Those Who Love Night (15 page)

A police photographer was taking pictures of the body, aiming from different angles. Abigail saw three men in civilian clothes entering one of the buildings on the far side of the road, perhaps the direction from which the shots had been fired. Another was making notes as he questioned the night-watchman who had seen Patel die. Six or seven uniformed policemen were holding back the gathering crowd. It was not a bad response from the police for one of the poorest countries on earth.

Abigail stayed seated until Chunga opened the door for her. As she got out he was speaking again. “I will not allow this sort of thing. It reflects badly on my country. I promise you we will find the culprit. We will search until we find him.”

“Where will you look?” Abigail heard herself ask.

“I beg your pardon.”

Was there some small sign of alarm in his face? Abigail wondered. Or did I imagine it? “Where will you look, surely not among his friends?” she asked.

“We will go wherever our information leads us.”

And where will that be? she wondered.

A part of the crowd came forward to get a clear view of Abigail. Perhaps she was the widow and they would be on hand to see her reaction to the dead body of her man. Perhaps they would see her kneel beside the body to pray, or scream in agony, or collapse in shock. Chunga moved quickly between her and the crowd, holding up an arm to protect her. “Stand back,” he commanded. “Stand back immediately.”

A uniformed policeman came hurrying forward to help. “Stand back or we'll have to clear the street.”

Patel's body was much as Helena had described it. He was still facedown. The right arm was twisted away from the torso at an angle it would never have occupied in life. The stream of blood on the pavement was largely congealed now, a reddish-black line filling the space between two paving stones until it spilled, spreading, into the gutter. Helena had been right. Abigail too had not expected that much blood.

She bent over to see Patel's face. To her surprise, the violence of his death had left no mark on his features. He looked peaceful, possibly more peaceful than he had in life. And this, finally, would be the end of Smythe, Patel and Associates, that he had been so proud of.

What am I doing in this country? she asked herself. Rosa was right. And Robert was right. The only sensible thing is to get on the first flight home tomorrow. But Tony, what about Tony?

Yes, that's what I'll do, she thought. I'll get out of the damned place tomorrow.

Chunga had the grace to stop his protestations of innocence. Abigail glanced at him. His face was set in what looked to her like an expression of absolute determination. The look alone seemed to be telling her that he would find the killer, no matter what resources it took or how long they worked on it.

She searched the pavements for
CIO
operatives and found four or five whom she was sure were Chunga's men. Unlike the people in the crowd dressed in a motley assortment of whatever had come to hand, the men were all wearing well-worn suits and ties, or at least jackets and ties. Like so much of the country, they were doing their best to look as good as possible with what they had. They all looked stern and serious, not the gloating mob of Helena's imagination. Where does the truth lie in all this? she asked herself. Only one thing was indisputable. The body on the pavement had once belonged to Krisj Patel.

“Could you take me back to the hotel now?” Abigail asked.

19

When Abigail opened the door of her room, she saw the parcel lying on the only table. Next to it was the brandy Marjorie Swan had promised. The parcel was wrapped in brown paper that appeared to have been used more than once in the past. Abigail drank the brandy and carefully unwrapped the parcel, taking out the affidavits and the application. Everything was there; the originals and three copies of each document. There was even a check for the court fees. She hoped that had not come from Patel's slim resources.

He must have sent them by messenger before he was killed, she thought. It could not have been long before. Everything was there, the affidavits and the application. He must have sent them off, then gone down to the street to become a sniper's target.

Abigail was crying. She had heard the news and she had seen his body, but there had been no tears. Now there was this parcel, the last act of the little solicitor's career. He was not really small, but somehow she saw him that way. Her tears flowed freely down her cheeks and over her lips. She remembered that she had asked if Patel was putting her head into a noose. As things had developed, his head had been sacrificed alone—at least so far.

Any thoughts of leaving on the next morning's flight had disappeared. Patel's brown paper parcel had made that course of action impossible.

She wept for Patel, but Jonas Chunga was the other reason for her troubled state of mind. It could not all be a pretense, she told herself. His reactions were too real. And yet, if it were not a
CIO
agent who had pulled the trigger, who else would have wanted this ineffective-seeming solicitor dead? Friends of the old dictator perhaps? And if the killer was to be found in that company, would the police be prepared to make an arrest? Would Jonas Chunga and the
CIO
?

There was no getting Chunga out of her mind. The protective way he had stepped between her and the people in the crowd, the way he had told her that they would search until they found the killer, the way he had hurried to tell her about Patel's death—they all seemed like the acts of someone seeking to protect her.

She thought about the
CIO
. Its role had always been to find and deal with enemies of the regime. She knew that a certain kind of man, who lusted after uninhibited power, was drawn to such organizations.

And Jonas Chunga, where did he fit into that picture? Was he also drawn to power and did he serve it regardless of who possessed it and how it was used?

Only now, after a day in which her mind had been filled with other matters, did she remember Robert. She took out her cell phone and dialed her home number. As before, her own voice urged her to leave a message. This time she felt no pang of anxiety, no moment of desperation.

Without thinking, she dialed his office number and got one of the security guards. “Vuna Corporation,” a heavily accented African voice said.

“Is Mr. Mokoapi still working?” she asked.

“No, nobody's working,” the guard said.

“Are you sure?”

“Nobody's working, nobody.”

She dialed again without conscious purpose. This time it was the number of Yudel's home. She heard the sound of a single short ring from the other side, then hung up. The whole thing has nothing to do with Yudel, she thought. What the hell would I say to him? And then there was Rosa. What would she think?

