The Idol of Mombasa

by Annamaria Alfieri

  As soon as the bigwigs had entered the place, Egerton took Tolliver by the elbow. “We have been invited to attend the dinner about to take place.”

  Tolliver would have preferred to go home to Vera, but he didn’t see how he could refuse the D.S.

  “Don’t look so glum,” Egerton said with a laugh. “They will think we don’t like them.”

  Inside, they found that they had been relegated to a separate room, since it was against the Muslim religion for its men to eat with infidels. It was Egerton’s turn to pout. Not having understood the taboo, Egerton had assumed that to be polite, they had to break bread with the Muslims. He proceeded to spend the rest of the evening lamenting the fact that they had been lured into the event on false pretenses. Tolliver, bored with the D.S.’s complaining, was nevertheless grateful for the food: grilled lamb and wonderful chewy flat bread. A salad made with oranges, olives, and onion, dressed with olive oil, which was surprisingly delicious. He drank the mysterious pink, frothy fruit juices and thought how refreshing they would be laced with a little gin or mixed with champagne. He suggested from time to time that as the guests of honor were in a separate room, they might slip away, but Egerton preferred to stay and complain.

  It was nearly ten o’clock before Tolliver was able to extricate himself. He found the squadron and Libazo waiting for him at the front of the Liwali’s palace.

  “We have rotated keeping guard and taking a dinner break,” Libazo said.

  “You are dismissed,” Tolliver said to them all. He had hoped to go to the fort and interrogate Hastings, but at this hour the prisoner would likely be asleep. Tolliver would have to keep his questions for the morning.

  In lieu of a good night, Egerton said, “I have made an appointment for us to meet with the Liwali at ten tomorrow morning to talk about the guard detail for the Grand Mufti’s embarkation for Egypt. Meet me at my office at 9:30, and we shall go together.”

  Tolliver commandeered a trolley to take him to MacDonald Terrace, and then walked the short distance to the bungalow. He was thinking of a glass of claret, a bit of a Bach duet with Vera, and then her arms.

  When he arrived at home, however, he found her sitting with Robert Morley in their front room. The missionary was in tears.

  Vera leapt up and rushed to him as soon as he came in the door. “He is devastated,” she whispered. “He had a lady friend. The poor woman has died in childbirth. It has taken such a toll on him. He must have cared for her a great deal. He took her to the native hospital, but the doctors could not save her. I cannot persuade him to talk about what will happen to the baby.”

  19

  There was no music and no pleasure in Vera’s arms that night. A glass of claret was the best that Tolliver could manage of his desires. In the end he fell asleep reading by lamplight in an armchair in the bedroom while Vera continued to whisper soothingly to the missionary in the parlor. When he awoke, the clergyman was gone and Vera was snoozing on the divan. He slid off her shoes, and gently, without disturbing her slumber, carried her like a sleeping child and put her into bed, otherwise fully clothed.

  Next morning, when a ray of the rising sun woke him, he had not the heart to rouse her. He shaved and dressed, left her a note, and went to have the biggest possible breakfast at the Hotel Metropole.

  At the meeting Egerton had requested, the D.S. was officious and went on at great length about the needs of the Empire to no purpose Tolliver could divine. Their subsequent meeting with the Liwali turned out to be truly strange. He lectured Egerton and Tolliver about the Shari’a court under his jurisdiction and the importance of law in the practice of Islam. Speaking in tones Tolliver would have expected from a grammar school master, he informed them of what they already knew: that the Sultan of Zanzibar was still sovereign here on the coast, and that the determination of what was and was not a crime depended on his law, not the British government’s. This latter observation was not Tolliver’s understanding, but, of course, he could not contradict the Liwali.

  The next thing the man said was positively insulting. “You British sail about on ships flying the antislavery flag, but your real aim seems to be to conquer the world.”

  Tolliver waited for Egerton to object, but the D.S. remained stonily silent.

  It wasn’t until the Liwali was escorting them to his front door that he mentioned what might have been the actual reason for the confab—that on the very next day the Grand Mufti and his party would be sailing for Alexandria on a French mail steamer of the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes.

  “What was that all about?” Tolliver asked when they were out in the street.

  “It was about the need to maintain good relations with the blighters,” Egerton said. His voice was dour, but he strode along with such vehemence that Tolliver imagined he was more angry than unimpressed.

  Egerton looked around and lowered his voice. “At least the Grand Mufti will be out of our hair by this time tomorrow. That will be a relief. You will accompany me to the farewell ceremony.”

  As ever, Tolliver knew it was useless to object. He parted company with the D.S. at the entrance to the fort. His mind was swimming with questions he wanted to ask Hastings about who might have mouthed threats against Majidi in his presence.

  As soon as he entered the prison and saw the look on Kwai Libazo’s face, he knew something was very amiss.

  “Gone, sir,” Kwai said. “Mr. Carl Hastings has escaped.”

  ***

  If Vera had not been so exhausted by her long, emotional conversation with Robert Morley, which had lasted into the small hours, she might have awakened as soon as Tolliver slipped out of bed. As it was, he was an hour gone before she awoke, still feeling fatigued. It was midmorning before she was dressed and out the door. Impatient with herself, she hurried to the souk. She had a marvelous idea. She smiled to herself at the thought that Justin might have to arrest her for stealing.

