Black Mischief (10 page)

‘Dad, if your hands were as soft when you're holding your putter, you'd give Tiger Woods a run for his money!'

‘Gareth, it was the time I wasted on the rugby field that did for my golf. And, by the way, the big man in my day was Jack Niklaus. Eryl, I need to know exactly what happened out there with you and old Shadow.'

There was a gentle tap on the half open door. Rhys answered and reluctantly led two strangers into this private hub of the Daniels clan.

‘You are members of the Daniels family. Correct?'

Father David nodded with a look of puzzled irritation. Before he could put the taller, swarthy intruder in his place, the man was off again in a less abrasive tone.

‘This is my sergeant, Ezra Kabari and I am Inspector John Kostas. We are from the CID, Nairobi Hill.'

‘So? Look, my daughter here has probably broken her arm. Please wait outside. Your business can surely wait a few minutes. My business is vitally important just now.'

‘Regrettably, sir, we cannot afford to waste a single minute.'

Sergeant Ezra was eager to add a few words of his own. He did so with pride.

‘Sir, the Inspector is with us for just three months. He's helping with training. From the Athens Police Department. In Greece. He's seen lots …'

A brief widening of the eyes and a tight-lipped smile from his much admired colleague cut the sergeant's flow abruptly. The Inspector continued with some urgency. ‘Doctor, Mister Daniels (David Daniels nodded appreciatively that, for the first time a policeman was addressing him correctly) you have a younger sister, Sonya, who is now Sonya Mboya, married to Doctor Simon Mboya.'

‘True, but …'

‘And can you confirm that she is not presently in the country?'

‘Yes. She is in Wales for a friend's wedding. With the three children.'

Dorothy Daniels, who hated the sight of policemen as much as she did the sight of her only daughter's blood, was beginning to show outward signs of the fear that was growing in the minds of all five of the Daniels family present. She pleaded, ‘Inspector, we know that policemen who come calling don't normally bring good news.'

‘I am afraid you are right on this occasion. We need to contact Mrs Mboya. Her husband has been taken.'

‘Taken?' Gareth Daniels wished this elegantly dressed, handsome man would be less formal and more open. ‘Do you mean kidnapped?'

‘Sergeant, the report came to you.'

‘I'm very sorry. Today the doctor took his weekly clinic at Kibera, starting at seven. He parked outside his mobile surgery in his usual spot close to the little row of dukas, just by the entrance.'

‘Sonya usually goes with him. Llewellyn said he was going to try … Oh my God!'

Rhys put his arm around his mother's shoulders as she screwed her face into a mask of pain.

‘Llewellyn's our brother. Another doctor.' He smiled wanly.

The inspector took over. ‘Yes, we know. A little after noon, a white van pulled up in front of the surgery. Three young men stepped down. Very smartly dressed, dark suits, sunglasses.'

‘We have witnesses, so many witnesses!' Sergeant Kabari was wringing his hands in angry agitation.

‘Patience, Sergeant. We have to learn that it's important for a policeman to keep his emotions under control when he is working. We have to start with the facts as we have them right now. These young men smashed their way in through the door of the surgery and threw out half a dozen female patients and their children. There was a lot of shouting and screaming and soon people were rushing from all over the place. Two shots sent the crowd scattering. Doctor Simon staggered down the steps, pushed so hard that he went sprawling in the dust. He was bleeding. Someone said it was from his shoulder but could not be sure. The doctor was into the back of the matatu so quickly …

‘Doctor Welshman (that's what our old lady witness called him) chased after the third thug with a heavy lump of wood, but a new man, older and heavier, surprised him, grabbed the wood and smashed it into Welshman's neck, knocked him out cold. In seconds the matatu was gone and soon mingling with the traffic on the main road.

‘Doctor Welshman was taken to Nairobi Hospital less than an hour ago.'

Without interrupting the Inspector's flow, Dorothy got up and left the room.

