Dark Flight (27 page)

‘I will tell you what I know.’

‘All of it?’

‘Everything.’

ABDUL WAS WAITING
for them on the verandah. The consul’s car, complete with alert driver, stood in the shade of a neem tree. A gardener was watering the plants with a hose, filling the small moats that encircled a variety of shrubs. Rhona recognised hibiscus and oleander among them. The scent of cooking fires hung in the air.

Henry appeared at the sound of their voices.

The formality of morning greetings and enquiries over, he told them that, according to the principal of Bayero University, Dr Olatunde had left Kano for his rural home.

‘He couldn’t tell us anything about the boy who travelled here with him.’

‘We also need to find a Mrs Haruna. Her son Sam was studying medicine at Glasgow University,’ Rhona said.

Henry and Abdul exchanged looks.

‘She helped us with our enquiries about a fetish found at the scene of crime.’

Rhona produced a photograph of the original bones and passed it to him.

‘What about—’ McNab began.

Rhona cut him off, knowing what he was going to say. ‘Mrs Haruna suggested the bones were juju and not to be touched. She said the bones choose their next victim.’

She studied both men’s reactions to the image of the crossed bones. Henry was circumspect. Years in Nigeria had seasoned him to its ways, but he was an Englishman and did not believe. Abdul, in contrast, was clearly frightened, although he was trying to appear calm for their sakes.

Henry looked quizzically at Abdul.

‘Mrs Haruna is correct. The bones, to those who believe, symbolise death.’

‘Rhona found a similar set of bones in her room this morning.’

Rhona was irritated by McNab’s intervention. She’d asked him to say nothing about her find yet. McNab ignored her glare and addressed Abdul.

‘Was that a threat?’

When he didn’t answer, Henry intervened. ‘Abdul?’

Abdul chose his words carefully. ‘These people are stupid. They do not realise
Baturi
are not frightened by such things.’ He gave Rhona an encouraging look.

‘Still,’ Henry said thoughtfully, ‘I think John Adamu should be told. It might be wise for you to have a guard.’

Rhona brought the subject back to Sam and his mother.

‘I do not know Mrs Haruna,’ Abdul said. ‘But I can find her for you.’

The Police Headquarters was fronted by an open area of ground with a dry dusty football pitch alongside. A few men stood or sat about outside in the shade, dressed in dark uniforms with guns slung over their shoulders. Abdul addressed one, who stared at them intently then ushered them through the open door.

It was cooler inside, though just as dusty. Rhona tasted fine grit on her tongue, felt it settle on her skin. Abdul had explained that the wet season wasn’t fully here yet. By August and September the ground would be saturated, the wetlands of the Hadejia river basin flooded.

‘Plenty water then.’

Now the air was thick with gritty red dust.

Their liaison officer, John Adamu, was a tall handsome man in his mid-thirties. His English was that of someone who had spent time in the UK. He spoke partly in rapid Hausa to Abdul and addressed a junior member of his staff in another language which he told them was Yoruba.

‘Nigeria was created by the British. In reality it is many nations. Yoruba, Ibo, Hausa . . .’

‘And Fulani?’ Rhona asked.

He looked impressed. ‘You’ve done your homework.’

‘A little, but I’m sure not enough.’

‘I realise your priority is to find Stephen Devlin. My sources tell me Carole Devlin had a relationship with a member of the Suleiman family, the chief’s son called Naseem. She left him and went to live in a house outside Kano, before she took the boy back to the UK.’

This had to be the man Carole was running from.

Adamu agreed. ‘The Suleiman family is powerful, with strong but well-hidden links with juju culture.’

‘Can we speak to him?’

‘He is currently out of the country, according to his family.’

‘Are they lying?’

‘Probably.’

By the end of their conversation, the air conditioner had spluttered to a halt. Adamu opened the louvred slats of the window and a hot humid breeze swept into the room, bringing more dust to dance in the air.

It was McNab who brought up the subject of the fetish in Rhona’s room. Adamu reacted as Henry had done.

‘These things only frighten those who believe.’

Abdul didn’t look convinced, his earlier show of confidence gone. Rhona wondered if his disquiet had come with the mention of the name
Naseem
.

‘Two of my men will accompany you.’ Adamu didn’t say ‘for your protection’, but it was clear from Abdul’s reaction that he was relieved.

Carole Devlin’s house lay in the direction of Rano, the area from which Rhona was to collect samples. When she asked to visit the house first, Adamu readily agreed.

‘We checked the house when we got the call from Glasgow. It was deserted apart from her
ma’gaadii
, Boniface. He said he was waiting for his madam to return.’

‘
Ma’gaadii
?’ Rhona asked.

‘Her guard. It’s common to have a security guard here. He also helped in the house and the garden. We told him about Carole. He was very upset.’

The consulate car was a white air-conditioned Peugeot estate. In a cocoon of chilled air they travelled south along dusty roads initially teeming with people and cars, the numbers dwindling as they reached the less-populated outskirts of the city. Mud-hutted villages flew past, neolithic images of compounds and cooking fires, naked or semi-clothed children waving or offering bananas, oranges and mangoes.

They negotiated a bridge over the river, behind a mammy wagon piled twice its height with goods and people. The laws of gravity suggested it should tip over. Many of them did, their driver told them. The guards led the way in a police vehicle. Now and again a local would raise his fist and shake it at the jeep.

‘The people do not like the police.’ Their driver was stating the obvious. Rhona wondered how it was possible to conduct an investigation here, if ordinary decent citizens didn’t trust or like you.

McNab was silent, and seemed to be suffering from culture shock. Rhona recognised it, having experienced it herself. In the consul’s residence and at the hotel, you could almost believe yourself in an exotic southern European country. Out here, in the African bush, it was for real.

