Rift

by Beverley Birch

  Two hands went up: he recognised the girls who had spoken to Joe at breakfast: Janey and Tamara. Then another hand, and then several more. Five altogether, and then, just as he finished taking this in, a sixth.

  ‘Now we are getting somewhere,’ Murothi said briskly. ‘Thank you. Sergeant Kaonga and I would like to talk to you afterwards. Now, I am told these missing ones were often in trouble.’

  ‘Yeah, and they’ve run off, haven’t they?’ A single voice, loud, from the direction of Sean, but Murothi did not think it was his.

  Fiercely, Janey countered, ‘They just got blamed for stuff that wasn’t them.’

  Suddenly there was a low murmur, seeming to ripple out in concentric rings around Sean’s group. A few people glanced over their shoulders.

  ‘It’s true,’ asserted Janey defiantly, ‘isn’t it, Tamara?’

  ‘Too right,’ yelled someone else, Tamara’s emphatic nod matched unexpectedly by an explosion of several voices . . .

  ‘ – someone hung this disgusting thing, dead, so the hyenas came –’

  ‘ – leopard, not just hyenas –’

  ‘ – Miss said it was Matt –’

  ‘ – they got pulled off going to Lengoi –’

  There was an intake of breath, fanned by a drift of whispering and something that Murothi could not quite pin down, like a shifting of rows within the haphazard scattering of students. Sean and his friends, initially in a solid knot of people, were a little more visible: Sean looking around with studied indifference, Candy and Janice head to head, talking, Denny and Carl bending forward, speaking to the people in front.

  ‘They whisper in people’s ears; they try to rule, Sir,’ commented Sergeant Kaonga quietly.

  ‘I see it.’ Again Murothi addressed the students. ‘Explain. What was hung? Where? When? Quickly, now.’

  ‘In the night. Before we went to Lengoi.’ The answer came from Tamara.

  ‘Little antelope thing – a dik dik,’ volunteered a boy sitting beside her. He was one who had identified himself as a friend. ‘Stuck up in this tree behind Matt and Joe’s tent. Samuel and Tomis took it out into the bush so the vultures would eat it. They said in the camp it would bring animals in, and that’s dangerous. They were angry!’

  ‘Angry with . . . ?’

  The boy shrugged. ‘Whoever did it.’

  ‘And who was that?’

  Another blanketing stillness.

  Finally, ‘Dunno.’ From somewhere to the boy’s left came a scornful snort. He continued doggedly, ‘Miss Strutton said it was them – Matt and Joe and Anna – to make the animals get close to their tent so Matt could hear the sounds for his music.’

  ‘Ah! And you know it was not them?’

  Energetic nods from several quarters.

  ‘And there were other times like this?’

  No answer.

  ‘Pay very close attention to me,’ vigorously Murothi threw his voice across the gathering, ‘These missing people may die because we do not get information in time to locate them. Every minute, every hour counts. This is no time for secrets or games.’

  Promisingly, a girl who had not claimed to be a friend, volunteered, ‘They started going off all the time with Silowa, so we don’t know . . . ’

  ‘They did not go on the expeditions with you?’

  ‘At first, yeah, but after that fight . . . ’ The girl flushed suddenly, looked across at Candy, and stopped.

  ‘Fight?’ Murothi prompted.

  ‘I wasn’t there,’ she said hastily, ‘just heard. It was on the Land Cruiser – when they went to Kasinga. Ask Joe.’

  ‘Does anyone else know about this?’

  ‘ – something about seats and that. About Silowa –’

  ‘ – called him names –’

  ‘ – stupid stuff. Anna went crazy –’

  Murothi spoke carefully, recalling those sentences in Tomis’s interview: Charly said there was something nasty happening . . . she said it was shaming.

  ‘So, it was stupid, but it upset Anna?’

  ‘Well, some people tried to stop Silowa going. Miss Strutton started it. Because she went and pulled down Matt’s tent and that, didn’t she, when . . . ’ the girl looked round her for support, and Murothi understood he was very close to something.

  The girl did not go on.

  ‘I am confused,’ said Murothi. ‘Dead animals in trees. Fights. Is this Anna’s way, to fight?’

  ‘No! Never!’

  ‘So, things are said,’ he spoke slowly. ‘Are things also done?’

