The Donkey-Vous mz-3

by Michael Pearce

  Paul rang from the Consul-General’s office.

  “Hello!” he said. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, thanks. Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “Everyone’s been saying how peaky you look and how you obviously need a rest.”

  “It’s this damned heat,” Owen complained. Then it sank in. “Everyone?”

  “Everyone who’s rung me this morning.”

  “Samira?”

  “Samira, for instance. The other one would surprise you.”

  “Go on; surprise me.”

  “The Khedive.”

  “ The Khedive?”

  “I knew it would surprise you. It surprised me. He’s never taken an interest in your health before. Nor in the health of anyone else in the Administration. I congratulate you.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Something, obviously. That’s why I rang to let you know.”

  “Samira was on to me yesterday. She told me to lay off Moulin.”

  “And now His Highness is telling you the same thing. Isn’t that interesting? You must be getting warm.”

  “Why should he be bothered about Moulin?”

  “Why indeed. Perhaps he’s not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Perhaps he’s bothered about something else.”

  Owen thought about it.

  “Paul,” he said then, “are you trying to warn me off? Is this something I should clear politically?”

  “Who would you clear it with?”

  “Garvin, I suppose.”

  “What would he know about it?”

  “The Consul-General, then?”

  “Look,” said Paul, “the Consul-General doesn’t have ideas of his own. He only has the ideas I put in his head.”

  “And what ideas are you putting in his head at the moment?”

  “I don’t think you look peaky at all,” said Paul. “Quite the reverse, in fact.”

  “I need your help,” said Owen.

  Zeinab, lying on the bed, at first seemed deaf to this plea. Then she turned her head slightly.

  “What is it?”

  “I didn’t get anywhere with Samira.”

  “You were talking to her for a long time.”

  “Yes, but she didn’t tell me anything. Not much anyway. She was more concerned with warning me off Moulin. She suggested I take a holiday. Go away for a few days. Take you.”

  “That seems a good idea,” said Zeinab, sitting up.

  “No, it’s not. It’s just intended to get me out of the way.”

  “Well, why not get out of the way? Let them get on with paying for that poor man. You’re not doing anything to help him. You’re just stopping him from being freed.”

  “I’m not stopping them from paying.”

  “Yes, but they think you are. They think you’re up there like a hawk, hovering, just picking the moment. They don’t know you,” said Zeinab, “like I know you.”

  “I don’t care tuppence about Moulin.”

  “Then why don’t we go away?”

  “Because I think there’s something else going on and I want to find out what it is.”

  Zeinab reached for a cushion and stuffed it behind her back. “All right,” she said resignedly, “I’ll help you.” She suddenly brightened. “No, I won’t,” she said.

  “Bloody hell!”

  “Not unless you promise to take me away for a holiday when this is all over.”

  “I promise. Samira said she’d get Haidar to lend us his villa at Luxor.”

  “Luxor! I’m not going there! It’s just temples!”

  “I’d quite like to go to Luxor.”

  “It’s got to be some place I’d like to go to.”

  “Oh, very well.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “Right!” said Zeinab, snuggling back into the cushion. “How can I help you?”

  “It’s Madame Chevenement.”

  “Her again?”

  “This is definitely work.”

  “Like that other woman?”

  Owen ignored this.

  “I asked Samira how Madame Chevenement came to be at her soirees and she said she was a friend of a friend. I take that friend to be the Khedive.”

  “Right.”

  “What I want to find out is how she came to be a friend of his. What’s the connection? How did they meet? Samira will probably know but she’ll be on her guard. Is there someone else in that circle who would know?”

  “I know,” said Zeinab.

  “You know?”

  “Yes. Everyone does. He met her at Cannes.”

  “When was this?” said Owen, astonished.

  “Last year. When he was on holiday. He went to Monte Carlo, if you remember.”

  Owen remembered. The Khedive had needed extra resourcing in view of his passion for gambling. The funds had been made available but only after a protracted political tug-of-war in which Owen himself had been engaged.

  “What else do you know?” he asked.

  “About Chevenement? Nothing much. She’s very dull, really. Just right for him.”

  “Did he invite her over here?”

  “She invited herself, I think. He was glad to renew acquaintance.”

  “He’s kept it pretty quiet.”

  “You think so?” Zeinab laughed. “Just because you haven’t heard about it, darling, that doesn’t mean it’s been kept quiet. Still, I agree. It’s been kept quieter than she would like. He’s seen her only a few times and never in public.”

  “Still, I ought to have known about it.”

  She reached out a hand, caught his, and pulled him down. “You’ll just have to come to Samira’s more often, darling.”

  “It’s not just that, though,” said Georgiades. “Remember, she took him with her.”

  “Berthelot?”

  “Yes. On at least two occasions, according to the arabeah-drivers. If she was just having an affair with the Khedive, why did she do that?”

  “I think we can safely disregard the more ribald suggestions of the arabeah-drivers,” said Owen.

  “And it’s hardly likely to be just a social call. There’s an etiquette for those things and the Khedive makes a big issue of it. Which leaves business-or politics.”

