“You’re saying Lord Worthington’s son asked you to hide details of his father’s death?”
Madame Nabila clicked her tongue. “He was panicked. Begged me to talk to them.”
“And you obliged?”
“I don’t expect you to understand the burden of societal standing. Lord Worthington was a respected member of Egyptian society. The English Basha. As heir to the Worthington fortune, Alexander knew his father’s death in such a … compromising situation could embarrass more than just his family. It could hurt the Worthington stock and trade. Hurt markets on two continents. Not to mention the peace summit to which the Worthington name is vital. It was in everyone’s interest to keep the matter quiet.”
“You can’t keep something like this quiet,” Hadia put in. “Not forever.”
Madame Nabila chuckled. “Girl, you don’t need to keep something quiet forever. You just let it come out in drips, to give everyone a chance to prepare for it. Then when the larger story is released, the impact is diminished and it’s soon forgotten.”
Fatma could see the reasoning behind that. There was so much going on in Cairo at any given moment, you could bury even a story like this if you let enough time pass.
“Is it true?” Madame Nabila asked. “About the way Alistair died?”
“We’re not calling it an accident,” was all Fatma answered.
The woman whispered a prayer. “I warned him about who he was getting close to. In the end, he consorted with all sorts of low types. Not just commoners but idolaters! Can you imagine? If there is a jackal’s hand behind this, look to them. You can be sure of it!”
“Did he have enemies?”
“Business rivalries. No one capable of such depravity.”
“How about among his brotherhood?”
“Unlikely. Never more than twenty or so. And all of them perished with him.”
All of them, Fatma thought. So much for her theory.
“Terrible business,” Madame Nabila complained. “No wonder Alexander looked so distraught. Thought he might get down on his knees for my help. Quite undignified.”
Fatma frowned. “Looked distraught? Alexander Worthington asked you this in person? On the morning his father died? He’s in Cairo?”
Madame Nabila blinked. “Yes, he’d just come into the country, to such dreadful news.”
Fatma shared a look with Hadia. That was new information. “One last question. Was Alexander part of the Brotherhood?”
The woman shrugged. “God knows best. But given his father’s convictions, I find it hard to believe it could be any other way.”
Fatma considered this. So maybe there was one surviving member of the Brotherhood of Al-Jahiz after all.
Madame Nabila didn’t bother to end her hydrotherapy to see them out.
“She was pleasant,” Hadia grumbled.
“As my mother says, it’s always the wicked who have lots of money. Good work earlier. With the verse. Think your pushback made her more pliable.”
“Wasn’t even thinking all of that,” Hadia muttered. “Just couldn’t stand her bigotry.”
“Lots of that to go around,” Fatma assured.
Hadia made a face. “When I was in America, everything was about color. Where you could eat. Where you had to ride. Where you could live or sleep. When I got back to Egypt, I couldn’t believe I’d not noticed it before. With my friends, my family. In the Alexandria EFS, none of the officers were darker than me. At our protests, Nubian and Soudanese women marched in the back. Quoting scripture came in handy to fight against it.” She sighed. “Maybe we aren’t so different than America after all.”
Fatma hadn’t needed to travel to know that. She’d suffered her fair share of slights. Nothing near what Siti endured, but not absent either. Magic and djinn hadn’t changed everything.
They reached the front door, which the servant opened to let them through. Siti stood waiting on the street. She met them, sniffing. “Why do you two smell like tea?”
“Let’s catch a carriage,” Fatma said. “I’ll tell you on the way back.”
They had to leave Cité-Jardin to actually find a carriage—so Fatma talked on the way. By the time they caught one, the three were already tossing around ideas.
“Alexander Worthington here in Cairo,” Siti murmured. “And his sister claimed otherwise?”
“Told me he was away,” Fatma said.
“Why lie about that?” Hadia asked.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Fatma muttered.
“You’re thinking he has something to do with all this?” Siti asked. “Maybe hired this man in the gold mask to do in his own father? Treacherous. Even for an Englishman.”
“Or maybe he’s the imposter,” Fatma said.
