The Fig Tree Murder mz-10

by Michael Pearce

  He seemed to have difficulty taking it in.

  ‘Old man Zaghlul!’

  After a while, Mahmoud prompted him.

  ‘That night: tell us what happened.’

  Ali jerked up with a start.

  ‘That night? Oh, I helped him.’

  ‘Helped him?’ said Mahmoud and Owen together, taken aback.

  ‘Yes. There were only two of them, you see. Well, that’s not enough. You need at least three-one to drive, the other two to hold the net. Even that’s not too many. They never run straight, you see. They’re always twisting off to one side or the other. You’ve got to keep right behind them. And it’s not easy in the dark.’

  ‘You helped him catch the ostrich?’

  ‘Yes. I knew about ostriches, see. I’d worked with him for a time on that farm of his. Just for a bit. I didn’t stay long. “This sort of thing’s not for me,” I said. “One of these days one of those bloody great things is going to peck my eye out.” He tried to talk me round but I wouldn’t have it. I wouldn’t do it even for Zaghlul. He’s always been good to me, you know. People say he’s a mean old bastard, but he’s always been all right with me. I used to work with him. Before he started up that ostrich farm.’

  ‘Supplying the pilgrims?’

  ‘Yes. First it was mounts, then it got wider. It looked pretty good to me, but Zaghlul said no, other people would come in. And when they started building this new town he said: “That’s it!’‘ So he sold up and off he went. He asked me to go with him. I was his right-hand man, you see. But the birds were not for me.’

  ‘But you did lend a hand that night?’

  ‘I could see he needed one. There was just him, you see, him and Sayid. I knew that wouldn’t be enough, not in the dark. So I pitched in. It wasn’t that easy even then. It took us the best part of the night. But in the end we did it. And it was only then, after we’d got the bird trussed up, that Zaghlul says to me: “Well, Ali, what are you doing here this time of night?”

  ‘ “I’ve had business to attend to,” I says.

  And he says: “I reckon I saw some of that business back by the Tree. There’s a dead man lying there.”

  ‘ “I’m not saying anything,” I says.

  ‘ “No,” he says, “and you’d better not. But who was that girl, then?”

  ‘ “That was my sister,” I says.

  ‘ “Oh,” he says. Of course he knew the whole story. “Well,” he says, “he had it coming to him.”

  ‘He was right, too. I couldn’t do anything else, Leila being my sister. I was sorry in a way. He’d been a friend of mine. But I was that mad-! I’d brought them together, you see. I said to Ibrahim one day: “I’ve got a sister, you know.” And he said: “Let’s have a look at her, then.” And it seemed all right. They’re a good, hard-working family. But that stupid bastard-I ought to have known, all right. I ought to have known. But he was so open about it. Everyone knew about it. Well, I couldn’t let that go on, could I? And then there was this other thing-it all came together, so he had to go, I couldn’t do anything else, could I?’

  ‘Why did you put the body on the line?’ asked Mahmoud.

  ‘That was Zaghlul’s idea. “What are you going to do about that there body?” he says.

  ‘ “Leave it where it is,” I says.

  ‘ “I’ve got a better idea than that,” he says.

  ‘ “Oh?” I says. “What’s that, then?”

  ‘ “Put it on that new railway line,” he says. “That’ll give them something to think about!”

  ‘Well, the more I thought about it, the better I liked it. I reckoned Ibrahim wouldn’t mind it at all. He’s always been one to speak up against the Belgians and if he could cause them trouble just by lying there, I thought he’d be glad to. And then I knew how other people would see it. A death well spent, they would say. So I says, “Right, then.”

  ‘Well, old man Zaghlul helps me carry him-he weighed a bit, I can tell you, we had to drag him in parts-and we put him down there on the new railway line-all decent, mind you, quite respectful. And then I had to get away because it was already beginning to get light.’

  Zaghlul confirmed the story, once he had received Ali’s permission. So, too, did Sayid.