  You could have heard the scuttle of a spider.

  ‘Truly, silence is speech, Sir,’ murmured Sergeant Kaonga. ‘And what of this teacher’s strange pulling down of tents?’ Pursued by Likon and both constables, Miss Strutton was heading angrily towards them.

  ‘ . . . utterly unacceptable, I’ll have you know! I will not allow it!‘

  ‘Sergeant,’ Murothi said urgently, ‘do whatever you can to get her away. She is just a bully, and she cannot bully us.’

  Sean, however, rose, stretched, elbowed his way through the students, began to saunter towards her.

  ‘Sean,’ Murothi kept his voice quiet, ‘I believe that is your name – return to your seat. My discussion with all of you is not over.’

  ‘Yeah, but –’

  ‘Return, or I will conclude that you are obstructing my investigation and I will wonder why.’

  A look of sudden, sullen fury flooded the boy’s face. Simultaneously, Miss Strutton’s voice, till now continuing in argument with both the sergeant and the constables, shut off. She could be seen marching away.

  A flutter of something – nerves, thought Murothi, surprise that she is defeated – passed through the students. Sean hesitated. Then he pushed back to his seat.

  He has the intelligence to see which way the wind blows, Murothi thought. It is no more than that.

  ‘You are going to find them, Sir? I mean, in the end you are going to find them, right?’ Tamara said.

  The young faces surrounding her were now unmistakably scared.

  ‘We do not know how Joe reached the other side of Chomlaya. But he was there, and this gives great hope that the others may be there, too, or near it. This is why I ask you to tell us anything, anything at all that may help to direct the helicopters and climbers. Now, two final things. You write accounts of your days here – personal accounts. I wish to look at them.’

  ‘Miss Strutton’s got them. She’s looking at them for the competition.’

  ‘Aha – this competition again. It occupies a very great deal of your time here, I see! Well, thank you. You may all go. Except those close friends we will speak to, and,’ he paused, deliberately, ‘Sean.’

  The general hubbub could not obscure the alert coursing through the ranks, particularly the ranks of Sean’s four friends.

  Sean strolled forward.

  Murothi had called the boy on impulse, and was not immediately clear what he should do.

  He asked, ‘Before the disappearances, when did you last see Joe?’

  ‘Dunno. Didn’t notice.’

  ‘Matt? Anna?’

  ‘Same.’

  ‘At supper on the evening before they disappeared?’

  ‘Don’t remember.’

  ‘What did you do that evening. After the meal?’

  A whisper of a pause. ‘Played cards. Hung about.’

  ‘Hung about? What does this mean?’

  ‘Didn’t do much.’

  ‘And where did you do this hanging about?’

  ‘Here. Like everyone. In the canteen.’

  ‘Till what time?’

  ‘Usual time.’

  ‘Be precise.’

  ‘Nine.’

  ‘And then?

  ‘We go to our tents. Rules. The big lamps go off.’

  Murothi contemplated him. The boy contemplated him back, a direct, unblinking stare.

  Very unafraid, thought Murothi. Very annoyed.

  ‘You ma
y go,’ he said suddenly. A flush came to Sean’s face; he did not at once comply. Then he pushed unnecessarily between Janey and Tamara and several others waiting for Murothi. Equally deliberately, they did their best not to notice.

  Murothi checked the notes of the conversation he’d just had with Tamara, Janey, Zak, Antony, Gideon, Henry.

  Confirmed – the missing ones were at supper. They sat apart. Afterwards they didn’t stay with everyone else round the fire. Silowa was not there. Not one single person saw any of them at breakfast.

  These missing ones are bullied, he thought. By students and by a teacher. This trouble is inside, not outside the camp.

  But still I have nothing to explain why they leave, telling no one. Why the journalist also leaves, later, in the middle of a searing day. Why Joe alone returns. Nothing to say where they are.

  It was nearly midday. He tried to block out the refrain pounding through his head. We will not discover these missing people. Or we will discover them too late.

  He felt the old dismay threatening. Do not let this poisoned air stifle you, Murothi. We must blow it away.

  The place was just as Charly described it. Even in the scorch of midday, there was the whisper of reeds, trickle of water, cool air above moist sand.

  ‘Why do you think Charly’d hide something here?’ Joe asked. ‘Wouldn’t she leave everything in the tent?’

