The Fig Tree Murder

Chapter 11

There was racing the next day at Heliopolis and the gang turned up in force; so, in even greater force, did Owen’s men, and arrested the lot of them.

‘What’s all this about?’ they said in injured tones. ‘We haven’t done anything yet!’

‘What about breaking up that demonstration on Wednesday?’

‘That doesn’t count!’ they protested. ‘That’s not a real crime. People do it all the time. Besides, it was just an extra, not our real line of business at all.’

‘We work the racetracks,’ explained someone helpfully.

‘Yes, I know,’ said Owen.

‘Who the hell are you, anyway?’ said someone belligerently. ‘You’re not police, we know the police.’

‘I am the Mamur Zapt.’

‘What’s it got to do with you?’

‘Abdul, don’t you think you could shut up?’ counselled one of the older members of the gang worriedly. ‘If he’s the Mamur Zapt, he might do things differently from the police.’

He certainly might. One of his predecessors, Zeini Barakat, infuriated by just such a gang, had ordered their testicles to be cut off and fed to the hawks that hovered above the Citadel. That had, admittedly, been four hundred years before, but you never knew with Mamur Zapts and the gang was impressed.

‘You don’t want to bother with us, Effendi,’ they said conciliatorily. ‘We’re just a small-time gang.’

‘It’s true I don’t want to bother with you,’ agreed Owen. ‘I’ve got more important things to do. And therefore I shall release you. Once you’ve told me what I want to know.’

‘What do you want to know, Effendi?’

‘Who asked you to break up the demonstration.’

The gang consulted among themselves.

‘It came through our boss.’

‘Figi?’

‘Well-’

‘Is Figi here?’

Figi, as is the way with bosses when there is trouble around, was not.

‘No matter. Let Figi know what I want. And meanwhile you stay here.’

No need to inquire too closely into how they would contact Figi. They would probably bribe a prison official. But the message would get through.

‘Stay here? But, Effendi, if we stay here we won’t be able to do any work.’

‘That’s exactly what I was thinking,’ said Owen.

The point evidently occurred to Figi, too, for that afternoon a message came up from the cells that the gang wished to speak to Owen.

‘Well?’

‘Effendi, it’s not fair. While we’re in the caracol we can’t do any work and Figi doesn’t get any money.’

‘True,’ said Owen.

‘He wishes to protest.’

‘All he has to do is give me the name.’

‘He has sent the name. But he wishes to protest.’

‘I note the protest. What is the name?’

‘Roukoz. He works at Heliopolis and-’

‘I know the man,’ said Owen.

‘Roukoz,’ said Owen, ‘here is a bad thing that I have heard: friends tell me that it was you who ordered the attack on the demonstration on Wednesday.’

‘Effendi, your friends lie! Would I do a thing like that? A humble, hard-working, peace-loving father of six? Those who say that are villains!’

‘Would you like to tell them so?’

‘Effendi, outraged by calumny and injustice, I would!’

‘They await you in the caracol.’

‘On second thoughts, Effendi-’

‘Who told you to contact the gang?’

‘Effendi, I know no gang.’

‘You have never spoken to them?’

‘Never!’

‘Not the other day at Heliopolis? The day of the grand reception?’

‘Certainly not!’

‘Well, that is strange. For I saw you speak to them myself. And so did the Chief of all the Police.’

Roukoz swallowed.

‘It is easy to make a mistake, Effendi-’

‘So it is,’ Owen agreed. ‘And that’s exactly what you have done. Now tell me: who told you to get the gang to break up the demonstration?’

Zenakis advanced across the room with outstretched hand. ‘The Mamur Zapt again? What a pleasure!’

‘It is indeed!’ agreed Owen. ‘Shall we go into your office?’ Zenakis, once he had taken the measure of the situation, did not seriously attempt to deny responsibility.

‘This is Cairo, after all,’ he said with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘Completion of the railway is important to us. And the Nationalist campaign was gathering momentum.’

‘You leave the Nationalists to me!’

‘Ordinarily we would. But we knew your hands were tied.’

‘ “We”?’

Zenakis hesitated.

‘ “I”, I should have said.’

‘You acted on your own responsibility?’

‘Within the broad remit given me by the committee. But I take full responsibility for what happened the other night and if apologies are called for, I apologize.’

‘How far did the committee know what you were doing?’

