life, yes, but not Cairo death. Honestly, Gareth, I’m disappointed in you. Where the hell’s your judgement?’
Garvin was even crosser.
‘The Consul-General has been on to me,’ he said, ‘personally. He wants to know, and I want to know too, what the bloody hell you were doing. You’re not some wet-behind-the-ears young subaltern fresh out from England without a bloody idea in his head. You’re the Mamur Zapt and ought to have some bloody political savvy.’
‘She wanted to see Cairo—’
‘Then show her Cairo. Show her the bloody Pyramids or something. Take her down the Musski and let her buy something. Take her to the bazaars. Take her to the Market of the Afternoon. Take her to the bloody Citadel. But don’t bloody take her somewhere where she’s going to see somebody get his throat cut.’
‘He didn’t actually—’
Garvin paused in his tirade. ‘Yes,’ he said, in quite a different voice, ‘that was a bit odd, wasn’t it? They usually know what they’re doing. However—’ his voice resumed its previous note—‘the one thing you’re supposed to be doing is handling this pair with kid gloves. Taking this girl to a Zikr gathering is not that.’
He glared at Owen, defying him to defy him. Owen had enough political sense at least not to do that.
‘And that’s another thing,’ said Garvin. ‘You were supposed to be showing them both around. Both. Not just the girl. This is not a personal Sports Afternoon for you, Owen, it’s bloody work. This man is important. With the new Government in England, these damned MPs are breathing down our necks. They’re on our backs already. This visit was a chance to get them off our backs. The Consul-General wants to build bridges. Any bloody bridge he wanted to build,’ said Garvin pitilessly, ‘is shattered and at the bottom of the ravine right now. Thanks to you. Postlethwaite is going crazy. He’s demanding apologies all round. The Consul-General’s apologized, I’ve apologized—’
‘I certainly apologize,’ said Owen stiffly.
‘You do?’ said Garvin with heavy irony. ‘Oh, good of you. Most kind.’
‘I shall see it doesn’t happen again.’
‘You won’t get the bloody chance,’ said Garvin.
Back at the office there were soon developments. They were not, however, of the sort that Owen had expected.
‘Visitors,’ said Nikos.
Owen rose to greet them. There were three. Two of them were religious sheikhs and the third was an assistant kadi. There was a separate judicial system in Egypt for Mohammedan law presided over by a separate Chief Judge, the Kadi. It was the assistant kadi who spoke first.
‘We have come to lay a complaint,’ he said.
‘A complaint? In what connection?’
‘It concerns a killing. It happened last night. We understand that you were there.’
‘A Zikr? At the gathering? If so, I was there.’
The assistant kadi looked at the two sheikhs. They appeared pleased.
‘He was there, you see,’ one of them said.
‘Then he will know,’ said the other.
‘What should I know, Father?’ asked Owen courteously.
‘How it came about.’
‘I expect you are already working on it,’ said the assistant kadi.
‘On what?’ asked Owen, baffled.
‘On the murder.’
‘Murder? I saw no murder.’
‘But you were there,’ said one of the sheikhs, puzzled.
‘A man died. I saw that.’
‘But it was murder. It must have been. A Zikr would not die as he was reaching towards his God.’
‘Allah takes people at any time,’ said Owen as gently as he could.
The sheikh shook his head.
‘I know what you are thinking,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘What am I thinking?’ asked Owen.
‘You are thinking he died from his own hand.’
‘Well—’
‘It was not like that. A Zikr knows.’
‘Knows where to put the knife? Yes, but in the—’ Owen hesitated; the word ‘frenzy’ was on the tip of his tongue— ‘moment of exaltation’ he substituted. ‘In the moment of exaltation who knows what may have happened?’
The sheikh shook his head firmly.
‘Allah guides his hand,’ he said with certainty.
‘The Zikr does not make mistakes,’ said the other sheikh, with equal conviction.
They met Owen’s gaze with a simple confidence which Owen felt it would be churlish to challenge.
‘If he did not die by his own hand,’ said Owen slowly, ‘then how did he die?’
‘By the hand of another.’
Owen paused deliberately.
‘Such things should not be said lightly.’
The sheikhs agreed at once.
‘True.’
‘He speaks with justice.’
‘Then how—’ Owen paused—‘can you be sure?’
The sheikhs looked a little bewildered.
‘The Zikr do not make mistakes. Allah guides their hand,’ they explained again, patiently, rather as if they were speaking to a child.
Owen normally had no difficulty in adjusting to the slow tempo and frequent circularity of Arab witnesses but this morning, what with the events of the last two days, he felt his patience under strain.
‘There must be further grounds,’ he said.
The sheikhs looked at each other, plainly puzzled.
‘The Zikr do not—’ one began.
The assistant kadi intervened with practised authority.
‘There was talk of a man.’
‘During the dance?’
‘During the dance.’
‘Just talk?’
‘There are others who claim to have seen.’
‘What sort of man?’
He could have guessed.
‘A Copt,’ the two sheikhs said in unison.
As the three left, Owen detained the assistant kadi for a moment.
‘The Parquet’s been informed, I take it?’
‘Yes. However, as you were there—’
‘Yes, indeed. Thank you.’
‘Besides—’ the assistant kadi glanced at the retreating backs of the sheikhs—‘there could be trouble between the Moslems and the Copts. I shouldn’t be saying it, I suppose, but I thought you ought to be involved.’
‘I’m grateful. It is important to hear of these things early.’
‘You’ll have no trouble with these two,’ the assistant kadi went on confidentially, ‘nor with the people in the Ashmawi mosque. It’s the sheikh in the next district you’ll have to watch out for. He’s jealous of all the money going to the Ashmawi. Besides, he