Читать книгу The Mamur Zapt and the Night of the Dog - Michael Pearce - Страница 8

Paul was cross.

‘I said show her the sights,’ he complained. ‘I didn’t mean that sort of sight.’

‘How was I to know it would end like that?’

‘Well, Christ, if they’re always sticking knives in themselves, one day it was bound to happen. Anyway, is that the sort of thing you take a girl to? People sticking knives in themselves? Jesus, Gareth, you’ve got funny ideas of entertainment. You were out on that goddamn Frontier a bit too long.’

‘She wanted to go,’ Owen protested.

‘She didn’t know what the hell she wanted. You should have had more sense. Couldn’t you have taken her to a mosque or something? She’s religious, isn’t she?’

‘She wanted to see a bit of Cairo life.’

‘Cairo life, yes, but not Cairo death. Honestly, Gareth, I’m disappointed in you. Where the hell’s your judgement?’

Garvin was even crosser.

‘The Consul-General has been on to me,’ he said, ‘personally. He wants to know, and I want to know too, what the bloody hell you were doing. You’re not some wet-behind-the-ears young subaltern fresh out from England without a bloody idea in his head. You’re the Mamur Zapt and ought to have some bloody political savvy.’

‘She wanted to see Cairo—’

‘Then show her Cairo. Show her the bloody Pyramids or something. Take her down the Musski and let her buy something. Take her to the bazaars. Take her to the Market of the Afternoon. Take her to the bloody Citadel. But don’t bloody take her somewhere where she’s going to see somebody get his throat cut.’

‘He didn’t actually—’

Garvin paused in his tirade. ‘Yes,’ he said, in quite a different voice, ‘that was a bit odd, wasn’t it? They usually know what they’re doing. However—’ his voice resumed its previous note—‘the one thing you’re supposed to be doing is handling this pair with kid gloves. Taking this girl to a Zikr gathering is not that.’

He glared at Owen, defying him to defy him. Owen had enough political sense at least not to do that.

‘And that’s another thing,’ said Garvin. ‘You were supposed to be showing them both around. Both. Not just the girl. This is not a personal Sports Afternoon for you, Owen, it’s bloody work. This man is important. With the new Government in England, these damned MPs are breathing down our necks. They’re on our backs already. This visit was a chance to get them off our backs. The Consul-General wants to build bridges. Any bloody bridge he wanted to build,’ said Garvin pitilessly, ‘is shattered and at the bottom of the ravine right now. Thanks to you. Postlethwaite is going crazy. He’s demanding apologies all round. The Consul-General’s apologized, I’ve apologized—’

‘I certainly apologize,’ said Owen stiffly.

‘You do?’ said Garvin with heavy irony. ‘Oh, good of you. Most kind.’

‘I shall see it doesn’t happen again.’

‘You won’t get the bloody chance,’ said Garvin.

Back at the office there were soon developments. They were not, however, of the sort that Owen had expected.

‘Visitors,’ said Nikos.

Owen rose to greet them. There were three. Two of them were religious sheikhs and the third was an assistant kadi. There was a separate judicial system in Egypt for Mohammedan law presided over by a separate Chief Judge, the Kadi. It was the assistant kadi who spoke first.

‘We have come to lay a complaint,’ he said.

‘A complaint? In what connection?’

‘It concerns a killing. It happened last night. We understand that you were there.’

‘A Zikr? At the gathering? If so, I was there.’

The assistant kadi looked at the two sheikhs. They appeared pleased.

‘He was there, you see,’ one of them said.

‘Then he will know,’ said the other.

‘What should I know, Father?’ asked Owen courteously.

‘How it came about.’

‘I expect you are already working on it,’ said the assistant kadi.

‘On what?’ asked Owen, baffled.

‘On the murder.’

‘Murder? I saw no murder.’

‘But you were there,’ said one of the sheikhs, puzzled.

‘A man died. I saw that.’

‘But it was murder. It must have been. A Zikr would not die as he was reaching towards his God.’

‘Allah takes people at any time,’ said Owen as gently as he could.

The sheikh shook his head.

‘I know what you are thinking,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘What am I thinking?’ asked Owen.

‘You are thinking he died from his own hand.’

‘Well—’

‘It was not like that. A Zikr knows.’

