Princess Play (20 page)

Several men, together with the cleaning staff, scrubbed the cells. There was blood everywhere – more than anyone had seen in one place outside the ritual slaughter of goats on Hari Raya Haji. And even then, it might have been a toss-up between the religious ritual and this slaughter.

*  *  *

Maryam was dumbstruck. She was called to the station; the officer driving the car was trembling and sweaty and refused to give any information on why she was wanted.

Upon arriving, she took in Murad's lifeless body lying on a table, covered with a sheet, awaiting transport to the hospital. She looked under the sheet: Murad was bled white, like a wax figure. She saw Salleh in the corner, and heard the sounds of mops and buckets in the cells. She peeked in the doorway and gasped at the mayhem which had left behind such blood.

Stumbling backward, she almost fell into a sobbing Kamal, but Osman grabbed her arm and led her into his office.

He spoke urgently. ‘She killed him. Grabbed him through the mesh and slit his throat.
Mak Cik
, we have to question her!' And with that, he propelled her into the room where Hamidah waited.

Hamidah sat on the chair behind the table, her arm leaning against the back, her feet crossed. Her attitude was that of supreme sophistication, at odds with her newly chopped hair and filthy clothes. She smiled ruefully.

‘I really should change now, shouldn't I,
Kakak
? I look a sight: a complete crazy woman. By the way, and excuse me for asking, do you have a cigarette?'

Like an automaton, Maryam offered her a pack of cigarettes, originally Mamat's, she had secreted in the folds of her sarong. She lit one for each of them. Hamidah threw her head back and blew smoke at the ceiling.

‘Thank you,' she said gratefully. ‘
Alamak
! I can't wait to bathe. So,
Kakak
, what would you like to ask me?'

Maryam gaped at her. ‘What happened to you?'

Hamidah shrugged. ‘I'm out from under Murad. How many years has it been? My whole life wasted. I felt like the
pelesit
myself, kept in a bottle and fed blood. I might as well have been. And frightened? Terrified.

‘It's funny now, but I can't think why. He's just a man like any other man, and now he's harmless. But for so long, I just kept my mouth shut and looked smaller and smaller so he wouldn't notice me.

‘And his sister, too. What a pair. You know when I decided I had to get out?' Maryam shook her head. ‘When Kamal married Hayati. If I didn't do something, he was going to become his father all over again. My sweet little boy. I couldn't let it happen.'

‘But why …?'

‘Kill him?' Hamidah finished helpfully. ‘It was the only way to escape. Otherwise I'd always fear he'd come after me. I was so trapped! My parents wouldn't help me, they were thrilled with the marriage. A prestigious family and lots of money. It's such a shortsighted view.

‘Well, I can't blame them for thinking that at first. But they should have helped me, taken me home. They knew how evil he was, but they wanted me to stay.

‘I always liked Aziz. I thought he would have been a much nicer husband … well, anyone would. That's why I wanted Kamal to marry his daughter, the younger one. Then he'd be out of his father's influence. I thought Aziz would want to have my son in his family, you know, as a remembrance of me. So we would be joined in the end; you know, the same grandchildren.'

She sighed regretfully. ‘I was wrong, it seems. He didn't want anything to do with Murad, not that I blame him, and he certainly didn't want grandchildren with Murad's blood.

‘Well, before I could do anything about it, poor Kamal was married to Yati. She's just like her mother:
salin tak tumpah
, not a drop spilled, and this is not a good thing. She'll drive him crazy. I've already asked him to divorce her.'

She tapped the ashes on the floor. Maryam didn't dare interrupt: she didn't even know if she could speak at all.

‘I was jealous, you know,' she added, conversationally. ‘Jamillah had Aziz, her girls, her job at the market. I mean, a normal life. And I was locked up with Murad and his familiar. Can you imagine?'

She removed another cigarette from the pack. ‘About six months after we got married, he started talking about
this pelesit
. It was enough to make me crazy for real. A grasshopper in a bottle. He fed it blood, and he wanted me to feed it blood, too. But do you know what I did? I always changed the grasshopper.' she finished triumphantly. ‘He thought it was the same bug for years and years. No, I let it go and caught another one. That was my revenge: catching grasshoppers. It isn't a life.