‘They have given me, as I say, a broad remit.’

‘Who is on the committee?’

Zenakis gave him several names.

‘A strong committee,’ Owen commented.

The list contained several Pashas and relatives of Pashas-Malik was there-and also two members of the Khedive’s own family. Owen could see now why Zenakis appeared so confident.

‘I take full responsibility,’ said Zenakis. ‘If error there was, it was mine. However, it was done with the best intentions. We felt you needed some help. Sometimes,’ he said, eyes twinkling, ‘one would be glad of help but is unable to ask for it.’

‘If I need help,’ said Owen, ‘I’ll ask for it!’

Inwardly, he fumed. There was nothing he could do. Zenakis had admitted responsibility and yet it would be difficult to take action against him. Breaking up a demonstration, in Cairo, was hardly a crime. Even Mahmoud would hesitate about initiating legal proceedings. And where would it get him? In the unlikely event of Zenakis being found guilty, he would be pardoned at once by the Khedive. And was Zenakis the man really responsible anyway? Wasn’t he just covering up for the committee?

Zenakis took him by the arm.

‘Now that’s over, how about a drink? And have you thought again about membership?’

There was trouble at the Tree. So said Salah-el-Din’s cryptic message. It also said that he would hold the fort until Owen got there. But he suggested that he hurry.

At the Tree, Owen found the rival camps bristling. The Copts, truculent, were drawn up on one side, ostentatiously examining their knives; the Sons of Islam, even more truculent, on the other, holding their daggers up to the setting sun and commenting loudly on the way in which it dyed their blades red. In the middle, not at all truculent, but distinctly apprehensive, were Owen’s guards, presided over temporarily by the determined Salah-el-Din. On the outskirts of it all, for some reason that Owen could not fathom, was Salah-el-Din’s daughter, Amina, sitting on a horse.

‘What’s all this about?’ demanded Owen.

‘He’s going to sell the Tree,’ said one of the Sons of Islam, pointing an accusing finger at Daniel, the Copt, skulking behind the other Copts.

‘It’s my property!’ retorted Daniel. ‘I can do with it as I like!’

‘Selling your birthright!’ jeered the Sons of Islam.

‘It’s not your property!’ cried a loud voice from behind Owen. It was Sheikh Isa, hurrying up on his donkey.

‘It is my property!’ cried Daniel indignantly, emerging from behind the row of Copts and forgetting to skulk.

‘Blackguard!’ cried Sheikh Isa, swinging a bony leg over his donkey and descending to the ground.

‘Villain!’ cried Daniel, and rushed on him.

The Copt and Muslim lines moved forward.

Owen caught hold of Isa and Daniel and thrust them apart.

‘What is all this nonsense?’ he said. ‘No one is selling the Tree!’

‘Well… ’ said Daniel uncomfortably.

‘Ha!’ cried Sheikh Isa.

‘Actually-’ began Salah-el-Din.

Owen turned on him.

‘Do you know anything about this?’

‘The Syndicate has made him an offer.’

‘Which I am considering,’ said Daniel modestly.

‘The bastard’s accepted!’ cried one of the Sons.

‘It’s not his to accept!’ shouted Sheikh Isa.

‘The question of ownership is in the hands of the courts,’ said Owen. ‘That’s why you’re here. Guarding the Tree until the question is resolved. Which won’t be for years.’

‘Why have they made him an offer, then?’ asked Sheikh Isa.

Owen turned again to Salah.

‘The offer is not, strictly speaking, for the Tree, but for any claims he may have for the Tree. The same offer has been made to the descendents of the Empress Eugenie and, indeed, to anyone else who has claims to the Tree-’

‘It hasn’t been made to me!’ cried Sheikh Isa.

‘Legally, you don’t have-’ began Salah.

‘That’s right!’ Daniel interrupted gleefully. ‘You don’t even have a recognizable claim!’

‘We’re pretty recognizable!’ said the Sons of Islam.

‘The Khedive gave the Tree-’ began Salah-el-Din.

‘Gave?’ said Isa incredulously. ‘The Holy Tree? Something that is the property of Islam? It was not his to give. Who is this Khedive? I don’t recognize him!’

‘Death to the Khedive!’ shouted the Sons of Islam.

‘That’s right!’ cried the Copts joyfully. ‘Death to the Khedive!’