‘And Doctor Simon, where is he now? You tell me how to find a specific white matatu in this city. But our boys are working on it. I know … I know that policemen are not the most popular people in this country. But most of our people know Doctor Simon and the work he does down there and Muthare and Haruma. And most of them have kids of their own. They are very pissed off. That's not too impolite? Emotional, I know, but sometimes …'

He shrugged and looked around at the faces that were fixed on him.

The silence that followed the Inspector's grim story was short-lived. Gareth Daniels, with a catch in his voice, explained to the policemen. ‘Dr Welshman, that's our brother. Nickname. Had it for years. He liked it. So many Doctor Daniels around here. He enjoys being that bit different! You saw our Mam go out. She'll be halfway to the hospital by now!'

The Inspector nodded and smiled. ‘Ezra and I will leave you in just a couple of minutes. It's our job to make sure that the family, all the family, know about any bad stuff, good stuff, but …'

‘Yeah, we understand. We'll do it.' Rhys, the middle of the three brothers, was the star man in the family when it came to crises and his mind was whirring with practical thoughts and plans.

‘Sonya and the children are due back in three days. They are over in Wales for a friend's wedding. Llewellyn's wife, Kate, will be here later. We'll divert her to the hospital. A lawyer this time. Sorry for being a bit shirty when you arrived. As you can see, things here weren't exactly going swimmingly even before you arrived. And we thought …' Rhys shook his head in disbelief. ‘Simon should have been at that wedding. He changed his mind the day before they were due to leave. Sod's law, big time! But there you go. Any ideas? What kind of a demented so-and-so can do shitty things like this? Sorry for going on like this.'

For the first time since the arrival of the policemen, David Daniels interrupted his work on his daughter's arm. He went over to a cupboard and pulled out four tumblers and a large water glass.

‘What say to a stiff whisky, to settle the nerves? Water for you, young lady. Just in case you need an anaesthetic later. Care to join us, gentlemen?'

‘Another day, perhaps. Just now we have to follow your wife to the hospital. My family will be praying. I just want to check. You will let Ms Mboya know? We can do it, but …'

‘Don't worry. It's our job.'

‘Thank God for your mother, Gareth. Inspector, my wife's got the gift, and the guts for it. You get on with getting him back.'

Only one glass was used. David took the drink in one gulp, thought about another but instead looked out through the window to watch the police car move sedately down the drive and disappear through the gate. He turned away to follow his family into the sitting room. There was a distant roll of thunder.

Ten minutes later he was alone. Rhys had volunteered to go down to Kibera to check on the state of the clinic. Gareth was on family duty, taking his sister to casualty in Nairobi Hospital.

‘Eryl, I'm almost sure that the arm is not broken, but you don't take chances with bone injuries.'

Sitting back in an armchair with his eyes closed, David allowed his mind to drift. Minutes later he was roused from a doze and wondering where he was.

Simon. The harsh reality was soon back in the centre of his mind. Their first meeting had been in that very room. As a seventeen year old, he had come along with his uncle, Tom, who had been making a speech to students at the medical faculty in the university. It was a few days later that David discovered why he had not seen much of the young man that night. He had spent most of his time wandering ‘round the garden with Sonya. Their shared passion for the wonders and possibilities of life in the world of medicine began that night and continued until that morning. He and Simon had become best friends.

The world had admired the wonderful gifts of the charismatic Tom. He had been loved too much and paid the price, the president who never was, cut down by his inferiors. In his own field Simon had been as gifted, loved by the masses who saw him as one of their own.

‘Where are you, my friend?' The tears were streaming down. ‘Captain Cat there in the muffled middle, he's crying all over his nose,' and Sonya not ten miles from the statue of the old fraud tugging on his bell rope on the shores of Swansea Bay, and not knowing, not knowing and no one to tell her but himself. The solution was waiting on a shelf in the room next door.

The golden liquid burned his throat. Two tumblers made him ready. Three would have made him sick. He dialled the number and as he waited for the tone to ring in the hallway of that Llanelli house, he was not sure whether he wanted her to be there to answer.

‘Sonya, how was the wedding, love? How was the weather?'

The long pause on the other end put him into a panic. He had been cut off after a single ‘hello'.

