Black Mischief (27 page)

He and Caroline spent no more than ten minutes in intense discussion while everyone else in the room listened and watched in admiration at the speed of their exchanges, their grasp of detail and the ideas that sprung from their energised, excited intellects. When they were done, Caroline spoke first.

‘This is not a complex problem, but it is a problem. Tom, those names you gave me. Drongo is on the records as David Gusil.'

Paul took over. ‘Your Patrick, surname Uchome, fancies himself as a couple of cuts above the people he employs, mostly out of work thugs from the rougher parts of the city. There's a list of charges against them a foot long, just from tonight.'

Caroline took up the explanation.

‘Before we charge them, we have to catch them. And these are a ruthless bunch with a nasty habit of getting to witnesses before we do.'

‘Unpleasant as they are, they are little fish. The big fish, our Mister Killer Shark who never gets his own teeth messed up with blood, we all know his name.'

‘We do.' There was a cynical edge to Tom's tone. ‘But Mister Abel Rubai is not on the list.'

‘You are right.'

‘And there's a girl asleep over the way who is going to cop it from him sooner rather than later. We are her only hope, her only hope.'

The silence that followed was long and intense.

Lydia Smith, what was she worth? The unspoken question was in everyone's mind, one way or another.

Paul quietly left the room to sit on the bench under the veranda. Less than two hours before a dead body had lain where he sat. He knew it. Do the dead leave behind tiny traces of themselves? Maria would be at home with a question like that. He had never seen this girl, but his heart was warm towards her. Supposing they tried to protect her, where would it lead? Where would they bottom out? Every path Paul followed to find an answer to the question brought him to the same destination. A minor confrontation with the Kenyan colossus would be risky. Oppose him when the stakes were high and you would provoke him to bring out the iron fist.

Caroline sat at the table with pen and paper, alternately doodling and writing down random thoughts. She eventually arrived at two possible conclusions, the noble one and the sensible one.

Tom, who had inherited his father's gift with numbers, leaned forward with his head bowed. A stranger might have speculated that he was dozing after a hard day or maybe praying. In fact, he was composing a simple equation, a kind of mental balance sheet. He found nothing to put in the negative column of his accounts sheet.

It was Tom who broke the silence. ‘Yes, we are Lydia's only hope. I'm in, whatever it takes.'

Caroline smiled. ‘I have two possible ways to go. Tom, yours is not my sensible one, but it's the better one anyway. You might hate me for saying this, but my brain tells me that we should try not to be sentimental on this. Abel Rubai is in desperation mode. We could all go down - but I'm in, too.'

‘I nearly died here tonight. If Hosea had been one, two seconds later … A few days ago Simon was taken from us. In this last year, Thomas, you could have gone twice. Anyway, what do you make of this? When we were all sitting around just now, I think I dozed off. Either that or I had a sort of daydream. Haven't had one since my Pembroke days. I, well, I, er, went off on a strange journey. Bertie Briggs was dead. He, I was on the other side, looking down at this farm. I love it here. I could see into two rooms. In this one, half a dozen of us were sitting around. Yes, I was still here, damned if I know how. Anyway, I was then looking in on the big bedroom next door. Four little ones with their lives in front of them and close by, another little beauty with her life waiting to unfold.

‘Suddenly darkness dropped on us like a heavy curtain. Someone started singing down there, a female voice, a single note. To start with it was a sweet sound, but soon it became louder and shrill like a siren. Next it was a scream, even louder and filling the sky, up and up until, with a final burst that would split the earth in two, silence and the darkness clearing and a shape clothed in shimmering white silk, floating out across the lake. Then it was me again, watching myself on the other side, alone until the silky shape appeared coming towards me slowly, gently like a feather on the breeze. As it passed by, hardly moving now, a face turned to look at me, a woman's face so beautiful that my only reaction was to gasp in wonder. She smiled and breathed a single word: “Forgive”.'

The silence in the room was as deep as the sleep of death. The concentration of his companions on Bertie's words had been so intense that every other sound had been shut out. So they had not heard the car pull up outside and the silent return of Maria and Hosea. They moved inside the door only when Bertie added his short epilogue, his resolve: ‘Count me in, whatever it takes.'

Tom, who knew Bertie better than anyone in the room, was staring at his old friend in amazement. Bertie, who would normally keep his emotions strictly under control, who would be embarrassed to listen to, let alone utter what he described as airy-fairy twaddle, merely smiled and nodded as if he had just made a very practical pronouncement on what prices he expected to receive for his next consignment of roses in the Amsterdam flower market.

Maria's reaction was very different, but first she had a message for Tom. She was shaking her head and smiling. ‘Thomas, your father is a man with a sense of humour. We were almost at the hospital, just about to turn off Ngong Road, when Hosea had to brake sharply. Hardly a word had been spoken since we left this house when Alex suddenly sat bolt upright and looked around. He caught sight of David Gusil lying beside him stiff and obviously no longer in this world. “My God, are they so short of graves these days that they're burying us two at a time? Do I know this man?” I know I should not be smiling and I mean no disrespect to Mister Drongo —'

‘But you can take it,' interrupted Hosea, ‘that Alex McCall is well. He wanted to travel back with us, but your mama stepped in. But it will be no long time before he is back home and giving orders.'

‘But how? What happened?' One strong emotional experience after another sent Tom's mind reeling with a mixture of wonder and delight.

‘Tom, it's the usual story. We've forgotten the simple way where you expect without needing to understand every detail. Best to accept the reality - and rejoice!'

Hosea sat down and nodded his agreement. Glancing around the room at each person in turn, he wanted to let them know that his wife had been lifted into a dynamic level of perception. She was not finished yet.

