The Men Behind

by Michael Pearce

  As the probing continued, Fairclough became more and more uncomfortable.

  “Doesn’t look too good, does it?” he said suddenly. “All these women. Fact is, I’m not very good with ordinary women. Can’t manage the talk. Need sex, of course, every man does. But can’t manage the patter.”

  “Ordinary women?” said Mohammed Bishari.

  “That’s right.”

  “Ordinary English women,” said Bishari.

  “I don’t think we need to go into this, do we?” Owen interposed. “Mr. Fairclough has been very frank about a particular form of social inadequacy he suffers from. Surely there is no point in pressing that further?”

  “Would you allow me to be the judge of that, please, Captain Owen?” said Bishari, looking at him coldly.

  He continued with his questions. It was obvious that Ibrahim had provided him with a whole list of women he had procured. He went through them one by one.

  Fairclough had turned a permanent brick red.

  Owen could not see what Bishari was playing at. Was he just trying to humiliate Fairclough? Was this some kind of personal Nationalist revenge?

  He felt obliged to intercede again.

  “I fail to see the point of these questions, Mr. Bishari,” he said.

  The Parquet man looked up, almost, strangely, with relief.

  “Are you questioning my conduct of the case, Captain Owen?”

  “I am questioning the purpose of these questions.”

  “Mr. Fairclough has been attacked. They bear on the issue of possible motive.”

  “Surely the motive is clear? This is a terrorist attack.”

  “So you say, Captain Owen. But how can we be so sure? It seems to me that the reasons for the attack could well lie in Mr. Fairclough’s private life.”

  So that was it! The Parquet had decided that this was potentially a political hot potato and didn’t want to have anything to do with it. They couldn’t refuse to handle it but by handling it in this way, treating it as a purely domestic matter and denying that there was any terrorist connection at all, they hoped to force the British into taking it out of their hands altogether.

  And incurring any possible odium.

  Mohammed Bishari was watching him.

  “Of course, if you object to my conduct of the case it is always open to the Administration to terminate my connection with it.”

  And that, from the point of view of the Parquet, would be even better. If the British could be persuaded, or provoked, into rejecting them publicly then they would not only escape odium, they might even gain credit in the eyes of the Nationalists.

  Owen smiled sweetly.

  “Far from objecting to your conduct of the case, I am looking forward to an extended opportunity to study the obvious talent of the Parquet in action. Just for the moment, however, I am sure you will agree that Mr. Fairclough has been under very considerable strain recently and would benefit from a recess: quite a long one, I think, will be necessary.”

  ***

  Paul rang.

  “There’s a perfectly loathsome fellow I would like you to meet.”

  “No, thanks,” said Owen. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  “I know you are saving Cairo. And ordinarily I would not dream of interrupting you. But this abominable creature has been left on my hands and he will insist on seeing the night life of Cairo.”

  “Look—”

  “I am all for letting him go on his own in the hope that he won’t come back. However, the Consul-General and the Khedive take a different view. He’s a member of that delegation that’s visiting us and they think he ought to have an escort. Given the present situation. And the fact that they think they can get some money out of him.”

  “Can’t you escort him?”

  “No. I’m already escorting somebody else. The one I’m escorting is a Temperance Performer and I don’t think she and Roper would mix.”

  “What about young Bowden?”

  “Young Bowden’s too young. I like to think he doesn’t know the sort of places Roper is bent on going to. And he wouldn’t be up to it anyway. Roper’s a hard case—he’s spent some years in the diamond fields down south. Things could get out of hand. We need someone more mature and used to roughhouses.”

  “McPhee?”

  McPhee was the Assistant Commandant of the Cairo Police.

  “Used to knocking people around, certainly. But is he mature? He always strikes me as rather prim. Puritanical, too. I don’t think he and Roper would get on.”

  “I don’t think I’d get on with him either from what you say.”

  “Ah, but you have the brains to subdue personal feeling in the call of duty.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “The Old Man does. Owen’s just the chap, he said.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “True. He thinks it requires a political touch, you see. And he has a high regard for your political touch.”

  “Why the hell does it require a political touch?”

  “Because Roper has powerful friends. He’s been sent out here by some Syndicate or other who are interested in the Streeter Concession.”

  “Emeralds? I wouldn’t have thought there was enough of them to interest anyone big.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so either. However, the Khedive does. The prospect of money, any money, is enough to send him into a tizzy. And the Old Man is just playing along. If the Syndicate finds there are more emeralds than Streeter thinks, then that’s good. Good for the Syndicate, certainly, good for Egypt, possibly. If it doesn’t, then at least the subject will have occupied the Khedive’s mind for a time and kept him out of the Old Man’s hair. So that would be good too. I don’t know about the emeralds, but Roper’s certainly valuable property. And has to be guarded.”

  “Oh Christ,” said Owen resignedly.

  “Please please please please. And if that’s not enough, the Old Man says it’s an order.”

  Owen made one last attempt.

  “How about the Army? Surely some young officer—?”