‘Knows where to put the knife? Yes, but in the—’ Owen hesitated; the word ‘frenzy’ was on the tip of his tongue— ‘moment of exaltation’ he substituted. ‘In the moment of exaltation who knows what may have happened?’

The sheikh shook his head firmly.

‘Allah guides his hand,’ he said with certainty.

‘The Zikr does not make mistakes,’ said the other sheikh, with equal conviction.

They met Owen’s gaze with a simple confidence which Owen felt it would be churlish to challenge.

‘If he did not die by his own hand,’ said Owen slowly, ‘then how did he die?’

‘By the hand of another.’

Owen paused deliberately.

‘Such things should not be said lightly.’

The sheikhs agreed at once.

‘True.’

‘He speaks with justice.’

‘Then how—’ Owen paused—‘can you be sure?’

The sheikhs looked a little bewildered.

‘The Zikr do not make mistakes. Allah guides their hand,’ they explained again, patiently, rather as if they were speaking to a child.

Owen normally had no difficulty in adjusting to the slow tempo and frequent circularity of Arab witnesses but this morning, what with the events of the last two days, he felt his patience under strain.

‘There must be further grounds,’ he said.

The sheikhs looked at each other, plainly puzzled.

‘The Zikr do not—’ one began.

The assistant kadi intervened with practised authority.

‘There was talk of a man.’

‘During the dance?’

‘During the dance.’

‘Just talk?’

‘There are others who claim to have seen.’

‘What sort of man?’

He could have guessed.

‘A Copt,’ the two sheikhs said in unison.

As the three left, Owen detained the assistant kadi for a moment.

‘The Parquet’s been informed, I take it?’

‘Yes. However, as you were there—’

‘Yes, indeed. Thank you.’

‘Besides—’ the assistant kadi glanced at the retreating backs of the sheikhs—‘there could be trouble between the Moslems and the Copts. I shouldn’t be saying it, I suppose, but I thought you ought to be involved.’

‘I’m grateful. It is important to hear of these things early.’

‘You’ll have no trouble with these two,’ the assistant kadi went on confidentially, ‘nor with the people in the Ashmawi mosque. It’s the sheikh in the next district you’ll have to watch out for. He’s jealous of all the money going to the Ashmawi. Besides, he hates the Copts like poison.’

Owen rang up his friend in the Parquet.

‘Hello,’ said Mahmoud.

‘There’s a case just come up. A Zikr killing. A Zikr death, anyway,’ he amended. ‘Do you know who’s on it?’

‘Yes,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Me.’

‘Thank Christ for that,’ said Owen.

‘Have you an interest?’

‘You bet I have. Can we have a talk about it?’

‘About half an hour? The usual place?’

They met on neutral ground, that is to say a cafe equidistant between the Parquet offices and the Bab el Khalkh, where Owen worked. Relations between the Departments were at best lukewarm and there were also practical advantages in confidentiality. Sometimes the right hand got further if it did not know what the left hand was doing. Also, although Owen had known Mahmoud for about a year now and they were good friends, their relationship was—perhaps necessarily—sometimes an uneasy one. Owen was more senior and had an access to power which Mahmoud would never have. Besides which, there were all the usual tensions between Egyptian and Englishmen (or, in Owen’s case, Welshmen), Imperialist and Nationalist, occupier and occupied. At times, too, Owen found Mahmoud’s emotional volatility difficult to handle; and no doubt Mahmoud on his side found British stolidity just as exasperating. There was an element of emotional negotiation in their relationship which was best managed away from their own institutions. If the meeting had been at the Ministry of Justice or at Police Headquarters both would have had to play roles. Sitting outside the cafe in this narrow back street, with only the occasional forage-camel plodding past with its load of berseem, they could talk more freely.

‘I’ve only just received the case. You were there, I gather?’

‘Yes.’

‘With this Miss Postlethwaite.’ Mahmoud stumbled slightly over the word. Although he spoke English well, he spoke French better, and the word came out sounding as it would have done if a Frenchman had pronounced it.

‘Yes. She’s the niece of an MP who’s visiting us. Got to be looked after. You won’t want to see her, will you?’

‘It might be necessary.’

‘I don’t know that she’d be able to add anything to what I might say.’

‘You never know. It’s worth checking. Anyway,’ said Mahmoud, who didn’t like any detail to escape him, ‘the investigation ought to be done properly.’

