Nairobi Heat (15 page)

I understood what he meant – the rage surrounding her death was such that anyone involved in it was going to go down no matter how powerful they were. The Never Again Foundation and Refugee Centre would tumble down once the face of their victim was the white girl’s. Were we manipulating race? The calculation was simple: one million lives did not move the world, African countries included, to intervene, but the death of one beautiful blonde girl would. We did not create that equation – we found it as it was. And we would use it to get justice.

‘And, Ishmael?’

‘Yes, Chief?’

‘You need to get your black ass home. Shit here has hit the fan and it’s spilling all over me,’ he said and hung up.

At least I had his backing. Maybe he had finally tired of playing politics and wanted to do something real for a change.

With the Chief on board I called Mo and faxed the papers to her. I waited for about ten minutes then called her again. ‘Did you get your Pulitzer material?’ I asked her, trying to keep things light.

‘Yeah … Two days, gimme two days,’ she said, sounding serious. ‘I need at least two to put this shit together. I wanna look into the Never Again Foundation, they stink bad.’

‘Call the Chief if you need anything,’ I told her. ‘Tell him I sent you.’

‘Sure thing …’ She paused. ‘And, babe, get out of this alive, you hear?’ she added.

We had two days to survive. Once the story was out, we would be safer. But by the same token everyone would be scared to talk to us. So we also had two days in which to make something happen. It was nine pm. We sat around the office talking about the case, trying to figure out what to do next.

‘I keep going back to Madeline. Look, man, she knew Samuel Alexander and she knows Joshua. She is the connection, she has to know something,’ O finally said.

‘I spoke with her last night … nothing …’

‘You mean you questioned her?’ O asked sceptically. ‘Was that before or afterwards?’

I gave him an angry glare, but deep down I knew he was right.

‘Brother, you are getting everything mixed up. That is
all I am saying,’ O said. ‘Maybe she’s not hiding something, maybe she is. Maybe she doesn’t know she has something we can use. Use your head, man. We have to talk to her.’

We got to Madeline’s at about ten thirty. She was in her pyjamas, getting ready for bed, and was not very happy to see us, especially after we explained why we were there.

‘Listen, Madeline, I am not saying you are hiding anything,’ O tried to explain, ‘but you are the only person we know who knew both Joshua and Samuel.’

‘Your friend is a fucking asshole,’ Muddy said, turning to me. ‘For one, I did not know Joshua that well …’

‘I am not saying you were fucking him,’ O said defensively.

‘He’s right, Muddy,’ I added, ‘we’re not saying you’re mixed up in anything, but you might know something without even …’

‘Like what?’ she snapped at me.

‘We spent a whole day in Mathare trying to find someone who might have known Joshua, but no one would tell us anything. They wouldn’t even admit that they knew about the Refugee Centre. Why is that?’ I asked, sounding every bit the cop.

She put her hands over her face. ‘I don’t know … Maybe someone had threatened them?’

‘What about the Never Again Foundation?’ I asked.

‘What about it? The Refugee Centre is the left hand, the Foundation is the right.’

‘What about Joshua and women?’ I asked.

‘He used to specialise in girls from his school,’ she said
bitterly, ‘but these days … I have no idea.’

O opened the briefcase and handed her the letters and logbook. She looked at him in surprise, then began to leaf through the letters, whistling every now and then in surprise at what she was reading. Finally, she put them aside and started working her way through the logbook. But with each flip of the page my disappointment grew – it was clear that Muddy really did not know anything that could help us. I went and stood by the kitchen window, trying to think of where else we could look.

‘Kokomat, look … Kokomat is listed,’ Muddy suddenly yelled in excitement.

I rushed back to the dining room. She was pointing at an entry: Kokomat Supermarket. They had received one million dollars from the Never Again Foundation.

‘So?’ O asked. ‘That is just one of many Kenyan companies listed.’

‘And you are supposed to be the fucking detectives …’

Muddy rolled her eyes at us. ‘Kokomat is one of the biggest supermarket chains in Nairobi! They should be giving money to the Foundation, not getting it from them.’

We still looked puzzled.

‘And it is owned by a Rwandan women’s cooperative,’ Muddy explained. ‘They are being paid to keep quiet about something.’

This was something! Muddy stood up and I kissed her hard. Would she come with us to Kokomat to help us find out where the women lived? O asked. She agreed and went to put on a light sweater. Then, together, we hopped into the Land Rover and drove off.

The massive gates of the main Kokomat offices were closed, which wasn’t a surprise considering the time of night. Undeterred, Muddy climbed out of the Land Rover and approached the security guard. She chatted with him for a few seconds before reaching into her back pocket for some money and what was clearly a joint. Minutes later she was back with the directions – the owners lived in Muthaiga. Of course they lived in Muthaiga, I thought, the estate was a cesspool of wealth.

It was close to midnight but we couldn’t wait till morning and twenty minutes later we were in Muthaiga, O showing his badge at gate after gate until we were finally outside the address we had been given. Muddy said it was better if she went in alone and with reluctance we agreed. She was an insider, no matter how much of an outsider she seemed.

A middle-aged woman opened the front door and she and Muddy spoke animatedly for about ten minutes, then she looked back at us before walking into the house. We sat outside for another half an hour, then, just as I was about to go looking for Muddy, chauffeur-driven black Benzes started pulling up. We counted five in all, and out of each popped a middle-aged woman dressed in long, flowing African clothes. They must live in Muthaiga as well, I thought as I watched Muddy and the owner of the house welcome the arrivals.

