‘At Leila’s.’
‘And where will I find Leila?’
‘Now we’re talking!’ said Selim.
Owen wondered whether to throw him out. On the other hand, he did seem to get the man talking.
‘I don’t know the name of the street,’ Ali said.
‘Give me the quarter.’
‘The Fustat.’
‘The Fustat is a big place,’ observed Owen.
The man shrugged.
‘If I wanted to find you, Ali, where would I ask for you?’
‘At Leila’s,’ said the man promptly, risking a joke and looking to Selim for approval.
Selim, however, did not approve.
‘ I’m the one that makes the jokes,’ he said.
The man tried another shrug, which, however, quickly lost confidence.
‘Where would I find you?’ asked Owen.
‘Near the ferry,’ said the man reluctantly.
‘If I asked for Ali with the scarred face, someone would know?’
‘Yes.’
‘I expect they’d all know,’ observed Owen. ‘A man like you!’ Ali responded to the invitation, lifting his shoulders proudly. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m pretty well known down there.’
‘And what about your mates? Are they pretty well known down there, too?’
The man froze.
Owen tried a new tack.
‘It’s a long way to Babylon,’ he said conversationally. Babylon, where the Coptic Ders were, was at the far end of the Fustat. ‘What are you doing up here?’
‘This is where the money is.’
‘Is there not money in the Fustat?’
‘Not this kind of money.’
‘Still, it’s quite a way from the Fustat. Do you often come up here?’
‘No,’ admitted Ali. ‘We usually keep south of the Citadel.’
‘But not this time?’
‘No.’
‘Why not this time?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose we were offered a job.’
‘Ah, you were offered a job?’
Ali closed his lips firmly.
‘You wouldn’t like to tell me who offered it you, would you?’
‘No. I would not.’
‘I would be very grateful.’
‘My mates mightn’t be grateful,’ said Ali.
‘Ah, yes, but if you helped me you would be out a long time before they were.’
‘They would still come out.’
‘It would be a long time, though. Of course, you’re going to be in for a long time. If you don’t help me.’
The man shrugged.
‘Well, you think about it. You’ll have a bit of time before we get to the trial.’
‘I don’t even need to think about it,’ said Ali.
Owen was virtually certain now that he was dealing with a criminal gang and not a political one. What Ali had said had clinched it. The criminal gangs, as opposed to the political ones, tended to identify with a particular territory and seldom moved off it. And the political clubs, whose aims were more focused, rarely accepted commissions.
He should really now be handing this over to the Parquet. They handled all investigations that were purely criminal. They would have little trouble, he thought, with this one. If Ali was well known down by the docks, the chances were that the other members of the gang would be too. Criminal gangs were local not just in their operations but in their recruitment. Their members would all come from the same neighbourhood, probably from within a few streets of each other. They would make little secret of their membership; in fact, rather the reverse. Membership of a notorious gang was a matter of local pride-again, unlike the political clubs. ‘They’ll miss you, Ali,’ he said, ‘down in the Fustat.’
Ali flinched, as if he had received a blow. It was probably the first time that it had come home to him.
‘You should think over what I said, Ali. You’re going to be away for quite some time. So long that when you come out and go back to the Fustat it will be no good going down to the ferry and asking who knows Ali with the scarred face. Because no one will. As for the Black Scorpion-’
‘Black Scorpion?’ said Ali. ‘What have they got to do with it?’
‘That’s your lot, isn’t it?’
‘Is this some kind of trick?’ said Ali. ‘Look, you can’t get me for what someone else has done! That’s not fair! That’s not justice! Look, I’ve got my rights!’
‘If you’re not Black Scorpion,’ said Owen, ‘then who are you?’
‘You know who we are.’
‘Just say!’
‘The Edge of the Knife. Now are you satisfied?’
‘Black Scorpion is what she said,’ insisted Selim afterwards, irate. ‘Look, Effendi, who do you believe? An idle bastard who goes around hitting people on the head; or a woman so virtuous she goes to the mosque every day and won’t let a man put his hands on her?’
‘Are you sure that’s what she said?’
‘Effendi, would I make a mistake on a thing like this? When you had asked me especially?’
‘Well, maybe she made the mistake, then.’
‘Effendi, why waste time? Let me go in and have a talk with that stupid bastard. We’ll soon find out who’s made a mistake. And it’s my guess it’s him. As he’ll bloody soon discover!’
‘Enough! We will go and speak with Mustapha. He’s the one who will know. Maybe his wife got it wrong.’
‘Effendi-’
Selim fumed all the way to the cafe.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ said the proprietor unwelcomingly. ‘I didn’t think we’d be seeing you again. I thought they’d about finished you off.’
‘Next time,’ promised Selim, with a flash of white teeth, ‘they’re the ones who are going to be finished off.’
‘You’ll have to make a better job of it then than you did this time.’
‘It was four to one!’ protested Selim indignantly.
‘It was my mistake,’ said Owen. ‘I should have left you more men.’
‘What, drinking my coffee?’ said Mustapha. ‘No thanks!’
‘Shame on you!’ said his wife. ‘When the man was ready to lay down his life for you!’
She went across to Selim and gently touched his bandaged head.
‘How are you?’ she said, concerned. ‘It was a grievous wound.’
‘Pretty grievous,’ Selim acknowledged.
‘And you have walked all this way in the heat?’
‘Well, yes,’ Selim had to admit.
‘Oh, Effendi! The man is still weak from his wounds!’
‘I do feel a bit weak,’ Selim conceded, putting a hand to his head.
‘So do I,’ said Mustapha. ‘Any moment now she’ll be giving him my money.’
The woman flashed him an indignant glance.
‘Come and sit down,’ she said to Selim.
‘I could do with a drink,’ said Selim.
‘Water or coffee?’
‘There you are!’ cried Mustapha. ‘There goes my money!’
‘Coffee, please,’ said Selim.
She led him off into the kitchen.
‘You haven’t got any more men outside, have you?’ asked Mustapha. ‘I mean, I might as well feed the whole Bab-el-Khalk while I’m at it.’
His wife poked her head back into the room.
‘God looks after the hospitable,’ she said reprovingly.
‘Well, I wish He’d make a start, then.’
Mustapha sat down gloomily at a table and motioned to Owen to join him.
‘This is very bad for business, you know. People don’t like to come here if they think there’s a chance of them being knocked on the head.’
‘Custom falling off?’
‘Not so far,’ Mustapha admitted. ‘But I’m having to work extra hard to keep it up. I used to get a storyteller in only on slack days. Now I’m paying for one all the time.’
‘Eats into profits?’
‘Increases the losses. Now there’s a thing. Had a chap in this week offering to insure against losses. A fat Greek.’
Owen winced.
‘Tempting!’ said Mustapha. ‘Especially when you’re in my position. I said, did it include losses caused by standing out against protection? Certainly, he said. Well, I mean, it’s tempting. I mean, we’re not getting far as we are, are we?’
‘Oh, yes, we are,’ said Owen. ‘Getting that man yesterday was a breakthrough. Once you’ve got one member of a gang, it’s generally easy to get the others.’
‘You think so? You really think so?’