‘Yes, it ought. Both sides will be watching it.’

‘Both sides?’

‘Copts and Moslems.’

Owen told Mahmoud about the things that had been occupying him recently.

‘The best thing you could do would be to find he died of a heart attack.’

‘There’ll have to be an autopsy. Keep your fingers crossed.’

They watched a camel coming down the street towards them. It was heavily loaded with berseem, green forage for the cab horses in the squares. The load extended so far across the camel that it brushed the walls on both sides of the narrow street. Advancing towards it was a tiny donkey almost buried under a load of firewood. The load was as big as a small haystack. On top of it sat the donkey’s owner, an old Arab dressed in a dirty white galabeah. The two animals met. Neither would, neither could, give way, the camel because it was stuck between the walls, the donkey because it was so crushed under its huge load that it was quite incapable of manoeuvring. Both drivers swore at each other and interested spectators came out of the houses to watch. Eventually the drivers were persuaded to try to edge the animals past each other. In doing so the donkey lost some of its firewood and the camel some of its berseem. The wood fell among the pots of a small shopkeeper who came out of his shop in a fury and belaboured both animals. They stuck. Neither could move forward or backwards despite the best help of observers. The rest of the inhabitants of the street came out to help, including the people smoking water-pipes in the dark inner rooms of the cafe. Mahmoud shifted his chair so that he could see better.

‘This could take a long time,’ he said.

The indignant cries of the drivers rose to the heavens where they mingled with the shouts of the onlookers, who for some reason all felt compelled to offer their advice at the top of their voices. The din was terrific. Owen looked on the scene almost with affection. He loved the daily dramas of the Cairo streets in which high positions were taken as in a Greek tragedy but in which no one was ever really hurt. Would that all Egyptian conflicts were like that, he said to himself. He was thinking of the matter of the dog, but was beginning, now, to have a slightly uneasy feeling about the Zikr.

‘It would be good if both these cases were out of the way before the 25th.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s the Coptic Easter. And the Moulid of the Sheikh el-Herera.’

‘And the Sham el-Nessim,’ said Mahmoud, ‘you’ve forgotten that.’

The spring festival.

‘Christ. Is that on too?’

‘This year, yes.’

‘Bloody hell!’

‘I’ll try and sort it out before then,’ said Mahmoud, still watching the drama. ‘You’ll have sorted out the dog business by then, too.’

‘Yes, but it mightn’t help.’

Along the street one of the onlookers was taking off his trousers. This usually meant business in Egypt. Trousers, especially good ones, were prestigious possessions and no one would want to risk spoiling them by involving them in action. The onlooker, now trouserless, took hold of the donkey firmly by the head, turned it round, despite the protests of its owner, and began to lead it back up the street. It passed the cafe and turned up a side street. The camel resumed its passage, not, however, without incident. As it approached the cafe it suddenly became apparent that its load would sweep all before it. Patrons, including Owen and Mahmoud, hurriedly rushed chairs and tables inside. The camel went past. At the junction with the side street it stopped and the driver looked back. Clearly he was thinking about the spilt berseem. Vigorous cries dissuaded him from going back. After a few moments’ hesitation he shrugged his shoulders and went on. Meanwhile, the donkey was led back up the street and restored to its owner. By the time it reached the scene of the blockage both the spilt berseem and the spilt firewood had gone.

‘Right!’ said Mahmoud. ‘I’ll do my best. I’ll start at once with the principal witness.’

‘Who’s that?’ asked Owen.

‘You,’ said Mahmoud.

‘You don’t remember anything?’

‘More than what I’ve told you? Sorry.’

‘We’ve got the general picture,’ said Mahmoud. ‘It’s the particulars I’m after.’

‘I know,’ said Owen humbly.

‘You saw this Zikr afterwards. The dead one, I mean. So you know what he looked like. Do you remember seeing him before? When he was dancing?’

‘Sort of,’ said Owen vaguely.

‘He had knives and spears sticking out all over him.’

‘Lots of them did!’ protested Owen.

‘This one especially. Look, I’ll help you. He had a spear sticking into his front chest. A three-foot handle. At least three feet. It must have been waggling about.’

‘Can’t remember.’

‘I would have thought it would have got in the way, dancing.’

Owen shut his eyes.

‘I can’t picture it,’ he said.

