Black Mischief (14 page)

Bertie planned to return to Naivasha after breakfast. The bond he had formed with Sonya and Simon in the shock of the aftermath of losing his beloved Anna was as strong as ever. He had spent two nights away from Ewan and the arrival in Karen of Rebecca and Tom in the early morning would free him to return to Rusinga Farm without leaving Maura without a lift back to Londiani when the time came. While he had the chance, he must speak to Sonya. They came face to face as she was carrying a tray of empty mugs out to the kitchen. He was afraid that his awkward social skills would not be up to the job of getting his deep sorrow and anger across to his dear friend.

‘Sonya, you know how bloody useless, sorry, Sonya, but I'm not much good at the tender stuff. It still puzzles me what could have persuaded Anna to take on a crusty bloke like me.'

‘Bertie, we know each other too well to be bothered with too many words. Heart talk, remember? I think we both learned how to speak it in this very room. Simon was a wonderful teacher.'

‘And now he's gone. Sonya, I can't understand why you're not crying your eyes out. I feel tempted myself. It's so damned unfair!'

‘Of course it is, sweetheart. If I felt it would do some good, I'd be down on the floor here screaming … shouting, cursing, yes, cursing a god who lets these evil, evil bastards get away with this, this abomination. You understand that, Bertie. But … Simon would definitely not approve. Can you see that shutting of the eyes and the rapid shake of the head when he wanted to say you were wrong about something?'

‘What a bloody fantastic pair you were!'

‘Correction, Bertie. Are! Yes, are! It's strange, but since I first received the phone call in Wales yesterday, the day before, whatever, I've been expecting it to end this way. We knew the risks he was taking. All those threats. And I've been wondering how I would react. Cold-blooded minx, aren't I?'

‘Total crap, Sonya! Sorry again!'

‘Bertie, he and I go on together. Now I know some people who would describe what I'm saying as rubbish. Time for shutting my eyes tight and shaking my head! Listen! I've got a lot of business to clear up here this morning. I have to speak to the boys. I'm still working on that! And I have to have my private time with Simon.'

‘Look, what can this plodding Farmer Giles do to help? I'll try anything. Take me out of my comfort zone! Learnt that expression a couple of weeks ago. Not really sure what it means yet!'

Sonya pursed her lips in thought. ‘The boys, you know how much they love coming up to Rusinga. Next week I'm going to have to talk to a lot of people, some unfinished business of Simon's. If I could bring them up to stay, a couple of days.'

‘Long as you like. Ewan —'

He was interrupted. Sergeant Ezra had just taken calls on his mobile. ‘Friends, two things. Doctor Simon will be here within an hour. And the Inspector and I have been detailed to go to Kibera. Trouble. Someone has tried to set fire to the clinic …'

‘Oh, my God!' For all of five seconds Sonya's resolve seemed to wobble. Tears were very close.

The sergeant's message was not complete. ‘Doctor Sonya, no real damage to the clinic. The fools who tried the stunt, four young men, not so lucky. They came in the darkness. They did not see the local guards, volunteers. I'm hearing that for them it is too late for doctors. We will report back.'

When the policemen left, Sonya had an announcement of her own.

‘There has been no clinic for two days. Later on this morning, normal service will start again. Correction! Normal service there can never be again, but,' she was biting her lip, ‘we will do our best.'

The first rays of the new morning were shining dappled light onto the lawn and the driveway of the Daniels' house when a battered, old Chevrolet Estate turned in off the murram road and pulled up outside the front door. Sergeant Hosea Kabari stepped out and lifted the rear door. Before anyone from the house appeared, his wife, Maria, had time to make sure that the shroud, a white silk sheet was in perfect order.

Everyone in the household gathered in a half circle around the back end of the car, close enough to have a view of the human shape wrapped tight in its spotless covering. An ancient hospital trolley was grinding its noisy way across the gravel from the rear of the house.

