Princess Play (19 page)

‘Zainab may agree, because no one's heard from her either, have they? You would think for something like this, the family wouldn't leave you alone about finding the killer. It's odd they're just sitting quietly.'

‘No more coffee for me,' Osman said, as he held up a restraining hand. ‘Please.'

‘You aren't hungry?' Rubiah asked, unwilling to send him home without a meal.

‘Oh no,' he assured her. ‘We've been eating all day.'

‘Maybe you have,' Rubiah chided him. ‘We've been talking.'

He laughed, something he never would have done with either Maryam or Rubiah before, where he would only have felt rebuked and then apologized. But his confidence had grown since his marriage, and he no longer interpreted every comment as a reprimand – even if it was.

‘Do you think we should talk to Zainab?'

Maryam thought about it. ‘Of course. We should speak to the whole family.'

*  *  *

Zainab's story matched those of her sister and father. ‘You had to clean up the whole mess with Zaiton, didn't you?' Maryam asked sympathetically. ‘It must have been so hard on you, like taking over as the mother.'

Zainab agreed. ‘I just don't know why Zaiton did what she did. Making me go all the way to Golok to find her, running away like that. At least everything worked out in the end. We had the
kenduri, Mak Cik
, and I think it went very well.'

‘An excellent idea,' Maryam congratulated her. ‘I think you handled it beautifully. No one could have done any better.'

‘Thank you!' Zainab seemed pleased. ‘I did try to get it all straightened out.'

‘Tell me,' Maryam leaned forward confidentially, ‘did you think Rahim had anything to do with the
enam sembilan
? I'm just asking your opinion. He says he was on his way here and then saw what happened and ran. I like him, you know. He's a nice boy.'

‘We
thought
he was a nice boy,' Rubiah added.

‘I don't know,
Mak Cik
. I know I should say “No, never!”, and I'm not accusing anyone, but that whole situation was so tense and mixed up, I don't know what either of them were doing. I don't think they were thinking clearly either. I mean, now they're home and everything is quiet, and I don't doubt it will stay that way. Zaiton and I are going to take over my mother's stall in the market.'

‘Congratulations! We'll be neighbours!'

Zainab smiled back at her. ‘I know. Things have already settled down. It was a crazy time.'

Maryam and Rubiah smiled pleasantly and thanked her.

‘She thinks it too,' Rubiah said as they left. ‘She's telling us it won't happen again, so we should leave it alone.'

‘I can understand why they wouldn't want to go through any more scandal. But a crime like that – it's unnatural! It makes me shiver.' She wrapped her arms around herself to demonstrate. ‘If they all think Zaiton killed her mother, than it's most likely one of them who attacked me to make me stop investigating. But then, and this bothers me, what was Kamal doing climbing into my house?

Rubiah had no answer.

*  *  *

Osman could not understand Hamidah. Two female officers, assisted by Azrina, attempted to bathe her, which resulted in the three of them becoming soaked to the bone, while Hamidah's hair remained untouched and most of her dirt still in place.

‘I don't know what's wrong with her!' Azrina exclaimed to Osman later. She fought like a tiger:
seperti polong kena sembur
, like a familiar spirit touched by water! She almost threw herself out of the room. And why? She wouldn't put on clean clothes or comb her hair.' Azrina gritted her teeth in frustration. ‘Unbelievable. She really must be crazy, you know. What grown person would act that way? She's filthy!'

He watched as she stormed around the house shaking her head at the recalcitrance of the woman. He was completely content.

‘Let's go to the night market,' he suggested. ‘We can get some food there. Or eat by the river.' She smiled at him, excited now at the thought of exploring Kota Bharu after dark. ‘Yes, I'll get my bag.' And she left him in the kitchen.

‘Look at this,' she came back in, holding a small, shredded piece of yellow cloth with Thai writing on it. It had been balled up into the smallest size possible and was grubby with smeared black fingerprints.

