Mamur Zapt 08 The Snake Catcher’s Daughter by Michael Pearce

Author:Michael Pearce [Pearce, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: det_history
Published: 2014-07-15T13:16:26.559330+00:00

“A lot of nonsense,” said Owen, when they were alone.

“Is it?” said Mahmoud.

“Yes,” said Owen, “it certainly is.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Mahmoud. “Garvin is an ambitious man.”

“It wouldn’t have been Mustapha Mir’s job that he wanted,” Owen pointed out. “It would have been Wainwright’s.”

“And he got it,” said Mahmoud.

“That was later. That was nothing to do with this.”

Mahmoud, however, looked thoughtful.

“There are obvious weaknesses in the story,” said Owen.

Mahmoud nodded.

“Yes, but I will have to check them. I will have to investigate his accusations too, though.” He looked at Owen. “That means going through the files.”

“Whose files?”

“Yours, perhaps,” said Mahmoud. “Or rather, Mustapha Mir’s.”

Owen was silent. There was a lot of secret material in the Mamur Zapt’s files. Would the Administration agree?

“More to the point,” said Mahmoud, “I shall have to go through the Commandant’s files. Did Wainwright authorize Mustapha Mir to conduct an investigation into corruption in the Police Force? If he did, there ought to be some reference to it in the files.”

“Garvin’s sitting on those files now,” said Owen.

“I shall have to ask him to release them.”

Owen was silent again. Garvin, he felt sure, had nothing to hide, but he might well object to opening his files to the Parquet. It was the principle of the thing, he would say. The Commandant of the Cairo Police was such an important post that its incumbent was appointed directly by the Khedive, not by the Minister of Justice. There was a reason for that. The Ministry was responsible for the administration of justice; but the Commandant was responsible for maintaining order, and the Khedive cared a lot more about maintaining order than he did about justice.

It could be put, too, another way. The Khedive appointed the Commandant on the direct advice of the British Administration, and the British were even more interested in maintaining order than they were in the administration of justice. The niceties of the legal administration they were quite happy to leave to the Egyptians; the exercise of power, though, they wished to keep to themselves.

The British Administration was advisory only. In theory, the Khedive and his ministers could reject that advice. In practice, because of the Egyptian Government’s financial dependence on Britain, and because of the large British army stationed in Egypt, the advice was not something the Egyptians could easily disregard.

The British were punctilious in observing the advisory form. On the one hand it gave them something they could shelter behind; on the other, it saved the Khedive’s self-respect.

Up to a point. As the years went by, and memory of the financial crisis receded into the background, the Khedive became increasingly restless. So did ambitious ministers. And so, much, much more so, did the growing forces of Egyptian Nationalism. There were many now, especially among the young professionals, who were eager to challenge the advisory form, to bring matters to a head over whether the British were here as advisers only or whether they were here to rule by force. The young lawyers of the Parquet, for instance.

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