After a single greeting from Sonya, ‘Welcome home, my darling,' the daytime askari and a young gardener moved the trolley into position to receive the body. Hosea Kabari had placed Simon on a light wooden board which made the transfer to the trolley smooth and quick.

Not unexpectedly in a household heavy with medical people, in a copse of oleander and flame bushes, there was an outbuilding put up and equipped for times when work had to be performed at home. The granite floors and the whitewashed walls made for coolness even on very warm days. Sonya insisted that everyone who had gathered outside to greet Simon's arrival should be present inside.

The shuffling was long finished. The silence in that room went on and on and the tension built up close to snapping point. Glances returned towards Sonya, constantly, even a little impatiently. She herself stood motionless, head bowed and eyes closed. She might have been asleep. Perhaps she wanted them all, without actually asking them, to slip away and leave her alone with her man, probably for the last time.

Without warning, she moved to the top of the table where Simon's head must be. She grasped the top of the shroud in both hands. Before she could remove the sheet, Hosea Kabari gently touched her arm. ‘Madam, please, I must warn you. We did not want to insult the doctor with the clothes of a stranger.'

She acknowledged his words with a barely perceptible nod and then unfolded the sheet down to the line of his shoulders.

It was a face at peace. There was a collective sigh of relief. Sonya bent to kiss her husband's cold lips. She stood back and looked around the line of solemn faces and smiled. ‘Our Simon is not here. We all know that. I am already looking forward to seeing him in another place. But we have a duty to his earthly temple. I am blessed to have family who can honour him in the proper way.'

In ten minutes there were just three living humans left in that haven of peace. It was time to look at the mutilated hands. David Daniels, the surgeon with the ‘stillest hands in East Africa' stood on the opposite side of the table to his youngest sister. Her fingers grasped the silk sheet. It was she who would decide the moment when this shroud was lifted away completely to reveal the naked body of Simon Mboya. The third person present was not a family member. Less than an hour before, Maria Kabari, wife of Hosea and sister-in-law of Ezra, had been a stranger in the house. The handsome woman with the most strikingly compassionate eyes that Sonya had ever seen had not come down from Kericho just to be company for Hosea on his unpleasant mission.

‘Doctor Sonya, I have brought my spices and my … equipment. I can help you. I know these things. When you have finished your task of mending his hands, call me. I will wait on the bench outside, near to the door.'

David watched Maria closely as she left the room. The tall figure glided from their presence without a backward glance. His common sense wanted to warn his sister to be circumspect before she let this woman have any part in these final goodbyes to a man, a down to earth physician who had at no time claimed to possess special gifts which had the merest hint of magic about them. It was not the time to be dishing out warnings. That could come later. But he would have admitted that this sergeant's wife had an aura of power about her, a sense of benevolent spiritual force that he had not witnessed before.

With a single, deft movement of her hand, Sonya revealed the whole body. The gasp was irresistible.

‘My God! These bastards knew what they were up to.' David immediately regretted his loss of discipline. His words would do nothing to help his sister. His brief explosion of anger did not help him either. He struggled to hold back the tears, but he was amazed to look across at Sonya, the wife of this man, the mother of his children and see an expression that showed only deep pity.

In a turmoil of conflicting emotions he began his work to repair the fingers that had been broken, and hacked to the point where most of them were almost severed.

He had never before operated on a body that had been dead for upwards of twelve hours. Rigor mortis had taken a toll. The absence of normal human warmth and flexibility had made the digits brittle.

‘Sonya, I'm afraid.'

‘I understand, David. Perhaps it is not meant for you to do this. Maria, I'm going to call her.'

‘But …' Too late. His sister had left the room and it was some minutes before she returned with Maria. He was discomfited when this stranger came straight towards him and actually touched the forearm of the hand that was holding the scalpel. She was smiling like a loving mother might when trying to comfort an uncomprehending child.

‘You doctors know the word charlatan. Perhaps you suspect that I am one, that I have come to do some bad thing. Who is this woman, you are asking. You are a Christian. I know that. You will remember that Lazarus and Jesus himself passed out of this life only to return shortly after. There were many women among the teacher's followers. Believe also these two teachings. From those ancient times to this very day a small group of women have carried down some of the healing secrets.'

