Ali Khedri started up.
‘I did not kill her!’ he cried.
‘No,’ said Mahmoud, speaking for the first time. Up till now he had been sitting there quietly, for the attack on the regulator was Owen’s business. Leila, however, was his. ‘No, you did not kill her. But I think you know who did.’
Ali Khedri started to say something, stopped and looked at the ground.
‘You must have guessed,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Even if he did not speak of it when you left the meeting together, you must have guessed when you heard that Leila had not come back.’
‘She was nothing to do with me,’ said Ali Khedri defiantly. ‘She was your daughter. Even though others had taken her in. And that was sad, that Um Fatima, who in the goodness of her heart had taken her in, should by that same act make it possible for her to be killed. For surely she would not have gone with Ahmed Uthman if she had not come from his house and trusted him.’
‘She would have gone with any man,’ said Ali Khedri.
‘Not so. For she was pure in heart. She would not have gone with the boy. There were two men only that she would have gone with: her father and the man who in her trustfulness she thought was acting as her father. He had taken her in and had a right to tell her to come with him.’
The water-carrier was silent.
‘Let me take you back, Ali Khedri,’ said Mahmoud, ‘to the afternoon of the day that Leila died, when you and Ahmed Uthman and Omar Fayoum talked for so long in the place where Omar Fayoum kept his cart; when all that you knew was that the boy might be close to discovering your secret about the water and that he loved the girl; and when you were still brooding in your heart upon the fresh wrong that you fancied your old adversary, Al-Sayyid Hannam, had done you and meditating your revenge by water. What I want to know is this: when you and Ahmed Uthman and Omar Fayoum talked for so long, did you talk about killing Leila?’
He waited, but the water-carrier did not reply.
‘You were, I think, talking about the boy and what he had found out. And I suspect you talked about what you might do. Did that include killing your daughter?’
Ali Khedri remained mute.
‘You would have feared that she would tell what she knew.’
‘She knew nothing,’ said Ali Khedri, speaking at last.
‘Why, then, was the marriage with Omar Fayoum broken off?’
‘Because of what she might find out.’
‘Yet she had not found it out when she was living with you?’
‘A daughter’s duty is to obey,’ said Ali Khedri.
‘And you thought a wife might not?’
‘Her heart was with the boy.’
‘You thought she would betray you?’
‘I do not know,’ muttered Ali Khedri.
‘Did you talk about that?’
‘I don’t know what we talked about.’
‘I ask,’ said Mahmoud, ‘for this reason: Uthman will die. You probably will die, too. Shall Omar Fayoum escape? Do the rich always go free in this world?’
Chapter 13
One thing remained: to see that on the great day there was no trouble between Jews and gravediggers. Owen found the gravediggers sitting disconsolately in the shade of a tomb.
‘The Jews are doing it,’ they said.
‘It was their turn,’ said Owen. ‘And, besides, you have brought it on your own heads.’
‘It was his idea,’ one of them tried. ‘Why are you taking it out on us?’
‘You knew about it,’ said Owen.
They did not really demur.
‘However,’ said Owen, ‘I am a man of mercy.’
‘You are?’
They looked up hopefully.
‘Yes. And therefore although the Jews will still do it-’ Gravedigger faces fell.
‘-I will put in a word for you on a job that will be more than equivalent.’
‘What is that?’ asked the gravediggers cautiously.
‘You know that after the Cut, the canal is to be filled in. For that, diggers will be required. It is a good job and will last many days. Now, I will see that you get the chance to do half; provided that I have no more trouble from you.’
‘Half the canal? That will take a bit of time. The usual rates?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Well, that’s not bad!’ said one of them.
‘In fact, it’s very good,’ said another.
The gravediggers brightened.
‘Remember, only if I have no trouble!’ Owen cautioned. ‘Who is doing the other half?’
‘The Jews.’
There was a long silence. Then one of the men said:
‘It would be the other end from us, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’d have to see that they didn’t do a bit of our half sneakily and then claim for it.’
‘I would see to that,’ Owen promised. ‘I will get the Effendi from the barrage to measure-he measures like the Prophet himself! — and determine the mid-point, so that there will be no arguing. And then I shall watch like a hawk to see that neither half-neither half! — is exceeded.’
‘We-ell…’ said the gravediggers, looking at each other. ‘We’ll have to think about it.’
‘Don’t think too long!’
‘Are you talking to the Jews too?’
Owen nodded.
‘We’re on!’ said the gravediggers instantaneously.
‘But will the Lizard Man strike?’ asked the man from the Khedive’s Office worriedly.
‘There is no such thing as the Lizard Man,’ said Owen wearily, very wearily because on top of the excitements of the previous day he had been up most of the night checking last minute arrangements for the Cut, marshalling boats, reinforcing the police cordon, making sure that the canal bed was clear of idiots who were determined to drown themselves, and pacifying the Kadi, the Khedive, the Consul-General’s wife, and Zeinab, who had decided after a couple of hours that there were better things to do with one’s nights than standing around on a dam and wanted Owen to do them with her.
‘I heard there had been incidents,’ said the man from the Khedive’s Office uneasily.
‘You heard wrongly,’ said Owen shortly.
‘There was that attack on the Manufiya Regulator-’
‘The men responsible are in prison. And they are men not lizards.’
‘Oh, I know about that. But wasn’t there something else?’
‘A foolish attempt by a gardener and a ghaffir to stop the new canal from running through the Gardens!’
‘And there was an attempt to disrupt the Cut itself!’
‘There were two incidents. Neither was by a lizard. One was probably by a stray dog and the other certainly by an astray gravedigger who now languishes in jail.’
‘But there was this business about the girl-’
‘Nothing to do with it. An unconnected murder.’
‘But the body, I understand, was found beneath the Cone?’
‘Put there by a killer to distract attention and throw suspicion on someone else. You may assure His Royal Highness that there is no danger. From the Lizard Man or anything else.’
‘I hope so,’ said the man from the Khedive’s Office doubtfully. He, too, had had a hard night manoeuvring his master’s barge into a position which offered the best possible view but would keep him out of the way should anything go wrong with the tricky business of the Cut itself. The Khedive had at one time wanted to be the one whose boat made the actual breach and it had been very difficult to persuade him that that was traditionally the Kadi’s prerogative. His Highness had been convinced only when it was pointed out to him that the first boat through was the one that had to ride the turbulence.
The Kadi himself had no need to be reminded of this fact. ‘Just make sure the damned thing doesn’t turn over!’ he kept saying; although his was not, in fact, the boat that would be making the actual breach. Tucked out of sight beneath the bows of the Kadi’s barge was a smaller vessel which would be sent on ahead, its crew shivering in their sandals.
The river side of the dam was now a solid mass of boats jostling for position. When the dam was broken they would follow the Kadi through in a joyous and noisy convoy. Some would certainly sink, and the most that Owen could hope for was that they would sink far enough along the Canal not to disrupt proceedings. Fortunately, they had all done this lots of times before and knew what was expected of them.