The Snake-Catcher’s Daughter

‘I don’t think you’re being entirely fair,’ protested Owen. ‘McPhee has been the victim of an assault. It’s hardly his fault.’

‘Well, in a way, you know, I’m afraid it is,’ said McPhee, honest to a fault. ‘I shouldn’t have been there.’

‘How did you come to be drugged?’

‘They gave me a drink.’

‘And you drank it?’

‘I thought it was hospitality,’ muttered McPhee.

Garvin groaned.

‘The principal reason for sacking you,’ he said, ‘is that you are so damned stupid.’

‘I thought it was part of the ceremony,’ said McPhee. ‘Other people were drinking, too,’ he said defiantly.

‘They put something in when it got to you,’ said Garvin dismissively.

‘I would vouch for their honesty,’ said McPhee.

‘That confirms,’ said Garvin, ‘my view of your judgement.’

‘McPhee’s only just got out of sickbay,’ said Owen.

McPhee was, in fact, looking distinctly wan. Garvin let Owen lead him away. He took him out to the front of the building and found an arabeah, one of the small, horse-drawn carriages that were common in Cairo. He told one of the orderlies to get in with him and see he got safely home to bed.

When he got back to his office, Nikos said: ‘Garvin wants to see you.’

‘He’s just seen me.’

‘He wants to see you again.’

‘McPhee’s not well,’ he said to Garvin.

‘It was a big dose,’ said Garvin. ‘It must have been, for him to be out that long.’

‘It could have killed him.’

‘Yes,’ said Garvin, ‘and that’s another reason not to regard the incident as closed.’

Owen shrugged.

‘Is it sensible to carry it any further? Wouldn’t it be better to leave it alone and hope everyone forgets it?’

‘McPhee’s been the victim of an assault,’ Garvin pointed out. ‘You said that yourself.’

‘Well … all right, then. Perhaps someone ought to look into it.’

‘Fine!’ said Garvin. ‘Tell me how you get on.’

‘Hey! You’re not asking me to do it, are you?’

‘You surely don’t expect McPhee to investigate himself?’

‘It’s not political.’

The Mamur Zapt concerned himself only with the political. He was the equivalent of what back in England would be head of the political branch of the CID. He was, however, also much more. The Mamur Zapt had traditionally – for many centuries, indeed – been the ruler’s right-hand man, the chief of his secret police, the means by which he maintained himself in power. If he was so lucky. Caliphs came, Khedives went, but the Mamur Zapt went on forever.

Even when the British had come, thirty years before, the Khedive had insisted on retaining the post. Without it, he felt nervous. The British had agreed, insisting only that they nominate the occupant of the post. That, of course, had slightly changed matters. Formally, the Mamur Zapt, with his control of Cairo’s vast network of informers, spies and underground agents, was still responsible to the Khedive. In actual fact, he was responsible to the Head of the British Administration, the British Consul-General.

If, that is, he was responsible to anybody, which Consul-General, Khedive, Khedive’s Ministers, Opposition Members, Nationalists, British Government, Commander-in-Chief (British) of the army (Egyptian) and Garvin sometimes felt inclined to doubt.

All crime other than political was the responsibility not of the police, under the French-style system of law which operated in Egypt, but of the Department of Prosecutions of the Ministry of Justice, the Parquet, as it was known.

‘You’re not suggesting the Parquet handle this?’ said Garvin, aghast. ‘Investigating a British officer? A member of the Administration? Oh dear, no!’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think we could have that. It would set an undesirable precedent. The C-G wouldn’t like it. The people at home wouldn’t like it. Goodness me, no. They wouldn’t like it at all.’

‘We are not investigating McPhee, surely!’ Owen protested.

‘Well, perhaps not directly,’ Garvin admitted. ‘It’s more the circumstances.’

‘I don’t call that political.’

Garvin raised his eyebrows.

‘Setting up a member of the British Administration? Not political? If that’s not political,’ said Garvin, ‘what is?’

‘No, really, Owen, he’s determined to get rid of me!’ said McPhee heatedly. ‘He’s been out to get me ever since they transferred him from Alexandria. I was in charge when he arrived, just temporarily, of course, and he didn’t like the way I was doing things.’

‘Well –’

McPhee held up his hand.

‘I know what you’re going to say. Perhaps we weren’t the most efficient of outfits. But is that so bad, Owen, is it really so bad? People knew where they were. They knew what to expect. A way that is traditional, Owen, is a way that is invested with a lot of human experience. You discard it at your peril.’

‘True. On the other hand –’

‘I know what you are going to say. Not all tradition is good. The courbash, for instance.’

‘Well, yes.’

The courbash was the traditional Egyptian whip. One of the first acts of the British Administration had been to abolish flogging.

‘Well, of course, I’m not against abolishing the use of the courbash. It was a humane measure carried out for humane motives. But not all reform is like that. Sometimes it’s carried out for piffling, mean little reasons. To improve efficiency, for instance. I ask you, where would we be if everything we did was subjected to that criterion?’

Not here, thought Owen. Neither you nor, probably, I.

‘It’s so mean-spirited. He looks around at the richness of life and then talks about efficiency!’