Kenneth ceased strumming. He’d been so wrapped up in his own frustration he had not noticed the two men watching his performance intently from the sidewalk. The man who had spoken was stocky, with mirror-lensed sunglasses and an expensive leather jacket. He was shorter by at least a foot than the second, bespectacled, man, whose slim body was draped in a white cotton khanzu.
Kenneth’s heart pounded. He had heard about moments like this, when unknown singers were plucked from the street by passing record-company executives and turned overnight into superstars.
‘Thank you, sir,’ he said.
‘Hakuna matata,’ said the stocky man. ‘“There are no problems”.’
‘Most certainly not, sir!’ Kenneth beamed.
‘You are wrong, boy.’
Kenneth was taken aback. He knew the words to ‘Jambo Bwana’ backwards. His own mother used to sing them to him when he was a small child.
‘Wrong?’
The man in the sunglasses raised a finger and pointed above Kenneth’s head. ‘You see that sign?’
Kenneth twisted his neck. There was a black metal-clad door behind him and, on the wall above it, a small unlit neon sign.
‘Baobab Club,’ he read aloud.
‘I own the Baobab Club,’ explained Michael Kili. ‘And one thing I hate is when beggars play musical instruments outside my club without asking my permission. So, as you can see, the words of your song are wrong: there is a problem.’
Kenneth’s bowels turned to mush. ‘I - I apologise, sir, for my mistake,’ he spluttered.
The man just smiled at him. ‘Normally I would have you killed,’ Kili said. ‘But I am in a good mood today.’
He reached out and ripped Kenneth’s guitar from its strap, then held it at arm’s length and fired his right fist straight through the cheap boxwood body. Then he dropped it on the ground and stamped it to splinters with the fat foam sole of his Reebok training shoe.
‘There now, Jacob,’ Kili crowed as he and Omu climbed the stairs to his office. ‘Not only did I allow Mary Olunbiye to live, but I have also spared a beggar his life. Does that not prove that I am a merciful man?’
‘Merciful and wise,’ Omu said respectfully, reflecting that Mary Olunbiye would undoubtedly agree. Having one’s little finger chopped off with a kukri knife was, after all, preferable to having one’s throat slashed open with it.
Kili laughed. ‘Merciful and wise. You sound like a preacher, Jacob. A man of God.’ He reached out and grabbed the folds of Omu’s cotton khanzu. ‘You dress like one, too. Really, Jacob, I don’t know why you don’t treat yourself to some nice clothes. Something modern! And that apartment you live in! Surrounded by dock rats. The whores on Hutambo Road live in more luxury!’
Omu smiled indulgently as they entered the first-floor office. But no sooner had they done this than both men stopped in their tracks.
Sitting in his chair, feet up on Kili’s desk with a copy of The Daily Nation in his hands, was Tug Viljoen.
‘Morning, gents,’ the South African said, baring his teeth in an approximation of a smile. ‘Wasn’t sure how long you would be, so I thought I’d make myself comfortable.’
‘What do you want?’ Kili demanded, puffing out his chest like a territorial bird. ‘Who let you into my office?’
‘Don’t worry about that. You see, we have a problem, Michael.’
‘Problem?’
‘You’ve been taking matters into your own hands again. Now you know what I said about taking matters into your own hands . . .’
Kili turned to Omu. ‘Call Christopher and have him throw this dog out of my office,’ he said insouciantly.
But Omu walked across to the desk and stood beside Viljoen, his hands folded neatly behind his back.
‘Jacob!’ Kili exclaimed open-mouthed. ‘What is the meaning of this?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Omu said respectfully, ‘but I am afraid I must on this occasion side with Mr Viljoen.’
Kili’s jaw dropped further. ‘Have you lost your mind? What are you talking about?’
‘He’s trying to put it as politely as possible that you’re a fucking liability, Michael,’ Viljoen said. ‘He’s saying that he no longer wishes to be associated with anyone so fucking dumb as to send a hit squad to bump off a detective from Mombasa police in broad daylight.’
‘But Joshua—’
‘Joshua’s dead. And so’s the other monkey you sent to Flamingo Creek yesterday. And now I’m afraid the time has come to deal with the organ grinder.’
With a roar of anger, Kili strode towards the desk with his kukri knife clutched in his fist. But he had barely made two paces before Viljoen fired a silenced Glock automatic from behind the newspaper and shot him through the left eye.
‘I take it you have dealt with any other indiscretions this prick may have left behind,’ Viljoen said calmly, unscrewing the silencer and placing the gun into the waistband of his shorts.