  “Confined to barracks,” said Paul. “You suggested it. Remember?”

  ***

  So that evening Owen found himself escorting the impossible Roper round Cairo’s night spots. They started with the dancing girls since that was where Roper wanted to start: “The best, mind, the best.” Owen took him at his word and led him to a place below the Citadel, since that was the quarter where the Ghawazi gypsies lived, who provided the best dancing girls in the country.

  Roper was not, however, interested in the finer points so they moved on to the Sharia Wagh el Birket. The Sharia was picturesque in its way. One side of it was taken up by arcades with dubious cafés beneath them. The other side was given over to the Ladies of the Night. All the upper rooms had balconies; and every balcony had a Lady.

  They drooped alluringly over the woodwork and because the street was so ill-lit, indistinct suggestion prevailed over close analysis. The men sitting at the tables of the cafés opposite gathered only a heady impression of light draperies trailing exotically from lofty balconies under the deep night blue of Egypt, while from the rooms behind lamps with rose-colored shades extended diffuse invitation.

  “I like a bit of class,” said Roper, impressed.

  They went into a club beneath the balconies and watched a plump girl doing a belly dance.

  “God, man, look at that!” breathed Roper.

  Aware of his interest, the plump girl wobbled closer. Although inexpert, she had mastered sufficient of the traditional art to give the impression of being able to move the four quarters of her abdomen independently. Roper, considerably the worse for wear by this time, made a grab at her.

  The girl, used to such advances, evaded him with ease. Her tummy settled down to a steady, rhythmic rotation. />
  Roper made another lunge. This time he caught her by the wrist.

  “Not here, sweetie!” said the girl. “Upstairs.”

  She led Roper away.

  Owen beckoned the barman over.

  “It would be a mistake if too much happened to him. OK?”

  The barman nodded and disappeared into an inner room.

  A moment or two later he reemerged and took up his position impassively. However, a glass suddenly materialized beneath Owen’s arm.

  “For the Mamur Zapt,” the waiter whispered confidingly.

  Owen was not altogether pleased at being so famous. But Cairo, at that time a small city, was like a village.

  A dancer came over and sat in the chair opposite him.

  “Hello, dear,” she said.

  “No thanks.”

  “Oh, don’t be like that.”

  “I’m the one who’s got to stay sober.”

  “Yes,” said the girl, “you’ll need to. Your friend won’t.”

  Roper had been drinking three or possibly four to Owen’s one. Owen was counting on him lapsing into insensibility before long. That was the only prospect he could see of the evening ending.

  “Where are you from, love?” inquired the girl.

  “Caerphilly.”

  “Oh.” The girl was plainly disappointed. “I thought for a moment you came from near me.”

  “Tyneside?”

  “Durham.”

  “The accents can be a bit similar.”

  The plump girl brought Roper back.

  “That was all right,” he said to Owen.

  “A last drink.”

  “Hell, no, man. Haven’t started.”

  The dancing began again. This time the second girl was on stage. She was less expert than the plump girl but by this time, no doubt, distinctions were escaping Roper. The café as a whole, mostly Arab, favored plumpness and the applause was muted. Disappointed, the girl came towards Roper. The two went off together.

  Owen was fed up. He was one of those people who wake very early in the morning and had been up since five. Conversely, he always fell asleep early in the evening. Or would if he could.

  He felt a light touch on his arm. It was a gypsy girl.

  “I saw you at the Citadel,” she said.

  “What are you doing over here?”

  “Business is better.”

  Owen felt his pockets. The girl laughed.

  “You’re safe,” she said. However, as she kept her hand on his arm he took the precaution of transferring his wallet to the button-down pocket of his shirt.

  The girl laughed again.

  “That wouldn’t stop me,” she said. “Why don’t you just give me some?”

  “Would you content yourself with that?”

  “Yes.”

  Owen gave her some money.

  “Thank you.” She looked around. “They’re all busy,” she said. “I’ll stay here and talk to you for a moment.”

  The gypsies worked in gangs. Unusually in this Muslim country they used both men and women. The women distracted attention while the men slipped around. Of course, the women were quite capable of picking a pocket themselves.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Soraya. Would you like to come with me?”

  Owen shook his head regretfully.

  “If would be nice,” he said. The Ghawazi girls were noted for their accomplishments. They were without exception strikingly pretty, with thin aquiline faces, long black hair and dark lustrous eyes. They did not wear veils. And what aroused Arab men almost beyond endurance was a general sauciness, a boldness which was almost totally at odds with the self-subjection normally required of Muslim women.

  “I’m with someone,” he explained.

  “Yes,” said the girl. “I saw him. He did not like the dancing at the Citadel.”

  “He is a stranger here. He does not know.”

  “You are not like him.”

  “I hope not.”

  He tried out a few words of Egyptian Romany on her. She looked at him in surprise.

  “You speak our tongue?”

  “A little.”

