Echo of an Angry God

by Beverley Harper

  She took a deep breath. It was hard for her to say it. ‘My father is dead. The chapter is closed. That’s my decision.’

  Her face was calm. He wanted to hold it between his hands. He wanted to look into her soul and tell her he would always protect her. He wanted to hold her beating heart against his and stroke away any doubt. ‘I love you.’ He had never told another woman that.

  She laughed softly. ‘Tim.’ The way she said his name was a prayer. Her eyes searched his. Then she rose and moved off the beach.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘See those trees back here.’ The surplice was coming off again. ‘I need to show you how I feel.’

  Moffat’s relief was obvious but he asked no questions. ‘Sorry.’ Lana kissed his cheek, smiling. She offered no further explanation.

  Wireless brought her clothes, freshly washed and pressed. Lana was still smiling as she went off to shower and change.

  ‘How did you manage that?’ Moffat asked Tim. ‘She’s a different person.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me. She made up her own mind about the future and now she’s getting on with life.’

  Moffat whistled. ‘Amazing.’ He did not add that if the change in Lana had nothing to do with Tim then he, Moffat, was a monkey’s uncle! There was no rancour in him. On the contrary, Moffat was delighted to think that Lana and Tim were an item. It put her out of reach. And it put Moffat out of danger.

  After breakfast the three of them sat in chairs on the lawn at Camp Likoma, soaking up the morning sun while they waited for the aeroplane. Down on the beach people were laughing and shouting. Around the point of the cove, appeared the reason for their excitement. It was Santos, returning his crew to Likoma. The squat Portuguese-African, a bottle of rum in one hand, was bellowing for Father Smice even before the trawler dropped anchor. ‘Hey, Father. Quick quick. Same girl. You marry today.’ His voice carried easily on the slight breeze.

  ‘Come on,’ Tim said, rising. ‘Better tell him. I also want him to keep an eye out for Henning.’

  ‘Hey Gilbey,’ Santos waved the bottle. He was clearly drunk but in excellent humour. ‘Where Father Smice?’ The girl next to him giggled.

  A small runabout took them to the trawler. Moffat and Lana stayed in the boat but Tim climbed on board, nodding to the girl. He tried to lead Santos to the wheelhouse but the man’s attention was, mouth open, focussed on Lana. ‘Jesuit priest!’ he bellowed in honest-to-God appreciation. ‘What tits!’

  Lana shook her head and turned away, but not before Tim saw the wide grin of genuine amusement. Moffat, in total embarrassment, stared at something high in the sky.

  Trying to hide his own grin, Tim made another attempt. This time Santos stumbled forward. ‘Dead?’ His voice became a croak. ‘The Father? Dead?’ He grabbed Tim’s shirt. ‘You lie, Gilbey, it cannot be.’

  Tim prised him off. The smell of cheap rum enough to gag a vulture. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, startled to see tears in the old fisherman’s eyes.

  Sniffling and rubbing his nose with the back of an oil-stained hand, Santos drained the bottle. Staggering a little, he put an arm around the pregnant girl at his side. ‘Santos in love.’ He glared at Tim. ‘Who marry us now?’

  ‘We could ask the Bishop.’

  About an hour later, spruced up in a clean overall, as sober as was possible, and with Tim acting as best man, the beaming Captain Santos became a married man. He listened impatiently when Tim asked him to watch out for, but not approach, Karl Henning and the storm-damaged Silver Bird II. Santos left for Monkey Bay with his usual lack of finesse. ‘You get off boat now. Santos want fuka fuka.’

  *

  The aeroplane arrived just after eleven and took off fifteen minutes later. As they climbed over the northern tip of Likoma, Lana looked down at a small village where the man they called Mpasa carved his ivory. ‘I wish you well,’ she said softly, fingering the penny whistle he had given her. ‘I wish you happiness and peace.’

  Tim heard but made no comment. This was her own private farewell.

  Within minutes they were out over the lake, the island dropping away behind. ‘There’s that chap Henning’s boat.’ Their pilot pointed ahead. The dismasted yacht must have been fifteen kilometres from Likoma. ‘Heard about him over the radio – better report on his position. What’s he wanted for anyway?’

