The Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet (19 page)

“I have suggested that. He won’t have it.
For some strange reason he confuses a bodyguard with a nursemaid.”

Owen
could just imagine the touchy Ahmed’s response.

“It
is difficult being a rich man’s son,” Mahmoud put in unexpectedly.

Nuri
looked at him quickly.

“Yes,”
he said, with a slight touch of surprise as if he had not expected Mahmoud to
be so perceptive, or sympathetic. “Yes, I am inclined to forget that.”

He
turned to Owen.

“Couldn’t
you put a man on him?” he asked. “Unobtrusively, I mean?”

Uncomfortable
visions of Hamid danced before Owen’s eyes.

“It
wouldn’t necessarily help.”

“If
it’s a question of money—?” said Nuri.

“It
isn’t. It’s a question of men.”

“As
I said,” Nuri picked him up with a flash of his old self, “it’s a question of
money.”

Owen
laughed, as he was expected to.

“You
might do better than me,” he said. “Still, I’ll think about it.” “At least he
wasn’t badly hurt,” said Mahmoud.

It was
meant encouragingly, but again it came out awkwardly. Nuri looked at him.

“This
time,” he said.

“Will
there be a next time?” asked Owen.
“If you’re right about it
being a warning?”

Nuri
was amused.

“Will
I heed the warning, you mean?”

“If
you did, there might not be a next time.”

“True,”
said Nuri.

“What
exactly are you being warned to do or not to do?”

This
time Nuri laughed right out. He put his hand on Owen’s arm. “Not to meddle,
mon
cher
. ”

“And
are you meddling?”

“Of
course!” said Nuri, with all his old ebullience.
“Of course!”

Ahmed,
however, was far from ebullient. He lay in a dark room, the shutters drawn,
with a single sheet over him because of the heat and a Coptic nurse—
female,
and therefore borrowed from the European hospital—in
attendance. He was lying on his side with his back turned towards them and
remained like that when they came in.

Mahmoud
went round to the other side of the bed, drew up a chair and sat down facing
him, like a friendly doctor, and began questioning him about what had happened.
At first Ahmed replied only in faint monosyllables but gradually, as he became
involved in the recitation of his wrongs, his voice took on greater strength
and he began to reply at more length, sitting up in the bed so as to emphasize
his points indignantly. The sheet slipped off his shoulders showing the purple
bruises on his back.

Owen had seen the doctor’s report. There was
nothing broken, no damage apparent other than severe external bruising. And all
the bruises were on his back and limbs. That was unlikely to be an accident,
Owen thought. The men had been instructed to give him a good beating and no
more. His face was untouched.

But Ahmed’s back was not the only thing
bruised. His pride was very much dented. He could hardly bear to talk about the
blows. Indeed, Mahmoud found it very hard to get him to say anything precise
about the incident at all. He denounced his friend for deserting him,
complained about the slowness of the police in coming and their general lack of
interest when they got there, and criticized the hospital for its reception of
him and treatment afterwards.

Mahmoud broke through the flood of rhetoric
eventually: Did Ahmed think that the attack might be a warning?

Ahmed stopped in mid-flight.

“A warning?” he said.
“A
warning?”
He seemed to freeze. “Why should it be a warning? Why do you
ask me if it was a warning?” He regarded Mahmoud suspiciously.

“I thought—” Mahmoud began. But Ahmed
interrupted.

“It is not a warning,” he said. “How could
it be a warning? It was a criminal attack.” His voice rose.
“A
criminal attack!
That is all!”

“What was the point of the attack?”

“To rob me!”
Ahmed cried
excitedly. “Yes, to rob me! They were thieves!
Robbers!”

Had they, in fact, stolen anything from him?

“How do I know? No, they took nothing!
Perhaps the police stopped them! My friend came back in time! How do I know?
Why do you ask me these questions?” he shouted.

The nurse gave Mahmoud a reproachful look
and came forward. Ahmed threw himself back on the pillow and glared at them
angrily.

Mahmoud patiently began again.

“He did think it was a warning, didn’t he?”
said Owen, as he and Mahmoud walked back beneath the pepper trees.

“He wasn’t sure,” said Mahmoud. “But the
possibility was enough to scare him silly.”

Someone
else thought it was a warning, too. Shortly after Owen got back to his office
he received a phone call from Ahmed’s half-sister, Zeinab.

“Have
you heard?” she asked. “My brother has been attacked.” “Yes,” said Owen.
“I’ve just been to see him.”

“Oh.”
Then, after a moment: “He’s all right, isn’t he?”

“He’ll
be all right in a day or two.”

“Good,”
she said, relieved.

Owen
was quite pleased that she looked to him for reassurance. “It’s linked with
this, isn’t it?” she said.

He
wondered what she meant by “this.”
Her father or the
grenades?
Or both?
The Nuri case was slipping
into the background so far as he was concerned. It would have to wait till
after the Carpet. “I expect so,” he said.

“Why
would anyone want to attack Ahmed?” she asked.
“Him of all
people?”

“Why
of all people?”

“I
don’t know,” she said. “Because he’s not worth attacking, I suppose.”

“Your
father thought it might be intended as a warning.”

He
heard the quick intake of breath.

“To
him,” Owen said.

There
was a little pause. Then she said: “I thought it was a warning, too.
To me.”
She laughed a little shakily.

“Because of last night?
I doubt it.
Unless they had advance knowledge.
The attack on your
brother happened at about the same time.” “That’s what I worked out,” she said.

