The Mamur Zapt and the return of the Carpet mz-1

by Michael Pearce

  “We wouldn’t have found out any other way,” said McPhee loyally, and bore without flinching the look Garvin gave him.

  “The question is,” said Garvin, “now that we’ve got some real information-”

  Owen did not like the way Garvin kept emphasizing the word “real” today.

  “-how do we use it? Wouldn’t it be best simply to put a man on the shop and keep it under surveillance?”

  “We don’t have the time,” said Owen. “The Carpet’s next week.” “Suppose the grenades are still on their way?” asked Garvin. “Suppose they haven’t got there yet? Don’t we just scare whoever-it-is off?”

  “Suppose they’ve already passed through?” said Owen.

  “Well,” said Garvin, “in that case we’ve lost them already. Going in wouldn’t help.”

  “We might pick up something,” said McPhee.

  “And at least we’d know,” said Owen.

  “Suppose they’re there all the time,” said McPhee, “ while we’re mucking around.”

  “And suppose they’ll soon be not there,” added Owen, “ if we go on mucking around. Boxes come out as well as go in.”

  “Yes,” said Garvin. “I’ll admit that’s a worry.”

  He rested his chin on his hand and thought.

  “All the same,” he said, “it’s not much to go on. If it wasn’t grenades I wouldn’t look at it.”

  “But it is grenades,” said McPhee, “and the Carpet is next week.” “We don’t know-” Garvin began, and then stopped. He thought for a little longer and then he looked at Owen.

  “OK,” he said, “you can go in. But on your head be it.”

  It was a typical Garvin ending and Owen wanted to ask what he meant, though he had an uneasy feeling that he knew what was meant. McPhee, however, was pleased.

  “Good, sir,” he said. “When?”

  “This afternoon,” said Owen, “ when everybody’s asleep.”

  “Not tonight?” asked Garvin.

  “You can see better in the day,” said Owen.

  Garvin shrugged.

  “All right, then,” he said. “Only yoti’ll have to move fast. He’s a Syrian and he’ll have someone round from the consulate in a flash of lightning. You won’t even get a chance to question him.”

  “I’ll see I get a chance to question him,” said Owen.

  Soon after two, when the sun had driven people from the streets and most Cairenes were settling deeply into their siesta, Owen’s men went in.

  The shutters had been half drawn across the front of the shop to give shade and to symbolize recess but there was a gap in the middle through which the men stepped. An assistant was asleep on the floor, curled up among the brassware. He opened his eyes as the men came in, blinked and then sat bolt upright. One of the men picked him up by the scruff of the neck and put him in a corner, where he was soon joined by two other startled and sleepy assistants brought through from the separate servants’ quarters at the rear of the house.

  The family lived above the shop. The first floor contained the dining-room and a surprisingly luxurious living-room, with a tiled floor and heavy, rich carpets on the walls. Above these were the bedrooms, where the man whose name Owen had been given slept with his wife and their five children. Above this again was the room at the front with five latticed windows where the wife’s mother slept and spent most of her days, together with a warren of small storerooms.

  Georgiades went straight to these, reasoning that the grenades would most likely be stored in the private part of the house and in a room rarely used by the family. Abdul Kassem, one of his most experienced men, went through to the back of the shop where goods awaiting unpacking or despatch were stored and began to search meticulously through the boxes.

  The other men fanned out through the house. The first thing was to station a man at every intersection, where one floor gave on to another, or one set of rooms to an independent suite. In that way if anyone made a panic move in one particular direction he would be remarked and intercepted. After that the men began to move efficiently through each room.

  McPhee, nominally under Owen’s orders for the occasion, since the police did not possess right of entry without a warrant but the Mamur

  Zapt did, began to ferret around the shop itself, poking his stick particularly under the heavy shelving which supported the goods.

