Even the death of a dog.
He understood now why Nikos had been so insistent that he come.
“And what the hell were you doing while all this was going on?” asked Georgiades.
“I am in the office,” Nikos said with dignity. “I leave the other stuff to you.”
He paused impressively, looked through the sheaf of papers he was holding in his hand, pulled one out and laid it on the desk in front of Owen.
“All I can find out about Andrus,” he said.
Owen glanced at it, but then looked back at Nikos.
“Tell me,” he said. It would be sensible for Georgiades to hear.
“A zealot,” said Nikos.
“Extremist?”
“Not in your sense, no,” said Nikos coldly. He was himself a Copt. “Just very religious. You would consider excessively so.”
Nikos liked to get things exactly right.
“But not politically active?”
“No known Nationalist connections, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I wasn’t. Not specifically. I was wondering if he was active in politics generally?”
“How can a Copt be active in politics generally?”
The Copts, although the direct descendants of the Egyptians of the pharaohs, were now in a minority in Egypt. They numbered less than a million. There were over eight million Moslems. Since before the days of the Mamelukes Egypt had been a Moslem country. Successive sultans, and the generals who had governed Egypt for them, had not even thought of sharing their rule with the Copts, nor had more recent khedives seen any reason to depart from that tradition. Even the new Western-style political parties which were springing up had restricted Coptic participation.
“You know what I mean,” said Owen. “Behind the scenes.”
But although Copts had been effectively excluded from direct participation in government they participated indirectly in very considerable measure. They were prominent in the civil service. Indeed, you could almost say that the civil service was run by them. Even in what was called in other countries parliamentary politics they were not without influence. They were energetic and skilful lobbyists. One thing they were not, thought Owen, was inactive in politics.
“I know what you mean.” Nikos caved in, having made his point. “No, he is not. He confines his public activities to church work, of which he does a lot.”
“The Mar Girgis?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“What sort of church is it?”
“Fundamentalist. Conservative. Ascetic.”
“That figures.”
“Yes,” said Nikos, “he’s like that, too.”
“Anything else?”
“A prominent figure in the local Coptic community. Name any committee and he’s on it. Any list of subscriptions and he’s at the top.”
“Where does he get the money?”
“He’s a businessman. Soft fruit, raisins, grapes, that sort of thing. He imports them and exports them. His main place of business is really Alexandria, though he prefers to live in Cairo himself, which is where his family have always lived and where his father built up the family business.”
“His father is dead?”
“Yes. He’d been in ailing health for some years. He suffered badly in one of the massacres.”
“Massacres?”
“Of the Copts. By the Moslems.”
“I see.”
“Yes,” said Nikos, “I thought you would.”
Among the papers which Nikos had brought in were the office accounts. These made gloomy reading. They were still some weeks from the end of the financial year and already Owen was almost spent up. He decided he would have to see Garvin about it. Garvin was the Commandant of the Cairo Police and although not formally Owen’s superior was the man he in practice reported to. Garvin had very good links with the Consul-General.
He was also the person in whose budget, for administrative convenience, Owen’s accounts were included, so any application for an increase would have to be cleared with him.
Owen was not expecting any difficulty. The Mamur Zapt’s budget was relatively small and the work important. Since Cromer’s time, however, the Ministry of Finance had been sticklers for financial probity and formal permission would definitely have to be obtained. The British Consul General had been brought in specifically to clear up the Egyptian financial mess and by the time he had left, two years ago, the Government’s accounts had been transformed. Some were saying, the new English Liberal MPs among them, that Britain’s work in Egypt was now completed and that there was no excuse for them staying further. It had, after all, been thirty years.
Before going to Garvin, however, Owen was anxious to check the accounts. A previous Mamur Zapt had been dismissed for corruption not so long previously that Owen could afford to ignore criticism. He was deep in calculations when the phone rang.
It was one of the Consul-General’s aides, a personal friend of his.
“Hello,” said Paul, “I was trying to get you earlier but you were out. I need some help.”
“Yes?”
“Visitors. Important ones. Ones who need special handling.”
“So?”
“I at once thought of you.”
“No,” said Owen. “Definitely not. Much too busy. Quite out of the question. No.”
“It is not I alone who thinks so. The Consul-General thinks so too.”
“You put the idea in his head.”
“We reviewed the possibilities together. I may have suggested there was a need for some dexterity. Political dexterity.”
“You rotten sod.”
“I have your interests at heart. Also my own. We don’t want this to go wrong.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve got more important things to do.”
“You haven’t. This has priority. So says the Consul-General.”
“Bloody hell! I’ve got a lot on just now.”
“Then put a lot off.”
“Who the hell are these visitors?”
“You only need to bother about one of them. Well, let’s say one and a half. He has a niece with him. He, John Postlethwaite, is one of the new intake of Liberal MPs and has chosen to make a speciality of Egypt. This is because none of the other committees would have him. Retrenchment, reform and Bolton’s backyard is all he really knows about. Oh, and accounts. He took Cromer to task over his and made something of a name for himself. That’s what gave him the idea. Of specializing in Egypt, I mean. He wants to come out and see things at first hand. The accounts, that is.”
“McPhee sounds just the man for this,” said Owen, selling the Assistant Commandant down the river without a qualm.
“McPhee? Not in a million years. This is out of his class. This is a delicate exercise, boyo, and not for the McPhees of this world. Haven’t you been listening? We need someone with some political sense. This is important, I keep telling you. There’s a lot at stake. My job for a start. Yours too, probably. It’s not trivial stuff like The End of Empire, Egypt’s Manifest Destiny, or England’s Moral Mission to Confuse the World. Christ, did I say that? I’m going to have to watch my step for the next two months.”
“Two months? For Christ’s sake, I can’t spend that amount of time.”
“You can do other things as well,” said Paul magnanimously.
“I’m afraid so,” said Garvin.
“But it’s going to take up hours,” Owen complained. “Just when I’m especially busy.”
“What are you busy on?”
Owen told him about the dog. Garvin, knowledgeable in the ways of Egypt, took it seriously.
“Christ!” he said. “If you don’t sort that out quickly they’ll be at each other’s throats.”
“So I can concentrate on that and get someone else to look after Postlethwaite?”
“You can concentrate on that and still look after Postlethwaite. Don’t spend too much time on him, that’s all.”
As Owen went out, Garvin said: “You’d better get it sorted out by the twenty-fifth.”