Omu stared at the twitching body on the floor. ‘Everything is in order, Mr Viljoen.’
‘Good. Then get this mess cleared up pronto and maybe we can all lead a quieter life for a change.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
Five minutes later, Viljoen emerged from the Baobab Club and jumped into a dust-covered jeep parked illegally on the pavement outside. From the driver’s seat of his Fiat Panda parked fifty yards further down the street, Jouma clucked to himself as he took the South African’s photograph with an ancient Kodak Instamatic.
‘Number eleven,’ he said, checking his watch. ‘Left the premises at ten-twelve precisely.’ He removed the undeveloped photograph from the camera and placed it with the other twenty-two on the dashboard of the car.
Beside him, Sergeant Nyami pulled a face. ‘He was most probably there to watch the rude dancers. Like all the others.’
‘Just write down the licence-plate number, Sergeant,’ Jouma said, winding on the film.
‘How many more?’ Nyami said impatiently, scribbling into a spiral-bound notebook.
‘Nyami, did anyone ever tell you that surveillance is a basic and highly effective means of collecting information?’
‘Of course! Do you think I am a fool?’
‘Then you will also be aware that it can often be a long and arduous process, consisting of many hours of patient observation.’
‘But who are we looking for?’
‘That remains to be seen, Nyami,’ Jouma said, confident that somewhere among the snaps and number plates he would find justification for the last two hours of sitting in the sweltering car.
‘Look, Inspector!’ Nyami hissed.
The door of the Baobab had opened once again, and this time the unmistakable figure of Jacob Omu emerged, carrying a leather attaché case in his hand. Kili’s lieutenant glanced warily up and down the street, then set off towards them with wide precise strides.
‘Get down, Nyami,’ Jouma said calmly, and the two policemen shrank down in their seats as Omu passed by.
‘He’s gone,’ Nyami said, peering over the dashboard, the relief evident in his voice. ‘Can we go now?’
‘On the contrary,’ Jouma said brightly. ‘We have been presented with a rare opportunity: a chance to talk to Michael Kili on his own.’
Nyami flinched and his face paled slightly. ‘Talk to Kili? Are you mad? What will that achieve? He will say nothing!’
‘Kili says nothing because Omu tells him to. With the cat away, perhaps the mouse will be more forthcoming. ’
‘But why? Surely this is not still to do with George Malewe? You are obsessed with that Likoni cockroach! ’
‘I have my reasons, Nyami. Now come along. We are policemen and we have a job to do.’
After straightening the creases in his buttoned raincoat, Jouma knocked briskly on the metal-plated door of the Baobab Club. After a few moments, it opened a fraction and a pair of narrowed eyes peered out at him.
‘What?’ said a disembodied voice.
Jouma snapped open the leather wallet
containing his badge and warrant card and thrust it an inch from the eyes. ‘Open the door.’
Slowly the door swung back and Jouma saw that the eyes belonged to a thickset, crudely scalped bouncer wearing regulation bodybuilder’s vest and tracksuit bottoms.
‘Ah, good afternoon, Christopher. How is your mother?’
‘She is very well, Inspector Jouma,’ the big man said sheepishly.
‘You must tell her that I am asking after her health.’
‘I will, Inspector.’
‘Good. Now be so kind as to take me to Mr Kili’s office.’
Christopher’s face froze. ‘Mr Kili is not here.’
‘I saw him enter the premises no more than thirty minutes ago,’ Jouma said pleasantly. ‘Perhaps he left through the window - but I doubt it.’
‘But, Inspector Jouma—’ Christopher wailed.
Jouma wagged a finger at him. ‘Christopher Kalinki, if your poor mother knew the people with whom you associated she would have something to say about it - and we all know your mother stands for no nonsense, don’t we?’
Christopher weighed up the no-win situation with growing despair.
‘If anyone says anything to you, just tell them that I insisted,’ Jouma said, patting the abject bouncer on the arm.
He stepped inside, walked a couple of paces and turned round. ‘Well - what are you waiting for, Nyami?’ he said tersely.
Behind him on the street, Sergeant Nyami cleared his throat nervously and followed Jouma into the dimly lit interior of the club.
It truly was as Jouma imagined the waiting room of Hell. Not even ten-thirty in the morning and yet the booths were already full of seedy-looking Africans, Asians and Europeans being attended by frightened-looking young girls barely into their teenage years; tables of leering drunken men positioned in front of a tiny stage upon which an ageing, pock-marked whore was wearily removing her clothing to the thumping beat of unintelligible music. Not for the first time, Jouma felt a flush of shame at the depths to which the city of his birth had sunk. Parts of Mombasa needed to be burned to the ground and built again. Such was the way of dealing with vermin and infestation.