  The dry season had started before they arrived from Europe and had by now parched the city and made Vera wish for mud instead of grit. Humid as the air could be, there had not been even the lightest shower. Along the dusty streets, she found herself humming a Kikuyu song about beautiful rain.

  Rain, rain, rain,

  Delicious rain, beautiful rain.

  Bring us happy mud.

  Bring us flowers.

  Wed with the sun and bring us food for our bellies,

  And laughter,

  Rain, rain, rain.

  Laughter in the rain.

  When she had dragged her dusty feet to the police building, she found the place in turmoil. Squads of askaris were jogging off in all directions, looking very serious indeed, as if determined to catch a killer on the loose. She looked down at the small parcel she carried and thought she must be wrong about what its contents would tell Justin.

  He was nowhere to be found. “They have gone off to search for a missing prisoner,” was all the sergeant in the lobby would tell her.

  The boy Haki was more helpful. She found him sitting next to the front door as she was about to exit. “The big Englishman has run away from the jail,” he told her.

  She imagined that they had somehow discovered that Hastings was the murderer after all. “Walk with me to the souk,” she invited the boy. “I’ll buy you a honey cake.” It would be a while, she was sure, before she would be able to speak to Justin, and she had another important mission in mind.

  When they arrived at the bazaar, she did not go near the silk shop, but asked the boy to go in and find Aurala Sagal. “Ask her to come to the entrance and speak to A.D.S. Tolliver’s wife,” she said.

  “What about the honey cake?” the boy demanded.

  “Get her first and then I will buy you two honey cakes.”

  It was only a few minutes before he returned with a beautiful young Somali woman in tow. Aurala Sagal was much taller than Vera, elegant and graceful, with big dark eyes that held both fear and curiosity.

  Vera gave the boy some coins and sent hi
m away to enjoy his treats. She looked around. There was not an English person in sight. Still, she asked the girl to follow her into a narrow cul-de-sac beyond the butcher’s stall. She wished she could sit down with Aurala and drink a cup of tea. What did she care what people would think about her talking to such a person? She was only trying to help a girl escape from what her brutal father thought of as justice. Vera’s own father had taught her to care more about what God would think of her than what British society would say. But she could not upset Justin by attempting such a thing. The local gossips would do everything they could to make him ashamed of her. She preferred to accomplish her goal without causing him grief.

  “What is it you want with me, lady?” the girl demanded. Her voice was low, but sharpened by anxiety. “It is not safe for me to be out in the streets.”

  There was no point in beating about the bush. “I want to help you escape from this place.”

  “I have no other place to go,” Aurala said, downcast.

  “But I have a place to send you, if you wish to go. It is up-country.”

  “I would have to leave a friend who—”

  Vera held up her hand to interrupt. “Kwai Libazo knows you are in danger.”

  “You know about him?”

  “He is a friend of mine,” Vera said. It was not a thing she could ever say to a British person, but in a manner of speaking, Kwai was more like a friend to her and Justin than any British man or woman in the entire Protectorate, except for her father. “Kwai cares very much what happens to you.”

  The girl managed a wan smile, but her large dark eyes did not soften. “He knows they might come, but he does not know they are surely coming. He wants to protect me, but he must do his work. I do not want to rob him of that. He only wants to be a policeman.”

  Vera understood very well what it meant to love a man who was devoted to that work. And she saw that this girl was so attached to Kwai Libazo that she would stay near him at the risk of her life. “Kwai Libazo is a very intelligent man,” she said. “Perhaps you should tell him the truth and let him help me get you out of harm’s way.”

  Fear, pleading, something close to despair flashed one after another in the girl’s eyes. “Will you speak to him, so he does not think I am trying to run away from him? He is the kindest man I have ever known.” She looked into Vera’s eyes. “I will do what Kwai Libazo wants me to do.” Hope had entered the mix of emotions in her glance.

  “Very well,” Vera said, “I will speak to Sergeant Libazo. For now, stay out of sight. I will make sure he comes for you as soon as possible.”

  Vera followed a few feet behind the girl, saw her safely enter the silk shop, and then hurried out into the street. She must find Justin and convince him to send Kwai to help Aurala, but as both of them were off chasing Hastings, and the fierce sun made her light-headed, she was afraid she would faint again. She hailed a rickshaw to take her home, worrying about Aurala and praying that Justin and his squad would finish their work quickly.

  When she arrived at the bungalow, Frederick Dingle was watering some newly planted passionflower vines along the front trellis fence. “You look unwell, my lady.” He always addressed her that way, as if she were living at Tilbury Grange, Justin’s father’s estate in Yorkshire, and he were one of the gardeners, instead of a convict laborer on the coast of a far continent. “Shall I send for A.D.S. Tolliver?”

  She shook her head, which made it swim all the more. “He is too busy,” she said. “It seems that he is off somewhere in the town, trying to recapture a prisoner, Mr. Carl Hastings, who escaped the fort.”

