Flyaway / Windfall

by Desmond Bagley

  Hunt was a tall, tanned man, blond with hair bleached almost white by the sun. He was accompanied by his sister, a shade darker but not much. Nair made the introductions and Stafford found her name was Judy. A hovering waiter took the order for another round of drinks.

  ‘Is this your first visit to Kenya?’ asked Judy, launching into the inevitable introductory smalltalk.

  ‘Yes.’ Stafford looked at his watch. ‘I’ve been here about ten hours.’

  ‘You get around quickly.’

  ‘The car is a great invention.’ Alan Hunt was talking to Nair. ‘Are you with your brother at the Ol Njorowa College?’

  ‘Yes; I’m an agronomist and Alan is a soil scientist. I suppose we complement each other. What do you do, Mr Stafford?’

  ‘Max, please. I’m your original City of London businessman.’ He tugged at the sleeve of his jacket. ‘When I’m not wearing this I’m kitted out in a black suit, bowler hat and umbrella.’

  She laughed, ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Take my word for it. It’s still de rigueur.’

  ‘I’ve never been to England,’ she said a little wistfully.

  ‘It’s cold and wet,’ Stafford said. ‘You’re better off here. Tell me something. I’ve been hearing about Hell’s Gate—that’s Ol Njorowa, isn’t it?’

  ‘In a way. It’s what the English call it.’

  ‘It sounds like the entrance to Dante’s Inferno. What is it really?’

  ‘It’s a pass which runs along the western flank of Longonot; that’s the big volcano near here. There are a lot of hot springs and steam vents which gave it its name, I suppose. But really it used to be an outlet for Lake Naivasha when the lake was a lot bigger than it is now.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  She smiled. She had a good smile. ‘I wouldn’t know. Maybe a million years.’

  Nair stood up. ‘We’d better go inside. The lake flies will be coming out now the sun has set.’

  ‘Bad?’ asked Hardin.

  ‘Definitely not good,’ said Hunt.

  Over dinner Stafford got to know something about Hunt—and the Foundation. Hunt told about his work as a soil scientist. ‘Jack of all trades,’ he said. ‘Something of geology, something of botany, something of microbiology, a smidgin of chemistry. It’s a wide field.’ He had been with the Foundation for two years and was enthusiastic about it. ‘We’re doing good work, but it’s slow. You can’t transform a people in a generation.’

  When Stafford asked what he meant he said, ‘Well, the tribes here were subsistence farmers; the growing of cash crops is a different matter. It demands better land management and a touch of science. But they’re learning.’

  Stafford looked across at Judy. ‘Don’t they object to being taught by a woman?’

  Hunt laughed. ‘Just the opposite. You see, the Kikuyu women are traditionally the cultivators of land and Judy gets on well with them. Her problem is that she loses her young, unmarried women too fast.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘They marry Masai men. The Masai are to the south of here—nomadic cattle breeders. Their women won’t cultivate so the men like to marry Kikuyu women who will take care of their patches of maize and millet.’

  Stafford smiled. ‘An unexpected problem.’

  ‘There are many problems,’ Hunt said seriously. ‘But we’re licking them. The Commonwealth Development Corporation and the World Bank are funding projects. Up near Baringo there’s a CDC outfit doing the same thing among the Njemps. It’s a matter of finding the right crops to suit the soil. Our Foundation is more of a home grown project and we’re a bit squeezed for cash, although there’s a rumour going around that the Foundation has been left a bit of money.’

  Not for long, Stafford thought. He said, ‘When was the Foundation started?’

  ‘Just after the war. It took a knock during the Mau-Mau troubles, went moribund and nearly died on its feet, but it perked up five or six years ago when Brice came. He’s our Director.’

  ‘A good man?’

  ‘The best; a real live wire—a good administrator even though he doesn’t know much about agriculture. But he has the sense to leave that to those who do. You must come to see us while you’re here. Combine it with your visit to Ol Karia.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ said Stafford. He did not want to be at Ol Njorowa when Dirk Hendriks was around because his curiosity might arouse comment. ‘Could we make it next week?’

  ‘Of course. Give me a ring.’