‘David, have you been drinking? You're there on your own, aren't you?' Then came the lightning change of tone from chiding domestic anxiety to terrified recognition as though vibrations had carried the message across the thousands of miles that separated brother and sister. ‘It's Simon, isn't it?'

‘He was taken from the clinic early this morning. The police have been here. They've got men out searching.'

Listening to his words caused him to feel weak and useless. The sense of shame deepened when Sonya began again.

‘David, I'm coming home tonight.'

‘But what if they won't change your flight?'

‘That'll be no problem. If they try to be difficult, I'll give them the scream treatment.'

‘We'll be at the airport. And the boys?'

‘David! But I won't tell them anything till we're back. Perhaps there will good news by then.'

He knew well enough that chances were small for a rare happy ending. The only time he could remember when it happened was Tom McCall's miraculous escape from that hut in the Kakamega Forest. ‘Rubai.' Maura was certain that he was behind it. She had not wavered from this belief since the moment she heard that he had been taken. Big men in dark suits were a Rubai trademark. The brazen bastard made no effort to hide his handiwork.

There were two possibilities. Simon was already dead or he was being held in a safe hideaway awaiting his fate. It was totally incomprehensible that this could happen to a great healer of the poorest, most disadvantaged people in the country. Big money drew out the brutes and savage bullies.

What could he be going through at that very moment? The pain and the frustration that he was suffering himself was unbearable. What in God's name could he, anyone, do to help? He contemplated finishing the bottle on the table beside him. Stupid idea and a selfish one.

Rubai was probably sitting in that monstrosity of a house around the corner planning his next atrocity on the people he claimed to serve.

‘Wait a minute!' David sensed a new thought forming in his befuddled mind. When he and Dorothy had spent the first year of their married life up in the border country at Lokichokio working with refugees Jock Andrews had slipped a pistol into his meagre baggage without telling him. He still had the note it was wrapped in: ‘From a sensible Scotsman to a stubborn fellow Celt, no need to shoot it, just wave it if the time comes. And don't forget your beautiful wife!'

‘The time has come, Jock lad!'

The plan was simple. Take the gun from the locked drawer in his study, walk over to the pink palace to give his head a chance to clear and tell some bullshit story to the askari on the gate. Another story to get him with the lord of the manor.

‘Mister Rubai, I believe …' He would think it out on the way over.

He stood up, took a single step and fell down, taking the whisky bottle with him. He lay on the carpet laughing and crying. As he tried to get up, the room started to spin around him. Nausea attacked his gorge. He had a new, pressing problem. Would he throw up before he could escape to the downstairs bathroom?

He crawled towards the door, holding back a new burst of laughter. He pulled down a newspaper from a side table, just in case. He must not vomit onto the newly cleaned carpet. He made to the passageway and gave up. The powerful heaves from his stomach produced a weak stream of phlegm and the smell of whisky. He leaned against a doorpost waiting for possible aftershocks that never came and lamented his pathetic efforts, his general uselessness.

The phone rang and he scooted into the hall like an injured warthog.

‘David … David, are you all right?'

‘Of course, Dot. Just sitting here … meditating.'

Fortunately, Dorothy was more into passing on information rather than seeking it.

‘Llewellyn is going to be okay. Thank God the blow missed his skull. No damage to the vertebrae, but the bruising, the worst I've ever seen. Eryl's having a plaster put on right now. As you said, no break. David, we've been blessed. Just one more thing. I phoned Maura. She's on her way. She'd never have forgiven me if I hadn't let her know.'

‘I've phoned Sonya. She'll be here in the morning with the boys.'

‘How did she take it?'

He sighed wearily. ‘I don't know. She didn't show much. I'll be glad to have her home.'

* * *

That night, supper for eight around the dining table at Cartref began with a silent prayer. Dorothy had asked the girls to bring out candles for the occasion. A visitor joining them late would have been struck by a theatrical quality in the scene. At first, conversation was minimal and subdued and the focus was on eating. The food was something to occupy the mind. For a time there was little sense of sharing fellowship. Each of them was taken up with their own drama.