African Pursuit (18 page)

She then went back and pushed the computer over so that its cooling grilles were uppermost. The cabin had several torches and oil lamps for use during the frequent powercuts and she poured oil from the lamps into the computer grille until it started seeping out at the bottom through joints in the casing. She then lit the wick from one of the lamps and placed it on the floor in the pool of oil leaking from the computer. As the oil began to burn she rapidly took the syndicate accounts from the top drawer of the filing cabinet and stuffed them
under her arm. They stuck out a bit through the invisibility robe but she didn’t worry – she wasn’t taking them far. The computer was now engulfed in flames and she hurried across the causeway, stepping carefully between the recumbent crocodiles, opened the gate in the fence with the code and wedged it open with a large stone. She glanced around to check all was clear, then slipped off her robe and looked at the monkey. She pointed at the crocodiles and then pointed through the garden to the outside dining area. The monkey didn’t react, so she repeated the gesture and mimicked eating. Suddenly the monkey twigged and swung down the side of the enclosure to speak to the reptiles. Soon they were waddling across the garden towards the barbecue. The peacocks scattered, letting out harsh cries of fear. The cooks took one look and ran for cover as the crocodiles fell upon the roasted meats. Two or three of the reptiles clambered
onto benches and then on to the table and commenced to clear the delicacy-laden boards of everything edible. At that very moment the syndicate and their guests emerged to have their lunch. Smoke from the burning cabin was now beginning to curl over the trees and drift slowly towards the house.

Clare, hidden once again in her robe and clutching her bag and the syndicate files, slipped past the guests, foregoing the pleasure of seeing their faces, and went back to the conference room where she stuffed the syndicate accounts file into the briefcases of the visitors. If the security was as strict on the way out as it was on the way in, she thought, the newcomers were going to have a great deal of explaining to do and would fall under instant suspicion for the whole operation. She walked down to the gate, past several cheetahs, and picked up a large stone with which she banged hard on the gate. The security guard looked up from
his lunch and looked out. She banged the gate again and rattled it. The guard came out, peeped through from side to side and shook his head in puzzlement. As he turned back to the guard house he noticed that his lunch had disappeared. The gate rattled again and looking back he saw his lunch scattered on the driveway outside the bars of the gate. Some birds were already hopping towards it. Then he noticed that his hat and a large bunch of keys had also been pushed through the bars of the gate. He called to the back of the guard house and the two security men appeared. One of them unslung his gun and held it at the ready as the guard pushed a button and the small side door slid open. The security officer went out cautiously, weapon at the ready, looking nervously from side to side before retrieving the hat and keys and retreating hurriedly back inside. He was unaware of Clare sidling past him. The side door closed. The monkey appeared on top of the wall and was joined by another from a nearby tree. They came to the ground and sniffed until they located Clare. They then set off along the roadside path, turning back to look at where they knew Clare to be. Their intention was unmistakable and she followed them immediately. After a mile or so they came to a small deserted sideroad with a taxi parked in it. The driver was smoking and reading a comic while Lucy and Clive strolled about admiring the trees and tropical flowers. Suddenly they seemed to feel that they had seen enough of nature and got back into the taxi. The doors shut and Clive leaned forward to the driver.

‘British Embassy, please.’ A few hours later, after a long chat with a very relieved ambassador, they were about to leave his office when he stopped them.

‘There’s just one more thing,’ he said. ‘As you already know, I rang your family in Salonga after you had left me yesterday. One of the things they asked me about was Grace’s foster parents. I can assure
you that I had nothing to do with their exile – that was something to do with local jealousies and political dirty work. Today, however, I made some enquiries and it looks as if the matter was handled by the Ministry of the Interior. I’m afraid I have no influence there – they naturally resent any foreign interference in internal matters – but I did get the name of the key player in the affair.’ He slid a scrap of paper with a scribbled name over the desk, then added. ‘Having seen what you guys are capable of I thought this might come in useful.’ They thanked him and emerged from the embassy a few moments later clutching exit visas for the entire family and, the greatest prize of all, a brand-new passport for Grace Neema Bonaventure.

‘The embassy could only issue a temporary one,’ Clare explained after collecting it from the passport section, ‘but it’ll get her back to England and that’s all that matters.’

‘Well it saves us from having to break the law and play our final trump card,’ said Clive.

‘What’s that?’ asked Lucy.

