and back, two days of valuable time. Two days! And there he was complaining about his resources being stretched! But in Egypt if you wanted to get anywhere you simply had to use a personal approach. Most of the departments were now equipped with telephones and Customs, which was one of the most efficient, would certainly have one. But people were not used to them yet and anyway it wasn’t quite the same. Face to face was what it always came down to; so train it was, much to Zeinab’s disgust, who had had other things in mind for the following evening.

The train left early, at four, and for the first hour he watched the spectacular sunrise. The sun came up over the desert in a great red ball and chased colours for a while across the sand. But then the colours and the redness disappeared and everything settled down to a steady monochrome, made more so by the way in which the tinted windows of the carriage filtered out the light. The landscape, too, settled down to monotonous, stony desert, the heat increased, and after that it was a case of grimly hanging on.

It was a relief when at last they got to Suez and he was able to climb down into the fresher, saltier air of the docks.

Abdul Shafei, the local Head of Customs, was still in his office. He shrugged.

‘We’ve got a couple of boats coming in,’ he said.

He knew Owen by repute and eyed him curiously.

‘It’s not often that the Mamur Zapt appears in these parts,’ he said.

‘Cairo’s my beat,’ said Owen. ‘It’s not often that I have the chance to get away.’

Water had been brought with the coffee and he drank copiously. Although the air seemed fresher, he found himself sweating profusely. The humidity, he supposed.

He put the glass down and turned to business. Abdul Shafei pulled a pad towards him.

‘It should be declared on the certificates,’ he said. ‘If they do that, there’ll be no problem. But what if they don’t?’

‘Do you open everything?’

‘No. There’s so much coming in. We open a sample. If it’s not in the certification we’ll need other identification.’

‘Could be difficult.’

‘The name of the consignee?’

‘It was Dhondy at one time.’

Abdul Shafei made a note.

‘But it could have changed. The supplier of the order is a firm named Herbst-Wickel. But, of course, they may be using a shipping agent.’

‘You don’t know the agent?’

‘I could find out the ones they normally use.’

‘Please. Anything would help. I’ll make a note of the supplier. There may be old labels. Anything else you can tell us?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

Abdul Shafei looked doubtful.

‘We’ll do our best,’ he said. ‘But—’

‘If you could. This is important.’

‘Explosives!’ Abdul Shafei grimaced.

‘Not very nice.’

‘Not very nice for us, either,’ said Abdul Shafei, ‘when we’re unloading them and don’t know we’re handling explosives.’

‘The dockers, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

Abdul Shafei hesitated.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I shouldn’t be saying this, but…have you thought of talking to the dockers? They know most of what comes into the port. In fact, they probably know it better than we do.’

‘I was hoping to keep this fairly quiet. Then I might be able to pick up whoever-it-is when he comes to collect the explosives.’

‘Which is more important? Catching the men or catching the explosives?’

‘Catching the explosives, I suppose. You reckon it might be worth talking to the dockers?’

‘If you really want to be sure,’ said Abdul Shafei, ‘then talk to the dockers and offer a reward. They open most things that come into the port. There is,’ he hesitated, ‘well, quite a lot of pilfering. Not more than at other ports, but…I mean, at any port you’ll find…’

‘Is there some person I should talk to?’

Abdul Shafei looked at him.

‘I’m sure there is,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know him.’

Owen walked down to the waterfront, enjoying the smell of sea and tar, the scrunch of pebbles, a different sand. The sea sucked around great wooden posts, gulls cried overhead. As the heat of the day lifted he felt part of a newer, fresher world.

In theory, the Mamur Zapt’s writ ran even to Suez. In practice it was confined to Cairo. Cairo was where it all happened. There was a buzz, a life about the city that Owen found it hard to tear himself away from. It was part of an older, more Arab world; cosmopolitan, it was true, but not in the way of Alexandria or the port cities. Suez was hardly a city, still not much more than a bunker port, although growing rapidly. He had no agents here.

He would have to find someone. Nikos normally looked after that side and no doubt would find someone in time. But had they got time?

He sat down on a bollard and watched some dockers unloading a large, seagoing dhow. They were carrying sacks up out of the hold, huge, heavy sacks that bulged. Filled with grain, probably. But why was Egypt importing grain when it had all the fertile land of the Delta?

The men’s faces were streaked with sweat. It was hard, hot work. Everything was done by hand. There was an intimacy between the men and the load. That was why they knew the goods so well.

A small boy appeared beside him.

‘Effendi, I have a beautiful sister. So ve-ery beautiful!’ The boy’s hands described improbable shapes. ‘Would you like to meet her?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Ve-ery good! She make wonderful bump-bump. You like?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘You prefer boy? I have brother. Handsome! Not like me, Effendi.’

‘No, thanks.’

‘No boy?’

‘No, nor girl, either.’

The urchin was temporarily silenced, while he considered the restricted possibilities.

‘Effendi,’ he said at last, ‘I know a special house. All sorts. You want something different, can do. Dog, perhaps? Donkey? You want donkey?’

Owen turned to give the urchin his full attention.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Sidi, Effendi.’

‘Sidi, I am surprised at you. Is this the only way you can make money? I would have thought a resourceful boy like you would be growing fat on the pickings from the docks.’

‘Effendi,’ said the boy indignantly, ‘I am. I get my share. But it is only a small one. Ibrahim says it will be bigger when I can carry a load myself. The men who carry the loads get first choice of the pickings. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise. But, Effendi,’—(confidingly)—‘I would prefer not to carry the loads. The sacks are heavy and in the sun it is hard work. I would prefer to share in the pickings and not carry the loads.’

‘Wouldn’t we all. Tell me about your friend, Ibrahim.’