Hadia inhaled. “That’s … elaborate!”
Siti looked dubious. “Our friend last night didn’t sound English. Their Arabic is usually terrible. Worthington’s heir running around Cairo as al-Jahiz is very elaborate.”
Fatma knew as much. Plus, none of this explained a possible Ifrit. Or the man they’d had fought last night—or whatever he was. She was grasping.
“You’re right,” she admitted. Probably best not to make wild speculations.
They reached the Ministry in short order. As they stepped out, Fatma pulled Siti to the side. “About what happened before … with Madame Nabila.”
Siti made a gesture commonly used to dismiss unruly children. “You think that’s the first time anyone’s called me abda? Insulted my family as a ‘pack of stinking abeed’? Or made some comment on my skin? My lips and nose? Maybe men asking me to be their little gariyah? I assure you, it’s not uncommon.”
Fatma wasn’t naive. “Still, doesn’t make it right.”
Siti smiled. “Protector of my honor. I might swoon.” Her eyes flickered over Fatma’s shoulder. “Though that might have to wait.”
Fatma turned to find a familiar figure in a khaki uniform exiting the Ministry.
“Inspector,” she greeted. “Another unexpected visit.”
“Agent,” Aasim replied. Then to Hadia, “I mean, agents.” He glanced to Siti, but she turned as if ignoring them. “Rang your office. When I didn’t get you, decided to stop by. Only one who had seen you was a djinn in your library. I think he insulted me five times just to tell me you weren’t there.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Fatma mocked.
Aasim grunted, wrinkling his moustache. “Do the two of you know you smell like tea? Anyway, I followed up on what you told me about last night. Your encounter with al-Jahiz.” He said the name sarcastically. She had called him first thing in the morning. The police had more people than the Ministry to search the streets.
“And?”
“We found him! At least, we found out about him. Seems you were right. This imposter’s been running around Cairo for at least a week now. Maybe longer. Don’t know how we missed it. But once we put an ear out, the streets were buzzing.”
“Anything on who he might be?”
Aasim shook his head. “No, but we found out where he’s going to appear next. Sunday night. Thinking of attending, with a few of my friends.” His moustache twitched. “Want to come?”
CHAPTER TEN
Over the next two days, they planned.
Aasim secured an arrest warrant, listing every complaint and criminal code he could get away with—and some he probably couldn’t. Fatma coordinated on how things were to go. The police had the numbers. But if the Ministry were to be involved, she would have some say.
That meant keeping Aasim’s people under control. Cairo police had a reputation. She wanted to expose this imposter, not start a riot. So no guns. This gathering was likely to be full of poor people, the old, even children. Last thing they needed was bullets. Amir had let her build a special team of agents. Hamed was her first pick. He helped find four more—men who could keep their heads, and whose size made people think twice.
The hardest part was convincing Hadia t
o stay behind. An operation like this was no place for a recruit. If things went bad, no guaranteeing her safety. Nothing the woman wanted to hear. Fatma had to quote Ministry rules and explain she’d serve better running logistics from the police station. Onsi would be with her. Everybody was suited for what they were suited for.
The one snag was getting a chance to interview Alexander Worthington. Frustratingly, she had no cause for a warrant. Despite Madame Nabila’s claim he’d been in the city on the night of his father’s murder, passport documents showed him arriving by airship a day later. There’d been sightings of this supposed al-Jahiz at least a week prior. Documents could be forged, of course. He could have even hired someone to play the part of this imposter. Fatma had suggested that they bring him in for questioning to clear things up. But Aasim had already been warned to back off by superiors—who were getting an earful from politicians and businesspeople. Worthington’s heir was grieving, they claimed, and preparing for the burial of his father, in some English custom. He wasn’t a suspect. And could be interviewed later.
“Rattle the gates of people like that and they send out their hounds,” the inspector said. “Let’s nab this imposter. If Worthington’s involved, the person he has pretending to be al-Jahiz is likely some small-time con artist. Or worse, a theater actor. I know how to crack both. They’ll give up whoever put them up to this.”
It made sense, she supposed. But by Sunday night, she was on tenterhooks.