‘Why, the invisibility robe of course. I presume it got the professor into Tanzania so I’m sure it could get Grace out of the Congo!’ They all laughed and then Clive and Lucy congratulated Clare on her conversation with the Ambassador who had, of course, been fascinated by her retrieval of the jewel. Clare had given the ambassador a bowdlerized version of the retrieval of the stone, and had been able to reassure him that not only could nobody link its disappearance with him, but that any suspicion was likely to fall on a group of villains who were well deserving of the unexpected privilege. Back at their hotel Lucy and Clive listened to the account of what had really happened with delight and were astonished at the pile of incriminating blackmail documents that Clare had brought with her.

‘What on earth are you going to do with these?’ asked Clive.

‘Well, I could just destroy them,’ said Clare, ‘as I did the other stuff I couldn’t get out. Then the blackmail demands would suddenly stop, but the victims would never know why and always be wondering whether they might start up again sometime. That’s why I’ve got a better idea.’ She went to her laptop, composed a letter and showed it to the others.

‘What d’you think? I’m going to fill in the right name and then send one of these marked “strictly confidential” to each of the addresses to which the blackmail demands are sent.’ Lucy and Clive peered at the little screen.

“Dear X,

On a recent stroll through the suburb of Gombe I came across an envelope labelled with your address, lying by the roadside near a large walled villa. I took the liberty of looking inside the envelope to check that it was empty and had simply been discarded, but to my astonishment found the enclosed document/letter/photograph
(to be deleted as appropriate).

It struck me that if this item should happen to come into the possession of any unsavoury characters who happen to reside in the neighbourhood, they might seek to exploit it for purposes of financial gain and I am therefore returning it to you with my compliments. It has not been copied.

With best wishes for a more relaxed and prosperous future.

From a well-wisher from whom you will never hear again.”

‘Brilliant!’ cried Lucy, clapping her hands.

‘Isn’t it amazing how much good has come out of this,’ said Clive, nodding in agreement. ‘Because of the ambassador’s confession, dozens of people are going to sleep happier in their beds after getting your surprise letter through the post.’

‘Not just the ambassador’s confession,’ said Clare quickly.‘Don’t forget your generosity to him.’

‘And
your
courage going into that awful villa,’ said Lucy to Clare. ‘It looked really spooky from the outside.’

‘Not forgetting your amazing power, Lucy,’ added Clive, determined to have the last word in this compliment competition.

‘And,’ she replied, beating him, ‘the invisibility robe which you insisted on tracking down and capturing.’

They all laughed, then went down to the hotel restaurant to have the most relaxing meal they had enjoyed for a long time.

The next morning Clive looked thoughtful over breakfast.

‘What’s up?’asked Clare. All we’ve got to do now is wait for the others to get here from Salonga. There’s nothing else, is there?’

‘There is something,’ Clive replied. ‘You remember what the ambassador told us yesterday about Grace’s foster family?’ The girls nodded as Clive opened his wallet and retrieved the scrap of paper that the ambassador had given them. ‘I was just wondering if…,’

‘Of course!’ Clare interrupted. ‘Fingers crossed everyone!’ Lucy looked bewildered; then light dawned as her sister snatched the piece of paper from Clive and dashed over to the files she had retrieved from the villa. She started feverishly flicking through the pile of incriminating documents. Suddenly she pulled out a large photograph with a flourish and waved it in the air. ‘Tara-tara,’ she pretended to trumpet. ‘We’ve got him!’

An hour later a mystified senior official at the interior ministry gazed once again at the contents of the package that had somehow materialized in his office. He reread the anonymous note and looked at the torn half of the photograph lying on his desk. He would do
practically anything to get back the other half as well; lifting an exile order was the least he could do. Shaking his head in bewilderment he picked up the phone and started to make several phone calls, starting with a number in Rwanda.

A week later the family held a grand reunion in the hotel in Kinshasa. Grace’s foster family had come up with the others from the reserve, still astonished by the apparent sudden shift in political forces that had seen them welcomed back to their house and to their jobs in Salonga. They were all agog to hear each others’ tales and after they had exchanged countless stories Clive turned to Ulindaji and told him about the creature that had risen from the swamp and eaten Sid. Ulindaji was very excited to hear Clive’s account and asked him to describe the creature in as much detail as was possible from a single fleeting glimpse.

‘It sounds very much as this is the water monster known as Lukwata,’ he said, ‘but all previous sightings have been in Uganda. I’ve never heard of it being seen near here, but Neema – sorry – Grace, has become our expert on legendary animals,’ he turned to her enquiringly. ‘Have you ever seen anything like this?’

