The mouth of the crocodi.., p.16
The Mouth of the Crocodile, page 16
‘You spoke of interests,’ said Owen. ‘Can you tell me the nature of the interests? In general. Sudan interests, for example, or Egypt interests?’
‘Egypt interests. The Sudan was just a place to get away to.’
‘Does the interest persist?’
‘That I do not know.’ He hesitated. ‘All I can say is that his father’s interests, like his father, may have become old. They may not be the same as the son’s.’
Owen added a piastre. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
As he moved away, Yacub said, ‘I hope no harm comes to the girl.’
‘That is my hope, too.’
‘Let it be so.’
Although whether this was said as an entreaty or as a warning, Owen was not quite sure.
NINE
Nikos put the list on Owen’s desk. Owen read it through carefully and called the clerk in.
‘It’s a complete list, is it?’
Nikos nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘everyone who was at the meeting is there.’
‘What about the wife?’
‘Wife?’
‘The Pasha’s wife. Or perhaps she is not his wife. Anyway, she was staying there in the hotel, throughout the conference.’
‘She may have been in the hotel, but she wasn’t at the meeting.’
‘Were there any other people who were staying in the hotel but not at the meeting? I am talking only of interested parties. Wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, people attached to the ones who were at the meeting?’
‘Oh, yes. I have a list of them, too.’ Nikos was thorough, and it was hard to catch him out. He produced the second list. ‘As you say, girlfriends, boyfriends, relatives.’
Owen looked at the list again. ‘It was a sort of Pasha’s jamboree, was it?’
‘Jamboree?’ said Nikos, for the moment at a loss. His English was perfect, perhaps too perfect, for words like ‘jamboree’ were not included.
‘Treat, party, celebration,’ explained Owen. ‘What did they do when the masters were at the meeting?’
‘What women usually do. They shopped. I think they found it disappointing after Cairo.’
‘And the boys?’
‘There was only one of them and he shopped, too.’
‘Pliable?’
‘Oh, yes. Venal, I would say.’
Sometimes Nikos’s English was right on the mark.
‘I think we’ll have him in. Is there anyone else worth talking to? Preferably someone who was actually at the meeting.’
Nikos considered. ‘Mahir Bey?’ he offered.
‘Who is he?’
‘A friend of the boy. They have a curious relationship. It is not, I think, sexual. A kind of dependence. Mahir takes him everywhere with him and Abd-al-Halim runs errands for him.’
‘That could be useful. Get him in. The boy first.’
The boy was young and slender and gazelle-like. His large, dark eyes roamed curiously round the office. The Bab-al-Khalk often had that effect on people. It was large and featureless, a typical Western-style office with nothing personal to take a defensive hold of, completely alien to the more intimate Arab style of building.
‘There is nothing to be nervous about, Abd-al-Halim,’ said Owen kindly. The boy was very young. ‘Just some things I want to know. But I am sure you won’t mind telling me them.’
‘I will stay true to the Pasha,’ the boy declared.
‘I am sure you will! And why shouldn’t you? For there is nothing I shall say that is aimed at the Pasha.’
The boy looked surprised. ‘It is a long way to go for a meeting. Why was that, I wonder?’
‘The Khedive would have it so.’
‘Ah, the Khedive would have it so? Was that because he didn’t want people to know about the meeting?’
‘I don’t know. It may be so.’
‘And what did you do while your master was at the meeting? Go to the shops?’
‘My master said it was not worth going to the shops. They are nothing like Cairo’s. No, I went to the zoo. And that was very good. A boy, an English boy, was feeding peanuts to one of the elephants and he kept snatching his hand away before the elephant could get them. And the elephant filled his trunk with water and squirted it right over him. That was very good.’
‘The people laughed, I expect.’
‘They did. And Sharif, who was with me, said: “That will teach him!”’
‘And what did you do when your master came out of the meeting?’
