Flyaway / Windfall

by Desmond Bagley

  She lit up. ‘Yes, isn’t it wonderful.’ And more soberly she said, ‘Not that I’m cheering about the death of an old man in England, but I never knew him, and we can do so much good with the money here.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea.’

  A cul-de-sac. A bit of offensive was needed or he would never get anywhere. ‘Why the fortifications?’

  Judy wrinkled her brow. ‘What fortifications?’

  Stafford said, ‘The fence around the grounds, and the gatehouse with closed gates.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ Her voice was rueful again. ‘We like to give visitors to Kenya a good impression, but there are some awfully light-fingered people around here. We were losing things; not much—just minor agricultural implements, seeds, petrol—stuff like that. Most of it didn’t matter very much, but when Jim Odhiambo breeds a special kind of maize for a certain soil and the seed is stolen and probably ends up in the stewpot of some ignorant wananchi then it hurts. It really does.’

  ‘Wananchi?’

  ‘Indigenous Kenyan. You can’t really blame them, I suppose. The seed would look like any other seed, and they don’t really understand what we’re doing here.’ She shook her head. ‘Anyway, with the fence and the gates we tightened security.’

  Hunt drained his glass. ‘Come and see my little empire, Max. The bit of it that’s upstairs.’

  Stafford followed him and, on the way, said, ‘Is Brice here today?’

  ‘You’ll probably meet him at lunch.’ Hunt led the way along a corridor. ‘Here we are.’ He opened a door.

  It was a laboratory filled with incomprehensible equipment and instruments the uses of which Hunt explained with gusto and, although much of it was over Stafford’s head, he could not but admire Hunt’s enthusiasm. ‘Perhaps, with this new money, I can get the gas chromatograph I’ve been pushing for,’ Hunt said, ‘I need it to identify trace elements.’

  Stafford wandered over to the window. Being on the top storey he had quite an extensive view. Away in the distance he could see the fence around the College grounds, and there was a man walking along it as though on patrol. He wore a rifle slung over his shoulder. He said, ‘Why do you need armed guards?’

  Hunt stopped in full spate. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Armed guards; why do you need them?’

  ‘We don’t.’

  Stafford pointed. ‘Then what’s he doing out there?’

  Hunt crossed to the window. ‘Oh, we’ve been having a problem with a leopard lately, but how the devil it gets over the fence we don’t know. It’s taken a couple of dogs and the resident staff are disturbed—some of them have children here just about the size to attract a leopard.’

  ‘And you don’t know how it gets in?’

  ‘Brice thinks there must be a tree, probably an acacia, which is growing too near the fence. He was organizing an exploration of the perimeter this morning. That’s why he wasn’t around.’

  ‘How long is your perimeter?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Hunt lightly, ‘I haven’t measured it.’

  Lunch was in the staff canteen which would not have disgraced a moderately good hotel as a dining room. It was spacious with good napery and silverware, and the food was very good. It seemed to Stafford that for a Foundation supposed to be hard up for money the senior staff did themselves well.

  He was introduced to most of the staff over a pre-lunch drink at the bar. Their names and faces were forgotten as soon as the introductions were made, as usually happens on these occasions, but he estimated that they were black Kenyans, Indians and whites in roughly equal proportions, and honorifics like ‘Doctor’ and ‘Professor’ were bandied about with enthusiasm.

  Hunt grinned at him, and said sotto voce, ‘We have an almost Germanic regard for academic titles out here. You don’t happened to be a PhD, do you?’

  ‘Not a hope.’

  ‘Pity.’

  Stafford was re-introduced to Brice who said, ‘Is Alan looking after you, Mr Stafford?’

  Stafford smiled. ‘Like royalty.’

  They had a few moments more of conversation and then Brice drifted away, going easily from group to group with a word and a laugh for everyone. A jovial man with an instinct for leadership. Stafford had it himself to some degree and recognized it in another.

  A few minutes later they adjourned for lunch and he found himself sitting with the Hunts and Odhiambo. He nodded towards Brice who was at what could be called the top table. ‘Nice chap.’