She sat in the back of a police wagon, one in a procession that rumbled through Cairo’s streets. Hamed sat directly opposite, in a pressed Ministry uniform—silver buttons gleaming and pants sporting a perfect crease. He looked like a picture right out of a guidebook—down to the red tarboosh. The only thing out of place were his shoes: black military issue, with thick ridges. The three other men sharing the van—all broad-shouldered and thick-necked—wore the same.
Fatma had thought of putting on a uniform. For about ten seconds. Suits were so much more comfortable. This one was a coal gray: sober and minus her usual flair. Well, except for the ivory buttons on the jacket and waistcoat. And perhaps the cobalt-blue tie with slashes of mandarin was a bit showy. However, her shoes were a perfectly ordinary black—though on the glossy side. They were made for running and jumping. She’d come prepared too. Just more fashionably.
“You’re expecting a crowd out there tonight?” Hamed asked. His hands idly gripped a black truncheon sitting across his lap.
“If what I saw Friday night is anything to go by.”
“Do they really think it’s him?” another agent asked. “Al-Jahiz, I mean?”
“Some do. I think others are just curious.” There were no posters advertising tonight. Not a word in the papers. But you could find evidence of it everywhere—scribbled on walls in back alleys or whispered in underground dens. Cairo was at times a two-sided coin with completely different faces.
“I’ve heard things,” a third agent ventured. “That he performs wonders.” His look said he was waiting for her to confirm or refute it.
“I didn’t see any wonders.”
“But there was an Ifrit?” the fourth quipped. He sounded hopeful, which was crazy. No one should want to come across an Ifrit.
“All I saw were some tricks with fire,” Fatma answered.
An uneasy quiet settled before Hamed spoke up. “Doesn’t matter who he says he is or what magic tricks he performs. We’re Ministry agents. Nothing we can’t handle.”
“What about this other man?” The skeptic again. “Who you say can become more than one person?”
Fatma grimaced at the memory. “Hoping the four of you can handle him. Or them.”
“That’s what these are for.” Hamed held up the truncheon—a rod almost long as his arm, with a bulbous head. A flip of a lever at its base set off a humming whine, and the head crackled with blue bolts. The others cheered, lifting their own truncheons. One even thumped his chest with a fist. Men, Fatma decided for perhaps the hundredth time, were so strange.
When the police wagon stopped, Fatma was the first out, landing on the uneven ground in a small puff of dust. She nudged up her bowler with her cane and looked about. Under the light of a full moon that hung in the black canvas of the sky, the City of the Dead sprawled in every direction.
El-Arafa, the Cemetery, as most called the old necropolis, lay nestled at the foot of low hills. They had once been an ancient quarry for limestone, and their tops still carried a broken and sawed-off look. The Cemetery sat in the valley between: a dense grid of tombs and mausoleums built up over 1,200 years. The families of Egypt’s rulers had been buried here—military commanders, Mamluk sultans, even some Ottoman bashas. Their tombs were miniature palaces and had been the site of spectacles, even Sufi schools. El-Arafa became a hub for seekers of wisdom and custodians overseeing its care.
But that was long ago.
The late years of Ottoman rule had seen most of the Cemetery’s well-to-do inhabitants leave for more alluring parts of Cairo. Rapid urbanization following the coming of the djinn had only accelerated matters, as middle-class Cairenes flocked to new developments with modern conveniences. The influx of farmers, peasants, and immigrants into the city meant a fresh set of inhabitants for the necropolis—mostly impoverished. The mausoleums had fallen into disrepair, many crumbling—some no more than rubble. There was no running water, no gas lines or steam-run machinery, not even paved roads. Still, people made do, building small dwellings; others even taking up residence inside the tombs. It was as if this place constructed for the dead couldn’t help drawing the living.
“Nothing like a trip to the slums,” someone muttered.
Fatma turned to see Aasim beside her. No one made a trip to the City of the Dead a regular habit. Maybe pilgrims looking for blessings from the Sufi mystics who still dwelled in the monasteries, though their schools were long closed. There were festivals at some of the more well-kept mausoleums. But most Cairenes steered clear.