  There was no point in dodging the question. The whole of Malawi would soon know about Karl Henning. ‘Murder amongst other things,’ Tim responded. ‘He killed four good men.’

  Lana’s hand slipped inside his. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  They flew directly over Silver Bird II. There was no sign of life on board, the vessel appeared to be riding at anchor. ‘He must be diving on Mlozi’s dhows,’ Tim said. ‘He thinks he’s got away with it.’

  Moffat, sitting next to the pilot, turned and spoke to Lana. ‘There’s only one part of the Nganga’s words we’ve still to work out. The one who fears all eyes and ears will find the jaws of silence. Obviously it must be Henning but what about the rest? I’ve tried, but I can’t think what it could mean.’

  Neither could Lana.

  Neither could Tim.

  Karl Henning, nearly forty metres beneath the surface of Lake Malawi, checked his watch. He’d been down a full five minutes. Only three left if he wanted to avoid decompression stops on the way up. At this depth, and diving alone, he had to be particularly careful. He worked with total concentration. The Arab dhow, or what was left of it, a gloomy ghostly shadow, lay on its side. As it dropped to the bottom one hundred years earlier, its cargo of ivory had moved and broken free on impact. Most of the tusks spilled clear of the wreck and, over time, the shifting sands had covered them. Thanks to an air compressor, only a few remained. The only big ones left were those lying under the wreck. The dhow itself was breaking up, not the heavy hand-hewn timbers but the wooden dowel pins which once held them together. Removing partially trapped tusks was not difficult – just tricky.

  During that fateful storm one hundred years ago, two of the dhows had become entangled, the high prow of one smashing into and through the hull of another. Locked together, they sank quickly, Mlozi’s ivory carrier hurtling broadside into the sandy bottom. The second dhow, still firmly attached to the first, came to rest at right angles to it, bow down but upright.

  When Karl first found the wrecks he examined them carefully to see if they were stable. Although the second dhow rested on its keel, it was so embedded in the other that he concluded there was no danger.

  He shone his torch. The biggest tusk of all, more than sixty kilograms he estimated, lay, thick end towards him, half under the dhow. He checked his watch again. Thirty seconds gone. Swimming down he grabbed the big tusk, braced his feet and started to pull. He expected it to come easily, breaking free as all the others had done.

  Under the dhow, out of sight, the curved tip of the tusk moved, then stuck. Irritated, and aware that time was running out, Karl pulled again. It broke free, but a timber beam above it collapsed and the dhow shifted, then settled. Karl drew the tusk towards him. Above, at the point where the two vessels were joined, the movement caused the second dhow to rise at the stern. The extra strain on the heavy cutwater was too much. Weakened by the century-old impact it sheared, and, free at last of the only thing holding it upright, the dhow slowly toppled sideways in a silent but unrelenting path to its final resting place.

  Karl had both hands on the tusk. The first he knew that something was wrong was when a skull toppled from those awful decks above and fell past his mask. Looking up, he saw the dhow tipping towards him. Frantically, he tried to kick himself backwards but it was too late. Gathering momentum, the old slaver landed on its side, pinning Karl’s legs between its deck and the mighty tusk.

  The pain was terrible. Sand flew up and around making the water too murky to see. ‘Calm. Stay calm,’ his brain screamed as he scrabbled for the torch, found it and shone the light down his legs. One was pinned just above the knee, the
other trapped just below. Blood coloured the water. He calculated his air supply. Twenty minutes in total. Nearly fainting with pain, Karl raised himself and reached over to the dhow. It was solid. There was no way he was going to move even one of those heavy timbers and the tusk was too long for him to dig it clear.

  He lay back awkwardly against the air bottle. Twenty minutes!

  Visibility cleared as the disturbed sand settled. Around him lay a macabre audience of bones and skulls. Hundreds of tormented souls had at last found a reason to smile. One skull slid down the deck slowly, eye sockets empty, jaws grinning in silence. It turned over once and settled gently on his stomach. Karl left it there. It was strangely comforting.

  ‘So many dreams,’ he thought. ‘For what? For this?’ He felt like crying but knew it wouldn’t help. He lay there, life performing one last act in his mind. He was going to die. He looked at his watch – fifteen minutes!