‘It doesn’t jog your memory?’

‘No.’ Owen shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

Mahmoud sighed.

‘There was so much happening.’ Owen protested. ‘I’ve told you.’

‘Yes, you’ve given me the general picture very well. Let’s try again. When did you first become conscious of the Zikr?’

‘When he didn’t get up. After a long time.’

‘Where was he? When he was lying down, I mean.’

‘About four or five yards in front of me to my left. There, as it were.’

Owen pointed to where a flea-ridden dog was scratching itself in the dust. A dog. He winced.

‘Good!’ said Mahmoud encouragingly. ‘About four or five yards to your left.’

‘He was lying in a heap.’

‘Fine. And if he was lying there he might well have been dancing there. You said they sank down more or less where they were.’

‘That’s how it seemed to me. At the time.’

‘Try to call up the scene,’ said Mahmoud patiently, ‘with them all dancing. Got it? Right. Well now, look in your mind a little to your left. Four yards, five yards? Six yards?’

‘I’m trying. I just don’t see it very clearly. I thought I did.’

‘Over to your left. A big dervish with a spear sticking out of his chest.’

After a moment or two Owen said: ‘I think I’ve got him.’

‘What is he doing?’

‘Dancing.’

‘How is he dancing?’

‘Jumping up and down. I think.’

‘Is he turning round? Whirling?’

‘A bit.’

‘Does the spear hit anyone? Get in the way?’

‘It’s not really there,’ said Owen. ‘I don’t really see it. I can sort of imagine it when you speak.’

‘But you’re not really remembering it?’

‘No.’

Mahmoud sighed.

‘As a Mamur Zapt you may be all right,’ he said. ‘As a witness you’re useless.’

‘I know.’

Owen felt humbled. A murder, possibly, had happened four or five yards away under his very eyes and he couldn’t remember a thing. He hadn’t even noticed it. Perhaps, he told himself determinedly, there had been nothing to notice.

‘We don’t know anything happened,’ he said to Mahmoud.

‘Yes, but we know he was there,’ said Mahmoud, ‘and even that could be in doubt if we went by your evidence.’

‘It’s not very good, is it?’ said Owen. ‘A police officer and not remember a thing.’

Mahmoud laughed.

‘I don’t know that I’d have done any better. It just goes to show.’

‘What are you going to do now?’

‘Try the next witness. See if she remembers any better.’

‘She?’

‘Miss—’ Mahmoud stumbled a little. What he was trying to say was Postlethwaite.

‘Surely you don’t need to see her?’

‘I’m afraid I do.’

‘There must be other witnesses.’

‘And I shall get to them. But it was fresh to her eyes and she—’ said Mahmoud pointedly—‘may remember more.’

Owen was silent. He hadn’t realized it would come to this. He considered how Miss Postlethwaite would feel about being involved in a police inquiry. Or, more to the point, how her uncle would feel about it? Or, even more to the point, how the Consul-General would react.

‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘I mean, she’s hardly likely to be able to add anything to what I—’

‘You want to bet?’ asked Mahmoud.

*

‘Yes,’ said Jane Postlethwaite. ‘I remember the man very well. I’d noticed him earlier because he was so—involved. He put everything into his dancing. He was a big man, rather darker than most of the Zikr—that would be, I expect—’ looking at Owen for confirmation— because he came from the south, although he wasn’t really a Nubian, he wasn’t as dark as that, a mixture, I suppose. Anyway, he threw himself into his dancing rather like a great big child. He seemed a bit like an overgrown boy, he had that sort of childlike face. I’d noticed him because he was bounding away so enthusiastically. And then when he started sticking knives into himself I could hardly believe my eyes. And that spear!’

Jane Postlethwaite shuddered a little at the recollection but it was not so much in sympathetic trepidation as in identification. She saw it all so vividly.

Mahmoud looked at Owen triumphantly.

‘Yes, that spear,’ he said. ‘How did he manage with it, Miss Postlethwaite? I would have thought it would have knocked into people as he was dancing.’

‘It did once or twice. I thought it would hurt him but it didn’t seem to. And then, you see, it wasn’t sticking out horizontally. He’d thrust it into himself from above. He held it up—I saw him, it was so that everyone could see—up in front of him, like this—’ Miss Postlethwaite demonstrated— ‘and then he pulled it down into his chest. The handle was sticking upwards, if anything. And then he was so big, it was over most people’s heads.’