  They went into the lounge for coffee and brandy. Hunt was about to sit down when he paused. ‘There’s Brice now, having a drink with Patterson. He’s one of the animal study boys. I can clear your visit to the College right away.’ He went over and talked with Brice then he turned and beckoned.

  He introduced Stafford and Hardin to Brice who was a square man of medium height and with a skin tanned to the colour of cordovan leather. His speech was almost standard Oxford English but there was a barely perceptible broadening of the vowels which betrayed his Southern Africa origins. It was so faint that Hardin could be excused for identifying him as English.

  He shook hands with a muscular grip. ‘Glad to have you with us, Mr Stafford; we don’t get too many visitors from England. Have you been in Kenya long?’ The standard icebreaking question.

  ‘I arrived this morning. It’s a beautiful country.’

  ‘Indeed it is,’ Brice said, ‘It’s not my own country—not yet-but I like it.’

  Judy said questioningly, ‘Not yet?’

  Brice laughed jovially, ‘I’m taking out Kenyan citizenship. My papers should be through in a couple of months.’

  ‘Then you’re English,’ Stafford said.

  He laughed again. ‘Not me; I’m Rhodesian. Can’t you tell by my accent?’ He raised his eyebrows at Stafford’s silence. ‘No? Well, I lived in England a while, so I suppose I’ve lost it. I got out of Rhodesia when that idiot Smith took over with UDI.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Hardin.

  ‘The Unilateral Declaration of Independence.’ Brice smiled, ‘I believe you Americans made a similar Declaration a couple of hundred years ago.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Hardin, ‘I was here in Africa when it happened, but I never got that far south. How did it come out in the end? African affairs aren’t very well reported back home.’

  ‘It couldn’t last,’ said Brice. ‘You couldn’t have a hundred thousand whites ruling millions of blacks and make it stick. There was a period of guerilla warfare and then the whites caved in. The British government supervised elections and the Prime Minister is now Mugabe, a black; and the name of the country is now Zimbabwe.’

  ‘Do you have any intention of going back now that Mugabe is in command?’ asked Stafford.

  Brice shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Never go back—that’s my motto. Besides, I have precious little to go back to. I had a farm up near Umtali, and that’s where the war was.’ His face hardened. ‘My parents were killed and I heard that the farmhouse my father built was burned out—a total loss. No, this will be my country from now on.’ He sipped from his glass. ‘Mind you, I couldn’t leave Africa. I didn’t like England; it was too bloody cold for my liking.’

  He turned to Hunt, ‘I don’t see any reason why Mr Stafford shouldn’t take a look at the College. When would that be?’ ‘Some time next week?’ suggested Stafford.

  They arranged a day and Brice noted it in his diary. He smiled, and said, ‘That will probably be the day I kill the rumours.’

  Stafford lifted his eyebrows. ‘What rumours?’

  ‘About the unexpected inflow of cash,’ said Hunt. He looked at Brice. ‘Is it true?’

  ‘Quite true,’ said Brice. ‘An unexpected windfall. Could be as much as six or seven million.’

  ‘Kenya shillings?’ queried Hunt.

  Brice laughed. ‘Pounds sterling,’ he said, and Hunt gave a long whistle.

  Stafford kept a poker face and wondered what had happened to the re
st of the cash. There was a shortfall of about twenty-seven million.

  Brice said, ‘Keep it under your hat, Alan, until I make the official announcement. I’m seeing the Trustees and a lawyer in the next few days.’

  They had a few more moments of conversation and then Stafford and Hunt returned to their own table. Stafford was abstracted, mulling over what Brice had said, but presently he got talking to Judy, ‘If you’re coming to the College you must go ballooning with us,’ she said.

  He stared at her. ‘Ballooning! You must be kidding.’

  ‘No, I’m not. Alan has a hot air balloon. He says he finds it useful in his work.’ She laughed, ‘I think that is just an excuse, though; it’s for the sport mostly. It’s great fun. A good way of spotting animals.’

  ‘Can you steer it?’

  ‘Not very well. You go where the wind listeth, like a thistledown. Alan talks learnedly about wind shear and other technicalities, and says he can go pretty much where he wants. But I don’t think he has all that much control.’

  ‘What happens if you blow over the lake?’

  ‘You don’t go up if the wind is in that direction; but if it changes you swim until the chase boat catches up, and you hope there aren’t any crocodiles about.’

