The Fig Tree Murder by Michael Pearce

‘It’s my property, isn’t it?’
    ‘Nights, too?’
    ‘Well, no. I have a wife to keep warm.’
    ‘And where do you keep her warm, Daniel?’
    ‘At Tel-el-Hasan.’
    ‘Ah, Heliopolis? Where they are building?’
    ‘Where they are building, unfortunately. I offered them my land but the Khedive got there first.’
    ‘It’s his land, is it?’
    ‘Most of it is just desert. But he claimed that it belongs to him.’
    ‘And you go back there every night?’
    ‘I do.’
    ‘Do you walk?’
    ‘Walk?’ said Daniel, astonished. ‘Walking is for fellahin. I have a donkey.’
    ‘And at what time is it that you set out from here?’
    ‘When the sun is two fists above the horizon. Leave it any later and it would be dark when I got home. I wouldn’t want that. There are bad men about,’ he said, looking at the spot where the trackers were crouching. ‘Muslims,’ he added.
    ‘And when do you return?’
    ‘At sunrise. Leave it any later and who knows how many may have been carving at the Tree.’
    ‘And on the night the man was killed you saw nothing untoward as you left?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Nor as you came the next morning?’
    ‘What might I have seen?’
    ‘I was just wondering.’
    ‘The other men have already asked me this,’ said Daniel. ‘Both that one’—pointing at Mahmoud—‘and the other one before.’
    Owen, following the point, saw again the donkey among the trees.
    ‘That donkey over there: is it yours?’
    ‘It is; and the trees should be mine by rights also. For when the Virgin rested beneath the Tree, she went down to the well for water with which to wash the Child’s garments. And when she threw away the water afterwards, trees of holy balsam sprang up. Those trees. Worth a lot of money. And by rights,’ said Daniel bitterly, ‘they should be mine. For they would not have been there had not the Virgin rested under my Tree.’
    ‘ Who do they belong to?’
    ‘There are those in the village who say they are wild trees, that they belong to everyone. But the well isn’t wild, is it? Someone put it there. The same with the trees. Someone planted them. And that someone was the Virgin after she had rested under my Tree. They don’t belong to everyone; they belong to me. And that old bastard over there is letting his goats devour my substance!’
     
    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