“I
wouldn’t worry,” said Owen. “If there was a message, it was meant for your
father.”

“Thank
you!” said Zeinab tartly. “That is very reassuring!” “Sorry!” Owen apologized.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No.”

He
tried again.

“Do
you think your father was right? That it was a warning? Directed at him?”

“He’s
usually right in such matters,” she said.

“I
don’t suppose you’ve any idea,” said Owen casually, “what might have prompted
such a warning?”

“No.
He’s always up to things.”

“That’s
more or less what he said. Only it’s not very helpful.”

“It might be protection,” she offered.

“That’s what we thought.”

“He is always getting demands for money.
Usually he knows who to pay and who not to. Perhaps he got it wrong this time.”

“You wouldn’t know who’s been doing some
asking recently, would you?”

“No.
Tademah?”

“I’ve looked through some of the letters
he’s received recently.
Nothing from Tademah among them.”

“Wasn’t there?” She sounded surprised. “I
thought there was,” she said.

“Not among the ones I was shown,” said Owen,
remembering suddenly who had shown him them.

“Well, I’m not sure,” she said, “but I
thought there was. Perhaps it’s just that they were on my mind. But it would
fit, though, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Owen. “It would fit.”

The
hammam, like all the old hammams, had a façade of red and white stone. With its
complex panelling and its fantastic arabesques it looked very like a small
mosque, Dervish perhaps, except that its entrance was unusually narrow and had
its door recesses painted green. If it had been a bath for women it would have
had a towel hung across the sunken entrance.

Owen ducked down and entered a pleasant,
spacious room with several broad, marble-topped couches on which patrons were
sitting in various stages of undress, already embarked on the main purpose of
their visit, which was not to bathe but to chat. Owen went over to one of the
couches and began to undress. An attendant brought him towels and clogs and
stood by to receive his clothes and valuables. Owen wound one of the towels
about his waist and the other around his head and went through into the next
room.

This was the first of the warm chambers and
in the winter when the Cairenes thought it cold, bathers would undress there
and not in the outer room. Today, however, it was empty and he went straight on
into the main bath room.

This was a large, square room with a
marble-paved depression in the middle in which there was a beautiful fountain
of white marble. From it shot a high jet of very hot water, all around the
depression, at the sides of the room, were low, marble-covered couches. The
couches were set back in Moorish arches which pointed in to carry the central
dome, and there were other, smaller domes directly above the couches with
little glazed holes in them through which the light came.

Several customers were already in the bath
room, lying on the couches being scraped or massaged by the attendants, or else
sitting with their feet in the central sunken area talking to their friends.
One of the towel-swathed figures, Owen did not know which, was Mahmoud.

When they had talked this over beforehand,
they had wondered how to cover all the rooms. If any money changed hands it
would almost certainly be in the outer room, either before or after bathing. It
was more likely to be afterwards. The men would meet in the baths and leave together.
As they dressed, the balance of the money would be handed over and then the
parties would leave separately. Or so they thought. Whether they had guessed
rightly remained to be seen.

Owen and Mahmoud had agreed that it would be
best for them to be in the bath room. They would try to spot their men, wait
until they left and then go with them into the outer room. If they missed them
it should not matter too much; the normal attendants in the outer room had been
replaced for the day by Owen’s men.

Owen went across to one of the marble
couches and lay down. A huge Berberine attendant, naked except for a
loin-cloth, approached and seized him. Without a word he began to work
systematically over him, kneading the flesh and cracking the joints. Whenever
he applied pressure he would give a little grunt. From all over the bath room
came
similar little grunts, both from the massagers and from
the massaged. Mixed in with them was another sound which Owen could not at
first identify. When the Berberine turned him over he saw that it came from the
slab next to his. A man was having his feet rasped.
If you
always went barefoot or half-slippered your feet developed large, hard
callosities.
The rasps were made of Assiut clay and shaped like
crocodiles, and as rough as breadcrumb graters.

The Berberine removed the towel from Owen’s
head and began to twist his ears. When they cracked, he transferred his
attention to the neck, twisting the head first one way and then the other.
Little drips of sweat fell from the Berberine on to Owen’s body. Everyone in
the room was sweating profusely. The bath room was heated with hot air and the
water which played from the fountain was only just below boiling point. In two
of the corners of the room were further tanks of extremely hot water.
Occasionally, helped by an attendant, a man would plunge into one of these.

The Berberine finished with Owen and moved
on to someone else.

Owen
lay for a few moments recovering. Then he went to a separate water-tank for
cleansing. The attendant lathered him with soap using a large loofah and then
washed it off. When the real work was done the attendant went away and Owen was
allowed to play with the taps and spray himself with water which he considered
to be at a more reasonable temperature.

The attendant returned with four fresh
towels. Owen wrapped himself in them and wandered back into the first of the
warm chambers. It was cooler in there, though still too hot for the singing
birds. Owen could hear them next door in the outer room. He chose a couch and
sat down. An attendant brought him cushions and coffee and he made
himself
comfortable.

From where he sat—he had chosen the spot
deliberately—he had a good view into the bathroom. Mahmoud, he knew, was still
in there. Between them they would cover the two rooms.

He sipped his coffee and waited.

Hamid had given descriptions of the men but
that was not what helped him to spot them. Two brawny men wandered in a lost
fashion through the warm chamber, came to the doorway of the bath room and
stood sheepishly, obviously never having been in the place before. One of them
muttered something to the other and they walked to the far side of the sunken
area and sat down with their feet in the water and their backs to one of the
slabs.