‘Are you going to tell me that you women can raise people from the dead?'

‘Of course not! Why do you seem to be afraid of me, David? If I was sick, I would be so happy if you would take care of me.'

‘And the other teaching?'

Maria sighed, sensing that this man of science needed always to see things, to touch before he could accept. She would try. ‘David, the barrier between us three standing upright around this table and Simon is one of our own creation. Crazy? Perhaps, but also more comfortable for us. We have long ago lost the art, the will to live with such a reality. Only at rare moments, like this perhaps, can we feel the closeness of the other side.

‘Look at these hands. Less than a day ago they were beautiful creations dedicated to life. And now the clay from which they came is beginning to return to itself.

‘I am not afraid. I cannot bring the warmth back to these hands. The skills they had learned are gone forever. But I can hide the wounds. I can answer the insults that they have suffered so that for a short time these fingers can be dressed in a familiar covering. When he is laid to earth, he will be ready.

‘My work will take many hours. You may stay if you wish. You will see no magic potions, hear no mumbo jumbo. Sometimes I sing, sometimes I play my music. Of course, I will say many words to my friend whom I never met but only, Sonya, if you permit me!'

By the time Maria had finished her explanations, David had set aside his instruments and was sitting, a forlorn figure, on a chair close to the head of the table. While he watched his sister help Maria unpack her own bottles, cloths, small knives, spatulas and the rest, he was trying to grasp the meaning, the sense, if there was any, of what he had just heard. Sitting there in his own cool outbuilding, he realised that he was in the presence of the most remarkable woman he had ever met. Her words, true or not, were impressive for the whole new take on life that they put forward. It was the feeling of authority that she had about her which was even more impressive. She showed no sign of arrogance or vanity in her self-assurance.

He was stunned. He felt an urge to stay and watch the policeman's wife at work, but seeing his sister involved and so focused on this unmedical work, a stronger urge was to go outside, take a brisk turn around the garden and look for some breakfast.

Two unlinked notions struck him as he passed the wetlands project on his way to the back fence. The body of his brother-in-law was stretched out close by in his little home surgery, but he felt no sense of a death in the family. He wondered if Hosea Kabari was still at the house. He seemed a fairly ordinary sort of chap, so how on earth did he cope with the wonder woman he had for a wife?

By the time he returned to the main house, Sonya was upstairs with her boys. They loved using the king size bed in the big bedroom for a trampoline. Noah was concerned that Papa might not be coming to Kenton to watch him in the under nines football match for the school. For Noah it was a big competition and he was excited. Moses knew he would be let out of class to watch and Sam had hopes of missing a day of play school to travel to the big school and see the matches. He looked forward to the day when he joined the big boys in the wild running about in the coloured shirts. Papa would make sure that his younger brothers would be cheering Noah on and shouting himself from the touchline.

When are we going home, Mama? Is Papa back? I'm sure I can score a goal if he's watching!'

‘Noah, we think you'll score lots of goals even if we aren't watching.'

‘Oh no! Does that mean that he won't be coming again?'

Her eldest son's unconscious irony cut deep. His words and his crestfallen look almost sent her resolution crumbling. The full impact of Simon's death had not hit her yet but, for now, the dread was that she would fail her three boys. Papa was dead. This stone cold, savage truth was waiting to ambush them in the near future of their young lives. How could she lessen its impact? The angels would have found that difficult!

Before the thought could be completed in her mind, a wild idea blew in from nowhere she could understand.

‘Right! Tracksuits and tackies on! Follow me!'

There was plenty of noisy chatter as they got into their kit. Moses helped his younger brother with his shoelaces. ‘Hurry up, Sam, Mum's taking us on a training run around the garden!'

They clomped down the back stairs and into the garden. The boys laughed at their mother's effort to set a pace that was just above walking speed. On their way back from the wetlands, they came close to the garden surgery.