  The shop was half way along the Musky and catered for both native Egyptians and tourists. The Egyptians came for the fine brassware: the elegant ewers called ibreek, which the Arabs used for pouring water over the hands, the little basins and water-strainers which went with them, old brass coffee-pots, coffee saucepans, coffee-trays, coffee-cups and coffee-mills, fine brasswork for the nargileh pipes, chased brass lantern-ends, brass open-work toilet boxes, incense-burners, inkpots, scales-all of good old patterns and workmanship. The tourists came for the brass boxes and bowls inlaid with silver, the spangled Assiut shawls, the harem embroideries, the cloisonne umbrella handles-a special attraction-Persian pottery, enamel and lacquer, silver-gilt parodies of jewels from the graves of Pharaohs, old, illuminated Korans and pieces of Crusader armour.

  Plenty of capital tied up here, thought Owen, and plenty of money to buy other things as well.

  He heard raised voices on the floor above, and a moment later flat slippers descending the stairs.

  A man appeared. A Syrian.

  “Qu’est-ce que vous faites ici, monsieur?” he began hotly as soon as he saw McPhee. The Scot waved him on to Owen and continued searching.

  The Syrian was in a blue silk dressing-gown and red leather slippers. Although his house had been broken into in the middle of his siesta and interlopers were downstairs he had taken the time to smooth himself down and make himself presentable.

  He repeated the question to Owen and then, registering the nationality, switched to English.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “I am a Syrian citizen. This is an outrage.”

  He was thin, middle-aged, grey — haired. The hair was brushed very flat and oiled. There were grey shadows under his eyes, not so much, Owen thought, because he had been disturbed in the middle of his sleep, as that it was a permanent feature of his face, which would always look haggard, worried.

  “Where is your authority?” he demanded. “Have you a warrant?”

  Owen noticed that he had understood at once that this was a police raid.

  “I am the Mamur Zapt,” he said. “I do not need a warrant.”

  “The Mamur Zapt!”

  Owen caught the momentary flash of concern.

  “I demand that a member of my consul’s staff be present! I am a Syrian citizen.”

  ‘‘In time,” said Owen, and turned away. He did not want to talk to the Syrian until he had something with which to shake him. Like the grenades, for example. But there was no sign yet of any success in the search.

  He thought it likely that the Syrian had already succeeded in getting a message out of the house to whatever consular representative it was that he had in his pocket. Owen had posted a couple of men outside to guard against this happening but guessed that the Syrian had made provision for such an eventuality. It would take some time, however, for the man from the consulate to arrive. He could wait a few minutes.

  “Let us go upstairs,” he said.

  The Syrian looked puzzled and then suddenly acquiesced. Perhaps he thought Owen was going to ask for a bribe. That was probably the way the previous Mamur Zapt had done things.

  As they went upstairs Owen said to McPhee: “If anyone comes from the consulate keep him busy as long as you can. Ask him to prove his status. Ask him if he’s got the right place. You know.”

  McPhee knew. He was less good at these things, however, than Owen, and a resolute official would soon brush his way past him. It would earn Owen a few minutes, though.

  The Syrian went ahead of him into the living-room. Owen deliberately held back.

  “I shall be with you in a moment,
” he said, and then continued upstairs to the next floor.

  "Keep him down there,” he instructed his man on the stairs.

  Georgiades came out of one of the doors wiping the sweat from his face. He shook his head as he saw Owen.

  “Nothing yet,” he said.

  He went into another room.

  Owen lingered on the small landing. He knew better than to interfere with the search. Georgiades and his people were all experienced at that sort of thing and there was a pattern to it which he would only disrupt. Georgiades had once told him, too, that there were cultural differences in the way people hid things. Greeks hid things in one sort of place, Arabs in another. Obviously he had not yet found out where Syrians hid things.

  Owen could hear the Syrian’s voice raised in protest. He knew he would have to go down and talk to him. The man from the consulate might soon be here.