‘What do you think it is?' she asked him, trying to flatten it out so they could see what it said. Osman felt his back go cold. Azrina smoothed it out on the table; even out to its full length it was small, and he couldn't read Thai anyway. But there was no mistaking the small drawing of a demon face in the corner, slightly obscured by dirt but clear enough if you were looking hard. He put his hand on his forehead, and carefully removed her hand from it. ‘Where did you get it?' he asked.

‘I don't know.' She cocked her head to look at it from another angle. ‘It isn't mine. Could Hamidah have stuck it into my clothes before? It looks like something she would have: dirty. Look at it.'

She looked up at him and her faced creased in concern. ‘What is it?'

‘I think it's a spell, a
jampi
. And it must be from her. No one else would have one so smudged.' He couldn't take his eyes off it. ‘Let me take it,
sayang
. Don't even think about it.'

He took the offending object and tried to look insouciant, but it unnerved him. ‘I don't want it in the house,' he said suddenly. ‘Let's leave it in the office on our way out.'

He resolved to bring it to
Pak
Nik Lah first thing in the morning and find out what this family was trying to do to him. He kept a sharp eye out for grasshoppers, but saw none for the rest of the evening. Thankfully.

*  *  *

‘At least it isn't poisonous,' Maryam told him. She didn't waste much time on the spell when Osman brought it to her. ‘Heaven only knows what else she's got stuck into pockets and what-not. This is probably the cleanest thing on her.'

She kept her manner completely businesslike. ‘What do these little scribbles mean? It's
poison
you worry about. Besides,' she whipped a batik sarong open to show to a customer, ‘that woman is crazy.'

Osman was a bit insulted that Maryam made such short shrift of this
jampi
. After all, hadn't she herself suffered under the curse of black magic?

‘It was the poison,' she answered briefly. ‘Not yellow cloth. Anyway, you should be finding out what that family is up to. I can't figure it out.'

Chapter XXVII

He strode into the holding cells in the police department – hardly a jail, just three rooms with bars. The air was heavy and hot: there was no air conditioning and only a small window in each cell, hardly sufficient for a breeze.

He went first to Kamal, sitting wretchedly on the hard bench, his head in his hands, looking as though he'd been sitting in that posture for years. He leaned in through the bars, his habitual expression of disapproval and distain unchanged, even seeing his only child in such straits. Kamal lifted his head to look at him without any warmth.

‘What is it?'

‘Is that how you talk to me?' his father asked. If he was surprised at the lack of deference he'd come to expect from his son, his face didn't reveal it.

Kamal was tired. ‘What did you come here for,
Ayah
?'

‘To see how you were.'

‘How did you think I would be?'

‘Stop talking in riddles,' he answered. Behind him, two policemen entered and unlocked the remaining empty cell. They ushered him into it with little ceremony, ran their eyes along the three sets of bars and left.

‘You're in jail?' Kamal asked, shocked.

His father sniffed. ‘I came to demand they release you, and they refused.'

‘So?' asked Hamidah from the cell next to him.

‘You're filthy!' he informed her.

‘I know. Why are you here?'

‘I threw a rock through the window there.' He waved towards Osman's house.

She nodded sagely. ‘And left a grasshopper?'

‘Don't talk about it,' he hissed at her. ‘Not in here.'

‘It's just a grasshopper.'

He glared at her, though it was difficult in side-by-side cells. She laughed at him, which clearly goaded him. ‘You still think you're commanding the forces of evil?'

‘You've fed it yourself. Be quiet.'

The tops of the walls were wire mesh, a half-hearted attempt to encourage the movement of air. It was a failure, but it allowed some contact among the cells, if indeed such contact was welcomed. Hamidah stepped onto her bench, which brought her to the mesh if she stood on tiptoe. She looked down into her husband's cell and smiled.

‘It's nice to see you here, all locked up like this. Like a rooster in a cage:
bagai se ekur burong, mata lepas, badan terkurong
. Your eyes are free, but your body confined.'

‘Get down from there.' He looked up at her disgustedly. ‘Kamal, tell your mother to climb down off that bench. I can't bear to look at her.'

‘Am I frightening you? How could that be?'

‘Not you, Midah. Just the way you look – like a vampire with that hair. And a dirty face. Is this what you're really like?'

