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Lioness

Page 4

by Nell Brien


  “I’m Cat Stanton. I just spoke to you about a list of safari outfitters.” Her words were lost in the cacophony of a dozen different languages. She felt herself sag, suddenly drained of the strength to compete.

  “G’day. Fierce bloody lot, eh?”

  The voice, full of laughter, belonged to the enormous young man at her side. Bright blue eyes, bloodshot from exposure to the sun, looked down at her. Sandy hair, ruddy skin, the top half of his forehead white where it had been shaded by the battered Australian bush hat now pushed to the back of his head. He grinned. One front tooth was slightly crooked.

  A charmer, Cat thought, and not unaware of it. She smiled back at him. “About as fierce as a bunch of kids at a Sunday-school picnic.”

  An elbow thrust into the middle of her back and she catapulted forward. Laughing, he held her until she put her hands against his chest and pushed away from him. His grin was contagious, and she found herself laughing with him. He put an arm behind her, interposing his big body between her and the crowd.

  “See. A bunch of savages. What you need is a strong right arm.” He slammed a fist the size of a boulder on the desk. “Hey, mate. Lady here needs a list of safari outfitters. And pronto. Doesn’t do to keep a pretty lady waiting.”

  A desk clerk started their way but was waylaid by a man in white robes shouting insistently in Arabic.

  “Now just a bloody minute.” The young Australian shot out a long arm, grabbed the clerk’s shoulder.

  “Peter! Oh, mate, this is right crook,” a voice called from the middle of the crowd. “What d’y’say to getting a couple of tubes, come back later?”

  “Yeah, right.” Peter relinquished his hold on the clerk, who moved rapidly out of range, and turned to Cat. “Come have a beer until this lot clears. Name’s Peter Stone. That’s Bobby Watson over there. We’re a harmless couple of blokes. You’ll be safe with us.” Looking anything but harmless, he grinned down at her.

  Tempted, Cat smiled back. A drink, some food, certainly some laughter. Or she could eat alone and run over in her mind every permutation of the words Stephen had uttered—and those he hadn’t—and wait for the hands of the clock to move to three minutes to ten.

  “Come on, you’d be doing us a favor,” Peter said. “We’ve been out in the bush too bloody long. We need the company of a lady to civilize us.”

  Bobby Watson shoved his way into a slot next to them. Tall, lean, bush hat tilted rakishly on dark curly hair, he leaned over the desk on the other side of Peter.

  “I don’t know what this bloke’s been telling you, but don’t trust him, whatever it is,” he said seriously. “Now, I’m a much better bet.”

  Cat found herself laughing again, her mood already lighter. It felt as if she hadn’t laughed in months. “He’s saying something about being in the bush too long.”

  “Well, for once he’s telling the God’s honest truth.” He reached a hand across his friend. “Howd’y’do? Bobby Watson. Adelaide.”

  She took the calloused hand. “Cat Stanton. Los Angeles.”

  “Before you pushed your ugly mug where it definitely wasn’t wanted, I was trying to persuade her to take pity on us,” Peter said. “Now she’s going to take one look at that kisser of yours and run screaming from the place.” He turned to Cat. “We just got back from a hunting trip. Dropped a ruddy great tusker—”

  “Ol’ Pete here only hunts so he’ll have something to impress the ladies with,” Bobby said. “Loves to tell tall stories, this bloke. Now, my tusker was worth talking about. Carried ivory you wouldn’t believe.” Bobby raised an imaginary rifle to his shoulder, tracked the movements of the unseen elephant. “Took this difficult shot right behind the ear. Pow!” He reenacted the recoil and grinned. “Dropped him like a ruddy tank.”

  Cat’s amusement drained away. “You mean you’ve been killing elephants? You shot them?”

  “Well, only two. One each. Not here, of course, it’s illegal.” He flicked his eyebrows, including her in a conspiracy of lawbreaking, and grinned. “No, we had permits in Botswana. But they were ruddy giants. Take some finding nowadays, good tuskers. Place is getting shot out, not much left now. Ivory’s worth a fortune on the black market. Poachers have already taken the best.”