‘It was late and I went to bed. And the bed was large and soft.’
‘Did your master seem pleased with the way the meeting had gone?’
‘He said it was a long meeting. But, yes, he seemed pleased.’
Owen waited.
‘He said it would show the English that things could be done without them. It would put them in their place. It was a coup,’ he said.
Like many Cairenes the boy spoke French as well as English.
‘Ah! A coup! And the Khedive was pleased, I expect?’
‘They said he would be. But, do you know, the Pasha Hilmi nearly had a case stolen when he was on the train. He fought the men off bravely. But it didn’t matter, anyway, for the case was empty.’
‘Why carry an empty case?’
‘Oh, it wouldn’t be empty on the way back. There would be papers to go in it. The papers were handed over at the meeting. I saw the man who brought them. I was still standing at the door, for the Pasha had just gone in and, lo, a man came up, a foreigner, and said to the suffragi on the door: “I have papers for the Pashas.” And he was carrying a bag. And when he came out again he was no longer carrying the bag.’
‘And then?’
‘Then? Why, he went to his room.’
‘He was staying in the hotel, too?’
‘Yes. He had come the night before. Late. He was staying on the floor above ours and I heard him come in.’
‘Thank you, Abd-al-Halim. There, you see, you have done no ill to your master.’
‘The Pasha, Mahir Bey.’
‘Ah, Pasha! Thank you for making time to come and see us!’
‘It is nothing. Glad to help. If I can. It concerns the briefcase, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘I gather it has been recovered?’
‘It has. In Atbara.’
‘How did it get there? Oh, I remember. Did not my old friend, Mustapha Hilmi, go on to Atbara after our meeting in Khartoum? He was attending a funeral, I think.’
‘He was.’
‘Well, it is easy to lose things on such occasions. One’s mind is on other things.’
‘Indeed. Now, perhaps you can help me, Pasha. The meeting you attended in Khartoum, at which papers were handed over: that was the first time you had seen them, I presume?’
‘That is so,’ Mahir Bey agreed.
‘You had no idea previously of their nature?’
‘Well, I had in general terms …’
‘But not particular. That was the point of the meeting, I expect. To allow you to familiarize yourselves with the details?’
‘That is so, yes.’
‘Of the contracts?’
‘Well, of course, they would need further perusal by experts …’
‘This was just to allow you to understand, in general terms, what was at stake?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Why was that? Was there any doubt about it?’
‘We knew, at that stage, so little about it …’
‘It was an early stage in the process?’
‘An initial step, yes.’
‘The first time you had seen what exactly was proposed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was this because the draft had been drawn up by people outside the country?’
‘Yes.’
‘And who did the initiative come from? Them or you?’
‘Them. That was why we were having this early meeting. It was a first step in the process.’
‘To see that it was worth proceeding?’
‘Well …’
‘But there was really no doubt about that, because you knew the Khedive wanted it to proceed.’
‘We are the Khedive’s servants.’
‘Quite so. As am I.’
‘There is a difference, though, Mamur Zapt, between us …’
‘On some things. Not on others.’
‘This would be one of the things on which there is a difference!’
‘No doubt. But it was bound to come out at some time, wasn’t it? Contracts on this scale?’
‘At some point, yes.’
‘But the Khedive wanted to delay that point as long as possible.’
‘Perhaps, yes.’
‘So that it would be very difficult to repudiate or amend them?’
‘The Khedive knows what he is doing, Mamur Zapt.’
‘So I have always found.’
‘The important thing is not to let other bodies interfere in what is legitimately an Egyptian concern.’
‘That is, naturally, far from England’s intention.’
‘Oh, yes?’ said Mahir Bey sceptically.
Owen had asked Jamie’s father if he could drop in that morning if he had a spare moment. Jamie’s father had said he would be delighted to, and could he bring Jamie, who would like to see the Bab-al-Khalk, where Owen worked, and was at a loose end that morning?
