The Fig Tree Murder (5 page)

‘Leila’s sister.’

‘The murdered man’s wife,’ said Owen.

‘You lie, woman!’ shouted the sheikh.

‘I don’t lie!’ said the woman defiantly. ‘It’s true! He’s always had an eye for her. Some say he wanted to marry her and not the other one. I don’t know about that but I do know he’s always had an eye for her, even after he got married.’

‘Did you talk to the wife’s family?’ Owen asked Mahmoud quietly.

‘I did. But I didn’t talk to her.’

‘It is possible,’ Sheikh Isa grudgingly acknowledged. ‘Though unseemly!’ He glared at the old woman.

‘Of course, she doesn’t come from our village,’ said the old woman cunningly.

‘That’s true!’ said Sheikh Isa, struck.

‘Where does she come from?’ asked Owen.

‘Tel-el-Hasan.’

‘I must go there,’ said Sheikh Isa, ‘and tell Sheikh Riyad. Together we will denounce her!’

‘Hold back a little,’ said Mahmoud. ‘We do not know yet that she was the one.’

‘He had an eye for her; we know that, don’t we?’

‘Yes, but we don’t know that she had an eye for him.’

‘He wouldn’t have looked in her direction if she hadn’t lured him, would he? Whores! Whores! They’re all whores!’ shouted Sheikh Isa, as he hurried away.

Tel-el-Hasan, where the wife’s family came from, was a village less than two miles away. Like Matariya, it was a cluster of trees. Although the villages were some four or five miles away from the Nile, they were connected to it by irrigation channels. Their chief course of water, however, was the main Khalig Canal, which became the Ismailiya Canal just beyond Matariya. Again, they were not directly on the canal but connected to it through the irrigation system, a mass of small channels, ditches and furrows which ran water across the fields. There was, though, probably at both Matariya and Tel-el-Hasan, an underground supply of water which the wells were tapping and which accounted for the dense foliage of the trees.

In one of the
gadwals
, or ditches, two small boys were fighting. Mahmoud, for justice even among small boys, stepped down into the ditch and pulled them apart.

‘He’s smaller than you,’ he remonstrated.

‘It’s a blood feud,’ said the bigger boy.

‘Shame on you! In the same village?’

‘He’s not really of this village,’ said the bigger boy.

‘Yes, I am,’ said the smaller boy tearfully.

‘No, you’re not. That’s his house over there!’

He pointed to a small house on the outskirts or, if you were pedantic, just beyond the outskirts of the village.

‘That counts as village,’ said Mahmoud firmly, and let the boys scamper off.

‘Even that little distance!’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It makes two miles away seem like a foreign country.’

‘They marry between villages, though,’ said Owen.

‘They have to. The trouble is, it doesn’t diminish the distance.’

‘Was the family bent on feud?’

‘They wouldn’t say. They wouldn’t say anything.’

‘You know, this could be solved. It doesn’t have to turn into a blood feud. From the point of view of the woman’s family, no blood has been shed.’

‘From the point of view of the man’s family it has, though. If they think it was one of the wife’s family, they’ll want revenge.’

‘Why should it be one of the wife’s family?’

‘Honour.’

‘Do they care about the woman that much?’

‘No. But they do care about the family and they say the family’s been slighted.’

‘Ibrahim’s family could pay recompense.’

‘Recompense is the last thing it’s thinking of at the moment. One of its men has been killed and it wants revenge.’

‘It could pay a little and send the wife back.’

‘That would make it worse. The wife’s family would say it showed a lack of respect. Funnily enough, I think Ibrahim’s family would take that view too. They’ve got no thought of sending her back. They don’t like her particularly, all she’s had are two daughters, it’s just an extra burden on them—and yet it hasn’t entered their heads to send her back. She became part of the family by marriage and now it’s their job to look after her. No, what they’re really interested in is the man. A man’s been killed, their man, and that must be paid for.’

Owen nodded. When he had first come to Egypt he had spent a few months patrolling the desert and knew about feuds and the tribal code of honour.

‘The danger is,’ he said, ‘that they’ll kill someone in the wife’s family, and then there’ll be another death to be paid for, and so it’ll go on.’

‘These villagers!’ said Mahmoud.

‘Let’s hope it’s not someone in the wife’s family.’

‘Let’s hope we find out who it is,’ said Mahmoud, ‘before they do.’

The roof of the house was piled high with brushwood, vegetables and buffalo dung, all in close proximity to each other. From the corners of the roof, strings of onions dangled down, each onion as vast as a melon. Poor the people might be, hungry they were not. Where there was such food there must be men to earn it or grow it, and, sure enough, inside the house there were three of them.