“Think of it as you getting out more.” Fatma looked to a nearby building. From behind a curtain on a second floor, a woman watched the caravan of police assembling at the outskirts of her home. Beneath her, two young boys jostled for a view.
Aasim grunted. “Say that when one of the little slum rats lifts away that shiny pocket watch you’re fond about. You know what they say—something goes missing, chances are it’ll turn up in el-Arafa.”
An exaggeration. Many here worked in greater Cairo. Or engaged in the informal economy that sustained this city within a city. Most people in el-Arafa weren’t thieves or criminals. Just poor.
“We’re not here to stop fencers dealing minor goods,” Fatma replied.
“Minor goods? They say the Forty Leopards are headquartered in this place. Nothing minor about what those lady thieves pilfer. You know the last time we were here, I had more than this.” His white-gloved hand touched the handle of a wood baton at his side.
“No guns,” Fatma reiterated. “We’re dealing with people. Not a legion of flesh-eating ghuls.” She suppressed a shiver that came at the memory of their prior visit to the Cemetery, investigating the machinations of a mad angel.
Another grunt from Aasim, and his overwrought moustache twitched with unease—no doubt also having vivid recollections. “Hope you’re right.” He jerked a chin into the distance. “Because that doesn’t fill me with confidence.”
She followed his gesture to a pack of makeshift houses set among gravestones and mausoleums. Somewhere just beyond, a bright glare lit up the sky, illuminating the rooftops. It reminded Fatma of an open-air night market. Only there were no night markets in the City of the Dead. And the raucous chants and cheers that erupted now and again didn’t sound like dickering.
“Is everyone in place?”
Aasim looked back to assess his ranks. The wagons had emptied, leaving policemen standing in two lines shoulder to shoulder. He frowned. “I think you’ve got company.”
Fatma turned, not understanding—and caugh
t sight of someone hurrying past the policemen. Hadia? The woman reached them, breathing calmly despite her swift gait.
“What are you doing here?” Fatma asked. “Did something happen?”
Hadia shook her head. “Nothing happened. I’m just being your partner.” She smiled, but the words were tight.
“I expressly forbade you from coming here tonight!”
“I know.” Hadia lost the smile. “Only you can’t. That rule you quoted me, about ordering a recruit to stay behind. It doesn’t exist. You made it up.”
Fatma felt her face flush. Beside her, the other Ministry agents bit back smiles.
“You made up a rule?” Hamed chuckled. “And left her with Onsi?”
“He knows the Ministry Code of Conduct by heart,” Hadia affirmed. “I mentioned your rule to him in passing, and he alerted me immediately there was no such thing. So, I hopped onto a police wagon and made it up here. Where I belong.”
“I did it for your own good,” Fatma grumbled. “This might get dangerous.”
“I realized things might get dangerous when I went to the academy,” Hadia retorted.
Their gazes locked into silence.
Aasim cleared his throat. “You two need a moment?”
“No.” There wasn’t time for this. “Hadia, you’re with me. If this turns bad, you get back behind police lines.”
“I can handle myself—”
“With what? Your hands?” Fatma turned to Aasim, trying not to let her irritation boil over. “Are we ready to do this?” The inspector looked between them, but nodded. “Good, then.” She shrugged, pulling her bowler tight, and stepped out with her cane. “Let’s go.”
The small army marched down the Cemetery’s narrow streets. Fatma walked at its head with Aasim—and now Hadia—flanked by Hamed and the other agents. Behind them followed lines of police. At least forty. Aasim wanted more, whole contingents to encircle the place. But Fatma objected. They were already descending on people in the middle of the night. No need to make things tenser than they already were.
Not all of el-Arafa’s residents had gone to the rally. They sat in windows and doorsteps, watching the procession snaking between stone tombs with raised markers—sometimes ducking beneath laundry lines and navigating around brick ovens. Most faces regarded them blankly. Some were anxious. One woman let out a set of panicked “Ya lahwy!” as they passed. Others, however, gave hard stares. Once or twice came a whispered curse.
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