  “It’s not going to be politics. The French are not going to have any amateurs coming in on their patch.”

  “That leaves business. What sort of business is the Khedive likely to be interested in?”

  “Any business that makes money. For him.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “There’s a bit of a problem, though, isn’t there?” said Owen. “He never engages in these things directly. It’s always through the Ministries. If you wanted anything you’d have to go through them.”

  “His influence might be a help. Maybe that’s what they were after.”

  “Not much of a help. You’d still have to go through the Ministries.”

  “He might be able to get a personal favor done.”

  “Chevenement? Then why was Berthelot there? Anyway, he’d be able to get one done only if it was a small one. Anything big would have to go through the Ministries. That’s the system. The whole point is to keep his hands off the money. He can’t spend a penny without the Consul-General okaying it.”

  “Maybe he wants to bypass the system.”

  “He’ll have a job!” said Owen, speaking from painful personal experience.

  Georgiades sat for a while brooding. Owen suspected it was because he didn’t want to go out into the heat again too quickly.

  “Look at it another way,” said Georgiades, settling himself comfortably: “What sort of business are Berthelot and Chevenement likely to be interested in?”

  “Whatever business Moulin is interested in. And we’ve got a pretty good idea of that. Construction, building-”

  “Contracts?”

  “Yes.”

  “The dam contracts?”

&nbs
p; “They’ve been allocated already. They were allocated before he arrived. Paul says there might be a subcontract going, a big one to construct a masonry apron, which they might let the French have as a sop. He thinks Moulin’s interested in that.”

  “Well, maybe that’s it.”

  “The trouble with that,” said Owen, “is that all the action is somewhere else. It’s all Diplomatic now. Government to Government. Foreign Office to Foreign Office. Not for small fry like Berthelot and Chevenement.”

  “Maybe they’re just jockeying for position in the tendering?” suggested Georgiades.

  “If they are, why not do it in the right place? There’s no point in wasting time on the Khedive. He’s not going to have any say in it whatsoever.”

  “I keep coming back to Berthelot,” said Georgiades. “What’s he doing going to see the Khedive? Chevenement I can understand. Private business and good luck. But Berthelot?”

  “They’re both in it together, whatever ‘it’ is. Only I should think they’ve got different roles. She makes the first contact, he follows it up.”

  “Has he got enough…? I mean, does he know enough to follow it up?”

  “I think that they’d have to refer pretty soon to Moulin. And that’s a point! When I first spoke to Berthelot I asked him if any of Moulin’s business friends had been in contact with him. He promised to check but never did.”

  “It would be interesting to know who they were. Then we’d get some idea of where particularly his business interests lie. Maybe I’ll have a look at that,” said Georgiades.

  “OK. And while you’re doing that, take a look at something else, will you? I’m getting a picture in which Chevenement makes the first contact, then brings Berthelot in. At a very early stage, right at the start, probably, she gets the Khedive’s blessing. That maybe is why she takes him to meet the Khedive. Now they’re going to have to follow that up, which means him meeting other people. Maybe when he meets the Khedive he gets introduced to these people. Even so, he’s going to have to meet them again to get negotiations started. I don’t know if it’s possible for you to find out who these people are. Other visits Berthelot’s been paying. But you might take a look at it.”

  “Could the Princess Samira come into this?”

  “How?”

  “Well, suppose they didn’t meet the people who were going to follow it up for the Khedive when they went to see him. After all, it would take time, and while I don’t go along with the arabeah-drivers altogether, I don’t see the Khedive wanting to spend all the time he has with Chevenement on business matters. In that case he might want to find some other way in which she could meet them. You said he asked the Princess to invite her. Maybe that’s where she made her first follow-up contact. After that there would be another one, this time with Berthelot.”

  “I’ll ask Zeinab if she can give me the names of people who’ve been at Samira’s soirees recently. She’s not going to like it, though.”

  “I’m going to have to try to get out of the arabeah drivers a list of all the people Berthelot’s been to see. All the places, too, because the drivers are going to know places, not people. To get the people I’m going to have to follow it up. It’ll take hours. In this heat, too! Do you think I like that?”

  “Yes, but you’re paid to like it and Zeinab’s not.”

  “From what you told me earlier,” said Georgiades, “I think the Lady Zeinab is going to insist on payment too.”

  Madame Moulin was waiting for him in the grand central hall of the hotel, under the glass dome. She was having coffee with the French Charge and Mahmoud. There was no sign of Berthelot.

  She was in her early or mid-seventies and was wearing a long black gown which even Owen could see belonged to the last century. Her hair was gray and tied up behind in a severe bun. She had been traveling continuously since she had received news of her husband’s disappearance and had arrived only that afternoon; but the eyes which registered Owen’s entrance were bright and alert.

  “Cap-tain Owen. Le Mamur Zapt,” the Charge introduced him.

  Owen took her hand.

  “ Enchante de faire votre connaissance, Madame. I am only sorry that it should be in such circumstances.”

  The old lady inclined her head graciously. Then the head came up and the sharp eyes regarded him appraisingly.