  Blood from a severed artery in his leg flowed thickly. ‘What will it be?’ Karl wondered, a calm acceptance now upon him. ‘Will I suffocate or bleed to death?’ The skull of Ferig, the young Wankonde tribeswoman expected to grace the Sultan’s palace in Zanzibar one hundred years earlier, rested on the stomach of this man who would have profited from her pain and horror and appeared to mock him.

  The irony was lost on Karl. All around him lay the bones and tusks of those for whom the drums of retribution would never cease to beat. Above, he could see the outline of his yacht. And far above that, if he had but known, Lana Devereaux, Moffat Kadamanja and Tim Gilbey tried to work out the last of the Nganga’s words.

  The one who fears all eyes and ears will find the jaws of silence.

  NINETEEN

  ‘Good night, Miss Bagshaw.’ Lana waved breezily at PAGET’s receptionist, noting that the woman had actually taken to wearing the pink lipstick she’d given her. Miss Bagshaw stared disapprovingly at Lana’s departing figure then went back to work. Lana had been, in her opinion, in such astounding good humour since her return from Malawi that Miss Bagshaw considered her behaviour to be unprofessional.

  Running lightly down the steps, Lana rued, yet again, the absence of Duncan who had passed away while she was in Malawi. Well past retiring age, the man had died as he would have wished – a heart attack whilst at his post. The office just wasn’t the same without him. She missed his snobbish observations and impeccable manners.

  The Fat Boy roared into life with all the powerful throatiness of its pedigree. Lana pulled into the street, reached the corner, and sneaked into Marylebone Road between two taxis. She saluted cheekily to the driver who had slammed on his brakes.

  Weaving through the heavy rush hour traffic, she worked her way over to the right hand lane and swung right into Harley Street. She usually took this route home. It pleased her to run the Harley down a street with the same name. A little quirk, she knew, but Lana was perfectly comfortable with her quirks.

  The terraced Georgian buildings, which housed some of Britain’s finest medical minds, seemed rigid with disapproval as Lana, the skirt of her dove grey business suit hitched high in a most unladylike way, cruised past.

  It was a beautiful, late summer evening. London was enjoying one of its best seasons on record. She turned left onto Cavendish, and roared past the Polytechnic. The crash helmet was annoying her. She’d have liked to feel the wind on her face and running through her hair. Briefly, she thought of Likoma Island, of the space and pace of life. ‘Exhaust fumes,’ she was thinking. ‘Who needs them?’

  Likoma Island. Mpasa. Tim. Moffat. It was another world. ‘I’ll be back in London in a few weeks,’ Tim had said at Lilongwe Airport.

  ‘Come back often,’ Moffat told her when he said goodbye. He had taken Lana to one side to apologise for kissing her. ‘I don’t know what came over me,’ he confessed. ‘But I’m over it.’

  ‘The police would like a word with you,’ the High Commissioner said, handing Lana a hastily produced temporary passport. ‘If you don’t want to be tied up with months of red tape I’d get the first plane out if I were you. And you didn’t hear that from me,’ he added. ‘Oh, and by the way, the hire car people are keen for a chat too.’ Under her helmet, Lana grinned at the memory. Despite having his patience severely tested by Tim, the man had been helpful and understanding.

  There had been an official car waiting at the airport for them.

  ‘Shit!’ Tim swore softly, when he saw it. ‘This could take hours.’

  It had. Tim looked severely savaged when he finally emerged from the High Commissioner’s office. ‘He’s booked you on tonight’s flight via South Africa.’

  On the twelve hour leg between Johannesburg and London, Lana renewed her resolve to hide the truth from her mother and Bernard. Not even the High Commissioner knew about the discovery of her father. It would remain a secret between Tim, Moffat, the doctor and herself. ‘Not an easy choice,’ she acknowledged to herself. ‘But the other way is worse.’ Lana remembered the emptiness when she stood looking at Mpasa – he was not her father. He was a stranger. He always would be. She had loved her father enough to do this for him. Why distress or confuse him any further?

  Karen Devereaux-Pickstone had been delighted by the early return of her daughter. She listened in silence while Lana told her that John Devereaux had been murdered by Karl Henning. She wept a little at the thought of her beloved husband falling victim to one man’s insatiable greed. ‘I knew he was dead,’ Karen said. ‘I could feel it right from the beginning.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Lana thought without rancour. ‘He was dead right from the beginning.’