‘What the hell is going on?’ O asked.

‘This is your country, you tell me,’ I replied, just as intrigued as he was.

‘My country, yes, but here we are both foreigners,’ he scoffed.

After another half an hour or so the front door opened
again and the owner of the house called us inside. She led us to the sitting room where we found the five women and Muddy – out of place with her jeans and dreadlocks. The owner of the house introduced herself. Her name was Mary Karuhimbi from Rwanda and she was the Managing Director of Kokomat (the five women were the top-ranking executives at the supermarket). Mary Karuhimbi then went on to give us the names of her parents and grandparents and her clan name. Everyone followed suit, even O. When it was my turn, I named my parents and grandparents but apologised for not having a clan name. Ms Karuhimbi waved away my apology. ‘No need for sorry,’ she said, ‘sometime brothers and sisters have different mothers and fathers.’

Then Mary Karuhimbi called Muddy over so that she could translate for her. I felt the butterflies in my stomach. Finally we were onto something. This was it.

‘My daughter, yes, I can call her my daughter, says that you risked your lives to save a young girl in Mathare,’ Muddy translated. ‘We thank you for that because she is one of our own. We owe you a debt. We will repay you tonight with the truth.

‘She also says that that Joshua Hakizimana might have taken the life of a young white woman. And that you, our long-lost son, seek justice for her. We also thank you for that. It does not matter whether it is one of our own, or one of theirs, a young life anywhere is an important life because it is the future. We claim her death as the death of one of our own.

‘Investigators Ishmael and Odhiambo, we have spoken amongst ourselves … Harsh words were exchanged between us, but we have decided that even if it was Jesus who had
committed such a crime we would have to speak out.’

O and I looked at each other, unsure of protocol. Should we thank them? But before either of us could muster the courage to say anything she had ploughed on, Muddy trailing in her wake as she struggled to translate quickly enough for O and me.

‘You want to know about Joshua the hero?’ Mary Karuhimbi spat on the immaculate tiled floor. ‘That is Joshua, your hero,’ she said angrily, pointing at her spit.

I hadn’t been expecting her to say nice things about Joshua, but outright hatred? I was surprised.

‘We are all from the same village. Survivors … But sometimes I am so numb that I do not know if I am still alive,’ Muddy continued as Mary Karuhimbi began speaking again. ‘Is there redemption in such suffering as ours? Can hell be any worse? Ah, can even heaven make all this worthwhile?’

Not knowing what to say O and I just nodded for her to continue.

‘When we first heard whispers that there was a headmaster who had turned his school into a sanctuary we were filled with hope. The violence was like a flood, and when it reached the outskirts of our village we resolved to search for higher ground. Having heard of Joshua Hakizimana’s school we naturally resolved to go there. There were about two hundred of us, and since we could not all go at once, blindly, we first sent my son to find a way to the school, talk to the headmaster and tell him that we needed his help. My son was gone for three days, but he returned with exactly what we had hoped for: the permission of the headmaster and a map that we were to follow.

‘It would not be easy, he told us. We would have to walk through the forest, hiding ourselves from anyone we might encounter along the way. And just in case we were stopped, we were, the headmaster had told my son, to tell the butchers: “We are the children of Moses.” Then the sea of violence would part. The headmaster had even given my son a wad of francs to bribe our way through in case the secret code failed. Joshua Hakizimana had given us a way out; we would not fail him.

‘We took our elderly, our sick and the children and started our journey. It was slow. We could only manage about fifteen kilometres a day, but we kept moving. Finally, we could see the school. It was on top of a hill, about half a day’s walk from where we were. But before we could get there we walked right into a trap. We should have known … Why was there a clearing in the middle of a forest? But we were excited, and more than that we trusted the map drawn by the hand of the headmaster.

‘We found ourselves surrounded by young men, who just days earlier would have called me mother. They asked for the leader and I raised my hand. I in turn asked for their leader, and he stepped from the crowd holding his machete as if he was simply going to his plot of land to garden.

‘ “We are the children of Moses,” I whispered to him.

‘He asked me to repeat what I had told him out loud as he had nothing to hide from his troops. “We are the children of Moses,” I repeated. And that was when they started laughing.

‘Unsure of what to do, I collected whatever valuables we had carried with us and offered them to him in addition to the money from the school. He took our jewellery, thanking me
and telling me that it would look good on their pure-blood wives, then he took the wad of money and for a moment it looked like they were going to let us go. But what he said next stopped us from gathering our belongings.

‘ “The old man always uses the same wad of notes,” he said to his boys. There was more laughter and the young men encircling us moved a little closer, some of them raising their machetes in the air.

‘ “My son, what do you mean?” I asked

‘ “How can I be your son, you old bitch?” He laughed in my face. “How can your blood run in my veins? You are only fit to wash my mother’s feet. You hear?”

‘I apologised again and again. I had no pride. I just wanted my children to live.

‘ “The headmaster uses honey to trap the ants,” he said, waving the money up in the air.

‘The circle was getting tighter and we huddled together. I looked back at my son. I wanted to catch his eye so that he knew that I loved him, but he was too scared to do anything but stare blindly at the young men. By now almost everyone was crying out: “We are the children of Moses. We are the children of Moses.”