“There are always Copts. Why attack one now?”
“To avenge!” the boy said hotly. “To avenge the blow against one of ours! A death for a death!”
“Is that what the sheikh says?”
“It is what we all say.”
“There are other sheikhs who do not say it.”
“They turn the cheek,” the boy said, “when they should set their face in anger. They fold their arms when they should lift their hand in wrath. They let the faithless strike them when they should strike the faithless.”
The words had the ring of preacher’s rhetoric.
“Is that what the Sheikh Osman says?”
“Yes,” said the boy defiantly.
Owen had him taken back to the underground room. In a few days he would release him. There was no point in acting against him.
The Sheikh Osman Rahman, however, was a different matter.
Owen came up with him that evening. It was in a tiny square of the Old City. There was a dais on one side of the square on which the Sheikh Osman sat cross-legged. All around him, squatting on the ground, were his followers; and beyond them, around the outskirts and blocking up the mouths of the little streets which gave on to the square, was a wider, more disinterested audience. Those nearest the dais carried raised torches in their hands, so that the dais was illuminated and the sheikh clearly visible to all.
Owen stayed in one of the side streets and listened. The sheikh was only just getting into his stride. He spoke vehemently but quietly. He was expounding a sura, one of the parable-like stories of the Koran, extracting from it lessons for the faithful. As he pointed up the moral, contrasting the way of the good with the way of the bad, his voice deepened and became more indignant. Almost imperceptibly the exposition became a harangue. The crowd stirred and became involved. There were sympathetic cries. The sheikh now had moved into denunciation: of the wrongdoer, the infidel, those who mocked Islam. Of those who protected the infidel from the just wrath of the servants of Allah.
Owen waited for the words which would justify his own intervention. They came. Incitation to riot. His men, who knew the law as well as he, looked at him expectantly.
“Not yet.”
He did not want to do it in front of the crowd. That might provoke a riot, the very thing he was trying to avoid. He did sometimes break up meetings but that was usually when they were political. Religion you handled with kid gloves.
Afterwards. When the crowd was beginning to disperse.
He could sense his men fidgeting. This was always the difficult time. They were disciplined, though, Sudanis, hand-picked ex-soldiers from the south. They would do what they were told.
The sheikh began a final exhortation. The last part of his serman, or speech was accompanied by continuous cries from his followers. His voice rose to a howl and drew the audience up with it into an excited, almost exalted, crescendo.
And then it stopped. The shouting went on, though, for several minutes. People leapt to their feet and milled around excitedly. This was the moment when, sometimes, a procession formed and they would march off to take action. If they did on this occasion Owen would be ready. His men drew their truncheons.
For a moment or two it seemed as if that was what would happen. A little group of men had got together and appeared to be trying to enlist others into a formation of some kind. There was so much untidy milling about, however, that in the confines of the tiny space they found it hard to organize themselves and eventually seemed to abandon the attempt.
The excitement died away and the crowd began to drift off down the side streets. The throng in front of Owen melted away, leaving his men exposed, so he drew them back into the shadows. In the square the torches began to go out, until there were only one or two left near the dais.
The Sheikh Osman sat on, relaxed now. A few of his followers had joined him on the dais.
Then he, too, rose to his feet. The square was quite empty by now and he and the little group of men with him made their way across it without difficulty. They disappeared down one of the side streets. Owen’s men moved unhurriedly after them.
They came up with Osman just where the street joined up with two others. The street was wider there and Owen’s men found it easy to slip round the sheikh, separating him from his followers and surrounding him.
The sheikh looked up, startled.
“What is this?”
Owen stepped forward.
“Come with me,” he said.
Then Osman understood.
He opened his mouth to shout. One of Owen’s Sudanis put a hand over his mouth, preventing him. There was a little struggle and Osman half-dragged himself free.
“There will be blood!” he shouted.
“It will be yours,” said Owen, and signalled to his men.
They closed round Osman and now he was silent. Muffled and tied, he was quickly shepherded away. For good measure Owen took several of his followers too. The others were left, startled and winded. One lay on the ground.
The passers-by at the end of the street had not even noticed.
Osman was taken to one of the cells beneath Owen’s office in the Bab el-Khalkh. The building was the Police Headquarters and well away from the Old City. It was also big and strong. Just in case.
Owen, though, did not expect any difficulty. It would take some time for the news to get around. Osman’s followers would have to get together; and Owen would see that they did not find that very easy. He had warned the Assistant Commissioner, McPhee, and together they would ensure that for the next two or three days the city was flooded with agents who would alert them at once to an assembly. By then perhaps Zoser would be caught. The crowd would have other things on its mind and Osman could be released.
It might even be possible to scare him into silence, although when he was brought to Owen’s office in the early hours of the morning that did not seem very likely.
“There will be blood,” he said again as he came through the door.
“There has been too much of that already,” said Owen. “That is why you are here.”
“There will be more,” Osman promised.
“It is bad there is blood,” said Owen, “either Moslem or Copt.”
“Where there is a blood debt,” said Osman, “there must be blood.”
“There was no debt originally,” said Owen. “There was just a foolish act.”
Osman did not reply.
“A sacrilegious act,” Owen pursued, “which you, as a holy man, ought to have done your best to prevent. Instead of encouraging it. And perhaps instigating it.”
“I did not instigate it,” said Osman haughtily.
“But you knew about it. He was one of your men.”
Osman shrugged.
“He was his own man,” he said, “in this.”
“But you knew. And could have stopped.”
“Why should I stop? It was only a Copt. Besides, have not the Copts-”
“Be quiet!” said Owen. “Such talk will not help you now. You allowed this thing to happen and so must bear some of the guilt.”
“There is no guilt.”
“You treated heavy things lightly,” said Owen, “and that does not accord with the Book.”
“You quote the Book at me?” Osman glared at him.
“I do. Where the Book itself is taken lightly the offender is not worthy of respect.”
Osman was plainly taken aback. He had not expected things to go like this. Owen pursued his advantage.
“You have done wrong,” he said, “and you must put things right.”
“I?” said Osman. “I?”
“You.”
“I have struck no blow.”
“You have caused many to be struck. It must be stopped before someone is killed.”
“Someone has been killed,” said Osman. “A Moslem. By a Copt.”
“That is for me,” said Owen. “Not for you.”
“There is a debt.”
“Which I will see is paid.”
“The Christians protect the Christians.”