Michael Pearce - The Fig Tree Murder

After what Ja’affar had said, they approached the ostrich farm with diffidence. It lay on the other side of the station at Matariya. The gap in the fence, broken on the day that Ja’affar had received his injury, had been repaired. There were ostriches on the other side, but perhaps, still mindful of the disturbance of the day, they were keeping to the far side of the pen.

Owen and Mahmoud had some way to walk before they found the entrance to the farm. It was not a place you would normally approach on foot, although, of course, the men who worked there did. For Owen and Mahmoud, unused to toiling across the desert in the heat, it was hard going.

The farm, out beyond the cultivated area surrounding the village, was desert not field. Desert was, presumably, what the ostriches were used to, although they may have preferred the grass of the south; and, of course, the land was cheap. The chief expense would have been the pens. The smaller ones were fenced off with wood, although wood itself, this near the city, was not cheap. In many places on the perimeter of the farm the wood had been replaced by cut thorn bushes, the traditional resource of the desert men; which explained, perhaps, why a determined ostrich was able to get out so regularly.

Zaghlul, they were informed, was out in the pens, which meant still more walking, some of it through the pens themselves. Owen was relieved to see that the ostriches kept away from them. On his way past some of the smaller pens he had been able to examine the birds closely. Up till now in his life he had never thought about ostriches. If asked, he would have said they were silly birds. They didn’t fly, they just stood around awkwardly; their only use, so far as he could see, was to provide feathers for women’s hats, which, although jolly, was hardly a crucial role in the modern economy; and with their small heads and their long necks and their general flapping about they seemed somehow scatty.

Now, however, viewed at close quarters and in the light of Ja’affar’s words and experience, they appeared rather formidable.

They were, for a start, surprisingly tall, about nine feet. The small head had a sharp beak and the long neck looked as if it could deliver the beak with force and dexterity. The splendid feathers concealed a muscular body, and the feet-what was it that he had heard about the feet? Did ostriches kick? If they did, it looked as if it could prove a real finisher. Those feet, now: huge! And what about the claws? Equally long, and as sharp as the beak? On the whole he thought it best not to look too closely.

Wondering which to guard against, the feet or the beak, and deciding that probably the thing to worry about was being knocked over while he wondered, he reached the enclosure where Zaghlul was bent over a sick or injured ostrich being held on the ground by three men.

He saw them coming but ignored them. They stood politely waiting until he had finished doing whatever he was doing and the bird was released. One of the men helped it up. It stood for a moment as if shocked and then suddenly bolted away. For several minutes it ran frenziedly up and down the pen as if it had quite lost its senses. Zaghlul watched it for some time and then grunted, apparently with satisfaction.

Only then did he turn to Owen.

‘Who’s he?’ he said, nodding at Mahmoud.

‘The Parquet,’ said Mahmoud.

‘Ah, the Parquet.’ Zaghlul had evidently heard of the Parquet. ‘ And the Mamur Zapt,’ he said after a moment.

‘That’s right. We want to ask you some questions.’

‘The government would do better to listen than to ask questions,’ said Zaghlul.

‘We’re ready to listen, too. And the first thing we want to listen to is why you told me that an ostrich had not escaped on the night Ibrahim was killed when it had.’

‘Do I have to tell the government everything?’

‘If you don’t, it wonders why you can’t.’

‘There’s no “can’t” about it. I choose not to, that’s all. I don’t want to have anything to do with the government and I don’t want the government to have anything to do with me.’

‘That bit,’ said Owen, ‘you can’t choose.’

‘Have you something to fear?’ asked Mahmoud.

‘Fear?’ said Zaghlul, frowning. ‘What have I to fear?’

‘You were there on the night that Ibrahim was killed.’

‘I was somewhere on the night Ibrahim was killed.’

‘You were by the Tree of the Virgin.’

Zaghlul was silent for a moment.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘what if I was? I was following the bird. There’s no crime in that.’

‘A man was killed.’

‘I did not kill him,’ said Zaghlul.

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘Who was with you?’

‘No one was with me.’

‘Sayid was with you. Be careful what you say. I shall speak with Sayid.’

‘Sayid will say as I do. That I did not kill Ibrahim.’

‘Who else did you see that night?’

‘I saw no one.’

‘Will Sayid say the same as you on that? If I go to him now and ask him?’

Zaghlul was silent for some time.

‘I saw Ali,’ he said at last, unwillingly.

‘Of course you did. And his sister, too?’

‘And his sister.’

‘Tell me what you saw.’

‘I will not tell you anything,’ said Zaghlul, ‘unless Ali bids me to.’

‘Was that Zaghlul I saw?’ asked Ali, when they were sitting in the room used for the questioning of prisoners.

‘It was.’

‘What is he doing here?’

‘He is here for the same reason that you are here.’

‘That cannot be so.’

‘If it cannot be so then you must tell us why it cannot be so.’

‘Cannot Zaghlul tell you himself?’

‘He says he will tell us nothing unless you bid him.’

They let him sit there for some time thinking this over. Then Owen said:

‘He was there that night, wasn’t he?’

‘If he says so.’

‘He does say so. He also says that he saw you. You and your sister.’

‘Well, then.’

‘You admit it?’

Ali shrugged.

‘There is another who will say that you were in the area, too.’

‘Well, then.’

The shrug this time had defeat in it. When, after a moment or two, he spoke, though, it was not about himself.

‘Zaghlul here too?’ He shook his head. ‘He won’t like that. He is a man of the open spaces.’

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.’