Spirit Tiger (4 page)

‘Sad,' Maryam commented on Yusuf's funeral, which they had both attended the day before. ‘Do you think Noriah will close it now?'

Rubiah considered this as though it had not previously occurred to her. ‘I don't think she wants to. They make a lot of money from it.'

Maryam sniffed. ‘It isn't a good way to do it. There are better ways.'

‘I know. But they're used to this. I think she'll want to keep going if she can. Have you heard anything about the investigation?' she asked innocently.

Maryam gave her a sharp look. ‘Not yet. But you know, I'm interested.'

Rubiah gasped. ‘No!'

‘Well, yes,' she admitted. ‘You know, it seems that so many people might have a reason to want
Che
Yusuf … out of the way,' she finished primly, unwilling to say ‘dead'. ‘All these gamblers, you know, already on the wrong path …'

‘So murder wouldn't be much of a stretch for them, is that what you mean?'

Maryam shrugged, and ran her hands over the pile of
songket
in front of her. ‘
Kerana pijat mati tuma
', she said finally – the louse dies because of the bug. ‘He must have been killed because of the people he mixed with. That kind of company can't lead to anything good. No one,' she continued, warming to her topic, ‘meets decent people while gambling like that. So it stands to reason, doesn't it, that one of them killed him. For running a place like that.' She seemed satisfied with her logic.

Rubiah did not look as though she entirely agreed, but said nothing for a moment. ‘Has Osman been to see you?'

‘Not yet,' Maryam said. ‘But I expect him at any time.'

She was prophetic. Once she was ensconced in her stall in the market, centrally located in the fabric section on the ground floor – a truly premier site inherited from her mother – a hand-rolled cigarette, unlit, between her lips and several pieces of
songket
unfurled on the counter to be admired by the customer in front of her, Osman appeared.

He always looked diffident when he entered the market. For all the status of his position outside the market, in here he was at a disadvantage, being a man and a West Coast Malay and, most important, not a trader. He knew his only hope for a fair price was the pity of the seller, a disinclination to fleece an especially woolly sheep, and this irritated him. He wanted to be respected, not coddled like a child, but that was not about to happen within the confines of the
pasar besar
.

On this day, he moved sideways, crab-like, through the crowded aisles, followed by Rahman, who felt no such qualms or inferiority, since he had female relatives working here and was confident in their ability to protect him.

Maryam noticed him and smiled to herself with satisfaction. It was always uplifting to be proven right yet again. She turned that same pleased smile on her customer, who was somewhat surprised to see Maryam's face light up, though no deal had yet been made.

‘Listen to me,' she advised the woman and her daughter in front of her, petting the pale pink
kain songket
like a favourite cat. ‘I can see you love this fabric, of course, you do! Who wouldn't, with this kind of quality and the colour?

Well, it's perfect, I think we all agree, right?' She looked at them, seeking confirmation, which she received from the bride-to-be, though the mother kept a dour and disapproving face – no doubt in order to improve her bargaining position.

‘It's lovely,' the girl said appreciatively, stroking the fabric with a shy smile.

‘
Asal terbang, burung lah
,' her mother sniffed, ‘Anything that flies is a bird to her. She's easily pleased,' she added disapprovingly. ‘I'm not so sure …'

‘About the colour?' Maryam asked with a polite smile. ‘Because the quality is beyond doubt, there's no question about it. Look at these threads,' she urged, ‘do you see how fine the silk is?'

She leaned to her side and lit her cigarette. She needed some kind of a break with this woman. She hoped this was put on for her benefit, and not her usual disposition, which would make her unbearable. She began wrapping the fabric in brown paper. She often found the assumption that a deal was immanent often made it so, and wrapping the merchandise as though the customer had already bought it seemed to make them also feel they'd agreed. This customer seemed more strong-minded than most.

‘Why are you wrapping it?' she asked sharply. ‘Have we agreed?'

‘No?' Maryam asked mildly. ‘I'm so sorry…' She began slowly, very slowly, unwrapping it, preparing to place it, regretfully, back on the counter.