She surprised herself by feeling comforted by the idea of speaking to Rosa and dialed the number again. Somehow, it was no surprise when it was Rosa who answered.

“Rosa?”

The older woman recognized her voice immediately. “Abigail, are you safe?”

“No, I don't think so. I don't feel safe.”

“How you feel is everything,” Rosa said. “You get on a plane and come home. Come home immediately.”

“No, I can't come, not now.”

“And why not?”

“The attorney who briefed me is dead. He was assassinated tonight.”

“Oh.” Rosa needed a long silence to give herself the opportunity to find a way to respond.

“Rosa?” Abigail asked. “Are you still there?”

“Yes, my dear. I am simply too horrified to say anything. I think you should speak to Yudel.”

“No, I called to speak to you.”

“But I'm just not the person for this.”

“I just wanted to hear a friendly voice.”

Suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown, the friendly voice became authoritative. “Abigail, you listen to me. This whole thing is not your business. You don't belong in that country. You call a cab immediately and get to the airport. Then take the first flight out of there.”

“I can't, Rosa. I can't do that now.”

Abigail had barely hung up when her phone rang.

“Abby?” This time it was Robert trying to contact her. She could hear voices and music in the background.

Despite herself, she was pleased to hear him. “I tried to get hold of you—last night and earlier tonight. Where were you?”

His response came too quickly and was much too vague. “I've been running all over the place. But how are you?”

“But where were you? I phoned home and the office.”

“You know how busy I've been, Abigail. I've had meetings all over the place.”

She could hear the lie in his voice. Meetings with whom? she wanted to scream at him. And all over the place? Where is all over the place? Instead she asked, “Are you home now?”

“No, I'm having dinner with Kgomotso. We're going over his marketing plan.”

Her watch told her it was almost two. Dinner with Kgomotso at two in the morning? Where in Pretoria did you find a restaurant that was still open at two? Can I speak to Kgomotso? she thought. Let me speak to him so that I know that he is the one you are with. “It's very late for dinner,” she said.

“Things are mad at the office. We've been working late. This was the only opportunity.”

“Where are you having dinner?” She hated herself for asking.

“Mandrea's.”

Mandrea's? she thought. Dim lighting; booths that were pretty private. Without warning, the image of the blond
PA
rose in her mind. Almost immediately it was followed by one as vivid of Jonas Chunga, his strong arm outstretched to shield her from the crowd trying to get close to Krisj Patel's body. “Is that a good place for a business meeting?” she asked. “The lighting is not good to read by.”

“I know,” he said. “Perhaps it was a bad choice.”

“I think so,” she said. Perhaps this conversation had been a poor choice, she thought. But say something to me that means something, she pleaded inwardly with Robert. Above all, say something to drive away the picture in my head of this man.

“But your case. How's your case going?”

To Abigail, he was pretending an interest that he did not feel, or rather, his was an interest that served as a cover for himself. “The case is not going well,” she said. “The attorney briefing me was assassinated this evening.”

“Jesus Christ, is this true?”

And suddenly the newspaper man takes over, Abigail thought. “Of course it's true.”

“I'll have a man on the next flight.”

“Why don't you come yourself?”

“I'd love to, Abby. Really. There's nothing I'd like better. But they know about me. Whoever I send will have to pretend to be a tourist. They won't allow a journalist in.”

“Won't you try? Please try.”

“They won't allow me in. There's no point in my trying. I'll send a man they won't have a record of.”

“I wish you would try to come.”

“I can't, but tell me about it. Tell me what you can.”

Before hanging up, she told him the little she knew. She also told him something about Krisj Patel, the poorly fitting clothes, the nervous mannerisms, and the determination to see justice done in his country. She also told him how she had inspected the body where it lay on the pavement.

She lay back in bed and tried to think about her first full day in Harare. But all she could think about were the last few minutes. Robert would not even try to come. Nor did he once suggest that she should come home, despite what he had to know she was going through.

Lying in bed, her gaze came to rest on the warring tiger and elephant under the window. The tiger's upper lip was curled back, revealing canines that were disproportionately long and pointed. Nice to see a friendly face, she thought.

20

By morning
The Herald
already had the previous night's story. “Government opponent slain,” the headline proclaimed. A sub-head expanded on the matter: “Well-known criminal elements suspected by police.”

A caption under a photograph of a stern-looking Jonas Chunga read: “Director Jonas Chunga of the
CIO
has vowed to bring the criminals to justice.”

The report quoted Chunga as saying that the fact that Patel was an enemy of the government made no difference to their determination to bring the guilty to justice. It went on to describe how he had been shot leaving his office. A man had been seen fleeing the scene by a night-watchman on duty near the place where Patel had been shot. The method used and clues left at the scene pointed to a well-known gang that had been operating in Harare for the last six months. The police were investigating.

Abigail would have given anything to be part of the investigation into Patel's death, but clearly that would not be possible. The authorities would not have allowed it under any circumstances, but in this matter, in which they were the most likely suspects, joining the investigation was beyond even the wildest possibility.

By the time she had finished her breakfast, her cab, called by the hotel, had arrived. She was at the High Court building in ten minutes. At the registrar's counter, two female clerks were watched over by the same unsmiling photograph of the old dictator that the hotel had on display. They were in deep conversation. One of the clerks was saying how the administration was not fair and that the lawyers and judges got all the money and they got nothing. She looked resentfully at Abigail before getting up from her seat to come to the counter. “Good morning,” she said, scowling deeply.

“Good morning,” Abigail said. “I have an urgent application here for a hearing.”

“Urgent?” the woman asked. “Must it be urgent?”

“Yes, it is urgent.”

“What firm do you work for?”