A Cold Touch of Ice

by Michael Pearce

  Owen looked at his watch. It was a bit early to go to the Sporting Club.

  ‘However,’ said the orderly cheerfully, ‘the ice man comes this morning and when he comes I will bring some ice along for you.’

  He still hadn’t come by lunchtime, but when Owen went down into the yard he saw the donkey with its great heavy bags on either side coming in at the gate.

  ‘No, Effendi, I am not late,’ protested the ice man. ‘I am very busy, that’s all. All the offices want ice, but I’ve only got one donkey, haven’t I?’

  ‘Well, have you?’ said Owen. ‘I would have thought there were other donkeys that might be called on. And other ice men, too, at a time like this when you need help.’

  ‘Effendi, they are as I am: working themselves to death. In this heat everyone wants ice. The palace wants ice, the hotels want ice, all the barracks want ice. So they cannot help me when I do the government offices. And the government offices want ice most of all. Fortunately I am a man of diligence and resource and so they get ice. Eventually.’

  He fished in one of the saddlebags and produced a loadshaped block of ice wrapped in sacking.

  ‘You want ice, Effendi? You have it. So what are you complaining of?’

  ***

  Once the funeral was over, the Signora assumed control of the business. The auctions started again.

  ‘I thought you said there was some cotton?’ said the crumpled Greek.

  ‘There is,’ said the Levantine wearily, ‘but it’s still in the warehouse. As I told you, the Parquet’s interested in it.’

  ‘Still?’ said the Greek, aghast.

  ‘Still.’

  ‘You don’t know when—?’

  The Greek thought for a moment.

  ‘Presumably you’ve got loads coming into your warehouse all the time?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘With cotton?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Any coming in soon?’

  ‘There is, I believe,’ said the Levantine coldly, ‘a load coming up from the Delta sometime.’

  ‘Ah, the Delta?’ The Greek seemed interested; indeed, strangely, cheered.

  ‘It’ll be coming in next month.’

  ‘Alexandria,’ said the Greek with satisfaction. ‘I like the sound of that.’

  ‘What?’ said the Levantine.

  ‘Alexandria. The Delta. That’s much better than Sennar.’

  ‘Sennar? What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘It’s a hell of a place.’

  ‘The cotton’s the same’ said the Levantine, puzzled.

  ‘Ah!’ said the Greek, laying his finger alongside his nose.

  ‘Perhaps it’s different to people who know,’ said the Levantine, impressed.

  ‘It’s not the cotton, it’s the place,’ said the Greek.

  The Levantine looked puzzled, then shrugged his shoulders and moved away.

  The Greek went on poking round the lots that were coming up for auction.

  After a while he went up to the Levantine again.

  ‘Yes?’ said the Levantine reluctantly, over his shoulder.

  ‘This load that you’ve got in your warehouse at the moment, the bales that the Parquet are so interested in: it will be coming through at some time?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Levantine.

  The Greek pinched his fingers, as if feeling a crisp note.

  ‘I wonder—is anyone else interested in it, do you know? Not the Parquet, I mean. Another dealer?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I mean, you do have cotton from time to time, don’t you? So there will be people who know. Perhaps they’ll have bought from you before.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know that I’d call them regular customers—’

  ‘But they know, don’t they? They know about the cotton. I was just wondering if any of them were particularly interested this time?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  The Greek pinched his fingers again and winked.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘it could be of great help to me to know their names.’

  He pinched his fingers.

  ‘Well,’ said the Levantine, weakening. ‘All right.’

  ‘And anyone else,’ said the Greek, smiling encouragingly, ‘who shows an interest.’

  ***

  The Greek wandered out of the showroom, sauntered along the edge of the Market of the Afternoon, and then dived into one of the little streets beneath the Citadel. He came to rest in a little, dark, almost subterranean coffee house.

  Owen followed him in.

  ‘You’re going to have to buy that cotton if you’re not careful,’ he said.

  The Greek settled himself comfortably on the stone slab and sipped his coffee.

