Bait

by Nick Brownlee

  Jouma was pretty sure he did, but said nothing.

  Christie reached for his tools. He snapped opened the sternum and examined the chest cavity with deft probing hands. Presently, he said, ‘It didn’t drown.’

  ‘Ah,’ Jouma said quietly. It didn’t drown. Typical Christie.

  ‘There is sea water in the lungs, but it hasn’t been actively inspired,’ Christie explained, holding up what looked to Jouma like a rotten sweet potato. ‘When it has, the mixture of air and water produces a distinctive fluid. This is just plain flooding.’ He tossed the lung into a silver dish.

  ‘You have lost me.’

  ‘I’d say it was dead before it hit the water.’

  ‘Cause of death?’

  The pathologist shrugged. ‘It’s an interesting one, to be sure, Jouma. The fish and the wild boar have had a feast all right, but they weren’t responsible for all this damage. And the injuries are not consistent with propeller contact. Last time I saw something like this was in Angola in the 70s. UNITA put a bomb under a judge’s car. You haven’t had any car bombings lately, have you? No. Stupid question. The weapons of choice round here are machetes.’

  It was a stupid question and, as far as Jouma was concerned, a highly insensitive one. But the detective had a theory and he wanted it confirmed.

  ‘How long has the body been in the water?’

  ‘Always difficult to say with any degree of certainty - but judging by the state of decomposition I would suggest no longer than three or four days.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Christie,’ Jouma said. He removed his mask and gratefully headed for the door.

  ‘What do you want me to do with this?’ the pathologist called after him, gesturing with a crooked finger at the body on the table.

  Jouma turned. ‘Send me your report when you are finished.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Very few things upset Detective Sergeant Nyami - but people helping themselves to his strawberry jam was one of them. The arse was falling out of his hand-me-down polyester suit; his one-room apartment had rats and cockroaches; and he was grievously underpaid and overworked - but none of that bothered him. What did bother him were the thieving dogs of Mama Ngina Drive dipping their knives into his precious pot of jam, a single pot purloined each month from a consignment of comestibles bound for the rich hotels on the coast.

  Tiptree strawberry jam from Essex, England, no less! The coat of arms on the label proving that it was used by the Queen of England herself!

  It was the only thing in his whole miserable life that he could call a luxury.

  ‘Have you been using my jam?’ he demanded when Jouma returned to the office.

  Jouma, deep in thought, stopped in the middle of the room and slowly turned his head. ‘I beg your pardon, Sergeant?’

  ‘My strawberry jam - have you been using it?’

  ‘I have no idea what you are talking about. But I would advise you to remember who you are talking to.’

  Nyami stood up at his desk and thrust the open pot accusingly in Jouma’s face. A single deep stab wound had pierced the smooth dark-red surface.

  ‘Look!’ he said.

  ‘Sometimes I think you are losing your mind, Nyami,’ Jouma said and continued to his desk on the other side of the room. ‘What are you working on at this moment?’

  ‘The overnight crime sheet.’

  ‘And?’

  Nyami glanced at the sheet in front of him. ‘Twenty-two car break-ins. A woman who claims her husband plans to assassinate the president. A man who claims his dog has been possessed by the devil—’

  ‘Well, forget about that. I want you to get me the file on that fishing boat that went missing off Watamu the other day.’

  Nyami looked surprised. ‘I thought Malindi police were investigating that case.’

  ‘Just do as I ask, Sergeant.’

  When Nyami had shuffled petulantly out of the room, Jouma went across to a large dog-eared map of the Kenyan coast that was thumbtacked to the wall beside the sink. Then he picked up the telephone and dialled the Mombasa coastguard.

  ‘Robert - this is Daniel. You recall that fishing boat that disappeared the other day off Watamu? The white skipper and the boy from Jalawi? Yes. Where was the wreckage sighted?’ He waited for several minutes. ‘I see. Thank you. Good day, Robert.’

