Michael Pearce - The Fig Tree Murder

'It’s called the Tree of the Virgin,’ said McPhee.

‘Virgin?’ said Owen.

‘After the Holy Mother,’ said McPhee severely.

‘Oh.’

‘It’s a sycamore, actually. Not, of course, a sycamore as we know it. Our sycamore is a sort of maple. The Egyptian sycamore is a species of fig.’

‘Fascinating!’

He glanced at his watch.

‘Well, if you’ll excuse me-’

‘You will call in on it?’

‘I certainly will.’

He certainly wouldn’t. For he was going to Heliopolis and getting there was difficult enough anyway. The new ‘city’ was five miles north of Cairo and beyond the reach of trams. A road was being built from the British barracks at Abbasiya but was not completed yet. Even if it had been, there would still have been problems. Arabeah, the city’s universal horse-drawn cab? Five miles? In this heat? The Effendi must be mocking. That left Cairo’s normal mode of transport, the donkey. Owen was not enthusiastic.

Consulted, McPhee had suggested the new electric railway.

‘It’s not finished yet.’

‘It’s out to Matariya. You wouldn’t have far to walk. Why don’t you ask them if they’ve got a buggy going out to the end of the line?’

‘Buggy?’ said the man at the Pont de Limoun. ‘Of course, Effendi! At once!’

Well, not quite at once. Second thoughts crossed the man’s face.

‘Tomorrow, that is. Bokra. Yes, tomorrow, definitely!’

‘Why not this afternoon?’

‘Impossible, Effendi. Some difficulties at the end of the line. Something to do with an ostrich, I believe.’

Owen shrugged and turned away.

A moment later the man came running after him.

‘Effendi! Effendi! A thousand pardons! I had not realized that you were the Mamur Zapt!’

Another man, more senior, was rushing after him.

‘A buggy, Effendi? To the end of the line? At once!’

‘I thought there were some difficulties?’

‘There are, Effendi, there are! In fact, we would be most glad of your help.’

‘I don’t know that I’ve a lot to contribute on ostriches,’ said Owen uneasily.

The man gave him a strange look.

‘Ostriches?’

‘Wasn’t it something to do with an ostrich?’

‘Not as far as I know. There’s a bit of trouble up there between the labourers and the villagers. And a man’s been killed.’

The man was lying huddled across the very last stretch of track that had been completed. Around him was a large crowd consisting equally of labourers and villagers, not, Owen was relieved to see, at each other’s throats. Among them was a foreigner in a helmet, who looked up with relief as Owen approached. ‘Monsieur le Mamur Zapt?’

‘Oui.’

He looked down at the man.

‘How did he get here?’

‘I don’t know. We found him here this morning.’

‘This morning!’

It was already noon.

‘I know! I’ve tried to get him moved, but-’

‘He’s not being moved!’ said one of the labourers flatly.

‘Just to one side. Then we could get on with-’

‘He’s not being moved!’

‘It’s taken all morning!’

‘That’s not my fault,’ said the labourer.

One of the villagers plucked at Owen’s arm.

‘Effendi, the heat-’

Owen knew what he was thinking. In Egypt, bodies deteriorated rapidly. They were usually buried the next day. The body would have to be prepared, arrangements made.

A man pushed through the crowd. He wore the white turban of the religious sheikh. He walked up to the man and stood looking down at him.

‘Pick him up!’ he said.

‘He stays where he is!’ said the leader of the labourers.

The sheikh stared him hard in the face.

‘God must be given his due!’ he said harshly.

The workman shuffled his feet uneasily but held his ground. ‘So must man,’ he said.

‘Look,’ said the foreigner in the helmet, ‘why don’t you let him have the body? The circumstances can be gone into later.’

‘It’s the law,’ said the workman.

‘He’s right,’ said Owen. ‘When there’s a death in suspicious circumstances the body has to be left untouched and the Parquet notified.’

‘Yes, but are the circumstances suspicious? Couldn’t it just be an accident?’

‘Accident!’ said the leader of the workmen. ‘This is no accident!’

‘He could have fallen, couldn’t he? Tripped over the track and-’

‘Broken his neck?’ said the workman derisively.

‘Well, yes, he could!’ said the man in the helmet. ‘Couldn’t he?’ he appealed to Owen.

‘Has the Parquet been sent for?’

‘Yes, first thing. As soon as we got here and found him. I don’t know where they are! Taking their time, I suppose, like everyone else in Egypt!’

At the back of the crowd a woman began ululating. From across the fields came answering cries.

‘Effendi!’ said the villager worriedly. ‘The women-’

‘Pick him up!’ ordered the sheikh.

‘Leave him!’ said the leader of the workmen.

The crowd began to murmur.

‘What do we care about the law?’ someone called out.

‘It won’t help Ibrahim, will it?’ shouted someone else, a villager.

The workmen looked at their leader uneasily.

‘He stays where he is!’ said the leader.

‘You’ve got the Mamur Zapt here,’ said the man in the helmet. ‘What do you need the Parquet for? Isn’t he good enough?’

The man looked Owen up and down.

‘No,’ he said.

Strictly speaking, he was correct. The Mamur Zapt was not the Parquet. All the same, Owen felt irritated.

‘He’s a troublemaker,’ the man in the helmet said aside to Owen. ‘That’s what it’s all about, you know.’

The crowd was stirring. Villagers and workmen were separating out.

The cries across the fields were getting closer.

‘Pick him up!’ said the sheikh.

The villagers surged forward. The workmen formed up in a line between them and the body. Both sides, Owen suddenly noticed, were armed with spades.

‘Wait!’ he said. ‘There is a way of wisdom in all this.’

‘The Law of God,’ said the sheikh threateningly, ‘does not wait on the Law of Man.’

‘Break the law,’ said Owen coldly, ‘and you will feel it.’

‘If there is a way of wisdom,’ said the villager hastily, ‘why not hear it?’

Owen guessed that he was the village omda, or headman, the man who was likely to feel the law most.

The leader of the workmen shrugged.

‘Why not?’ he said.

The sheikh hesitated.

‘No one here wishes to offend the Law of God,’ said Owen, ‘nor that of man, either. For no man wishes to see injustice. And it may be that there is injustice here. For I agree with my friend’-he motioned towards the leader of the workmen-‘that there is much here that needs explaining. On the other hand,’ he continued hastily, as the sheikh opened his mouth, ‘there are requirements of decency which must be observed.’

‘True,’ said the sheikh.

‘The women have their duties.’

‘Quite right!’ said the omda, thinking he saw the way that things were going.

‘But then,’ said Owen, ‘the men have their requirements too.’

‘They do?’

‘Yes. The men of the family, and those who have worked with him, will want to know that justice has been done.’

‘That’s right!’ asserted the leader of the workmen.

‘But-’ began the sheikh.

‘In the village, too,’ continued Owen quickly, addressing the crowd and bypassing the sheikh, ‘there will be men who say: “Let us proceed with circumspection, for there are dark and weighty things here.” ’