‘He carries the loads, Effendi, two, perhaps three, times a week.’

‘I would like to meet him. It could be to his advantage.’

‘Effendi, I don’t know—’

‘And yours.’

Owen put his hand in his pocket and jingled some coins. ‘Oh, well, Effendi, that’s different!’

The boy slipped away and returned some ten minutes later with a thin, wiry man in an embroidered skull cap. Sweat was running down his face and he was mopping his neck with a dirty handkerchief.

‘Hard work!’ said Owen sympathetically.

‘Effendi, I will not deny it.’

‘And for not much money.’

‘That, too, I will not deny.’

‘Even with the pickings.’

‘They are few, Effendi. A burst sack, a broken packing case. And then, besides, most of the regular work is with coal and there is not much reward in that.’

‘I think I could add to your rewards.’

‘What is it you had in mind, Effendi?’

‘I need to know if a certain consignment comes in.’

‘Will not the office tell you?’

‘The consignment I speak of is not likely to be known in the office.’

‘It is hidden goods, then?’

‘It is likely to have been concealed.’

‘That may make it difficult.’

‘The reward will be commensurate.’

‘I could not do it on my own, Effendi.’

‘If the word were spread,’ said Owen, ‘and what I seek, found, you would take your share. For the finder, the reward would be great. So great that he might not even have to carry loads any more.’

‘That indeed would be a reward worth earning.’

Ibrahim stood for some time considering the matter. The sweat was still running down his face. From time to time he dabbed at it with his handkerchief.

‘Well, Effendi,’ he said at last, ‘there is nothing to be lost by doing what you ask and there could be much to gain. I will do it. What is it you ask?’

After he had gone, Owen became aware that the urchin was still standing by him.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, and put his hand in his pocket.

Sidi took the coins with surprising inattention.

‘Effendi,’ he said, ‘that reward you mentioned: would it apply to me?’

‘If you found what I want, yes.’

‘I would buy donkeys,’ said Sidi. ‘It would be better if they carried the loads, not me.’

‘With such an abundance of management insight, Sidi, you are bound to prosper.’

‘I hope so, Effendi. Now, about my sister: are you sure—?’

In the Bab-el-Khalk, the headquarters of the Cairo Police, the heat was stupefying. Owen, working at his desk, had wedged a sheet of blotting paper beneath his writing hand to soak up the persistent trickles of sweat that ran down his arm and threatened to turn everything he wrote into an indecipherable damp smudge. The water in the glass beside him was lukewarm again; only a few minutes before, his orderly had come round to fill the glass with ice. Yusef had said the ice was melting even in the ice house. It had been melting, he said, even when the cart arrived and the men had carried the ice loaves, each tenderly wrapped in sacking, down into the cellar.

The Bab-el-Khalk was as quiet as a morgue. Christ, what would the morgue be doing if the ice was melting! He decided not to think about that. Instead, he changed the image. As quiet as a tomb. Yes, he quite liked that. As quiet as a tomb and as dark as a tomb, with all the shutters closed against the sun, as they had been since early morning.

But not so quiet! Voices, feet running. Someone running along the corridor. The pad of bare feet, the slap of slippers.

Yusef burst into the room.

‘Effendi! Effendi! A man—’

A man with his galabeeyah hoisted up round his knees, the better to run, his feet bare, his turban dishevelled, exposing his skull cap, his face running with sweat—’

‘Effendi! Mustapha is being attacked again!’

‘Mustapha?’

‘The café! Oh, Effendi, come quickly! It is terrible!’

Owen jumped to his feet, grabbed his topee—better than a tarboosh if there was a prospect of being hit on the head—and ran out of the room. He found the man running beside him.

‘Quick, Effendi! Oh, quick!’

Well, yes, but how? Arabeah? There was a line of the horse-drawn carriages in front of the Bab-el-Khalk but no one would describe them as speedy. Donkey? There would be donkeys tied up in the courtyard, but somehow—Got it! The Aalim-Zapt’s bicycle! He ran down into the courtyard. There it was, green, gleaming, modern!

‘Tell the Aalim-Zapt!’ he shouted, as he sped through the gate.

He hurtled across the Place Bab-el-Khalk. That was easy. It was when he came to the more crowded streets of the native city that he ran into trouble. A massive stone cart was almost entirely blocking the thoroughfare, useless to shout, a little gap at one side—Christ, another one just behind! Another gap, at the expense of a chicken, Jesus, stalls all over the road, onions, tomatoes a few more onions and tomatoes when he’d finished, and now a bloody Passover sheep! Fat, obtuse and in the way! A flock of turkeys, a man carrying a bed, a line of forage camels, three great loads of berseem flopping up and down on either side—steer clear of them—and now a donkey with a rolled-up carpet stretched across its back, the two ends sticking out right across the street, a man sitting on top—! Or was he on top, still? Owen did not dare to look.

He became aware of someone running beside him.

‘Nearly there, Effendi!’ said the messenger indomitably.

One last street, a crowd outside, well, you’d expect that. He jumped off the bicycle.

‘Out of the way! Out of the way!’ he shouted.

‘Make way! Make way for the Mamur Zapt!’ shouted the storyteller.

He pushed his way through. Hands helped as well as hindered.

Suddenly he was through, popped out the front, like a cork out of a bottle.

The café was a scene of destruction. Chairs, tables, hookahs lay all over the floor. In the middle of the room, prone on his face, lay Selim.

Mustapha’s wife was on her knees beside him. There was blood all over her
burka
.

‘A lion!’ she kept saying tearfully. ‘A lion!’

Owen bent down. There was a huge gash on the back of Selim’s head. Owen bent closer.

‘He breathes,’ he said.

‘A lion!’ said the woman, in tears. ‘A wounded lion!’