  The Syrian was at the bottom of the stairs, his way up barred by one of Owen’s men. Both fell back as Owen came down the stairs. Owen pushed past them and went on into the living-room. He sat down on one of the low divans and motioned to the Syrian to sit on another before him.

  Everything in the room was low, the divans, the tables, even the lamps. There were no chairs. There were no sideboards or shelves, no wall furniture of any kind to detract from the sumptuous carpets on the walls. On some of the little tables that were scattered around beside the divans there were fine boxes and bowls, all of silver.

  A door opened at the far end of the room and a woman’s face looked in. The Syrian waved her irritably away. She looked worried.

  The Syrian himself had lost his apprehension and was waiting, almost confidently, for Owen to begin. Owen guessed that he was still thinking in terms of a bribe.

  Owen decided he would try to shake him.

  “You sometimes have British soldiers among your customers,” he said, more as a statement than a question.

  The Syrian looked slightly puzzled.

  “Not often,” he said. “The pay is not good,”

  “Among your suppliers,” said Owen.

  “No,” said the Syrian, too quickly, “no, I don’t think so.”

  After a moment he said: “I deal mostly in brassware and silverware. With a few things for the tourists. If an officer’s wife, perhaps, brought me a family heirloom I might consider that. But I don’t really deal in English things.”

  “Do you keep a list of customers?”

  “In my head,” said the Syrian. “Only in my head.”

  Owen wondered whether it would be worth going through the books. Georgiades would not have time, though. McPhee could do it but Owen wanted him in the shop to take care of the man from the consulate. None of the other men would be any good. In any case it would probably be pointless. It would be as the Syrian said; the customers who mattered would be in his head.

  The Syrian still waited expectantly.

  “You don’t deal in anything else?” Owen asked. “Arms, for instance?”

  For the tiniest flicker of a second Owen thought he saw the face register. Then it returned to its normal impassivity.

  “No,” said the Syrian. “I don’t deal in arms. Except-” he smiled. “-Crusaders’ arms. Was that what you meant?”

  Owen ignored him. He desperately needed something from Georgiades if he was to make anything out of this exchange. Out of the whole raid, for that matter. They had staked everything on being able to find something incriminating. If not the grenades, then at least something. Now it all seemed to be evaporating.

  The Syrian’s air of expectancy had disappeared. He now knew what Owen had come for. Knew, and was not bothered.

  “And now I have to ask you,” said the Syrian, “to what do I owe this outrageous visit?”

  Owen said nothing.

  The Syrian leaned forward even more confidently.

  “Even the Mamur Zapt,” he said with emphasis, “cannot get away with this!”

  And now Owen’s ears caught what perhaps the Syrian had already heard. A new voice had entered into debate with McPhee downstairs.

  “I shall complain to my consul,” said the Syrian. “It is not just as a private citizen but also as a foreign national that I have rights.” Georgiades appeared at the door.

  “Wait there!” said Owen to the Syrian. Outside, Georgiades showed him two revolvers, new, still heavily greased from the store, of the same type as the one used by Mustafa.

  “That’s all,” said Georgiades apologetically.

  “Every little helps,” said Owen, “and it helps quite a bit just at the moment.”

  He went back into the room.

  “My people have found British Army equipment,” he said coldly. “Stolen from British Army installations. Now in your possession.” The Syrian spread his hands. “The guns?” he said. “They were stolen? The man swore they had been officially disposed of as surplus to Army needs.”

  “New ones?”

  The Syrian shrugged apologetically. “I am afraid I do not know new ones from old ones. I am not a military man, I bought them for protection. I have a lot of valuable silver.”

  Owen could hear the man from the consulate coming up the stairs. “I am sorry if I have done something illegal,” said the Syrian, “but I hardly think it warrants an invasion on this scale.”

  “This is an outrage,” began the consular official as Owen brushed past him. “I shall complain-”

  A grim-faced McPhee was waiting downstairs. They left the shop without a word. Outside, a small crowd had gathered, sensing that something exciting was going on.