‘I don’t want him wandering around Cairo by himself,’ he explained. ‘He won’t be a nuisance. He can sit in a corner and draw. He likes drawing.’
So Jamie was installed at a table in the Mamur Zapt’s office. Nikos brought him some pencils and a supply of paper and he settled down.
‘What are you going to draw?’ asked Owen.
‘Engines.’
‘You’d be pretty good at those, I expect.’
‘It’s the details,’ said Jamie. ‘These ones haven’t properly come into service yet, and I haven’t really seen them, so I don’t quite know everything about them.’
‘I haven’t seen them, either,’ said Owen.
‘Oh, you won’t have. They’re coming into use on British railways first.’
‘Well, you’d be much more up to date than I am.’
It was some years now since Owen had been in England; but in truth he wasn’t too good on the engines of Egypt, either.
Mr Nicholson took out some papers from the worn leather satchel that he was carrying. He had had it since he came out to Egypt years before and preferred it to the shiny new briefcases that everyone seemed to be using in Cairo.
‘These are our suppliers. We’ve had them for some time. They’re standard British stock, mostly carriages, in fact, not engines, and we’ve adapted them for Sudan conditions. That’s important, particularly for engines. Otherwise the sand gets into everything.’
‘Supplied how long ago?’
‘Oh, crikey, years! We haven’t had anything new on the line for nearly ten years now.’
‘Time for some new ones?’
‘Not a chance in the present financial climate! We put in for some every year but get nowhere.’
‘Perhaps that is what the Khedive has in mind about going abroad?’
‘He needs to make sure what he is getting. The Czech engines wouldn’t do at all, and I wouldn’t be confident about the French.’
‘Finance?’
‘Oh, no problem there, either for the French or the Czechs. That’s why we’re worried.’
‘I haven’t yet found out the identity of the people who are trying to muscle in, but I will.’
‘It would be nice to know. Although I don’t think they’ll get anywhere. We’ve got it pretty sewn up.’
‘I think that may be what the Khedive doesn’t like.’
Mr Nicholson shrugged. ‘I leave the politics to others.’
Owen tapped the papers in front of him. ‘Does that include these chaps?’
‘The suppliers? Well, obviously a certain amount of politics goes on, both here and in England.’
‘But not to the lengths of sabotage?’
‘Sabotage?’
‘Our train was sabotaged.’
‘I can’t understand that. But it wouldn’t be people in the business. What would be the point, for foreign suppliers or us? No, it would be some crazy nationalists who want to bugger things up generally. But whatever it’s like in Egypt, we don’t get much of that in the Sudan.’
‘Somebody attacked me,’ said Jamie.
Owen turned and looked at him. ‘Yes, you mentioned that before.’
‘It was probably nothing,’ said Jamie’s father. ‘A lot of people on the bank at that time, people pushing and shoving, bumping into each other—’
‘I was pushed,’ said Jamie doggedly. ‘Deliberately.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘Yes, I do. It felt different. This was a definite push. They wanted me to fall into the river.’
‘How close were you to the water?’
‘About a yard.’
‘Just playing, I expect,’ said his father.
Jamie shook his head. ‘It wasn’t like playing.’
‘Did you see who did it?’
‘No. I looked round and said: “What do you think you’re doing?” But I think whoever it was had gone, and everybody looked at me blankly.’
‘Just an accident, I expect,’ said his father. ‘Upsetting for you, but no harm intended.’
‘A push,’ insisted Jamie. ‘A deliberate push!’
‘I doubt it. Anyway, you would just have fallen into the water.’
‘And got snaffled by a crocodile? Like that other bloke,’ said Jamie.
‘There aren’t any crocodiles there,’ said Jamie’s father.
‘They think there is. The men on the bank.’
‘Well, they’re not right, are they?’
‘Anyway, I might have drowned. Like that other man.’
‘You wouldn’t have drowned, Jamie.’
