The Fig Tree Murder by Michael Pearce Page A

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