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his clothes.
    ‘We knew the cursed British were raiding the houses and putting the women into prison,’ Musa began. ‘They set up a camp at Hilmiya. But my master only laughed. He had too many
friends in high places, he said. No one could touch him. And no one did – until one night there came two men sent by the mudir of the police himself, and they took my master away, still in
his beautiful white garments. They say that when Harvey Pasha saw him, he was very angry and called him rude names.’
    ‘I’m not surprised,’ Ramses murmured. Harvey Pasha, commander of the Cairo police, was honest, extremely straitlaced, and rather stupid. He probably hadn’t even been
aware of el-Gharbi’s existence until someone – Russell? – pointed out to him that he had missed the biggest catch of all. Ramses could only imagine the look on Harvey’s face
when el-Gharbi waddled in, draped in women’s robes and glittering with jewels.
    Musa captured a flea and cracked it expertly between his thumbnails. ‘He is now in Hilmiya, my poor master, and I, his poor servant, have come to this. The world is a hard place, Brother
of Demons.’
    Even harder for the women whose only crime had been to do the bidding of their pimps and their clients – many of them British and Empire soldiers. Ramses couldn’t honestly say he was
sorry for el-Gharbi, but he was unhappily aware that the situation had probably worsened since the procurer had been arrested. El-Gharbi had ruled the Red Blind district with an iron hand and his
women had been reasonably well treated; he had undoubtedly been replaced by a number of smaller businessmen whose methods were less humane. The filthy trade could never be completely repressed.
    ‘My master wishes to talk with you,’ Musa said. ‘Do you have a cigarette?’
    So Musa had been on the lookout for him, and had put himself deliberately in Ramses’s way. Somewhat abstractedly Ramses offered the tin. Musa took it, extracted a cigarette, and calmly
tucked the tin away in the folds of his robe.
    ‘How am I supposed to manage that?’ Ramses demanded.
    ‘Surely you have only to ask Harvey Pasha.’
    ‘I have no influence with Harvey Pasha, and if I did, I wouldn’t be inclined to spend it on favours for el-Gharbi. Does he want to ask me to arrange his release?’
    ‘I do not know. Have you another cigarette?’
    ‘You took all I had,’ Ramses said.
    ‘Ah. Would you like one?’ He extracted the tin and offered it.
    ‘Thank you, no. Keep them,’ he added.
    The irony was wasted on Musa, who thanked him effusively, and held out a suggestive hand. ‘What shall I tell my master?’
    Ramses dropped a few coins into the outstretched palm, and cut short Musa’s pleas for more. ‘That I can’t do anything for him. Let el-Gharbi sweat it out in the camp for a few
months. He’s too fat anyhow. And if I know him, he has his circle of supporters and servants even in Hilmiya, and methods of getting whatever he wants. How did he communicate with
you?’
    ‘There are ways,’ Musa murmured.
    ‘I’m sure there are. Well, give him my . . .’ He tried to think of the right word. The only ones that came to mind were too friendly or too courteous. On the other hand, the
procurer had been a useful source of information in the past, and might be again. ‘Tell him you saw me and that I asked after him.’
    He added a few more coins and went back to the hospital. Dr Sophia greeted him with her usual smiling reserve. Ramses admired her enormously, but never felt completely at ease with her, though
he realized there was probably nothing personal in her lack of warmth. She had to deal every day with the ugly results of male exploitation of women. It would not be surprising if she had a
jaundiced view of all men.
    He met the new surgeon, a stocky, grey-haired American woman, who measured him with cool brown eyes before offering a handclasp as hard as that of most men. Ramses had heard Nefret
congratulating