  Waterloo Bridge. She was almost home. Her flat was just off Stamford Street on the other side of the river.

  Tim! Where was he? Each time the telephone rang she expected it to be him. ‘A couple of weeks,’ he’d said. That was six weeks ago! Had he changed his mind? Had something happened to him? She knew that he had to go back to Likoma. ‘To tidy up a few messy ends,’ were his words. Lana assumed that one of those ends would be a thorough search for the documents which had cost three lives that she knew of.

  There had been so little time together. Just before she boarded the flight to Johannesburg he had managed a few quiet words with her. ‘I’ll contact you the instant I get back.’

  She had touched his cheek with her fingertips. ‘No more heroics?’

  He had grinned. ‘You can bloody talk!’

  Was that the end of it? Was she fooling herself? Had it meant nothing to him?

  Lana turned into her street, noticing with irritation that someone had dumped a skip where she usually left the Harley. ‘Bloody hell!’ Her neighbour was renovating his flat. The skip would probably be there for weeks. Lana rolled the large motorbike backwards, tail in to the kerb. The Fat Boy’s engine shut down with one last classy growl. She swung a leg over the seat and stood, unbuckling her helmet. Removing it, she ran a hand through her short hair.

  ‘I might have known you’d ride a bloody Harley,’ the voice behind her said, amused.

  ‘Tim!’ She spun around. He was leaning against the skip, a smile on his lips and in his eyes, dark hair falling forward, arms folded. She dropped the helmet as he stepped forward, catching her up in his arms.

  ‘I hate kissing in public,’ he complained, lowering his lips to hers.

  A wolf whistle from across the street broke them apart. ‘Inside,’ Lana said, her breathing uneven. ‘Before I do something unspeakable in the street.’

  There were so many questions to ask and, oh God he looked so good standing there. She wanted to know so many things but he was reaching for her again and they barely got the door shut behind them. ‘Bedroom?’ he whispered urgently.

  ‘Here,’ she moaned. ‘Bedroom’s too far.’

  ‘Do you think,’ he asked much later, ‘that we’ll ever make love in a bed?’ They were lying on the floor just inside the door, clothes spread in abandoned disarray all around them.

  She raised herself on one elbow and looked down at
him, her fingers playing with the hair on his chest. ‘How does ten minutes from now sound?’

  He laughed and she noticed that, when he did, he had a dimple on one cheek. So she kissed it.

  ‘Five minutes sounds even better?’ he countered, groaning a little. ‘I don’t think I can wait ten.’

  Half an hour later they still hadn’t made it to the bedroom but they had progressed to the floor of her lounge. Naked, they were leaning against the settee. ‘Have something for you.’ His jacket was still in the hall. He came back with it and passed her a plastic bag.

  Lana gave a delighted laugh when she saw what was in it. Her father’s Brunton pocket transit. ‘Thank you,’ she said huskily.

  He told her then how divers had found Karl Henning’s body, pinned under one of Mlozi’s dhows and surrounded by skeletons. ‘One of the last slave trade shipments of human cargo,’ Tim said. ‘They’d been down there for around a hundred years.’

  ‘Karl told me that five dhows went down. Four carried slaves and one was loaded with ivory. He said he’d found some kind of record book.’

  Tim nodded. ‘Mlozi’s. The government has expropriated it, along with the cabinet. They say it’s a piece of Malawi’s history and belongs in a museum. Two more dhows have been located and they’re still searching for the last one. Divers are bringing up the bones. They’ll all be given a proper burial.’

  ‘God!’ She shivered. ‘I almost feel sorry for the man. What a horrible way to go.’ ‘Save your sympathy.

  He got what he deserved. He traded in death.’ Tim picked up her hand. ‘I have something else for you. Moffat and I worked out the last of the witchdoctor’s words.’

  ‘The jaws of silence,’ Lana mused. ‘Of course. The skulls, the tusks. Jawbones.’

  ‘That witchdoctor,’ Tim said carefully. ‘Uh, he seems to have been remarkably accurate.’

  ‘You’re beginning to sound like a believer.’

  He laughed, and there was that beautiful dimple again. Lana didn’t think she’d ever get sick of the sight of it.