The Night of the Dog

by Michael Pearce

  ‘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 hates the Copts like poison.’

  Owen rang up his friend in the Parquet.

  ‘Hello,’ said Mahmoud.

  ‘There’s a case just come up. A Zikr killing. A Zikr death, anyway,’ he amended. ‘Do you know who’s on it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Me.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that,’ said Owen.

  ‘Have you an interest?’

  ‘You bet I have. Can we have a talk about it?’

  ‘About half an hour? The usual place?’

  They met on neutral ground, that is to say a cafe equidistant between the Parquet offices and the Bab el Khalkh, where Owen worked. Relations between the Departments were at best lukewarm and there were also practical advantages in confidentiality. Sometimes the right hand got further if it did not know what the left hand was doing. Also, although Owen had known Mahmoud for about a year now and they were good friends, their relationship was—perhaps necessarily—sometimes an uneasy one. Owen was more senior and had an access to power which Mahmoud would never have. Besides which, there were all the usual tensions between Egyptian and Englishmen (or, in Owen’s case, Welshmen), Imperialist and Nationalist, occupier and occupied. At times, too, Owen found Mahmoud’s emotional volatility difficult to handle; and no doubt Mahmoud on his side found British stolidity just as exasperating. There was an element of emotional negotiation in their relationship which was best managed away from their own institutions. If the meeting had been at the Ministry of Justice or at Police Headquarters both would have had to play roles. Sitting outside the cafe in this narrow back street, with only the occasional forage-camel plodding past with its load of berseem, they could talk more freely.

  ‘I’ve only just received the case. You were there, I gather?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With this Miss Postlethwaite.’ Mahmoud stumbled slightly over the word. Although he spoke English well, he spoke French better, and the word came out sounding as it would have done if a Frenchman had pronounced it.

  ‘Yes. She’s the niece of an MP who’s visiting us. Got to be looked after. You won’t want to see her, will you?’

  ‘It might be necessary.’

  ‘I don’t know that she’d be able to add anything to what I might say.’

  ‘You never know. It’s worth checking. Anyway,’ said Mahmoud, who didn’t like any detail to escape him, ‘the investigation ought to be done properly.’

  ‘Yes, it ought. Both sides will be watching it.’

  ‘Both sides?’

  ‘Copts and Moslems.’

  Owen told Mahmoud about the things that had been occupying him recently.

  ‘The best thing you could do would be to find he died of a heart attack.’

  ‘There’ll have to be an autopsy. Keep your fingers crossed.’

  They watched a camel coming down the street towards them. It was heavily loaded with berseem, green forage for the cab horses in the squares. The load extended so far across the camel that it brushed the walls on both sides of the narrow street. Advancing towards it was a tiny donkey almost buried under a load of firewood. The load was as big as a small haystack. On top of it sat the donkey’s owner, an old Arab dressed in a dirty white galabeah. The two animals met. Neither would, neither could, give way, the camel because it was stuck between the walls, the donkey because it was so crushed under its huge load that it was quite incapable of manoeuvring. Both drivers swore at each other and interested spectators came out of the houses to watch. Eventually the drivers were persuaded to try to edge the animals past each other. In doing so the donkey lost some of its firewood and the camel some of its berseem. The wood fell among the pots of a small shopkeeper who came out of his shop in a fury and belaboured both animals. They stuck. Neither could move forward or backwards despite the best help of observers. The rest of the inhabitants of the street came out to help, including the people smoking water-pipes in the dark inner rooms of the cafe. Mahmoud shifted his chair so that he could see better.

  ‘This could take a long time,’ he said.

  The indignant cries of the drivers rose to the heavens where they mingled with the shouts of the onlookers, who for some reason all felt compelled to offer their advice at the top of their voices. The din was terrific. Owen looked on the scene almost with affection. He loved the daily dramas of the Cairo streets in which high positions were taken as in a Greek tragedy but in which no one was ever really hurt. Would that all Egyptian conflicts were like that, he said to himself. He was thinking of the matter of the dog, but was beginning, now, to have a slightly uneasy feeling about the Zikr.

  ‘It would be good if both these cases were out of the way before the 25th.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s the Coptic Easter. And the Moulid of the Sheikh el-Herera.’

  ‘And the Sham el-Nessim,’ said Mahmoud, ‘you’ve forgotten that.’

  The spring festival.

  ‘Christ. Is that on too?’

  ‘This year, yes.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’

  ‘I’ll try and sort it out before then,’ said Mahmoud, still watching the drama. ‘You’ll have sorted out the dog business by then, too.’

  ‘Yes, but it mightn’t help.’

