Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet

‘Twenty metres, perhaps.’

‘Anyway, you recognized him?’

‘Oh yes. He is very distinctive. And I know him well. In fact, that was why I was watching him. To exchange greetings. If he saw me.’

‘Did he see you?’

‘No. He was looking about and I thought he might see me.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, I was watching him, and then suddenly there was a loud bang, and I saw Nuri Pasha stagger and put his arms up and fall, and I thought: That must have been a shot. Nuri Pasha must have been shot.’

‘The shot,’ said Owen, ‘sounded close to you?’

‘Very close. It made the horses jump. The arabeah swerved. That was how I lost sight of the man.’

‘Tell me about the man.’

Fakhri put his hands to his head.

‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘It is not clear.’

‘To the left or to the right of Nuri Pasha as you were looking at him?’

‘To the right. But I didn’t really see him. It was just that, as Nuri Pasha fell, in the corner of my eye I thought I saw someone move away.’

‘A blue galabeah?’

‘Yes.’

Fakhri grimaced. ‘Like all the other galabeahs,’ he said.

The long blue gown was the standard garment of the Cairo poor.

They exchanged smiles.

After a while, as Fakhri said nothing more, Owen prompted: ‘And then?’

‘That was all,’ said Fakhri. ‘The arabeah swerved and I lost sight of Nuri Pasha. It was—oh, I suppose three or four minutes before I could look again.’

‘And then there was a crowd ten feet deep round Nuri Pasha and you couldn’t see a thing.’

‘Yes,’ said Fakhri, surprised. ‘That’s right. How did you know?’

The crowd was still thick when they reached the Place de l’Opéra, although the incident must have happened at least half an hour before by the time they got there.

McPhee sprang out of the arabeah and shouldered his way into the throng. A constable appeared from nowhere and joined his efforts to the Bimbashi’s, laying about him with his truncheon. Reluctantly the ranks of the crowd parted and brought McPhee to where a man was lying stretched out in the grit and dust of the square.

‘Make space! Make space!’

McPhee thrust the bystanders apart by main force and held them off.

‘Why!’ he said in disappointed tones, ‘this isn’t Nuri Pasha! Who is this?’

‘It is Ibrahim, sir,’ said a voice from the crowd. ‘He was wounded when Nuri Pasha was shot.’

‘And where is Nuri Pasha?’

‘He was taken into the hotel, sir,’ said the constable.

‘What sort of condition was he in?’

Seeing that the constable did not understand, McPhee changed his question.

‘Was he alive or dead?’

Various voices from the crowd assured him that Nuri Pasha was (a) dead, (b) unhurt, (c) suffering from terrible injuries. Leaving McPhee to sort that out, Owen pushed his way back through the crowd.

To one side of the mêlée two constables were casually talking to a slight, spare Egyptian in a very handsome suit. He looked up as Owen approached.

‘The Mamur Zapt? I did not expect to see you here in an affair of this sort. Mahmoud el Zaki. Parquet.’

The Parquet was the Department of Prosecutions of the Ministry of Justice.

They shook hands.

‘You were here very quickly,’ said Owen.

The Egyptian shrugged his shoulders. ‘Nuri Pasha is an important man,’ he said.

‘How is Nuri Pasha?’

‘Shaken.’

‘That all?’

‘The shot did not touch him. It slightly grazed a lemonade-seller.’

‘No need for me,’ said Owen.

‘No need for me either,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Though I expect I shall get the case now.’

The Parquet, not the police, were responsible for investigation. It was clear that they already had the case in hand. The Ministry of Justice was nearer than the Bab el Khalk and they must have sent a bright young man down as soon as they had heard. There was nothing that Owen could do.

He pushed his way back through the crowd to where the wounded lemonade-seller lay.

‘Are you badly hurt?’