Black Mischief

by Carl Hancock

  ‘Yeah, the job is yours. It will be good to have you. Perhaps we will be able to persuade you to have a couple of beers. Off duty, of course.’

  Hosea Kabari had never felt happier. Alone under the night sky, he began to sing to himself. It had not taken him a long time to learn the melody from the girls, but patient Maria had spent many hours getting the words into his head. One of her ‘songs of Mary’ was his favourite and always cheered him up.

  Yes, he would like living in this place. He loved the dark green hills of Kericho with its endless sweep of tea plantations. There the rain came every afternoon like a welcome friend. Here on the dry plains where the valley spread wide, he would be close to the waters of the lake. He could go fishing. The girls were excited about living so much closer to Nairobi and Maria would be able to give herself to her new work.

  It was an easy ride along a flat, smooth road. Only one thing troubled him and that came shortly after he had turned off onto South Lake Road. There were no shambas to be seen on this part of his journey, not a single soul out at this time of night. So why were those two expensive Mercedes saloons parked on the verge close to the spot where he would leave the road to join the track that led to the house where he was to spend the night? Something told him to overrule his policeman’s instinct to stop and investigate. He made a note of the numberplates and, once on the track, dismounted to walk the rest of the way. On foot, he could be more watchful and wary. He was surprised to see lights on in the house that was his destination.

  He was even more surprised to hear a commotion in the house that was now less than fifty metres away. He set his cycle down quietly and crept closer.

  * * *

  Patrick Uchome had never met a situation like this before. He was barely in control. He knew it and, worse still, everyone else in the room knew it. His advantage lay with the gun and the threat it posed. If he was bold enough, he might save his credibility as the most successful Mister Fixit for the rich men of the country, the solid performer they could come to when a problem needed sorting out.

  It was possible that there was already one person dead in the room and he resolved that he would risk a killing if any of these idiots he was dealing with tried to thwart him. Yes, that was it. Caleb would phone for the cars to be brought right up to the front door. But the first task was to immobilise the opposition. He did not want another death. That would make for a very messy job, something his professional pride would loathe. He must intimidate them.

  ‘No more fucking about! Got it? Cross me again and you’ll be dead. I’m ready to take you all out. Boys, get the ropes. Don’t waste time with gags. Come on! I want out of here, with the girl.’

  For a whole lot of reasons, Mister Bertie Briggs did not see things the Uchome way. He turned, stretched a long arm out and pointed his index finger towards Uchome.

  ‘No! No! No! Got that? Yes, the girl is here! Perhaps it’s imp —’

  Uchome, grim faced, was ready. ‘Drongo, the heart or the head! Double bonus if you do it in one.’

  There was a single shot, but it did not graze any part of Bertie Briggs. The gun dropped to the floor from the bleeding hand of Drongo Gusil and he screamed with pain.

  Five heavily built men rushed for the door and out into the night air, ready to fight for their lives against whatever unseen threat awaited them outside. Hosea Kabari stood aside and watched them go.

  Back inside the room Patrick Uchome picked up the gun and turned it on his faithful but weak accomplice.

  ‘Patrick, I’ve never …’ The third bullet fired in that small room that night took a second life.

  It was a coincidence that the person Uchome seized to act as his shield to take him to freedom was Maria Kabari. The stench of cordite was an alien smell in that peaceful home. The new drama, the new struggle for life and death was too much for some of the friends who saw clearly what was happening and could do no more than watch powerlessly. Rebecca vomited uncontrollably into the fireplace, comforted by Tom. Maura and Sonya were bent over the unconscious body of Alex. Bertie stood staring rigidly down at the dying form of his would-be killer. His whole body was locked into a muscle spasm.

  Hosea smiled. The dearest thing in the world to him was being held ‘round the throat by a man who was temporarily close to insanity. His weakness gave him strength. He placed his police weapon carefully on the floor, stood up and looked directly into Uchome’s eyes, a fearless gaze. When he was ready, he stood back from the entrance and motioned Uchome out. With the gun pointing at Maria’s head, Uchome shuffled through the door, threw her down and ran off.

