The Mamur Zapt and the Night of the Dog. Michael Pearce

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СКАЧАТЬ 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,’ СКАЧАТЬ