Fehmi, the Parquet lawyer appointed to handle the case, was an experienced hand. The following morning he called on Owen in his office.
‘Coffee?’
‘Please.’
‘Mazboot?’
Mohammed Fehmi, like most Egyptians, preferred it sweetened.
‘About this case now–’
‘Sad.’
‘Oh yes. Very sad. But straightforward, I would think, wouldn’t you?’
Mohammed Fehmi’s alert brown eyes watched Owen sharply across the cup.
‘Oh yes. Straightforward, I would say.’
‘I was wondering–’ Mohammed Fehmi sipped his coffee again– ‘I was wondering – the nature of the Mamur Zapt’s interest?’
‘General. Oh, very general,’ Owen assured him. ‘I wouldn’t be thinking of taking, um, an active interest–’
‘I would always welcome a colleague–’
‘Oh no. Quite unnecessary, I assure you. Every confidence–’
Mohammed Fehmi looked slightly puzzled.
‘Then, why, may I ask–?’
‘Am I involving myself at all?’ Owen saw no reason why he should not speak the truth. ‘It’s not so much the case itself – that I leave entirely to you – as the possible reaction to it. Politically, I mean.’
‘A fonctionnaire? Civil servant?’
Mohammed Fehmi was still puzzled. However, he shrugged his shoulders. This was evidently political in some strange way and politics was not for him. He was not one of the Parquet’s high fliers.
He had picked up, however, that Owen was leaving the conduct of the investigation to him, and visibly relaxed.
‘After all,’ he said, ‘a simple suicide!’
‘Exactly.’
‘The post-mortem – quite definite.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘I’ll just have to find out where he got it from. And why he took it, of course.’
‘Up to a point.’
‘Oh yes,’ Mohammed Fehmi assured him swiftly. ‘Only up to a point. Otherwise you find yourself into personal matters, family matters, even social matters, that are best left alone.’
‘Quite so.’
‘No,’ said Mohammed Fehmi, finishing his cup and sucking up the last mixture of coffee grounds and sugar, the sweet and the bitter, the taste of Egypt, ‘no, the only puzzling thing about it is why the doctor signed the certificate in the first place.’
Owen called the doctor in. He was a small, shabby man with worried eyes and a lined, anxious face.
‘How did you come to miss it?’
‘I didn’t miss it.’
‘You wrote the certificate knowingly?’
The doctor shrugged.
‘You know, of course, what this means?’
The doctor shrugged again. ‘You do it all the time,’ he said quietly.
‘Sign certificates you know to be false?’
‘It spares the family.’
‘You know why we have the system of certification?’
‘Of course. To prevent abuses.’
Egypt was a country of many abuses.
‘And you still thought you would sign the certificate?’
‘The parents are old. He was their only son. The shock of that was enough without the other.’
‘The other?’
‘Suicide.’
‘Are you sure it was suicide?’
‘What else could it be?’
‘The Under-Secretary,’ said Nikos. ‘The Ministry of Agriculture.’
Owen picked up the phone.
‘Captain Owen? I understand you’re handling the Fingari case?’
‘Well, of course, the Parquet–’
‘Quite so, quite so. But – I understand you’re taking an interest?’
‘Ye-es, in a general way.’
‘Quite so. I was wondering – the circumstances – a bit unfortunate, you know.’
‘Yes?’
‘The Office. The Ministry.’
‘I don’t quite–’
‘Bad for the Department. A bit of a reflection, you know.’
‘Well, yes, but–’
‘I was wondering – just wondering – if it could be moved. Out of the office, I mean.’
‘Surely it has been moved?’ said Owen, startled. ‘It was taken for post-mortem. And before that, the funeral. I saw it myself–’
‘No, no. I don’t mean that. Not the body. The – the incident, rather.’
‘I don’t quite follow–’
‘Moved. Out of the Ministry altogether. Somewhere else. Into the street, perhaps. Or at any rate another Ministry. Public Works, perhaps.’
‘Finance?’
‘Yes. No, on second thoughts. The follow-up could be, well, unfortunate. No, no. Public Works would be better.’
‘Well, yes, but–’
‘You will? Oh, thank you.’
‘An apéritif, perhaps?’
He had met them, as they had suggested, in the bar at the Hotel Continentale. There was an Egyptian, who must be Abdul Khalil, a Greek, Zokosis, presumably, and someone harder to place but definitely a Levantine of sorts, who would be Kifouri.
The waiter brought the drinks: sweet Cyprus wine for Zokosis and Kifouri, a dry sherry for Owen and coffee for Abdul Khalil.
‘As I mentioned over the phone, Captain Owen, we’re businessmen who have quite a lot of dealings with Government Departments. I think you’ll find that Mr Stephens would be prepared to vouch for us–’ Stephens was the Adviser at the Ministry of Finance– ‘and I think it is a mark of our standing that the Minister invited us to join the Board. I mention this so that you will know we are bona fide and also that we are not the sort of men who would want to waste the time of a busy man like yourself.’
Owen bowed acknowledgement.
‘In any case, our concern is, what shall I say, marginal, peripheral, which is why we thought it best to meet informally rather than call on you at your office.’
Owen muttered something suitably non-committal.
‘You are, we understand, taking an interest in a recent sad case of suicide. A man in one of the Departments.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, now, we naturally wouldn’t wish to interfere in any way, believe me, in any way, with your conduct of the investigation – that would be quite improper – and our interest is, as I have said, marginal. However, we knew Mr Fingari and quite recently have been having a number of dealings with him–’
‘Dealings?’
‘A businessman’s way of talking. Conversations, rather.