* * *
There is a loud knock on the door and the sound of some kind of scuffle. Mollel hears Benjamin’s voice on the other side, and then the noise recedes.
* * *
—Tell me what happened at Orpheus House, Mollel says.
—It wasn’t the night of Lucy’s death, says George Nalo, breaking his silence. There was going to be a baby. We didn’t want it to be born in the hospital. Too public. We set up the delivery room in the abandoned house.
—Whose baby was it? asks Mollel.
Wanjiku looks up at him. Her eyes are clouded with tears.
—It was our baby, she says. Our miracle baby.
Mollel looks from her to her husband. Nalo has his head in his hands. Wanjiku must be well past childbearing age. But he senses that she does not mean that kind of miracle. Some words come back to him, something Honey had said. Some of these places take babies away from mothers in the delivery room.
—Where is the baby now? he asks.
—Dead.
* * *
—If, maybe, we’d been able to have our own children, sobs Wanjiku, neither of us would have turned to other people.
George Nalo has extended a hand to his wife. He gently caresses her shoulder. The love between these two is not straightforward, but it is profound.
—I always took it as a sign from God, she continues. A punishment. For what we do. For the babies that never made it. But I thought I was doing the right thing at the time.
—And then Lucy came to us, says Nalo. She told me there was going to be a baby. Unplanned. Unwanted. My baby.
—George’s baby, repeats Wanjiku. She was giving him the baby I never could. But she could never be a fit mother. A creature like that! Well, I could. We would deliver it secretly, at Orpheus House, then process the adoption through the agency. No one would have known any better. There’d be no scandal. George’s secret would be safe. And finally, we’d have our baby.
But the minute I saw it crown, I knew what the problem was. It’s called cyclopia. Sometimes they’re born with one eye, sometimes none. In cases like this, there isn’t even a brain to speak of. I did the merciful thing. Even if it had the synapses, the nerve endings in place, it wouldn’t have felt a thing. I did not clamp the umbilical cord before I cut it. The little body drained of blood in a matter of seconds. We told the mother the baby was stillborn. But we never showed her the body. It would have been too distressing.
—So you didn’t kill Lucy, says Mollel quietly. But you did deliver her child.
—You still don’t understand, do you, Mollel? says Nalo. It wasn’t Lucy.
* * *
The door bursts open, and a group of black-clad figures rush in: ushers. They’re all wearing the headsets used to coordinate the show. One of them pushes Wanjiku aside and makes straight for Nalo’s throat.
—You liar! he shouts. Another, a woman, slaps Wanjiku full in the face.
Mollel feels himself being hauled to his feet. Benjamin, who has come in behind the ushers, hisses in his ear, —We’d better get out of here.
He pulls Mollel past more oncoming figures. Behind them, Mollel can make out Nalo’s defensive protestations being shouted down by an increasingly angry mob.
* * *
And the swarm clouded over the moon.
37
Mollel stumbles through the darkness of the cold night air led by the ex-Mungiki man. Above them, the stars swirl lustrously. An infinity of points of light.
Mollel’s head reels with the last comment of Nalo’s: It wasn’t Lucy.
* * *
Benjamin leads him through the shadows of the church buildings around him. They pick their way through groups of people sitting on the lawns and against the walls, huddled against the chill—refugees, overflowing from the main church.
They approach a door. He recognizes the building. It is the old schoolroom, the temporary home of Orpheus House.
—What’s going on? Mollel asks Benjamin, but the young man puts a finger to his lips. Then he reaches into Mollel’s jacket pocket and pulls out the transmitter. He yanks the wire, stripping the bud microphone from Mollel’s collar, and throws the device to the ground. It shatters, and batteries scatter.
Now Mollel understands the presence of the mob in the greenroom. When Benjamin had checked whether he was conscious, he had reached into Mollel’s jacket to turn on the radio microphone.
—I know why you didn’t denounce Nalo onstage, says Benjamin. There would have been a riot. And there’s enough of that going on beyond these walls. But you gave me the idea. When I realized that Wanjiku was using me—well, why shouldn’t everyone know?
