The Snake-Catcher’s Daughter. Michael Pearce

to have a particular grudge against you?’

      ‘Not really. The Parquet handled it all. I was just one of the witnesses. Mind you, I set the traps.’

      ‘Perhaps that was it.’

      ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. There was nothing special about it.’

      ‘It caught him,’ Owen pointed out.

      ‘I’ve caught lots of people,’ said Garvin. ‘That doesn’t mean to say they all want revenge. No, if there was anyone who wanted to get his own back, it wouldn’t be him.’

      ‘Who would it be, then?’

      ‘His boss.’

      ‘Who was?’

      Garvin grinned.

      ‘Guess,’ he suggested.

      ‘The Mamur Zapt?’

      ‘You’ve been talking to someone.’

      ‘Georgiades. He suggested I talk to you!’

      Garvin was amused.

      ‘Prudent fellow,’ he said.

      ‘What’s it all about?’

      ‘It’s straightforward, really. It was not long after I moved here from Alexandria. There was a lot to sort out. My God, you’d never believe how much there was, they were back in the last century –’

      ‘McPhee here then?’

      ‘No, that was later. He came because of this. Anyway, one day I got home and found a small parcel on the hall table. I opened it and found a pair of diamond earrings. I was a bit surprised, thought my wife had been buying things; hell, we hadn’t got much money in those days, so I asked her about it when she got back. She didn’t know anything about the parcel. Anyway, I asked around and found that it had been brought by one of Philipides’s orderlies. So the next morning I had Philipides in and asked him about it. He said, big mistake, it was meant for someone else, the orderly had got confused. Anyway, I let him have the earrings back and thought no more about it.’

      ‘And what was Philipides at this time?’

      ‘He was a police inspector in the Abdin district and had the name of being the Mamur Zapt’s right-hand man. I didn’t put the two together though till some months later when I heard that one of my own officers had been pawning his wife’s jewellery to raise money to purchase promotion. Well, as you can imagine, I had him in. It took a bit of time but eventually I got from him that Philipides was demanding the money as the price of the Mamur Zapt’s recommendation.’

      Garvin looked at Owen.

      ‘It was significant in those days. The Commandant then was Wainwright and he didn’t have a clue. The Mamur Zapt just twisted him round his finger. What the Mamur Zapt said, went. Well, I was pretty shocked, I can tell you. I hadn’t realized things were as bad as that. I made some discreet inquiries and found that it was quite an accepted practice. But what the hell was I to do?’

      ‘If the officer had confessed –’

      Garvin gestured impatiently.

      ‘Yes, but, you see, I couldn’t go to Wainwright. I was just a new boy in those days and Deputy Commandant carried no clout. Wainwright took the Mamur Zapt’s word on everything.’

      ‘Yes, but if you had the evidence –’

      ‘It wasn’t enough. If it came to it, the Mamur Zapt could disown Philipides. Say it was nothing to do with him. I had to show there was a connection between the two.’

      ‘So how did you do it?’

      ‘Set a trap. I told the original officer to let Philipides know that he had confessed to me and then I tapped the telephone lines between Philipides and the Mamur Zapt.’

      ‘Telephone?’ The telephone system in Cairo was still in its infancy and largely consigned to Government offices; at the time Garvin was referring to, it would have been younger still.

      ‘Yes,’ Garvin replied, ‘The Mamur Zapt had one of the earliest ones.’

      ‘Did it work?’

      ‘Up to a point, yes. Philipides rang him that afternoon and said enough to incriminate the pair of them. I took it all down and showed it to Wainwright the next morning.’

      He walked over to the window and poured himself some water from the earthenware pitcher which stood next to the shutters of all Cairo offices where it would cool.

      ‘Even then it wasn’t simple,’ he said. ‘Wainwright just wouldn’t believe me. I had to go to the Consul-General. Over his head. That made me popular, I can tell you! In the end, I got the C-G to agree but it took three weeks to persuade Wainwright to suspend the two.’

      ‘By which time –’

      ‘No, they couldn’t very well destroy the evidence. They tried intimidation first, put a lot of pressure on the officer. I had to give him an armed guard. I was terrified he would give way. They tried it on me, too.’

      Owen smiled.

      ‘Yes, well, that didn’t get them very far,’ said Garvin. ‘But it was pretty unpleasant. I carried a gun with me all the time. Then they tried to discredit me. They dredged up the earrings. Said that I was in the habit of accepting presents and only made a fuss this time because I wanted more. Fortunately, I’d told Judge Willis all about it the day it happened. It just shows you can’t be too careful.’

      He pushed the shutters slightly apart to encourage a breeze. Normally they kept the offices dark and cool but the prolonged hot spell had made them like ovens.

      ‘Next, they said it was political.’

      ‘Political!’

      ‘Yes. They said it was all a trick to get Egyptians out and British in. They made great play of that when it came to the trial, and the Parquet was content to let it run because they wanted to make their own political point. They gave me a real grilling. Went on for days. Apart from the officer, and he was my subordinate, I was the chief witness, you see. To the telephone conversation, anyway, and that was crucial, because it was only that, really, that tied the Mamur Zapt in. In the end, though, it suited them to go for a conviction.’

      ‘Which they got.’

      ‘Yes. Well, I say “got”. Both were found guilty and sent to jail but the Mamur Zapt was released almost at once on compassionate grounds. He knew too much about all the people involved. The politicians were dead scared that if they didn’t look after him, he would spill all the beans.’

      ‘Where is he now?’

      ‘Enjoying a fat pension in Damascus.’

      ‘It sounds as if he’s got it all worked out,’ said Owen. ‘I’ll bear his example in mind.’

      ‘There are other examples, too, you might bear in mind,’ said Garvin. ‘Wainwright got the push shortly after. I got promotion.’

      ‘Thank you. What about McPhee?’

      ‘That bum!’

      ‘How does he come into it?’

      ‘Well, they needed a replacement as Mamur Zapt. The one thing he had to be, in the circumstances, was honest.’

      ‘Well, he is that,’ said Owen.

      ‘I managed to get it made temporary. The price was that when they filled the post he got moved sideways to Deputy Commandant. I’m trying to make that,’ said Garvin, ‘temporary, too.’

      In this hot weather, Owen liked to sleep outside. He had a small garden, which the house’s previous occupant, a Greek, had developed in the Mediterranean style rather than the English, more for shade than colour. It was thick with shrubs but there was a little open space beneath a large orange tree and it was here that Owen