This time Owen took care not to meet Mahmoud’s eyes. Miss Postlethwaite seemed to recall with amazing facility. She had agreed without hesitation when he had asked her, diffidently, whether she would be willing to make herself available for questioning. ‘Of course!’ she had replied. ‘It’s my duty.’ ‘It won’t be me who’s asking the questions,’ he had said, ‘it will be a friend of mine, Mr El Zaki, from the Parquet,’ He had explained how the legal system differed from that in Britain. ‘In any case,’ Jane Postlethwaite had said, ‘it wouldn’t have been proper for you to question me, would it? I mean, you were involved yourself. I expect you’re a witness too. Are you, Captain Owen? Oh, perhaps you’d better not tell me anything about it. Otherwise you might influence what I say and that wouldn’t be right, would it?’

To give things as light a touch as possible, Mahmoud had interviewed her in her hotel, and he had asked Owen to be with him. Owen knew very well why he wanted this. It wasn’t that he doubted his own ability or needed reinforcement. Rather, it was a simple precautionary measure, advisable when an Egyptian was questioning one of the British community, especially a visitor of some importance. Owen had agreed, though with a certain apprehension. They would be sure to meet John Postlethwaite, he thought, and the MP would be sure to take up the issue with him. When they arrived at the hotel his worst fears appeared to have been realized, for there, waiting for them in the vestibule, was Postlethwaite himself.

‘Young man!’ he said formidably, and Owen feared the worst.

‘I must apologize, sir,’ he said hastily. ‘It was quite wrong of me to expose Miss Postlethwaite to the possibility of such a distressing incident.’

‘Ay,’ said the MP, ‘it was.’

He produced the look which had crushed Ministers. Owen recognized it at once and appeared suitably daunted. Unexpectedly, Mr Postlethwaite seemed mollified.

‘Well, you’re not trying to wriggle out of it at any rate,’ he said.

‘My fault entirely, sir.’

Mr Postlethwaite sighed.

‘Look, lad,’ he said, ‘you’re young and you don’t know any better. But you don’t say things like that. Not if you want to get on in Government service. It’s always somebody else’s fault. Got it? I’ll take this up with you some other time. You need a bit of advice.’

He spotted Mahmoud.

‘This is Mr El Zaki, I take it? How do you do, Mr El Zaki.’ They shook hands. ‘I don’t altogether follow this Parquet business, but it sounds a bit like the Scottish system to me.’

‘You’re quite right,’ said Owen, pleased. ‘It is.’

‘It’s not a bad system,’ said Mr Postlethwaite. ‘At least you know who’s responsible for what.’

Jane Postlethwaite appeared in the doorway.

‘I hope you’ve not been pitching into Captain Owen, Uncle,’ she said.

‘A bit,’ said John Postlethwaite, exaggerating. Owen suspected that he liked to play the role of the hard man with his niece; and that she was not deceived in the least.

‘I’ve pitched into the Departments,’ he said with relish. He winked at Owen. ‘Now they’ll know what to expect if they try to pull the wool over my eyes.’

‘Get them on the run,’ advised Jane Postlethwaite. ‘That’s half the battle.’

Owen was a little surprised at this display of administrative savoir-faire but then realized that she was probably repeating one of her uncle’s maxims. Mr Postlethwaite endorsed it anyway.

‘That’s right,’ he said.

His niece laid a hand on his arm.

‘Now, Uncle,’ she said, ‘you’d better get back to your memos. Once you’ve got them on the run, keep them on the run.’

‘And that’s true, too,’ said John Postlethwaite, going happily off up the stairs.

Jane Postlethwaite led them into a small room which the hotel manager had made available. The shutters had been closed, which kept the room fairly cool; but the air was lukewarm and inert and the fans useless, so after a while she pushed the shutters right open and they sat by the window.

‘It is fortunate for us that you were watching, Miss Postlethwaite,’ said Mahmoud, ‘and that you’re such a good observer.’

‘Thank you. I wasn’t really watching him particularly, you know. It was just that I couldn’t help noticing him. He was so striking. So big, and so—rapt.’

‘Did you notice him towards the end of the dance? Just before he collapsed?’

