The new secret police chief of Egypt - the Mamur Zapt - is an English appointed agent - although Owen says he is Welsh. He must keep a lid on all the revolutionary parties before the country rebels. A few bystanders take an interest in the police procedures of the ParquetThey became aware that a small crowd was watching them with interest.“I think your half million is beginning to arrive,” said Owen.“It’s unreal to reconstruct without a crowd,” said Mahmoud. “It’s impossible with one.”He walked across the Place to where Fakhri might have observed the scene from his arabeah. For a moment he stood there looking. Then he walked slowly back to Owen.“Just fixing it in my mind,” he said, “before I talk to them.”Two heavily laden brick carts emerged at the same time from adjoining streets and then continued across the Place abreast of each other. A car coming out of the Sharia el Teatro was obliged to brake suddenly and skidded across in front of two arabeahs which had just pulled out of the pavement. All three drivers jumped down from their vehicles and began to abuse the drivers of the brick carts, who themselves felt obliged to descend to the ground, the better to put their own point of view. Other vehicles came to a halt and other drivers joined in. Some Passover sheep, painted in stripes and with silver necklaces around their necks, which had been trotting peacefully along beside the Ezbekiyeh Gardens, abandoned the small boy who was herding them and wandered out into the middle of the traffic. In a moment all was confusion and uproar. The Place, that is, had returned to normal.“That,” said Mahmoud resignedly, “is that.”Some one in the British army is selling arms to Egyptian Nationalists“The trouble is,” said Owen, “the Sirdar will never do anything.”“Oh yes he will. This time. The Agent was on to him directly. He’s at risk, too. Great minds think alike for once.”“You reckon the memo might have some effect?”“It already has. Sirdar’s already kicked some people up the ass.”“He has?” said Owen happily.“He certainly has.”Paul leaned forward and spoke a trifle more quietly but just as vehemently.“And with bloody good reason,” he said. “Because do you know what came out? The Old Man demanded to know if anything had been stolen recently. The SPG had to tell him. And—can you believe it? It turned out that a box of grenades had vanished from Kantara barracks only last Tuesday! Grenades! A box! Jesus!”“Kantara?” said Owen. “That’s interesting.”“Is it? Well, perhaps it is to you. I must say, Gareth, they’re pretty impressed with you. Timely prescience, the Agent called it. Even the Sirdar thought it was damn good intelligence work.”“Well, there you are,” said Owen modestly.“But what interests me,” said Paul, “was that it was a whole bloody box. Could cause absolute havoc if they start chucking a few of those around. And it’s just when we’ve got all the festivals coming up! We’ve got the Carpet next week and the place will be stiff with notables all hanging around for someone to take a pot shot at. Even the Khedive has been persuaded to come to receive the plaudits of his loyal and appreciative subjects. And I’m organizing our side! Christ!”“The Agent?”“And the Sirdar!”“McPhee’s very good,” said Owen.“He’ll have to be,” said Paul gloomily, “if the Army is issuing arms to the whole population of Egypt.”Family ties and obligations bind all of Egypt togetherYou remember that girl? Leila? The one my father made pregnant?” asked Zeniab.“Mustafa’s wife’s—”“So that’s his name, is it?” she said. “Yes. That one. Well, my father is not such a monster as you think. He always looks after the women. He asked Guzman to take her in as a washerwoman. Guzman is an old friend of his. They worked together for the Khedive even before my father became a minister. I was coming to see how she was.”“I thought she was staying with relatives?”“She is. She comes in daily. They live not far from here. They are very poor. They couldn’t manage if she didn’t work.”“Mustafa spoke of others providing. Did he mean your father?”“Surely not,” she said. “He would never accept anything from my father. That’s why my father had to be indirect.”Sometimes it seemed to Owen that the whole of Egypt was bound together by intricate, interlinked systems of obligations, favours and rewards, subtle reciprocities, often to do with family, which connected people in unexpected ways. It was an immensely powerful moral system and if you lived in Egypt you could not escape its pressure. “This is my brother’s son,” Yussuf had said one day, presenting a grubby little urchin, and Owen had known that he was expected to do something about it. McPhee had found the boy a place in the stables and Yussuf’s standing with his family had been saved.While you watch the Mamur Zapt recover the missing grenades you can also admire the stately architecture and market places of old Cairo.Enjoy!