  “Got some other stuff, though, not only tuskers,” Peter said. “Some good trophy heads. We’ll sell them to some punter, make a few pounds.” He nodded toward the desk clerks. “Look, let’s get a jar. The rate these blokes move, this place won’t clear out for another hour.”

  Suddenly depressed, Cat shook her head. It was stupid to be shocked, but she was. This is Africa. People come here from all over the world to kill. Joel’s face came into her mind, his look of total absorption when he bent over his camera, waiting for the right light, a flock of birds or an animal to move into place. She frowned at the sudden stab of pain across her eyes.

  “Cat?” Peter Stone was looking at her quizzically. “You coming for that beer?”

  “No, thanks, I have work to do. Don’t let me keep you.”

  He started to press her, and she said sharply, “No, really, I’m busy. Thanks, anyway. Good night.”

  The two Australians lingered for a moment, but she turned her back, and finally they retreated. She could hear them arguing as they left.

  “What did you say to her, you silly bugger?”

  “Nothing. Swear to God. She just suddenly turned off…”

  Their voices diffused, blended into the general hubbub.

  Cat leaned against the counter. Extracting the promised list of outfitters from the busy desk clerk seemed more than she could manage. And if she did get it, she could not face one more call tonight. Not one more discouraging reply about borders and routes and logistics. She’d done enough homework.

  She pushed her way out of the crowd and took a circuitous route to the coffee shop, avoiding the busy Safari Bar with its shields and spears, its woven leather furniture and Australian hunters.

  The waiter found her a corner table and Cat ordered coffee and chocolate cake, and heard Jess’s voice in her mind, chiding her for indulging what Jess called her chocolate habit.

  Joel should have trusted Jess, Cat thought. Jess waited for him until she thought her biological clock had ticked for too long, so she married Mike and had Rosie. But Joel would always be the love of her life. Maybe if he’d married Jess, he would have found some peace. Maybe then, he’d still be alive.

  She toyed with the cake, watched the crowd. Thought of how her own life paralleled Joel’s. His work had been everything to him, as hers was to her. Neither of them had anything left for babes clustered around the knee.

  But she did have Jess as a friend, and she had Rosie. Cat softened at the thought of her godchild.

  Time dragged. The hand on her watch seemed immobile. Finally, at seven minutes to ten, she signed the check and rose to her feet. The whole affair seemed unnecessarily melodramatic, skulking around statues at night, but the palms of her hands were clammy, and in spite of two cups of coffee, her mouth felt dry.

  The lobby was quieter, and the same uniformed doorman who’d been on duty earlier opened the glass doors with a flourish. The night air was cool, and she shivered.

  “Jambo, memsahib. Teksi?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Spotlighted on his pedestal, Jomo Kenyatta was almost opposite where she stood. All she had to do was cross the road, enter the square. But for whatever reason, Stephen had said, “Be discreet.” She turned left.

  “Memsahib!”

  Cat turned. The doorman was coming toward her.

  “You walk, memsahib?”

  “Just a stroll, it’s such a nice evening.” She glanced at her watch. Three minutes to ten.

  “Not good, memsahib. Nairobi not like it was. Plenty bad people now. Not good at night in the park.”

  “I’ll just go to the end of the hotel block then. Not far.”

  “I watch you, memsahib. You be okay you stay in the light.”

  “Thank
you.”

  Halfway down the block, she turned. The doorman waved, nodded. She waved back, then glanced at her watch. Couple minutes to ten. She’d have to hustle. She picked up her pace. The sound of voices reached her, and she looked over her shoulder. Her guardian angel was bending over the open door of a taxi, helping a couple to climb out. They were laughing loudly, more than a little drunk, the man was trying to push money into the doorman’s pocket, and he was cooperative, smiling and nodding.

  She darted across the road, away from the protection of the light from the hotel, and kept her eyes fastened on the golden beacon that lit Jomo Kenyatta in the center of the square while she cruised the edge of the park, looking for a path. An opening appeared, a trail worn by people taking a shortcut through the trees. No other path was in view, and time was passing. She turned onto the trail, half expecting to hear a shout of warning from the doorman.

