Black Mischief (13 page)

Sally interrupted. ‘No, Maura. There is too much love in what you have done for it to be called a failure. Abel, darling, just say that …'

Sonya was desperate to get away. ‘Please, I must get back to the boys. My hope is dying and it terrifies me.'

She rose from her seat and moved unsteadily towards the door, brushing a coffee cup and sending it noisily to the floor. ‘I'm so sorry, Mrs Rubai, so sorry! Please … I promise to pay for the damage, but just now …' She turned to look towards Sally as she spoke and made an effort to stand tall. After a brief glance towards Abel, she spoke again with a trembling but compassionate voice. ‘Mrs Rubai, you are a good lady. Thank you for your kindness. I will pray for your family.'

Maura was afraid that Sonya would fall and grasped her under the shoulders. She hurried her to the sitting room door and out into the fresh air. Sally Rubai clutched her stomach and weeping freely looked across at her husband. There was no emotion showing on his face as first he watched the departing visitors, then stooped to pick up the fallen cup. He checked for damage, found none then placed it meticulously back on its saucer.

‘No harm done there.' He smiled sweetly and continued. ‘You remember I have a meeting at twelve. The President wants us to build two new floors on Nairobi Hospital. Another of his great ideas, but where will we get the money?'

As he made his way back to his study, Abel took out his mobile phone and made a call. It was very brief. ‘Ochome? Silence him.'

he journey back to Cartref was slow. Sonya hoped that her boys were asleep, tired after a very long journey, but suspected that they would not be. She needed to be ready for them and she wasn't. She knew that Moses and Sammy, the two youngest, believed that when Mama returned, Papa would be with her or else they would soon be on their way home to Langata to meet him there.

Her thinking was becoming more and more confused. Perhaps an hour or two alone might help her, but seeking solitude had never been her way of dealing with serious issues in her life. Doing always worked better than brooding.

A stranger watching their progress home might have thought that one of them was ill for the frequent stops that they made. They were temporarily out of their everyday world and were travelling in a kind of spiritual and emotional bubble. A storm of seemingly disconnected thoughts rained down on them. Most of these struck but made no lasting impression but some hit hard and brought the one or the other to an abrupt halt while they tried to take them in, to make sense of them.

Maura felt a heavy guilt that she had made Sonya's situation worse. She was more convinced than ever that Abel Rubai was the man behind the kidnapping. Her Tom had survived a similar one and she had thought that she understood how Abel would react, that a direct appeal might make him think again, even change his mind. She had been innocent, naive, foolish. In this encounter with the powerful man she understood for the first time how ruthless, how hard-hearted he was. Please God he was not, in part, taking revenge on Simon for his failure with Tom! She shuddered and the scream of ‘No!' was cutting the warm morning air before she could rein it in.

Sonya took a battering of a different kind. Scene after scene flashed in and out of her mind with the relentless ruthlessness of the worst of nightmares. She was helpless in the face of them. Her world was being turned upside down. Hopes and dreams were being shattered. Unexpectedly, she remembered her childhood days when she was the baby of the family. Mam and Dad loved to keep up some old Welsh traditions, especially the weekly reading of the Bible. She had been born in Nairobi, but she loved to hear Welsh accents reciting passages from the gospels or the psalms just before her bedtime on Sunday evenings. In that worst of times the smell of the lines of jasmine strung across the ceiling of the veranda was with her again. Most memorable of all, Dada's prayers, spontaneous, passionate and intimate were quietly spoken as if his maker were listening from His throne at the top of the veranda steps. That was what Mam had told her was happening.

Without thought or premeditation, she sank to her knees on the grassy verge, launching into a torrent of words, not so much a prayer as a release of half a dozen conflicting emotions. She was hammering on a heavy, dark door and demanding justice, mercy, forgiveness, pouring out her anger on unseen power for turning away from a good man who cared more for the wellbeing of others than he did for his own life.

At once Maura found herself caught up in the intoxicating euphoria of letting her tongue loose, joining in a wild duet of the words that presented themselves in the mouths of two defeated women.

Soon the pair of them were on their way again, arms linked, singing, laughing outrageously, seemingly past all care. The stranger who might have observed them earlier would have found it easier to understand this behaviour. The two women were, quite simply, drunk. They were being released from the chains of self. The release brought with it a relief from their fear. For a time their egos were swamped by more positive emotions. Their ordeal was not diminished, but their strength to cope was more assured. Their prayer was being answered.

enis Orango enjoyed his daily cycle ride to the Karen dukas. The morning air did not have the sharp, chill edge of his village home up in the Aberdares, but he always wore his black woollen gloves anyway. This was partly for the warmth they gave but more to keep the money for the newspaper safe in his hand. Mrs Rubai sent him to pick up
The Daily Nation
because he was the fastest rider on the staff and the least likely to dawdle on his errand. She liked to have the paper by her side when she had breakfast.

The day before she had been stunned by the headline about the kidnap of Simon Mboya. Today's main news gave her a much greater shock.