  Jouma hung up and returned to the map, massaging his chin between two fingers. Then he returned to his desk and dialled the local meteorological office.

  ‘Harriet - Daniel Jouma here. What was the direction of the prevailing wind during the storm last night?’ Another pause. ‘I see. Thank you, Harriet.’

  Once again he returned to the map, and then to his desk.

  Nyami came back with a two-page print-out from the central police computer.

  ‘This is it?’ Jouma said.

  ‘Malindi police have closed the case.’

  ‘Closed the case?’

  Nyami shrugged and sat down. He was more concerned with whoever had been helping themselves to his jar of Tiptree jam. All the way along the corridor, he had been systematically eliminating suspects, until now just one name remained. Constable Walu! It had to be! Nyami could just picture the fat-faced front-desk man now, sneaking into the CID office during the night shift, opening drawers, ferreting around with his sausage fingers, drooling uncontrollably as he discovered the unopened pot nestling between the stapler and the hole-punch . . .

  Jouma read the two-page report from Malindi Police, then read it again with a growing sense of disbelief. As far as Chief Inspector Oliver Mugo was concerned, it was an open-and-shut case after an investigation lasting just three days. The bodies of Dennis Bentley and his bait boy had not been recovered and, in Mugo’s opinion, were unlikely to be. Technicalities such as the cause of the explosion had been dismissed due to ‘lack of available evidence’. In other words, the fat fool hadn’t bothered to send the wreckage away for forensic analysis, if indeed he had bothered to have it collected in the first place. In conclusion, Martha B had simply blown up. It was most probably a terrible accident. The report was signed and dated in Mugo’s typically flamboyant hand.

  Jouma threw it in his out-tray in disgust.

  ‘Nyami - do you have the file on George Malewe?’

  The sergeant looked up irritably. ‘What of it?’

  ‘How old was he?’

  Nyami opened the manila folder. ‘Thirty-two years.’

  ‘Pass me the file.’

  ‘I don’t know why you are wasting your time on this man!’ Nyami grumbled.

  ‘Just give me the file, Sergeant.’

  George Malewe’s criminal record was a document of several pages dating back more than twenty years. The mug shot attached to it had clearly been taken when he was drunk. His slack lips hung open and his eyes were half-closed, as if the shutter had caught him in mid-blink. But it was a face that was unmistakable.

  Jouma sighed and closed the file. He looked up to find Nyami staring at him across the room. The sergeant was clearly agitated.

  ‘For the last time, Nyami, I don’t know anything about your jam!’

  What he did know was that, unlike the case of the exploding boat, both George Malewe’s disappearance and the body washed up at Bara Hoyo fell under his jurisdiction - and that now there was a very strong possibility that all three were linked.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘George Malewe? Exploding boat?’ Superintendent Teshete exclaimed. ‘What are you talking about, Daniel?’

  ‘I am convinced that Malewe’s body was washed up at Bara Hoyo this morning, and that he was on board the boat that exploded off Watamu,’ Jouma said.

  Teshete looked at him blankly, and Jouma wondered how, when it took him so inordinately long to register even the simplest theory, his boss had managed to scale the ladder to the heady rank of Superintendent.

  But then of course he knew the answer.

  Teshete was Kikuyu, right down to his hand-stitched leather shoes, and when you were a
member of the most populous and historically dominant of Kenya’s forty-two tribes - the same tribe that had produced two of the republic’s three presidents - then ability to do the job came fairly low down on the list of priorities for any high-ranking position. Jouma, by contrast, was of the Embu tribe. His people were peace-loving livestock farmers from the fertile slopes of Mount Kenya who throughout history had spent much of their time defending their lands against other more rapacious tribes. Since becoming a policeman, it often struck Jouma how little things had changed.

  For a second time, the inspector carefully explained his reasoning, using the information he had gleaned from the conclusions of Christie’s postmortem examination on the body at Bara Hoyo, the missing persons investigation into the whereabouts of George Malewe, and the coastguard and the weather office reports in relation to sea currents and their effect on floating wreckage in the last twenty-four hours.