‘You again?’ said the older brother unwelcomingly to Mahmoud.

‘It is justice for your sister that I seek,’ said Mahmoud softly.

‘We will look after that.’

‘No,’ said Mahmoud, shaking his head. ‘You will not.’

The brother stared at him for a moment and then looked at Owen.

‘Who is he?’

‘The Mamur Zapt.’

The man flinched slightly. Old memories, the old legend, died hard.

‘What is it you want?’

‘To talk to Khadija.’

‘Khadija! There is no point. Talk to us.’

‘I talked to you the other day,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Now I would talk with Khadija.’

The men looked at each other.

‘She is not here,’ said one of the other brothers defiantly.

‘Then I will wait until she returns,’ said Mahmoud, settling himself comfortably.

‘You cannot speak with her!’

‘Why is it important that I do not speak with her?’

‘It is not important; she is a woman, that is all.’

‘Would you like my friend to go into the women’s quarters and fetch her out? He has the right.’

It was true. The Mamur Zapt had right of entry into all houses in Cairo, including harems. Whether that right extended as far out as Tel-el-Hasan, however, was questionable.

It was also questionable how far the right could be made to stick. Only two years before, not far from here, a policeman had been shot while conducting his investigations.

Owen stirred, as if ready to get to his feet. The men looked at each other.

A woman came through the door which led to the inner room.

‘Let them talk to me,’ she said.

‘Khadija?’

She nodded.

‘I will do the talking,’ said the eldest brother.

The woman stood with arms folded. She was not exactly veiled, but had pulled her headdress across her face so that they could not see it.

‘Did you know Ibrahim?’ asked Mahmoud, putting his question, however, not to her but to her brother, as was the convention.

‘How could she?’ said the brother.

‘I am asking her.’

‘I knew my sister’s husband,’ she said quietly.

‘She knew him as a sister-in-law should.’

‘I have no doubt about that. But was it the same with him? Would he have known her, that is, would he have liked to have known her, in a different way?’

‘You’ll have to ask him,’ said one of the other brothers, and laughed.

‘That is a disrespectful question,’ said the oldest brother.

‘It has to be asked. For others are asking it too.’

‘They are?’

The oldest brother’s cheeks tautened.

‘That village makes a jest of us, brother,’ said one of the others angrily.

Mahmoud held up his hand.

‘Not a jest. And they show no disrespect. For all they say is that he behaved disrespectfully to you.’

‘In disrespecting us,’ said the woman angrily, ‘he disrespected my sister.’

‘It was, however, by eye alone?’

‘He would have liked it otherwise.’

‘But it was by eye alone?’

‘With me, it was. But not with my sister. With her it was by deed.’

‘He shamed her publicly,’ growled one of the brothers.

‘By going to Jalila?’

‘Every night. He made no secret of it. And nor did she. “I can give you sons,” she said, “even if your wife can’t.” ’

‘Who was she to talk?’ said the woman fiercely. ‘How many sons had she? At least Leila had had daughters. And sons would have come. They always do in our family. Look at them!’

She pointed to her brothers.

‘I am puzzled,’ said Owen. ‘First, he left your sister for Jalila. And then he would have left Jalila for you?’

‘If he had had the chance!’ said Khadija.

‘He wouldn’t have got the chance,’ said one of the brothers angrily. ‘What do you think we are: men who make their sisters into whores?’

‘Whores!’ shouted a familiar voice in the street.

Owen and Mahmoud looked at each other.

‘Oh God!’ said Owen. ‘It’s Sheikh Isa!’

Out in the street was Sheikh Isa, together with another religious sheikh, as old, venerable and, probably, as irascible as himself, supported by an interested crowd of onlookers.

‘This is untimely!’ said Owen.

‘God’s work does not wait on man’s convenience,’ said Sheikh Isa unyieldingly.

‘God’s work? You call it God’s work to come to a house and denounce a woman who may well be guiltless?’

‘Innocence is for God to judge, not man!’ bellowed the sheikh. ‘Man looks only at incidentals but God sees into the very heart!’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my heart!’ said Khadija stoutly.

‘There’ll be something wrong with yours in a minute!’ said one of the brothers, diving back into the house.

Mahmoud caught him as he re-emerged carrying a rifle.

‘Enough!’ shouted Owen.

He forced the gun out of the man’s hands and covered the other two.

‘Stay where you are!’

‘To the
caracol
with them!’ shouted Sheikh Isa, enraged.

Mahmoud looked at Owen.

‘That might not be such a bad idea.’

Owen nodded.

‘Fetch me rope!’ he commanded.

Some men ran into a nearby house and returned with a coil.