  “ Vous etes capitaine, Monsieur?”

  “Oui, Madame.”

  “Du militaire?”

  “ Oui, Madame. I was in the Indian Army before coming to Egypt.”

  “ Vous avez tue?”

  Owen was taken aback. Had he killed? Well, yes, he had, but it was not something he liked to be asked quite so definitely.

  “ Oui, Madame. Je le regrette. ”

  “We all regret it,” replied the old lady, “but sometimes it is necessary.”

  She completed her inspection.

  “C’est un brave homme!” she announced to the Charge.

  “Of course!” said the Charge enthusiastically.

  “He has been tried in action,” said Madame Moulin. “That is what makes a man. Not sitting about in offices.”

  “Of course!” agreed the Charge, slightly less enthusiastically this time.

  “It is something I am always telling Monsieur le President. My cousin’s husband, you know. ‘Gaston,’ I say: ‘what has happened to our young men? All they think about is drinking wine and chasing women and sitting about in offices.’”

  “And what does Monsieur le President reply?” asked Owen.

  “ ‘Monique,’ he says: ‘young men have always drunk wine and chased women.’ ‘But not sat about in offices!’ I say. We are becoming,” said Madame Moulin triumphantly, “a race of degenerates.”

  “Oh la la!” said the Charge, and clicked his tongue reprovingly.

  “A nation of degenerates,” Madame Moulin repeated with emphasis, looking fiercely in his direction.

  Owen, who got along well with the Charge, despite present difficulties, tried to rescue him.

  “But, Madame,” he said, “we serve our country in different ways. The skills the diplomat needs are not those of the soldier.”

  “I am not talking of skills,” said the old lady dismissively. “I am talking of character.”

  There was a little silence after that. It was Madame Moulin herself who broke it.

  “And what, precisely, are the skills which you yourself bring to this sad affair, Monsieur le Capitaine? Those of a soldier?”

  “Certainly not. Those days are long behind me.”

  “Then…?”

  It was the sort of question which the French-and the Egyptians-were always asking and one which Owen found it very difficult to answer. Both countries had a tradition of professionalism which made it hard for them to see the obvious advantages of English amateurism. Owen decided to shift the question slightly.

  “I am assisting Mr. El Zaki,” he said. Seeing from Madame Moulin’s expression that this needed amplifying, he added, “I look after the political side.”

  “Ah? So this has a political side?”

  “No, no. Not necessarily. It’s just that it may have. It could possibly have. It is just a precaution. My role is very minor. Mr. El Zaki-”

  Madame Moulin took no notice.

  “Moulin dabbles too much in politics,” she said darkly. “These big contracts! I have told him time and again that one day he would burn his fingers. Perhaps this is the day.”

  “We have no reason to think-”

  “Moulin is a fool. An old fool, too, and there’s none worse. How many times have I told him to stop gadding around and to stay at home and look after his own business! That could do with some attention, I can tell you! He’s let it go while he’s been chasing around at the beck and call of all those big firms. On yes, they give him a commission, and a big one too, but is it worth it? That’s what I ask him. Gadding around like this all over the world, that’s the short way to finding yourself in a wooden box, I tell him. At his age! And
with his heart!”

  “That is something that concerns us, Madame,” said Mahmoud. “As far as we know, he is being well treated, but of course, he won’t be taking his medication.”

  “He doesn’t anyway,” said the old lady. “He’s too pigheaded to take his pills. He says he forgets them but I know differently. He forgets them deliberately. Those Provencal people are all the same. They don’t trust anyone, not even their own doctors. They won’t poison you, I tell him. I’m the one you’ve got to worry about. And I will, too, one of these days, if I catch you playing around with any more of those fancy women. Did you hear that?” she asked Mahmoud.

  “No,” said Mahmoud.

  She laughed heartily.

  “That’s the right answer,” she said. “You could have been one of our policemen at home. They know what to hear and what not to hear.”

  She suddenly changed tack.

  “So it’s just a question of money, is it?”

  “Yes,” said the Charge.

  “Well, we’ve got plenty of that. Mind you, I don’t believe in giving in to them, not as a general rule, but it’s a bit different when it’s your own, isn’t it? I don’t expect you agree with me, though, do you?” she said, looking at Mahmoud.

  “No.”

  She sighed. “Well, you’re right, I suppose. We could do with more men like you. All the same-”

  She seemed to be thinking.

  “I don’t suppose you’re getting anywhere, are you?” she asked Mahmoud. “No? Well, you wouldn’t be, and at least you’re man enough to say so. If you were, you see, I might be willing to wait, though it’d be hard on poor Moulin. At his age, too-”

  “And in the heat,” said the Charge.

  “Yes, in the heat.” She shook her head regretfully. “No, it won’t do. I’ll have to pay. As I said, we’ve got money enough.” She suddenly looked sharply at Mahmoud.

  “How did they know we’ve got money? What made them pick on poor Moulin?”

  “Anyone who stays at Shepheard’s-” began Mahmoud. She brushed his words aside impatiently.