Black Mischief (36 page)

‘Terri is some lucky girl. Twenty minutes. I was four hours with Charlie junior. Girls, you go back with Colin. I'll stay on a while, to hold Tommy's hand. The way he's going on, if a cop came along he'd arrest him for being on something!'

The conversation on the return journey was animated. Rebecca had seen something that lifted her spirits.

‘That's what we need. Imagine a place even half as good. But ours is not going to be just half as good.'

‘We didn't see much, ‘Becca. Lots of corridors, the labour ward office, three nurses, two doctors.'

‘Mary, the feel of the place. They care for the mothers in there. Didn't you think so?'

‘Sweetheart, it was the luckiest day of my life when the sisters put us next to each other in the same dormitory in Santa Maria. You have such wonderful dreams for people.'

‘Yes, a dream, but soon it will be a new truth, a real building, and beautiful, too.'

‘Poor Tom!'

‘Why you say that?'

‘He is going to have a lot of listening to put up with for the next few days.'

‘Wrong, Mary. Debbie, she and I have a lot of work in the morning. Thomas has to go out shopping to buy a present for his mother's birthday. By the time he comes back, we will be finished. No more talk till we go back to Kenya. Not much anyway.'

‘But he hates shopping. Even I know that, ‘Becca.'

‘One of the boys in the band will go with him. Unless …'

Mary and Lydia exchanged glances. Mary spoke for the two of them. ‘Of course we will. I think I know the best place for little boys to buy important presents for mamas.'

When Tom returned to the Flamingo in the early afternoon, Debbie had just left for the. station. ‘She is coming over.

The whole family, sometime in the week after we return. We have a proper architect, Thomas. Perhaps in six months …'

‘Don't forget that we will have to ask the Naivasha council …'

‘Don't be ridiculous, Thomas!'

‘You can always try an envelope with a few shillings inside.'

‘Thomas, you will soon be an MP. You can give permission. When the people know about the new hospital, they will all vote for you. Hakuna matata! There, that is all organised.'

The days passed quickly. Terri and Tommy brought their handsome new son back from the hospital. Debbie and Rebecca were in regular contact bouncing new ideas off each other. There were two phone calls from Londiani.'

‘Peter has finished the base. If it's not quite right, it can be adjusted to suit, easily. He's started landscaping.'

* * *

This first message was from Alex McCall. The second, from Rafaella was quite different. His grandmother was clearly distressed. There was a tremble in her voice and she seemed to be fighting back tears. ‘Tom, please come home at once. A terrible thing has happened. Please forgive me. Caroline is here. She will tell you.'

‘Thomas, Caroline Miggot, Inspector Caroline.'

‘Caroline, what's going on?'

‘There has been a fire on the farm.'

‘You mean the house?'

‘No, just the farm. It started one hour after the workers began their shift.'

‘How bad? Anybody hurt? Of course there are. I …'

‘Thomas, give me a few minutes. I will tell you everything I know. Eight o'clock, there were explosions. Two flower trucks were blown up in the yard. Four more explosions in the sheds and the fields. The flames raced along the canvas walls and the netting like a crazy thing. No fire brigade, of course, and the farm hoses could not cope. The smoke could not get away until the ceilings were destroyed. Thomas, there have been deaths. Many were choked and many burned. Big House is like a hospital. Your mother is in charge. So many have come to help.'

‘My father?'

‘He had just left the yard and was on his way to his foreman's office. He was blown over by the blast. He is unconscious, but he is going to be all right. Bertie is sitting by his bed. Stephen Kamau …'

‘God, he's not dead!'

The hesitation before the reply terrified Tom. ‘He was carrying his people out into the fresh air. He was crying and praying all the time. His young assistant said he was doing the work of ten men. He saved dozens of lives.'

‘And lost his own?'

‘I cannot tell you. That is God's truth.'

There was a long silence. Tom thought he had lost the line, but at last, Caroline began again. ‘It was not an accident, Thomas. Of course, it could not have been. And Hosea, my new sergeant, Maria's husband, found, well, shall we say for now, devices. It was a very clever piece of work. It's my job to find him, more likely them. I am starting this minute. I am so sorry about this. We will speak again soon.'

‘Thomas, you have not gone?'

‘How are you coping, sweetheart?'

Her girlish laughter was the sweetest sound that had come down the line to him since he picked up the phone in his hotel room.

‘At least you did not use that awful word. And I am better now. This minute a message from Bertie. Your father has just woken up. Angela is making a hot, sugary drink, and a double whisky for his best friend.'

‘Stephen?'

‘No news yet.'

‘What do I tell Rebecca?'

‘No one has been able to find him. Thomas, some were so badly burned. Say nothing to her or at least be vague. It is unbelievable. Those poor young people. You know they love to sing down in the tents. The whole house shook. Your mother ran out. She saw the flames over on the farm, and the smoke …'

‘All right, all right. I'm going to put the phone down right now. We want to be on our way … very soon. We'll phone from the airport on this side.'

wo evenings after the day of the fire, the news program on television was once again given over to the ‘horrors of the Naivaisha tragedy'. Two screens in rooms separated by ten kilometres in the city of Nairobi were being watched with the closest attention.

In the pink mansion in the heart of Karen, three members of a single family watched the unfolding story with different private reactions. The pictures of the lines of bodies under their protection of white linen sheets, the smouldering tents, the neat rows of blackened rose bushes told their graphic story once again. Messages of condolence from heads of state in Africa and beyond were replayed. Henry Akamba, the maverick
Nation
journalist and television interviewer, gave a hard time to two more top cops.

