But to no avail. Hours later they were forced to admit to themselves that little Leila had disappeared completely.
THIRTEEN
Zeinab, who had never quite realized how much she cared for Leila, was distraught. Gradually, however, her distraction turned to anger. Mostly her anger was directed towards Owen. What was the point of having a Mamur Zapt for a partner if when it came to the crunch he was as powerless as you were? Zeinab had been close to power all her life, but now, when that power mattered most, it had all somehow dissipated.
She couldn’t understand Owen’s attitude. He seemed so calm. Garvin, McPhee, Nikos, even Georgiades, they all seemed so calm, whereas she was boiling, raging. It was, she decided, because they were cold. All Englishmen were cold. They had cold exteriors, unable or unwilling to display the slightest natural emotion, and they were cold inside. They didn’t feel as Egyptians did. Nor as Arabs did, nor as any decent human being would. Cold, that’s what they were: cold. She felt that Owen should be tearing around the place doing something; and yet all he did was sit silently in the house, before putting on his fez and going to his office, where, doubtless, he continued to sit silently, doing nothing!
She wanted to lash out, to hit someone. Why wasn’t he doing that? The old Mamur Zapts they used to have under the Khedive would certainly have done that. They would have flogged someone. ‘Why don’t you do that?’ she demanded.
‘Certainly!’ said Owen. ‘But who?’
That irritated Zeinab even more and she stamped out of the room. Then stamped back in.
‘Aren’t you at least going to do something?’
Musa was doing something. He had found his old service rifle, loaded it, and gone grimly out on the streets. When he returned, briefly, to grab some food — his wife, who, knowing her husband, had it waiting for him — he went off again after having swallowed barely a mouthful, urged on by Latifa, who afterwards went out and patrolled the streets herself. Of course it was useless, a complete waste of time. But at least they were doing something.
Zeinab wondered if she should go out, too, but had to admit, in her heart, that there was little point. McPhee had police out everywhere and if they couldn’t find anything then it was unlikely that she would. And then Garvin pulled the police off the streets! Deciding it was a waste of time, probably. Another cold Englishman!
When Owen came home at the end of the day, she wouldn’t speak to him.
Garvin had pulled the police off the streets at Owen’s request. Even the far too gentle McPhee was appalled. He did not normally question decisions from above, but on this occasion, shaking with anger, he did. He went to see Garvin and Owen and was satisfied by neither.
In fact, there was method in the madness. The truth was that Owen and Garvin had bigger fish to fry.
On what had become his usual patrol now, Georgiades had run into Abdul, the porter.
‘I’m hoping to have something for you soon!’ he said to Abdul cheerfully.
‘Not today,’ said Abdul. ‘I’ve got something else on.’
‘Not …?’
Abdul nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to get my men to the warehouse when the muezzin calls this evening.’
‘Another night job?’
‘It could be.’
‘And you’ve no idea where? Keeping you in the dark as usual?’
‘As usual. Except that Nassir says I’ll know the place.’
‘Oh, I see. Been there before.’
‘And I’m not to say anything,’ said Abdul. ‘But nothing, says Nassir. And this time, he says, he means it. And Clarke Effendi will be standing over him and me and everyone else while we’re doing it.’
Georgiades padded along to the warehouse.
‘Can’t stop to talk,’ said Nassir.
‘Not even for a cup of coffee?’
Nassir shook his head regretfully. ‘The boss will be along at any moment,’ he said.
Georgiades reported all this to Nikos, who had been expecting it for the last couple of days. A man had come to the madrassa the previous morning, gone in, but not to the teacher, and spent some time there. Then he had come out, and had been followed home by one of Owen’s watchers. Home, it turned out, was the town house of the Pasha Ali Maher.
The police had been pulled off the streets so that their presence would not deter Ali Maher from any action that he was proposing to undertake. Guns, especially in that quantity, were important to the police. If they were linked to rioting, the situation would become very difficult to control.
They had to have priority. Both Owen and Garvin knew that. It wasn’t just whatever unrest Ali Maher and his associates had in mind — that could be taken care of — but it was the possibility that it might spread that worried them. Shooting would invite return shooting and who knows where it would end?
So Owen waited in his office. He had made his arrangements and, for the moment, there was nothing more he could do. Reports came in continually through Nikos.
Reports came in, too, about the search for Leila. They were all negative. It was only too easy for anyone, especially a child, to disappear into the warren of little back streets that made up Cairo. You needed a lead. Without a lead he knew he would never find her.
He racked his brains all afternoon. Why had Leila been taken? Was it some crazy man who had taken a fancy to her? These things happened. They were not infrequent in Cairo. There was no wider rationality to them. They just happened, on a man’s wild fancy. And so it was very hard to find a thread in them to follow.
Or was it something else? His mind went back to what Miss Skiff had said at the very beginning about the risk of Leila being snatched back by the slavers. Could that be what had happened? And yet it was a long way to come from Upper Egypt to do that. Was a single child worth it? Wouldn’t a slaver have merely gone on to some other child, if numbers were that important? He would go to the length of coming up to Cairo only if there was something special about the child. What was so special about Leila?
And then, as he sat there, he realized what it was. His mind went back to Selim’s reports on the conversation he had overheard in the temple at Denderah, the fears that Clarke had expressed about ‘that child’ hearing something. And seeing something, too. Him, and being able to recognize him.
Finally, he remembered what Georgiades had heard Clarke say at the Pont Limoun in Cairo. Again the fears of being recognized, of being implicated in the arms dealing. The fears must have run deep for he had recognized Leila at once, had known that she was the same child.
And the fears would have been reinforced, Owen now realized, by his own presence there at the caravan’s encampment. For Owen now knew that the man who had stared at him so persistently that day had been Clarke. He had not known that at the time but Clarke had known him. The Mamur Zapt was not an unknown figure in Cairo. Far from it. Clarke had recognized him and must have wondered what he was doing in Denderah. And feared that it might be something to with him. In his mind it would all have been coming together.
And it was Owen himself who brought it together. The sight of him at Denderah would for Clarke have been a warning. And then that day at the Gare Pont Limoun the warning would have come home with force. It would have reinforced his anxieties about what Leila could reveal. And tipped Clarke into taking action.
It was Owen himself who had triggered the kidnap.
But at least he now knew that he had his lead. The lead that he had been looking so hard for.
Abdul and his porters came to the warehouse just as it was growing dark. Nassir was waiting for them and showed them in. A few moments later the tall, thin figure of Clarke slipped in after them. There was a brief delay and then the porters began to come out, two by two, each pair carrying a box between them. Last of all came Nassir and Clarke, watching over them as they made their way to the madrassa.