by JRL Anderson
But where the hell was Miss Sutherland? Had she been murdered too? She seemed to have slipped out of the Quenenden story as unexpectedly as she had come into it, a vague figure getting a lift towards Reading. She might not even have been that – it seemed likely that she was the woman who had been given a lift, but it was by no means certain, and if they were in fact quite different women the only thing that could be said with certainty about Miss Sutherland was that she had disappeared from Newton Blaize. She might have gone off because of my telephone call, but that was another case of jumping to conclusions that something that had happened after something else had occurred because of it.
Inspector Rosyth’s image of a nightmare jigsaw in which none of the pieces fitted was only too accurate as a description of the case. And this jigsaw did not even have straight edges.
*
I did not enjoy that flight to Central Africa. Like all air journeys (at any rate, those you come down from) it was interminably dull, and as our multiple jet engines hurled the miles behind us it began to seem more and more pointless as well. I began to comfort myself with thoughts of escaping from Sir Edmund Pusey’s clutches, and retiring to South Devon, my carpenter’s workbench, and my boat, with, I hoped – at least, I think I hoped – Ruth to accompany me.
I could not fly direct to Fort Edward or Otagara. I had to go first to Kalanga (once Victoriaville) the capital of Mpuga, where, or so I had been told in London, I could get a local flight to Otagara on three days a week, one of them being the day I was due to land. The connection was quite good. We landed at about four o’clock in the afternoon, and the flight to Otagara was supposed to leave at five. The flight time was just under two hours, so I hoped to be in Otagara, where there was a hotel, in comfortable time for dinner, and to go on to Otaro in the morning. Considerably to my annoyance (though, as it turned out later, infinitely to my advantage) I was met on landing by a senior police officer, with a small guard of honour of smartly dressed armed police. The officer explained that he had been sent by Mr Yusko Sessini, and instructed to take me to Mr Sessini’s house, where I was to be his guest.
‘But I am due to fly on to Otagara in an hour,’ I said.
‘There is no plane to Otagara today, sir. The flight for Otagara is tomorrow.’
London had just been wrong. With a day to wait in Kalanga I might as well enjoy Mr Sessini’s hospitality – indeed, though I would rather have been free to wander about on my own, there seemed no polite way of getting out of it.
A car took us quickly from the airport to what seemed a bright, clean town with exceptionally wide streets, and through the town to a big white bungalow on rising ground beyond it. Mr Sessini himself came out to greet me. ‘Welcome to my home, Colonel Blair,’ he said. ‘Any friend of Mr Malindono is a friend of mine.’
Like Mr Malindono, Mr Sessini was slightly built, and there was an air of wiry energy about him. One of the escorting policemen picked up my bag, and Mr Sessini led me into a long, cool room, forming half of one wing of the bungalow. ‘Your bag will be taken to your bedroom, and I shall take you there when you want to rest. Now it is nearly time for a meal, and I expect you would first like a drink. Are you a whisky, a gin, a beer or a water man?’
I laughed. ‘I am a water man in the sense that I like boats, but if you are offering me some whisky, I shall enjoy it.’
‘Certainly. And I shall join you.’ He clapped his hands for a servant, who brought a tray of drinks. ‘Pour your own, please, Colonel,’ Mr Sessini said. ‘I always think it is politer so – then the guest can have precisely what he wants. Do you wish water, soda, or anything else?’
The label on the bottle, that of a fine ten-year-old malt, convinced me that I wanted to add nothing. Mr Sessini was pleased. ‘I was at Cambridge with Mr Malindono, and we were taught to respect whisky there,’ he said. ‘Were you at Cambridge?’
‘Alas, no. I was at Sandhurst.’
‘Ah, I see. A proper Army man. And now you are a gardener – I mean a horticulturist. It seems a strange transition.’
‘Not a bit. Soldiers nearly always have hobbies – languages, flowers, sailing boats, or riding horses. Sometimes there is a chance to make a hobby a way of life. My chance came, and I took it. My home is in South Devon, and there I can sail my boat and have a good climate for growing the lilies, particularly the African lilies, that I love.’
We talked lightly of this and that, and then we had an excellent supper of some delicious fish from the Kalanga lake, with a variety of beautifully cooked local vegetables. After supper my host insisted that we should have some more whisky. When we were alone together his tone changed slightly, and he asked, ‘What really brings you to Mpuga, Colonel?’
‘I thought Mr Malindono had explained – lilies, chiefly.’
‘Mr Malindono and I are old friends. We trust each other. Certainly he informed me that you are a horticulturist, but he indicated that you had other business as well. He felt that I could trust you.’
‘I hope you can.’
‘Are you really a horticulturist?’
I took a quick decision. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I am a policeman.’
‘Then you are not a colonel at all?’