‘Just after midnight a tea plantation worker in Kericho found the body of a naked man on a grass verge near his home. When the police arrived on the scene it was discovered the hands of the deceased had been mutilated. Later when the body was inspected at the local police station, it was identified to be that of kidnapped Nairobi doctor, Simon Mboya, whose abduction from his medical centre in Kibera was reported in our edition of yesterday …'

Sally Rubai threw down the paper and hurried off to a downstairs bathroom. She vomited into the sink.

* * *

The Daniels family had been roused from sleep at four am by the night askari.

‘The Inspector wants to speak to Doctor David. They are waiting downstairs.'

Any doubts about the news that the Inspector was bringing disappeared as soon as the two men met. A single word was enough to confirm the doctor's suspicions. ‘Yes!' Inspector Kostas nodded solemnly to reinforce his bad news.

The Inspector and Sergeant Ezra sat quietly in the sitting room while the family gathered. When everyone had come, the policemen rose and moved towards the large, marble fireplace. They stood waiting for a sign from Mister David. Not one of the family had a doubt about the news they were about to hear. Their first conscious thought when they were roused from sleep was that Simon was dead. They did not need words. There was no surprise. This was an all too normal outcome when one prominent man had offended an even more prominent man who had the will and means to deal with his problem with swift, safe violence. But why did bad news so often come at this ungodly hour?

Dorothy set down large mugs of hot sweet tea on occasional tables. ‘Dorothy's dawa,' she had been bringing it out for years as her simple, practical medicine to help ward off the after-effects of medical pain or, as now, to bring comfort in times of deep foreboding. There was a lot of spontaneous embracing and holding of hands taking place in that quiet room. Sonya sat between Maura and her niece, Eryl, on the large sofa directly in front of the fireplace with her eyes focused down onto the well-polished black shoes of the Inspector.

When he began to speak, the Greek intonation in his voice was more pronounced than it had been less than thirty-six hours before when he had made his first visit to the house.

Deep emotion caused dryness in his throat. Dorothy rose nimbly to her feet and brought him a mug of her special potion.

‘Take a couple of sips. Good for the nerves!'

Her little intrusion set off the first smiles of the morning.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, technically speaking Sergeant Ezra and I should have just one task, duty here this morning. We have never met, but I believe that you must be Mrs Sonya Mboya.' He tilted his head forward and opened his hands in what looked very like a priest's gesture of supplication.

‘You are right.' Her whispered reply could have been heard clearly in the furthest corners of that large room.

‘Mrs Mboya, very early this morning, our colleagues in Kericho District were alerted to the presence of the body of a man found on a grass verge close to the entrance of the Home-brew plantation. It appears that the man is … your husband, Doctor Simon Mboya. The law demands that the next of kin must identify … the deceased. I ask you all to forgive me if you think my manner is abrupt or even cruel, but experience tells me that there is no gentle way to bring such news. We are here to assist in every way we can.

‘In a sense, our job is done but, with your permission, we would like to go a little further.' He paused and when no voice was raised, continued. ‘Sergeant Kabari will explain.'

Ezra Kabari was distressed. The trembling hands holding his notes were the clearest sign.

‘This is one of the worst days of my life. I am from the Luo tribe, just like the good doctor and his Uncle Thomas. My heart is breaking with yours. I am a policeman and I have failed you all. But one small thing I can do to help.

‘Something amazing. I have a brother, Hosea. He has never wanted to come down to the big city here. He is a policeman, too, a sergeant in Western District. It was he who reported in to our CID here with news of this tragedy. He was given charge of bringing Doctor Simon back to Nairobi, to the city morgue. Please bear with me! However deeply what I say hurts every one of you, perhaps it is better that I speak of it now.'

Tears began to well, but the sergeant forced himself on. Breathing heavily, he got his words out with a great effort.

‘These bad people who took his life … damaged his hands, very badly. Unspeakable, but these jackals did it. Please, I want to bring him here, to this house. The inspector tells me that I am breaking police rules of conduct, but there are bigger rules and I refuse to break those, whatever the cost.'

Weeping, low and gentle sobbing disturbed the long, painful silence until David Daniels rose from his chair and moved towards the fireplace. He put his arms around the policemen and drew them close. ‘Yes, friend, you have done the right thing. We want him home.'

The Inspector interrupted briefly. ‘Then I can tell you that he is on his way at this very moment.'

These few words caused swift changes in several ways. Everyone sitting down rose to their feet almost as one. As people began to move about and to try and prepare themselves for whatever the next few hours would bring them, Sergeant Kabari walked over to a window with David.

‘There is one more thing that has to be said, but not to everyone, not just now.' He hesitated briefly. ‘Tied around the doctor's hands was a … note written on a crudely ripped piece of cardboard: ‘You won't be needing these no more, big mouth'. I am so sorry!'

David closed his eyes and groaned. Of all the people in the room only Sonya noticed how the exchange with the sergeant had upset her brother. Her tears were finished. Her reaction to those who wanted to offer her comfort and consolation surprised those who tried to give it. Far from being overwhelmed by grief, some inner source of strength galvanised her. She was full of energy, none of it negative. Her concerns were for other people. She was glad that her boys were still asleep and would hopefully remain so for a couple of hours longer. Whatever else she would have to do in that time, a big part of her mind would be given to working how best to explain to them the continued absence of their daddy. It was a time for her to groan inwardly.