Death in Zanzibar (14 page)

*   *   *

The orange earth of Africa slid away beneath them. A waste of sun-baked earth and flat-topped thorn trees, dotted with slow-moving specks that were giraffe and zebra, wilde-beeste, lion, and drifting, grazing herds of antelope — for this was the Nairobi Game Park.

A lone white cloud, faintly tinged with pink, lay in the cool blue of the early morning sky, and as they neared it Dany saw that it was not a cloud, but a mountain. A solitary snow-capped mountain faintly reminiscent of a Japanese print of Fuji-Yama. Kilimanjaro, the ‘Mountain of Cold Devils', looming lonely above the enormous, dust brown plains: a gaunt, burnt-out volcano whose snows defied the burning African sun.

A voice from the seat behind Dany's, a man's voice, fluting, high-pitched and seemingly a deliberate parody of an announcer on the B.B.C.'s Third Programme, said: ‘Yes —
rather
spectacular, isn't it? And they say that there is the corpse of a leopard in the crater, frozen into the ice. No one knows how it got there, or why. Deliciously intriguing, don't you think? I
adore
mysteries!'

Dany made a movement as though she would have turned to look at the speaker, but Lash's hand shot out and closed warningly on her wrist.
‘Ponting,'
he said soundlessly and Dany turned hurriedly back to her contemplation of the view.

Nigel Ponting's neighbour was apparently Mrs Bingham, and with the object of instructing the ignorant — or possibly because he was addicted to the sound of his own voice — he embarked on a lengthy verbal tour of Kenya.

‘And you have simply no idea how primitive those up-country roads are,' fluted Mr Ponting. ‘Mere tracks, I assure you.
Torture
to the tyres! Not, of course, to mention one's
spine!
Though actually, when one gets there, it is quite deliciously stark. The natives — the animals — the scenery! Intoxicatingly primitive. Such an improvement on down-country Kenya and the Settler Belt, which is so
painfully
Pre-World-War-One, I always think.
Too
Poona, don't you agree? But the Northern Frontier now…'

His voice tinkled on and on like water trickling from a faulty tap, interspersed at intervals by vague noises from Gussie Bingham (herself no mean monologist but at present patently out-classed) and it would have been a soothing enough sound had he not changed to the subject of Dany.

‘I can't understand it,' said Nigel Ponting fretfully. ‘I simply
cannot
understand it. No word at the hotel, and her room reservation not even cancelled. One hopes that the Frosts have had a cable, but really — one didn't know whether to go or stay! I suppose the wretched girl has been smitten with some form of spots. Measles, or some similar schoolgirl affliction.'

Lash turned his head and grinned maliciously at Dany, but she did not share his amusement. She was getting tired of hearing herself referred to as though she were a school-age adolescent, and in any case she could see nothing comic, in the present circumstances, in having to listen to this particular form of conversation.

‘Actually,'
said Nigel, ‘it was on Miss Ashton's account that I was over here at all. Your brother thought that it would be a graceful gesture to have her met at Nairobi, and probably save you trouble if I could see to her and show her the town. So he kindly arranged for me to take a little holiday at about this time to fit in with the date, and now the wretched girl has not arrived!
Too
tiresome of her, as I fully expect to be sent back to meet her when she finally does so. And I
detest
air travel. I may not show it, but I'm always simply terrified in a plane. Aren't you?'

‘No,' said Gussie Bingham, firmly seizing her chance. ‘I can't say I am. But then I am a fatalist. I feel that if fate intends me to die in an air-crash, I shall die in an air-crash: and that is all there is to it. And if it does not then there is nothing to worry about. Everything, dear Mr Ponting, is pre-destined. Everything! There is no such thing as chance. Once one has grasped that simple but essential truth, life becomes far less complicated. One ceases to worry.'

Mr Ponting uttered a sharp cry of disagreement. ‘Oh no, no, no, no
No,
Mrs Bingham! I cannot agree with you. The doctrine of pre-destination, even if it were proved right,
must
be wrong. So spineless. Surely one should grasp opportunity and
mould
it to one's will?'

