‘None of us saw anything!’
‘Thirty feet away and you saw nothing?’
‘We weren’t looking!’
‘You took care not to look.’
‘We were talking!’
‘And nothing attracted your attention? Someone is attacked—’
‘Attacked!’
‘Or falls. And you know nothing about it? If she’d jumped into the water she’d have made a splash.’
‘A splash? Who hears a splash? There are splashes all the time.’
‘One as big as this? You are boatmen. You would have heard.’
‘Truly!’ said the steersman. ‘I swear to God—!’
‘He hears what you say!’ Mahmoud warned him.
‘And sees all that happens. I know. Well, he may have seen what happened to the girl but I didn’t.’
The steersman showed them off the boat. At the gangway he hesitated and then ran up the bank after them.
‘What was it, then? Was she knocked on the head?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mahmoud.
‘I thought you’d seen the body?’
‘No. It’s not turned up yet.’
‘Oh.’ He seemed disappointed. Then he brightened. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘I know where it will fetch up, more than likely.’
‘Yes?’
The steersman pointed downriver to where men were working on a scaffolding which stretched out across the river.
‘See that? That’s the new Bulak bridge. That’s where they finish up these days.’
They were sharing the boat with a kid goat, a pile of onions and the boatman’s wife, who sat, completely muffled in tob and burka, as far away from them as was possible.
It had been the steersman’s idea. They had been about to set out for the main bridge when he had said:
‘Are you going back to Bulak? Why don’t you get Hamid to run you over?’
He had pointed along the bank to where an elderly Arab was standing in the water bent over the gunwale of a small, crazily-built boat. The sides were not so much planks as squares of wood stuck on apparently at hazard. The sail was a small, tattered square sheet.
‘In that? I don’t think so,’ said Owen.
But Mahmoud, fired with enthusiasm for the life marine, was already descending the bank.
With the two of them on board, the stern dipped until the gunwale was inches above the water. The bows, with the woman and the goat, rose heavenward. The boatman inspected this critically for a moment, but then, unlike Owen, seemed satisfied.
He perched himself on the edge of the gunwale and took the two ends of the rope in his hands. One he wedged expertly between his toes. The other he wound round his arm.
The wind caught the sail and he threw himself backwards until the folds of his galabeah were trailing in the water. The boat moved comfortably out into the river.
Now they were in midstream they could see the new bridge more clearly. There were workmen on the scaffolding and, down at the bottom, a small boat nudging its way along the length of the works.
The boatman pointed with his head.
‘That’s the police boat,’ he said. ‘It comes every day to pick up the bodies.’
‘Can you take us over there?’ asked Mahmoud.
The boatman scampered across to the opposite gunwale, turned the boat, turned it again and set off on a long glide which took them close in along the bridge.
‘Bring us in to the boat,’ said Mahmoud.
A tall man in the police boat looked up, saw Mahmoud and waved excitedly.
‘Ya Mahmoud!’ he called.
‘Ya Selim!’ answered Mahmoud warmly.
A couple of policemen caught the boat as it came in alongside and steadied it. Mahmoud and the other man embraced affectionately.
‘Why, Mahmoud, have you done something sensible at last and joined the river police?’
‘Temporarily; this is my boat.’
Selim inspected it critically.
‘The boatman’s all right,’ he said, ‘but I’m not so sure about the boat.’
He shook hands with the boatman.
‘Give me your money,’ said the boatman, ‘and I’ll have a boat as good as yours.’
‘And the Mamur Zapt,’ said Mahmoud.
Selim shook hands again and gave him a second look.
‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ said Owen.
‘No. I’ve met Mahmoud, though. We were working on a case last year.’ He looked at them again. ‘The Mamur Zapt and the Parquet,’ he said. ‘This must be important.’
‘It’s the girl,’ said Mahmoud. ‘You’ve received notification, I’m sure.’
‘Pink shintiyan? That the one?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Not come through yet. When did it happen?’
‘The night before last. About three miles upstream.’
‘She’ll have sunk, then. Otherwise she’d have come through by now.’
Owen looked out along the works. There seemed a lot of water passing through the gaps.
‘Could she have gone through and missed you?’
‘She could. But most of them finish up against the scaffolding. In the old days before we started building the bridge they used to fetch up on a bend about two miles down. That was better for us because it’s in the next district and meant they had to do the work and not us.’
‘Ah, but that meant they missed all the glory, too!’
‘I think the average Chief would prefer to do without the glory!’
Owen laughed. ‘We’ve known a few like that!’
‘Yes. We sometimes get the feeling that not all the bodies that come down to us need have done.’
‘You think so?’
‘Sure of it.’
‘It’s important to pick up this one,’ said Mahmoud.
‘Yes, I’m checking them myself. We’ve had two women through this week. One of them’s old and one of them’s young, but I don’t think the young one could be the one you’re looking for, not unless she changed her trousers on the way down.’
‘The trousers is about all we’ve got at the moment. I hope to add some details later. Keep the young one just in case.’
‘It’ll be some time before she’s traced and identified anyway. They don’t always come from the city. Sometimes it’s a village upstream.’
‘Well, keep her. Just on the off-chance.’
‘If she’s sunk, what then?’ asked Owen.
‘Oh, she’ll come up. Gases. In the body. It’ll take a day or two. Then the body comes up and floats on down to us. We get them all in the end.’
‘I hope you get this one.’
They