The Mamur Zapt and the Men Behind. Michael Pearce

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СКАЧАТЬ it who might bear him a grudge.

      Fairclough didn’t think so.

      ‘Servants?’ asked Mohammed Bishari casually. ‘Servants in the past?’

      Again Fairclough didn’t think so.

      ‘Someone you’ve dismissed?’

      Fairclough thought hard.

      ‘I’ve only had three servants all the time I’ve been here,’ he said. ‘There’s Ali—he’s my cook, and I’ve had him ever since I came. He was Hetherington’s cook and he passed him on to me when he went to Juba, because Ali didn’t want to go down there. I’ve had one or two house-boys. Abdul, that’s the one I’ve got now, I’ve had for a couple of years.’

      ‘Eighteen months,’ said Mohammed Bishari.

      ‘Well, he’s all right. No grudge there.’

      ‘Before him?’

      ‘Ibrahim? Well, I did sack him. Beggar was at the drink. I marked the bottle and caught him red-handed. But that kind of thing happens all the time. You don’t bear grudges. Not to the extent of killing, anyway.’

      ‘You didn’t beat him?’

      ‘Kicked his ass occasionally. Have you talked to him? He doesn’t say I did, does he?’ Fairclough looked at Mohammed Bishari indignantly.

      ‘He does say you did, as a matter of fact,’ said Mohammed Bishari. ‘But they all say that and I didn’t necessarily believe him.’

      ‘Well, I bloody didn’t,’ said Fairclough. ‘I don’t believe in that sort of thing. Ask Ali.’

      ‘We have. On the whole he confirms what you say.’

      Fairclough snorted.

      ‘However,’ said Mohammed Bishari, ‘Ibrahim also told us something else, which, admittedly after a considerable time, Ali also confirmed. While Ibrahim was with you, he undertook various errands for you. He used to fetch women, for example.’

      Fairclough flushed and looked at his shoes. ‘Needs of the flesh,’ he muttered.

      ‘Quite so. We don’t need to go into that. Nor where he got the women. However, on one occasion there was some difficulty. A woman had come to you while her husband was away. When he got back, neighbours told him. He came round to see you.’

      ‘He was about off his rocker,’ said Fairclough. ‘Foaming at the mouth, that sort of thing. He had a bloody great knife. It took three of us to hold him—Ali, Ibrahim and me.’

      ‘You gave him some money. Quite a lot.’

      ‘Poor beggar!’ said Fairclough.

      ‘In fact, you gave him too much. Because when he had cooled down he realized that you were worth more than his wife was. He divorced her and kept coming back to you.’

      ‘Only once or twice. His wife came back too. Separately, I mean, after he’d got rid of her.’

      ‘You paid her too?’

      ‘Nothing much. Either of them.’

      ‘Enough for it to matter. Enough, after a while, to make you say you were going to stop it.’

      ‘Couldn’t go on forever,’ said Fairclough.

      ‘You refused to pay any more?’

      ‘That’s right.’ Fairclough looked at him incredulously. ‘You’re not saying that old Abdul—!’

      ‘He might be considered to have a grudge.’

      ‘Yes, but old Abdul—!’

      ‘He came for you with a knife.’

      ‘Yes, but that’s different. Anyway, it had all blown over.’

      ‘You had just stopped giving him money,’ Mohammed Bishari pointed out.

      ‘Yes, but—’ Fairclough looked at Mohammed Bishari and shook his head. ‘I just don’t believe it,’ he said.

      Neither did Owen. Nor, he suspected, did Bishari. The Parquet man, however, went on with his questions, continuing on the same line. Were there other men who might have a similar grievance? Fairclough thought not. In fact, he was pretty sure. But Ibrahim had been on other errands for him, surely? Well, yes, that was true. But he didn’t think husbands were involved.

      As the probing continued, Fairclough became more and more uncomfortable.

      ‘Doesn’t look too good, does it?’ he said suddenly. ‘All these women. Fact is, I’m not very good with ordinary women. Can’t manage the talk. Need sex, of course, every man does. But can’t manage the patter.’

      ‘Ordinary women?’ said Mohammed Bishari.

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘Ordinary English women,’ said Bishari.

      ‘I don’t think we need to go into this, do we?’ Owen interposed. ‘Mr Fairclough has been very frank about a particular form of social inadequacy he suffers from. Surely there is no point in pressing that further?’

      ‘Would you allow me to be the judge of that, please, Captain Owen?’ said Bishari, looking at him coldly.

      He continued with his questions. It was obvious that Ibrahim had provided him with a whole list of women he had procured. He went through them one by one.

      Fairclough had turned a permanent brick-red.

      Owen could not see what Bishari was playing at. Was he just trying to humiliate Fairclough? Was this some kind of personal Nationalist revenge?

      He felt obliged to intercede again.

      ‘I fail to see the point of these questions, Mr Bishari,’ he said.

      The Parquet man looked up, almost, strangely, with relief.

      ‘Are you questioning my conduct of the case, Captain Owen?’

      ‘I am questioning the purpose of these questions.’

      ‘Mr Fairclough has been attacked. They bear on the issue of possible motive.’

      ‘Surely the motive is clear? This is a terrorist attack.’

      ‘So you say, Captain Owen. But how can we be so sure? It seems to me that the reasons for the attack could well lie in Mr Fairclough’s private life.’

      So that was it! The Parquet had decided that this was potentially a political hot potato and didn’t want to have anything to do with it. They couldn’t refuse to handle it but by handling it in this way, treating it as a purely domestic matter and denying that there was any terrorist connection at all, they hoped to force the British into taking it out of their hands altogether.

      And СКАЧАТЬ