‘I’m arresting you,’ said Mahmoud to the brother he was holding. He tied the man’s hands.

‘And you! And you!’ he said to the other brothers.

‘We haven’t done anything!’ shouted the brothers.

‘Let’s keep it like that. Turn round!’

‘What about me?’ cried Khadija.

‘Whore!’ shouted Sheikh Isa. ‘You’re the one who started it all!’

One of the brothers made a grab for the gun. Owen brought it down on his arm. Mahmoud caught him from behind and tied his hands deftly.

‘You stay out of this!’ Owen said to Sheikh Isa. ‘You stay here!’ he said to Khadija.

‘And you,’ he said to the other sheikh, ‘see that she comes to no harm!’

Mahmoud finished tying the brothers and stepped back.

‘Why are you doing this to them?’ demanded Khadija.

‘To save them from being shot,’ said Owen in an aside.

The station at Matariya did not amount to much. It was merely a stop in the desert. There was no platform and no building, apart from a water tower. There was normally, however, a ticket collector, who sat on a chair under a solitary acacia tree and took tickets when they were offered.

This morning, though, when Owen climbed down from the train, he was not there. The chair stood in its usual place, unoccupied. Owen, who had been under the impression that the collector was permanently fixed to it, was a little surprised; surprised, too, that at this halt, when normally the only things moving were the little desert sparrows that liked to assemble on the arm that swung out from the water tower, there were people scurrying about.

When the train pulled out he saw what it was all about. On the other side of the track, about a hundred yards away, was a large ostrich pen and this morning it was the scene of considerable commotion. Great birds were running agitatedly about the pen, flapping their huge wings as if attempting to take off. They ran manically, not heeding where they were going, and from time to time one bore down on the fence near the station. Whenever that happened, men working on the fence would rush out and wave their arms and shout and at the last moment the huge bird, about nine feet high and twenty stones in weight, would panic and swerve and head off again across the desert.

It was all very exciting and Owen could see at once why it had attracted a crowd of onlookers, including the ticket collector. He could see now, too, that there was a gap in the fence, which the men were working on.

This side of the fence, near the track, a man was lying on the ground and a small group of people were bending over him. Owen walked across.

The man was holding his neck and groaning.

‘Be of good cheer, Ja’affar,’ said one of the men bending over him. ‘We have sent for the barber.’

‘I don’t need a barber,’ groaned the man on the ground, ‘I need a
hakim
!

‘The barber is cheaper, Ja’affar,’ advised one of the men. Ja’affar just groaned.

‘Perhaps Zaghlul will send for a
hakim
,’ suggested another of the men.

‘Zaghlul?’ said the man on the ground. ‘Not if it costs money! He might send for the sheikh to pray for me.’

‘Here is an effendi,’ said one of the men. ‘Perhaps he is a
hakim
!

‘I am afraid not,’ said Owen. ‘But let a
hakim
be summoned and I will pay.’

He looked down at the man on the ground.

‘Why, it’s you!’ he said, surprised, recognizing the man he’d spoken to with Asif. ‘Of course! You work at the farm.’

‘That bloody bird! I didn’t see it coming.’

‘It got through the fence, Ja’affar, and ran away.’

‘Did it? Well, old man Zaghlul will be more worried about that than about me!’

‘Owen! Owen! Is that you?’ called a voice.

Owen looked up. There, surprisingly, was Malik, the Pasha’s son; and there, even more surprisingly, for such things had only just come to Egypt, was a shining, brand-new motor car. ‘Come on! Get in!’

Owen walked over.

‘A bird has got out! We’ll have a hunt!’

‘Well, I don’t know—’

‘Come on, man. Get in!’

‘There’s a man who’s been hurt—’

‘A broken collarbone! Nothing!’

Malik took him by the arm and almost dragged him in.

‘Remember! I’ll pay for the
hakim
,’ Owen called over his shoulder.

‘You don’t need to do that, old boy,’ said Malik. ‘These fellows are pretty hardy. A few days’ rest will put him right. He’ll be back to work in no time.’

‘The air here is very good,’ said one of the other men in the car. ‘Very healthy.’

There were two other men in the car—Egyptians, and very rich. There was also a remarkable array of guns.

‘Grabbed all I had,’ said Malik. ‘I don’t know which one will be best for the job. Never shot an ostrich before.’

‘Do we have to shoot it?’

‘Oh yes. Why not?’

‘Well, it’s…wouldn’t you call it farm stock?’

‘I’d call it game. Or wild fowl. Yes, wild fowl, I think. That would suggest a fowling piece. We have a fowling piece, don’t we, Ahmed? Or perhaps that’s too light. It’s a big bird, after all. Yes, definitely too light. One of the others, then.’

