“That,” said Owen, “I can quite understand.”
He brooded a little.
“I can understand,” he said presently, ‘‘a bit at any rate, because I myself am not English.”
“Not English?” said Mahmoud, astonished.
“Welsh.”
“Welsh? Pays Galles?”
Owen nodded.
“I have never met anyone from Wales before,” said Mahmoud. “You probably wouldn’t know if you had. They’re very like Englishmen. Smaller, darker. Not enough to stand out. But there is a difference. In the part of Wales I come from,” said Owen, “most people do not speak English.”
“Vraiment?”
Mahmoud hesitated.
“But-you speak English very well. How-?”
“We spoke both Welsh and English at home,” said Owen. “My father normally spoke English. He wanted me to grow up to be an Englishman. My mother spoke Welsh.”
“And she wanted you to grow up to be a Welshman?” asked Mahmoud.
“Probably,” said Owen, laughing. “She was hopelessly romantic. She wanted Wales to be an independent country again.”
“And that seems romantic to you?”
“In the case of Wales, yes.”
Mahmoud considered.
“In the case of Egypt, too,” he said at length. “Romantic. Definitely romantic.”
Their rapport quite restored, they continued happily drinking coffee.
At the other end of the cafe a party broke up with the usual prolonged Arabic farewells. Most of the party went off together across the square, but one of them made his way along the pavement in their direction, skirting the gambling and waving aside the shoe-boys. As he passed their table his eye caught Owen’s. It was Fakhri.
He stopped in his tracks.
“The Mamur Zapt?” he cried. “And-” taking in Mahmoud-“the Parquet? Together? There must have been a revolution! And no one has told me!”
“Come and join us,” Owen invited, “and we’ll tell you.”
Fakhri dropped into a chair.
“I don’t want to interrupt you,” he said, “unless you’re talking business.”
“Business and pleasure. Mostly pleasure.”
“Ah,” said Fakhri, waving a hand back at the dispersed party. “Like me. Pleasure and business. Mostly business.”
“What is your business?” asked Owen curiously.
“He has not heard,” said Fakhri sorrowfully.
“Fakhri Bey is a distinguished editor,” said Mahmoud.
“Oh, that Fakhri!” said Owen, whose own business was to know the political press. “My apologies. I read your editorials with pleasure. Sometimes.”
“I am afraid you may not read tomorrow’s with pleasure,” said Fakhri.
“The students?” Owen shrugged.
“Quite so,” said Fakhri. “Let us forget about them.”
He and Owen both waved for more coffee simultaneously.
“At least what you say,” said Owen, “will be less predictable than what I read in al Liwa. ”
Fakhri made a face.
“They say everything at the top of their voice,” he said. “There is no light and shade.”
“What’s happening at al Liwa,” asked Owen, “now that Mustafa Kamil has died?”
Mustafa Kamil, the brilliant young politician who had built up the National Party virtually from scratch, had died a month or two previously, from a heart attack.
“They have not sorted themselves out yet. All the top posts keep changing, the editorship among them.”
“The complexion of the paper doesn’t, though,” said Owen.
“It could. It depends on who wins control of the party. If it’s el Gazzari it will become very religious. Crazily so. If it’s Jemal it will go in for heavy doses of revolutionary theory.”
Owen sighed. “Neither will make it more readable,” he said. “They lack your touch.”
Fakhri tried not to look pleased.
“See how expertly he works,” he said to Mahmoud. “This is how the Mamur Zapt gets the press eating out of his hand.”
“The Egyptian press,” said Owen, “is the most independent in the world. Unfortunately.”
They all laughed.
A boy went past sprinkling water to keep down the dust. Fakhri pulled his legs back hurriedly. For a little while there was the lovely, distinctive smell of wet sand.
“How is Nuri Pasha?” asked Fakhri. “I called on him two days ago to express my sympathy but his Berberine told me that he was talking to you.”
“He is well,” said Mahmoud.
“Praise be to God!” said Fakhri automatically.
He hesitated.
“And how are you getting on-?” He broke off. “Perhaps I shouldn’t ask!”
His laugh allowed the brush-off; but he cocked his head attentively, inviting information.
Owen decided to play.
“We hold the man, of course,” he said.
“Ah, yes, but-”
“Those behind?”
Fakhri nodded.
“Not yet.”
Fakhri affected, or showed, disappointment.
Owen decided to try a move of his own.
"The attempt did not come as a surprise to you,” he said, more as a statement than a question.
“No,” said Fakhri. “It did not.”
“Denshawai?”
“Of course.”
“Just Denshawai?”
Fakhri looked surprised.
“So far as I know,” he said.
“The reason why I ask,” said Owen, “is that he doesn’t seem to have been directly involved.”
“More directly than he likes to pretend now,” said Fakhri.
“OK. But surely a minor figure?”
“The civil servant responsible was only a minor figure and he was the first to be shot.”
“I always thought that was in the heat of the moment when the sentences were first announced,” said Owen. Then, after a pause: “You said ‘first’?”
“Yes,” said Fakhri, “I did.”
“You think there are more to come?”
“All Cairo,” said Fakhri, “thinks there are more to come.”
He glanced at his watch.
“I really must go,” he said, getting to his feet. “I have to see the first copy as it comes off the press.”
“I shall read it tomorrow with interest,” said Owen.
‘‘If I were you,” said Fakhri, “I would read tomorrow’s al Liwa also. I think you will find that full of interest, too.”
CHAPTER 5
When Nikos arrived in the office the next morning he found Owen already there, finishing a memo. It read:
The Mamur Zapt has received unconfirmed reports of a disturbing increase in the number of thefts from military installations in recent months. These include thefts of guns, ammunition and other equipment which could be used for offensive purposes. Clearly there could be serious implications for civil security if these got into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, such thefts are treated purely as an internal matter by Military Security and not reported to the Mamur Zapt, with the result that he has been unable to investigate the possibility of links with known terrorist organizations or establish whether a pattern is emerging. No analysis has been made by Military Security. In view of the possible threat to civil order and the likelihood that senior civil and military personnel could be at risk, it is recommended that:
1. an independent investigation be carried out as a matter of urgency into current security at military installations.
2. the Mamur Zapt be informed within twenty-four hours whenever a theft of arms occurs and given a full account of the circumstances in which the theft occurred.
3. Military Security be instructed to supply the Mamur Zapt with a complete list of thefts which had occurred over the past year.
“What’s all this?” said Nikos, reading it through. “ ‘Unconfirmed Reports?’ Where did you get all this stuff from? It’s not come through the office.”
“No,” Owen agreed.
“Of course, you’ve a right to use alternative channels,” said Nikos huffily.
“I haven’t been using alternative channels,” said Owen. “I made it up.”
“You what?”
“Made it up. To fix that bastard, Brooker,” Owen explained.
“It isn’t true?”
“Now look what you’ve done!” said Georgiades, who had come into the room at the same time as Nikos. “You’ve shocked him! Poor, innocent soul!” he said to Nikos, resting a fatherly hand on him.