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  She nodded, relieved, and waved Mamat over to drive her to the market. Her children couldn’t help her: Ashikin, her eldest daughter, was recently married and no doubt already at work at her in-law’s songket store, and Aliza, her younger one had left for school. She wouldn’t consider either of her boys to help; she didn’t trust any man’s business ability, and her sons had never done anything to reverse her opinion. Rubiah, her cousin with a coffee stand on the second floor of the main market, might be able to help. She’d ask as soon as she opened for the day.

  She hopped onto the back of Mamat’s motorbike, decorously arranging herself side-saddle with a pile of fabric on her lap. The fruit and palm trees of their kampong gave way abruptly to Kota Bharu’s dark, cramped Chinatown, pushed hard against the river as though space were at a premium, though there was plenty of it. Three-storey shophouses further narrowed the road, blocking the light, giving a barrack-like atmosphere to this brief stretch. It was Maryam’s least favourite part of the city; though the downtown around the crowded market was hardly more attractive, its energy and constant activity made up for its lack of aesthetic as far as Maryam was concerned. For she was born a market woman, and this was her element.

  Maryam strode into the Pasar Besar, a cavernous, two-storey building in downtown Kota Bharu, and the nexus of its busy commercial life. She sold cotton batik sarong made by her older brother, and more importantly, kain songket woven in her own village, the heart of the songket world. She’d inherited her spot in the cloth section from her own mother in the centre of the market’s frenzied activity.

  She brought down the plywood planks with which she closed her stall at night, and restacked the batik to make a seat for herself: songket was far too expensive to sit on. She extracted her cache of hand-rolled cigarettes from the folds of her sarong, placing them conveniently near for easy access, set out the tin plate she used for an ashtray as well as her box of matches, checked the cardboard box she used as a cash register, and went to work.

  Like many of her fellow businesswomen, Maryam eschewed frippery, both physical and behavioural. She was plain-spoken—in business only, of course, since Malay courtesy demanded a more roundabout approach to things—and busy. She dressed practically, in a batik sarong and long blouse, a baju kurung, and kept her hair wrapped under a cotton turban. However, a pragmatic approach to work attire did not mean a lack of jewellery, and Maryam was almost never seen in public without a respectable number of bangles and small but heavy earrings. She had thick black hair with just a few touches of grey (which she removed when they got out of hand) and beautiful large, brown eyes with sweeping lashes. Her face was round and pleasant, with a small nose and wide lips, and she had grown a bit stocky as she moved into middle age.

  She was determined and energetic: the primary support of her family, as were almost all the market Mak Cik. These older women dominated the economic as well as the family life of Kelantan, and went about their business with the no-nonsense attitude of people aware of their own worth. Kelantanese men were famous for letting their women make money while they sat in coffee shops talking politics. Mamat was himself an accomplished coffee-shop lawyer, a mainstay of his favourite establishment, and a prodigious drinker of the sweet, milky coffee beloved in Kelantan.

  Maryam called to customers, waving them over to buy her cloths. She’d promised that kid – Osman, was it? – to be back as soon as she could, but what could be the harm in making at least some money today? She’d missed the early morning hours, and once she went home, she’d miss the rest of the day. She wasn’t sure to what purpose, since she was no policeman and had no idea what happened or why. Just a few sales, and then she’d go upstairs to the prepared food area on the second floor and find Rubiah, her cousin, though more like her sister and best friend.

  Asking her next-door stall owner to watch her stall for a moment, she ran up the stairs to Rubiah’s coffee stall. It was quiet: the lull between breakfast and lunch, with only a few men sprawled on stools flirting with younger women stirring their pots.

  “Guess what?” Maryam dropped onto a chair in front of Rubiah’s miniscule counter. “You won’t believe it!”

  “Tell me,” she leaned towards Maryam, her eyes alight, her hands still polishing some glasses. Rubiah was of an age with Maryam, and they resembled each other with stocky builds, snub noses and large brown eyes. Rubiah’s were hidden behind thick wire-rimmed glasses, which gave her an academic air, and her turban was unwound, draped around her shoulders rather than covering her hair. “What happened?”

