“I thought you wanted to wrap it up quickly,” said Mahmoud in injured tones.
“I do,” said Owen. “But it’s got to be watertight. Suppose we don’t clinch it? The Copts will say we tried to put it on him and the Moslems will say we let him off.”
“I could always pull him in for questioning.”
“Think he’d talk?”
“They sometimes do.”
Sectarian killers especially. They usually didn’t even bother to deny the charge. They saw it, rather, as something to boast of.
“Think he would?”
Mahmoud was silent.
“No,” he said. “Not unless I could shake him.”
“And for that you need something to shake him with. Are your men going to come up with anything?”
“At the moment,” said Mahmoud, “there doesn’t seem to be a lot for them to come up with.”
“No previous contact?”
“Apparently not. Zoser keeps himself pretty much to himself. All his contacts seem to be within the Coptic community. Apart from work. And that doesn’t help us much because, so far as we have been able to ascertain, the Zikr doesn’t appear to have bought a bottle of perfume in his life.”
“It’s not the sort of thing he would buy, is it?”
“No, he’s not that sort. And that’s another thing. The two men are as different as chalk and cheese. It’s hard to see how they could ever get to know each other long enough for it to come to this. Zoser’s withdrawn, doesn’t have much to do with people. Religion is everything to him. The Zikr must have been devout too, of course, but he got round a lot more than Zoser, mixed with people, liked crowd and noise and a bit of fun. Something of a character, too. People say he was a bit of a joker.”
“A joker?”
The idea came to him. Or came back to him. Something that Georgiades had said.
“I know,” said Mahmoud. “It’s hard to imagine a Zikr being a bit of a joker, isn’t it? Still, they can’t always be chanting and dancing. They’ve got lives of their own too.”
“It’s not that.”
“No? Well, anyway, my men have been unable to find any connection between the two at all. Which almost certainly makes it a sectarian killing.”
“Yes,” said Owen, “but why him? Him particularly?”
Mahmoud shrugged.
“He was the nearest?” he suggested.
“But he wasn’t, was he? Zoser picked him out.”
“We don’t know that.”
“OK. Put it another way: what made Zoser start picking?”
“He doesn’t like Moslems.”
“Yes. But what made him decide to do something about it? Now?”
“It suddenly came over him?”
“Something triggered it off. What was that something?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“I might,” said Owen. “I might.”
“What the hell’s this?” said Georgiades, staring into his mug unbelievingly.
“Yussuf’s got problems,” said Nikos from his desk.
“I’m going to speak to him,” said Owen.
“For God’s sake speak to him quickly,” said Georgiades. “Otherwise I’ll have problems.”
“I’ve got one for you already,” said Owen.
“Thank you.”
“The problem is this: how do we find out whether the Zikr who put the dog in Andrus’s tomb is also the Zikr who got killed?”
“I see your problem,” said Georgiades, after a moment’s reflection.
“Get that boy to have a look at the body,” said Nikos.
“He’s only a child,” Owen objected.
Nikos shrugged his shoulders and went on with his writing. “Look,” said Georgiades. “I hate to shatter these gentle English illusions-”
“Welsh,” said Owen.
“That’s right,” said Georgiades, “somewhere over there. But that innocent child earns his livelihood robbing corpses.”
“Bloody hell!” said Owen.
Nikoslooked up.
“What else do you expect him to do?” he asked. “He’s living in the graveyard, isn’t he?”
“Yes, but-”
“It’s not much of a living. Everybody knows about it so they don’t leave anything valuable on the body.”
“Except Copts,” said Nikos.
“He robs Moslems too,” said Georgiades. “No sectarian prejudice here. No,” he said, turning to Owen, “that’s not the problem.”
“What is?”
“Where’s the body?”
Owen thought for a moment.
“I’d assumed it was in the mortuary. Either still at the lab or somewhere else.”
Georgiades shook his head.
“No. Too crowded. They need the space.”
“You mean it’s been handed back already?”
“They don’t keep them for long.”
“If you just rush down now,” said Nikos, “you can interrupt a Moslem funeral and desecrate that too.”
“I didn’t desecrate it.”
“You could always take a dog.”
“Shut up. What are we going to do?” he appealed to Georgiades.
“Find out where the body is. If it’s in any of the mortuaries, OK. If it’s been handed back I’ll find out where the tomb is. They always bring them the same day so there’s not much point in looking anywhere else. Anyway, there would be too many people around.”
The implications of what Georgiades was saying sank in.
“Break into the tomb? Christ!”
“There’s no other way.”
“Yes, I know. But-”
“Look,” said Georgiades patiently, “do you want this settled or don’t you? Is it important? If it’s not, well, I’m not exactly keen. But if it might stop a massacre…”
“It might stop a massacre.”
“OK, then.”
Owen was still not happy.
“Suppose we were seen?”
“You will be seen,” said Nikos.
“Yes,” said Georgiades. “Those little bastards.”
He rubbed his chin.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Why don’t I have a word with that little sod Ali and see if he can arrange it all? It would need money but it would be worth it. If he’s seen, or they are seen, that’s OK. There’s nothing out of the ordinary. Whereas if we’re seen it’ll start a Holy War.”
“You won’t be able to use his evidence,” said Nikos. “Not in court.”
“We wouldn’t anyway.”
“Why do it, then?”
“It sets his mind at rest,” said Georgiades, looking at Owen.
“It would give a motive,” said Owen, “and once you’ve got that, you’ve got other lines to work on.”
“All right,” said Nikos.
“Can you trust Ali?” asked Owen.
“No,” said Georgiades, “but you can trust money.”
“I mean afterwards. Is he going to talk?”
“I don’t think he’ll talk,” said Georgiades. “His mates may.”
“We wouldn’t want it to get out.”
“I’ll speak to Ali.”
“It’s risky.”
“Got any better suggestions?”
“No,” said Owen regretfully.
“Want me to get on with it, then?”
“Yes.”
As Georgiades went out, Nikos said: “At least it will bring the Copts and the Moslems together.”
“What?”
“When they find out it’s the Greeks that are breaking into their tombs.”
Owen was pursuing Garvin about the Camel Watering Account.
“It’s damned silly,” he said. “We always need money at this time of year. And we always transfer it out of the Camel Watering Account. Why the hell can’t we do it this year?”
“Because they’re looking, that’s why. Usually they don’t bother. They’ve got other things to think about.”
“And this year they haven’t?”
“This year they’ve got Postlethwaite looking over their shoulder so they’re making damned sure they’re being strictly kosher.”
“I don’t mind them playing their little games,” Owen complained. “It’s just that they have real effects. On me. It affects my work.”
“Does it?” said Garvin, not really very interested.
“Yes, it does. I rely on it to supplement the Curbash Compensation Fund.”
“What?”
“Curbash Compensation Fund. It’s what I pay the bribes out of.”