The car bounced over the desert.

‘It’s the only way,’ said Malik.

‘Only way?’

‘To hunt. Tried it on horse but you never get close enough. Not with gazelles, you don’t. An ostrich would be about the same, don’t you think? Pretty fast.’

‘It’s got a small head, Malik,’ said one of the other men.

‘Have to be the body, then. Even that will be tricky. Moving target, moving gun platform. Damned exciting! Exciting, isn’t it, Owen?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Glad I spotted you. We’ll go into the Racing Club afterwards for a bit of lunch. They ought to stand us lunch, you know. After shooting an ostrich. Doing them a favour.’

‘Doing them a favour?’

‘Yes. The damned birds are always getting out and attacking the racehorses.’

‘I don’t think they actually
attack
them, Malik. It’s just that they scare them.’

‘Same thing, isn’t it? They’re a damned nuisance. Someone ought to speak to that old fool, Zaghlul.’

‘We do. Often.’

‘That farm is a liability.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Malik,’ objected one of the others. ‘It’s very picturesque, don’t you think? Interesting for the tourists.’

‘Well, make it more interesting,’ said Malik. ‘Turn it into a game reserve. Sell shooting rights. God, that’s an idea! I say, I’m quite a businessman, aren’t I? What an idea! Let’s put it to the Syndicate.’

‘Old man Zaghlul will never agree.’

‘Buy him out. I’ll get the Syndicate to buy him out.’

‘I think it’s tried, Malik. It would like the land. But Zaghlul will have none of it.’

‘We’ll have to make him see reason, then.’

Over on the horizon, Owen suddenly saw a group of horsemen.

‘Over there! Over there!’ shouted Ahmed excitedly.

Malik pointed the car towards them and sounded his horn. ‘Tally ho!’ shouted Ahmed. He looked at Owen. ‘That’s what they shout in England, don’t they?’

‘I imagine so.’

They didn’t go in for hunts much in the part of Wales that he came from.

The car bumped crazily across the desert, threatening at every moment to throw them out.

‘Damned exciting, isn’t it?’ said Malik, teeth gleaming.

They came up with the horsemen. An old man in ragged Bedouin dress and with a rifle slung on his back rode over to them and gesticulated angrily.

Malik took no notice.

‘By God, there it is!’ he shouted.

For out in the desert in front of them a solitary ostrich wheeled and scudded.

‘Tally ho!’ cried Malik, leading the car in its direction.

The horsemen scattered. Owen just had time to see the old Bedouin unslinging his gun and then he had to cling on for dear life.

‘Load the gun, Ahmed!’ shouted Malik.

‘Which one?’

‘Any one!’

The ostrich, startled, ran before them.

‘You’re gaining, Malik!’

‘Got the gun?’

But just at that moment the front wheels of the car ran into a deep drift. They all pitched forward. Owen suddenly found himself sprawling across the bonnet.

‘Give me the gun!’ shouted Malik.

Owen hauled himself back.

There was a loud explosion.

Ahead, the ostrich checked, veered and then ran off at right angles.

‘Try another one, Malik!’

But the distance was now too great. Malik, disgustedly, climbed out of the car. Across the desert Owen saw groups of horsemen converging on the ostrich.

It took them nearly an hour to dig themselves out of the drift and to get going again. The car bumped across to where, now, the horsemen seemed to have the ostrich secured.

It was lying on the ground trapped in a huge net. The men had tied its feet together. It lay there, sides heaving. Men were holding its neck. From time to time it reached round and tried to peck at their hands.

Malik sighed.

‘Damned difficult shot!’ he said. ‘It would have been a beauty if I’d brought it off. How about a drink?’

‘Vermin!’ said the man at the bar of the Racing Club. ‘That’s what they are!’

‘Heard my idea?’ said Malik happily. ‘Turn the damned farm into a game reserve. Sell shooting rights. It would be a big attraction.’

‘Ostriches and horses don’t mix,’ said the first man. ‘The ostriches frighten the horses and the horses frighten the ostriches. You’ve got to keep them apart. That farm’s too close to the racetrack.’

‘It’s three miles away!’ objected someone.

‘That’s not far if they’re going to break out. And what about the training gallops?’

‘They’re not going to be breaking out all the time!’

‘I should hope not. They’re damned dangerous beasts. Break a horse’s leg in no time.’

‘Dangerous, are they?’ said one of the Belgians uneasily. ‘We’ll have to watch that. An ostrich farm is one thing—in fact, it could be quite attractive, couldn’t it? An unusual feature—but if they’re dangerous, it’s quite another.’

