“Did Arnold get to see the body?”
“He was too late. It had been sent to the morgue and lost.”
Lesley’s eyes widen in unfeigned astonishment while, on the other side of Justin, Rob leans quickly forward, grabs the tape recorder and makes sure the tape is turning in the little window.
“Lost? You don’t lose bodies!” Rob exclaims.
“To the contrary, I’m assured that in Nairobi it happens all the time.”
“What about the death certificate?”
“I can only tell you what I learned from Arnold and Tessa. I know nothing of a death certificate. None was mentioned.”
“And no post-mortem?” Lesley is back.
“To my knowledge, none.”
“Did Wanza receive visitors at the hospital?”
Justin ponders this but evidently sees no reason not to reply.
“Her brother Kioko. He slept beside her on the floor when he wasn’t keeping the flies off her. And Ghita Pearson would make a point of sitting with her when she called on Tessa.”
“Anyone else?”
“A white male doctor, I believe. I can’t be sure.”
“That he was white?”
“That he was a doctor. A white man in a white coat. And a stethoscope.”
“Alone?”
The reserve again, falling like a shadow across his voice. “He was accompanied by a group of students. Or so I took them to be. They were young. They wore white coats.”
With three golden bees embroidered on the pocket of each coat, he might have added, but his resolve held him back.
“Why do you say students? Did Tessa say they were students?”
“No.”
“Did Arnold?”
“Arnold made no judgment about them in my hearing. It is pure presumption on my part. They were young.”
“How about their leader? Their doctor, if that’s what he was. Did Arnold say anything about him?”
“Not to me. If he had concerns, he addressed them to the man himself—the man with the stethoscope.”
“In your presence?”
“But not in my hearing.” Or almost not.
Rob like Lesley is craning forward to catch his every word. “Describe.”
Justin is already doing so. For a brief truce he has joined their team. But the reserve has not left his voice. Caution and circumspection are written round his tired eyes. “Arnold took the man to one side. By the arm. The man with the stethoscope. They spoke to each other as doctors do. In low voices, apart.”
“In English?”
“I believe so. When Arnold speaks French or kiSwahili he acquires a different body language.” And when he speaks English he is inclined to raise his pitch a little, he might have added.
“Describe him—the bloke with the stethoscope,” Rob commands.
“He was burly. A big man. Plump. Unkempt. I have a memory of suède shoes. I remember thinking it peculiar that a medical doctor should wear suède shoes, I am not sure why. But the memory of the shoes endures. His coat was grimy from nothing very particular. Suède shoes, a grimy coat, a red face. A showman of some kind. If it had not been for his white coat, an impresario.” And three golden bees, tarnished but distinct, embroidered on his pocket, just like the nurse in the poster at the airport, he was thinking. “He seemed ashamed,” he added, taking himself by surprise.
“What of?”
“Of his own presence there. Of what he was doing.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He wouldn’t look at Tessa. At either of us. He’d look anywhere else. Just not at us.”
“Colour of hair?”
“Fair. Fair to ginger. There was drink in his face. The reddish hair set it off. Do you know of him? Tessa was most curious about him.”
“Beard? Moustache?”
“Clean-shaven. No. He was not. He had a day’s stubble at least. It had a golden colour to it. She asked him his name repeatedly. He declined to give it.”
Rob comes crashing in again. “What kind of conversation did it look like?” he insists. “Was it an argument? Was it friendly? Were they inviting each other to lunch? What was going on?”
The caution back. I heard nothing. I only saw. “Arnold appeared to be protesting—reproaching. The doctor was denying. I had the impression—”he pauses, giving himself time to choose his words. Trust nobody, Tessa had said. Nobody but Ghita and Arnold. Promise me. I promise. “My impression was, this was not the first time a disagreement had taken place between them. What I was witnessing was part of a continuing argument. So I thought afterwards, at least. That I had witnessed a resumption of hostilities between adversaries.”
“You’ve thought about it a lot, then.”
“Yes. Yes, I have,” Justin agrees dubiously. “My other impression was that English was not the doctor’s first language.”