  ‘So you’re saying Malewe was on the boat?’ Teshete said presently, like a dumb child grasping a simple mathematical equation.

  Jouma put his hand in his pocket and clenched it until his nails dug painfully into the flesh. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Why would he be on the boat?’

  ‘That is something I intend to investigate.’

  ‘But it makes no sense, Daniel.’

  ‘I know, sir.’

  Teshete lit a cigarette and went to his window, which afforded a splendid view of the ocean as opposed to Jouma’s office window, which looked out directly at the security fencing that surrounded the police headquarters compound.

  ‘I thought the boat incident was being investigated by Malindi,’ he said.

  ‘It was, sir. They have closed the case.’

  Teshete nodded appreciatively. ‘Quick work.’

  ‘But I believe the fate of that boat now has a direct bearing on the disappearance of George Malewe - a case which, if you recall, you yourself ordered me to investigate, sir.’

  ‘So I did, Daniel. So I did.’ The superintendent turned. ‘Well, if that is what you believe, then you must follow your instincts.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I will.’

  With that, Jouma sprang to his feet and hurried to the door before Teshete could ask him to explain his reasoning for a third time.

  When he had gone, Teshete sat down behind his desk and sucked contemplatively at his cigarette. Then, after several minutes, he reached for his telephone and pressed a three-digit extension number. A message needed to be sent at once, and Teshete - a man who prided himself on his relationship with the detectives in his department - knew the very man to deliver it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  According to its own glossy publicity, the Marlin Bay Hotel was the premier hotel on the Kenyan coast. And, while the blurb was most probably right, it did not stop Jake Moore from thinking he’d rather spend a night in the flyblown jungle than a single second in one of its five-star suites. The Marlin Bay was a sprawling holiday complex occupying several acres of beachside real estate in Shanzu, just a few miles north of the city. The compound had been designed in the style of a traditional African village, although the only native Africans allowed on site were ancillary staff. The clientele were wealthy white tourists willing to spend upwards of a thousand bucks each for the privilege of staying in a luxury chalet with a whitewashed adobe exterior and a thickly manicured palm thatch, with access to an Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts, private cinema, fully equipped health spa and marina. There was even a half-mile stretch of private beach, patrolled by security guards to keep undesirables away. After all, you did not spend a thousand bucks to be pestered by locals.

  The chalets surrounded a large central atrium containing restaurants and bars beneath a vast fibrous roof. It was into this cool air-conditioned oasis, through sliding smoked-glass doors, that Jake now strode in his sandals, rugby shorts and salt-caked T-SHIRT. He could almost hear the stunned intake of breath from the uniformed staff manning the onyx reception counter and prowling the marble-floored lobby. It amused him no end that they were all black Africans, yet all had been trained to be as tight-assed and white as if they were working at the Dorchester or the Savoy.

  One of them, a young man in the embroidered purple and green livery of a concierge, scurried across from his desk near the doors. ‘Can I help you, sir?’ he demanded. The name etched on his enamel lapel badge was LOFTUS KIGALI.

  ‘I’m here to pick up a fishing party, Loftus,’ Jake said with as much insouciance as he could muster. ‘Name of Halloran.’

  ‘Yes, well, if you would care to wait at the marina, Mr Halloran, I will let them know you are here.’

  ‘Halloran is the party. My name is Moore, from Britannia Fishing Trips at Flamingo Creek. I was supposed to meet them at the marina an hour ago.’

  The concierge stared at him from beneath a furrowed brow as the information registered. ‘Wait here, please,’ he said presently.

  ‘By all means.’