Carole’s house sat at the end of an avenue of tall flowering flame trees. The whitewashed mud bungalow stood on an escarpment. At its back, the land fell towards a meandering tributary of the Kano river. A
washing rope hung between two acacia trees, and the breeze rising from the river was flapping two pairs of khaki shorts and a bright red T-shirt. To the left of the bungalow was a roundhouse with a thatched roof, its walls painted in patterns of ochre and dark blue. A man emerged at the sound of the cars’ approach. When he saw the police jeep he looked as though he might bolt, then their driver called to him in Hausa and the fear on his face lessened.

Boniface’s English was good. He told Rhona he had learned it from a priest at a nearby mission, then his madam had helped. He was happy to speak to Rhona, but less keen on McNab. He only relaxed when the two policemen moved away to sit under the shade of the flame trees.

‘Who was Stephen frightened of?’

‘The man with . . .’ He ran his fingers down his cheeks three times. ‘He came and made madam cry. She said, “No!” When he left, she packed her suitcase.’

‘Can I look inside the house?’

He thought for a moment, then led her towards the verandah. The plants were watered, the steps swept clean. Rhona wondered how much he had been told. Did he know that Stephen was missing?

He was reading her face.

‘Stephen is not dead,’ he told her. He touched his heart. ‘I wait here for him.’

He unlocked the glass door. It led into a rectangular tiled hall, empty of furniture. A door on the right gave onto a living room with a grey-painted concrete floor, a settee, two chairs and a wooden coffee table. Two
windows looked in opposite directions, towards the avenue and the river. A door in the far wall led to a small kitchen, hot in the midday sun.

Rhona followed Boniface back through the hall to a tiny passageway with two doors. He opened one on a room with a double bed, spread with an African-patterned cover. A built-in cupboard held a variety of summer clothes and shoes. Carole had taken none of them with her. She knew the Scottish weather too well.

Stephen’s room brought tears to Rhona’s eyes. There was a small desk, a bed spread with a
Star Wars
cover. A selection of books and a jar with a pierced lid. Inside three spiders with soft velvety-red bodies sat on a stone.

All the rooms were tidy and clean. She suspected that Boniface continued to act out his role despite the death of his employer.

‘Has anyone been here apart from the police?’

Boniface looked anxious. ‘I have seen no one.’

McNab had followed them around the bungalow, lingering in each room and letting them go on ahead. He caught up with them in Stephen’s room. Rhona heard his intake of breath behind her. Here in this room, she understood Boniface’s conviction that Stephen was alive. It felt as though the child could walk in at any moment.

‘We’d like to take a look ourselves now,’ she told Boniface.

They waited until they heard the front door close.

‘The place’s been cleaned pretty thoroughly,’ McNab echoed her own thoughts.

If someone had been here after Carole, all trace of them was gone.

McNab went back through the house for another look while Rhona stayed in the child’s room. She donned gloves then carefully opened the desk. Inside was a muddle of drawings, pencils and notebooks. She leafed through the drawings. Done in a childish hand, they consisted mostly of pictures of insects, including a red spider like the ones in the jar. There was no drawing of a man with three scars on his face.

The
Star Wars
bedcover was a thin cotton, faded in parts. A small lump in the surface caught Rhona’s eye. She ran her hand over it. It felt firm.

Rhona edged back the cover.

The lump was a small curled snake, bright green in colour. Her startled exclamation brought McNab running.

‘What?’

He followed her gaze to the bed.

Her initial surprise gone, Rhona took a closer look. Red thread had been wound tightly around the dead body just below the head. A sharp thorn pierced the snake’s skull between the eyes.

Boniface’s fear was so strong she could almost taste it. He had retreated to his own hut to crouch under the overhang. He had come back to the room as they examined the snake, shouted, ‘
Macifi
,’ and then run out.

McNab had brought one of their guards inside, but he was as useless as Boniface under their questioning.
They did establish that all Nigerians feared snakes and would kill them at any opportunity. Why this particular snake had been mutilated in this manner, the guard couldn’t or wouldn’t say. He was in agitated discussion with his colleague, interspersed with dark glances towards the house. Rhona was sure she heard the word
tsafi
in their mutterings.

Boniface was rocking backwards and forwards on his ankles, his arms wrapped about his body, his breath coming in small tortured gasps.

‘What does it mean?’ asked Rhona.

He looked up at her with bloodshot eyes. ‘They will kill him now.’

THE PASTOR’S BULKY
body had shrunk inside his clothes. Bill preferred this version of the man. He seemed more human, less confident. Now he and Bill had something in common.

‘And Sam didn’t know?’

‘Sam came to church on Sundays. He was not part of the
Jamurai
.’

‘His DNA was on Stephen’s shoe.’

The pastor looked perturbed by this. ‘He did not meet Stephen as far as I know. Or his mother.’

‘And Olatunde?’

‘There was a boy, Sanni Atta. He was snatched near Kano. I asked Dr Olatunde to take him home.’

‘That was the boy who flew with him to Kano?’

‘Dr Olatunde has a stepson. He is at boarding school here. Sanni fitted his description for the passport.’

‘Why not come to us?’

The pastor was silent. They both knew the answer to that.

The interview lasted an hour. By the end, Bill had established that four children had been smuggled back to Nigeria.

‘And none of them was Stephen?’

‘Stephen was taken back, but not by us.’

‘You know that for sure?’

‘My sources in our sister church in Kano say Naseem’s family were involved. He had an affair with Carole strictly against his father’s wishes. He then married, but there are no children. The witch doctor says this is because Naseem slept with an uncircumcised woman, a woman who had a boy child by another man.’

‘And that’s why Carole was killed?’

‘I believe so.’

‘But why take Stephen?’

‘They plan to use him in the cleansing ceremony.’

‘What the hell’s that?’