Michael Pearce - The Fig Tree Murder

‘After all,’ they said, ‘it’s only for a few weeks, isn’t it?’

The foreman came into view, walking along the track towards them.

The workmen stood up and picked up their spades.

‘Where’s Wahid, then, this morning?’ Owen asked one of them. ‘Isn’t he with you?’

The men looked around.

‘He’s up the line, I think.’

‘Come on, then!’ said the foreman, hurrying up. ‘Back to it!’

The men pointed back along the line. The buggy was approaching, crammed full with men.

‘It’s the next shift,’ said the foreman, relieved. ‘That’s more like it.’

Owen and Mahmoud went back with the buggy. As they left the Pont de Limoun, Owen said:

‘Well, a pity. But not altogether wasted.’

‘No,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Definitely not!’

‘If it’s that kind of information you’re after,’ said the Syndicate’s voice on the other end of the telephone, ‘then the man you want is Salah-el-Din.’

‘Salah-el-Din? The mamur of Heliopolis?’

‘That’s right.’

Owen was surprised. He had been unaware of this side of Salah’s activities.

‘Would you like to speak to him?’

‘Yes. But things are a bit disrupted between here and Heliopolis. The sand-’

‘We can put you through if you like.’

Owen was surprised again. So far as he knew the police station at Heliopolis wasn’t connected up yet.

‘It’s his home number.’

‘Home number!’

Owen had never met anyone with a home telephone before. Even the Consul-General didn’t have one. The Ministries were now connected by phone and so were the banks and some of the biggest companies. It was catching on, no doubt; but telephones at home!

‘Well, yes, please. If it’s not too much of a problem.’

‘No problem at all.’

And in a moment or two he heard Salah’s voice on the line.

Yes, he could certainly supply Owen with the information he needed, would be glad to, in fact. Perhaps they could meet?’

‘I’d come over,’ said Owen, ‘but things are a bit disrupted-’

It was better now, Salah assured him. The Syndicate had pulled all stops out in an effort to get communications working again. The roads were virtually clear, he could come up on the buggy if he liked, and the train to Marg, calling at Matariya, was functioning normally.

Perhaps that would be the best bet, if Owen didn’t mind taking the trouble. He, Salah, would be glad to come into the Bab-el-Khalk, if Owen would prefer. But he had to go over to Matariya Station anyway this morning, to read the owner of the ostrich farm the riot act, and if Owen wouldn’t mind meeting him there-

The sand had, indeed, been removed from the line and the train ran smoothly. The wind had died down and the sky cleared and when Owen got off the train at Matariya he found the air unusually clean and fresh and for the first time felt inclined to believe the Syndicate’s promotional literature about the quality of the atmosphere at Heliopolis.

Salah was waiting for him with outstretched hand, some chairs in the shade and a flask of rather good coffee.

‘Yes, I’ve got to see him,’ he said. ‘They’re always breaking out. I know that this time there was an excuse-the wind blew down part of the fencing-but really, we can’t go on like this. Suppose a stray one frightened the horses? During a race? I mean, the racing is about to start, and there’ll be a lot of money riding on the horses, and you just can’t have the whole thing being interrupted by ostriches! We’d become a laughing stock!’

‘Does it happen that often?’

‘Oh yes. There was one the other day-you saw it, I believe. Malik tried to shoot it. It would have been a good thing if he had. But he had bad luck, I understand. No, they’re breaking out all the time. There was another one two or three days before, caused a lot of damage.’

‘Well, I suppose it’s all part of the mamur’s job. At Heliopolis, at any rate.’

Salah laughed.

‘Heliopolis is a bit different from the usual district. I quite like it, though. The Syndicate’s good to work with. They get on and do things, and that’s what this country needs.’

He looked sideways at Owen.

‘I’m quite a Nationalist, you know. Not a Party member, of course. I wouldn’t go as far as that. That was what you wanted to talk to me about, wasn’t it?’

Owen nodded.

‘The Syndicate said that it had evidence that some of the workforce were professional agitators. I just wondered how reliable that evidence was.’

‘Pretty reliable. It asked me to do a bit of digging, in my spare time. That was before I took up the post here. I checked on the backgrounds of some of the men they mentioned.’

‘The man I am interested in is named Wahid. He works in the track-laying gang.’

‘I know the man. Yes, he was one of them. I can tell you quite a lot about him. He was one of those who failed the secondary certificate so he couldn’t go on to one of the higher colleges. I think he always felt bitter about that, I think that may explain-Anyway, he’d failed and that was that. He had to go into an office as a junior effendi. He went into Public Works.’

‘Not Railways?’

‘No, no. This was some time ago, five or six years ago. And he went in as an effendi, not as a labourer. He stayed there for about three years and became increasingly dissatisfied. He wasn’t getting anywhere, or, at least, not as far as he thought he ought to be getting and he put it down to bias. Anyway, one day, after an argument, he walked out. There’s a gap in the record after this. He appears to have done a number of odd jobs, some of them possibly in the docks, for the next time we heard of him, which is when he applied for a job with the electric railway, he produced a reference from a warehouse at Bulak.’

Salah looked at Owen.

‘The reference was false. When I checked at the warehouse they’d never heard of him.’

‘The company didn’t check at the time?’

‘They didn’t bother. He seemed the sort of man they wanted-experience of hard labour, shifting sacks of grain, that sort of thing.’

‘Why did you check the references?’

Salah stared at him.

‘Why did I check the references?’

‘Him particularly.’

‘He was one of several. The company asked me-’

‘They picked him out? Why was that, I wonder?’

‘Because he was difficult, I suppose.’

‘I can understand that. But that doesn’t necessarily make him a Nationalist. I’m still looking for evidence of a Nationalist connection.’

‘There’s plenty of that. He’s been seen at Nationalist meetings.’

‘So have half the workforce, I imagine.’

‘Playing an active part.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Distributing leaflets.’

‘That’s more like it. But it hardly makes him a professional agitator.’

‘Have you heard him talking to his gang? He’s always stirring up trouble!’

‘I’ve no doubt about that. But professional!? Paid?’

‘There’s no direct evidence. But-’

Owen was silent. He thought it very likely that Wahid was a Nationalist. He was pretty sure, from what the men had said, that he tried to raise them to action in pursuit of their grievances. But that didn’t make him a planted agitator.

‘I’d need more evidence of a direct Party connection,’ he said, ‘before I could be sure that the Nationalists were behind this.’

‘There is evidence,’ Salah insisted.

‘Can you produce it?’

‘You will have it,’ promised Salah.

Sand had drifted against the fences of the pens, in several places bending them over. Men were working on them to repair them. The ostriches were huddled on the far side of the pens.