‘I’m an entirely respectable colonel.’ I explained in a slightly edited fashion my work at the Home Office, and its connection with the police. I also explained how I had come to meet Mr Malindono, the attempted blackmail of the Minister of State at the Foreign Office, and my belief that it all centred on the existence of something of extreme value located somewhere in the remote Otaro district. ‘Whatever is of value there properly belongs now to the Mpugan state,’ I added. ‘It is possible that Mr Boscombe may retain some legal interest, but that is another matter, and as a Minister in the British Government he will certainly regard Mpugan interests as overriding anything personal to him. There is also the question of finding a possible murderer – if so, we shall, of course, approach your Government through the proper channels for his extradition for trial for a crime committed in England. My role as a horticulturist is to enable me to go to the Otaro district without disclosing my real purpose – one can look for other things also when looking for rare flowers. I have been frank with you, and I hope that you will feel able to help me.’
He took a slow drink of whisky. Then he held out his hand, in one of those heartening emotional gestures that most Africans are so good at, and most English people so bad. ‘You took what must have been a hard decision to tell me the truth about yourself,’ he said. ‘I am glad. I feel that we can work together, and I have a personal reason which you can’t know about for wanting to help you. My home is near Fort Edward – you see, I can’t stop thinking of it by its old name. As a boy I actually knew your Mr Quenenden – indeed, it was through him that I got the schooling that took me to Cambridge. He could speak many of our languages, and he was greatly respected. It will be a fitting tribute to his memory to bring his murderer to justice. We are both policemen and it is good that we should work together.’
‘I thought you were a Cabinet Minister.’
‘I am – as you are also a colonel. But I am in charge of the police, and I do the job actively – I mean, they are not just an organisation that comes under my Ministry, but a body of which I am the personal head. It is a post of great responsibility and interest. We have an armed police force – indeed, in many ways they are more important than our Army, which is not large by the standards of some other countries. If need be, my police could be converted quickly into a powerful military force. I have to see that a proper tribal balance is maintained in recruitment and training. This is a delicate task, but on the whole I think I have carried it out with reasonable success. We had some disturbances in the first months after independence, but there has been little inter-tribal trouble since, and the building up of our multi-tribal police force has undoubtedly helped to secure peace. I shall find a man from the Otaro district to go with you tomorrow.’
Mr Sessini spoke modestly enough, but
I suspected that his control of the police made him about the most powerful man in Mpuga. He had said that he was ready to work with me, but having one of his policemen attached to me seemed more likely to keep him well informed about my activities than to help me. Since we were apparently trying to talk to one another frankly, I pointed out that to have a policeman with me all the time might conflict rather startlingly with my role as a harmless collector of wild flowers.
‘My dear Colonel, there is much that you do not know about our country,’ Mr Sessini said. ‘Doubtless you have been in remote places in your time, but the remoteness and isolation of parts of the Otaro region have to be experienced to be understood. The countryside around Fort Edward – my own homeland – is well developed, but then there are deep gorges before you climb the ridge that goes down to the valley of the Ga river, and once you have crossed the gorges you might be in another world. On your own you will almost certainly get lost, and there is also the problem of language – you will certainly need an interpreter. I have just the man for you – he knows several of the Otaro dialects, and he has also excellent English. And no one need know that he is a policeman. He will not be in uniform, and he will travel with you as your servant. That will seem quite natural, for even in these days no one of any substance travels without a personal attendant.’
‘Mr Boscombe told me that it was about a day’s journey to get from his plantation on the Ga river to Fort Edward,’ I said. ‘That would be some twenty years ago. How long do you reckon it will take now?’
‘At least as long. You will travel, as he travelled, on foot and by mule. You can go by car to a settlement on what we call the First Gorge, but it will not help you much because it is only about five miles, and at the gorge you will have to go on by mule. Most of the development around Fort Edward is to the north – the Ga river territory is to the west. Why do you particularly want to go to Fort Edward?’
‘I don’t particularly. Mr Boscombe said that it was the chief town of the region, and I thought I should have to go there in order to get to the site of his plantation on the river. I was told in London that the nearest domestic air service was the flight to Fort Edward – I should say Otagara.’
‘You should – but as you have heard, I don’t! Come into my study and I will show you something else. There is much that the British left us as well as memories of imperialism.’
His study opened from the room we were talking in. One wall was lined with maps. He walked over to them, and said, ‘These are all based on the old British surveys, and the heads of our own Survey department, which also comes under my Ministry, are all British trained. Look, there is Fort Edward, and there is the Ga river – you can see from the map how rough the country is between them. Mr Boscombe’s old plantation would be about here, I think, where there is a crossing to a village on the other bank. Your best way of getting there would be to go downstream from this place, Ilginaro. You can get canoes there. It is about thirty miles, and going downstream it will not take you more than five or six hours – half the time it would take you to toil over from Fort Edward. Yes, and look here – about half way between Ilginaro and where you want to get to there’s a Christian mission station. They are hospitable places as a rule, and you could probably break your journey for a meal there, if you wanted to.’
‘Sounds fine. But how do I get to Ilginaro? There’s no air service as far as I know, and the map doesn’t offer much in the way of a road from here, though there does seem to be a track of sorts to Fort Edward.’