  Stafford said, ‘I call that living dangerously.’

  ‘It’s not really dangerous; we haven’t had as much as a sprained wrist yet. Alan caught the ballooning bug from another Alan—Alan Root. Have you heard of him?’

  ‘The wildlife man? Yes; I’ve seen him on television back home.’

  ‘He lives near here,’ said Judy. ‘He does a lot of filming from his balloon. And he went over Kilimanjaro. Ballooning is becoming popular here. Down at Keekorok in the Masai Mara they take tourists up and call it a balloon safari.’

  It was pleasant sitting there chatting. Stafford learned a bit more about the Foundation, but not much, and was sorry when the Hunts departed at about eleven, their parting words urging him to come back soon. When they had gone he, Hardin and Nair pooled their knowledge and found it wouldn’t fill an egg-cup.

  Stafford said, ‘Ben, I’m sending you back to England to do something we should have done before. In any case you’re too conspicuous here; Nairobi is a small town and you could come face to face with Gunnarsson all too easily.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I suppose I am your hole card. What do I do in England?’

  ‘You study the life and times of Jan-Willem Hendrykxx. I could bear to know how he made his boodle and why he left it to the Ol Njorowa Foundation. Find the Kenya connection, Ben. And nose around Jersey while Farrar is away. The old man must have talked to someone in the seven years he was there.’

  ‘When do I leave?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ Stafford turned to Nair. ‘And I’d like to know more about the Foundation. Can you dig out anything on it?’

  He nodded. ‘That should be easy.’

  ‘Then we leave for Nairobi immediately after breakfast tomorrow.’

  TEN

  They got back to Nairobi just after eleven next morning and, as Nair parked the car outside the Norfolk, Stafford saw Curtis in the Delamere Bar sinking a beer. He said to Hardin, ‘Tell the Sergeant I’ll see him in my room now.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Hardin.

  ‘I’ll find Chip,’ said Nair.

  Stafford nodded and got out of the car. He went into the bar to buy cigarettes and then went up to his room where Curtis and Hardin awaited him. He looked at Curtis and said, ‘Where’s Gunnarsson?’

  ‘At the Hilton,’ said Curtis. ‘Chip is covering him.’

  ‘Chip is covering him,’ Stafford repeated. ‘All right, Sergeant; exactly who are Chip and Nair?’

  He wore an injured look, ‘I told you.’

  ‘Don’t come the old soldier with me,’ said Stafford. ‘I’ve had better men than you booked for dumb insolence. You’ve told me nothing. Now, out with it. I want to know if I can trust them. I want to know if they’ll sell me should Gunnarsson offer a higher price. How much are we paying them, anyway?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Curtis said. ‘It’s a favour.’

  Stafford looked at him in silence for a while, then said, ‘That does it. Now you’ve got to tell me.’

  ‘I’m a mite interested, too,’ said Hardin.

  Curtis sighed. ‘All right; but I don’t want anyone getting into trouble. No names, no pack drill; see? I told the Colonel I’d been in Kenya before, but that wasn’t the only time. I spent a leave here in 1973. The Colonel knows how it’s done.’

  ‘You talked to a Chief Petty Officer and came over as a supernumerary in one of Her Majesty’s ships. A free ride.’

  He nodded. ‘She was one of the ships on the Beira patrol.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Hardin.

  ‘A blockade of Beira to try to stop oil getting into Rhodesia,’ said Stafford. ‘And bloody ineffectual it was. Carry on, Sergeant.’

  Curtis said, ‘I went ashore at Mombasa, had a look around there, then came up here on the train. I’d been here three or four days when I went to have a look at that big building—the tall round one.’

  ‘The Kenyatta Conference Centre,’ said Hardin.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Curtis. ‘It wasn’t finished then. There was a lot of builder’s junk around; it was a mess. I’d left it a bit late in the day and before I knew it the twilight had come, and that doesn’t last long here. Anyway I heard a scuffle and when I turned a corner I saw four black Africans attacking an old Indian and a girl. They’d beat up the old man and he was lying on the ground, and now they were taking care of the girl. It was going to be a gang rape, I reckon. It didn’t happen.’ He held up his fists, ‘I’m pretty good with these.’

