Mombasa Road Retravelled

by KJ Griffin

  Chapter 19

  I don't know how long I have been out when two pairs of rough police hands wrestle me from unconsciousness and dump me on my feet. But the morose blue uniforms soon find I can't stand by myself and have to place a hand under each of my armpits to drag me down the corridor.

  I'm so disoriented I can't make out whether we have passed Little Stevie's cell or not before a dirty brown door is thrown open on the right of the main hallway and I am thrust inside what looks like an interrogation room.

  It's Spartan in here. Just a bright electric bulb hanging from a threadbare flex, a couple of brown chairs dotted around in the corners of once-white walls and a grey, plastic table, at the far end of the room, behind which sits a sizeable figure wearing an imposing police uniform, full of enough stripes and badges to add up to a considerable rank.

  The sullen officer looks me over in sinister silence then gestures to the two policemen with a swish of a chubby hand packed with fat gold signet rings. It's their cue to throw me onto a stiff brown chair opposite the great man, who sits expressionless across from me, his tarantula fingers working methodically around a gold necklace like it's a rosary.

  Instinctively my head droops onto the table and a sliver of watery goo seeps out from the corner of my mouth, where it finds it's in good company among a collection of foul-looking smears across the pock-marked plastic surface.

  From this angle I have to squint up through one eye to see the big man, and the tell-tale glint of gold wafting from his baseball-mitt hands indicates that he is waving the other two policemen away. This interview is going to be unrecorded and tete a tete.

  My interrogator waits for some time after the door slams shut behind my escorts, leaving me to immerse myself in the atmosphere of a room that reeks of stale farts and is cold enough to make me start shivering uncontrollably.

  'You don't look well,' Mr Wood. So I will keep this brief. I am Chief Superintendent Wilson Wamunyu of CID. My men have been watching you for some time.'

  Still resting my head on the table, I can just about concentrate on his words. I've seen this guy before somewhere. Can't say where immediately, but in an effort of curiosity, I lift my head a little higher off the table surface and now it all registers.

  First night in Annie Oakley's. Nearly a year ago. Same fat gut, same gold bling. Hit-and-miss goatee and any number of fleshy hookers in tight red skirts and wigs fighting for his custom.

  The distasteful memory makes me grunt out loud, but that's not going to put off Chief Superintendent Wilson Wamunyu:

  'You have caused a lot of trouble since you arrived in Kenya, Mr Wood. A lot of trouble,' and he chuckles quietly to himself at the mention, as if he finds it privately amusing.

  I give him no response, nor, to be fair, does the Chief Superintendent seem to expect one. It takes time before he speaks again:

  'There are some powerful men in the Kenya government who would be very glad if I would arrange a nice motorbike accident for you Mr Wood. For you and your son.'

  At the first mention of Little Stevie, Wamunyu cackles even more demonically. For me, that's one provocation too far. I'm off the canvas in a shot and for the first time the Chief Superintendent and I are squaring up face to face. But I only seem to be giving Wamunyu the reaction he wants, for his eyes narrow to slits and he leans forward across the table like he's got me where he wants me:

  'They can even pay me a lot of money to arrange this accident, Mr Wood. Did you know that's our favourite way of getting rid of troublesome politicals in Kenya, bwana? We make nice road accidents here, you know! Kenyan roads are so bad. And motorbikes are not so safe either. Two more dead British - where's the story?'

  Wamunyu must find this last jibe intensely amusing, for his acidic snigger has matured to a baritone chuckle. I bet Idi Amin sounded like that back in the Seventies every time he opened the fridge door to get the milk out and was greeted by one of his mates' heads, smiling with crisp, curled lips at the ups and downs of life in the freezer section.

  'But then something similar happened to your brother more than twenty years ago, so I think you do know about our roads, eh Mr Wood?'

  The laughter has stopped now. In its place a menacing stare knots a blubbery brow, while the Chief Superintendent starts to rotate the heaviest of his gold rings around a corpuscular index finger:

  'And the money I would get for arranging this accident would be very useful, Mr Wood. For you see, with the way things are going out there in the street, my paymasters in the government might not be in power for much longer. And if the current government falls, Mr Wood, so do I. No work for me any more. Big, big problem.'

  At last I can see now where this lengthy preamble is heading and weirdly, for the first time I feel a sense of relief. Wamunyu can have whatever he wants, buy himself another couple of rings for every finger - there's bound to be enough in the Betfair account. But whatever price he names, he had better get Little Stevie out of Nairobi Central right here, right now.

  'How much do you want?' I grunt, head slumping down again on the table.

  The Chief Superintendent doesn't even have the decency to look startled:

  'Let me see Mr Wood,' he muses, fiddling more energetically with his largest gold ring. 'You can afford to feed half of Kenya, from what I hear.'

