Hour of the Red God

by Richard Crompton

  He shrugs. The scale of the place seems unknowable. Dizzying.

  —There are all the rich areas, Karen, Hardy, Lavington, Westlands. The Indian districts. Then Somali-town—Eastleigh. And I’ve not even started on Mathare, Kibera, Kawangware, Dagoretti—if you think it’s crowded here, those areas make this place look like the Mara.

  Mollel feels a slight tightening in his chest, a shallowness of breath. It’s a physical memory of his first arrival in the city, a boy who’d grown up in a village of two dozen, whose only experience of crowds had been a herd of goats or market day with two or three hundred people milling about. He’d found Nairobi overwhelming, terrifying, exciting, invigorating: he’d hated it and loved it and realized, with joy and fear, that this was the wilderness he’d been hoping to lose himself in.

  —It’s not our place anymore, he says.

  —No, she replies. Nairobi does not belong to the Maasai. It belongs to those people down there. People from all over Kenya. All over the world. Ten million of them. There’s your statistic. Ten million people in this city. What’s one poko less?

  —That’s not the way I feel, says Mollel.

  —Really? And yet that’s the way you’re conducting this investigation. She was killed because she was a prostitute.

  —It’s the way the evidence points, protests Mollel.

  The sky is dark. A lightbulb flickers to life on the balcony. Honey turns to Mollel.

  —What about Orpheus House? she demands. I told you, the last time I saw her, she was staying there. You admitted that the drain leads to the spot where she was found.

  —It’s a stretch, he says. If she wasn’t dumped in the park, there are dozens of places farther up the drain where the body could have been washed from.

  Honey is silent a moment. Then she says, —So you don’t believe me, that she’d quit the streets. You still think it’s the fact that she was working as a prostitute that caused her death?

  Mollel’s answer is silence.

  —What if I told you she could not have been working? What if I could prove that she had not been working for months?

  —That might change things, says Mollel.

  * * *

  Honey fixes him with her dark eyes. —Last time I saw her, she says, Lucy was pregnant. She was going to have a baby. And it would have been born anytime now.

  * * *

  Mollel reels. For a moment he doubts his ears. He casts his mind back to the body. There had been no sign of pregnancy. He hardly dares contemplate what that means. But he must.

  —Why didn’t you tell me this before?

  —I’m only just beginning to trust you. There’s a chance—a slim chance—that this baby might still be alive. Lucy might have delivered it before she was murdered. In which case, that baby’s in danger.

  —From who?

  —Don’t you see? The father. Lucy’s powerful, important client. He eliminated her. And to keep his secret, he’ll probably want to eliminate the baby, too. From what she told me, he has contacts all the way through the police department. That’s why I needed to know I could trust you.

  —You’re going to have to trust me now, says Mollel. You’re going to have to tell me everything.

  —But you won’t tell anyone about the baby? Even— She nods down to the street, where Kiunga is still eating.

  —No.

  —Then there is more I need to tell you. The last time I saw Lucy was not three months ago. It was last week. I was missing her. I wanted to track her down. I knew the place they’d taken her to, that old house on Upper Hill. I banged on the gate, but the whole place looked closed up. Then, as I was about to leave, I saw her. At the window by the front door. Just for a second. Then the old man came, the guard, and chased me away. If you want to find out what happened to Lucy, that’s where you need to go. Orpheus House.

  13

  Mollel asks Kiunga to drop him in town, tells him he wants to walk home.

  —At this time of night? Kiunga says. Are you crazy, boss?

  Mollel shakes the flashlight he’s taken from the car. The batteries are dead. He passes it back to Kiunga, who drops it into the glove box and fumbles in his pocket. —Here. Take this. Good job I’m trying to cut down, anyway.

  He throws Mollel his cigarette lighter. —Not as good as a flashlight, but it might be some use to you.

  —Thanks.

  * * *

  Mollel watches the Land Rover disappear, Kiunga off to his cozy bed. Then he swiftly changes direction and heads for Upper Hill.