  ‘At the last moment,’ he said, ‘I shall feel the cotton and look disappointed. Then I shall ask him if he’s got any more coming in.’

  ‘They get cotton from both the north and south,’ said Owen. ‘The lot with the guns in comes from the south.’

  ‘I know,’ said the Greek. ‘Sennar. Then Assuan. A pity.’

  ‘Pity? Why?’

  The Greek looked slightly embarrassed. ‘I thought you might want to send me—I was hoping it would be Alexandria.’

  ‘Alexandria?’

  ‘I thought I might take Rosa. She’s been looking a bit peaky lately.’ The Greek looked down at his coffee. ‘It’s the baby, you know.’

  ‘Baby!’

  ‘Due in the summer. July.’

  ‘Baby!’

  Rosa was about fourteen. At least—Owen began to calculate, time passed more quickly than you thought—maybe she was a bit more than that now. Sixteen? Seventeen?

  ‘Congratulations! To both of you. Tell Rosa I’m delighted.’

  ‘Thanks. I will.’

  ‘July, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she’s looking a bit peaky?’

  ‘It’s the heat. She gets tired.’

  ‘So you thought a holiday would do her good?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Seems a good idea to me. Take her with you…But, hey, you’re not going to Alexandria! The guns came up from Assuan!’

  ‘It just seemed a good idea…Two birds with one stone…’

  ‘But it’s not two birds with one stone! You’re not going to Alexandria. There’s no reason why you should go to Alexandria! Assuan, the guns came from Assuan!’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  ‘You can take a holiday after!’

  Baby! The shocks were raining in fast. First Mahmoud getting married, now Rosa having a baby. He would have to tell Zeinab.

  On second thoughts, perhaps he wouldn’t tell Zeinab.

  Chapter Four

  The warehouse this morning was buzzing with activity. Strapping, bulging-armed porters were carrying things to and fro, the harassed warehouse foreman ran about chiding everybody, and the Signora herself, black-dressed, arms folded, stood firm at the centre of the maelstrom.

  Two carts were being loaded, one bound for the Ismailiya showrooms, the other for the premises near the Market of the Afternoon. Now that the Signora had taken over the management of the business, the auctions were beginning again.

  Among the goods being put on the Market of the Afternoon cart were the bales of cotton. Owen had decided that there was no need to hold them longer, now that the arms had been extracted. The arms themselves were piled in a corner, black and leaden, looking oddly at home among the bric-a-brac that surrounded them.

  The cart Owen had sent for them was arriving now. The two warehouse carts were occupying all the space in front of the warehouse doors and there was an altercation. The foreman hurried out.

  ‘Put it there!’ he sa
id, pointing to just the other side of the carts. It would block the street entirely: but then, Cairo traffic was used to that. Not that the camel drivers, donkey men and carts would accept it lightly.

  ‘Can’t we put it closer?’ pleaded the policemen with the cart.

  ‘Oh, you poor things!’ said the porters. ‘Why don’t you get your wives to give you a hand? Come to that, why don’t you send them round anyway.’

  Affronted, one of the policemen, a giant of a man, jumped off, stalked into the warehouse and picked up a bundle of guns. They were heavier than he had thought and he had to hitch them up with his hip to get them into the cart.

  The porters laughed. One of them went across to the guns and picked up two bundles, one under each arm, and then put them up into the cart with ease.

  The big policeman went back into the warehouse, half bent to pick up the guns as the porter had done, considered, and then considered again.

  ‘Come on, you idle sods!’ he bellowed to his colleagues still on the cart. ‘Do I have to do all the work?’

  Reluctantly, the policemen fell to. The porters watched them and laughed.

  The big policeman walked across to his rival and patted him gently on the head.

  ‘There are more things to strength, little flower,’ he said, ‘than being able to pick up pianos.’

  ‘Come on, Selim,’ said Owen hastily. ‘Get on with it!’

