The Mamur Zapt and the Spoils of Egypt. Michael Pearce

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СКАЧАТЬ it came up behind her,’ suggested Owen. ‘You know, alongside her. She was standing a bit too close and it just caught her.’

      ‘It’s easily done, I suppose.’

      Owen turned to the driver who had thought he’d seen her carrying something.

      ‘Didn’t you say you’d seen what happened? Was that how it was?’

      ‘No, no, I didn’t really see it happen. I just saw her go down. I had just cut across in front of the tram—plenty of room, a couple of metres at least—and of course I was looking out to my left and I glanced along the side of the tram and she was already falling. It must have happened just at that instant.’

      ‘Was she falling into the tram or away from it?’

      ‘I don’t know, it was all over in a flash. But I saw she’d gone down as I stopped and ran over to her.’

      ‘Was she all covered with blood?’ asked someone with relish.

      ‘No, she—’

      The driver launched into his tale, which he told with gusto but without the kind of detail that interested Owen. After a while he stood up and slipped away. He would come back to the restaurant the next day and the days after. If anything new emerged it would certainly be retailed to him.

      He went next to see the tram-driver, whom he found drinking tea with his fellows.

      ‘It wasn’t his fault!’ they chorused. ‘He couldn’t have done anything about it. She just stepped straight into him.’

      ‘You didn’t see her coming?’

      ‘How could I? She was down at the side.’

      ‘You were moving, though. She must have been ahead of you.’

      ‘Yes, but—’

      ‘There were lots of people ahead of him! You can’t see them all!’

      ‘Were there lots of people? Was there a crowd?’

      ‘There’s always a crowd in the Ataba.’

      ‘Yes, but was this woman part of a crowd or was she standing on her own?’

      ‘I didn’t see. I didn’t see her at all until there was this bump. You know at once. I jammed on my brakes and looked down and there she was!’

      ‘It was the first time you’d seen her?’

      ‘Of course! I swear on the Book—’

      But then he would.

      The conductor was strong in support.

      ‘There were a lot of people milling about. There always are. And those stupid arabeah-drivers!’

      ‘Yes, those stupid arabeah-drivers!’

      ‘It’s a wonder it doesn’t happen more often.’

      So not much joy there. Owen did a round of the stalls nearby, the tea stall, the sweet stall, the Arab sugar and Arab cucumber stalls, but although they all remembered the incident well—it had clearly made their day—and although all claimed to have been intimately involved, none of the owners, it transpired after some time, had actually seen anything.

      Next he tried the street-sellers, many of whom had regular pitches and who, being more mobile than the stallholders, had secured places near the front of the crowd. All of them, however, were observers after the event; somewhat to their regret.

      They had at least seen something, though, and he tried to turn it to advantage. Could they describe the bystanders who had been at the front of the crowd, the ones who, presumably, had been nearest when the accident, or whatever it was, had happened?

      Yes, they could: unfortunately, in implausible detail.

      But did they recognize anybody?

      ‘Don’t I remember seeing Hamidullah?’ the lemonade-seller asked himself.

      ‘Hamidullah?’

      ‘The carrier of water.’

      ‘I remember a water-carrier,’ said Owen.

      ‘It would be him.’

      ‘Where is he now?’

      ‘Oh …’

      The water-carrier, apparently, made long patrols of the town, passing through the Ataba three times a day, in the morning, afternoon and evening. Owen tried to establish the times more precisely.

      The lemonade-seller did not possess a watch; could not, indeed, tell the time. Owen tried to get him to work it out in relation to the muezzin’s call but then realized that one of the times, at any rate, he knew exactly. That was the one which coincided with Miss Skinner’s fall. He would have to leave that now, however, till the next day.

      Feeling that at least he had established something, and fed up at having had to spend most of the day on this daft business, he decided he’d had enough and went in to drink coffee with the Fire Chief.

      ‘God be praised!’ said the Fire Chief. ‘You have come at last!’

      Owen explained what he had been doing all day. The Chief, who must have seen him, affected surprise.

      ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I suppose you’ve got to look into it if it’s a European.’

      ‘Not all Europeans,’ said Owen grimly. ‘Just this one.’

      ‘Are you going to punish the tram-driver?’

      ‘Well, no, it wasn’t really his fault.’

      ‘All the same …’ said the Fire Chief, casually conveying the centuries-old Cairene assumption that punishment was related more to the satisfaction of authority than to the desserts of offenders.

      ‘From what I can make out,’ said Owen, ‘it doesn’t seem to have been anybody’s fault. It was just an accident.’

      ‘What else?’ said the Fire Chief.

      What else, indeed? Even if it had been a push, it was almost certainly an unintended one. Miss Skinner had perhaps backed into somebody and they had merely warded her off. And then perhaps they had panicked when she had fallen over and made themselves scarce. He wished he could find someone who had seen what happened. If that was all, then they could forget about it.

      It must have been something like that, an accidental jostle in the crowd, someone turning suddenly. What else could it be?

      A deliberate push? That was ridiculous. Who would want to do a thing like that? Miss Skinner was unknown in Cairo. All right, in her short time here she had not exactly endeared herself to people, but hardly to the lengths of provoking someone to push her under a tram!

      She was a European and Europeans were not exactly popular? СКАЧАТЬ