  So also did Ali’s sister, speaking to them in her brother’s presence. The question arose of what to do with her. She was plainly an accomplice but equally plainly had been entirely under the influence of her brother, to whom it had obviously never occurred that if he were to suffer for the crime, she would suffer too.

  ‘Effendi, this is not right!’ he said to Owen, perturbed. ‘She is a good girl.’

  ‘Allowances will be made,’ Owen assured him. ‘I have spoken to my friend from the Parquet and he says that she will be treated lightly, the time she has served in prison being counted for her.’

  ‘The time she has served in prison?’ said Ali, aghast.

  ‘Just until the trial.’

  ‘How long will that be?’

  ‘A month or two.’

  Ali was still perturbed.

  ‘Who will do the house?’ he said.

  ‘Have your brothers no wives?’

  ‘No,’ said Ali. ‘For some reason families are not eager to marry us.’

  ‘Well, that’s your problem. Or your brothers’.’

  They had been let out the day before.

  ‘I will do what I can for her,’ promised Owen.

  And that, he thought with satisfaction, was that. The matter had been resolved, and without any of the wider problems, which had at one time seemed so threatening, coming to a head. In the end it had boiled down to another revenge killing, regrettable, but not, as he pointed out to Mr Rabbiki, exactly unusual in Egypt.

  ‘The cause,’ said Mr Rabbiki resourcefully, ‘is the state of backwardness in which the people are kept. Now, with more education and more social spending-’

  The Nationalists, however, dropped the issue like a hot brick. They had, in any case, got most of what they wanted. The government had been severely embarrassed. It had been shown, yet again, to be in the pocket of the foreigners. It would have been nice if the railway could have been delayed sufficiently to muck up the Khedive’s plans for a Grand Official Opening, but you couldn’t have everything. The Nationalists, anyway, were not against development. They were just against anyone else doing the developing.

  The last part of the track was now being laid. A few things remained to be done but they would certainly be completed before the Opening. The Khedive purred like a contented cat.

  The Belgians were already making arrangements to pull out. The Baron would retain a controlling interest in the New Heliopolis Scheme but from now on his influence would be able to be exerted from behind the scenes, which was likely to be less provocative and by no means less lucrative.

  The Syndicate had had, in the end, nothing to do with the murder, Owen pointed out to Mahmoud as they sat sipping coffee one evening in a cafe in the Ataba. Nor, of course, as Mahmoud pointed out to Owen, had it had anything to do with the Nationalists. The Nationalists had, indeed, as Mr Rabbiki admitted privately, infiltrated Wahid among the railway workers so as to create trouble; but that trouble definitely did not extend to murdering Ibrahim. Wahid had been genuinely shocked and angered when the body had been found on the line. He had been convinced that it was the Syndicate’s doing. That was why he had been so determined to make an issue of it.

  By the time they had finished their second cup, Mahmoud had succeeded in convincing Owen that the Nationalist move had been fair, given the heavy-handedness of the Belgian employers; and by the time they had finished their third cup they had both agreed that the new electric railway and other such developments might actually be a good thing if the March of Progress eventually led to a diminution in the number of revenge killings in the more backward parts of Egypt.

  Everything, thus, was tidied up. Except-

  Except that one morning Ibrahim’s widow, Leila, came to Owen. She sat down
on the floor of his office, declining a chair; declining, too, the coffee he offered. He imagined that she had come to talk about the gratuity that he had persuaded the Syndicate to award her. He had asked for a pension but the Syndicate said that it did not pay pensions to widows, did not pay pensions anyway to casual workers, did not, in fact, if it could help it, pay pensions to anybody. A one-off cash payment in the circumstances and not to mar the Khedive’s Official Opening, they were prepared to consider.

  Leila had indeed come to talk about that. She was, first of all, astonished to receive anything. Having received it, though, she wanted to talk to Owen about the mechanics of the payment. Could it be done, she wondered, in such a way that the benefit would go to her children and not to the men of the family that she had married into?