  It did not, in fact, take the policemen very long, but even so, in the intense heat, by the time they had finished, they were running with sweat and glad to collapse into the shade beside the cart.

  By this time, of course, the street was totally jammed in both directions and there were angry shouts. Selim stood for a moment contemplating the furious, gesticulating crowd, then lay down deliberately in a shady part of the street, stretched out and put his arms behind his head.

  ‘Selim! Selim!’ came an agitated cry.

  Selim levered himself up on to one elbow.

  ‘Why,’ he said, ‘it’s Mustapha, the ice man!’

  ‘Selim, let me through!’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Selim. ‘We could do with some ice.’

  The ice man and his donkey pushed through the crowd.

  ‘Selim,’ said the ice man hesitantly, ‘the fact is, I’ve run out of ice. I am just going back to the ice house for some more.’

  ‘Then you’re no good to us,’ said Selim, lying down again. ‘You’d better stay there.’

  ‘Selim, the ice house is just round the corner—’

  ‘You’d never get through.’

  ‘I could send Amina.’

  ‘Amina?’ said Selim, levering himself up. ‘Who’s Amina?’

  The ice man pushed a small girl forward. She was about twelve or thirteen, dressed in rags and had arms and legs like matchsticks.

  ‘All right,’ said Selim, ‘she can go and fetch us some ice.’

  ‘Sod off!’ said the girl.

  ‘What?’ said Selim, astonished.

  ‘Sod off!’ said the girl defiantly.

  ‘You’d better watch out,’ said Selim, ‘or I’ll put you across my knee!’

  ‘You’d have to catch me first,’ said the girl.

  Selim began to stand up.

  ‘You leave our Amina alone!’ came a warning cry from among the porters.

  There were other cries from among the crowd of blocked bystanders. The girl seemed to have a following.

  Selim, who although robust in his approach to mankind wasn’t stupid, changed tack.

  ‘Amina, my darling,’ he said. ‘Light of my eyes. Pearl of the deep seas. Rose of roses. You are like the smell of jasmine, the taste of honey—’

  ‘Go on,’ said the girl.

  ‘Your breasts are like the breasts of doves. Or will be,’ said Selim, who on things like this was inclined to be accurate.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Your smile is like the sunrise breaking across the water, your words like the fall of distant fountains—’

  ‘All right,’ said the girl, ‘I’ll get some.’

  ‘I like a girl of spirit,’ said Selim, watching her go.

  ‘You like any girl,’ said Owen. ‘Now come on, get the street unblocked!’

  ‘Get back to work!’ cried the Signora.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ said the foreman. ‘Get a move on with these carts. We haven’t got all day.’

  ***

  Owen had arranged to meet Mahmoud afterwards but when he turned into the street where Mahmoud lived, he stopped, stunned.

  The street had been transformed. A great yellow-and-red-striped awning covered the entire street. Palm trees in pots had suddenly sprouted along both sides. At one end men were working on a dais, above which a massive yellow silk canopy curled down; and other men were laying a red-and-blue carpet directly across the street itself.

  Further down the street he saw Mahmoud talking to some of the workmen. Mahmoud suddenly noticed him and came hurrying towards him.

  ‘What’s all this?’

  Mahmoud looked embarrassed.

  ‘It’s the wedding,’ he said.

  ‘Already? But, surely—’

  ‘It’s going to be next week,’ said Mahmoud. ‘It has to be,’ he said soberly. ‘Aisha’s mother has cancer. She wants to see her daughter safely married. So everything’s been brought forward. He touched Owen pleadingly on the arm. ‘You will come?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘There are no male relatives, you see.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be there.’

  They walked down the street together. At every four paces Mahmoud stopped to shake someone’s hand and exchange embraces. People even came out of their houses. Owen suddenly realized. He was in Mahmoud heartland. Mahmoud was the local boy made good.

  A shopkeeper hurried out of his shop and came towards them. Owen recognized him. It was Hamdan, one of Sidi Morelli’s domino-playing friends. He embraced Mahmoud and shook Owen’s hand warmly.