‘No problem. You will go by helicopter – we have a small fleet of police helicopters of our own. And there’s a police post at Ilginaro, with a radio-telephone link, which might be useful to you.’
‘Your map is fairly old. Is the Mission station likely to be there still?’
‘Yes. I have never been there, but I know that it carries on because we have a register of missions – again under my Ministry – and I was going through it only yesterday. We have no quarrel with Christian Missions – indeed, they have done, and still do, much to help our people, especially in these remote areas. This Mission on the Ga river has a school and a small hospital – without it, I’m afraid the tribespeople in that part of the Ga territory would have little in the way of secondary schooling, or of access to modern medicine. We have an ambitious educational programme, with schools now in most of the larger villages, but they are elementary schools, and it will be years yet before we can bring secondary education to the remoter parts of our country. It is the same with medicine. We have hospitals and doctors in the towns, and village dispensaries, but in the wilder places where there are small settlements rather than villages there is not much that we have yet been able to do. Where a mission can undertake such work for us, we are grateful. We do not permit any political interference, but the genuine missions do not attempt to interfere. I find it moving that collections from churches and schools in England should go to finance welfare work in our country. It is not big internationalism, but it is the best sort of internationalism. We have nothing against the Christian faith. Our constitution provides for freedom of religious belief, and I can’t help feeling that if true Christianity were more widely practised the world would be a better place. It may have been different in the old days, but the missions now do not seek to bribe or to enforce conversion. They preach their Christian faith, and they welcome anyone who wishes to be baptised, but they do not withhold schooling or hospital treatment from those who are not Christians. But I must not weary you with my ideas on politics. You have had a long journey, and you are tired. Can you be ready to leave for Ilginaro at six o’clock in the morning? I shall arrange for Sergeant Taskalu to pick you up here to drive you to the helicopter base at the airport.’
‘That’s very good of you. How long will it take to reach Ilginaro?’
‘Well, the helicopter is slower than the normal aeroplane. You should do it in about three hours. I shall instruct the police post to have a canoe and paddlers ready for you.’
‘Splendid. We should be at the Mission station in good time for lunch, if they are willing to provide it. I’m interested in your paddlers – don’t they use outboards on the river nowadays?’
‘To some extent, but not much on those higher reaches of the Ga. Motors require fuel, and we have been discussing some of the transport problems of the area. Moreover, paddlers are men, and a good deal in the economy of the riverine peoples depends on their men being able to find work on the river. There is a fast police launch at Ilginaro, and it can be at your disposal if you wish. But I have been thinking like a policeman – a visiting plant collector looking for rare lilies is much more likely to hire a local canoe than to travel in a police launch. And there is one definite advantage of manpower over a motor – skilled paddlers can make a canoe slip through the water with scarcely a ripple of sound, whereas a motor tells the world you are on your way. It is possible that you may want to move at night, or in other circumstances when your presence is best left unknown. You will need paddlers then.’
‘You are a better policeman than I am.’
‘I have more knowledge of the Ga river . . . Now I must get hold of Sergeant Taskalu and brief him, and you, Colonel, must go to bed. I hope you sleep well.’
I felt myself politely dismissed. I was tired, and I did sleep well. As I went to sleep I meditated on the personalities and obvious abilities of Mr Sessini and Mr Malindono. I knew little of the politics of Mpuga, but it seemed to me more than likely that those two men would one day run the country, if they did not do so now. And they would not, I thought, run it badly.
*
I was called at 05.30 with a cup of coffee and a slice of fresh pineapple. I had a quick shower, shaved, dressed and was just finishing the pineapple when Mr Sessini appeared, accompanied by a hefty young man whom he introduced as Sergeant Taskalu. I put him in his middle twenties. He was bigger-built than Mr Sessini, and looked immensely strong. He was dressed simply in khaki shorts and a grey shirt, and there
was nothing about him to suggest a policeman, except, perhaps, his air of disciplined smartness. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said in excellent English.
‘If you are ready to leave the sergeant will take you straight to the helicopter base. I have signalled the police post at Ilginaro, and they are expecting you,’ Mr Sessini said.
I thanked him for his hospitality and help, promised to keep in touch with him as closely as I could, and we were off.
*
Helicopters have many uses, but they are no good for trying to carry on conversation. It was not until we had got to Ilginaro and had set off on our voyage downstream in a big canoe with six paddlers that I had a chance of talking seriously with the sergeant. His home, he told me, was in Fort Edward, but his mother was a Ga river woman and he had spent a good deal of his childhood with her people. He knew the Christian Mission we intended to visit, having been taken there several times by his mother. As a girl she had an elementary nursing training at the Mission hospital, and it was because of that that she had been able to get work in the hospital at Fort Edward, where she had met the sergeant’s father, who was a clerk in the (then) District Commissioner’s office. ‘Would you remember the name of the District Commissioner in those days – you would have been only a small child?’ I asked.