  Hosea lifted her gently, grasped her to him and whispered,

  ‘You see, darling, sometimes it is no bad thing if a husband returns late from a night out.’

  During his career with the police, Hosea had been witness to many very ugly scenes. He had been an officer on duty in Western District in a time of political rioting. Two hundred Kikuyu had fled from their village to take refuge in a Baptist church. Hotheads from a rival tribe had locked them in and set fire to the building. There were no survivors. For a week, he and two constables spent their working day fetching and carrying for medical people, sifting and sorting through the burnt remains of friends and their families. It had been a great struggle to find the will and energy to return to any kind of work where human beings were involved. Maria brought him through.

  Now in a room in a house in the town that would soon be his home, he had seen the life of his wife threatened, come upon a cottage where new friends had been catapulted into a state of shock by an invasion of ruthless city thugs. Yet no hard words were being spoken, no tears shed. Sonya Mboya was kneeling over the prostrate shape of Alex McCall who was possibly fighting for his life.

  His own wife, the strongest person he knew, was kneeling too, with an arm around the shoulders of Maura McCall, supporting her with the most powerful medicine she knew. There was no spoken word, but Hosea could almost feel the vibrations beaming into her friend’s consciousness from Maria’s totally focused arrows of prayer.

  Ever the practical husband, Hosea began to move around the room, restoring order. He picked up the fallen table and reset the coffee cups on the tray. With great tenderness he lifted the body of the man in the dark suit, whose blood had dried to hardness, and set it down on a bench under the veranda.

  ‘Rest easy, brother.’

  He moved on into the kitchen and soon the reassuring sound of a kettle boiling helped to rebuild in a small way a sense of normal life starting up again. The cups were rinsed and refilled. Hosea sat at the table and waited. Tom and Rebecca were the first to join him. Bertie, pale and abstracted, sat himself down heavily, his mind unable to move on from the vision of a gun pointed at his heart, still in a limbo between life and death. He did not attempt to grasp a drink in his trembling hands.

  ‘I’ve made three calls.’ Hosea was aware that practical steps had to be taken to make the outside world aware of the madness that had shattered the peaceful night of the lakeside farm.

  Maura was finding it difficult to sit still. Her hands were in constant motion and her nervous gaze was fixed on the motionless shape close by on the floor. Sonya tried to give her some hope.

  ‘Alex is going to be well. But we must move him to a hospital.’

  ‘Sonya, you’re a sweetheart but …’

  ‘I could not lie to you. My own pain is too fresh to insult you like that.’

  ‘Maura, there is no ambulance at Naivasha Hospital. Just two nurses on duty. I phoned ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Thomas, the plane?’

  ‘Rebecca, no. Too dangerous.’

  ‘Inspector Caroline will be here any minute. She lives close by. And Maria, Paul knows and he should be here within the hour. Friends, it must be done this way. There is a dead man out on the veranda. And Alex … we must be very careful.’

  Hosea left the room when he heard the sound of a car arriving. ‘It must be the inspector.’

  The stereotype of
a Kenyan policewoman presents an unflattering picture. Travellers passing through Jomo Kenyatta Airport will usually catch sight of a pair of them patrolling the corridors or the baggage hall, squat ladies with the ubiquitous pear-shaped bottoms and unflattering, dark-blue ankle socks. God forbid that they would have to respond to a desperate call of ‘stop thief’.

  Inspector Caroline Miggot had become a little bored with the look of surprise on the faces of strangers, especially Europeans, when they first met her. In or out of uniform, she displayed many impressive qualities. Her use of make-up and her taste in her off-duty clothes revealed a sure touch. She knew exactly what worked well for her good figure and handsome face. In her work, she was energetic and scrupulously honest. She saw crime as a disease. With those in the know she was considered the best cop in the Rift Valley.

  Hosea had given her a general picture of what he knew had happened on Rusinga Farm that night.

  ‘Mrs McCall, our second meeting and another bad business. I’m so sorry. Last time we had a good outcome and this time, too, we have strong hopes in our heart.’

  For a few moments, the warmth in this young woman’s smile blotted out Maura’s anxiety about her husband. She motioned Tom to come and join them.

  ‘You never met Tom.’