  ‘What do you think of this?’ he asked, waving at the carpets. Another one was appearing now, behind the dais, hanging down upright from poles across the top of the tent.

  Mahmoud flinched.

  The shopkeeper laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Mahmoud,’ he said. ‘It’ll soon be over.’

  He insisted that they come into his shop for coffee. It was a grocer’s shop, smelling of spices and raisins and the rich kinds of soaps that Egyptians loved. At the back of the shop was a low counter, on which they all sat. Hamdan clapped his hands and an assistant brought coffee in brass, thimble-like cups.

  ‘It is good to see you here, Mahmoud. Although I suppose it is not to see the wedding arrangements that you have come.’

  ‘No,’ said Mahmoud.

  The shopkeeper sighed.

  ‘It is four days now,’ he said, ‘and I still can’t get used to it. We meet every evening as before and set out the dominoes as before: but the gap gets bigger, not smaller.’

  Mahmoud laid his hand on his arm. ‘I know, Hamdan,’ he said sympathetically.

  ‘That someone could do this! For a trifle. A purse, a few coins—’

  ‘It was not for money, Hamdan,’ said Mahmoud quietly. ‘His money was not taken.’

  The shopkeeper stared at him.

  ‘Then why—?’

  ‘I do not know, Hamdan. But perhaps you do.’

  ‘I?’

  ‘You knew Sidi Morelli. He spoke to you. Often.’

  ‘Of course. But—’

  ‘Has he ever spoken to you recently about something that was troubling him?’

  ‘I do not think so.’

  ‘You were close. He might have spoken.’

  ‘But he has not spoken, Mahmoud. I am sure. We would have noticed it.’
/>   ‘He had not appeared troubled?’

  ‘No. The reverse. In fact, we made a joke of it. “There is Fahmy,” we said, “with all his worries about his nephew; and there is Sidi with not a care in the world!”’

  ‘You see, Hamdan, if it was not money, then it must have been something else. A grudge, perhaps, someone who felt that Sidi had done them a wrong.’

  ‘But no one could feel like that!’ cried the shopkeeper. ‘Not about Sidi! He was not like that. He was generous, Mahmoud, kind. Mahmoud, you do not know—because he would not speak of it, or let us speak of it—the things he has done for people round here. The Koran entreats us to charity, but—I have said it to the Sheik himself—there are few Muslims who have given as much as he!’

  ‘But a man with a grudge does not look at the all, he remembers only the one thing.’

  ‘Mahmoud. I—’ The shopkeeper stopped. ‘Mahmoud, I really cannot believe it!’

  ‘You look for the reasonable, Hamdan. But the attack on Sidi was not reasonable.’

  ‘Mahmoud, I am sure this must be some criminal. Perhaps he was surprised and so ran away without taking the money—’

  ‘He was not surprised. If he had been, someone would have told us. And, besides, Hamdan—’

  ‘Mahmoud?’

  ‘I do not think this was a professional criminal.’

  ‘Why not, Mahmoud?’

  Mahmoud hesitated.

  ‘Hamdan, I do not wish to add to your distress—’

  ‘Mahmoud, please!’

  ‘Sidi was strangled.’

  ‘I do not understand, Mahmoud.’

  ‘He was strangled, not garotted. I am sorry, Hamdan.’

  The shopkeeper held up his hand.

  ‘Please, Mahmoud. Why does that make a difference?’

  ‘Usually, when a professional wishes to kill, he garottes. At least, in Cairo. It is quicker. Strangling is slow, and it requires much strength. There is more risk of the victim breaking free. I am sorry to have to tell you these things, but they are things I know from my work. Add that to the fact that no money was taken and you will see why I do not think it was a professional criminal.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘It must be some madman!’

  ‘That is possible. Although, again, I do not think so. For madmen do not usually plan, and this was planned. The killer knew, I think, that Sidi would be passing at that time and stationed himself where he could first kill and then escape.’