“But you didn’t discuss any of this with Arnold and Tessa?”
“When the man had gone, Arnold returned to Tessa’s bedside, took her pulse and spoke in her ear.”
“Which again you didn’t hear?”
“No and I was not intended to.” Too thin, he thinks. Try harder. “It was a part I had become familiar with,” he explains, avoiding their gaze. “To remain outside their circle.”
“What medication was Wanza on?” Lesley asks.
“I’ve no idea.”
He had every idea. Poison. He had fetched Tessa from the hospital and was standing two steps below her on the staircase to their bedroom, holding her night-bag in one hand and the bag of Garth’s first clothes and bedclothes and nappies in the other, but he was watching her like a wrestler because, being Tessa, she had to manage on her own. As soon as she started to crumple he let go the bags and caught her before her knees gave way, and he felt the awful lightness of her, and the shaking and despair as she broke into her lament, not about dead Garth, but about dead Wanza. They killed her! she blurted, straight into his face because he was holding her so close. Those bastards killed Wanza, Justin! They killed her with their poison. Who did, darling? he asked, smoothing her sweated hair away from her cheeks and forehead. Who killed her? Tell me. With his arm across her emaciated back he manhandled her gently up the stairs. What bastards, darling? Tell me who the bastards are. Those bastards in ThreeBees. Those phoney bloody doctors. The ones that wouldn’t look at us! What sort of doctors are we talking about?—lifting her up and laying her on the bed, not giving her the slightest second chance to fall. Do they have names, the doctors? Tell me.
From deep in his inner world, he hears Lesley asking him the same question in reverse. “Does the name Lorbeer mean anything to you, Justin?”
If in doubt, lie, he has sworn to himself. If in hell, lie. If I trust nobody—not even myself—if I am to be loyal only to the dead, lie.
“I fear not,” he replies.
“Not overheard anywhere—on the phone? Bits of chitchat between Arnold and Tessa? Lorbeer, German, Dutch—Swiss perhaps?”
“Lorbeer is not a name to me in any context.”
“Kovacs—Hungarian woman? Dark hair, said to be a beauty?”
“Does she have a first name?” He means no again, but this time it’s the truth.
“Nobody does,” Lesley replies in a kind of desperation. “Emrich. Also a woman. But blonde. No?” She tosses her pencil onto the table in defeat. “So Wanza dies,” she says. “Official. Killed by a man who wouldn’t look at you. And today, six months later, you still don’t know what of. She just died.”
“It was never revealed to me. If Tessa or Arnold knew the cause of her death, I did not.”
Rob and Lesley flop in their chairs like two athletes who have agreed to take time out. Leaning back, stretching his arms wide, Rob gives a stage sigh while Lesley stays leaning forward, cupping her chin in her hand, an expression of melancholy on her wise face.
“And you haven’t made this up, then?” she asks Justin through her knuckles. “This whole pitch about the dying woman Wanza, her
baby, the so-called doctor who was ashamed, the so-called students in white coats? It’s not a tissue of lies from end to end, for example?”
“What a perfectly ridiculous suggestion! Why on earth should I waste your time inventing such a story?”
“The Uhuru Hospital’s got no record of Wanza,” Rob explains, equally despondent, from his half-recumbent position. “Tessa existed, so did your poor Garth. Wanza didn’t. She was never there, she was never admitted, she was never treated by a doctor, pseudo or otherwise, no one observed her, no one prescribed for her. Her baby was never born, she never died, her body was never lost because it never existed. Our Les here had a go at speaking to a few of the nurses but they don’t know nuffink, do they, Les?”
“Somebody had a quiet word with them before I did,” Lesley explains.
Hearing a man’s voice behind him, Justin swung round. But it was only the flight steward enquiring after his bodily comforts. Did Mr Brown require a spot of help with the controls on his seat at all? Thank you, Mr Brown preferred to remain upright. Or his video machine? Thank you, no, I have no need of it. Then would he like to have the blind across his window drawn at all? No, thank you— emphatically—Justin preferred his window open to the cosmos. Then what about a nice warm blanket for Mr Brown? Out of incurable politeness, Justin accepted a blanket and returned his gaze to the black window in time to see Gloria barging into the dining room without knocking, carrying a tray of paste sandwiches. Setting it on the table, she sneaks a look at whatever Lesley has written in her notebook: fruitlessly, as it happens, for Lesley has deftly turned to a fresh page.
