The Men Behind by Michael Pearce Page A

if that’s what you’re saying? All you’re doing is putting a price on it.”
    “Yes, but they think it’s theirs. Which, in a way, it is, of course. They think the Government’s taken away what rightfully belongs to them.”
    “Yes, but they’re not going to blame you for that, surely?”
    “As far as they’re concerned, I’m the Government,” said Fairclough dolefully.
    “Christ, that’s down in bloody Hamada!”
    “It’s the only time I’ve been out of the office, you see. They sent me down there specially.”
    “I don’t think that’s got anything to do with it. I think the reason why you got picked out was simply that you were the one they saw riding past.”
    “Dare say you’re right.” Fairclough examined his glass. “Got an apology to make,” he said. “All that stuff. The women, you know. You don’t want to hear about that kind of thing. Sorry to inflict it on you.”
    “You didn’t,” said Owen. “It was that bastard, Mohammed Bishari.”
    “All the same,” said Fairclough. He looked into his glass. “Needs of the flesh,” he mumbled.
    “I let it go on too long,” said Owen. “I didn’t want to butt in because it’s really the Parquet’s business. They’re supposed to be conducting the investigation.”
    “Thought you were?”
    “Formally it’s their responsibility. I just—look over their shoulder.”
    “Glad somebody’s looking,” said Fairclough. “Don’t want the damned thing to happen again.”
     
    “Salt?” said Mohammed Bishari incredulously. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s got anything to do with it. I think the reason why they picked him out was simply that he was riding past.”
    “Glad you said that,” said Owen. “I thought the last time we met that you were on a different tack.”
    Bishari had the grace to look embarrassed. “Sometimes you have to take a different line,” he muttered.
    They were sitting, amicably enough, at a table outside a small café. Reflecting in the bar on the part played by hospitality in easing social communication, his conscience stirred by the conversation with Fairclough, Owen had come to the conclusion that it was time to do the equivalent of buying the Parquet investigator a drink.
    Unfortunately, Mohammed Bishari did not drink; and when Owen had made tentative approaches towards a social
rapprochement
they had been rebuffed. That they were there at all, and sitting amicably, was due to the efforts of the third person at the table, a friend of Owen’s, Mahmoud el Zaki.
    Mahmoud, like Bishari, was in the Parquet. He was a younger man than Bishari but already higher than him, something which might make for difficulty if he interceded too openly.
    “It doesn’t have to be a formal meeting,” Owen had said. “In fact, it would be better if it wasn’t. Couldn’t you arrange an accident?”
    Mahmoud’s fancy had been tickled by this and he had arranged it with gusto. It had been easy to find a pretext for inviting Bishari to take coffee with him. And it was only natural that Owen, passing by, should pause to greet his friend. Equally natural that he should be invited to join them for coffee.
    “What tack did you think Mohammed was on?” asked Mahmoud.
    “It’s this Fairclough case,” said Owen.
    “The man on the donkey?”
    “Exactly. The victim, as we both now agree, of a terrorist attack. In his questioning, though, Mr. Bishari was probing the possibility of private motives.”
    “One has to explore all avenues,” Bishari said defensively, “especially when, as in this case, there turns out to be a history.”
    “But I take it that now you are satisfied that the examples belong to history?”
    “History has a way of repeating itself,” said Mohammed Bishari drily.
    “And although the examples may belong to history, their effects may not,” said Mahmoud.
    “I don’t think it was like that here,” said Owen.
    “You would be inclined to discount such effects, though,