  “Make way! Make way!” snapped McPhee, still upset.

  The bright white glare of the street was dazzling after the cool darkness of the house and they stopped momentarily to adjust.

  Georgiades came running round the corner.

  “The roof!” he shouted. “The roof!”

  He plunged back into the shop. Two of his men rushed in after him.

  Abdul Kassem appeared from a sidestreet.

  “There’s a man on the roof!” he said, and doubled back.

  Owen ran after him, closely followed by McPhee, closely followed by the entire crowd.

  The sidestreet bent round into a wide square from which they could look back at the roofline.

  At first they could see nothing.

  Abdul Kassem pulled them to one side and pointed.

  “There! There!”

  Half obscured by the small minaret of a mosque they saw a man on the flat roof of one of the houses. He appeared to be dragging something.

  “That’s him!” cried McPhee exultantly. He pulled out his revolver.

  “Don’t shoot, for Christ’s sake!” said Owen. "It’s grenades up there!”

  Another man suddenly appeared on a roof some way to the right of the first man. It was Georgiades. He began running across the roofs. Two other men emerged and raced after him.

  The first man disappeared behind a parapet.

  “He could come down anywhere!” said Owen in agony.

  He looked around. He still had four men with him.

  “You take those two,” he said to McPhee, “and try and get round behind him on that side. I’ll take the others!”

  McPhee ran off instantly.

  Abdul Kassem did not wait for Owen but set off through the backstreets on the near side.

  They soon lost sight of the roofs.

  “Christ!” said Owen again. “He could come down anywhere.”

  They came out into a long street which ran roughly parallel to the man’s course.

  “You stay here,” Owen said to the other constable. “You can see the whole street.”

  He himself ran on after Abdul Kassem. The Egyptian was much better than he was at this sort of thing. He knew, or was able to sense, the pattern of the tiny, twisting streets. Owen knew he was holding him back.

  “You go on,” he gasped. “Try and get in front of him.”

  Abdul Kassem shot off.

  Owen came
to a corner and stopped. His heart was pounding and his eyes were blinded with sweat. He took out a handkerchief to wipe his face and tried to think. There was no point in just running aimlessly along the street. He needed to know where the man was. He had a vague sense of him being to the right and heading northward, but in this warren of tiny streets forever twisting back on themselves that did not help much.

  He walked along until he came to a square and then tried to look up at the roofs, but the square was small and the houses which surrounded it so high that he could see very little. He needed to be up higher.

  At the corner of the square was a little mosque with a minaret rising above it. He ran over to it and tried to go in but the door was heavily bolted. Still, the idea was a good one, and as he ran on he kept his eye open for a mosque that was not barred.

  The street narrowed still further and then opened out into a kind of piazza which did not seem to have any way out of it. Exactly opposite him was a sebil, a fountain-house, whose steeply curved sides, guarded with grilles of intricate metalwork, rose up high to an arcaded upper storey. It was approached by a sweeping flight of steps with an ornate marble balustrade.

  Without stopping to think, Owen ran straight up the steps. At the top, set in among the arcades where it would be cool, was an open recess obviously used as a kuttub, a place where little children received their first lessons in the Koran. The kuttub was empty, but an old man lay sleeping against a pillar.

  Besides him another flight of stairs, much narrower, led up to the roof. Owen leaped up them and came out on to the flat top of the arcades.

  To one side, behind him, he could see out over modern Cairo as far as the Nile and the brown desert beyond it. To the other was the fantastic skyline of old Cairo, with its minarets and cupolas, the high towers of the mosques, the arcades and domes of the old houses, and in among them the flat spaces where people came up to take the evening air.

  Now, with the sun still very hot, the roofs were deserted. There was no movement, anywhere.

  He felt a hand plucking at his sleeve. It was the old man. Owen could see now that he was blind. He had found him by hearing alone.

  “I will show you the way down, father,” he said.