‘And it wasn't even a real
pelesit
! Just a grasshopper. A harmless grasshopper. And he thought he knew so much about black magic.' She laughed raucously. It was as if this was her final triumph. ‘You should never confuse plain meanness with black magic. It's a good thing to remember.'

‘What happened to your hair?' She couldn't believe that was her first question, but she could not drag her eyes away from hair which looked like it had been hacked off with a machete. As it turned out, it had.

‘I know, it looks awful,' Hamidah said mournfully. ‘You know, Murad grabbed my hair through that mesh on top of the wall and started banging my head against the bricks.' Now Maryam noticed the bruises along the side of her head, which was also swelling.

‘You need some ice,' she said automatically. Osman went to the door. ‘And then?'

‘I must have twisted and his hand got tangled. It was all matted, you know.' She patted what was left of her locks. ‘Then I stabbed him and slit his throat. And he died, of course, and his hand was still in my hair. He was hanging off it, really, and it hurt! And I couldn't move, so one of the policemen very kindly cut it off to get me free of him.'

‘The knife?' Maryam gulped. She couldn't seem to put together a full sentence.

‘Oh that. It was hidden, in my underwear. Because you never know.'

‘Indeed not.'

She turned to Osman. ‘So you see, I couldn't let anyone bathe me. They'd take away my knife, and I was saving it to kill him.'

‘Of course.'

Maryam felt she would never be able to get the stunned look from her face, or keep her jaw from hanging open.

‘Did you … Jamillah?' Maryam could barely form the words.

Hamidah interpreted this correctly. ‘Did I kill her? Certainly not!' Her expression implied it was Maryam who might well be the crazy one. ‘Murad did,' she explained calmly.

‘What?'

‘Oh yes. He smothered her with a towel.'

‘How do you know?'

‘How would I know?' she replied tartly. ‘He told me.'

Maryam turned to look at Osman in wonderment. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

‘Surely you suspected,' Hamidah continued, unperturbed. ‘I know Aziz thought it was Murad who did it – to exact some kind of revenge. For what exactly, I don't think he knew. But that was Murad all over, just revenge without any reason for it.

‘I think, and of course,' she said confidentially, ‘it's just my opinion, that Murad wanted to get back at him for the fight over the boat. He thought everyone should happily accept whatever he gave them and be grateful. You've never seen anyone so mad as he was after that fight.'

She shook her head, remembering. ‘Too bad he didn't fall and break his neck.' She shrugged, a what-can-you-do gesture.

‘But how did he …?'

‘Kill her? I just told you! Everyone knew there would be a
main puteri
. He went to the
kampong
and then …'

‘Alone?'

‘What?'

‘Was he alone?'

Now Hamidah was not nearly as chatty. ‘I don't know,' she said thoughtfully, as though trying to recall an event long ago. ‘I don't know who might have been there with him.'

‘Kamal?' Maryam suggested, speaking very softly.

‘Kamal? No.' She clamped her mouth shut as though she might never open it again.

‘But he came with you to my
kampong
?'

‘I'm his mother. I needed his help!'

‘To do what?'

‘
Kakak
…' She leaned on the table and snaked another cigarette out of the box. She looked up and turned again to Osman, eyes downcast and a small, polite smile on her lips. ‘May I have some coffee, please?'

He got up, whispered through the door and came back with ice in a towel, which Hamidah applied to her head with murmured thanks. He settled himself in his chair, looking at the prisoner expectantly. She took a deep drag on her cigarette.

‘
Kakak
,' she repeated, ‘Murad didn't like you, I'm afraid.'

Maryam smothered her amusement, it simply wouldn't do for her to laugh out loud now. ‘Did you think it would bother me?'

‘Oh, not at all, not at all,' she waved her cigarette in the air. ‘But if he didn't like you, it was a very short distance to harming you. I know it! He might think of sending his grasshopper after you,' she smirked, greatly enjoying her final joke on him. ‘Or he might help the grasshopper. You annoyed him.'