‘Yes. He was bounding about and I kept thinking: Surely he can’t keep this up, not with all those knives and things sticking in him. But he did. He kept jumping away. Then he seemed to falter. There was a man near him and I thought he had bumped into him, because he, the Zikr, I mean, seemed to stumble. And then all his strength seemed to go out of him and he just slumped down. I think his fatigue had just caught up with him. Other Zikr were collapsing, too, at that point.’

‘The man who was standing near him, the one he bumped into or might have bumped into, was he another Zikr?’

‘Oh no. He was one of—the audience, I suppose I should say, one of the onlookers, anyway. He had sort of strayed into the ring, been drawn in, I suppose, like so many others. There were lots of them, you know, ordinary people. They pressed forward during the dancing and then they began to join in. It was very infectious. I felt quite like joining in myself. Only I thought Captain Owen would not approve of me.’

She gave Owen a look which he considered afterwards he could only describe as arch.

Mahmoud, however, was concentrating.

‘This particular onlooker, the one the Zikr nearly bumped into, was he joining in?’

‘No. He was just standing there. That is why I noticed him. I thought he was, well, you know, a bit dazed or something, bowled over by it all. I was afraid he would get in the way. And then, when the Zikr stumbled, I thought he had got in the way.’

‘Could you describe him for us, Miss Postlethwaite?’ Mahmoud asked. ‘What was he wearing, for instance?’

‘Oh, ordinary clothes.’

‘Ordinary Western clothes or ordinary Egyptian clothes?’

‘How silly I am. Of course. Ordinary Egyptian clothes. A long gown. A—galabeah, is it?’

‘You’re picking up our language well, Miss Postle-thwaite,’ said Mahmoud encouragingly. ‘Galabeah is quite right. A blue one?’

‘No. Darker than that. Grey? Black?’

‘Are you sure about that, Miss Postlethwaite?’ Owen interposed.

‘Well, not absolutely. It was dark by then and hard to see in the light. It was just that in comparison with the others his seemed dark.’

‘Did you see what kind of turban he was wearing?’

‘I am afraid not. I’m sorry. One turban is much like another to me. Darkish, anyway. Like his gown.’

Owen exchanged surreptitious glances with Mahmoud. It was early yet but he was already beginning to have a sinking feeling.

‘Anything else, Miss Postlethwaite?’ asked Mahmoud.

‘Not really. I saw him only fleetingly.’

‘How old was he?’

‘Thirty, forty—’

‘You saw his face?’

‘I must have,’ said Jane, concentrating. After a moment or two she shook her head. ‘I don’t remember it at all clearly, I’m afraid.’

‘Hands?’

‘Hands?’ said Jane, startled.

‘Sometimes they are distinctive.’

‘Yes,’ said Jane, looking at him with interest. ‘Yes, they are. Well, I did see his hands, but there was nothing distinctive about them. It was just—’

She broke off and thought for a moment. ‘I don’t remember his hands,’ she said at last, ‘but I do remember hers.’

‘Hers?’

‘The woman’s.’

‘What woman’s?’

‘Don’t you know?’ said Jane, surprised. ‘Oh, I see, you’re testing me. The woman he was with.’

Mahmoud recovered first.

‘Tell us about this woman, please, Miss Postlethwaite,’ he asked.

‘Right,’ said Jane obediently. ‘Well, we were in a sort of enclosure, you know, masked off by ropes. During the dancing this woman came right up beside me, outside the enclosure—I was at the very end of the row, next to the rope, there was a carpet hung over it too, which made it into a sort of wall—and put her hand on the rope just in front of me. That’s why I saw it in the first place. But then, of course, I noticed it. She had such lovely hand painting. Lots of Egyptian women do, don’t they?’

‘Yes,’ said Mahmoud, ‘although it’s going out now, or so my mother says.’

‘Does she herself hand-paint?’ asked Jane.

‘No!’ said Mahmoud, immensely amused at the thought of his rather Westernized mother engaging in the traditional Egyptian arts. ‘It’s not confined to the poorer classes but it’s certainly most common there. You find it generally where the old customs are strongest.’

‘Such beautiful patterns!’ said Jane enthusiastically

‘In general?’ asked Mahmoud. ‘Or just in the case of the woman you saw beside the enclosure?’