‘Because I can swim. That other man couldn’t. Not many Sudanese can. That’s why they pushed me. They thought they’d get me.’
‘Now, Jamie, you’re over dramatizing.’
‘I know what I know,’ insisted Jamie stubbornly. ‘Not many Sudanese can swim – and not many Sudanese boys!’
‘You’re saying he picked you out?’
‘That’s what I’m saying, yes.’
‘Why would anyone pick you out, Jamie?’
‘I don’t know. I just know that they did.’
‘But when we talked about this before, you said you didn’t see who did it. So how do you know he pushed you?’
‘Because I felt him push me! Hard! And when I said I didn’t see him, that was afterwards. At the time I was stumbling. I nearly fell over. That’s how hard!’
‘I really think you’re embroidering a bit, Jamie.’
‘But I did see someone just before! I noticed him because he had been looking at me in a funny way.’
‘Jamie …’
‘I did see him, and I didn’t like it. So I moved away. And …’
‘And?’
‘He came after me.’
‘Jamie, you’re making this up!’
‘No. I’m not. I really did see him!’
‘What sort of man was he?’
‘Black. From the south. Not like the ones around here. They’re brown. Arabs. And he had red eyes.’
‘Oh, come on, Jamie.’
‘Wait a moment,’ said Owen.
A lot of people in Egypt had infected eyes. Usually it was bilharzia, a disease you picked up from water, and very common in the flooded areas affected by the annual inundation. That was where the snails bred which were hosts to the bilharzia germ.
‘Tell us more about the eyes, Jamie.’
‘They were not very nice. They were sort of running. Right over his face. You don’t usually see them as bad as that.’
‘Very bad, then.’
‘Almost blind, I would think,’ said Jamie.
‘Perhaps that was why he bumped into you,’ said Mr Nicholson.
‘He didn’t bump into me. He pushed me.’
‘Had you pushed him first, Jamie?’ asked his father.
‘No, I hadn’t. He came up behind me and gave me a deliberate push. Hard! He wanted to push me!’
‘Perhaps he just wanted you to get out of his way.’
‘It wasn’t that kind of push. I might have fallen in. He wanted me to fall in.’
‘Jamie, I think you’re going a bit far!’
‘I wasn’t far from the edge. You know, where it cuts down suddenly. He wanted me to step over it. He thought that would do for me. Because he didn’t know that I can swim. Most boys, most Sudanese boys, can’t.’
‘We’ve got the point, Jamie!’ said his father.
‘Yes, well, I didn’t like it!’ said Jamie.
‘Jamie,’ said the Mamur Zapt, ‘when you turned round and saw the man – that was just before he pushed you – correct?’
‘Correct!’ said Jamie.
‘There were a lot of people jostling and pushing?’
‘Yes!’
‘So it could have been an accident,’ said his father.
‘It could have been. But it wasn’t!’ said Jamie.
‘But this man stood out,’ said the Mamur Zapt.
‘Yes.’
‘Because of his eyes?’
‘They were horrid,’ said Jamie.
‘Was there anything else you noticed about him. About his face? Were there any scars, for example?’
‘Yes. Big ones, on the cheeks.’
‘Tribal scars?’
‘Yes.
‘And on the forehead, too?’
‘Like a row of beads. Little bumps.’
‘Dinka?’
‘Shilluk,’ said Jamie.
‘You know your marks,’ said Owen.
‘I do. Most of them.’
‘They’re both from further south than Atbara.’
‘They come up,’ said Jamie. ‘They work in the gangs. The railway gangs.’
‘Mending the line, that sort of thing?’
‘Yes. Good workmen, my dad says.’
‘They are,’ said Mr Nicholson.
‘So you’ve seen the marks before?’
‘They’re quite interesting,’ said Jamie. ‘When I was smaller, I wanted to have some. But that was when I was smaller.’
‘I think you did see someone,’ said Owen.