  Along the street one of the onlookers was taking off his trousers. This usually meant business in Egypt. Trousers, especially good ones, were prestigious possessions and no one would want to risk spoiling them by involving them in action. The onlooker, now trouserless, took hold of the donkey firmly by the head, turned it round, despite the protests of its owner, and began to lead it back up the street. It passed the cafe and turned up a side street. The camel resumed its passage, not, however, without incident. As it approached the cafe it suddenly became apparent that its load would sweep all before it. Patrons, including Owen and Mahmoud, hurriedly rushed chairs and tables inside. The camel went past. At the junction with the side street it stopped and the driver looked back. Clearly he was thinking about the spilt berseem. Vigorous cries dissuaded him from going back. After a few moments’ hesitation he shrugged his shoulders and went on. Meanwhile, the donkey was led back up the street and restored to its owner. By the time it reached the scene of
the blockage both the spilt berseem and the spilt firewood had gone.

  ‘Right!’ said Mahmoud. ‘I’ll do my best. I’ll start at once with the principal witness.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Owen.

  ‘You,’ said Mahmoud.

  ‘You don’t remember anything?’

  ‘More than what I’ve told you? Sorry.’

  ‘We’ve got the general picture,’ said Mahmoud. ‘It’s the particulars I’m after.’

  ‘I know,’ said Owen humbly.

  ‘You saw this Zikr afterwards. The dead one, I mean. So you know what he looked like. Do you remember seeing him before? When he was dancing?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Owen vaguely.

  ‘He had knives and spears sticking out all over him.’

  ‘Lots of them did!’ protested Owen.

  ‘This one especially. Look, I’ll help you. He had a spear sticking into his front chest. A three-foot handle. At least three feet. It must have been waggling about.’

  ‘Can’t remember.’

  ‘I would have thought it would have got in the way, dancing.’

  Owen shut his eyes.

  ‘I can’t picture it,’ he said.

  ‘It doesn’t jog your memory?’

  ‘No.’ Owen shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  Mahmoud sighed.

  ‘There was so much happening.’ Owen protested. ‘I’ve told you.’

  ‘Yes, you’ve given me the general picture very well. Let’s try again. When did you first become conscious of the Zikr?’

  ‘When he didn’t get up. After a long time.’

  ‘Where was he? When he was lying down, I mean.’

  ‘About four or five yards in front of me to my left. There, as it were.’

  Owen pointed to where a flea-ridden dog was scratching itself in the dust. A dog. He winced.

  ‘Good!’ said Mahmoud encouragingly. ‘About four or five yards to your left.’

  ‘He was lying in a heap.’

  ‘Fine. And if he was lying there he might well have been dancing there. You said they sank down more or less where they were.’

  ‘That’s how it seemed to me. At the time.’

  ‘Try to call up the scene,’ said Mahmoud patiently, ‘with them all dancing. Got it? Right. Well now, look in your mind a little to your left. Four yards, five yards? Six yards?’

  ‘I’m trying. I just don’t see it very clearly. I thought I did.’

  ‘Over to your left. A big dervish with a spear sticking out of his chest.’

  After a moment or two Owen said: ‘I think I’ve got him.’

  ‘What is he doing?’

  ‘Dancing.’

  ‘How is he dancing?’

  ‘Jumping up and down. I think.’

  ‘Is he turning round? Whirling?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Does the spear hit anyone? Get in the way?’

  ‘It’s not really there,’ said Owen. ‘I don’t really see it. I can sort of imagine it when you speak.’

  ‘But you’re not really remembering it?’

  ‘No.’

  Mahmoud sighed.

  ‘As a Mamur Zapt you may be all right,’ he said. ‘As a witness you’re useless.’

  ‘I know.’

  Owen felt humbled. A murder, possibly, had happened four or five yards away under his very eyes and he couldn’t remember a thing. He hadn’t even noticed it. Perhaps, he told himself determinedly, there had been nothing to notice.

  ‘We don’t know anything happened,’ he said to Mahmoud.

  ‘Yes, but we know he was there,’ said Mahmoud, ‘and even that could be in doubt if we went by your evidence.’

  ‘It’s not very good, is it?’ said Owen. ‘A police officer and not remember a thing.’

  Mahmoud laughed.

  ‘I don’t know that I’d have done any better. It just goes to show.’

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘Try the next witness. See if she remembers any better.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘Miss—’ Mahmoud stumbled a little. What he was trying to say was Postlethwaite.

  ‘Surely you don’t need to see her?’

  ‘I’m afraid I do.’

  ‘There must be other witnesses.’

  ‘And I shall get to them. But it was fresh to her eyes and she—’ said Mahmoud pointedly—‘may remember more.’

  Owen was silent. He hadn’t realized it would come to this. He considered how Miss Postlethwaite would feel about being involved in a police inquiry. Or, more to the point, how her uncle would feel about it? Or, even more to the point, how the Consul-General would react.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘I mean, she’s hardly likely to be able to add anything to what I—’

  ‘You want to bet?’ asked Mahmoud.