‘How?' Maryam asked, though she could easily guess.

‘Well, let me see.' She counted on her fingers, cigarette held firmly between her lips. ‘You work in the market. You talk to people, even men. You talked to him!

‘And, you were helping the police, and he told me you had no right to.
Membuang garam kelaut
, he said: the police using you was like throwing salt into the ocean. You were just pretending to be important, and the police would never listen to you.'

Maryam was insulted, even given the source.

‘He didn't know what he was talking about,' Osman's mild, flat-accented voice was firm. ‘
Mak Cik
Maryam is the police force's greatest asset!'

Maryam smiled at him, grateful that he came immediately to her defence, even if he was defending her against a lunatic.

‘You've convinced me your husband didn't like me. Not a problem. But
Kakak
, it wasn't your husband climbing into my window, it was Kamal, and you were there.'

‘Oh that.' She seemed supremely indifferent. ‘Well, you know, Kamal is his son.'

Maryam stayed silent, her eyebrows raised, awaiting clarification.

‘Well, he told him to go! Can't you see that? Kamal would never have done such a thing on his own. He's not like that.'

Maryam and Osman looked at each other. Kamal seemed very much like that indeed.

‘And …?' Osman prompted.

Now Hamidah seemed exasperated. ‘So Murad
told
him to go. And Kamal, he's a good boy, he told me where he was going. Murad told him to climb in and smother you, in the same way Jamillah died. Then it would look like this happened every time there was a
main puteri
in Kampong Penambang. It's clever when you think about it. I hated him, but he could be clever.'

‘It wasn't that clever, since everyone was expecting it – and it didn't work,' Maryam pointed out.

‘Well, as I told you, Kamal is not that kind of boy. He really didn't want to do it, so he made sure he got caught.'

‘I'm not sure about that at all,
Mak Cik
,' Osman interjected. ‘He seemed pretty determined.'

‘I was there too,' she replied loftily. ‘If Kamal really wanted it done, it would have been.'

‘Don't even argue,' Maryam advised him. ‘There isn't any reason.' Osman shrugged, and frowned at his notebook.

‘So you see,' Hamidah continued, believing she had won that round, ‘Kamal was just going through the motions so he wouldn't have disobeyed his father. Who, I can tell you now, was waiting not far away to see if everything was done correctly. But he must have heard the commotion, so he ran back to Semut Api, the coward, and left us two with the police.'

‘I see.'

‘I needed to dress this way,' she said earnestly, ‘so you would think I was completely crazy.

‘It worked,' Osman assured her.

‘See? I wanted to make sure you saw that my son didn't mean it, that he was innocent.'

‘I'm not sure I'm following you,' Osman said politely. She ignored him.

‘You must let Kamal go,' she instructed him. ‘Because he didn't do anything, and Murad killed Jamillah and now he's dead too, so you see, it all works out.' She smiled broadly at them both. ‘I've solved it for you.' And she looked around, awaiting the grateful thanks she reckoned she deserved.

Chapter XXIX

Maryam insisted on leaving the station and walking over to the market, where they could sit at Rubiah's counter and consider what they'd just heard. ‘I couldn't stay there a moment longer,' she told Rubiah when they had settled. ‘It looks like … well, I don't even know what it looks like. It's covered in blood. I don't think Murad had any left in him.'

Rubiah gasped. ‘How did it …? Why?'

Maryam shrugged and looked over at Osman to give the details, such as they were. Rubiah turned pale as she heard the details, then sat down heavily on her stool. ‘
Astigfirullah
!' she breathed.

‘But I think she's lying.' Maryam told them. ‘It's so convenient to blame Murad for it now that he's dead. And she hates him anyway, so she's not looking to honour his memory. I think both these families think their children did it, and they're trying to shield them.

‘Kamal?'

‘Of course. He came in my window, why not Jamillah's? That poor kid has the wrong parents.'

‘Well, I certainly like that better than Zaiton.'

Maryam nodded, her thoughts far away. ‘Not that it matters who you want it to be. If that's the basis, then we have the murderer and he's already dead. Very convenient.'