The Fig Tree Murder. Michael Pearce
and a half. And now you come along and tell us there’s a problem about a Tree!’
‘I’m just telling you to be careful, that’s all.’
‘Well, all right, we’ll be careful. Hey, I’ve got an idea! If that old man is bothered about the Tree falling down, why don’t we just lift it up again? Prop it up with stays? I could send a truck round, we could use a hoist—’
Matariya, although so near to Cairo, was in many respects a traditional oasis village, half hidden under a mass of palms, banana trees and tamarisks and clustered around an old mosque with crumbling, loop-holed walls and a crazy, tottering minaret. Probably because of the proximity to the gathering place for the Mecca caravan, many of the houses were pilgrims’ houses, their walls brightly decorated with pictures of the journey to Mecca.
Against one of the houses a many-coloured tabernacle had been erected beneath which old men were sitting on a faded carpet. In the middle of the carpet was a dikka, or platform, on which sat Sheikh Isa, intoning the Koran. At the edge of the carpet was a pile of shoes. A blind man was putting his foot into them to try and find his own by the feel.
The dead man’s house was just beyond the tabernacle, recognizable at once from the mourning banners. The mourning was still going on. Owen could hear the women’s voices in the back room, less frantic now, resigned.
A man in a dark suit and a tarboosh, the red, tasselled, pot-like hat of the Egyptian effendi, was just about to go into the house. He saw Owen, smiled and waited.
It was the Parquet man who had come out to the railhead two days before when Owen had been trying to prevent a confrontation over the body. They shook hands.
‘Asif Nimeri.’
‘You’re formally on the case now?’
The other day he had been sent merely because he was one of the duty officers. He was young and fresh and new, which was probably why they had sent him. Anything out of town on a hot day was for the juniors.
‘Yes.’
He looked at Owen curiously.
‘Are you taking an interest?’
‘Not really. Just making sure of some of the incidentals.’
‘Sheikh Isa?’
‘That sort of thing.’
The Parquet man laughed.
‘I think he’s harmless.’
‘So do I, really.’
‘You’re not directly interested in the case, then?’
‘No.’
Asif seemed relieved. Conducting his first case was problem enough without the additional difficulty of the Mamur Zapt.
‘I thought that since I was here I would look in. May I join you?’
‘Of course!’
They stepped into the house. It had only two rooms, the rear one, where the wailing was coming from, and the one they were in. It was small and bare. The only furniture was a mattress rolled up and stacked against the wall and some skins, not cushions, on the floor.
Two men came into the room, an old man, probably the father, and one much younger, the brother, or perhaps brother-in-law, of the dead man.
‘I come at a time of trouble,’ said Asif ceremoniously, ‘but not to add to it.’
‘Your grief is my grief,’ said Owen formally.
The men bowed acknowledgement. The older one, with a gesture of his hand, invited them to sit down. They sat on the skins.
A woman brought them water and a small dish of dates.
Asif complimented their host on the water and Owen praised the dates.
‘The water is good,’ admitted the old man.
‘The dates eat well,’ conceded his companion, ‘though not as well as the dates of Marg.’
‘God is bountiful!’ said Asif.
The men agreed.
Owen, used to the slow pace of Eastern investigation, settled back.
‘Although sometimes,’ said Asif, ‘the yoke he asks us to bear is heavy.’
‘True,’ asserted the old man.
‘Does our friend have a family?’
‘A wife,’ said the old man, ‘and two daughters.’
‘No sons?’ Asif shook his head commiseratingly.
‘The girls are still young.’
Which meant that the family would have to support them for some time yet. It would, but every extra mouth was a burden on the family.
They sat for a little while in silence.
‘Are you tax collectors?’ said the old man suddenly.
‘No!’ said Asif, startled.
‘Oh. We thought you might be.’
‘You come from the city,’ explained the younger man.
‘I am from the Parquet.’
The men clearly did not understand.
‘I am a man of law,’ Asif explained.
‘You are a kadi?’
‘Well, no, not exactly,’ said Asif scrupulously. It was not for a fledgling lawyer to claim to be a judge. Besides, the two systems were quite separate. Kadis were concerned with religious law, the Parquet, after the French model, with the secular and more modern criminal law.
‘Who is he?’ asked the older man, pointing at Owen.
‘I am the Mamur Zapt.’
‘Ah, the Mamur Zapt?’
They had obviously heard of him. Or, rather, they had heard of the post. The position of Mamur Zapt, Head of the Khedive’s Secret Police and his right-hand man, went back centuries. Only things were a bit different now. The Mamur Zapt was no longer the right-hand man of the Khedive; he was the right-hand man of the British, the ones who really ruled Egypt.
‘What brings you here?’
‘My friend has some questions to ask,’ said Owen diplomatically.
‘They are not my questions but the law’s questions,’ said Asif. ‘When a man dies in the way that our friend did, they cannot be left unasked.’
‘True,’ said the old man. ‘Ask on.’
‘The first question,’ said Asif, ‘is why, after the evening meal, when all was dark, did he rise from his place and go out into the night?’
‘I do not know.’
‘Was it to meet someone?’
‘I do not know.’
‘Did he not say?’
The two men looked at each other.
‘All he said was that he had to go out.’
‘Did he often do thus in the evening?’
‘Not often.’
‘Were you not surprised?’
‘We thought he was going to sit with Ja’affar.’
‘Did he often sit with Ja’affar?’
The old man hesitated.
‘Sometimes.’
‘But when he did not return, did you not wonder what had befallen him?’
‘Why should we wonder?’
‘What,