‘Could you pay the old man to put them down?’

‘How many are there?’

‘Several hundred.’

‘Cost too much. And he might not be willing.’

‘My idea’s better,’ said Malik. ‘Get people to pay to put them down.’

‘I say, Malik, there’s a woman!’

They all scurried across to the window.

‘It’s Salah-el-Din’s girl.’

‘A bit bold, isn’t she?’

‘I’m going over,’ said Malik, making for the door. ‘You coming?’ he said over his shoulder to Owen.

‘I don’t think so. In fact’—he glanced at his watch—‘I ought to be making a move.’

‘Don’t go yet,’ said one of the Belgians. ‘We’d like to have a word with you.’

They led him away into a corner of the barroom and ordered more drinks. From where he was sitting he could see out through the window. Beside the racetrack was a strip of newly planted grass and on it a girl was walking. A servant held a parasol over her head.

‘A little forward, yes?’ said one of the Belgians.

‘All right on the boulevards,’ said Raoul, the one he’d played tennis with. ‘But here?’

‘She’s very young,’ said Owen.

‘Their tastes are different here.’

As he watched, he saw Salah-el-Din come up and join her and then, a moment after, Malik at the run.

‘An ambitious man, Salah,’ said one of the Belgians. ‘He has big plans.’

‘It’s not always a good idea for a district mamur to have big plans,’ said Owen.

‘No. And you yourself: do you have big plans?’

‘It’s not always a good idea for British officials to have big plans, either.’

‘Not in the sense you mean, no. But you must make plans of some sort. You have to retire so early. Then what?’

‘Good question,’ said Owen.

‘Unless your government is very different from ours, the pension is piffling.’

‘I’m some way off drawing a pension yet,’ said Owen.

‘That’s the time to make plans.’

Owen, used to such approaches, was not bothered. The conversation turned to other things. The Belgians said the project was going quite well. Building, with plenty of space and cheap labour, was no problem. The only difficulty, if there was one, was in matching development to cash-income flow.

‘Any building project is a long-term one,’ said Raoul. ‘The trouble is, if it’s too long-term, the people financing it start getting bothered. So what you try to do is get something going quite early on that yields a cash flow.’

‘Like a gambling house?’ said Owen.

Raoul laughed.

‘It would help. But the hotel’s the main thing. Once you start attracting people in, they’ll start spending money.’

‘Building houses and selling them isn’t enough?’

‘It’s all right. In the long run. But in the short run we want more spend. That’s why the racetrack is important. If it’s attractive enough, people will come here even if they don’t live here.’

‘Provided they can get here.’

‘Yes,’ said Raoul, ‘that’s the key. Roads, rail, even trams. We intend to get the tramway system extended out to here.’

‘Out to here?’ said Owen incredulously. ‘That’ll be the day!’

‘You see space,’ said Raoul. ‘We see buildings.’

‘What a horrifying thought!’

‘It’s the future,’ said Raoul.

Down below, Amina came to the end of her perambulating and set off in the direction of home, accompanied by her father, and Malik.

‘And meanwhile,’ said Owen, ‘until the houses get built and the tramway system is extended, how are you getting on with the new railway?’

‘It’s coming along,’ said Raoul. He frowned. ‘But too slowly.’

‘You need it for the cash flow?’

‘We need it for the cash flow. Now that the racecourse has been built, we can’t afford not to have it coming. We were thinking,’ he said, looking at Owen, ‘of getting the men to work on Fridays.’

‘Fridays! But that’s the Muslim Sabbath!’

‘We work on Sundays already, you know.’

‘Yes, but that’s different. This is a Muslim country.’

‘How religious is Egypt?’

‘When it comes to working on the Sabbath, you’ll find it’s pretty religious,’ said Owen.

‘Blasphemy! Sacrilege! Desecration!’ shouted Sheikh Isa.

There was a larger crowd around the tabernacle than usual, including this time a number of younger men, some of whom Owen thought he remembered from the railway.

‘Ordinarily I wouldn’t agree with him,’ said Ja’affar, ‘but this time I think he’s got a point.’

‘It’s all right for you, Ja’affar,’ said one of the men whom Owen thought he remembered from the railway—Abdul was his name? ‘It doesn’t apply to those working at the ostrich farm.’

‘Yet,’ said one of the other labourers.

Ja’affar, shocked, turned on him.

‘You don’t think old man Zaghlul—?’

‘He’s a mean old skinflint. Doesn’t miss a trick. If they get away with it on the railway, he’ll start asking why he can’t introduce it on the farm.’

‘You’re all right for the moment anyway, Ja’affar,’ said the barber. ‘You can’t work with that arm.’