“You won’t overwork our poor house guest, will you, darlings? He’s got quite enough on his plate as it is, haven’t you, Justin?”
And a kiss on the cheek for Justin, and a music-hall exit for everyone, as the three of them with one mind spring to open the door for their gaoler as she departs with the spent tea-tray.
For a while after Gloria’s intrusion the talk is piecemeal. They munch their sandwiches, Lesley opens a different notebook, a blue one, while Rob with his mouth full fires off a seemingly unrelated stream of questions.
“Know anyone who smokes Sportsman cigarettes incessantly, do we?”—in a tone to suggest that smoking Sportsmans is a capital offence.
“Not that I’m aware of, no. We both detested cigarette smoke.”
“I meant out and about, not just at home.”
“Still no.”
“Know anyone owns a green, long-wheelbase safari truck, good condition, Kenyan plates?”
“The High Commissioner boasts an armoured jeep of some sort, but I don’t imagine that’s what you have in mind.”
“Know any blokes in their forties, well-built military types, polished shoes, tanned complexions?”
“Nobody who comes to mind, I’m afraid,” Justin confesses, smiling in his relief to be clear of the danger zone.
“Ever heard of a place called Marsabit, at all?”
“Yes, I think so. Yes, Marsabit. Of course. Why?”
“Oh. Right. Good. We have heard of it. Where is it?”
“On the edge of the Chalbi desert.”
“East of Lake Turkana then?”
“As memory serves, yes. It’s an administrative centre of some sort. A meeting place for wanderers from all over the northern region.”
“Ever been there?”
“Alas, no.”
“Know anyone who has?”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“Any idea of the facilities available to the careworn traveller at Marsabit?”
“I believe there is accommodation there. And a police post. And a national reserve.”
“But you’ve never been there.” Justin has not. “Or sent anyone there? Two anyones, for instance?” Justin has not. “So how come you know all about the place then? Psychic, are you?”
“When I am posted to a country I make it my business to study the map.”
“We’re getting stories of a green, long-wheelbase safari truck that stopped over at Marsabit two nights before the murder, Justin,” Lesley explains, when this ritual display of aggression has run its course. “Two white men aboard. They sound like white hunters. Fit, your sort of age, khaki drills, shiny shoes, like Rob says. Didn’t talk to anyone except each other. Didn’t flirt with a bevy of Swedish girls at the bar. Bought stores from the shop. Fuel, fags, water, beer, rations. The fags were Sportsmans, the beer was Whitecap in bottles. Whitecap only comes in bottles. They left next morning, headed west across the desert. If they kept driving they could have hit Turkana shore next evening. They might even have made it to Allia Bay. The empty beer bottles we found near the murder scene were Whitecaps. The fag-ends were Sportsmans.”
“Is it simplistic of me to ask whether the hotel at Marsabit keeps a register?” Justin enquires.
“Page missing,” Rob declares triumphantly, barging his way back. “Untimely ripp’d. Plus the Marsabit staff don’t remember them from shit. They’re so scared they can’t remember their own names. Someone had a quiet word with them too, we assume. Same people as had a word with the staff at the hospital.”
But this is Rob’s swansong in his rôle of Justin’s hangman, a truth that he himself seems to recognise, for he scowls and yanks at his ear and very nearly looks apologetic, but Justin meanwhile is quickening. His gaze travels restlessly from Rob to Lesley and back again. He waits for the next question and, when none is forthcoming, asks one of his own.
“What about the vehicle registration office?”
The suggestion drew a hollow laugh from the two officers.
“In Kenya?” they ask.
“The motor insurance companies, then. The importers, the suppliers. There can’t be that many long-wheelbase green safari trucks in Kenya. Not if you sift through them.”
