The tea-seller returned, piloting a small boy staggering under the weight of a huge water-jar. Georgiades drained his glass.
“May the streets be full of trouble!” he said to the tea-seller. “So that you can make your fortune.”
"Thank you,” said the tea-seller, “for your kind wishes.”
CHAPTER 4
Owen had arranged for the sergeant to be brought to the Kasr el Nil barracks and the following morning he went down to interrogate him.
He met Mahmoud at the bridge and they walked into the barracks together.
The guards at the main gate eyed the Egyptian curiously but noncommittally and pointed out the administration block, a large, old-fashioned building with lattices and sentry-boxes.
Their way to it took them past a vast, sanded parade ground on which soldiers were drilling. A squad approached them along the edge of the square. As it passed, the drilling sergeant gave them an eyes-right. Owen, who was in Army uniform, acknowledged with a salute. His eye took in their hot, strained faces. New from England, he thought; and fairly new to the Army, too, judging by their awkwardness.
The sentry-boxes and lattices were touched up with white, but inside the administration block everything was a darker, more restful green. A huge three-bladed fan rotated above the heads of the clerks bent at their desks in the orderly room.
One of the clerks collected the passes from Owen and disappeared into an inner room. A moment or two later a corporal came out with them in his hand, greeted Owen and called to a bearer squatting on the floor by the door. The man hurried out.
“It’s all laid on, sir,” said the corporal. “The escort got in about half an hour ago and is waiting in the guard-room. They’ll bring him over directly.”
“Fine,” said Owen. “Have you got a suitable room?”
“There’s one we normally use for this sort of thing,” said the corporal. “I’ll take you, sir.”
He registered Mahmoud’s presence.
“Mr. el Zaki,” said Owen. “From the Parquet.”
“Good morning, sir,” said the corporal politely.
“I’d like him to listen in.”
“Oh,” said the corporal, and hesitated. “A bit difficult, sir,” he said, after a moment.
“I don’t want anything too special,” said Owen. “Is there a room next door? Yes? Well, stick a chair in that and leave the door open. That should be enough.”
“Yes, sir,” said the corporal, but looked unhappy. His eyes sent desperate signals to Owen, which Owen refused to read. He knew very well what the trouble was. The Army guarded its privileges jealously. One of those was that its soldiers were subject to no legal processes but its own. It would not allow its men to be brought before any civilians, much less Egyptian civilians.
“Mr. el Zaki will not be actually present,” he pointed out helpfully.
“I–I know, sir,” said the corporal, thinking hard.
“You have the passes.”
“Yes, sir.” The corporal glanced at them uncomfortably. “They- they don’t actually say, sir-” he began with a rush and then stopped.
“They wouldn’t,” said Owen. He was on tricky ground. He could not insist. “But they do authorize Mr. el Zaki to come with me. And the reason for that is plain, Corporal,” he added, with just a little amount of stress, pulling his rank.
“Yes, sir,” the corporal responded automatically to the inflection, “of course sir.”
“Then-?”
The corporal made up his mind.
“I’ll have to check, sir,” he said. “Sorry, sir,” he added apologetically.
He went off along the corridor. Because of the heat all the rooms had their doors open, and so Owen was able to hear very clearly the explosion at the far end of the building.
“A bloody Gyppy? Certainly not!”
Heavy footsteps hurried down the corridor and a flushed major burst into the room.
“What the-” he began, and then, seeing Mahmoud, stopped.
Even the Army had to make some effort to keep up appearances.
“Would you step this way, Captain?” he said stiffly, and stalked off up the corridor.
In his room he wheeled on Owen.
“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’d like el Zaki to listen in.” “He can’t. I’m not having one of our men questioned by a bloody native.”
“He’s a member of the Parquet, for Christ’s sake!”
“Still a bloody native as far as I’m concerned,” said the major, “and I’m not having him question one of our men.”
“Who the hell said anything about him questioning anybody? I’m questioning. He’s listening.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s not the same thing. He’ll be in a separate room. All I want is the doors open.”
“Can’t be done,” said the major flatly.
“I’d like it done.”
The major’s cheeks tightened.
“Would you, now,” he said sarcastically. “And just who the hell are you?”
“I’m the Mamur Zapt,” said Owen. “And I’ve got authorization to interrogate, and I’d like to bloody get on with it.”
The major looked at him hard. Then he went across to his desk and sat down.
“You’re the Mamur Zapt, are you?” He spoke with distaste. "That’s right,” said Owen. “OK?”
“You can question him,” said the major, with a stress on the “you.” “He can’t.”
“I don’t want him to question. I want him to listen.”
“He can’t.”
“I want facilities made available for him to listen in.”
The major looked at the papers on his desk.
“It doesn’t say anything about that here,” he said.
“It doesn’t have to.”
“For something like this,” said the major, “I’d need authorization.” “You don’t usually.”
“I do this time,” said the major. He thought for a moment and then smiled. “Yes,” he said, “that’s right. For something like this I’d need special authorization. In writing.”
“That would be too late. The man’s coming out on Thursday.” “Pity!”
Owen considered going over the major’s head, directly to the commander-in-chief. He knew one of the Sirdar’s aides-de-camp.
The major must have seen him look at the telephone, for he said: “I’d need it in writing. From the Sirdar. Personally.”
It would take too long. Even if he got through to John, John would need time to clear it.
The major was watching him. “OK?” he said.
“Not OK,” said Owen.
“Dear, dear!”
“There’s a certain amount of rush on.”
“Difficult.”
“Could be,” said Owen. “For you.”
“Why me?” The major raised eyebrows.
“If things go wrong.”
“Why should they?”
Owen carried on as if he hadn’t heard.
“Especially if it came out why they went wrong.”
“I’ll risk that.”
All the same the major must have felt a little uneasy, for he said: “You won’t get anything out of him. Not if he’s coming out on Thursday.”
“I’ll risk that,” said Owen. “It’s just that I’d like el Zaki to listen in.”
“Didn’t you hear?” asked the major. “In writing. From the Sirdar. Personally.”
Owen sighed.
“Anything else I can do for you?” asked the major.
"No,” said Owen. “Not yet.”
He turned to go, then stopped.
“Oh, just one thing-”
“Yes?”
“Major…?”
“Brooker,” said the major. “Major Brooker.”
“Thank you,” said Owen. “That was it.”
“It wasn’t my fault, sir,” the ex-sergeant said. “I trusted those bloody Gyppies. That bloody ’Assan. He’d got it all figured out. He had his mates outside. ’Course, I was wrong to trust him. That was my mistake.”
Ingenuous blue eyes met Owen’s. Owen, who did not believe a word of it, decided to play along.
“Tell me about this Hassan,” he said.
“Bloody orderly, sir. Used to run messages. ’Ere, there and everywhere. Kept his eyes open. Didn’t miss much.”
“You think he tipped somebody off?”
“Or let them in, sir. There was a skylight found open. You know, I’d been looking at that bloody skylight a couple of days before. There was only a simple catch on it and I thought to myself: Anyone could open that. But I didn’t bother much because it was so small. I thought: Nobody can get in there. But do you know what I think, sir? The way it was done?”