Almost certainly it would have come from the south. Mahmoud sighed. That would mean he would have to go down there to make inquiries. Like most Cairenes, especially the educated ones, the proposal of travelling down to the south filled him with horror. It was so hot there, especially at this time of the year. And so uncomfortable, so lacking in normal creature comforts. Like showers, or so he had heard. Mahmoud, though highly intelligent and educated, was not above the prejudices common to the Cairo intelligentsia: that civilization began and ended in Cairo, with a possible branch line to Alexandria. Anywhere else, though, and especially anywhere in the south, was not just beyond the pale of civilization, it was positively primeval.
Perhaps he could start his inquiries at the other end: with the label and with the man, if only he could make it out, to whom it was addressed.
He had the body sent round to the morgue for a post-mortem. The box would just have to stay where it was for the time being. If it was taken to the Parquet offices, especially in its present state, he would be highly unpopular. He wasn’t going to send it round to a police station because it would disappear and most likely reappear in the souk, where it would be cleaned up and then used again. People were cheap in Cairo and it was cheaper to leave the bride box where it was and post a guard than try to find space for it somewhere else. But he would take the label and show it to the experts.
Musa had moved into Owen’s house with Latifa, his wife. She had arrived carrying a bed roll containing all the possessions they would need. They installed themselves in the kitchen, which wasn’t used much. Both Owen and Zeinab were usually out for lunch and in the evening they went round the corner to a restaurant they favoured. Owen could usually rustle up a very basic meal if it was required. Zeinab would usually send for one of her father’s cooks. Owen, however, thought that this was excessive and they usually reserved that for a special occasion, when for instance, they had guests. Zeinab had a Pasha’s daughter’s tastes but on an English official’s income. Reason, said Owen, ought to prevail in these things. So it did, said Zeinab; only her reason not his.
Latifa at once took over responsibility for Leila. This was a great relief to Zeinab, who couldn’t think what she was going to do with her otherwise. It was Latifa who had discovered that Leila really was a Sudani. That explains it, thought Zeinab, who shared the universal Cairene view that all bad things came from the south.
Not that there was much bad about Leila. For the first day or two she crouched in a corner of the kitchen sucking her thumb. After a few attempts to draw her out, Latifa stopped trying. Instead, she just got on with some cooking. That wasn’t strictly part of the contract but she did it anyway. She said she couldn’t just sit there idle, and anyway, her man needed his meals. Needed them, too, in a way that only she could perform. So she got to work at the centre table, and, over in the corner, Leila sat watching her, and gradually she was drawn in.
‘What sort of family is she from?’ Latifa said to Owen. ‘She don’t know nothing!’
So Latifa set about teaching her.
‘Her mother dead,’ she said to Owen the next day. ‘No time to teach. Sister not know much more than she. What sort of family? And now the new wife sit on her ass all day and try look pretty! But what her father doing? Musa like that and he out of the door! But with new wife, that all he think about. But what about children? Hah! Want get rid of them. They mean nothing to him. Hah!’ she finished, with disgust.
Fortunately, Musa wasn’t like that. He took his time with Leila, not forcing things, after the first attempts, but content, like Latifa, to wait. And gradually Leila got used to him and occasionally ventured a word when together they were cutting up the onions for Latifa. She even helped Musa to polish the brass and copperware that had never been polished before. Musa let her help him, although, really, he believed that this was a job for a man. It needed the strength and stamina of the ex-soldier — the way he did it.
‘Like buttons, like belt,’ he said. ‘Polished till you can see your face.’
Owen was glad to have him in the house. He didn’t think that the traders would really go to the trouble of snatching Leila back but all the same, the possibility worried him. He would be glad to hand the problem over to …
And that was the problem: to whom? Paul had come back to him asking him to stay with it until his boss had made up his mind. He was thinking about it. There were aspects beyond the ken of ordinary mortals. Chief amongst these was that His Majesty’s Government was anxious, as always, to cut costs — and among the costs they were thinking of cutting was that of the Slave Bureau in the Sudan. The slave trade was dead and buried, surely? The Bureau was no longer needed, surely? And still less any possible corresponding unit in Egypt, where the slave trade was even deader.
Or so it had seemed. Until this.
What his boss really wanted, said Paul, was for someone to quickly wrap the whole thing up. Then they could go away and forget about it. Just get on with what they had been doing. Carrying through the cuts.
‘He thinks you might be the man to do it,’ said Paul, ‘especially as it has, in a way, landed in your lap.’
‘That was just fortuitous,’ said Owen.
‘Things that land in your lap fortuitously,’ said Paul, ‘have a way of staying there.’
‘I have a lot of other things in my lap at the moment,’ said Owen. ‘Things with the potential to turn into hot potatoes. Political things. Which is my job.’
‘And you think that this is not political?’ said Paul neutrally, gazing away into the distance.
Owen went to the Central Station at Pont Limoun, taking Leila with him. He wanted to go over it again with her. He also wanted to talk to some of the people. In particular, he wanted to talk with Fraser.
On their way they passed the goods platform. The bride box was still standing there.
Leila pulled at his hand. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘that’s Soraya’s box!’
TWO
‘And Soraya is …?’ prompted Mahmoud.
As soon as Owen had established from the guard who it was that had posted him beside the box, Owen had sent for him and Mahmoud had come running.
‘My sister,’ whispered Leila. ‘My big sister,’ she had added after a moment, proudly.
Mahmoud looked at Owen. Owen knew what he was thinking. The obvious thing to do was to get Leila to identify the girl who lay in the box, but he shrank from that.
‘Tell us about your sister,’ said Owen.
On that subject the hesitant Leila was forthcoming. Her sister was bigger than her, a lot bigger. She had looked after her when their mother had died, had stood up for her against the new mother. And against their father. To such an extent that her father had hit her. Their new mother had hit her too and said that she couldn’t have her in the house and that she would have to go. And, soon after, she went.
‘Where to?’ asked Mahmoud.
Leila didn’t know. But the next day her box was taken away so Leila presumed she had gone to get married.
Had Leila gone to the wedding feast?
No, she hadn’t, and she had been rather disappointed at that. Usually when someone got married there was singing and dancing and feasting; the whole village was involved. But there had been nothing like that this time. When Leila had got up in the morning, Soraya had disappeared — without even saying goodbye to her, which Leila found odd and which had made her feel sad.
Had her parents said anything?
No, just that she had gone and that she wouldn’t be coming back. When Leila had asked where she had gone to, her new mother had said, ‘A long way away.’ Leila had been sorry about that because she had hoped she would go on seeing her sister. Indeed, she confided, she had half hoped that Soraya would take her with her and that she could stay with her permanently. She had even suggested this to her father but he had just laughed. And, soon after, she had been sent away herself.