  Outside Orpheus House, he looks over the gate for any sign of the old man, Githaka. But the place is deserted.

  In the light of a distant streetlamp he looks through the keys he swiped from Wanjiku Nalo’s closet, selects one, and tries it in the padlock on the gate. It clicks open. Gingerly, he opens it just wide enough to slip through. Inside, he crouches and feels around in the leaf litter until he finds what he needs: a stick, just large enough to keep the gate shut while he is within.

  * * *

  Every footstep seems to crackle with explosive potential in that silent darkness. But he creeps over the gravel, past the storm drain cover, into the greater, looming mass that is all he can distinguish of the house.

  Here, he dares not flick the lighter into life, so he gropes his way forward until he feels the cold stone wall. Then, by memory, he works his way toward the door, which is concealed behind a heavy iron grille. Instinct tells him there should be another padlock there. There is. His fingertips find it eventually, and he fumbles with the keys, trying them at random until one slides into the barrel.

  Then, one more door, for this a large iron latchkey whose keyhole is mercifully easy to locate.

  And now he stands within Orpheus House. Getting in has not been difficult.

  Mollel does not believe in ghosts. But he believes that evil endures. And inside this empty house, he can feel it. It has a dry, dusty, empty smell. The only light is a murky grayness that leaches in through the barred window next to the front door.

  That must be the window at which Honey had seen Lucy. Mollel shivers and reminds himself once again that he does not believe in ghosts. All the same, he is sorely tempted to spark up Kiunga’s lighter for a moment, just to get a sense of the space around him.

  He does not do it. He recalls from his daytime visit that the window to this room has no curtain. Can’t risk Githaka or anyone else seeing a light within.

  * * *

  It’s only natural to be afraid, he tells himself. If I’m caught here trespassing, entering without a warrant, I’ll be kicked off the force.

  Yes, he decides. That’s why I’m afraid. Perfectly natural caution.

  He almost convinces himself, too, when he hears a scratching noise travel along the ceiling above him, right across the room and beyond. It’s all he can do to prevent himself from using the lighter, if only for the comfort the flame would bring. But he does not, and by the time the sound has gone, he is sure it was just a mouse.

  He edges forward, heading toward the outline of a door. The next room he enters gives out onto the back of the property, where there are fewer trees to cover the sky. In the dribble of extra light he can make out slightly more of what is around him.

  This is a kitchen. The countertops and cupboards are still in place, though there are gaps where the oven and fridge would have been. The cupboard doors hang open. There’s nothing significant here.

  Back into the main corridor and to the next door along. This opens onto a small room that seems to have once been a bedroom. He feels the softness of carpet underfoot, rather than the peeling linoleum of the previous rooms. No furniture, but the dark shape of a crucifix is just discernible above where the bed must have stood.

  He finds another couple of rooms that are much the same. He is beginning to wonder whether this is worth the risk, whether it wasn’t merely Honey’s overactive imagination that has sent him here, when he tries the door at the end of the corridor.

  It is
locked.

  He produces the bunch of keys from his pocket and feels his way through them. There is one left that he thinks he hasn’t used. He hopes it works.

  He finds the keyhole. Inserts the key. It turns.

  * * *

  This room is different from the others. It’s pitch-black, for a start. No hope of seeing anything in here. But he senses that it’s bigger, too, and something in the echo of his footstep makes him think that there must be furniture or other objects in here.

  He recalls how he tried to look into this window from the outside when he came in the daytime. It had been obscured by heavy curtains, not even a gap between them.

  Which means he can try a light.

  He closes the door quietly behind him, produces Kiunga’s lighter from his pocket, and sparks the flame alive.

  * * *

  The sudden light dazzles him at first despite the blueness of the flame. He extinguishes it. In that first moment, though, he’s taken in a chilling sight: an examination table, just like the one in the Sunday school, steel stirrups pointed high in the air and spread wide. But this bench has something on it.

  He lights the flame once more.