Grace told him about the creatures she had thought to be plesiosaurs which sounded to be the same species of animal. With his encouragement she then told the others about her sightings of other strange creatures and she and Lucy decided there and then that they would write a scientific paper with “grandpa” on Congo cryptids. They talked until late in the night, particularly about how Grace was going to keep in touch with her foster family, and it was agreed that the first visit would be one by Ulindaji, Shangazi and Mzuri to London to see Grace’s new home, and meet Ben’s family and Clive’s parents. Eventually Joanna had to coax them all to go to bed.

‘We’ve got a long flight to England tomorrow,’ she said, ‘and it’s a plane I definitely don’t want to miss; we’ve had enough complications here to last us a lifetime.’

T
he plane roared northwards across the Sahara desert towards home and safety. Clare and Clive sat together and smiled at the sight of Lucy and Grace sitting across the aisle talking animatedly about all the things they planned to do together.

‘There's one thing I meant to ask you,' said Clive. ‘After you'd talked to the passport people at the embassy about Grace, where on earth did you manage to get her photograph?' Clare laughed.

‘I see I fooled you as well as the embassy and the people at the airport. It
isn't
Grace of course. It's Lucy. She opened her bag and took out a little wallet. ‘I keep them of all the family wherever I go.' Clive flicked through them. All the family's photos were there except the one of Lucy which Clare had given to the embassy. There was also one of Clive. ‘Oh, I don't know how that got in there,' said Clare, blushing as she snatched the wallet back. As she replaced the wallet in her bag, Clive glimpsed two envelopes.

‘What are those?' he asked. Clare smiled.

‘Don't be so nosy!' Then she relented. ‘If you must know, they're our “get out of jail free” card and our “travel insurance”.' Her smile widened to a grin at the puzzled look on Clive's face. ‘You remember all the blackmail documents I posted yesterday?' he nodded. ‘Well
I kept two back. I thought I'd post them in London once we knew nothing else could go wrong.' Clive looked at the envelopes. One was addressed to the Chief of Police, Kinshasa; the other to the Under-Consul, British Embassy, Kinshasa. His eyes widened in amusement and admiration.

‘As you can see,' Clare said, ‘the ambassador wasn't the only embassy official up to naughty tricks! I'm glad I didn't have to use blackmail for us all to get home safely, but there's a first time for everything.' She smiled happily as she snuggled up to him. Their drinks arrived and they switched on the in-flight movie.

L
ucy and Grace sat on the seafront at Littleporkton with Grandma and Grandpa. They had come down for a few days before returning for the new term at school. Their grandparents had been thrilled to meet Grace and had been fascinated by the account of their African adventures. Lucy had taken Grace to the dolphinarium and introduced her to Jonathan, the dolphin with which she had first discussed her powers and which had told her what the animals expected of the Promised One. They had both had further long discussions with the dolphin and now that Lucy had experienced at first hand the devotion of countless animals in different situations and their expectations of help from her, she was in a much better position to appreciate the dolphin’s views. When they finally left the dolphins they met Grandma and Grandpa on the seafront as arranged and sat eating a picnic in the brilliant late summer sunshine.

‘I asked you once,’ said Lucy, ‘when I first learned I was the Promised One, what I should be doing to improve the world for the animals and you told me not to expect to be able to do much before I was grown-up. Now I have seen so much more of the world and spoken to so many animals – and to Grace – we can both see that there is so much to be done. The forests are being cut down, the
seas are polluted, the ice caps are melting, the earth’s atmosphere is changing and everywhere humans and animals are competing for space and resources. We can see now that we do have to wait until we’re older to really change anything, but what
jobs
do you think we should be trying to get so that we can make the greatest difference to things? We’ve obviously discussed it with Mum and Dad, but I told Grace that you were the first people I ever talked to about it, and we’re both interested in what you think!’ Grace nodded in agreement. Their grandparents thought long and hard before answering.

‘It’s often best,’ said Grandpa, ‘to become good at something before you start trying to influence others. If you achieve knowledge and respect in a particular field, people know that you can compete and succeed in open competition and know that you have some experience of real life.’ Grandma nodded in agreement and added:

‘Then, if you still want to, you can move into those areas of life or institutions in which you wish to bring about changes.’

‘So what you’re saying,’ said Grace, ‘is that we should just get back to school and try to pass all our exams and get a job or profession, same as anyone else.’

‘Exactly!’ said Grandpa. They all laughed.