  Stafford knew that; Curtis had been runner-up in the Marine Boxing Championships in his time. And a tough Marine Colour-Sergeant would be more than a match for four unskilled yobbos. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The girl was fifteen years old, and the man was her grandfather. The girl was unhurt if scared, but the old man had been badly beaten-up. Anyway the upshot of it was that I took them home. They made quite a fuss of me then—gave me a meal. It was good curry,’ he said reminiscently.

  ‘We’ll leave your gourmet experiences until later,’ Stafford said. ‘What next?’

  ‘The Indians were in a bad way then. Kenyatta had declared that holders of British passports must turn them in for Kenyan passports.’

  ‘It was the Kenya for the Kenyans bit,’ remarked Hardin. ‘I was here then. The word for it was “localization”.’

  ‘The Indians didn’t want to give up their British passports but they knew that if they didn’t the government would deport them,’ Curtis said. ‘India wouldn’t have them and the only place they could go to was the UK. They didn’t mind that but they weren’t allowed to take any currency with them, and their baggage was searched for valuables before leaving.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Hardin. ‘They were between the rock and a hard place.’ He shrugged. ‘But I don’t know that you could blame Kenyatta. He didn’t want a big foreign enclave in the country. It applied to the British, too, you know. Become Kenyans or leave.’

  Curtis said, ‘They asked me to help them. I’d told them how I had come to Kenya and they wanted me to take something back to England.’

  ‘What was it?’ Stafford asked.

  He sketched a small package in the air. ‘A small box sewn up in leather.’

  ‘What was in it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t open it.’

  ‘What do you think was in it?’

  Curtis hesitated, then said, ‘I reckon diamonds.’

  Stafford said, ‘Sergeant, you were a damned fool. If you’d have been caught you’d have been jailed and lost your service pension. So you took it to England.’

  ‘Yes. Landed at Portsmouth and then went up to London to an address in the East End.’

  ‘What did you charge for your services?’

  He looked surprised. ‘Nothing, sir.’ Stafford
regarded him thoughtfully, and Curtis said, ‘They were good people. You see, they got to England and settled. And after that my Amy was a fearsome time in dying and I had a hard officer. I applied for compassionate leave and he wouldn’t let me have it. I got it at the end, though; I was there when she died. And I found those Indians had been looking after her—taking flowers and fruit and things to the hospital. Seeing she was eased.’ He was silent for a while, then repeated, ‘Good people.’

  Stafford sighed and went to the refrigerator. He broke the paper seal and took out a bottle. ‘Have a beer, Sergeant.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  He gave another to Hardin and opened one for himself. ‘So when you knew we were coming to Kenya you went and asked for assistance. Is that it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What’s the name of this Indian family?’ Curtis held his silence, and Stafford said gently, ‘It’s safe with me, Sergeant.’

  Reluctantly he said, ‘Pillay.’

  A snort came from Hardin. ‘Every second Gujarati is called Pillay; those that aren’t are called Patel. It’s like meeting a Britisher called Smith or Jones.’

  Stafford paused in the pouring of the beer. ‘Gujarati? This is where it stops making sense. Nair Singh is a Sikh, and since when have Sikhs and Gujaratis been chums? Not to mention Pete Chipende—he’s a black African and that’s a combination even less likely. And you say these two are helping us free of charge? Come on, Sergeant!’

  ‘Hold it a minute,’ said Hardin. ‘Max, you need a short course in Kenyan political history. I was working here, remember? The Company was very interested in political activities in Kenya, and I was in it up to my neck so I know the score.’

  ‘Well?’

  He held up a finger. ‘A one party state—the Kenya African National Union; that’s KANU. Kenyatta was President, and the vice-President was Oginga Odinga. But even in a one party state there are factions, and Odinga broke away and formed the Kenya People’s Union—the KPU. Kenyatta wasn’t having that. There was a power struggle and, in the end, the KPU was banned. Odinga spent quite a time in jail. That was back in 1969. Of course, being Africa the brawl was about tribal loyalties as much as anything else. Kenyatta was a Kikuyu and Odinga a Luo. I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground while I’ve been here, and even now KANU is losing ground among the Luos. Of course, there’s ideology involved, too.’