  A crumpled, dark towel. One corner of it seems to have been bleached white.

  He looks closer and revises his opinion. It’s a white towel, entirely stained a deep, dark brown except for one corner. It appears dried, hard, encrusted.

  Blood.

  The blood smears show up glossy on the black plastic of the table cover. They show up black on the linoleum floor, leading to a sink at one side of the room, where steel dishes and implements lie carelessly discarded and spattered, as is the sink itself, with blood.

  A sudden burning pain causes him to drop the lighter. It clatters away from him on the floor in the darkness. He kneels and pats the floor around him. After a few frantic moments he finds it, stands, and presses the lighter’s button once more.

  He holds the flickering light and turns around the room with mounting horror. In one corner, a crumpled pile of green surgical scrubs. Stained with blood. More blood on the floor. Here, a footprint in blood. A latex glove, fingers sucked in, palm covered in blood. A black garbage bag, swabs and gauze overflowing from the top. Covered in blood.

  Everything is covered in blood.

  14

  MONDAY, 24 DECEMBER 2007

  Mollel’s dreams are fractured and tainted with blood. When he wakes, he picks up his phone to look at the time.

  It’s 9:40 a.m. Four missed calls. Honey.

  —Mollel. Finally. I’ve been calling you.

  —I was sleeping.

  —Are you okay? You sound terrible.

  —I’m fine. And then he remembers.

  Orpheus House. The blood. The operating table. Something happened in that place. Something more than a simple murder.

  —I think you’re right. I think we’re looking for a baby.

  —And I know where to start, she says. Have you got any smart clothes?

  —I have the suit I was wearing last night.

  —That’ll have to do. Can you meet me in town?

  —Sure. I’ll call Kiunga.

  —No, says Honey. Not him. It has to be just you and me.

  * * *

  He meets her at the bus stop near the Ambassador Hotel. It’s a busy interchange, serving all the matatus that run to the eastern half of the city, not to mention the numerous up-country buses. The touts accost him, as they do anyone standing still, assuming that he’s looking for a cheap fare. Beba, beba, is the incessant cry: All aboard. Nearly full minivans blare their air horns in competition; passengers push for the final places rather than wait for another vehicle to fill. They throw their bags to the kondos—the conductors—to be lashed to the roof with lengths of inner-tube rubber. Others juggle their possessions in tied-up bundles, along with trussed chickens and swaddled children. Whatever rides on your lap is free.

  Many are returning home for Christmas. Still others, Mollel gathers from snatches of conversation all around him, are leaving the city for the election. Not with the intent of exercising their democratic right at home, but of keeping away from trouble.

  The touts are aware of this new imperative and are taking advantage. —Come on, brazza, one hisses at him, spitting a wad of miraa into the gutter. You can hold out all you like, but you won’t get a better price. Everyone’s leaving town. You wanna be left behind?

  —I’m waiting for someone, replies Mollel. And I’m not your brother.

  —Maybe I’ve seen them, says the tout, ever eager for a tip. Whatta they look like?

  Mollel ignores him. What would he say? Tall, high heels, long hair, short dress? He can imagine the response. You’re on the wrong street, brazza.

  Or would he say shaved head, average height, young Maasai woman? Make your mind up, brazza!

  Someone touches his arm. He turns to see a smartly dressed businesswoman with a leather document folder under her arm. Her hair is shoulder length and as conservative as her suit. She smiles at him broadly.

  —Honey!

  She reaches up and gives him a peck on the cheek.

  —It’s all about looking the part, she says in response to his surprise. Don’t you have a tie, Mollel?

  He pulls his tie out of his pocket and shows it to her sheepishly. Her bottom lip plumps with amused disdain. —That’s the only one you’ve got? Come on, Mollel. Let’s get you a new one.

  —Now I see what you were waiting for, brazza, says the tout, leering. I’ve been waiting for a girl like that all my life.

