Mamur Zapt 04 The Men Behind by Michael Pearce

Author:Michael Pearce [Pearce, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781464201363
Amazon: 1464201366
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Published: 2013-05-07T04:00:00+00:00

“I followed your advice,” said Ali Osman, “and retired to my estate.”

“This is your estate?”

Ali Osman looked around with an expression of distaste. “Yes,” he said, “unfortunately.”

The room was if anything slightly larger than the corresponding one in the Pasha’s Cairo house. Because of the heat there were fewer carpets on the walls, but the floor was as elaborately tiled, and over in the darkness a fountain was playing. Among the silk and leather cushions occasional little silver boxes caught the light from the lamps the servants were holding.

“It is so awful here,” Ali Osman complained. “The people are barbarous, there is nothing to do, no one to talk to.” He looked at Owen hopefully. “And what are you doing here, my friend? Surely you have not come here for your health too?”

Owen decided to tell him only half the truth.

“I am working on a case,” he said.

“A case? Down here? Alas, my friend, you must have fallen out of favor. Like me,” said the Pasha gloomily.

“The case concerns someone on your estate. A boy.”

“A boy?” said Ali Osman, reviving. “How interesting!”

“A student, Hamid, who killed himself with a bomb two years ago.”

“That is much less interesting,” said Ali Osman. “In fact that is not interesting at all.”

“You remember the boy?”

“Barely. Is he worth remembering?”

“You paid for his education.”

“A big mistake,” said Ali Osman. “Obviously.”

“What led you to select him?”

“Did I select him?”

“Someone selected him.”

“It was probably one of my servants.”

“You had nothing to do with it yourself?”

“I probably saw him,” Ali Osman granted. He frowned in concentration. “Did he have large ears?”

“You sent him to the School of Engineering.”

“Where apparently the only thing he learned was how to make a bomb.”

“Why did you send him to the School of Engineering?”

“I send them all there. In the hope that they might learn something useful. Useful to me, of course, not to them.”

“Do you send someone every year?”

“After that unfortunate incident,” said Ali Osman drily, “a gap seemed advisable.”

“A strange incident,” said Owen, “especially strange in that it happened at Hamada. In Cairo, yes, it would be nothing out of the ordinary. But in Hamada!”

“It just goes to show,” said Ali Osman, “that even on your estate you can’t be safe. I should have remembered that when you suggested coming here.”

“It was surely not intended for you.”

“Wasn’t it? Who else in Hamada is worth bombing?”

“Were you here at the time?”

“No.”

“Well, then—”

“They were preparing,” said Ali Osman, “getting ready for the next time I came.”

“They knew you would be coming.”

“Some time I would come,” said Ali Osman. “It might be years—I visit Hamada as infrequently as possible—but they would be ready. You don’t know these people. They are terrible people, backward. They store things in their hearts. For years. And then one day—poof!” He spread his hands.

“They would surely not be making a bomb just on the off chance—”

“Education,” said Ali Osman, “that’s at the root of it. It’s a big mistake trying to educate these people. It just fills their heads with idle nonsense.

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