  ‘No, but I saw many pictures. I still call you the ‘miracle boy’. The day you came home was the best day of my time in the force. But we have new work here.’

  The very presence of this unusual officer of the law lifted the spirits of everyone in the room. She grasped the details of what had happened with a series of probing, clear questions. She quickly mapped out a list of priorities.

  ‘We must get Mister Alex to a Nairobi hospital. I know that the hospital here cannot help us. I have a suggestion. Perhaps you will find it too … distasteful. My car is a very old Volvo, but it has never let me down. And it is an Estate. A person can lie flat down. I must be straight with you. Outside on a veranda there is a dead man.’

  Maura bit her lip and screwed her eyes tight. ‘Of course, Inspector.’ Through a tearful smile she added, ‘I don’t think they will be much bother to each other.’

  ‘Of course, there will have to be statements and more questions, but they will come later. Hosea, will you drive?’

  ‘Can you trust me?’

  ‘Our new district sergeant? On his first job? I will telephone CID on Nairobi Hill. They will meet you at the hospital. Mrs McCall, do you want Tom to be with you?’

  Maura hesitated. ‘Tom, you know your father. When, if, no, when he gets over all this,’ the tears were flowing again, ‘he’ll be …’

  ‘Right, Mum, trust me. Stephen and I won’t let him down.’

  ‘So, will you come with me, Maria?’

  Temporarily Tom and the inspector were alone together in the sitting room. Bertie, more animated now, had crossed over to the main house with Sonya and Rebecca to check on the four boys and Lydia.

  ‘Tom, the next hour will be a ‘specially painful time for all of us. There’ll be some remembering to do. The danger is over for now, but the gang and, more important, the person who is paying them, are not finished.’

  ‘Inspector …’

  ‘Caroline, please.’

  ‘I recognised two of them from before. The little one who was shot … Drongo. He seemed a, well, until he pointed a gun at Bertie …’

  ‘Mister Briggs?’

  ‘Yeah. But, right at the very end … I’m sorry that it’s coming out a bit all over the shop. The boss, the fat one, I saw him in the canyon on North Lake Road. Wasn’t trying to hide himself. No need. I’d be a goner in a couple of hours. But the name, Patrick, it was Drongo’s last word, almost. It was the first time I heard it. Not much help, I suppose.’

  ‘Wrong, Tom. I know what most people think about the police in this country, but down on Nairobi Hill, the CID have some very impressive equipment.’

  ‘Do they have the name Rubai on a list?’

  Caroline sat back in her chair. Her unspoken reply was a look that mixed irony and amusement in about equal parts. Her actual words were less clear.

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘Just a thought.’

  For a time Bertie stayed behind in the main house. He and Sonya had been relieved to find their children fast asleep, stretched in a line across the largest bed in the house. Lydia was curled up in a blanket in an armchair close by.

  ‘They had come for me. I know it. I was waiting for them, listening to the boys breathing. Without these beautiful children … I am very ashamed. When the shouting began and the noise of the guns, I wanted to run away and hide out in the darkness, anywhere. But what if I was not here and they came? These kinds of people are crazy. Where is a safe place? So this time, they went away. They are getting closer. Perhaps I will be dead soon.’

  Her three new companions had no reply that was both honest and comforting.

  Rebecca, Sonya and Tom contemplated the blank sheets of paper set in front of them on the table.

  ‘Write what you saw and heard. Sometimes it is better when the memories are fresh, sometimes not. A word, a phrase, perhaps a paragraph will do. Later on they will be like triggers for the mind. Doctor Sonya … I was so sorry, so angry to hear …’

  ‘Inspector Caroline, when I was up in the bedroom looking down on the boys, I thought of a line from Simon’s favourite piece of scripture. “Though I walk through the valley of death”, and how does it continue?’

  ‘“I will fear no evil”.’ Papa loves it, too.’ Rebecca wondered how her father would react when he heard the news.

  ‘When I look back, there was that first call from my brother about Simon. On that moment on a rainy morning in Wales, I can see now that I entered some dark place, but all along I have been sure that, whatever I had to face, I would be able to cope. So where’s the problem in writing things down?’