‘
Mak!
' The bride finally spoke up. ‘
Mak
, listen…'

Her mother led her away a few steps from the stall, no doubt to lecture her on not seeming to be too enthusiastic about any particular merchandise, and in so doing, they left some space in front of Maryam into which Osman slid.

‘
Mak Cik
!' he greeted her happily.

‘
Che
Osman!' she replied in the same mood. ‘How nice to see you! I was just talking about you to
Mak Cik
Rubiah, you know, and I was telling her that I thought you might be coming to see me one of these days.'

Osman blushed, but not quite to the tips of his ears as he had routinely done before he was married.
His wife must be making him more mature
, she thought.

‘I'd like your help,' Osman said diffidently. ‘I know you don't want to be involved in police business again, like you said, but …'

Maryam interrupted him imperiously. ‘This one is different,' she informed him. ‘This one I want to know more about. You know, I think it's one of the gamblers he catered to. Can you be surprised? People like that, I mean, people who have already begun to waste their lives, it stands to reason they might be tempted to do all sorts of things. Right?' she prodded him.

He neither nodded nor shook his head, but instead moved it around aimlessly. It was a lame response, he knew, but he was unable to come up with anything else sufficiently placating while still expressing some level of doubt. ‘Well,' he explained, ‘we don't know yet if it's anyone from his … business,' for lack of another term, ‘it still could be
anyone
.'

‘Nonsense,' Maryam corrected him with asperity. ‘Why waste time? It's one of those wastrels, and I'll be happy to find him. Help you find him,' she corrected herself politely. She began gathering up her fabrics and putting her money neatly away in the cardboard box she used as a cash register. ‘Let's get Rubiah and start planning.'

She led him up the stairs to Rubiah's stall, where her cousin presided over an immense assortment of Kelantanese
kueh
, each of the cakes artistically arranged with an eye towards colour combinations and flow. She smiled as she saw Osman, and began picking out the most fattening collection of cakes for him, as part of her private goal of putting some weight on him. She looked up from the hillock of pastry she built and noticed Maryam's expression, and her own changed from pleasant anticipation to deep concern.

‘You aren't,' she said to Maryam.

‘I am,' Maryam said calmly. ‘I want to see what these people are like.'

‘Like anyone else,' Rubiah told her.

‘I don't think so,' Maryam considered. ‘There's something different about them, I think, that made them start gambling and all that,' she waved her hand to encompass drinking and loose women. ‘I want to know.'

‘You could get hurt again,' Rubiah argued.

Maryam dismissed this, as though no reprobate could possibly overpower her. ‘Anyway, we're here to plan.' She looked closely at Osman, applying himself diligently to the cakes before him. ‘I hear the gambling is closed down now, after Yusuf's death. I think the best think to do it talk to Noriah, and find out who were the customers, and then go talk to them.'

‘You think they'll confess immediately?' Rubiah asked sarcastically.

‘Probably not.' Maryam refused to be baited. ‘It might take some time.' She turned to Osman. ‘Will Rahman come?' He nodded. ‘Azrina?' This was Osman's wife, relatively new in Kelantan, who'd just begun teaching math at the Sultanah Zainab School. She was a crime fiction fan, who, Maryam could see, itched to try her hand at detecting. Maryam thought she'd be good at it, too, since she was smart and tenacious. She was sure Azrina had already tamed Osman (that would have taken only a short time) and was now ready for some real work.

Osman looked startled, and then thoughtful. ‘I don't know,' he said slowly. ‘I mean, she's a math teacher…'

‘And I'm a cloth seller,' Maryam reminded him. ‘What does that mean?'

He considered what to say. It's too dangerous for my
wife
? That would go down badly. And Azrina's ability to understand Kelantanese, though not to speak it, was improving far beyond his. And most important, he could not possibly stop her if she made up her mind to do it.

Chapter VI

Noriah and Yusuf lived not too far from the family home they used for gambling. It was in a large and airy
kampong
house with a wide covered porch, convenient for lounging while avoiding the direct glare of the sun; a large front room complete with television; sofa and loveseat; and bedrooms and kitchen behind. It was freshly painted and beautifully kept, quite near the main road running from Kota Bharu to Pantai Cinta Berahi, through Kampong Penambang.

