The Snake-Catcher’s Daughter. Michael Pearce
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Название: The Snake-Catcher’s Daughter
Автор: Michael Pearce
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Зарубежные детективы
isbn: 9780007485055
isbn:
‘Near the Place of Tombs? Right, I’ll go there.’
The Copts, the original inhabitants of the city – they had been there long before the Muslims arrived – were Christians, and were usually the first targets of any religious unrest.
He found the shop easily enough. There was a little knot of people standing in front of it. There was no broken glass. Shops in the traditional quarters, like the houses, did not have glass windows. They were open to the street. Instead, though, there were bits of wood lying everywhere. At night, the shopkeepers drew wooden shutters across their shops and these had obviously been broken open.
He couldn’t at first make out what kind of shop it was. All he could see, scattered about on the ground, were little gilt cylinders. Puzzled, he picked one up. It had three thin metal rings attached to it.
‘It’s for women to put on,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘It keeps the veil off the face.’
Seeing that Owen still did not understand – he knew little about technology and even less about female technology – he demonstrated by fitting it on himself. The cylinder went across the nose and the face veil was suspended from it. The rings held the cloth away from the nostrils and the mouth to allow passage of air.
Owen shrugged.
‘At least with this sort of stuff you don’t get much broken,’ he said.
‘It’s not the damage,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘It’s the – I’ll never feel the same again. We’ve lived here for twenty years. We thought we were liked by our neighbours. We thought we liked them. Now something like this happens!’
‘It’s not the neighbours, Guptos,’ said one of the bystanders quietly.
‘It’s someone in the Gamaliya,’ said the Copt bitterly. ‘Don’t tell me they came right across the city just to break up my shop!’
Owen went inside with him. At the back of the shop were some stairs which led to an upper storey. Some children, huddled on the stairs, peeped down at him.
‘It’s the effect on the kids,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘We’ve always let them run around, play with who they like. They’ve got friends … Now my wife is afraid to let them out of her sight.’
He bent down and began to pick up cylinders from the floor.
‘It’s not the shop I mind about,’ he said. ‘We can always start again. It’s the kids, my wife. How can she go to the suk and look them in the face, knowing what they’ve done? What they could do again? We’ll have to move.’
Owen looked around. The fittings of the shop were very simple. The walls were lined with shelves, as in a cupboard, on which the goods were stored. There was a low counter at the front on which, when a potential customer inquired, particular items could be displayed; or on which, typically, the shopkeeper would sit when he was not working. He worked on the ground behind the counter. Owen could see some tools scattered among the debris.
There was not, in fact, a lot of debris. This was not the moment to tell the man he was lucky; but he was. Owen had often seen worse. This did not look like the random, total violence that usually resulted when a mob ran amok. It was something measured, selected, perhaps, to send a message.
‘Why was it you?’ he asked.
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