  Odhiambo nodded. ‘For a non-scientist.’ He leaned forward. ‘Do you know he hardly understands a thing about what we’re doing here. Odd in such an intelligent man. But he’s a good administrator.’

  Judy said, ‘But, Jim, you don’t really understand literature, do you?’

  ‘I appreciate it,’ he said stiffly. ‘Even if I don’t wholly understand it. But Brice doesn’t want to know about our work.’ He shook his head and looked at Stafford. ‘We have a review meeting each week for the senior staff which Brice used to chair. It was impossible because he simply didn’t understand. In the end he gave up and left it to us.’

  Alan Hunt said, ‘You must agree he knows his limitations and leaves us alone.’

  ‘There is that,’ agreed Odhiambo.

  ‘Then who does the forward planning?’ Stafford asked. ‘The scientific work, I mean.’

  ‘The weekly meeting reviews progress and decides on what must be done,’ said Odhiambo.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Hunt. ‘Brice only digs his heels in when it comes to a matter of costs. He runs the financial end. I must say he does it very well.’

  The meal was very good. They were ending with fresh fruit when Brice tapped on a glass with the edge of a knife and the hum of conversation quietened. He stood up. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, friends and colleagues. I understand that certain rumours are circulating about a change in the fortunes of our College—a favourable change, I might add. I don’t like rumours—they add to the uncertainty of life—and so this is to be regarded as an official statement.’

  He paused and there was dead silence. ‘The Foundation is the fortunate recipient of a certain sum of money from a gentleman in Europe now dead. The sum involved is five, perhaps six, maybe even seven…’ He paused again with a fine sense of timing ‘…million pounds sterling.’

  Pandemonium erupted. There was a storm of applause and everyone stood, clapping and cheering. Stafford joined in, smiling as much as anyone, but wondering what had happened to the rest of the loot. Judy, her eyes shining, said, ‘Isn’t it just great?’

  ‘Great,’ he agreed.

  Brice held up his hands and the applause died away. ‘Now that doesn’t mean you can go hog-wild on your financial requisitions,’ he said genially, and there was a murmur of amusement. ‘There are legal procedures before we get the money and it may be some months yet. So, for the time being, we carry on as usual.’ He sat down and a hubbub of noisy conversation arose again.

  Stafford was still puzzled. He had assessed Brice, on his record, as being an honest man. Under the will 85 per cent of more than forty million pounds was to go to the Foundation so why was Brice lying? Or was he? Could it be that the Hendrykxx estate was being looted by someone else? Farrar, perhaps. A crooked lawyer was not entirely unknown—someone had once made the crack that the term ‘criminal lawyer’ is a tautology.

  Hunt said something, rousing Stafford from his abstraction. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’ll show you around the College,’ he repeated.

  ‘All right.’

  They did the rounds in a Land-Rover and Stafford found the place to be more extensive than he had thought. The research was not only into agricultural science concerning the growing of crops, but animal husbandry was involved and also a small amount of arboriculture. Hunt said, ‘We’re trying to develop better shrubs to give ground cover in the dry lands. Once the cover is destroyed the land just blows away.’ He laughed. ‘There’s a chap here trying
to develop a shrub that the bloody goats won’t eat. Good luck to him.’

  An extensive area was given over to experimental plots which looked like a patchwork quilt. Hunt said, ‘It’s based on a Graeco-Latin square,’ and when Stafford asked what that was Hunt launched into an explanation replete with mathematics which was entirely beyond him, but he gathered it had something to do with the design of experiments. He commented that mathematics seemed to enter everything these days.

  They were on their way back to the Admin Block when his attention was caught by something not usually associated with an agricultural college—a dish antenna about twelve feet across and looking up almost vertically. ‘Stop a minute,’ he said. ‘What’s that for?’

  Hunt braked. ‘Oh, that’s the animal boys. It’s a bit peripheral to us.’

  ‘That,’ Stafford said positively, ‘is a radar dish and nothing to do with bloody animals.’

  ‘Wrong,’ said Hunt. ‘It’s a transmitter-receiver on communication with a satellite up there.’ He jerked his thumb upwards. ‘And it has everything to do with animals.’

  ‘All right; I’ll buy it.’