  With a cup of coffee laden with sweetened condensed milk comfortably in her hand, Maryam told Rubiah what had happened earlier in the day, weaving a dramatic tale of death and betrayal. She’d caught the mention of a second wife, which provided a sterling motive for murder. She sorrowfully related her impression of the new Police Chief, an untrained, unsure kid, thrown in over his head in a state where he couldn’t understand the local dialect. How did the authorities think he’d be able to tackle this job?

  “I promised this kid policeman that I’d come back after I opened my stall. Could you look after it?” Rubiah looked around her tiny store as if to calculate what she might lose by abandoning it.

  “We’ll split the afternoon’s money. Take some of your cakes with you,” Maryam cajoled her. Rubiah was renowned for her baking. “Maybe you can sell some downstairs. I really need the favour,” Maryam pleaded.

  Before she’d finished the sentence, Rubiah had already started closing shop, gathering her cakes to bring downstairs. “Go on, go on,” she waved at Maryam. “Don’t worry.”

  Chapter II

  Osman was running his investigation of the scene with as much bravado as he could muster. He was new at his job and new in Kelantan: he’d done remarkably well in his two earlier postings, and his superiors were ready to see what he could accomplish on his own. The Malaysian police made a point of stationing more senior people away from their homes, in order to avoid entrenched favouritism. Osman was nervous: at any moment he might be found out and people would laugh at him, a budak makan pisang, a banana eating baby, thinking he could pass himself off as a police officer. Even worse, he could barely understand a word people said when they spoke Kelantanese, as they all did, though he tried to look thoughtful when he heard their answers.

  This was Osman’s first posting out of his native Perak. His mother had not taken the news of his transfer to Kota Bharu well, though Osman was delighted when he heard: he was young for a police chief and excited about the responsibility. His mother, however, feared her son would fall in love with a Kelantanese girl, or worse yet, under her spell and never return. She had other plans in mind for him, beginning with marriage to a nice Perak girl, preferably a distant cousin, and many grandchildren she could oversee. She warned him often and in detail about remaining aloof from the local women and the benefits of keeping his mind on his work.

  His career to this point had gone very well indeed, and he was confident he could handle any crimes he found in Kota Bharu, which he expected to be of the lost goat variety, or maybe an exciting quarrel turned violent, where he could witness, and tame, the renowned Kelantanese temper. He hadn’t counted on murder. There probably hadn’t been a murder in this area for years, and now it had to happen to him. He looked morosely around the dried field and beaten dirt for a clue, the mark of a shoe, a scrap of cloth. Nothing. It was the end of the dry season, and the ground was baked to a hard finish.

  He squatted together with Dollah, trying to get some background which might illuminate Ghani’s murder. Using one of his juniors as an interpreter, it was painfully slow going, compounded by Dollah’s reluctance to air Ghani’s private affairs to the police.

  “He played with me since he was a kid, maybe eight or nine,” Dollah reported to Rahman, the interpreter, darting an occasional look at Ghani. Dollah was a small man, even among Malays, with a large head and hands and a surprisingly deep voice. He looked to be in his forties, with slightly slanted ey
es and a wide, heart-shaped face. Outside of the panggung, Dollah was soft-spoken and courteous, betraying nothing of the oversized personality he displayed as a dalang. Seeing him talk, it was hard to imagine him as famous, the centre of gossip and scandals surrounding successful performer. He seemed like any villager trying to say as little as possible.

  “He played with me in the dry season, and went down to Singapore in the rainy season to work on construction jobs, so he wasn’t here for about half the year.” Dollah thought about what to say next. “He’s from Tawang, not too far on the other side of Kota Bharu; we’re all from around there. His wife lives there and they have two children.” With that, he appeared to be finished, and commenced looking at the sky.

  “What’s the wife’s name?” Osman asked directly. It was a simple question, and he felt sure Dollah would understand him.

  “Aisha.” Dollah did not look down from the sky.