  Tom was the last to finish writing, and as he leaned back in his chair, Bertie joined the group.

  ‘She wanted to stay with the boys. I got her to drink a half tumbler of warm whisky and honey. Out like a light. Do her good, don’t you think?’

  Before he could ask what the paperwork was about, another visitor arrived. Paul Miller was as immaculately turned out and unflustered as a man on his way to a high-class garden party at some famous country house. Paul’s entry added to the sense of confidence that Caroline’s compassionate professionalism had brought to the emotional chaos she had found on her arrival. He had spent a year at the Harvard Law School and had a gift for seeing quickly through to the core of any brief he was given. He and Caroline had met several times when she had been a station sergeant in the Langata district of Nairobi. He had been familiar with the main issues of the troubles that night in Rusinga Farm long before he had turned on the engine of his Pajero to set off for Naivasha.

  He and Caroline spent no more than ten minutes in intense discussion while everyone else in the room listened and watched in admiration at the speed of their exchanges, their grasp of detail and the ideas that sprung from their energised, excited intellects. When they were done, Caroline spoke first.

  ‘This is not a complex problem, but it is a problem. Tom, those names you gave me. Drongo is on the records as David Gusil.’

  Paul took over. ‘Your Patrick, surname Uchome, fancies himself as a couple of cuts above the people he employs, mostly out of work thugs from the rougher parts of the city. There’s a list of charges against them a foot long, just from tonight.’

  Caroline took up the explanation.

  ‘Before we charge them, we have to catch them. And these are a ruthless bunch with a nasty habit of getting to witnesses before we do.’

  ‘Unpleasant as they are, they are little fish. The big fish, our Mister Killer Shark who never gets his own teeth messed up with blood, we all know his name.’

  ‘We do.’ There was a cynical edge to Tom’s tone. ‘But Mister Abel Rubai is not on the list.’

  ‘You are right.’

/>   ‘And there’s a girl asleep over the way who is going to cop it from him sooner rather than later. We are her only hope, her only hope.’

  The silence that followed was long and intense.

  Lydia Smith, what was she worth? The unspoken question was in everyone’s mind, one way or another.

  Paul quietly left the room to sit on the bench under the veranda. Less than two hours before a dead body had lain where he sat. He knew it. Do the dead leave behind tiny traces of themselves? Maria would be at home with a question like that. He had never seen this girl, but his heart was warm towards her. Supposing they tried to protect her, where would it lead? Where would they bottom out? Every path Paul followed to find an answer to the question brought him to the same destination. A minor confrontation with the Kenyan colossus would be risky. Oppose him when the stakes were high and you would provoke him to bring out the iron fist.

  Caroline sat at the table with pen and paper, alternately doodling and writing down random thoughts. She eventually arrived at two possible conclusions, the noble one and the sensible one.

  Tom, who had inherited his father’s gift with numbers, leaned forward with his head bowed. A stranger might have speculated that he was dozing after a hard day or maybe praying. In fact, he was composing a simple equation, a kind of mental balance sheet. He found nothing to put in the negative column of his accounts sheet.

  It was Tom who broke the silence. ‘Yes, we are Lydia’s only hope. I’m in, whatever it takes.’

  Caroline smiled. ‘I have two possible ways to go. Tom, yours is not my sensible one, but it’s the better one anyway. You might hate me for saying this, but my brain tells me that we should try not to be sentimental on this. Abel Rubai is in desperation mode. We could all go down - but I’m in, too.’

  ‘I nearly died here tonight. If Hosea had been one, two seconds later … A few days ago Simon was taken from us. In this last year, Thomas, you could have gone twice. Anyway, what do you make of this? When we were all sitting around just now, I think I dozed off. Either that or I had a sort of daydream. Haven’t had one since my Pembroke days. I, well, I, er, went off on a strange journey. Bertie Briggs was dead. He, I was on the other side, looking down at this farm. I love it here. I could see into two rooms. In this one, half a dozen of us were sitting around. Yes, I was still here, damned if I know how. Anyway, I was then looking in on the big bedroom next door. Four little ones with their lives in front of them and close by, another little beauty with her life waiting to unfold.