Free The Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet by Michael Pearce

his chin. There was a faint rasp. In the heat it was never possible
to shave closely.
    “ ’Assan is the only name I
can think of, sir.”
    “Sure?”
    The
blue eyes met his blandly.
    “Yes, sir. Afraid
so, sir.”
    “I’m
not really interested in your case,” said Owen. “I’m interested in another. And
if I got a name, that could be really helpful.”
    “I’d
like to help, sir,” said the man. “But ’Assan is the only name I can think of.”
    “Go
on thinking,” said Owen, “and let me know if another name comes into your
head.”
    He
turned through the papers in the file.
    “After
all,” he said casually, without looking up, “it’s only a Gyppy.”
    He
went on turning through the papers. No reply came. He had not really expected
one.
    He
took a card from his pocket.
    “If
you want to get in touch with me,” he said, “later—and, remember, one word will
do—that’s where you’ll find me.”
    The
man took the card and fingered it gingerly.
    “Mamur
Zapt,” he said, stumbling a little. He raised his head. “What’s that, sir?
Civilian?”
    “No,”
said Owen. “Special.”
    “Sorry, sir. No offence.”
    After
a moment he said: “ ’Course , it couldn’t be, you being
in uniform. It was just that ‘Mamur’ bit.”
    Owen
closed the file and sat back. He had done what he could. Whether the seed he
had planted would bear fruit remained to be seen.
    “A
mamur is just a district officer,” he said. “Not the same thing at all.”
    “Of course not, sir.”
    Judging that the interrogation was over he
became relaxed, even garrulous.
    “I know, sir. I ran into one of them once,
at Ismailia. We’d gone off for the day, a few of us. Filled a boat with bottles
of beer and set out along the coast. We come to this place, and the bloody
boatman hops over the side. We thought he was just doing something to do with
the boat, but the bugger never came back. We just sat there, waiting and
drinking. We’d had a few already by this time. Anyway, after a bit we runs out
of bottles so we gets out of the boat to go looking for some more when we runs
into this mamur. One of my mates hits him, but we’re all so bloody pissed by
then we can’t really hit anyone, and suddenly they’re all around us and we’re
in the local caracol.”
    Owen laughed.
    The man nodded in acknowledgement and pulled
a face.
    “Christ!” he said. “That was something, I
can tell you. A real hole. The place was stuffed full
of dirty Arabs, about twenty of them in a space that would do eight, and then
us as well. The pong! Jesus! Shit everywhere. You were standing in it. Pitch
black. No bloody windows, just a wooden grating for a door. No air. Hot as
hell. All them bodies packed together. Christ! I’ve
been in some rough places, but that scared the shit out of me. We were in there
for a day and half. Bloody Military didn’t get there till the next morning. And
then, do you know what they did? Those bastards just came and looked at us
through the grating and went away laughing! Didn’t come back
till they’d had a drink. “That’ll bloody teach you!” they said. It did
too, and all. Wouldn’t want to go through that again.”
    The
café stood at the corner of the Ataba el Khadra, just at the point where Muski
Street, coming up from the old quarter, emerged on the squares and gardens of
the European part of Cairo.
    Owen had chosen a table out on the pavement,
from where he could see both down Muski Street, with its open-fronted shops and
goods spilling out into the road, and across the Ataba.
    At this time in the evening the Ataba was
lit by scores of lamps, which hung from the trees, from the railings, from
shop-signs and from house-fronts, even, incongruously, from the street-lights
themselves. In their soft light, round the edges of the square, the donkey-boys
and cab-men gambled, drank tea and talked, forming little conversation groups
which drew in passers-by and drove pedestrians into the middle of the