—But there was no riot, says Mollel.
—The service was over. It didn’t go out over the PA. Just the internal system. I kept guard at the door long enough for plenty of the technical staff to hear just exactly the sort of people they’re working for. We don’t have long. I’m sure Nalo will be able to talk himself out of it eventually. And I don’t want to be here when he does.
Benjamin unlocks the door to the schoolroom and steps in. Mollel follows. Even though he knows it is there, it is a shock to see the gynecological table in the half-light. It brings back a chill memory of that blood-soaked night in the other Orpheus House. At least he knows now that he really saw what he saw, and it was not, as Kiunga had suggested, the product of his fractured mind.
Benjamin heads away from the table to the storage cupboard. He opens it, its keys jangling on their hooks on the inside of the door. —If you’d been less concerned with stealing our keys, he says, you might have seen this. It was right on the top of the pile.
He tosses him a slim cardboard folder. Mollel’s damaged hands rise to meet it midair, but he is unable to grasp it, and the folder flaps to the floor, the contents sliding out.
He stoops to pick up a photograph.
—Take a good look, says Benjamin. Whatever you think of Wanjiku, she does not do what she does lightly. The law of this country says it would be more merciful to bring that child to full term, let it gasp for the few pitiful hours it can manage to survive in an incubator somewhere. Let me ask you, is that mercy? Is that God’s love?
The photograph is of a baby. Its tiny body is wrinkled, pigmentless, covered with white residue. The umbilical cord is still attached, but it’s been cut at the placenta end. There is no clip or knot on the cut. The baby—fetus—would have bled to death in a matter of seconds. And above the baby’s body, the head. Or what should be a head. There is a chin. An ear is visible. But moving up, there is a sucking, lipless cavity where the mouth should be. No nose, no eyes. It is a stump. A smooth, rounded, unfinished, unmolded lump.
—God made a mistake, says Benjamin. Wanjiku was just trying to put it right.
—And that was what you were trying to do when you burned down Orpheus House? Trying to put things right?
—Trying to protect her, says Benjamin.
A wave of relief floods through Mollel. More than the drug that took away his pain, the confirmation that he did not start the fire fills him with gratitude. Now only one uncertainty remains. If Lucy was not the mother of the baby …
He picks up the cardboard folder. In the gloom, Mollel cannot make out for a moment the characters written on the front of the file. Then they form into words.
Mother’s name: En’cecoroi e-intoi Kipuri.
The first name, in Maa, means honeyguide.
Honey.
* * *
The baby was Honey’s.
* * *
And the blood all over the floor was the baby’s. Wanjiku had probably lost control as she cut the cord. Its final few heartbeats would have sprayed its life fluids everywhere. No wonder it was a scene of horror. No wonder Benjamin returned to torch it.
The photograph of the faceless, headless creature remains in his hand. No wonder, too, that they chose to keep this from Honey.
Some of these places take babies away from their mothers in the delivery room
. They lie to them. Tell them they had a stillborn. Honey’s words come back to him. First in disjointed bursts, then a torrent.
Everyone wants a newborn. Do you know what a fresh, healthy baby can fetch on the open market?
Lucy’s baby’s alive out there, somewhere. We’ve got to find it.
It takes a murder to get anyone’s interest around here, and even then, it’s only you who seems to care, Mollel.
* * *
—Lucy brought her to us, says Benjamin. It was weeks before. Wanjiku knew the child was her husband’s. She wanted it for herself. If there was no record of the birth, the adoption could be organized easily through the agency. So we set up the delivery room in Orpheus House. It was basic, but Wanjiku’s an expert. If it had been a straightforward birth … But she couldn’t do any prenatal scans. If she had, she would have known …
—What were you going to tell Honey? demands Mollel. You’d have taken the baby from her.
—We’d have told her what we did tell her. That it was stillborn. Only we didn’t have to lie.
She knew it. No wonder she did not believe them.