  “Did anyone go for her?” Osman asked, turning to the group of musicians talking behind him. One nodded. “Should be here soon, Che Osman.”

  Maryam arrived home to find the investigation grinding to a halt. Osman seemed to have run out of questions, and Dollah had never intended to give any real answers. Maryam went to make coffee immediately, hoping to grease the wheels of police work and get them off her property as quickly as possible. It looked awful, a dead body, police everywhere, musicians milling around. “This kid can’t handle it,” she whispered to Mamat in the kitchen. “He’ll never find out what happened. He can’t even talk to anyone! He can’t understand us.” She shook her head ruefully. “I’d say it was horrible to have this happen at Yi’s sunat, and, of course, it is horrible,” she added hastily, while Mamat smiled. “But Yi’s going to think it’s really exciting.”

  “I know,” Mamat replied, watching Maryam add the syrupy milk to the coffee and mixing it. She loaded a tray with coffee and cups and handed it to him. “He’ll never stop talking about it,” Mamat finished as he walked outside, Maryam following with a large collection of Rubiah’s cakes she’d had the foresight to take from the market, and they set everything down on the porch.

  The musicians talked animatedly among themselves, hoping to go home soon and leave this behind them. Osman wondered sulkily if he would ever learn much Kelantanese, or ever solve this crime, and then Aisha appeared, her pretty face blotched with red, her eyes puffy, stepping out of the police car looking wildly around.

  “Where is he?” she looked straight at Osman, who rose awkwardly and ducked his head.

  “Cik Aisha. I am so sorry…”

  “Where is he?” Her voice rose an octave, threatening to break glass on the next sentence. Maryam walked with her as Osman led them to Ghani’s body, now covered with one of Mamat’s sarong. Aisha’s hands shook and though she controlled her tears, her lips trembled and she swayed slowly.

  “Breathe!” Maryam urged, praying Aisha wouldn’t faint. When Osman drew back the cloth, it was clear he had taken some pains to straighten out the body, and make it more decent for Aisha’s view. It wasn’t the best way to preserve clues, Maryam thought, but it was a nice touch for the widow.

  Aisha stared hard at Ghani, biting her lips, unable to speak. Maryam murmured to her, comforting her as best she could, though there was really nothing to say. Aisha nodded finally, saying curtly,

  “It’s him.”

  On the porch, with a coffee cup balanced in her hand, Aisha stared at Osman as he talked, as if unable to make sense of where she was and why he spoke to her. Maryam took over: someone had to, or she feared they might stay all night and she couldn’t wait to have everyone leave.

  “Cik Aisha,” she began with a significant look at Osman, “when did you last see your husband?”

  Aisha saw Dollah, and tried to smile. “Saturday?” Dollah nodded.

  “Did you come here to see him?” Maryam probed further. She really didn’t need Osman to tell her what to ask: the questions seemed obvious.

  “No.” She looked at Maryam as the silence grew longer. Finally she added, “I have two kids at home. Why would I come to visit him?” She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Can I go home now? I have so much to arrange….” Her eyes filled with tears, and Dollah took her arm.

  “Can I take her home now, Che Osman? Look at her, she needs to get back.”

  Osman agreed, looking preoccupied, and turned back to the corpse. As the new widow left, he squatted again by the corpse with one of his men. “What do you think made this wound?” he mused.

  Rahman reached out a tentative hand, not quite touching Ghani’s chest. “A golok? I mean a parang.” He smiled quickly at Osman in apology for using the Kelantanese word, and folded his arms across his knees. “This one, I’d say. And whoever did it wiped it clean with the towel and stuck it into the ground. I don’t think we’ll find anything about it.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” Osman said softly. The handle of the parang gleamed, and he had no doubt the blade would, too; the fact that it was sitting in the ground wouldn’t help the search for fingerprints either.

  “Everyone has one,” Rahman sighed. “It won’t narrow the field down at all.”

  “Whose is it though? Someone here?” He waved over some of the musicians. “Is this one of yours? Does it come from your stage?”