  * * *

  They stop at a street stand that sells ties, socks, and prophetic literature. The ties are rolled up neatly and arranged according to color; the effect is of a rainbow of exotic fruit. Mollel’s hand gravitates toward the browns and grays.

  Honey reaches out and stops him.

  —What is it about Nairobi men, she asks, that makes you all so afraid of color? Everything’s got to be drab. The West Africans aren’t like that. You ever seen a Ghanaian or Nigerian here on business? They’re finer and more colorful than the women. But here we seem to think we have to be like Europeans, all in black. It’s you Maasai men I feel most sorry for. You’re the finest of all, back in our homeland. Dyed dreadlocks. Necklaces and bangles. Red shukas you can see from miles away.

  —In the bush, you want to be seen, says Mollel. In the city it’s more important to fit in. Especially in this profession.

  —You can compromise, though, can’t you? she says. She picks a deep-red tie. Flame-tree red. Maasai red. —Here. Try this.

  She hands it to him. It’s silky. Sheened. Its contours glimmer as she glides it over Mollel’s hands.

  —Good choice, sister, says the stallholder.

  —Put it on, she says.

  Mollel threads the tie under his collar, then stops, awkwardly.

  —I don’t know … he says hesitantly.

  —Oh, it suits you, she says. Don’t you think?

  The stallholder nods eagerly.

  —I mean … He lowers his voice. He’s ashamed to admit it. —I mean, I don’t know how to …

  —Oh, you mean you can’t tie it without a mirror? replies Honey with a wink. Don’t worry. Let me do it for you.

  She reaches up and knots the tie deftly, the silken material rustling against itself as she weaves it. The tie drops against his shirt, and she slides the knot up against his neck.

  —There, she says. Very handsome. And not at all like a …

  She mouths the word policeman.

  —How much? asks Mollel.

  —Three hundred, says the stallholder.

  Honey reaches into her document folder and produces some notes. Mollel begins to protest.

  —Don’t even think about it, she insists. I chose it, I pay for it. You have to let me buy it for you, Mollel.

  * * *

  They take a taxi for the trip out of the city center to Karen. Mollel doesn’t know this part of town well; it is named for a
white woman who lived here years earlier. It seems as though ever since, the whites—the wazungu—have wanted to create a suburb in the image of their own. Signs with crests and golden letters proclaim preparatory schools and country clubs while high, immaculately clipped hedges and ornate wrought-iron gates hint at luxurious domesticity beyond.

  And then, next to a sign for a shelter run by the Kenyan Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, is a smaller, hand-painted placard: DIVINE MERCY ORPHANAGE. A PROJECT OF GEORGE NALO MINISTRIES. BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.

  —I phoned ahead, says Honey.

  * * *

  The orphanage is off the main road and down a dirt track, causing the taxi driver, in his low-slung saloon, to slow to a crawl and curse under his breath. But it’s not far, and he visibly perks up when Honey says to him, —We won’t be long.

  Being paid to wait is every Nairobi taxi driver’s dream.

  * * *

  —We don’t normally see people at such short notice, says the matron. But as it’s so nearly Christmas …

  She leaves the point unfinished, as though understood. Mollel and Honey nod.

  —Do you have any children? the matron asks.

  —I have a son, says Mollel. Nine years old.

  The matron looks questioningly at him, then at Honey.

  Honey quickly adds, —My husband’s first wife died shortly after his son was born. We’ve been trying for several years. But the doctors say I can’t.

  Mollel looks at Honey, startled. She takes his hand in both of hers; he sees on her left ring finger a wedding band.

  —I’m sorry, says the matron. But perhaps it is God’s will that your misfortune will provide happiness for one of our children.

  —I do hope so, says Honey.

  —Will you excuse me a moment? asks Mollel.

  —Of course.

  Mollel gets up and walks to the open door. He steps outside. In the shade of a jacaranda tree a group of children are playing with plastic cartons, happily scooping and piling mounds of dust. Others are chatting to the young woman who tends to them, while a couple of older boys mock-fight with twigs.