  The track was narrow, and a few feet in, the undergrowth blocked out the comforting view of Kenyatta on his plinth. Then the bushes closed around her, and the ground underfoot was suddenly rougher. She realized that somehow she had lost the track. A breeze she hadn’t noticed until now rustled through the trees. A hand grabbed her hair. Heart pounding, she jerked her head free, whirled. It was only a branch brushing her face. She forced her way through, hoping she was not going in circles. Then the trees thinned, she stepped onto a graveled path, and there, to the right, twenty feet away, was Kenyatta, bathed in light.

  She walked to the statue and looked around. She checked her watch, found she was late, but not as late as she’d thought. It was still only seven minutes past the hour. Uncertainly, she stared around.

  “Cat,” a voice said softly.

  “Stephen, where the hell are you?” she hissed back.

  N’toya stepped into the light. “Jambo, Cat. How are you?”

  “What’s going on, Stephen? Why are we meeting here?”

  Even in the light, it was hard to make out his features. His skin was black, he wore black. All she could really see was the outline of him and the glint of his eyes a couple of inches below the level of her own. He was as thin as he’d been when they were students.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s walk while we talk.” He took her arm.

  “Stephen, are you in trouble of some kind?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, I’ve been skulking around the bushes for the last ten minutes, and that’s not the usual way I go to meet a friend. Then you say you work for the ministry, but they say they don’t know you. You were always a political animal, Stephen, and I know that opposition to the government is discouraged in Kenya. And I think your telephone could have been bugged and that’s why you left for a public phone booth. I guess I’m putting two and two together.”

  “And coming up with the wrong number. Those clerks in the ministry couldn’t find their mothers in their own kitchens. You said you needed help with something, Cat.”

  He was trying to put her off. “Okay, I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right, it’s none of my business. I want to talk to the men who investigated Joel’s death. Can you arrange that for me?”

  “Why do you want to do that?”

  “Why are you surprised? Isn’t it a normal sort of request from the family after an accident where someone is killed?”

  “In Los Angeles, maybe. Anyway, when I read in the Nairobi Times that Joel had been killed, the first thing I did was find out who was investigating. The officers did a good job. It was a terrible accident, Cat, but really, unavoidable.”

  “Maybe. But think about it, Stephen. You and Joel spent enough time together in wild places. Would he be caught, as Jock Campbell said he was, unaware of what was going on around him? It’s not possible.”

  “Well, it happened very fast. He just could not get out of the way when that herd started to move. That’s what the police were told by the people who were there. The bureaucracy moves very slowly here, you’ll just have to be patient like everyone else—”

  Cat felt her anger rising. “I’m all out of patience,” she said. “Now I want some answers. I want to see the police report.”

  “What you have to understand is that getting out written reports is not a top priority.” He put up a hand to stop her protest. “I know Joel’s an American, but he’s just one man. There are a lot of other matters that have to take precedence.”

  Cat stood still, forcing him to look at her. “I’m not talking about an unknown American. I’m talking about my brother. I’m talking about your friend, Joel Stanton. And I am going to get some answers. I’ll turn Nairobi upside down if I have to. I’ll start tomorrow at the Ministry of Justice. I’ll go to police headquarters and demand they speak to me. I’ll go to the newspapers. I’ll go to the goddamn Parliament Building. Whatever it takes. I will make a lot of noise.”

  He looked away, then nodded. “I’m sorry. Of course, you’re right. I’ll try to find the men who investigated, but you will have to be patient. I’m sorry. They could be reassigned by now.”

  “Why would they have been reassigned?”

  “I said I’d try. It will take time.”

  “How long?”

  “Give me two or three weeks—”

  “Stephen, I don’t have two or three weeks. Listen. I don’t know how things work here, but if you have to grease a few palms, do it. And I’ll go to wherever they are.” She struggled to see the expression on his face, but they were far from any light that came from Kenyatta’s statue, and it was impossible. “And I want a copy of the police report. I was trying to get Jock Campbell to move on that before I left Los Angeles, but I think he’s stonewalling.”