“The Blue Boys are working on it flat-out,” says Rob. “By the next millennium, if we’re very nice, they may come up with an answer. The importers haven’t been all that clever either, to be frank,” he goes on, with a sly look at Lesley. “Little firm called Bell, Barker & Benjamin, known otherwise as ThreeBees—heard of them? President for Life, one Sir Kenneth K. Curtiss, golfer and crook, Kenny K to his friends?”
“Everyone in Africa has heard of ThreeBees,” says Justin, pulling himself sharply back into line. If in doubt, lie. “And of Sir Kenneth, obviously. He’s a character.”
“Loved?”
“Admired, I suppose is the word. He owns a popular Kenyan football team. And wears a baseball cap back to front,” he adds, with a distaste that makes them laugh.
“ThreeBees have shown a lot of what I’d call alacrity all right, but not a lot of results,” Rob resumes. “Very helpful, not a lot of help. ‘No problem, officer! You’ll have it by lunchtime, officer!’ But that was lunchtime a week ago.”
“I’m afraid that’s the way with quite a few people round here,” Justin laments with a weary smile. “Have you tried the motor insurance companies?”
“ThreeBees do the motor insurance too. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Free Third Party cover when you buy one of their vehicles. Still, that hasn’t been a lot of help either. Not when it comes to green safari trucks in good condition.”
“I see,” says Justin blandly.
“Tessa never had them in her sights at all, did she?” Rob asks, in his ever-so-casual tone. “ThreeBees? Kenny K does seem rather close to the Moi throne, which can usually be relied on to get her dander up. Did she?”
“Oh I expect so,” says Justin with equal vagueness. “At one time or another. Bound to have.”
“Which might account for why we’re not getting that extra bit of help we’re after from the noble House of ThreeBees on the matter of the mystery vehicle and one or two other matters not directly related to it. Only they’re big in other fields too, aren’t they? Everything from cough syrup to executive jets, they told us, didn’t they, Les?”
Justin smiles distantly, but does not advance the topic of conv
ersation—not even, though he is tempted, with an amusing reference to the borrowed glory of Napoleon, or the absurd coincidence of Tessa’s connection with the Island of Elba. And he makes no reference whatever to the night he brought her home from the hospital, and to those bastards in ThreeBees who killed Wanza with their poison.
“But they weren’t on Tessa’s blacklist, you say,” Rob continues. “Which is surprising really, considering what’s been said about them by their many critics. ‘The iron fist in the iron glove,’ was how one Westminster MP recently described them if I remember rightly, apropos some forgotten scandal. I don’t expect he’ll be getting a free safari in a hurry, will he, Les?” Les said no way. “Kenny K and his ThreeBees. Sounds like a rock group. But Tessa hadn’t declared one of her fatwas against them, as far as you know?”
“Not to my knowledge, no,” says Justin, smiling at fatwa.
Rob doesn’t let it go. “Based on—I don’t know—some bad experience she and Arnold had in their fieldwork, say—malpractice of some kind—of the pharmaceutical sort? Only she was pretty big on the medical side of things, wasn’t she? And so’s Kenny K, when he’s not on the golf course with Moi’s Boys or buzzing round in his Gulfstream buying a few more companies.”
“Oh indeed,” says Justin—but with such an air of detachment, if not downright disinterest, that there is clearly no prospect of further enlightenment.
“So if I told you that Tessa and Arnold had made repeated representations to numerous departments of the far-flung House of ThreeBees over recent weeks—had written letters, made phone calls and appointments and had persistently been given the run-around for their trouble—you would still be saying this was not something that had come to your notice in any shape or form. That’s a question.”
“I’m afraid I would.”
“Tessa writes a string of furious letters to Kenny K personally. They’re hand-delivered or registered. She phones his secretary three times a day and bombards him with e-mails. She attempts to doorstep him at his farm at Lake Naivasha and at the entrance to his illustrious new offices, but his boys tip him off in time and he uses the backstairs, to the great entertainment of his staff. All this would be total news to you, so help you God?”