—I wanted to bury it, says Benjamin. At least a little human dignity. But then we remembered that the whole site was going to be dug up for the new development. The body would have been found, questions would have been asked.
—That was when I remembered the storm drain. I’d heard it ring hollow under my foot a day or two before. We had to act quickly, in case Githaka, the caretaker, saw us. I scraped away the leaves, lifted the lid, dropped the bundle in. It had just started to rain. The flow was already quite heavy from farther up the pipe. The bundle just disappeared, like that. I didn’t know where it would end up. I didn’t care, so long as it was far away from us. It would just be another unidentified body found in Nairobi’s ditches or sewers. No one would bother to find out any more.
The room falls silent. They can hear a distant helicopter, wailing voices, and the floating strains of a multitude of voices singing a hymn.
—You know she didn’t believe you, says Mollel. She never believed you. She couldn’t have. For nine months she’d carried that body inside her own. Felt its heartbeat; even if it only twitched in reflex, it would have moved for her. She would never have accepted that it could have just died. You should have shown her.
So this was her plan, thinks Mollel. She used the death of her friend to guide him toward the Nalos. Toward the nonexistent baby. Toward the adoption scam and the baby she believed had been stolen from her. She hoped that in investigating the murder, he would reunite her with her baby. Perhaps she did believe that the Nalos killed her friend. More likely she didn’t have a clue at all. He feels an overwhelming wave of pity for her.
And then he remembers Lucy. If she wasn’t killed at Orpheus House, it must have been in the park after all. Killed where she was found. Where the GSU witness had seen a woman that night with an elderly white man.
He reaches for his phone and turns it on. A message from Kiunga.
JL never showed.
So Lethebridge did not turn up at Central as Kingori had promised he would. Hardly surprising.
—James Lethebridge was supposed to assist us with our inquiries. But he didn’t.
—Lethebridge, says Benjamin quietly. He’s the killer?
Mollel does not answer. Instead he asks, —What was he doing here at church, the day I first met you? I saw him.
Benjamin says, —He’s the point of contact between us and Kingori. When it looked like Kingori was going to throw out Wanjiku’s plans for Orpheus House, turn it into a residential development, we let James Lethebridge know that we had some information on his employer.
—His relationship with Lucy, says Mollel.
—Yes. But he had something on us too.
—The abortions.
Benjamin gives a faint smile. —Yes. Even with the evidence destroyed, he had Lucy to testify to that.
—So it was a stalemate, says Mollel. Until he got rid of Lucy.
He remembers Sammy’s words: he heard two women’s voices. That’s how he would have ensured Honey’s cooperation and got Lucy out of the way. By killing her friend in front of her in the most ghastly way possible.
—We’ve got to find Lethebridge, says Mollel.
—We? asks Benjamin.
—You can’t stay here, can you? Besides, I’m going to need you.
38
From up here, the city looks like a million points of light. But the power is off all over Nairobi, and apart from some security lights run from generators in the business district, most of the points are red, and flickering.
The city is ablaze.
Benjamin pulls the car into a side street. The reflectors of the silver Toyota glint in their headlight beam as they pull up. The Toyota is parked tight against a hedge, its front wheels twisted at an angle. A hurried, panicked park. It does not have the air of a car that someone intends to return to.
Benjamin parks next to it and turns off the engine. He and Mollel step out.
—Kiunga? calls Mollel.
One of the red points of light rises up, glows, and descends. The movement is followed by a cough.
—Here.
Kiunga steps out of the shadow of a nearby tree, exhaling smoke.
—How long have you been waiting? asks Mollel.
—Two cigarettes. Maybe three. Who’s your friend?
—This is Benjamin, says Mollel.
—Sorry for hiding in the bushes. But I wasn’t expecting you in a car. And when I saw the dreadlocks … You know, the Mungiki are out in force tonight.
—That’s why I brought him, says Mollel. Security in case we run into one of their roadblocks.