  'They feed themselves,' I cut in. 'All I have ever provided is a small start-up gift of ?100 sterling to the opening few.'

  Which the Chief Superintendent chooses to ignore, scratching his goatee absent-mindedly in the middle of a complex calculation, the answer to which he surely already knows:

  'Half a million US,' he finally concludes, with the cheek to stare me straight in the eyes as he names his price.

  Suddenly, I'm well enough to point an angry finger at this bastard policeman's face:

  'What? You're joking! I don't have anywhere near that kind of cash, you thieving git! Make it fifty thousand - sterling - and the money's yours as soon as I can get it out of my Betfair account and transferred over to Kenya.'

  The Superintendent sits back on his chair, pauses for a while, then suddenly leans back across the table, prodding an irascible finger of his own back at me:

  'You have almost certainly ruined my career, Mr Wood,' he retorts, spitting out his words. 'My future is worth more than fifty thousand sterling. Fifteen million Kenya shillings at least.'

  'That's about ?300,000 sterling!'

  'Which is what you will cost me, Mr Wood,' he adds grumpily, then suddenly slams one of those giant fists against the table:

  'Damn it, bwana, people from all over pay me and pay me handsomely for the special services I can do for them. Now you pay too! You want to get yourself and your son out of here? Then pay me what I'm worth. If not, I can also take a nice fee from some friends in the government for arranging the motorbike accident for you? and your son.'

  It's the repeat of the last threat that does it, for the Chief Superintendent delivers his invective with such an evil look that I'm not going doubt his capacity to carry it out for a second.

  'I'll get the money,' I grunt. 'Just release me and especially my son right now. Give me two days and you can have your cash. We're not leaving Nairobi. You'll know where to find me.'

  Wamunyu's face contorts back into the Idi Amin grin, while the malicious cackle returns, and the pudgy, sweating face creases into a sneer:

  'I'll make sure you come back, bwana! You go and get me my money. Take your time. You're very right you won't be going anywhere. In fact I can guarantee you will be staying right here in Nairobi. Because I'm keeping your boy here with me in Nairobi Central till I'm paid.'

  I'm straining like a rabid dog against the leash now, shouting out my words and using up unknown reserves of strength not to grab this wanker's blue lapels and plant a head-butt straight into that squashed-up pig nose:

  'My son comes with me or there's no deal.'

  But Wamunyu just shrugs. Again, the same sneer:

  'It's your one and only chance,
Mr Wood. Choose to go back to your cell and both you and your son end up in a tragic pikipiki accident. I'll even blame it on your rioting friends in FC Kenya! You know, my men are so talented at arranging accidents they could make it look like your bike got hit by your New Zealand friend's Land Cruiser. Perhaps he too can join you and your son in the mortuary.'

  Maybe it's the mention of Kiwi John that does it; any fight I had left within me has evaporated into the putrid air of this interrogation room:

  'OK,' I mumble, defeated and wasted, my intestines twisting round in knots inside like they're squeezing out every last ounce of hope. 'But please let me see my son before I leave.'

  Which Chief Superintendent Wamunyu surprisingly agrees to. But it's only after I've been led back through the dingy corridors of Nairobi Central and arrive exhausted and dejected outside Little Stevie's cell that I instantly regret this last request.

  What I'd give to hear a giant mole rat noise chirruped, or the right ascensions and declinations of any of the constellations from either hemisphere chanted out in metronome complaint. No, it's none of the usual. Instead Little Stevie just sits there on the floor, swaying to and fro, gently head-butting the wall. Every tap of his head against the diseased plaster brings a giant convulsion to my chest. I kneel down, put my hand through the metal bars and touch his shoulder:

  'Stevie, it's going to be all right. I'll get you out of here first thing tomorrow. Promise.'

  Nothing. No recognition of the feel of my hand gently squeezing his shoulder, no reaction to the sound of my voice. Just the rhythmic tap, tap, tapping of his forehead.

  Once again, this is a moment of stunning mystical insight: the veneer of reality has suddenly been stripped from my eyes and the whole universe lies unravelled before my eyes, awesome, majestic and totally irrelevant and in its aeons of exquisite void. Now I too can truly hear the sound of the flute with no holes, piping bar after bar of sweetly-trilled inanities into the emptiness all around and high on a plasticine hill a lead kite flutters in a gentle zephyr breeze. There can surely be no logical explanation for such depths of despair.

  We stay this for ages, Little Stevie and me, both equally lifeless and inert, before I'm scooped to my feet by two policemen, who mutter almost apologetically:

  'Come, Mr Wood. You must go now.'