  The other men stared silently, as though they had never seen one before, but the oldest among them nodded. “Well, all old golok look alike, they’re nothing special. But we had a couple with us—we always do, we always need them—and this could be one of them.’

  He turned to one of the younger men and instructed him rapidly. He left at a trot for the panggung and jumped up the ladder to go inside.

  “He’ll look,” he advised Osman. “Just wait a moment.” He smiled, and offered his hand. “Pak Cik Mahmud,” he introduced himself. Osman smiled and clasped his hand, each of them wrapping their two hands around the other’s.

  “Che Osman, Kota Bharu Chief of Police.” It sounded odd to his ears. “From Perak.”

  “Ahh,” Mahmud smiled, as if this explained a great deal. The younger man returned and spoke volubly to Mahmud for a minute or so, while Osman waited. “It could be. We usually keep three or four around, and there are three there now. I wish I could swear to it,” he shrugged, “but all I can say, ‘It could be.’ It’s a beat-up golok, and one beat-up golok looks much like another.”

  Osman thanked him, and became more depressed by the moment. “Take the knife away,” he ordered Rahman, “and make sure you keep the towel clean, too.” He himself turned to leave. Maryam was standing right behind him.

  “I need to talk to you,” she informed him. “Come over here with me.” She motioned him to sit next to her on the high shaded porch with fresh coffee in front of them while the remaining musicians began disassembling the stage and the fence around the field.

  By evening, there would be nothing left.

  “Che Osman,” Maryam began, flicking the ashes from her cigarette through the floorboards. “I see you may have a problem. Now, don’t be angry with me, I’m talking to you like your mother, which I could be, you know.”

  Osman suddenly keenly missed his own mother far away on the west coast. She was a strong-willed woman who brooked no opposition, and he was very close to her. He was relieved to be drawn into Maryam’s orbit and receive unquestioned orders. He sat up straighter and listened attentively.

  “Now, this has all taken place at my home, and I feel responsible for it. Not that I did it or anything like that.” She looked sternly at him to banish that thought from his mind. “But it was a performance I sponsored, and it’s my land. I must see it solved.” She paused momentarily. She could not admit her sudden elation at the prospect of taking over an investigation. She’d be just like the detectives she watched on television, solving crimes and ordering around her subordinates, a particularly seductive aspect of the plan, and Maryam concentrated all her will on overcoming Osman’s. “I’m going to help you, because I think you ne
ed help. You can’t really ask anyone about this: you can’t understand Kelantanese well enough and, besides, no one will tell you anything if they can help it. Me, though, they can talk to: I’m only a Mak Cik and everyone will talk to someone like me.”

  Osman nodded automatically.

  “So,” she continued, expertly flicking her cigarette butt onto the hard-swept ground below, “I’ll go and ask the questions. You can tell me what you think I should ask,” she added graciously, since she didn’t intend to let this kid ever tell her what to do, “and I’ll let you know what I find out. Then you can do your police … stuff. I think that should move things along faster than if you try to do it yourself.” She smiled modestly at him. “I’ve got to talk to my daughter for help at the stall, but it shouldn’t be a problem. And if I need a ride, I can always ask you, right?”

  Osman automatically nodded again. Her personality and natural command seemed to take over, and he tried manfully to shake it off. “Now, Mak Cik,” he began, determined to re-establish his authority, “It’s nice of you to offer to help …”

  “Offer to help?” Maryam echoed, expressing both sarcasm and disbelief, leavened with a touch of irritation. “Do you take me for some bored housewife with nothing else to do?”

  In fact, Osman did just that, but he wisely refrained from admitting it. He began explaining himself, realizing immediately it was a mistake, but too late to change direction. “No, indeed. I meant only that we police, we have methods, and you know, it’s my job to do this. Why, you could get hurt!”

  “I think it’s more likely for you to get hurt, Che Osman,” she retorted, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “I’m offering to help you when you need it most. Well …” She stood up and dusted off her sarong with sharp slaps. “If you don’t need any help, I’ll leave it to you. Good luck.” Disobeying all precepts of Malay courtesy, she turned and strode into her living room, leaving him alone on the porch.