  ‘See, if Charly’s notes were in her tent the police would’ve seen them, wouldn’t they? The inspector would’ve told me. Maybe she’s said in her notes what you were doing, Joe, or – I don’t know, something. I keep thinking WHY would she go off like that, not telling anyone, when she knew you were lost? It’s not like her, it’s just NOT – she MUST’VE known where you went and thought you were all right!’

  Did she? Joe looked away, avoiding Ella’s eyes. Charly wasn’t there that last night. I do know that. The night before the unknown thing happened, at the unknown time, and we went to the unknown place. Charly went to Burukanda in the morning, early – before anyone was up –

  A memory surfaced: Charly stooping into Anna’s tent to call her out. Taking her beyond earshot of the other girls. Anna and Charly whispering, outlined in pale dawn light . . .

  ‘ . . . and then,’ Ella’s voice insisted, ‘there’s what Charly wrote about coming to this place –’

  ‘Child, child, I am sure you are right, I am sure you are right,’ broke in Samuel, calming. With Constable Lesakon he had led the way here to the tiny beach on the bend of the stream. ‘Charly is many times sitting here, writing. If she does not wish to leave something in the camp, it is very possible she hides it in this place.’ He regarded the constable thoughtfully. ‘Ndoto my friend, it seems to me the child is right.’

  ‘Samuel, explain this to me. Why –?’

  ‘Look.’ Ella showed them Charly’s email: Beginning to wonder if I need to watch what I write and where I leave my notes! ‘Charly’s notes – they’re – well – important, she never throws any of them away, she’s got shelves and shelves of notebooks from everything she writes. There’s private things in them too, like a diary. If she thought someone would take them –’

  ‘This someone: who is this someone?’ demanded the constable, frowning.

  ‘Miss Strutton,’ Ella said, and Samuel tilted his head in agreement.

  ‘Ah!’ said the constable. ‘This Miss Strutton is one to steal the journalist’s notes.’

  ‘This Miss Strutton is one to demand to see through every door,’ Samuel retorted. ‘Even one that is not hers.’ He heaved a sigh and lowered himself to a small flat-topped rock on the edge of the beach, stretching his legs wide and resting his hands on his knees. ‘Yes, it is true. Charly likes to sit here.’ He nodded. ‘She likes to look at the light on Chomlaya’s face.’ He contemplated the razored heights of the ridge, the curl of the stream below, the mosaic of trees guarding its waters.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Joe. He could hear them: Charly where Samuel sat now, and Silowa sprinting past, springing through water into sunlight, the boy’s tall figure rustling through reeds to the rocks, scrape of Anna and Matt climbing behind, rasp of his own breath, scratch of pitted rock beneath fingers . . .

  He felt Samuel watch him. The man turned, tracing the line of Joe’s gaze across the stream. From here, the ravine carving down from Chomlaya’s summit was masked by a tumble of giant boulders; you could not see the line of the splitting rock. But they both knew that one of Silowa’s trails was there, winding deep into the echoing rift with its soaring russet walls and its perpetual clamour of birds.

  ‘We climbed up there,’ Joe said. ‘Silowa knew all the ways up.’

  ‘That way has been searched, I can tell you!’ said the constable. ‘I have been there. You go in, you come to these walls of big rock. Nowhere to go! The rock is breaking away all the time, in the big storm, some falls.’

  ‘We knew not to go close to the cliffs,’ said Joe. ‘We only went a little way in, after the storm.’ He remembered it boiling in the east, a vast green bruise on the horizon. Then a swirl of wind across the plains; a gasp, as if everything held its breath, the first fat drops of rain falling singly with thuds and plops, pitting the soil in miniature caverns. Then the storm breaking, ramming the camp like an avalanche, whipping trees to a frenzy, drenching everything, even under the canteen awning.

  In the morning the air rinsed clean: a greening and gleaming of grass and leaves, a quickening trek of antelope and zebra and giraffe and buffalo through the dawn, and Silowa rushing to their tents, calling them to follow. Up on to the boulders, Anna and Matt and Joe kneeling beside him on the flattened top and looking over, following the line of his pointing finger. ‘There, there.’

  ‘What?’ Matt shuffling closer to the edge.