‘That's what Millicent says. We have
such
arguments. But it is my contention that when we think we are grasping an opportunity we are merely doing something that we were ordained to do, and cannot avoid doing. For instance, when we left Lydon Gables for London we were half-way to the station when I remembered that I had taken my passport out of Millicent's bag to show to a friend (a really laughable photograph!) and left it on the piano. So of course we had to hurry back, and what do you think! We found that a live coal had fallen out of the drawing-room fire, and the carpet was already smouldering! Mrs Hagby might not have had occasion to come in for several hours, and had we not returned the house might well have burned down!'

‘Very lucky,' conceded Nigel Ponting.

‘Lucky? No such thing. We were
meant
to return. I was meant to leave that passport behind, and so could not have avoided doing so.'

Nigel gave a little tittering laugh. ‘And supposing you had missed your train and had not been able to reach London, and the airport, in time? Would that also have been
meant?
'

‘Oh, but we were not meant to miss it! It was fortunately running late. Though even if it had not been we should not have missed the plane, because we came up to London two days early, on the afternoon of the twelfth, and stayed at the Airlane, as Millicent had some shopping to do and
____
'

Dany was aware of a slight movement beside her, and she saw that Lash's hands had tightened suddenly on the newspaper he held so that it's outer columns were crumpled and unreadable. But surely he had known that Mrs Bingham and Miss Bates had been at the Airlane? And surely he could not think —
Someone on the plane
 … Gussie Bingham … No, that at least was not possible!

Nigel was saying pettishly: ‘But really, Mrs Bingham, one cannot bring oneself to believe that Providence is interested in such matters as a coal falling out of your drawing-room fire or a fog to delay your train, or the fact that passport photographs always make one look so painfully improbable that you were impelled to share the joke with some friend. Now I myself am more interested in psychology, and it is my contention that when you left that passport on the piano
____
'

Dany rose abruptly. She did not want to listen to any more talk of passports, or the Airlane, or anything else that forced her to think of frightening and horrible things, and she handed her folded coat to Lash and said briefly: ‘I'll be back in a minute.'

‘Feeling all right?' inquired Lash, half standing to let her pass. ‘You're looking a bit green.'

‘No. I'm quite all right, thank you.'

She went quickly down the aisle and took refuge in the ladies' room, where she stood staring out of the window at the wide blue sky and the little idling clouds. But her thoughts had only come with her, and she could not hold them at bay.

Gussie Bingham … Millicent Bates … Jembe … Mr Honeywood.
Murder in Market-Lydon …

Dany gave it up and returned to her seat.

The tiny, dragon-fly shadow of the aeroplane flitted across muddy green water, mangrove swamps and forests of palm trees … Mombasa. ‘May I have your attention please? The indicator will tell you when to fasten your seat belts. In a few minutes we shall be coming in to land
____
'

The passengers trooped out dutifully into hard sunlight and a salty smell of the sea, and among them Dany noticed the slim Arab in the white suit whom she had seen Salim Abeid talking to so excitedly at Nairobi that morning.

Apparently there were others on the plane who also knew him, for Nigel Ponting, catching sight of him, left Mrs Bingham's side and hurried after him. They shook hands and stood talking together for a few minutes on the hot, sandy tarmac, and Dany, passing them, heard Tyson's secretary say: ‘I do hope you had a lovely time? Frankly, Nairobi is
not
my cup of tea. But of course it's different for you — you've friends there. Now
I
went up to the Northern Frontier with Bunny, and
____
' The words ‘deliciously stark' pursued her as she reached the shade of the airport entrance.

Salim Abeid — ‘Jembe', pushed past her, looking far from well, and making for the opposite side of the room he sat down at a small table, ordered himself a cup of black coffee, and began to read an Arabic newspaper which he held in noticeably trembling hands.

The waiting-room of the airport was hot and crowded, and Lash having left her to her own devices, Dany bought a magazine at random off the bookstall and retired with it to a comparatively secluded seat near a pillar. But she did not read it. She sat staring unseeingly at the printed page and listening absently to the medley of accents about her, until her attention was attracted by a large framed advertisement for a local air-line that hung on one side of the pillar a little to her left.