  Owen said that this was not easy, that if payment were made direct to the children then the family would simply annex it. Much the same would happen, he admitted, if the payment were made to her. The family would reason, he said, that since it was supporting her and her children, the payment should go to the common good.

  That would be only fair, she said hesitantly. But suppose they were no longer supporting her?

  What had she in mind, asked Owen.

  What she had in mind, she said, was returning to the house of her brothers. They would be without a woman in the house now that her sister had gone with Ali into the caracol.

  Ah, said Owen, but her sister would soon return. And would not her brothers do exactly the same as the men of her husband’s family and take the money from her?

  They would, she said; and therefore what she wanted was for Owen to keep the money for her and pay her a little each month which would go towards the general housekeeping. The rest would then be there should she and her children need it.

  Owen said he thought he could do this and they spent some time discussing how the monthly payment might be made. She said the best thing might be for her to come to his office each month to collect it. Owen asked her how she proposed to travel to the city each time. It was, he knew, a big step for her. Indeed, it transpired that today was the first time she had actually been to the city. She had come on a cart. The lift had been arranged for her by the barber and some of Ibrahim’s friends in Matariya. She thought that perhaps she could do the same again.

  Owen said that she didn’t have to come all the way to his office to collect the money. The payment could be made through the local mamur’s office in Heliopolis.

  Leila was silent for a moment or two. Then she said that she would prefer to come to the city as the local mamur was too much under the influence of the Pasha’s son:

  ‘And Malik has had too much to do with this business already.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Leila was silent now for quite some time. Eventually she said:

  ‘He spoke to Ali.’

  ‘Spoke to Ali?’

  ‘My sister told me. He came over to the house one day and said he wanted to speak to Ali. They spoke for a long time. And afterwards Ali came back to the house and said: “Well, that is settled then.”

  ‘And my sister asked what was it that was settled?

  ‘And Ali said it was no business of hers. And then he laughed and said that for once the Pasha’s interests and his were the same. And then he thought, then looked at her, and said that perhaps it was her business after all.

  ‘She asked him what he meant and he said that she would find out soon enough. And then he would say no more.’

  Owen thought for a moment.

  ‘This was when? After Ibrahim and the Pasha’s son had had hot words?’

  ‘Yes. That kind of thing should not be,’ said Leila bitterly. ‘A Pasha and one of his villagers quarrelling over a slut! I said that to Ibrahim and he spoke to me roughly. So then I said it to my brothers. “A Pasha should not do such things,” I said. “A Pasha can do what he likes,” said Ali, “for he does it with his own. It is your husband that is at fault.” Then I was silent, for I knew I would only make things worse between Ibrahim and my brother. Besides, I knew that Ali would take the Pasha’s side.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘He was one of the Pasha’s men.’

  ‘One of his villagers?’

  ‘Not just that. He had done things for Malik. In the city. Along with others. And now they were all going to Heliopolis to work for him again!’

  ‘Has Ali ever spoken to you the name Roukoz?’

  ‘Yes.’ Leila hesitated. ‘But that was more in the past. He speaks a different name now.’

  ‘What is that name?’

  Leila looked him in the face.

  ‘That of the local mamur,’ she said.

  Chapter 13

  Owen had decided that the time had come to go riding. The following morning he rose early, as usual, borrowed a horse from the barracks at Abbasiya, and rode on out of the city in the direction of Heliopolis. This early in the morning riding was possible. Later, the heat would come up like a furnace and both man and horse would flinch. Out in the desert, which in those days began just out of town, the temperature would rise sharply. Only people used to it, like Zaghlul, would care to ride in the middle of the day.

  But very early in the morning, when the sun was only just coming up, and the desert still had the freshness of the night, riding was not only possible but delightful. Owen, who had not ridden for some time, now wondered why he hadn’t.

  He put the horse into a gallop. It sniffed the air and responded strongly. The sun was still low in the sky, still retaining some of the redness, and their shadow stretched out forever across the sand.