  ‘Well, it’s no use us developing super crops if animals wreck the fields. You’ve no idea how much damage an elephant can do, and hippos are even worse. A hippo going through a maize field is like a combine harvester, and what it doesn’t eat it tramples. So there’s basic research going on into the movement of animals; we want to know how far they move, and where they’re likely to move, and when. Selected animals are tagged with a small radio, and a geostationary satellite traces their movements.’

  ‘What will you scientists get up to next?’

  Hunt shrugged, ‘It’s of more use in tracing truly migratory animals like the Alaskan caribou. They used this method when they were planning the oil pipeline across Alaska. An elephant doesn’t migrate in the true sense of the word although the herds do get around, and a hippo might go on a twenty-mile stomp.’ He nodded towards the dish on the top of the building. ‘But they’re also using this to trace the annual migration of wildebeest from the Serengeti.’ He released the brake.

  ‘That’s in Tanzania, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes; but wildebeest don’t respect national boundaries.’

  Stafford laughed. ‘Neither do radio waves.’

  As they drove off Hunt said, ‘I’d take you in there but there’s no one about right now. As I said, it’s peripheral to our work here. The radio crowd isn’t financed by the Foundation; we just give them space here. They’re a bit clannish; too; they don’t mix well. We very rarely see them.’

  He pulled up in front of the Admin Block, and Stafford said, ‘Thanks for the guided tour. What about coming to the hotel for dinner?’

  Hunt shook his head regretfully. ‘Sorry, I’ve got something else on—a committee meeting. But what about coming up with me in the balloon tomorrow? Jim Odhiambo wants me to do some photography.’

  Always something new. ‘I’d like that,’ said Stafford.

  ‘I’ll pick you up at the hotel—seven o’clock.’

  Stafford drove back to the hotel and found a message waiting. Ring Curtis. He used the telephone in his room and got Curtis on the line who said, ‘Chip wants to speak with the Colonel if the Colonel will hold on a minute.’

  Stafford held on. Presently Chip said, ‘Max?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Gunnarsson and Hendrix are going on safari.’

  ‘And just what does that mean?’

  ‘Going to a game lodge to see animals. Our main tourist attraction. They’ve booked with a tour group going to the Masai Mara down on the Tanzanian border. They’ll be staying at the lodge at Keekorok. Don’t worry; we’ll be keeping an eye on them. No need for you to change any plans.’

  Stafford said, ‘Are you sure this is just an ordinary tour group?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Chip soothingly, ‘I used to do the courier bit with them. It’s standard operational procedure for tourists, showing them the big five—lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo.’ He laughed, ‘If they’re lucky they see the lot; sometimes they aren’t lucky.’

  ‘What have our pair been doing?’

  ‘Sightseeing around town. They had lunch once in the revolving restaurant on top of the Kenyatta Conference Centre. Gunnarsson’s been playing the tables in the International Casino. Just the usual tourist stuff.’

  ‘When are they going on safari?’

  ‘Day after tomorrow.’

  Stafford made up his mind. ‘Can you lay me alongside Gunnarsson? I’d like to get a closer look at him.’

  ‘You want to go to the Mara?’ Chip paused. ‘Sure, that can be arranged. When?’

  ‘I’d like to be there when Gunnarsson arrives.’

  ‘Stay where you are. We’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Bring the Sergeant,’ said Stafford, and hung up.

  He had no idea why he wanted to see Gunnarsson but inactivity irked him, and he wanted to know why Gunnarsson was sticking around. It could not be to see animals—he doubted if Gunnarsson was a wild life enthusiast—so he was possibly waiting for something. If so, what? Anyway, this was more important than ballooning so Stafford picked up the telephone to cancel the appointment with Hunt.

  TWELVE

  Chip came early next morning accompanied by Nair and Curtis. ‘We won’t need two trucks,’ he said to Stafford. ‘We’ll leave yours here and pick it up on the way back.’

  Stafford took Curtis on one side. ‘Any problems, Sergeant?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I hope you’ve been keeping your ears open. Did Chip or Nair let anything drop to give a reason why they’re being so bloody helpful?’

