Death of an Effendi. Michael Pearce
it could cause!’
‘Well, yes, but—’
‘It was obviously an accident. What’s the point of apportioning blame?’
The Mudir was only too anxious not to apportion blame. He took Tvardovsky’s name and a few particulars from the Russian Consul and then made tracks as fast as he possibly could.
The incident, though unfortunate, might well have been forgotten had it not been for an unusual feature of the legal system. Under the Egyptian legal code, which was modelled on the French one, investigation of a potential crime was the responsibility not of the police but of the Department of Prosecutions of the Ministry of Justice, the Parquet, as it was known. The police would notify the Parquet of the circumstances and the Parquet would then decide whether they merited formal investigation, in which event a Parquet officer would be assigned to the case.
In the provinces the system was slightly different. The police came under the local governor, the Mudir, as he was called, and it was he who had the formal responsibility of notifying the Parquet when a crime was suspected.
The Mudir had, then, notified the Parquet of Tvardovsky’s death. Strictly speaking – or, rather, loosely speaking, which was the way more normal in the provinces – no notification was required as the death was the result of an accident. However, as the Mudir himself had remarked, the death of an effendi was different and it had loomed sufficiently large in his mind for him to include it in a report. The Parquet officer who had read the report had written back requesting further details. When these did not satisfy him, he announced that he was opening a formal investigation.
‘Of course,’ said the British Consul-General’s aide-de-camp, as he and Owen were walking into the hastily summoned meeting together, ‘it would have to be Mahmoud!’
In a country which tended to take a relaxed view of the conduct of business, Mahmoud El Zaki was an exception; although if you had said so he would have taken umbrage. He resented slights on his country. In private, however, he had to admit there was some truth in the charge; and, therefore, to make up for any deficiency he always worked with twice the zeal of anyone else.
‘Well, of course,’ said Prince Fuad huffily, ‘the Ministry of Justice can do just what it likes.’
That, unfortunately, was just what it couldn’t do: firstly, because the Minister was an appointee of the Khedive, who would speedily appoint someone else if the Minister showed too many signs of independence; secondly, because at the top of every Ministry, sitting next to the Minister, Egyptian, was an Adviser, British, whose advice it was unwise not to follow.
The Minister muttered something about judicial process once started being hard to stop.
‘Nonsense!’ said Prince Fuad. ‘The question is: who is boss? That’s all! Are we the process’s masters or its servants?’
‘Well,’ said the Minister unhappily.
‘Well,’ said the Adviser.
‘Mamur Zapt?’
Owen hesitated. It was sometimes difficult serving two masters: the Khedive, to whom in theory he was responsible, and the British, who had put him there.
‘Ordinarily,’ he said, ‘I would side with Prince Fuad. However, I think that in this case we have to remember that the eyes of the world may be upon us. This was the death of someone who was being invited in to invest in Egypt’s prosperity, and if we seem to be taking it too lightly, other investors may be deterred.’
‘I do think the Mamur Zapt has a point there!’ declared the aide-de-camp.
‘So do I!’ said the Adviser.
‘I’m afraid so,’ murmured the Minister.
‘Well,’ said Prince Fuad crossly, seeing that he was outgunned, ‘what are we going to do about it, then? Couldn’t you tell your people merely to go through the motions?’ he asked the Minister. ‘I mean, that’s what they usually do, don’t they?’
The Minister murmured something about the officer in question being particularly zealous.
‘Would you like me to speak to him?’ demanded Prince Fuad.
‘No!’ said the Minister, who knew Mahmoud and knew that if Prince Fuad spoke to him in his usual way, he was likely to speak back.
‘I agree,’ said the aide-de-camp quickly. ‘The less the Khedive’s office is seen to have to do with this, the better!’
‘There’s something in that,’ conceded Prince Fuad. ‘However, we are still left with the question of what we’re going to do. We can’t just leave the Parquet to run wild on a thing like this.’
‘Nor should we,’ said the aide-de-camp. ‘I have a suggestion. This is the death not just of an effendi but of a foreign effendi. Given the circumstances, it is likely that if a case comes to court, it will fall under the Capitulations.’ The Capitulations were a system of privileges granted to foreign powers which, among other things, gave their citizens the right to be tried under their own national courts. ‘Would it not be wiser if a representative of the Capitulatory Powers was associated with the case from the start?’
‘That would certainly please the Russians,’ said the Adviser.
‘It would have to be someone we could trust,’ said Prince Fuad.
‘Quite so; and for that reason I was thinking of someone in the service of the Khedive who would also be acceptable to the Powers: the Mamur Zapt.’
‘You’ve landed me in it,’ said Owen accusingly, as he walked away from the meeting with the aide-de-camp.
‘You were already landed,’ said the aide-de-camp, Paul, whom he had hitherto considered his friend.
‘You do not usually join me in my investigations,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Why this one?’
‘An important person, I suppose.’
‘And yet they seemed prepared to let the whole matter drop.’
‘I think they would have let it drop if you hadn’t started asking questions.’
‘But is not an important person an important person whether I ask questions or not?’
‘I think the important thing may be that he was foreign.’
‘But that is wrong. The law is the same whether a man is foreign or not.’
‘Quite.’
‘Or should be.’
‘Exactly so.’
They were waiting on the platform of the Gare Centrale. On learning that Owen was going to join him in his inquiries, Mahmoud, scrupulous as ever, had sent him a note saying that he was going down to the Fayoum to see the spot where the incident had occurred and inviting him to accompany him.
‘What was it in the report that made you ask questions?’ asked Owen.
Mahmoud looked slightly ashamed.
‘I was angry,’ he admitted. ‘It was such a slack piece of work. An accident, yes, but even with an accident there are details that should be included. The death of a visitor to our country, a guest, you could say – one needs to be satisfied. All the more when it is a shooting. An accident, maybe, but even when the shooting is accidental, someone is responsible. The Mudir made no effort to find out who had fired the gun. That is deplorable. He should have called in the guns at least—’
‘I did suggest that.’
‘You did?’
‘Yes. They didn’t feel it was necessary.’
‘Who didn’t feel it was necessary?’
‘Prince Fuad. The Russian Consul.’
‘What is it to do with them?’
‘Strictly