  There was no one else about. Over to his right he could see fields, but no villagers had yet come out to work in them. There, too, sharp against the sky, was the obelisk and somewhere over there would be the Tree.

  He pressed on towards Heliopolis; and then suddenly he saw, away in the desert to the left of him, over towards the river, a solitary figure on a horse. It changed direction and came towards him.

  While it was still some way away he saw that it wore jodhpurs, a sun helmet and, incongruously, a veil.

  ‘Hello!’ said Amina.

  They began to ride along together.

  ‘I wondered when you would come.’

  ‘I would have come before but I’ve been rather preoccupied-’

  ‘At five thirty in the morning?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘With your fine lady?’

  ‘With work. My day starts early.’

  ‘And it is work that brings you here this morning?’

  He smiled.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said.

  ‘Well, that is disappointing. Perhaps I shall go for a ride on my own.’

  She galloped off. He followed her.

  After a while she stopped.

  ‘That is a relief!’ she said. ‘I was afraid for a moment you were not going to follow. At least you’ve been faithful so far. Or perhaps it is merely preoccupation with work?’

  ‘That, too. I wanted to ask you something.’

  ‘What do I get if I tell you?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘I’m afraid-’ he began.

  She nodded, accepting.

  ‘You for a bit, then.’

  ‘Well-’

  It was not until later, fortunately, that he remembered how old she was, or, rather, wasn’t. Then he reproved himself and rolled away.

  Amina, too, however, had her preoccupations.

  ‘I wish I was taller,’ she said gloomily.

  ‘What?’ said Owen, startled.

  ‘Like her.’

  ‘Like-?’

  ‘Your girlfriend. I saw her in the shop. She’s Nuri Pasha’s daughter, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. But tallness doesn’t come into it.’

  ‘I’m getting taller,’ said Amina. ‘It’s just that it’s taking a bit of time.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that.’
<
br />   ‘No,’ said Amina, ‘it’s other things, isn’t it?’

  ‘The problem is,’ said Owen, ‘I’m faithful to her, too.’

  ‘I know,’ said Amina. ‘Faithful everywhere. How difficult it must be!’

  ‘You haven’t hit it yet. It’s like getting tall.’

  ‘The fact is,’ said Amina, ‘I’m practising being unfaithful first.’

  ‘Why are you practising being unfaithful?’

  ‘Because if I ever marry Malik,’ said Amina grimly, ‘I’m going to be unfaithful all the time!’

  ‘It might not come to that. Pashas’ sons don’t usually marry mamurs’ daughters. Besides, whatever Malik might say, I don’t think he intends-’

  ‘It’s not him,’ said Amina. ‘It’s my father.’

  ‘I know he wants to marry you well, but-’

  ‘No, no. He knows something about Malik. Malik has to go along with him.’

  ‘I wonder if it’s the same thing as I know about Malik?’

  Amina sighed.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I knew we would have to get round to it. What was it that you wanted to know?’

  ‘The Racing Club at Heliopolis: what do you know about it?’

  ‘It’s controlled by a group of big men. The racing is only part of it. They’re hoping to make the city a gambling centre in general. Casinos everywhere. The aim is to cater for the really rich. There are Pashas’ palaces all round Heliopolis but it’s not only them. They’re looking further afield, abroad, even. They want people to come to Heliopolis just for the gambling. The racing is merely a sideshow, really, but it just happens to be the first part that’s up and working.’

  ‘What’s the connection between them and the Syndicate?’

  ‘There isn’t one. The Belgians just build the facilities and let them out. Of course, they’ve a pretty good idea what they’re going to be used for but they don’t inquire too closely. There’s too much money in it for them. Besides, the group has got influence. There are Pashas behind it. Royalty, even-’

  ‘Is Malik a member of the group?’

  ‘Not really. He’s not clever enough or rich enough. But he thinks he is, and they let him go on thinking that. They use him to give evidence when they’re applying for a licence to gamble, that sort of thing.’