  ‘Nothing I heard, sir.’ Curtis paused, waiting for Stafford to continue, then he said, ‘I’ll pack the Colonel’s case.’

  Stafford had already packed so they wasted no time and were soon on the road. It was a good road, if narrow, and went straight as an arrow across the Rift Valley, and they made good time. They skirted the Mau Escarpment and eventually arrived at Narok which was nothing more than a village.

  On the way Chip probed a little. ‘Did you find what you wanted to know about Brice?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Stafford. ‘He tells me he’s applying for Kenyan citizenship. I would have thought a white colonial Rhodesian would be persona non grata here.’

  ‘Normally you’d be right,’ said Chip. ‘But Brice’s credentials are impeccable. He was anti-UDI, anti-Smith, anti-white rule. He left Zimbabwe—Rhodesia as it was then—at the right time. Brice is a liberal of the liberals, isn’t that so, Nair?’

  ‘Oh, yes; he’s very liberal,’ said Nair.

  ‘You seem to know a lot about him,’ observed Stafford.

  ‘Just interested,’ said Chip. ‘He’s not a secretive man. He talks a lot and we listen. We listen to lots of people, including you. But you don’t say anything.’

  ‘I don’t go much for light conversation.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ he agreed. ‘But some things don’t need words. That scar on your shoulder, for instance. I saw it this morning before you put your shirt on. A bullet wound, of course.’

  Stafford’s hand automatically went up to touch his shoulder. ‘Not unusual in a soldier,’ he said. Actually the bullet had been taken out three years before by Dr Fahkri in Algiers; he had not done a good job and the wound had gone bad in England and so the scarring was particularly noticeable.

  ‘You left the army ten years ago,’ said Chip. ‘That scar is more recent.’

  Stafford looked sideways at him. ‘Then you have been investigating me.’

  Chip shrugged. ‘To protect our own interests. That’s all.’

  ‘I hope I came out clean.’

  ‘As much as anyone can. What’s your interest in Brice?’

  ‘He’s come into a lot of money,’ said Stafford. ‘Or the Foundation has.’

  ‘We know,’ said Nair. ‘It’s in today’s Standard.’ He passed the n
ewspaper forward from the back seat.

  It was on the front page. The Ol Njorowa Foundation had inherited a sum of money from the estate of Jan-Willem Hendrykxx, a mysterious millionaire. The exact amount was not yet known but was believed to be in the region of £7 million. It was a thin story which told Stafford nothing he did not know already except that someone was pulling a fast one.

  Chip said, ‘Yet another spelling of the name. Are they all connected?’

  Stafford nodded. ‘Dirk Hendriks and Henry Hendrix are both heirs under the Hendrykxx estate.’

  ‘A South African and an American,’ said Chip thoughtfully. ‘Sounds improbable, doesn’t it, Nair?’

  ‘Highly improbable,’ said Nair, the eternal echo.

  ‘They’re both grandsons of old Hendrykxx,’ said Stafford. ‘The family got scattered and the names got changed. Nothing impossible about that.’

  ‘I didn’t say impossible,’ said Chip, and added, ‘Seven million sterling is a lot of money. I wonder what the Trustees think of it, Nair.’

  Nair smiled through his beard. ‘I should think they are delighted.’

  Stafford said, ‘I wish I could check out Brice; he seems too good to be true.’

  ‘What would you want to know?’ asked Chip.

  ‘I’d like to know if Mr and Mrs Brice had a farm near Umtali in Zimbabwe. I’d like to know if the farm was burned and the Brices killed by guerillas. I’d like to know if their son…what’s his name, anyway?’

  ‘Charles,’ said Nair. ‘Charles Brice.’

  ‘I’d like to know if their son, Charlie, left when he says he did.’

  ‘I think we could find that out,’ said Chip seriously.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I think our brothers in Zimbabwe would co-operate. Wouldn’t you say so, Nair?’

  ‘I think they would,’ said Nair. ‘I’ll see to it.’

  Stafford took a deep breath. ‘You boys seem to have an extensive organization.’

  ‘People are supposed to help and support each other,’ said Chip, smiling. ‘Isn’t that what Christianity teaches? So we’re helping you.’