The local police themselves could help. Leila’s disappearance had not been formally reported to them, but then, in that poor quarter it wouldn’t have been. One of the local constables, however, recalled being asked about her. Had a body been found? Several, but none of them Leila’s. When, weeks later, a female corpse had been found buried beneath the ‘Bride of the Nile’, he had wondered if it might be that of the missing girl and had mentioned the possibility to a friend, a gravedigger, who had in turn mentioned it to his brother, who worked at the mortuary. And so it was that long before identification had been officially made, everyone had known all about it. Which was, said Mahmoud, pretty well the usual course of things.
He had been trying to retrace her footsteps that night, without, so far, much success. Even as they were talking, however, one of his men came over and said that he had found a woman who claimed to remember seeing her on the night she disappeared.
‘It stuck in my mind,’ she said, ‘because it was so unusual. And then what with her disappearing-I couldn’t help wondering.’
‘What did you see?’
‘Well, she was talking to someone. A man. Well, she hardly ever talked to anyone, never mind a man! I was that surprised!’
‘Did you see who it was?’
‘Well, no. It was getting dark, you see, and I just caught a glimpse of them, just as they turned the corner. And I thought: “That’s never Leila!” But I think it was, you know, she’s such a slight little thing, and she wasn’t walking too well, you know, not after-’
She wasn’t able to add much more.
‘Why didn’t you tell someone else?’ demanded Mahmoud sternly.
‘I did tell someone!’ protested the woman. ‘I told my husband. But he said: “You stay out of this!” So what could I do?’
‘I’ll check the husband later,’ said Mahmoud, pleased, as he and Owen walked back together, ‘but I think we’ll find she’s speaking the truth.’
Owen nodded.
‘It makes a difference. Up till now I’ve been thinking that the chances were that this was, well, you know, the usual kind of attack. But now-’
‘It looks as if she knew him,’ said Owen.
‘Exactly!’ Mahmoud looked at his watch. ‘In which case,’ he said, ‘it makes my next meeting even more interesting.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the boy, ‘I was down there quite a lot.’
‘I thought you said you weren’t seeing her,’ said Mahmoud accusingly.
‘I wasn’t. It’s my job.’
‘You work down there?’
‘Sometimes. I’m an inspector with the Water Board. We’ve got some pipes out that way. I was looking for leaks. Still am, for that matter.’
‘In the Gamaliya.’
‘We’re not out that far yet. In the Quartier Rosetti.’
‘Was that how you came to see her in the first place?’
‘Yes. And why I was able to go on seeing her. I work on my own and have a lot of freedom. I put the hours in,’ he said anxiously, ‘but I can take time off during the day if I want to.’
‘So you were able to meet her?’
‘Yes.’
‘More or less when you wanted?’
‘At lunch, mostly. When she was on her way to her father to take him lunch. Or on the way back. Not at other times. She was very strict.’
‘Did you ever see her in the evening?’
‘No.’
‘Or at the end of the afternoon? Just, say, when it was getting dark?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘But you were in the area?’
‘Not, really, after dark. I need to be able to see. We’ve been looking for holes in the pipes. There’s been quite a water loss.’
‘I’d like to ask you about one specific date: the 27 th of June.’ Suleiman took out a diary.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I was over there that day.’
‘Evening?’
‘All I’ve got down is that I had to be over there that day. I wouldn’t have thought so.’
‘Did you see Leila?’
‘No. It was after she’d said-well, that we couldn’t see each other any more. In fact-’he looked at his diary again, ‘that must have been about the time that-’
‘Yes.’
He put the diary away.
‘I didn’t know they were going to do that to her. It happened after-after we’d said goodbye. I didn’t know till later.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘I asked someone. When I hadn’t seen her for some time, I thought she might be already married.’
‘I thought you said that you didn’t see her?’
‘I wouldn’t have spoken to her. I just wanted to see her. And then when I didn’t see her, I–I became desperate. There was an old woman, the wife of another carrier, who I knew quite liked her, so-so I asked her.’
‘What did you ask her?’
‘Where Leila was. I hadn’t seen her. And then she told me. She said that women usually had it done when they were younger-that Leila had really been too old-and that it had gone wrong. I can’t understand it,’ said the boy, ‘that they should do these things!’
‘Did she tell you where Leila was?’
‘Back with her father. I wanted to go and see her. I wanted to go and see him, and tell him-But she said no, no, I mustn’t, it would make it worse for Leila, that it was all over and done with now and that there was nothing I could do. I mustn’t see her, she said. So, well, I didn’t. But I hated him for it. For all he had done to Leila, for marrying her to Omar Fayoum, and then-then this!
He looked at them passionately.
‘These old people,’ he said, ‘the terrible things they do! They are what is wrong with Egypt. They are killing Egypt. Just as they killed Leila.’
‘Killed her?’
‘It wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t insisted. She was too old for it. And it was wrong anyway. I have spoken to Labiba Latifa and she says it is wrong even for young girls. It is backward, these old people are backward, backward!’
‘You hate them,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Did you hate her?’ Suleiman stared at him.
‘Hate who?’
‘Leila.’
‘How could you think that?’ cried Suleiman. ‘Leila was all that is good. It is these old people that I hate, her father-’
‘She did what her father wished. She would not come with you. She ordered you away. Did that not make you hate her?’
‘No, no! Never! I could never hate Leila! She-’
He threw his head down on his arms and burst into tears. Mahmoud watched him impassively.
Suddenly the boy started up.
‘Why do you ask me these things? Why do you say these things?’
‘Because the old people did not kill Leila. Someone else did.’
‘What do you mean?’ Suleiman whispered. ‘Someone else did?’
‘She did not die because of the circumcision. She died because someone put a cord round her neck.’
‘No,’ whispered Suleiman, ‘no!’
The blood drained from his face.
‘They throttled her and buried her in the Canal.’
‘No!’
‘On the evening of June the 27 th!’
‘No,’ said Suleiman, ‘no!’
Chapter 7
‘What is this?’ said Labiba Latifa.
‘The girl was throttled,’ said Owen.
‘And Suleiman is suspected?’
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. Mahmoud will be looking at date, time, place and motive, and will be checking a number of people against these. Suleiman is one of them.’
‘Why?’
‘Motive, primarily.’
‘But surely in Suleiman’s case that points the other way? What possible motive could Suleiman have for killing the girl he loved?’
‘Love is complex. He might have felt jealous.’
‘Of Omar Fayoum?’
‘Yes. Or angry.’
‘He certainly felt angry. But not at Leila. At about everyone else, I think: her father, Omar Fayoum, the women who had caused her to be circumcised. At everyone old. Suleiman is not a stupid boy, Captain Owen. He could see that it was not Leila’s fault, that it was all part of the pattern that women in this country are subjected to. He was angry at the pattern, Captain Owen, not at Leila.’