—And he was mine, adds Benjamin, in case we were stopped by the police. I stole plenty of vehicles in my bad old days, but I never had a serving officer ride shotgun with me before.
—It’s a stolen car? Kiunga asks Mollel with surprise.
—George Nalo’s, says Mollel with a shrug. Paid for by his congregation. How did you track Lethebridge’s car down to here?
—After I tried to get him at home and he wouldn’t answer the door, I had a watch put on the place.
—A watch? But this is an unofficial investigation. How did you manage it?
—Strictly unofficially, Kiunga answers. Seems like the guy I chose has done a good job, though.
—No one gave me a second glance, says a boy’s voice. A ragged, barefooted figure appears from the darkness.
—Panya!
Mollel pats the boy on the back. It was a good idea of Kiunga’s. A chokora is as good as invisible in Nairobi, even on the genteel streets of Lavington.
—He left his house about an hour ago, Panya says. The only problem I had was persuading anyone to take me from the house. None of the taxi drivers wanted to pick me up or believed I could pay them. The roads are all blocked, one way or another, anyway. Eventually I got a boda-boda who let me sit on the back. We had to do a lot of talking to get through. And a lot of riding around before we found this.
—Good work, says Mollel.
* * *
He goes to inspect the Toyota. He notes once more the scrape on the front fender. He opens the door, looks inside. Nothing in the rear. Nothing on the seats. He climbs into the driver’s seat, leans across, and opens the glove compartment. The car’s instruction manual, nothing else. Typical company car. He folds down the sun visors, feels inside the seat pockets, opens the ashtrays. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
He slaps the steering wheel in frustration. It rattles. He looks closer. The central boss consists of a plastic shell, which is loose. He prizes it off. Underneath, the car’s air bag is loosely wedged in, crammed ineptly into its space. It’s been deployed at some point and stuffed back into place.
Otherwise, there’s nothing more to be learned from the car.
—He must have gone on from here on foot, says Mollel to Kiunga. What’s nearby?
—There’s lots of office buil
dings, says Kiunga. Company headquarters, that type of thing. But none of them would be open now. More likely he’s gone to one of the posh hotels. There’s the Fairmont, the Panafric. It’s easy enough to check those out. They’re not your sleazy downtown flea pits. You have to show ID when you sign in. We’ll just ask if they’ve had any British passport holders arrive in the last couple of hours.
British passport holders.
Mollel slaps the side of the Toyota.
—The British High Commission, he says. He’s gone to the British High Commission.
—Of course, says Kiunga. That’s why he’s left his car. They won’t allow anyone to leave a civilian vehicle close to that place. Not since—well, you know what.
Mollel knows what.
—I heard on the radio that they’re evacuating British citizens, says Kiunga. Once he goes through those doors, he’ll be on British soil. We’ve lost him.
—We’ll have to hope he’s not got in yet. We’ll get there quicker if we do what he did and leave the car here. Benjamin, can you look after Panya? And the Toyota. We may need it for evidence. Cars like these won’t stay unnoticed long.
—Don’t worry, says Benjamin with a grin. Chances are, anyone we meet from now on is going to be Mungiki. And I still hold some sway with my former brothers.
* * *
The two policemen take off on foot down a side street. There’s an alley at the end that leads out onto the road where the British High Commission is situated.
It’s a wide, low, fortress of a building, built with the attack on the U.S. embassy very much in mind. Concrete blast barriers divide the road. Signs at regular intervals exhort NO STOPPING, NO DROPPING. A phalanx of guards—a mixture of Kenyan police and private security—lines the area in front of the commission, but they’re not preventing people from going through. A small crowd has gathered at a tiny reinforced-glass window in the bare black slate wall. A sign above it reads ENQUIRIES.
—My sister lives in Manchester, one woman is sobbing. You’ve got to let me in. The woman behind the bulletproof glass is diligently avoiding eye contact with everyone on the outside. Instead, she points to a hastily handwritten notice that has been taped to the inside: “British Nationals Only Will Be Admitted.”
Hour of the Red God Page 25