  The language spoken by the Egyptian gypsy was not pure Romany. Much of it consisted of Arabic so distorted as to be unintelligible to the native Egyptian. Some of the words, however, were of Persian or Hindustani origin, and this interested Owen, who had served in India before coming to Egypt.

  He told her this.

  “I am a Halabi,” she said, meaning that she was one of the gypsies who claimed Aleppo in Syria as their place of origin.

  “Have you been there?”

  “No.”

  Roper returned, weaving his way unsteadily through the tables.

  “Hello!” he said. “Who have you got here?”

  “Her name is Soraya.”

  “How about coming upstairs with me?” he said.

  Soraya considered.

  “I would prefer to go with you,” she said to Owen.

  “You can bloody come with me,” said Roper.

  He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a wad of bank notes.

  “Here!” he said. “Do you want some of these?”

  Soraya’s eyes glistened.

  “No knives!” warned Owen.

  “Just keep out of it,” said Roper. He grabbed the girl by the arm.

  She pulled a knife out of her sleeve and slashed him across the hand. Roper swore and let go of her arm. She snatched the bank notes, ducked under his arm and was gone.

  “What the hell!” said Roper, dazed.

  He sat down heavily in his chair and looked at his hand. A film of blood spread slowly back to his wrist.

  “Well, damn me!” he said.

  “Want a handkerchief?” said Owen.

  “What do you think I am?” said Roper. “Some kind of pansy?”

  “To tie it up,” said Owen, “so that the blood doesn’t get on your suit.”

  Roper swore again.

  “She a friend of yours?” he said to Owen.

  “Not until now.”

  Roper went on looking in dazed fashion at his hand. Suddenly he thumped on the table.

  “Drink!” he said. “Drink!”

  The waiter brought him a whisky, which he downed in one.

  “That’s better!” he said. “Bring me another.”

  The waiter caught Owen’s eye.

  “Bring him another,” said Owen. “Make it a special one.”

  Roper drank that too. Owen waited for him to fall. Instead, he clutched at the table and steadied himself. He seemed to be trying to think.

  “She bloody knifed me!” he muttered. He looked at Owen. “Friend of yours, wasn’t she? Well, she’s no friend of mine!”

  He lunged across the table at Owen. Owen caught his arm and held him there.

  “Shut up!” he said. “You’re going home!”

  “Am I hell!”

  Roper tried to throw himself at Owen, missed, and fell on the floor. Owen put a foot on his throat.

  “Get an arabeah,” he said to the waiter.

  He held Roper there until the arabeah came. Then he stooped down, hauled Roper upright and pushed him towards the door.

  A waiter plucked at his arm.

  “The drinks, effendi.”

  Owen put his hand in his pocket, thought better and put it in Roper’s pocket.

  Roper suddenly tore himself away. He caught hold of a table and hurled it across the room, then swung out at an Egyptian who had been sitting at it. As the man fell, the waiters closed in.

  The knot of struggling men edged towards the door. Just as they got there Roper went limp. He stood motionless for a moment, then bent forward and was violently sick.
r />   The waiters sprang back, cursing.

  Roper slowly collapsed until he was kneeling on the ground in the doorway, both hands pressed to his middle.

  “Christ, I feel awful!” he said.

  The second girl, the Durham one, came forward and put a hand under his elbow.

  “Come on, love,” she said.

  Roper got to his feet and looked around dazedly.

  “Christ, I feel awful,” he said again.

  With the plump girl helping on the other side, the Durham girl maneuvered him out of the door. An arabeah was drawn up, waiting. As they tried to get him inside he collapsed again and fell under the wheels, groaning.

  Owen bent down, caught him by the collar and tried to lift him up. The girls, used to such scenes, pulled Roper’s arms over their shoulders and took his weight. At the last moment, however, he lurched and they fell into a heap. Owen was pulled down too and found his nose pressed deep into the plump girl’s warm, soft flesh.

  “Owen!” It was McPhee’s surprised voice. “Owen! What on earth—”

  “Give us a hand, for Christ’s sake!”

  They eventually succeeded in bundling Roper into the arabeah. Owen took the money out of Roper’s pocket, paid the waiters and gave some to the girls. They would probably have picked Roper’s pockets anyway.

  He was about to get into the arabeah himself when he suddenly had a strong sense that somebody was behind him. He looked up quickly. There was no one there. For a moment, though, he had the impression that somebody was standing in the shadow. But then in Cairo there was always somebody standing in the shadow, waiting.

  Chapter Four

  Owen was sitting at his desk in the Bab el Khalk when he heard a cru-ump. He knew at once what it was.

  He stayed sitting. Within minutes bare feet came scurrying along the corridor. A man burst into the room.

  “Effendi! Oh, effendi!” he gasped. “Come quick! It is terrible.”

  “Take me,” said Owen.

  They hurried along the Sharia Mohammed Ali and then branched off left into a maze of small streets, heading in the direction of the Ecole Khediviale de Droit, the Law School. There was confused shouting and a whistle blowing perpetually. There was a great cloud of dust which made Owen gasp and choke, and men running about in the cloud.