‘Do you people think that there is any chance that, for once, you boys in blue could actually come up with some successful policing here? I mean, do any of your men even know yet what caused all this mayhem? Where are you at, exactly in your … investigations?'

Mister Akamba was talking to the wrong policemen. Rather, he could not know that a female Naivasha inspector was making real progress. No report on that.

The human touch, that's what audiences wanted. What more intriguing aspect of this massive event than to watch the arrival back in Kenya of the most famous woman in the country, called home from the glamour of a concert tour in New York itself? And that was the next segment of the program.

There were pictures of a plane landing in JKIA, Kenya Airways when she, Tom and Lydia were flying British Airways. Carrie Eagleton of CNN was providing the voice-over.

‘Rebecca Kamau and fiance, Tom McCall, flew in this morning. Bravely Ms Kamau agreed to meet the media, for ten minutes, as long as no one followed their car over to Wilson Airport where a friend was waiting to ferry them home.'

There was a series of bland questions and defensive answers before they set off. Rafaella had flown down with Laurie Buckle. On seeing her, Rebecca shed tears for the first time since hearing the news.

‘Papa?'

The single word carried the full emotional charge that had built up in thirty sleepless hours when an anxious mind fought its battle between hope and despair. Rafaella was ready. She had only her own truth to offer.

‘Darling, he has not been found, yet.'

‘“Yet”. Such a tiny word to carry such a heavy weight. Many were burned …' Rebecca broke down. The mixture of pity and fear and guilt in her heart was unbearable. Through the sobbing, she forced herself on. ‘How many?'

‘Forty-five. Everyone is accounted for …'

‘Except one.'

The engine of the light aircraft droned on, the only sound in the warm cabin five thousand feet above the vast open plain divided into thousands of small shambas. To their right, the thin, snaking A104 was clearly visible as it crested the high point of the Escarpment. But Rebecca was looking left. Old Longonot. It was Papa who had introduced her to this dark peak which been a constant friend ever since. With an effort, she forced her eyes to look ahead and caught her first sight of the blue waters of home.

* * *

The only sound in the large sitting room of the pink mansion was the patter of talk coming out of the speakers of the large plasma screen. Darkness had fallen outside, but no lights in the room had been switched on. Three faces were illuminated by the flickering coloured images. Anyone who looked closely into those faces would have found only one that revealed the true feelings of the heart.

Sally was over the tears and the initial shock of seeing the scenes of horror in a place she knew and loved. The ache was as painful as ever. She found no relief in prayer. The foundations of her faith were rocked. She felt inadequate and unable to cope. If only she could have talked to Maura, been with her. But would she have been just a well-meaning nuisance in a situation that needed much more than kind, sympathetic words?

For her, seeing Rebecca surrounded by a crowd of men and women who were interested not in her but her story reopened the wound.

‘Why can't these leeches allow grief to be private? Thank God they have not asked questions about her father.' That powerful, good man. What had happened? Why have they not found his body? She thought again of the lines of the dead laid out on the lawn close to Londiani. Surely, surely he must have been with them.

Her son and her husband suffered no such tender thoughts as they watched those same images. For the third night Reuben had sat with his parents while the news was on. He found what he saw interesting, much better than the usual stuff that KBS had on. It engaged his mind like a half decent film. The people involved were distant, out there until that latest broadcast.

This time he was riveted. The sight of the piggy-faced farmer only irritated him, but he was shocked to see Lydia as the third member of the group that was being interviewed. What was she doing there? Nobody was bothering with her. Nobody mentioned her name, but she sat next to Rebecca as if she were her sister or something. He screwed his eyes tight in his concentration. Rebecca was polite and patient. If she resented giving precious time, she did not show it. Reuben wondered if anyone would dare to ask something about her father. Nobody did. Reuben finally realised that the reporters were content to have her to themselves for a few minutes, to hear her voice replying to their friendly inquiries.

Mother and son would have been shocked if they could have known the reaction of the master of the house to the startling events taking place eighty miles away in dreary Naivasha. Outwardly, his serious expression and his neutral comments suggested that he, like everyone else, was struggling to give this national tragedy some perspective.

Inwardly, the man was rejoicing, secretly and carefully. It thrilled him to know that he was the driving force, the puppet master, the sponsor. The world was tuned in to Kenya, eager for news of what he could claim was his work. And the best part was yet to come.

He had seen the pictures of the lines of bodies and felt no pity and certainly no shame or remorse. These were the casualties of the greater good, his vengeance. Hundreds of his own people had helped the McCall family to create the lakeside farm that was dedicated to producing flowers, colourful, delicate and meant to give pleasure. He revelled in the blackened destruction.

‘Abel, what can we do to help these people? They were always so kind to us when we visited. You could send some of the big machines to clear the mess.'

‘Get John to make some of that Colombian coffee. While he's at it, tell him to bring some pieces of the fruitcake your sister sent you.'

Having given his order, he turned towards his wife. His solemn expression suggested to Sally that he was as moved and shocked as she was.

‘Karma, Sally.'

He held her gaze and waited. When he saw that his words had struck home and the big eyes and the slack jaw warned him that the reprimand was about to come, he went on.

‘Sally, all this, er, stuff is most unfortunate. But your kind heart blinds you to deeper realities. These people have been kind to us? My dear, they have always looked down their noses at us. Because we have money they have tolerated us. Like so many of our European citizens, their forebears stole the very best land and used the cheap labour of our wananchi to set up their privileged lifestyle. The White Highlands. White, Sally. And now? Karma is a very good description. We have watched the television. We have read the newspapers. Where did you read that a single white person was burned to death?'