The Mamur Zapt and the Girl in Nile. Michael Pearce
it matter?’ asked Owen. ‘If anything happened, it happened on the boat. Where the body finishes up is neither here nor there.’
‘Yes,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Except that there’s one thing I find puzzling. I can accept that the body might have been carried high up on to the shoal by an exceptionally heavy wash from a boat. But I find it hard to believe in a second exceptionally heavy wash from a boat in the same morning—one so heavy as to carry the body off again.’
Owen had to go back to his men. He found them, as he expected, doing nothing. They were supposed to be carrying out an arms search. In fact, they were chatting peacefully in the shade.
He put them back to work. The tip had come from a reliable source. You didn’t waste things like that in his business.
According to his informant, the arms had come into the quarter the previous day. The consignment was substantial, at least two donkey-loads. It would be hidden in the quarter until the necessary deals were struck and the arms could be distributed.
For a consignment as large as that hiding-places were limited. The houses in this poor part of town were single-storey, one-room affairs and there was seldom any furniture in the room. The men would simply come into the room, stand and look.
Usually they concentrated their attention on the roof. The roofs were flat and used for storage: onions, maize stalks, cattle dung being dried out for fuel, firewood.
It was under the firewood that arms were usually hidden. The men would run up the outside staircases and make straight for that.
By now, though, the sun was directly overhead and on the roofs it was unbearably hot. It was hot even to step on them. The men winced as their bare feet touched the plaster and Owen could feel the heat even through the soles of his shoes.
That was the trouble about missing a couple of hours. If he had not been called away it would have been done by now.
The men were beginning to slow down. He went round chivvying.
Two men were taking a suspiciously long time on a roof. He went up to see what they were doing.
He had maligned them. They were working. Like many of the roofs, this one had a dovecot. It consisted of large earthenware pots stacked on top of each other on their sides so that the mouths all pointed one way like a battery of guns. The doves flew in at the mouths and made their nests inside.
The trouble was that a number of the birds were inside now and the constables, country boys, were conscientiously taking them out one by one before feeling around inside.
‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘You don’t need to do that.’
‘You told us to check everything!’
‘Yes, but—’
He was forced to admit they were right. It could be a possible hiding-place. Though only for pistols.
‘Don’t do them all,’ he said. ‘Just try a few. Otherwise you’ll be here all day.’
‘We don’t want to miss anything,’ one of them said, reaching unhurriedly into another pot.
‘Yes, but we want to get a move on.’
‘Sure!’ they agreed equably.
They were some of the men he had borrowed from the local District Chief. Out here on the edge of the city life was still close to that of the village and the pace was very different from what it was further in.
He thought it would probably confuse them if he insisted on their moving on. Instead, hoping to expedite matters, he squatted down beside them and gave them a hand.
In the relaxed way of countryfolk, they began to chat.
‘Did you find what you wanted over there?’ asked one of them, inclining his head in the direction of the river.
Over the houses Owen caught a glimpse of blue.
‘No.’
‘Nor here, either. You’re not having much luck this morning, are you?’
‘There’s still time. If we get a move on,’ he said pointedly.
‘Oh yes. Things usually turn out right in the end.’
‘Yes, but only if—’
He stopped himself. It was pointless. One of the things he had learned since coming to Egypt was that the country had its rhythms and that if you were going to get anywhere you had to work with them and not against them.
‘It was a body,’ he said, changing tack. ‘Over there. By the river.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Yes. Or rather, a body was reported. By the time I got there it had gone.’
The man laughed.
‘Bodies have a way of doing that,’ he said. ‘Or at least, on this part of the river they do.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Oh well, if you find one, that means more work for the Chief, doesn’t it?’
‘So he doesn’t mind too much if one goes missing?’
‘He doesn’t mind at all.’
‘How might they go missing?’
‘All sorts of ways,’ said the man vaguely.
‘They might hit a pole, for instance,’ suggested his friend.
‘What?’
The two men laughed, as at a private joke.
‘They can hit all sorts of things on their way downriver,’ said the first man, looking at his friend chidingly.
‘But what about when they’re washed up?’
‘That’s when they have to be reported.’
The man laughed again.
‘Are there people working the bank?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘On the lookout for things. Things that get washed ashore?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Regulars?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are they organized? Is there a gang? A society?’
The men looked at each other, then dropped their eyes.
‘We wouldn’t know about that,’ they said.
They worked on carefully through the dovecot. When they had finished they patted the dovecot affectionately and climbed back unhurriedly down the stairs.
Owen sat thinking. It was a new possibility. Suppose the body had not been washed away? Suppose it had been interfered with? Suppose somebody had got to it?
Owen went to see the District Chief afterwards. He had a thing or two he wanted to tell him. To his surprise, when he reached the office he found the green car drawn up outside and the Prince about to go in.
‘Why, Captain Owen!’ said the Prince, pausing for him. ‘How felicitous! I was just making sure that everything was covered.’
‘Isn’t McPhee supposed to be doing that?’
‘Of course. But it sometimes helps if you remind key people which side their bread is buttered on, don’t you think?’
Owen wondered in what sense the District Chief was key.
The District Chief was, in fact, looking rather shaken.
‘After all,’ said the Prince with a wave of his hand, ‘it’s not every day that he gets called on by both Royalty and the Head of the Secret Police.’ He gave Owen a sidelong glance. ‘He is probably more impressed