The Men Behind by Michael Pearce Read Free Book Online Page A

Fact is, I’m not very good with ordinary women. Can’t manage the talk. Need sex, of course, every man does. But can’t manage the patter.”
    “Ordinary women?” said Mohammed Bishari.
    “That’s right.”
    “Ordinary English women,” said Bishari.
    “I don’t think we need to go into this, do we?” Owen interposed. “Mr. Fairclough has been very frank about a particular form of social inadequacy he suffers from. Surely there is no point in pressing that further?”
    “Would you allow me to be the judge of that, please, Captain Owen?” said Bishari, looking at him coldly.
    He continued with his questions. It was obvious that Ibrahim had provided him with a whole list of women he had procured. He went through them one by one.
    Fairclough had turned a permanent brick red.
    Owen could not see what Bishari was playing at. Was he just trying to humiliate Fairclough? Was this some kind of personal Nationalist revenge?
    He felt obliged to intercede again.
    “I fail to see the point of these questions, Mr. Bishari,” he said.
    The Parquet man looked up, almost, strangely, with relief.
    “Are you questioning my conduct of the case, Captain Owen?”
    “I am questioning the purpose of these questions.”
    “Mr. Fairclough has been attacked. They bear on the issue of possible motive.”
    “Surely the motive is clear? This is a terrorist attack.”
    “So you say, Captain Owen. But how can we be so sure? It seems to me that the reasons for the attack could well lie in Mr. Fairclough’s private life.”
    So that was it! The Parquet had decided that this was potentially a political hot potato and didn’t want to have anything to do with it. They couldn’t refuse to handle it but by handling it in this way, treating it as a purely domestic matter and denying that there was any terrorist connection at all, they hoped to force the British into taking it out of their hands altogether.
    And incurring any possible odium.
    Mohammed Bishari was watching him.
    “Of course, if you object to my conduct of the case it is always open to the Administration to terminate my connection with it.”
    And that, from the point of view of the Parquet, would be even better. If the British could be persuaded, or provoked, into rejecting them publicly then they would not only escape odium, they might even gain credit in the eyes of the Nationalists.
    Owen smiled sweetly.
    “Far from objecting to your conduct of the case, I am looking forward to an extended opportunity to study the obvious talent of the Parquet in action. Just for the moment, however, I am sure you will agree that Mr. Fairclough has been under very considerable strain recently and would benefit from a recess: quite a long one, I think, will be necessary.”
     
    Paul rang.
    “There’s a perfectly loathsome fellow I would like you to meet.”
    “No, thanks,” said Owen. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
    “I know you are saving Cairo. And ordinarily I would not dream of interrupting you. But this abominable creature has been left on my hands and he
will
insist on seeing the night life of Cairo.”
    “Look—”
    “I am all for letting him go on his own in the hope that he won’t come back. However, the Consul-General and the Khedive take a different view. He’s a member of that delegation that’s visiting us and they think he ought to have an escort. Given the present situation. And the fact that they think they can get some money out of him.”
    “Can’t you escort him?”
    “No. I’m already escorting somebody else. The one I’m escorting is a Temperance Performer and I don’t think she and Roper would mix.”
    “What about young Bowden?”
    “Young Bowden’s too young. I like to think he doesn’t know the sort of places Roper is bent on going to. And he wouldn’t be up to it anyway. Roper’s a hard case—he’s spent some years in the diamond fields down south. Things could get out of hand. We need someone more mature and used to