‘Both!’ said Jane. ‘But I noticed the woman because I thought her patterns were especially lovely. She didn’t paint the whole palm, you know, not like they usually do, she just sort of sketched it in and then echoed it around the knuckles and nails. But what really caught my eye were her wrists. She had a most intricate pattern around them, all in delicate blue, not the usual blue of the poorer women, and not that rich orangey-red you often see. It ran round her wrist in a series of hooks and crosses all linked together, like a sort of painted bracelet.’

‘Crosses?’ said Owen. He was quite sure about the sinking feeling now.

‘Yes. Small square ones. That’s a traditional pattern, too, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Owen, ‘especially among some people.’

Mahmoud was pleased.

‘You are a most excellent observer, Miss Postlethwaite,’ he told her warmly.

‘I could hardly help noticing, could I?’ said Jane, half apologetically. ‘It was right before my eyes.’

‘Yes, but not everyone notices what’s right in front of their eyes.’

Owen kept his own eyes looking firmly out of the window.

‘Can you tell us anything else about this woman, Miss Postlethwaite?’ asked Mahmoud.

‘Not really,’ said Jane. ‘She was dressed from head to foot in one of those black gowns. I suppose I wouldn’t even have seen her hand if she had not put it on the rope. The only thing—’ She hesitated.

‘Yes?’ prompted Mahmoud.

‘The only thing I remember,’ she said, ‘was the smell.’

‘What sort of smell?’

‘Scent.’

‘She had a lot of perfume on?’

‘No. Not exactly. Not in that way.’

‘Distinctive? A distinctive perfume? Heavy, perhaps?’

Again Jane shook her head.

‘Not really. I don’t quite know what it was. Perhaps it was where it was that surprised me.’

‘Where it was?’

‘Yes. It wasn’t on her wrist or on her throat, not where you’d usually put it. In fact, it wasn’t on her at all. It was on her sleeve. And—not just on one part. All over her sleeve.’

‘Ah.’

‘That means something to you, does it?’ she said, looking at Mahmoud.

‘It might. Tell me—can you remember—was it one perfume or different ones?’

‘How clever of you. Different ones. She had been trying them on, you think? But on her sleeve?’

‘You’ve been very helpful Miss Postlethwaite,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Truly very helpful.’

‘Is it important?’ asked Jane. ‘I don’t quite see—’

‘It might be,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Now, can we just go back a little. At a certain point you became aware of this lady placing her hand on the rope. When exactly was that?’

‘I can’t say exactly. Towards the end of the dancing? Yes, it must have been towards the end because at the start, you know, the woman were at the back, it was the men who were at the front, and then as the dancing went on everyone became sort of drawn in and some of the women came forward, though of course they didn’t actually join in the dancing or anything like that, except to cry out and encourage the dancers.’

‘And that was when this woman came forward?’

‘Yes.’

‘With the man?’

‘Oh no. He was already there. So far forward that he was almost part of the dance.’

‘When did they meet up, then?’ asked Mahmoud. ‘You spoke of her as being with him.’

‘Afterwards. They left together.’

‘When the Zikr collapsed?’

‘Yes. He stepped back into the crowd. I think he realized that it was partly his fault, that he had bumped into the Zikr. I mean, he shouldn’t really have been there, should he? He was just getting in the way. He stepped back right in front of me, I couldn’t see the dancers for a moment or two, that’s how I remember, but then the crowd let him in and he slipped back along the rope.’

‘Where the woman was waiting?’

‘Yes. It seemed like that, because as soon as he got to her she turned and left with him. I was aware of it because she had been partly blocking my vision and when she left I could see the little boys bringing fire.’

Deep in the recess of the hotel a gong sounded and Miss Postlethwaite stirred slightly. A splendid suffragi in a red sash appeared at the door. Mahmoud rose to his feet and put out his hand.

‘Thank you very much, Miss Postlethwaite,’ he said. ‘You have been an immense help.’

‘I have? Oh, I am so pleased.’

‘You are an excellent observer.’

‘I just notice what I see.’

‘Not everyone does.’

Mahmoud could not forbear a glance in Owen’s direction.

‘Oh, of course,’ said Jane Postlethwaite, catching the glance and misinterpreting it. ‘You will already know all this. Captain Owen will have told you.’

‘Not quite all, Miss Postlethwaite,’ said Mahmoud, ‘not quite all.’