  Dingle dropped the trowel he held in his left hand. Fear shone in his eyes. “Oh, no…He must have…Oh, my.” He set down the watering can and folded his hands in front of his chest. “I think I know how he escaped.”

  It took her a few seconds to absorb the thought. She turned about. “You do?”

  “Yes. I may have inadvertently told him how.”

  “Come with me,” she said. Tired as she was, this news energized her. She led Dingle to the end of the street and hired a trolley to take them down the hill, back to police headquarters. She still carried the small package she had intended to take to Justin.

  When she approached the Indian sergeant at the desk, he immediately made a wrong assumption. “Has this prisoner done something wrong ma’am?”

  “Not at all,” she answered. “He has important information about how Mr. Hastings may have escaped.”

  The sergeant pointed to a bench that faced the front door. “He can wait there. I will take care of this.” He spoke in a deferential tone, but it was clear he thought she must leave it him to deal with the situation. Well, she was not about to be dismissed by the likes of him. But he was dismissing her.

  “Is Inspector Patrick in his office?” she asked as politely as she could manage. She held up her package. “I want to give him this.”

  “He is out, ma’am.”

  She screwed up her courage, determined to put her package into the right hands and to get help to Aurala. “Then I would like to talk to D.S. Egerton.”

  “He has gone out also, ma’am. He and Inspector Patrick have gone to the Cecil Hotel to an important luncheon with High Commissioner Girouard and Inspector General Hollis.”

  Her heart sank. If it were up to her, she would barge in on them. But Justin would never live down the fact that his wife had interrupted the most important men in the Protectorate. “Are none of the British officers here?”

  “Not just now, ma’am.”

  Vera then had no choice but to leave Mr. Dingle sitting on the bench in the lobby. She took her burning worries and her little package back home to the bungalow.

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later, when Kwai Libazo entered the headquarters, he asked at the desk if A.D.S. Tolliver was inside.

  “No,” the sergeant on duty said. “Do you know where he has gone? Mrs. A.D.S. Tolliver was just here. She brought in this prisoner.” He pointed to Mr. Dingle.

  “I don’t know exactly where he is,” Libazo answered. “We separated. Sergeant Singh went to the port, and Mr. Tolliver was going first to the club and then to the house of a eunuch from Zanzibar who was known to have dealings with Hastings. I went to the railway station to make sure Mr. Hastings did not get on the noon train.”

  “Has he gone on the train? Should we telegraph up the line to re-arrest him?”

  “Hastings did not take the train, and no steamers have left the port in the past twenty-four hours. So far as we know, he is still in the town. We do not know what Mr. Tolliver might have found.”

  Kwai went and asked Dingle what he knew, but the man would not give an African any information. “I must report what I know only to a British police officer,” Dingle said.

  The rule frustrated Kwai, but Dingle was white. And Hastings was white. If he insisted, it would be the black policeman who would be punished for insolence. He quickly established that there was no white officer in the entire building.

  Much as he despised having to do it, Kwai went to the sergeant at the desk and with every ounce of deference he could muster, made his request. “This man has important information for A.D.S. Tolliver. Request permission to put him in one of the empty offices upstairs until I can fetch the A.D.S. here to receive the information.”

  The sergeant smirked. “This person,” he said with a sniff, “is a convicted prisoner.”

  “You are right,” Kwai said, trying to mollify the man. “But whatever else he is right now, he may have the answer to how to find the escapee. Perhaps our best course of action is to keep him out of sight until he can give his evidence.”

  The sergeant sighed more deeply than was necessary and agreed. Kwai delivered Dingle upstairs, ordered the constable on the second floor to bring the man some water, and then ran out to find Tolliver.

  20

  Tolliver left the eunuch Ismail al Dimu’s house and emerged, famished and frustrated, into the blast furnace of the street. Al
Dimu had convinced him that had he known where to find Hastings, he would have turned him in rather than have anything more to do with him. Al Dimu seemed to have only hostile thoughts about anyone or anything.

  Tolliver was contemplating popping into the Africa Hotel for a bite to eat when he saw Kwai Libazo running toward him, the look on his face promising important news. He immediately forgot how vexed and hungry he was. They raced back through the throngs.

  When Tolliver entered the room where Dingle was waiting, he did not have to ask the man a question.

  “It is my fault,” Dingle said, jumping to his feet and speaking without preamble. “I told him about the tunnel.”

  “Tunnel?”

  “There is a tunnel leading out of the fort. I heard about it from a policeman I used to drink with, name of Foran. Anglo-Irish.”

  “Yes, yes,” Tolliver said, unable to hide his impatience. “Please get to the point.”

  Dingle shrank in his chair. Expressing impatience with him was clearly a mistake.

  Tolliver belatedly tried to hide his annoyance with the man’s reticence. “Forgive me,” Tolliver said. “But we must recapture Hastings as soon as possible.”

  Dingle’s answer came in the halting way he talked about everything but flowers. “Yes, I know, sir. I know, sir, I had looked for the tunnel. But out of curiosity. Never to escape myself. I found it. I told Hastings about it, but not to help him escape. Absolutely not! I told Hastings where it went so he would know it was not a safe route out of the place. Not safe at all.”