‘Oh yes,' she agreed amiably. ‘This is the real me, feeding spirits with blood, drinking it myself. It's what you made me. You should be proud to see it.'

He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. ‘I don't know how I stayed married to you for so long.'

‘I wonder the same thing; about myself, I mean.'

‘Stop it!' Kamal ordered them. ‘Just be quiet.'

‘Kamal, it's just a conversation. Just family time here. This is where your father's taken us.'

‘Be quiet,
Mak
.'

She leaned her elbows on the top of the wall. ‘No more. Not for anyone.' She looked down at Murad. ‘Where is your pelesit now? Is it coming to get us all out of here? I'm looking around and I don't see anything.'

‘Be quiet,' Murad muttered again. ‘Let me relax.'

‘You can relax when you're dead,' she said with sudden vehemence. ‘Just like you killed Jamillah.'

‘Me?' He seemed honestly surprised. ‘I didn't kill anyone.'

‘I know you did. And I'm telling them! You think Kamal and I will sit still and be accused of your crimes? No more. You can suffer on your own.'

‘Tell them what? There's nothing to tell.'

‘They think you did it anyway, because no one can stand you. When I tell them, they'll be delighted to hear it. You're their favourite suspect. Maybe they'll hang you!'

‘
Mak
, stop it!'

‘Won't Noriah be crushed,' she taunted him. ‘She might never recover!'

Murad was now furious. He pulled his bench over to the wall under the mesh, and climbed up on it. The veins in his neck were pulsing, his face was red, his teeth gritted.

‘Leave Noriah out of this. This is just you being … vindictive. I always told you, Midah, you can't always chase revenge.'

‘You tell me that! You!'

They stood face to face through the wire, Murad's revulsion clear on his face, Hamidah spitting fury. He poked his finger into her face. ‘I'm telling you to stop. You're a spectacle.'

She laughed at him, loud and long. ‘I'm free of you now. You'll never get out of jail.'

In a rage, he grabbed her hair, and she howled with pain.

‘Now listen! I divorce you! I divorce you! I divorce you! Kamal, do you hear it? Three
talak
! I never want to hear anything more from you.'

He yanked her hard by her hair, pounding her head onto the top of the wall. She squirmed around, trying to get free, but succeeded only in twisting his hand deeper into her hair so that he couldn't get loose.

Rahman and another officer came into the jail, drawn by Hamidah's screams, paralyzed by the tableau before them. They could hardly credit what they saw.

With a piercing scream, Hamidah desperately fought free a wicked-looking small dagger folded into her sarong, reached around and stabbed Murad in the neck. He could not jump away with his hand securely tangled in her hair, so she stabbed him again, blood now covering them both from the shoulders up.

He coughed and pulled his head back, but she kept the knife buried, and with a deft movement, slit his throat, and while Kamal shrieked and the policemen tried to drag them apart, Murad died. His knees buckled and his head flung back. He hung from his hand and his wife's hair, which had to be cut off in order to free him.

The only thing she asked for was a bath.

Chapter XXVIII

The police station had been in an uproar. Hamidah was taken roughly from her cell after having her hair hacked off to free Murad. The policeman who did the hacking, an older man named Salleh, swore he would have nightmares about it for the rest of his life and retired to a corner to drink coffee with his eyes closed. His comrades took turns sitting down next to him in silent communion.

She was placed in the interrogation room, under Rahman's watchful eye. He kept his distance lest she also come after him with a knife, but thankfully she sat quietly, calmly, softly humming under her breath. All in all, she seemed at ease, and quite pleased with her afternoon's work. She would occasionally catch Rahman's eye and give him a pleasant smile, which terrified him all the more because it seemed so natural.

Kamal remained in a state of shock, shaking and crying, unable to process what he'd seen. And who could blame him? It was an act no one should ever have to witness. The coroner who came to pronounce Murad dead – ‘really dead', as he described it – gave Kamal a sedative to calm him. He looked in on Hamidah to see if she needed one, and determined she was by far the calmest person in the building. She gave him a friendly wave as he left her.