Michael Pearce - The Fig Tree Murder

The goats were rising on to their hind legs and tearing at the branches. From where they tore, a strong, sweet, herby smell drifted across to Owen.

‘Fine beasts!’ he said to the old man.

‘Two are milking,’ said the old man.

‘This is a handy place for you,’ said Owen. ‘Both water and food.’

‘They don’t like the leaves all that much,’ said the old man. ‘We might move on soon.’

‘You’ve been here a day or two?’

The old man nodded.

‘What do you do at night? Leave them?’

‘I stay with them,’ said the old man. ‘They’re used to me.’

‘So you were here the other night, the night the man was found?’

He nodded again.

‘And did you hear anything that night?’

‘I heard the doves in the trees.’

‘And then, when it grew dark and the doves settled down, did you hear anything then?’

‘The goats were restless.’

‘They were disturbed, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps,’ agreed the old man.

‘What by?’

The old man considered.

‘People,’ he said at last.

‘Up here? By the Tree?’

‘That’s where they were.’

‘There were more than one of them, then?’

‘That is so.’

‘And what did you hear?’

‘Talking.’

‘Loud talking?’

‘Not very loud.’

‘Were they fierce with one another?’

‘No,’ said the old man, surprised. He considered for a moment. ‘One of them was a woman,’ he volunteered hesitantly.

‘Ah? You heard her talking? And the other was a man? Or perhaps there was more than one man?’

‘Just the one.’

Owen tried, unsuccessfully, to get more out of him, then went and told Mahmoud.

‘She was wrong, then,’ said Owen.

‘She?’

‘Jalila. The woman he had been seeing.’

He told Mahmoud what she had said to Asif.

‘She reckoned it would be no good him seeing another woman after what he had been doing with her! Evidently she was wrong.’

‘Or lying.’

‘I don’t think she was lying,’ said Owen.

‘Probably not. Let us accept, then, that she was wrong. He was going out to see another woman.’

‘We can’t be absolutely sure. But it seems very likely.’

‘It would have to have been,’ said Mahmoud, thinking, ‘a woman in the village. In that case someone else in the village will almost certainly know her.’

‘Women in this village are a loose lot!’ said Sheikh Isa fiercely. They had run into him on their way back to Matariya. ‘Well, that’s the way of it!’ said Owen, shaking his head sadly.

‘Is it that they do not listen to their husbands’ words?’ asked Mahmoud sympathetically. ‘Or is it that the husbands do not hear your words?’

‘Women are immoral; men are weak,’ said Sheikh Isa.

‘Temptresses, all of them!’ said Owen.

‘That slut Jalila! She should be stoned, for a start!’

‘One bad date infects the others,’ said Mahmoud.

‘They ought to make an example of her! I’ve been saying that for a long time. But will they listen to me?’

‘I expect that’s because too many have been seeing her themselves,’ said Owen naughtily.

Sheikh Isa glared at him.

‘If they have,’ he said fiercely, ‘then they should mend their ways!’

‘Perhaps the fate of Ibrahim will be a lesson to them.’

Sheikh Isa gave him a quick look. He was, for all his vehemence, Owen realized, no fool.

‘Was that it?’ he said.

‘We do not know,’ said Mahmoud, ‘but we wonder. And we wonder especially who was the other woman that he was seeing.’

‘Another?’ Sheikh Isa smote his brow. ‘Another woman, you say? Besides Jalila?’ Mahmoud nodded.

‘Whores!’ shouted Sheikh Isa. ‘All of them! Whores!’

Passers-by in the street looked up with interest.

‘Well, possibly not all of them,’ said Owen. ‘Perhaps, in fact, just one. Apart from Jalila, of course.’

‘A woman was speaking with Ibrahim on the night he was killed,’ said Mahmoud. ‘After he had been to Jalila’s. We would like to know who she was.’

‘It may be, indeed, it is quite likely, that he had seen her before,’ said Owen.

‘In which case,’ said Mahmoud, ‘someone in the village may know her.’ Sheikh Isa looked at him thoughtfully.

‘They may indeed,’ he said. ‘There are people in the village who make it their business to know everyone else’s business. And tell it!’ he shouted suddenly. ‘Gossips, slanderers, spies! Women!’

‘Well-’

‘Come with me!’ shouted Sheikh Isa. ‘I know who will know!’

An old woman came to the door.

‘Tell us!’ shouted Sheikh Isa. ‘Tell us!’

‘Tell you what?’

‘Who he was with. Come on! Out with it! Let’s have the name of the whore!’

‘Which whore?’ asked the old woman. ‘There are plenty of them.’

‘The one who was with Ibrahim that night!’

‘You know who was with him that night.’

‘Not Jalila, you fool. The other one!’

The woman regarded him unabashed.

‘Oh ho!’ she said. ‘You’re waking up, are you?’

‘My eyes have been opened!’

‘Well, about time, too. But I can’t help you.’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘Not for certain. But I could have a pretty good guess.’

‘Well then?’

‘Oh, no. I couldn’t tell you.’

‘Why not?’ thundered the sheikh.

‘You told me not to gossip.’

‘This isn’t gossip!’

‘What is it, then?’

‘Why, it’s-it’s simply giving information. That’s all.’

‘But that’s what I was doing last week when you told me not to!’

‘Don’t trifle with me, bitch!’

‘Oh, no, I couldn’t tell you, I’m afraid,’ said the old woman, greatly enjoying herself. ‘I do know, as a matter of fact, or, at least, I could make a pretty good guess. But I couldn’t tell you. It wouldn’t be right.’

‘Just tell me, you old bitch!’

‘My sheikh told me not to!’

Sheikh Isa raised his stick and the old woman darted back behind the door.

‘Shame on you!’ she said. ‘First you tempt me into vice; then you beat me! I shall go to your prayer meeting tomorrow and I shall call out to all the people: “Sheikh Isa tempted me to vice and then when I wouldn’t succumb, he threatened to beat me!” ’ The stick smashed against the door. Evidently Sheikh Isa was not feared as greatly in the village as Owen had supposed. Mahmoud decided to intervene.

‘You joke, Mother,’ he said sternly, ‘but this is no laughing matter. A man has died.’ The woman opened the door and looked at him.

‘Are you the kadi?’ she asked.

‘I am as the kadi.’

‘You’ve been a long time coming. Justice doesn’t get to this place often.’

‘It has come now. And it seeks your help. When Ibrahim went out that night, after he had left Jalila, he went out to meet another woman. Do you know who she might have been?’

The old woman looked at him for a moment or two without replying. Then she sighed and said:

‘Ibrahim was a fool. He never could leave the women alone. But it’s not right that he should die because of that. That’s not justice, is it? So I will tell you. I don’t know who he went out to see that night. But I know who he had an eye for: Khadija.’

‘Khadija?’ shouted the sheikh. ‘Khadija?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You old bitch! You’re just mischief-making!’

‘Who is Khadija?’ asked Mahmoud.

The woman turned to him.

‘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.’