  ‘Oh, yeah, Silowa,’ Anna breathes. ‘Matt, look that way, to the side. Shh, Joe, don’t lump about – you sound like an elephant!’

  ‘Joe, they will feel you in the ground and slide away to hide,’ Silowa’s whispering and laughing. ‘Anna is correct. You must be a feather on the ground!’

  Edging to the rim, peeping over: a shallow pan of rock . . . bushes . . . a twitch of orange, black . . .

  He shades his eyes. Sees the uncoiling loop, the angle of the head.

  ‘A cobra?’

  ‘Eee! We would not come near if it was a cobra! Me, I would be going very quietly away on the top of my toes! No, it is not a big, dangerous snake. See, it is many – father, mother, many many babies.’

  What Joe has taken for a tail is a woven mesh of tiny snakes. Curling round them, a barricade against danger, is a larger one, and to one side, part-hidden below twiggy branches, another, not so big.

  ‘See, it is the big mother who wraps herself round, and the little father who is beside. I have asked Likon the English name; it is sand boa,’ announces Silowa, proud. ‘They are bright with the rain and now they warm themselves in the sun.’

  Joe watches the gleam of gold, fluid slide and ripple of purple-brown across the skin, the sinuous glide as the young snakes loop and weave and settle again.

  But then there’s that trickle of stones below, that grumble of human voices, and Matt’s sudden alarm, ‘It’s Sean! And Carl!’

  And Anna dodging back. ‘Don’t let them see us looking at the snakes! Don’t let them see the snakes!’

  ‘Why? It is interesting to see –’

  ‘No, Silowa, no, you don’t know them –’

  Why remember this? Disgust crawled through Joe’s stomach, and again something moved, at the edge of memory. When he turns his head to look, Silowa’s hands lift it from the white soil . . .

  He crouched down quickly, afraid he would fall. He tried to explain to Samuel’s curious face. ‘It’s nothing. Silowa just took us to see some snakes –’

  Why remember it? His mouth went dry. He swallowed hard.

  Worried, the constable interrupted, ‘You are sick? You need to sit down? When the inspector comes from his meeting he will not be happy if we h
ave let you be ill!’

  ‘It’s OK.’ He went to the stream, splashed water across his face and into his mouth, wiping away the clammy aftermath of the nausea.

  Samuel was still sitting. Slowly he was scrutinising their surroundings, as if his eyes would somehow light on what Charly might choose as a hiding place. Ella turned, eyes skimming, then began to walk from tree to tree, from bush to bush. The constable stomped to and fro, muttering to no one in particular and glancing at Joe every few steps as if afraid he might vanish between one glance and the next.

  There were a million places – trees and branches, roots and boulders – offering hollows and hidden crevices.

  ‘Be cautious,’ Samuel called to Ella. She was reaching below a fallen tree trunk. ‘Do not put your hand into things! This is a land of scorpions and spiders and snakes. They will not enjoy you invading their kingdom.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Ella, whipping her hand back, feeling stupid.

  Joe went back and hunched down beside Samuel, copying him, looking at the place as Charly would see it: the scatter of boulders rimming the beach, the sparkle of water, the damp sand scoured by the traffic of animals and birds, and now by the constable’s emphatic bootmarks.

  He picked at the sand, lifting it, and letting it fall through his fingers. Here, where he squatted, the ground was ridged and broken – probably the marks of shoes scuffing moist soil, like Samuel’s now. His eyes rested on it for a long, blank moment, and then he saw what was there.

  He said, ‘Here,’ and pointed at the ground near the base of the small rock where Samuel sat.

  Samuel contemplated it, and then he grunted. He heaved himself off and knelt down. He grasped the rock, and tipped it over.

  In a hollow below, part-covered with sand, lay a square, flat, plastic-wrapped package.

  Taking it from Samuel’s outstretched hand, Ella’s heart raced.

  ‘You know your sister well, child,’ commented Samuel, smiling. ‘She will be proud. Ndoto! We have it!’

  The constable looked up from his search, saw, and strode towards them.

  Ella was unwrapping the bundle: a black bin bag; inside, a white carrier bag and inside that –

  She stared at what she held. A fat, spiral-bound notebook, unmistakably Charly’s – there was her familiar bold scrawl. But the other was not familiar: a hardbacked sketchbook, something written indecipherably on the front in orange bubble writing.