The advertisement, she discovered, was painted on looking-glass, and in it she could see the reflection of Gussie Bingham's blue curls, Millicent Bates' pudding-basin hat, and Amalfi Gordon's flower-like face.

Amalfi, thought Dany, was not looking her best this morning. She looked as though she were hot and rather cross, and the conversation of Eduardo di Chiago, whose handsome hawk-like profile was just visible at the extreme edge of the looking-glass, appeared to be boring her, for she was replying to it in monosyllables and allowing her gaze to wander. Mrs Bingham, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying herself. She was laughing at something that someone had said, and all at once the wild idea that she might have had anything to do with the murder of Mr Honeywood was exposed as utterly ridiculous.

Perhaps it had been the Arab, Jembe, after all. Or else it was some stranger on the London plane whom she had taken no note of. Or even Sir Ambrose Yardley! The complete absurdity of that last thought drew a wan smile from Dany: she was letting her imagination run away with her with a vengeance! And anyway, Sir Ambrose had not been in Nairobi last night. It
must
be some stranger …

The group in the looking-glass broke up and moved away, and she could no longer see the reflection of anyone she knew. Passengers on other flights arrived and left again, and the waiting-room became noisier and more crowded. Dany's head began to ache intolerably, and every separate sound in the medley of sounds became an added irritation: a fretful Indian child wailing with dismal persistence, the crash of an overturned cup and the trickle of spilt liquid, the shrill giggling chatter of a covey of Arab matrons, and the loud laughter of a group of young planters round the bar.

‘You never told me you could read Arabic,' remarked Lash's voice behind her.

Dany started violently and bit her tongue, and focusing for the first time on the magazine that she held, discovered that it was indeed printed in a totally unfamiliar script.

Lash reached across her shoulder, and twitching the magazine out of her hands, reversed it and handed it back. He said: ‘You'll forgive me for mentioning it, Miss Kitchell, but there's nothing quite so conspicuous as someone pretending to read a paper that they're holding upside down. And that fresh boy-friend of yours, the newspaper guy, has been watching your reflection in that slice of glass with considerable interest. It's a game that two can play. Maybe he just likes red-heads — but then again he might have other ideas.'

Dany said breathlessly: ‘Larry Dowling? What ideas? He — he couldn't know anything. And anyway he's only interested in people like Tyson. And politics.'

‘That's a buyer's estimate,' said Lash dryly. ‘Murder is news any place. So just try and stop acting like you had a ton-load of guilt on your conscience. It shows.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Dany in a small voice.

‘That's O.K. It's not much longer. We're almost there.'

‘But not quite,' said Dany unsteadily.

‘Where's your fighting spirit?'

‘I haven't any — Not at present.'

Lash said: ‘Poor baby.' But without sarcasm. And then once again a quacking, disembodied voice from the amplifier cut through the fog of babel in the crowded room:

‘Passengers on flight zero three four, proceeding to Tanga, Pemba, Zanzibar and Dar-es-Salaam…'

9

They walked out into the glaring sunlight and a sea wind that sang through the casuarinas and whipped hot grains of sand against their legs, and took their places in the waiting plane; dutifully fastening their seat belts and stubbing out cigarettes. Larry Dowling, from a seat just behind Dany and across the aisle, called out: ‘Hi
____
Stewardess! we're one short. Don't shut that door. My neighbour isn't here yet. Mr Salim Abeid.'

The stewardess smiled in the tolerant manner of a school teacher coping with a backward new boy, and said sweetly: ‘Thank you, I have the list. There is no need to worry. He will be along in a minute.'

But five minutes ticked by, and then ten, and though the plane vibrated to the roar of the engines it did not move, and the passengers began to fidget restlessly, turning to peer over their shoulders at the open door or to look anxiously at their watches.

‘What's holding us up?' demanded a stout man from a seat near the front. He rose and looked down the aisle, his red face purpling with indignation. ‘We shall be late at this rate, and I've got a conference on at Tanga at 10.15. Hey! Stewardess — Miss!'