The Sons glared at them.

‘And to the Christians!’

‘Who would give away the Tree!’ interrupted Sheikh Isa.

‘Sell it,’ corrected Daniel. ‘Not give it.’

‘Never!’ said Sheikh Isa. ‘Over my dead body!’

‘So be it!’ said Daniel, signalling to the Copts.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ said Owen. ‘Get back, the lot of you! Guards!’

‘Look out!’ cried one of the Sons. ‘He shot down the Faithful in the square the other night!’

‘Shot down the Faithful?’ said Sheikh Isa.

‘Well done!’ chorused the Copts.

Daniel and Isa threw themselves upon one another.

Owen wrestled them apart.

‘Get him away!’ he said to Salah over his shoulder.

Salah hustled Daniel off. Owen caught Sheikh Isa by the folds of his galabeah and heaved him out of earshot of the rival supports. ‘Now you listen to me-’

‘Now you listen to me,’ he said to the assembled company a few minutes later. ‘I have agreed with Sheikh Isa that until the courts have spoken, the Tree cannot be sold.’

Daniel opened his mouth.

‘And have told him that if the Copt takes any action in the meantime I shall confiscate the property on behalf of the Khedive.’

‘I don’t think, actually, that you can-’ began Salah uncomfortably.

Owen silenced him with a baleful look.

‘And I myself will speak with those who would buy the Tree. It may be that they will change their mind. One thing is certain, though: and that is that if I have any more trouble from any of you-’

Copts and Sons listened to the tirade admiringly. Owen made it long to give them time to calm down; and made it funny to restore their good humour. At the end, they stood for a moment or two uncertainly and then sat down.

Daniel came up to Owen and plucked him by the sleeve.

‘Effendi-’

‘And you,’ said Owen, ‘go home.’

‘Go home?’ said Daniel astonished.

‘That’s right. Get on your donkey and go.’

Daniel hesitated, shrugged, then went down among the balsam trees and collected his donkey. They watched him climb on to its back and set off in the direction of Tel-el-Hasan.

‘It’s all right for him,’ said one of the Sons to one of the Copts. ‘You’ve got to stay here.’

‘You know,’ said the Copt, ‘I think that every night when he gets on his donkey and sets off for his comfortable bed.’

‘Comfortable wife, too, I wouldn’t be surprised,’ said the Son of Islam. He looked across at Sheikh Isa. ‘It’s all right for him, too. He just gets on his donkey and off he goes. We’ve got to stay here. And we’ve got wives, too!’

Camaraderie restored, the two sat down happily to grumble together.

‘I will send up chickens for tonight,’ said Owen. ‘Or at least, Heliopolis will.’

He looked at Salah.

‘Definitely!’ promised Salah.

Owen had words for Salah, too.

‘If the Syndicate goes behind my back just once again-’

‘I was going to tell you,’ said Salah hurriedly.

‘What are they after? Trying to buy the Tree? It’s nowhere near the line of the railway.’

‘Malik wants to use the land for training gallops,’ said a voice behind him.

He had forgotten about Amina.

‘You were terrific,’ she said.

‘Thanks. What’s it got to do with him?’

‘The committee has hopes of a training stable. It would have to be on this side because they’re building on the other ones. He’s got an interest of his own, too. He has some land over here which he thinks could be part of it.’

‘Just a minute, it’s the Syndicate that’s buying the land, isn’t it? Not the committee.’

‘The Syndicate’s buying the land for the committee.’

Salah cut in quickly, with an annoyed look at his daughter. ‘The Syndicate is developing the site. It builds the facilities and then lets them to clients like the Racing Committee.’

‘Which keeps asking for more and more.’

‘Amina!’ said Salah angrily. ‘It is time you went. Ride on!’ Amina gave Owen a smile as she went.

‘Remember,’ she said, ‘I ride over this way every morning.’

‘On your way, girl!’ shouted Salah furiously. ‘Sometimes I wonder,’ he said to Owen, ‘if I’ve brought her up in quite the right way!’

‘Immodesty upon immodesty!’ cried Sheikh Isa, who had only just seen Amina. ‘Abomination upon abomination! A woman! On a horse!’

‘My fortune is made!’ called the barber as Owen passed. ‘Come and rejoice at my wealth!’

Owen dropped into the little circle around the chair.

