‘No, no, no!’ said Nuri hastily. ‘Only in general.’
‘Because if it gets particular-’
‘No question of that. No question at all… he is, of course, very rich.’
Owen could see it all too clearly. Nuri’s finances were permanently straitened; and what better way of relieving them than marrying off his daughter to the son of one of the wealthiest Pashas in Egypt?
‘No!’ shouted Zeinab, stamping her foot. ‘I won’t!’
‘There’s absolutely no question-’
‘I would kill myself first!’
‘No question-’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ said Zeinab, suddenly stopping.
‘You wouldn’t?’ said Nuri, heart beginning to lift.
‘No. I would kill him. In fact,’ said Zeinab magnificently, ‘I will go and kill him now!’
And swept out.
Nuri and Owen sat for a moment in stunned silence.
‘You don’t think-?’ said Nuri hesitantly.
‘Not immediately,’ said Owen.
‘She is a resolute girl.’
‘It takes a bit of time.’
‘Abd-al-Jamal’s an old friend of mine. I would hate-’
‘I’ll talk to her. I’ll suggest she waits until the contingency arises.’
‘It was only in passing. We were really talking about my investment.’
‘What investment is this?’
‘In the Heliopolis Oasis Scheme.’
‘I thought you hadn’t any money?’
‘I’m hoping this will give me some.’
They wouldn’t give him some for nothing, thought Owen. Nuri was too astute not to know this. So what was he giving them? Zeinab? But surely he must have known what her reaction would be? Even if he hadn’t known that she had already taken a dislike to Malik.
But Zeinab herself had been behaving a little oddly lately. What was she going on about that girl for? If the kid had been a bit older he could have understood it. But she was just a child! He couldn’t make it out at all.
But what he could make out was that someone was trying to involve Nuri in the Heliopolis Scheme. What were they after? Was it Zeinab? Who had the suggestion about the marriage come from? Nuri-or Malik? Did Malik have his eye on Zeinab? He thought it not impossible.
But the attempt to involve Nuri must have emanated from the Syndicate, not Malik, and they surely would not be interested in Zeinab. They would be after something else. And it would not be Nuri, not in himself. Pasha though he was and useful though his name might be on the prospectus, there were Pashas in plenty who would be as good and whose names were already there. No, it was something, or someone, else that they were after. And Owen was beginning to have a feeling that it might be him.
Chapter 6
There had been a sharp wind overnight which had blown the sand in from the desert. It lay everywhere; on the slats of the shutters, on the top of Owen’s desk in a thin film, in a neat little pile inside his sun helmet hanging on the back of the door. It had got into the filing cabinet and made the papers gritty to touch; it had, despite the cloth folded lovingly by his orderly over the top of the water jug, got into the water so that it tasted of sand.
Everyone was out of sorts. In the orderly office the bearers were unusually subdued. Cleaners were going around ineffectively trying to sweep up the sand. Nikos, the Mamur Zapt’s austere Official Clerk, was in a fury, pulling open drawers and inspecting the damage, wondering, madly, whether to have all papers retyped to restore their pristine purity.
McPhee, the Deputy Commandant, normally Boy Scoutish in his cheerfulness, stuck his head in at the door dolefully.
‘More to come,’ he said, and went off up the corridor.
Yussef, Owen’s orderly, who could read Owen’s mind but nothing else, padded along the corridor with a fresh pot of coffee. It, too, tasted of sand.
The telephone rang.
‘It’s the Parquet,’ said Nikos, handing Owen the phone.
It was Mahmoud, as Nikos would normally have said. This morning, though, he felt particularly ungiving.
‘The courts are closed,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Sand everywhere. 1 was thinking of going over to Matariya. Like to come?’
Owen would like to be anywhere but in this grit-tasting office.
‘Got to go out,’ he said to McPhee as he passed him in the corridor.
‘Lucky devil!’ said McPhee, bound to his place by duty and, thought Owen, lack of imagination.
He met Mahmoud at the Pont de Limoun. All trains were at a standstill, including those going to Marg, and therefore, Matariya.
‘I’ll see if they’ve got a buggy,’ said Owen. ‘They’ll be sending something out to clear the line.’
The booking clerk now regarded him as an old friend.
‘But certainly, Effendi! At once! Only it has not come back yet.’
‘When will it come back?’
‘Ah, well, Effendi…’
‘ Bokra?’
‘That’s it, Effendi! Tomorrow! Yes, certainly. Tomorrow.’
Mahmoud turned away.
‘Hold on!’ said Owen. ‘This is only the start of the story. Go and check,’ he said to the clerk.
The clerk went happily off. It had been a good morning; he had been able to say ‘no’ to everybody.
‘Just tell him it’s the Mamur Zapt!’ Owen called after him.
A few moments later the clerk came scurrying back.
‘Effendi! It’s just come in!’ he cried joyfully.
‘I’m against all this,’ muttered Mahmoud wrathfully, as he followed Owen up the platform.
‘Privilege?’ said Owen. ‘It doesn’t usually get me very far. But I’ve met these blokes before.’
‘Not privilege,’ said Mahmoud, frowning. ‘The way these people muck you around!’
Mahmoud lived continually in the hope of a better, brighter Egypt. He worked for it with all his energy; and he couldn’t understand why other people didn’t do the same.
The buggy was empty apart from tools and water. Owen and Mahmoud settled down and the two-man crew began pumping the vehicle along.
In the cuttings the track had escaped the drift of the sand, but out in the open it had obviously had to be cleared away. Fresh piles of sand lay beside the track.
Out in the desert the wind was still blowing. Puffs of sand raced the buggy along the track, rising up sometimes into a cloud and then dying down again before scudding on at knee-high level.
The crew pulled their headdresses across their faces.
‘It’s a waste of time clearing all this,’ one said. ‘It’ll soon be back.’
There was plenty of sand on the line already and the buggy slowed appreciably. The piles beside the track grew in size.
Ahead of them they could see men working on the line. The buggy came to a stop just short of them.
‘This is as far as we go,’ the men said.
The Belgian foreman came towards them.
‘Oh, it’s you, is it?’ he said. ‘A fine business this is!’ He went up to the buggy and peered in. ‘Got the picks?’ He moved some of the tools. ‘They’ve sent us more bloody spades!’ he said disgustedly. ‘Picks!’ he said to the buggy men. ‘I asked for picks! The sand’s packed hard. Go back and tell them. Tell Mustapha: I want picks, picks! I’ve got to loosen the sand.’
The buggy men shrugged and got back into the buggy. A moment or two later it moved off again, slowly.
‘This bloody country!’ said the Belgian.
Owen and Mahmoud walked up the line to where the men were working. Great, deep drifts of sand lay across the track. The men were shovelling it aside with wooden spades. It was hard work and the sweat was running down their faces.
‘They’ve been working all morning,’ said the foreman. ‘You can’t expect them to go on all day. They’re supposed to be sending me another shift. When I saw the buggy I thought it was them coming. You didn’t see any signs, did you?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Owen.
‘Well, I’m going to give them a spell in a moment or two,’ said the foreman. ‘Let them brew up. Water’s all very well but you want something with a bit of bite in it, if you’re working like this. That’s so, isn’t it, Abdul?’ he said to one of the workmen. The man straightened up and smiled.