  Stephen gave an exclamation of disbelief. “No, no. Jock Campbell is beyond that kind of suspicion.”

  “You know him?”

  “Well, I know of him. Everyone in East Africa knows Campbell Safaris.”

  “So I’m told. Anyway, can you get it?”

  “Maybe. But I can tell you right now that if you haven’t received it yet, it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I think it does. Joel wrote me a note that I received after he was dead,” she said. “He sent some sketches and said he had a lot of film. When I got his cameras back, they were empty. You know Joel, he would have taken hundreds of pictures.”

  “What sort of sketches?”

  Something in his tone made her wary. Why was he not mentioning the missing film, suggest it had been misplaced, the unexposed film stolen? That was the first explanation that had jumped to her own mind. Except, who would bother to remove exposed film from the cameras? It would be of no use to anyone.

  “Wildlife, birds,” she answered carefully. “You know the sort of thing Joel did.”

  “What did he say in the note?”

  They had been walking as they talked, and Cat noted that Stephen kept them to the deepest shadow. A cool breeze riffled through her hair, and she caught a whiff of raw sewage drifting toward them.

  “Just that he’d call me from Nairobi. But he didn’t get back to Nairobi. Jock Campbell called to say Joel had been killed.”

  “I’m truly sorry, Cat. It’s a terrible loss.”

  From the old Stephen, she would have welcomed the words of sympathy. She realized how much she had been longing to see him, to talk to someone who’d known Joel when they were both younger. Not carefree exactly, but for the first time in their lives, they’d at least begun to leave the shattered landscape of their childhood behind them.

  As if that were ever possible. The thought wriggled beneath her defenses.

  Cat glanced at the man beside her. “Yes,” she said in response to his sympathetic words. Her throat was tight, and she had to struggle to give voice to the words. “It is.”

  She could see the lights from the hotel through the trees. They had come full circle. The breeze had died, the air was still and warmer, and the fragrance of plumeria had replaced the stink of sewage.

  “As soon as I know something, I’l
l be in touch, Cat,” Stephen said. “It might be a couple of weeks. You’ll be staying around Nairobi?”

  “That’s the other thing I want to ask you. I still have to find that hotel site. It’s a big job for us, we can’t afford to lose it. I thought I’d use Campbell Safaris and retrace Joel’s route, but I met with Dan Campbell and he refused to do the job. I need someone else. I thought you’d know of a reliable outfitter.”

  “Cat, this is not a good idea. Not for a woman—”

  “Oh, come on, Stephen, I’m tired of this. Kenya is full of tourists, half of them women.”

  “On established tourist routes. And even they run into trouble with bandits. There are a lot of poachers, well armed, ruthless. Whole armies of them. In the remote areas you’re talking about, you would not be safe, Cat.”

  “Well, safe or not, I have to do this job. People are relying on me. And I’m going to follow Joel’s route. Anyway, do you know of a good outfit?”

  “Not offhand. I’ll ask around and call you.”

  Disappointment was a pain in her heart. She realized she’d been hoping for more from him. Time together catching up on the past ten years. Maybe a chance to meet his family. She didn’t even know if he was married, or whether he had children.

  “Stephen, let’s meet again soon,” she said impulsively. “Somewhere we could sit and talk.”

  “Sounds like a good plan.” He squeezed her hand, dropped a light kiss on her cheek. “Good night, Cat.”

  The old Stephen she would have trusted. But this shadowy figure was not the old Stephen. Cat stared after him, but he had already blended into the night.

  Five

  Dan Campbell turned out the desk light, plunging the room into darkness. A shoe scraped the brick edge of the path. He was not expecting visitors, and whoever was out there did not want to be heard. He picked up the hunting knife he kept on his desk—a surer kill than a gun, more silent. Through the shuttered window of the office, he could see the main house sixty feet away shrouded in trees, and closer, the outline of a figure only slightly darker than the night.

 

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