Soup? Had he misheard? No, they were talking about a child who had swallowed one by mistake. They had to call a hakim, a doctor.
Georgiades didn’t like the sound of this and was glad when they turned to another topic. It was, however, another medical matter. One of the speakers apparently had marital difficulties. He blamed his wife. She blamed him. Whoever was to blame, the problem appeared to be that appetite was inadequate.
‘Why don’t you try trocchee shells?’ someone suggested.
Trocchee shells? Georgiades came suddenly awake.
‘What do you do?’ said the afflicted man doubtfully. ‘Swallow them?’
‘No, no, not just like that. First you grind them into powder. The Saudis are always doing it.’
‘Trocchee shells? I don’t think that sounds very nice. Not to eat, I mean. Hey, wait a minute! That’s another thing with a nasty smell, isn’t it? Are you having me on?’
‘No! No, apparently it works a treat. In Saudi they’re all trying it.’
‘Dirty bastards!’
‘I know someone … five times a night!’
‘How do you get hold of it?’
‘There’s a chap round the corner … His boss is big in it … Trocchee shells, I mean. That’s what he trades in. You make them into buttons.’
‘Trocchee shells?’
‘That’s right.’
‘But how do you …?
‘No, no, normally they just get made into buttons. But in Saudi Arabia, apparently, they grind them into powder, and then away you go!’
And now Georgiades got it. Angareeb, andat, trocchee shells, the way they spoke … The people here were all Sudanese.
Mahmoud was to be put on to another case. ‘Why?’ he asked.
‘Mercy,’ said his boss. ‘Why should you fry in the sticks when there’s work to be done here?’
‘I don’t like to leave it unfinished …’
‘You’re not. According to what you say in your report, you’ve about finished it already. It’s just waiting for us to pick up this bloke Suleiman, and our friends in the Sudan will do that for us. They’ll send him here and he’ll sing sweetly and after that it’s only a matter of picking up some hooligans in … what was the name of the place, if it has a name? Denderah. And any fool can do it. We’ll send someone down. We might even get the police to do it. They cock up most things but they ought to be able to manage a simple arrest. It’s just manhandling. You’ve done all the brain work.’
‘Yes, but …’ said Mahmoud weakly. ‘It’s not quite wrapped up yet …’
‘It will be,’ said his boss confidently. ‘When you get this bloke Suleiman here.’
‘It will be me that gets to question him, will it?’ asked Mahmoud.
‘I expect so,’ said his boss vaguely. ‘Anyway, it will be brought to court, so you’d better start pulling things together. Wasn’t there a bride box in it somewhere?’
The bride box had all this time been resting quietly in the yard at the Bab-el-Khalk, the police headquarters where Owen had his office. It had been left sufficiently far away from the main building for the smell to be manageable and it had become less unpleasant with the passage of time. At first, people had wondered what it was doing there but as the days passed they ceased to wonder and took it so much for granted that they hardly saw it. If anyone raised a question they were given the answer: ‘The Mamur Zapt has decreed it,’ which stopped argument.
One day Zeinab had to go in to the Bab-el-Khalk on an errand for her father. It was a trivial errand, a misplaced form or something, to do with her father’s taxes. Nuri Pasha tried to avoid having anything directly to do with the tax authorities, and usually sent any tax return via Owen in the hope — misguided, of course, as most of Nuri’s financial dealings were — that it would impress or even cow the Egyptian Finance Ministry. Owen always sent it on immediately without comment. Nothing good ever resulted from Nuri’s tactics but he clung to them in hope. What, after all, was an eminent son-in-law (or might-be son-in-law) for? Believing that Owen was still away in the south, he decided on this occasion to make use of his daughter’s service instead.
Zeinab, who, although cavalier with finances, especially her own, knew something about the way the system worked under the British, warned him that nothing would come of it and that he would do far better to get a good accountant. But Nuri shrank from accountants, particularly ones who knew what they were doing and who might discover what he had been doing, and persuaded her to keep to the usual time-honoured ways of Egypt. He even put a wad of notes in her hand, which she gratefully accepted but knew better than to use for the purpose he intended. Nuri Pasha was also a great believer in the personal touch, especially when it was delivered by a pretty girl. And what were daughters for, etc …?
Zeinab had nothing better to do that afternoon so agreed to go to the Bab-el-Khalk, stipulating, however, that all she would do would be to deliver the letter. ‘Drop it on a desk.’ Nuri Pasha had sufficient confidence in his daughter to believe that even dropping a letter on a desk would have an impact if it was done by her.
She took Leila with her. She had got into the way of taking her on brief expeditions and quite liked the experience of walking along hand-in-hand with the little girl.
When they entered the yard at the Bab-el-Khalk Leila saw the bride box and at once burst into tears. She broke away from Zeinab and rushed over to it.
‘It’s Soraya’s box!’ she cried. ‘And it’s all dusty. They haven’t been looking after it properly!’
One or two orderlies standing nearby moved hastily away at this point. Nikos looked out of a window and then quietly closed the shutters.
McPhee, the eccentric but tender-hearted Deputy Commissioner, came out of his office and gave her a square of Turkish delight. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right!’ he said, distressed. ‘It will clean up!’
‘But it ought never to have been allowed to get like this!’ cried Leila.
‘It’s evidence, you see, and evidence shouldn’t be tampered with,’ said McPhee.
‘It’s not evidence. It’s Soraya’s box!’
‘I suppose it would do no harm if it was dusted …’ said McPhee weakly. He looked around. ‘Ya Hussein!’ he called to an orderly sitting in the shade.
‘Effendi,’ said Hussein, springing up smartly.
‘Dust the box!’
‘Dust the …? began Hussein incredulously.
‘It’s dirty.’
‘Well …’
Hussein pulled himself together. ‘Ya Ali!’ he called.
‘Ya Hussein?’
Ali was, of course, the other half of the Hussein/Ali act. He came running — well, walking — round the corner.
‘Dust the box!’ said Hussein.
‘Dust the …?’
‘I will do it!’ said Leila.
‘Now, wait a minute, this is man’s work. You can’t just take a man’s work away. Not like that. What am I going to live on? What about my family. My wife? My children?’
‘Just bloody do it!’ said McPhee.
‘I will do it!’ said Leila. ‘Can I have a duster?’
‘Ali …’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Ali, going back into the building. He emerged with a soft chamois leather, bright yellow duster.
Then he saw the box. ‘It’s that bride box again!’ he said, taken aback.
‘Soraya’s,’ said Leila.
‘Yes, well …’
‘It’s all dirty.’
‘Yes, well …’
‘Give it to me and I’ll do it!’ said Leila, taking the duster.
‘Now, now, wait a minute!’
‘This is man’s work!’
‘Do it then!’ snapped Zeinab.
‘Dusting a bride box? Look, lady …’
‘It’s not any old bride box; it’s Soraya’s bride box!’ said Leila.
‘Why, it’s that little girl again!’ said Ali.
‘I remember you!’ said Leila. ‘You were the nice man who …’
‘I suppose we could help a bit,’ said Hussein soft-heartedly.
‘Dusting a bride box, though! I never thought it would come to this. I mean …’