‘It will happen. But let others do the killing.’
‘No!’ said Suleiman fiercely. ‘I want to do it. And I want to do it not just because I want to end it-that is what Labiba says, that I must work to end the squalor and the ignorance so that there will be no more Leilas. Well, that is good, that is right. I want to do that. But I want to do more.’
‘Is not that enough?’
‘No. Because, you see, I know a thing that Labiba does not know. She knows that when you do something like this you make the world a better place. But I know that when you do it, you also hurt people. Well, I know who bringing the pipes will hurt. And,’ said Suleiman, ‘I want to hurt them.’
‘Get the boy out of here!’ said Owen. ‘There’s a gang down here and they don’t like him.’
‘Certainly!’ said the manager at the Water Board. ‘I’ll see him tomorrow.’ He hesitated. ‘However, he may not be very willing. The fact is, I’ve tried to move him before. After the death of-you know about the girl?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I thought, I thought that it would be better to move him. We had a vacancy over in El Hilmiyah but he refused to go.’
‘A junior effendi? Why didn’t you just tell him?’
‘I didn’t have the heart. And besides-besides, he said he would resign. I thought that would be worse.^- ’
‘Did you think he would resign?’
‘He was very adamant. But I will see him tomorrow and try again.’
‘He stands a chance of getting killed if he stays in the Gamaliya.’
‘I will certainly do all I can. But-what if he insists on handing in his resignation?’
Owen thought.
‘He is, as you say, just a junior effendi,’ the manager said. ‘We would not ordinarily go to these lengths. But his father is my wife’s cousin and I would like to do what I could to help him.’
‘Quite so. Look, if he wants to hand in his resignation, do what you can to delay him. Tell him he’s got to give notice. Meanwhile, find something else for him to do, out of the Gamaliya.
There are other people who may be able to influence him. I will speak to them.’
‘We don’t want a killing,’ said the manager. ‘Bringing the pipes in is difficult enough as it is. It will do them nothing but good and yet you would be surprised how many people are against them.’
‘I will certainly speak to him,’ promised Labiba, ‘but I doubt if he will listen to me.’
‘You have more influence over him than you suppose.’
‘Perhaps; but I have found there are limits. I will, however, do my best. And I will also speak to Mas’udi, who has been seeing a lot of him lately. Suleiman has been helping him in his work.’
‘What sort of work?’
‘You are very suspicious, Captain Owen. Humble clerical duties in the evenings, mostly, I gather. Assemblymen have a great need of such help. Unpaid, that is. But I think that Suleiman has also been giving him specialized advice on water. The Nationalists are taking a great interest in water just at the moment.’
‘Yes,’ said Owen. ‘So I have noticed.’
Owen went up to the barrage, where he found Georgiades in the Gardens lying under a tree.
‘I have been walking the Gamaliya,’ said Owen accusingly. ‘It’s been pretty hot here, too,’ said Georgiades hurriedly, scrambling to his feet.
It was, indeed, hot in the Gardens that morning. As Owen had come up from the river, the heat had met him like a blow in the face. The sand was so hot that he could feel it through the soles of his shoes. When he came to the grass of the Gardens it was no cooler. The great walls of bougainvillea and datura acted like sun traps and out on the lawns the heat quivered and danced.
He made at once for the shade of the trees; along with the lemonade sellers, the peanut sellers, the Turkish delight sellers, the pastry and poultry sellers, the water-carriers and everyone else who happened to be in the Gardens at that time. They lay stretched out under the banyan and casuarina trees, every sparse item of clothing removed, including trousers. Even the birds seemed to be gasping in the heat.
‘Where is it, then?’ said Owen.
Reluctantly, Georgiades, not built for speed, led him through the trees towards the regulator. Ahead of them they could see the blue waters of the Nile winking in the sunlight and here and there flashes from the various water-ways enclosed behind the barrage.
They came upon the white surveyor’s tapes he had seen the other day, marking out the line of the new canal. Owen was appalled to see how much of the beautiful gardens they took in.
All this?’
Georgiades nodded, and led him in among the clumps of bougainvillea and clerodendron, already hacked back severely to allow unimpeded progress for the tapes. On the far side, the side nearest the canal, the posts holding the tapes had been torn out and the tapes broken. A loose end of tape led out towards the canal.
Just where it ended, the side of the canal had been broken. The earth had been scraped away to form a shallow trench leading down to the water, rather like the sort of place made for water-buffalo to go down to drink. Only this was too small for a water-buffalo.
The earth had been thrown back to the rear of the trench as if by the paws of some animal, and the wattles which reinforced the sides of the canal at this point, had been snapped and forced aside.
A little group of men were standing looking down at the damage. Among them were Macrae and Ferguson, and also the ghaffir and the gardener.
‘It’s some dog or other,’ Macrae was saying. ‘You’d better make inquiries in the village. And if you see it up here,’ he said to the ghaffir, ‘shoot it!’
The ghaffir swallowed.
‘Effendi,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t look like a dog to me.’
He touched the wattles.
‘What dog could do that?’
‘Well, what do you think it was, then?’
The ghaffir and the gardener looked at each other unhappily. ‘The Lizard Man,’ they said.
Chapter 10
Standing a little way back from the canal bank was an old weeping willow. It did not provide much shade but it was the only tree hereabouts and with one accord they moved into its broken shadow. The heat rising from the bank was so great that at this time of day, just before noon, it was uncomfortable to stand there for long.
The earth had been eroded away from the foot of the willow and little lizards skittered in and out among the exposed roots. Sometimes, though, they would freeze still for a moment and then you could see the beat of their hearts under the shiny skin.
‘Well,’ said Macrae, ‘it wasn’t one of those, anyway.’
‘Maybe not,’ said the gardener, ‘but I’ll bet they’re in it somewhere.’
‘How could they be?’
The gardener took him by the arm.
‘Be careful!’ he warned. ‘They’ll hear you. And then they’ll pass it on.’
‘What I want to know,’ said the ghaffir, thinking, ‘is how his father managed it.’
‘Managed what? Whose father?’
‘The Lizard Man’s father. He must have had sex with a lizard. And what I want to know is how he managed it.’
‘You daft idiot!’ said Macrae.
‘Perhaps he was very small, Ibrahim,’ suggested the gardener.
‘He would have to have been.’
‘Or maybe the lizard was very big?’ suggested Owen.
They considered it seriously.
‘That could be it,’ concluded the ghaffir finally.
‘For Christ’s sake, man!’ said Macrae, exasperated.
‘Out in the desert somewhere,’ suggested the ghaffir.
‘It certainly wasn’t in my Gardens,’ said the gardener. ‘We don’t have them that big.’
‘Yes, but out in the desert; you never know what goes on out there.’
‘I can tell you one thing that doesn’t go on out there,’ said Ferguson, ‘and that is men copulating with lizards!’
‘Have you been out in the desert, Effendi? Excuse my asking.’