‘How is your fortune made?’

‘The Belgians wish to buy my land.’

‘You haven’t got any land,’ one of the circle objected.

‘My cousin has.’

‘It’s only an allotment. Which he shares with Musa.’

‘Land is land. And it’s right in the way of what Malik wants for his gallops. I shall hold out! Whatever he offers me, I shall spurn. “You offer me that?” I shall say, “I disdain your puny offer. You’ll have to offer serious money if you want to get anywhere with me!” ’

‘But it’s not your land!’

‘It’s my cousin’s land. And my cousin is but a fool, a simple man. He has no head for this kind of thing. I shall negotiate for him.’

‘Against the Pasha? He’ll have your balls off!’

‘Anyway,’ said another of the circle, ‘I thought you didn’t agree with selling off the Tree to foreigners?’

‘The Tree? What is the Tree? It is mere superstition. Sell it off, I say. Pocket the money. The money is real; the Tree is but vapour.’

‘This is a different tune from what you were singing yesterday.’

‘I sing with the times. I am,’ said the barber with dignity, ‘on the side of Progress.’

‘Now you are, but-’

‘You’ll never make any money out of this!’

‘Malik’s the one who’ll make the money.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ said someone else. ‘Zaghlul owns some of the land, too, and he’s not going to sell. He doesn’t like Malik.’

‘He’ll sell if the money’s right.’

‘No, he won’t. Just to spite Malik.’

‘Anyway,’ said someone who had not yet spoken, ‘what does Malik want a gallop for? He goes on enough gallops with Jalila!’

They all laughed.

‘Not any more, he doesn’t,’ said the barber. ‘She won’t have anything to do with him now. Not since Ibrahim died.’

‘Why not?’ asked Owen.

‘She used to like Ibrahim. Of course, she had to go with Malik if he asked her, because he was the Pasha. But she preferred Ibrahim. Anyway, one day when he called, there was Ibrahim. “Bugger off!” he says to Ibrahim. Well, you know Ibrahim. Head too hot, tongue too quick. “It’s not for me to bugger off,” he says. “Times have changed. You don’t own me now. And it won’t be long before you and your lot’ll be swept away.” “Oh, is that so?” says Malik. “We’ll see about that!” And then, do you know, that stupid woman has to butt in. “Take yourself off!” she says to Malik. “He’s right. You don’t own him now and you don’t own me either.” So off Malik has to go, with his tail between his legs.’

‘She oughtn’t to have said that!’ said someone. ‘Not to the Pasha!’

‘Well, she’s sticking to it. He’s been over to see her several times and each time she says, “Not you, Malik.” ’

‘She was always too outspoken,’ said someone uneasily.

Owen went to see Jalila.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘this is a surprise!’

Her brother was obviously not there, for she did not invite him in.

‘I’m still looking for the man who killed Ibrahim.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I know you are.’ There was a pause and then she said: ‘You’ve got him, haven’t you?’

‘Have I?’

She did not reply.

‘What did you come to see me for?’

‘Ibrahim and Malik quarrelled. Since then you have refused to see Malik. Why?’

‘What’s the Pasha’s son to me?’ she said. ‘Ibrahim was right. Their day has gone.’

‘Is that all?’

‘What else could there be?’

‘Did Malik come to see you on the night that Ibrahim was killed?’

She looked at him in surprise.

‘No.’

‘Sure?’

She suddenly understood.

‘If Malik had been anywhere around,’ she said bitterly, ‘I would have told you.’

He had felt he had to explore it. But really he could not see it. A quarrel over a woman, affronted pride, revenge taken, yes; but Malik? Somehow Owen could not see him in the part. Ali, now, Leila’s ferocious brother, that was a different matter: a rough, tough customer, used, probably, to such work through his association with the racecourse gang, quick, as Owen had seen for himself, to reach for a gun in an argument, more than ready to resent an affront-Owen could certainly see him doing it.

And that, clearly, was what the village thought. Even Jalila herself, probably. Malik? He didn’t come into it-except that he obviously loomed much larger in the life of the village than Owen had supposed.

Besides, one always came back to it-if Malik had been involved, what could one make of the body’s being placed on the line? It was directly contrary to Malik’s interests. What he wanted was to get the line completed as quickly as possible. No, revenge might have had some part to play in Ibrahim’s death, but it wouldn’t have been Malik’s desire for revenge-if desire for revenge he had; more likely, he viewed the whole thing as simply beneath him-but someone else’s. There seemed to be plenty of desire for revenge washing around the village, not least on the part of Ali. And that, Owen was convinced, was far more likely.