  *

  ‘Yes,’ said Jane Postlethwaite. ‘I remember the man very well. I’d noticed him earlier because he was so—involved. He put everything into his dancing. He was a big man, rather darker than most of the Zikr—that would be, I expect—’ looking at Owen for confirmation—because he came from the south, although he wasn’t really a Nubian, he wasn’t as dark as that, a mixture, I suppose. Anyway, he threw himself into his dancing rather like a great big child. He seemed a bit like an overgrown boy, he had that sort of childlike face. I’d noticed him because he was bounding away so enthusiastically. And then when he started sticking knives into himself I could hardly believe my eyes. And that spear!’

  Jane Postlethwaite shuddered a little at the recollection but it was not so much in sympathetic trepidation as in identification. She saw it all so vividly.

  Mahmoud looked at Owen triumphantly.

  ‘Yes, that spear,’ he said. ‘How did he manage with it, Miss Postlethwaite? I would have thought it would have knocked into people as he was dancing.’

  ‘It did once or twice. I thought it would hurt him but it didn’t seem to. And then, you see, it wasn’t sticking out horizontally. He’d thrust it into himself from above. He held it up—I saw him, it was so that everyone could see—up in front of him, like this—’ Miss Postlethwaite demonstrated— ‘and then he pulled it down into his chest. The handle was sticking upwards, if anything. And then he was so big, it was over most people’s heads.’

  This time Owen took care not to meet Mahmoud’s eyes. Miss Postlethwaite seemed to recall with amazing facility. She had agreed without hesitation when he had asked her, diffidently, whether she would be willing to make herself available for questioning. ‘Of course!’ she had replied. ‘It’s my duty.’ ‘It won’t be me who’s asking the questions,’ he had said, ‘it will be a friend of mine, Mr El Zaki, from the Parquet,’ He had explained how the legal system differed from that in Britain. ‘In any case,’ Jane Postlethwaite had said, ‘it wouldn’t have been proper for you to question me, would it? I mean, you were involved yourself. I expect you’re a witness too. Are you, Captain Owen? Oh, perhaps you’d better not tell me anything about it. Otherwise you might influence what I say and that wouldn’t be right, would it?’

  To give things as light a touch as possible, Mahmoud had interviewed her in her hotel, and he had asked Owen to be with him. Owen knew very well why he wanted this. It wasn’t that he doubted his own ability or needed reinforcement. Rather, it was a simple precautionary measure, advisable when an Egyptian was questioning one of the British community, especially a visitor of some importance. Owen had agreed, though with a certain apprehension. They would be sure to meet John Postlethwaite, he thought, and the MP would be sure to take up the issue with him. When they arrived at the hotel his worst fears appeared to have been realized, for there, waiting for them in the vestibule, was Postlethwaite himself.

  ‘Young man!’ he said formidably, and Owen feared the worst.

  ‘I must apologize, sir,’ he said hastily. ‘It was quite wrong of me to expose Miss Postlethwaite to the possibility of such a distressing incident.’

  ‘Ay,’
said the MP, ‘it was.’

  He produced the look which had crushed Ministers. Owen recognized it at once and appeared suitably daunted. Unexpectedly, Mr Postlethwaite seemed mollified.

  ‘Well, you’re not trying to wriggle out of it at any rate,’ he said.

  ‘My fault entirely, sir.’

  Mr Postlethwaite sighed.

  ‘Look, lad,’ he said, ‘you’re young and you don’t know any better. But you don’t say things like that. Not if you want to get on in Government service. It’s always somebody else’s fault. Got it? I’ll take this up with you some other time. You need a bit of advice.’

  He spotted Mahmoud.

  ‘This is Mr El Zaki, I take it? How do you do, Mr El Zaki.’ They shook hands. ‘I don’t altogether follow this Parquet business, but it sounds a bit like the Scottish system to me.’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ said Owen, pleased. ‘It is.’

  ‘It’s not a bad system,’ said Mr Postlethwaite. ‘At least you know who’s responsible for what.’

  Jane Postlethwaite appeared in the doorway.

  ‘I hope you’ve not been pitching into Captain Owen, Uncle,’ she said.

  ‘A bit,’ said John Postlethwaite, exaggerating. Owen suspected that he liked to play the role of the hard man with his niece; and that she was not deceived in the least.

  ‘I’ve pitched into the Departments,’ he said with relish. He winked at Owen. ‘Now they’ll know what to expect if they try to pull the wool over my eyes.’

  ‘Get them on the run,’ advised Jane Postlethwaite. ‘That’s half the battle.’

  Owen was a little surprised at this display of administrative savoir-faire but then realized that she was probably repeating one of her uncle’s maxims. Mr Postlethwaite endorsed it anyway.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said.

  His niece laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘Now, Uncle,’ she said, ‘you’d better get back to your memos. Once you’ve got them on the run, keep them on the run.’

  ‘And that’s true, too,’ said John Postlethwaite, going happily off up the stairs.

  Jane Postlethwaite led them into a small room which the hotel manager had made available. The shutters had been closed, which kept the room fairly cool; but the air was lukewarm and inert and the fans useless, so after a while she pushed the shutters right open and they sat by the window.