  Loftus scurried to the main desk and was soon engaged in earnest conversation with one of the receptionists. Jake stuffed his hands into the pockets of his shorts and sauntered across to the other side of the atrium, where a vast plate-glass window looked out over the swimming pool. Like most of the tourist trade, the Marlin Bay had been affected by the bloody tribal unrest that had broken out across Kenya. But everything was relative, and some businesses had been hit harder than others. The Marlin Bay was, by its very nature, accustomed to having as little as possible to do with the world beyond its compound gates. It had been designed to be a bubble of white privilege beneath the endless Kenyan sky, and it would take more than a raging civil war to prick it. Jake had heard - and had no reason to disbelieve it - that the biggest crisis to affect the hotel during those bloody days and weeks was a shortage of tonic for the guests’ gin.

  He gazed out at them, lounging like lizards under thatched parasols, their slack and mottled skin toasted butterscotch brown except for where it was criss-crossed by livid white hip-replacement and triple-bypass scars. Sure, their numbers would be down slightly on previous years - but then that was to be expected. In the scheme of things, it would make no difference to the profitability of the Marlin Bay. The rich would always come back, and they would always spend their bucks. The only problem was, that made them too good a resource to waste.

  ‘Mr Moore?’ Loftus had returned from the reception desk. He looked agitated. ‘I am informed by my colleagues that the Halloran party left to go fishing at nine o’clock this morning.’

  ‘Nine?’ Jake looked at his watch. ‘But they booked the boat for midday.’

  Loftus wrung his hands and began to stammer some sort of explanation - but Jake waved him away. He knew damn well what had happened. He strode across to reception where the head desk clerk, a haughty-looking woman of about twenty-five, was primly stapling bar bills to invoices.

  ‘Who did they go with?’ Jake demanded, slapping his hand down on the cold stone.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ said the desk clerk.

  ‘The Halloran party. Who picked them up this morning?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Don’t give me that bullshit.’

  ‘Is there a problem, Elizabeth?’

  A tall well-groomed white man in an expensive linen suit and with an even more expensive hair weave had materialised like a ghost behind Jake. His name was Conrad Getty, and he was the owner of the Marlin Bay Hotel. Jake knew him well enough to know that he was the reason behind the sudden change of heart of the Halloran party.

  ‘What the hell are you playing at, Getty?’ he said. ‘You know damn well the Halloran party was booked with us.’

  Getty shrugged. ‘It’s a free country, Mr Moore. They obviously decided to take their custom elsewhere. ’

  ‘Don’t tell me: to one of your pals.’

  ‘Like all our guests, Dick Halloran expects the very best when he stays at the Marlin Bay. When he told me he was considering a game-fishing trip, I thought it only ap
propriate to ensure he was fully informed about the wide range of options available to him. I think he was pleasantly surprised at what he saw.’

  Jake could have swung for him then, a haymaker right between the eyes that would have done absolutely nothing to solve his problems but nevertheless cheered him up no end.

  But Getty was already sweeping obsequiously towards the doors, where a wizened old couple with more than a dozen Louis Vuitton suitcases had just arrived on the exclusive hotel minibus from Moi Airport.

  Son of a fucking bitch, he thought as he stalked towards the marina, his mood black enough to kick any one of the lounging lizards out of their chairs and into the crystal-clear, thermostatically controlled water of the swimming pool. But then what did he expect? Conrad Getty was renowned for shafting independent game-boat operators in favour of his chums in the fishing business. To Getty, outfits like Britannia Fishing Trips were no better than the hawkers who pestered his hotel guests. His skippers might cost fifty dollars an hour more, but standards had to be maintained. Especially in times of national crisis.

  The lizards, already anaesthetised on gin rickeys, eyed him dozily as he passed. They most probably thought he was the pool attendant. And in the scheme of things here at the Marlin Bay he might well have been.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘Would you care for some refreshment, Sergeant Nyami?’ Jacob Omu asked politely. ‘Some tea, perhaps? Some Coca-Cola?’

  ‘No thank you, Mr Omu,’ Nyami said.

  What Nyami wanted most of all was to get the hell out of Michael Kili’s office. Away from Omu. Omu frightened him.

  ‘How is your wife?’ Omu asked.