Mariam and Rubiah had known Noriah for years as a neighbour, albeit a slightly disreputable one, and went to her house bearing both cakes and
laksa
, as befitted a call on a recently bereaved family. Dressed in their everyday clothing, calling in the middle of the morning, it was as informal an event as they could contrive. (Rubiah's two daughters were drafted to mind both of their stalls for a few hours – how much damage could they do? Maryam didn't like to think about it.)

Noriah, no fool at all, immediately understood why they had come and therefore dispensed with preliminary chitchat and got right down to the business of naming anyone she considered a suspect. However businesslike this discussion would be, it could not flow in an easy and unrestricted way without sufficient coffee, cake and cigarettes to ensure the participants were fully at their ease. All refreshments were served outside in generous quantities, and after their arrival, the three
Mak Ciks
with one goal in mind began to talk.

‘It's a good theory,' Noriah said approvingly upon hearing Maryam's thoughts on the probable killer. ‘Of course, someone who was often in our shop would have known Yusuf best and I hear that most murders are committed by people who know the victim, right?'

Maryam nodded sagely. Who else?

‘First,' Noriah continued briskly, as though in a business meeting, ‘we should look at people who owed Yusuf money. There always are where people are playing cards and things, but Yusuf always managed it quite well. He never let it get out of hand. There's Ruslan, of course. He owed, well …' she thought for a moment, ‘He still owes quite a bit, and he still hasn't paid. Of course, with all that's happened, I naturally forgot about it,' she inclined her head slightly, a gesture encompassing the funeral and all that caused it, ‘But Yusuf said he would be calling on him to discuss it. I don't know if he already had or not.'

‘By discuss, you mean …?' Maryam asked delicately.

‘Oh no,' Noriah corrected her amiably, no offense taken. ‘Just discuss. At least at first,' she added in the interest of full disclosure. ‘But I don't think anything had gone that far with Ruslan.' Maryam nodded again, not wanting to make apparent how little she knew about what going that far entailed. But she could guess.

‘Then Zainuddin,' she counted on her fingers. Maryam and Rubiah did not recognize the name: someone from Kota Bharu, then. ‘He's owed for a while, paying off little by little. I don't like him,' she said bluntly, ‘and I told Yusuf he shouldn't let him gamble here. He was too
kasar
for us here, no manners at all.' What did it take, Maryam wondered, to be considered too
kasar
for a low-down gambling den? Zainuddin, unseen, shot to the top of her suspect list.

‘Do you know where all these people live?' Maryam asked.

Noriah nodded vaguely. ‘I have to look in Yusuf's notebooks, but I'm sure he has some notes in there. They should be easy to find: no one came here from that far away.' She searched her memory again. She looked hard and Maryam and sighed, then continued.

‘There's another. I don't really know what to say about it, except that something was going on. Khatijah. You know her.' They did, and apparently all three shared the same opinion about her. ‘Yusuf was watching her. He was interested in her. I don't know if it was that way,' she explained, seeing the look they exchanged. ‘Of course, that kind of thing always occurs to me first, too, but I'm not sure that was it. But something.

‘The night she married Suleiman, there was a celebration here: drinking and so on.' She looked prim, as though she, too, deeply disapproved. Maryam discounted it immediately as window dressing for the neighbours.

‘And, of course, Khatijah was in the middle of it, and Yusuf wasn't really happy at all, or having a good time with his customers. He was looking at her, watching her.'

‘Was he jealous?' It seemed amazing even as she asked it. ‘I mean, of Suleiman?' This seemed even more improbable.

Clearly, Noriah agreed. She smirked, and nearly laughed. ‘I can't imagine. Jealous of Suleiman! That poor man, no backbone at all. No, I can't imagine that. Anyway,' she said cattily, though accurately, ‘who else would marry Khatijah?'

‘True enough,' Maryam responded, ‘but I'm not sure that does much to help Puteh.'