Coming out of Sheikh Isa’s house he saw Zaghlul. Unexpectedly, the old man crossed the street and came up to him.

‘This is a bad business,’ he said.

‘There are many bad businesses, especially just now. Which one is troubling you?’

Instead of replying, Zaghlul nodded his head.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there are many bad businesses just now. But they all come from one thing. Two years ago everything here was like that.’ He pointed out across the fields shimmering in the sun to the more distant shimmer of the desert. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘it is like that.’

He gestured towards the houses.

‘Everywhere they build. The city creeps out into the desert. The railway-’

He spat into the dust.

‘They squeeze us out,’ he said. ‘At first we say: “The desert is big enough for both of us,” and let them come. But the desert is not big enough for both of us. They want more and yet more. They squeeze us out.

‘At first I said: “The times are changing and I must change with them.” I saw the railway coming out to Heliopolis and saw them building the big stores. And I said to myself: “Zaghlul, you must learn new tricks.” So I bought some land out in the desert, away from Heliopolis, and I stocked it with ostriches. And I thought, “Here I will be safe,” for it is away from Heliopolis and among the palaces of the Khedives and the Pashas and they will not let them build there. But always they want more. Now they are building these gallops.’

‘Not yet,’ said Owen. ‘And, anyway, does it matter? The gallops will be land, not houses. And they are still two miles from your farm.’

‘But what if they want more gallops?’ Zaghlul shook his head. ‘Ostriches and horses don’t get along with each other. They smell each other and and are frightened.’

‘Zaghlul,’ said Owen, remembering suddenly, ‘are other animals besides horses frightened by ostriches? Goats, for instance?’

‘Goats?’ said Zaghlul, startled. ‘I do not know. I have not thought about it.’

‘I have heard that it is so. But if it were so, the bird would have to pass close, would it not?’

‘It is the smell. They would have to be able to smell it.’

‘But then, if it passed close, in the night, let us say, they would be disturbed and restless?’

‘I would expect so.’

‘Yes,’ said Owen, ‘I would expect so. Tell me, Zaghlul, do your birds often escape?’

‘That is what they say,’ said Zaghlul, ‘but it is a lie!’

‘There was one that escaped. I saw it.’

‘There would have been no problem if that fool Malik had not chased it and scared it. I would have caught it and it would have been back behind the fences before anyone knew anything about it!’

‘So they do escape?’

‘Occasionally. But-’

‘And you pursue them. Tell me, Zaghlul, did one escape on the night that Ibrahim was killed? And did you by any chance pursue it?’

Zaghlul’s face darkened.

‘You take the side of the city,’ he said angrily. ‘For you, my ostriches are always breaking out. No, one did not break out on the night that Ibrahim was killed. And no, I did not pursue it.’ He stumped furiously away and a little later Owen saw him riding off into the fields on his way back to his farm.

For a moment the village street was empty and then a group of women came along, chattering as they went to fetch water for the evening meal. They called out to Owen cheerfully as they passed. Everyone in the village knew him, he suddenly realized. He had been out here so often over the past two weeks that they almost took him for granted.

The first smells of the evening cooking drifted down the street. A particularly pungent whiff made him splutter. Someone must have just thrown a load of too-recently-dried cattle dung on to a fire.

Men were coming back from the fields with hoes and baskets and a donkey nodded past carrying a huge load of berseem. The doves in the palms around the well were beginning to take up their evening cooing, a low, fulfilled murmur which would go on until the sun dropped finally beneath the horizon.

Another of the sounds had changed, too. For a moment he did not realize what it was, and then he saw a man lifting the small boy down from the back of the ox that had driven the water-wheel.

The day’s work in the village was coming to an end. Men would be walking back from the irrigation channels, the ostrich farm, the railway or wherever they worked. Everyone would be going home. Daniel, the Copt, would-on a normal day-be untethering his donkey in the grove of balsam trees and preparing to set out on the journey back to Tel-el-Hasan.

Owen stopped.

Daniel, the Copt, would, on a normal day, be just starting out on the journey back to Tel-el-Hasan.