‘You have a very fine car, Caroline, such a smooth and peaceful engine! Hosea and I were so excited by what had happened to Alex, that, on our way back, we talked like a couple of mother hens sitting out on our patch on a warm afternoon. Lydia Smith, she was at the heart of it.'

Sonya smiled and let her head rock back in surprise. ‘Coincidence, no, synchronicity. I hope that girl's ears are not on fire with all these words about her spilling out.'

‘Come on, Maria. Out with it.' Paul chuckled. ‘I haven't been your brother all these years without being able to recognise when the mood is with you.'

Brother and sister slapped hands in delight before she went on.

‘Bertie, you have blessed us all. I don't believe that this daydream, or whatever, is an accident. You have struck a seam of pure gold here and we must not waste an ounce of it. We have the privilege of seeing the road ahead. If we look hard enough we will see this girl along the way waiting for us.'

‘Maria, I have listened, but do I understand? You just heard it second-hand and understand straightaway. You people are much wiser than me.'

‘Rubbish, ‘Becca.' Tom reached across and squeezed her shoulders. ‘You are the wisest person I know. And I am not being biased.'

‘But, Thomas, do I really understand? This is such a new thing for me.'

‘I'm not too sure myself. Abel Rubai wants to silence Lydia. We want to stop him. For a quiet life we hand her over. Protect her and we could all be knocked off. He's afraid. Serious stuff.'

chome, please explain.'

Outwardly Abel Rubai looked very calm. Casually dressed and at ease in an armchair in the sitting room of his farmhouse on the outskirts of the city, he poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. Patrick Uchome had not been invited to join his very generous paymaster but stood watching him stir his drink for what seemed a ridiculously long time. Uchome had seen the boss play little mind games before with others he wanted to unsettle. Now he was the victim.

‘Boss, as I explained on the phone …'

‘Uchome, let me remind you. Passing on information is not the same as giving satisfactory explanations. As I understand it, your men, your best so you assured me as recently as last evening, ran away from the job. And let me remind you that I emphasised the importance of this one. “No problem, Boss, we'll have her back in next to no time”. Your words?'

‘See, as I explained, the layout of the place was confusing in the darkness. We went to the little house. The lights were on. Not there. We were just about to go to the main place, on the very point of finishing the job and suddenly guns were going off. Drongo went down. Boss, the boys thought it was the police, so they took off. I stayed behind. It turned out that it was a cop, some kind of crazy who was just coming back from a night out in one of the town bars.'

‘Bullshit, Uchome.'

‘But, Boss …'

‘Shut up and just listen. You messed up and you know it.

But, but, perhaps you can give me the truth on something else you said on the phone. McCall, the older one, tell me again.'

‘Things happened pretty fast, but this is kosher. McCall went for one of the boys. Zac, one of my best, moved in. One smash on the jaw and McCall went down. Hit his head on a chair as he fell. Out, maybe worse.'

‘Hospital job?'

Uchome, his expression hopeful, nodded his head. ‘Yeah, but not the local dump. I was there once …'

Abel had switched off. Uchome had also seen this side of the boss's behaviour where he sat forward in his chair and gazed sideways at the floor. His only bodily movement was in the eyes. They flickered this way and that or alternately were hidden under eyelids that closed with langorous ease. Uchome stood rigid and made sure that even his breath would not break the stillness of this effort in concentration. He was sure that his boss was working towards some decision about his own immediate future. He was partially correct.

‘Leave us. Just go outside somewhere, out of earshot. I'll call you when I'm ready.'

‘Leave us.' Uchome looked around expecting to see someone whom in his state of nervous tension he had not noticed, perhaps in one of the dark corners. No one.

As the servant nervously awaited his master's summons, striding up and down the gravel driveway, he longed for one of the long Havana cigars he bought for himself on his birthday. Inside, Abel was making phone calls. In the first four, he was seeking information. He was encouraged by what he was told and the news persuaded him that the plan could work. He set a target of five am for completion, just three and a half hours away. It would not be cheap and there were big risks involved.

Another half a dozen calls and it was all set up. Uchome would be the man to guide it home. Abel smiled at his own smartness in choosing the very person who had just failed him, to rescue the situation. Uchome worked more happily on city jobs. He was familiar with the details and, best of all, this time, his man would be keen not to stuff up on a second and probably last chance.

The person who had failed his generous employer had issues of his own to deal with before he felt fully prepared to ride into battle and redeem himself. He had turned the gun on Drongo. He had temporarily lost control of a situation and panicked. But Drongo! Of all the men he had taken on jobs, Drongo was the only one he would have called a friend. And Drongo had never let him down. For a person in their business Patrick Uchome had an amazing distaste for violence of any kind. Why had the big man insisted on sending in such a heavy brigade to bring out one slip of a Nairobi tart? The kid must have something mighty serious on him. Yes, Uchome was well aware how much the Knight of the Pink Palace loathed even the minutest possibility of having the tiniest spot of dirt besmirching his shiny armour. And he could not forget the large piles of shillings he had accumulated for finishing off little jobs for big paydays. And when this business was finished, he would have to be the one to tell Drongo's wife the bad news. Hell, he was tying himself in knots here. Work was the best cure he knew for dealing with this kind of garbage.

At four am an ambulance stopped at the barrier of the main gate of Nairobi Hospital.

The gateman was not happy about what he saw. These paramedics were strangers to him. In his many years at the hospital he had become familiar with practically every member of staff. He put a call through to the central office and was surprised that it was transferred to Doctor Peter Umbaka, a very senior consultant in cardiothoracic.