At the other side of the bar was a studded door covered with peeling leather. It was marked STRICTLY NO ENTRY. Jouma saw Christopher take a deep breath before he pushed it open.
‘Thank you, Christopher. I think we know the way from here.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Omu’s apartment on the waterfront near the dhow harbour was simply furnished: a single cot, a bedside table, a wardrobe, a sink and a copy of the Koran. Kili was forever berating him for leading such a parsimonious existence, but it suited perfectly a man of Jacob Omu’s monkish requirements.
Material wealth did not interest Omu; it never had. He was a man who derived his pleasure from control. Its mechanics fascinated him - how action in one place led inevitably to reaction elsewhere, and how it was possible to manipulate that reaction to one’s own ends. What also pleasured him greatly was the omniscience which total control required. The need for information was, for Omu, an addiction - receiving it a drug that gave him an unsurpassed high. That was why he had assiduously cultivated tendrils in all strata of Mombasa society, from the lowliest barfly to the society hotelier, from the street corner to the very corridors of power.
And that was why, until now, Michael Kili had been important to him. The gangster’s multifarious criminal activities did not interest him in the slightest, but controlling them for him did; for Kili’s position of power meant that Omu effectively controlled Mombasa.
But everything was temporary.
Omu felt no loyalty to Kili. Kili was stupid and he was greedy. Even before recent events, his future had been plain to see: he would get stupider and greedier, until, one day, he would make one mistake too many and someone would come up behind him and slit his throat.
Or shoot him through the eye.
Such was the fate of second-rate thugs who came to believe their own publicity. The only difference was that Kili’s demise had come rather quicker than Omu had anticipated.
Fortunately, Omu had always believed in contingency plans. And he had been planning for this moment for some time.
He returned his attentions to the half-packed suitcase and neatly folded clothes on the bed. A few moments later, he locked the case and left the room. Down a flight of stone steps, Omu exited the apartment building by a back entrance that led by means of a rancid-smelling alleyway to the waterfront. When he’d first moved there, the alleyway had been home to a handful of scabrous beggars who one night had attempted a shambolic mugging. After Omu had killed two of them with his knife, the rest soon leached away into the shadows. They had obviously spread the word, as ever since the only vermin to be seen in the alley nowadays were water rats.
At the end of the alley was a fenced and padlocked wooden jetty. Moored to it was a Sea Ray 220 speedboat. Omu smiled as he looked at its sleek lines. It had cost him twenty thousand dollars, yet he planned to use it only once and then dispose of it. That was the kind of mindless consumerism that would have impressed Kili. How ironic.
Omu stashed the suitcase and the attaché case in a hold at the front of the boat, then retraced his steps to the apartment building and out on to the busy main street. He looked at his watch. There was one more onerous task to complete before he could depart. One last duty to perform for his former employer. There was no logical reason why one of Kili’s henchmen could not be entrusted to dispose of the body - it was not as if they hadn’t done it hundreds of times before. But without Omu to oversee proceedings there would always be a chance that things would not go to plan. Look what had happened when Kili had taken matters into his own hands yesterday.
No, if his work here was done, then Omu did not want a single thread left untied. For a man who thrived on control, that would be simply unacceptable.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
At first Jouma did not see Michael Kili. What he saw as he entered Kili’s office was what he was expecting: the desk, the worn leather sofa against one wall, a grubby pawed poster of Anna Kournikova wearing leather underwear and holding the handle of a tennis racket suggestively between her finger and thumb, mismatched chairs, a threadbare rug, a coffee table, a grimy window overlooking the alleyway and, standing side by side, a metal filing cabinet and a cheap plywood stationery cupboard.
But then he saw the blood. A large dark pool of it in the centre of the carpet. Splashes of it on the ceiling. Spatters on the walls and the furniture.
And then he saw Kili.
‘Close the door, Nyami,’ he said quietly.
The gangster had been propped up in a sitting position in the narrow gap between the stationery cupboard and the filing cabinet. What was left of his shattered head was resting on his knees, his hands lying slackly at his sides.
‘Nyami, close the door.’
When there was no response, he turned to find his sergeant backed up against the wall behind the desk, his eyes bulging, an expression of horror on his sweating face as he stared at the scene.
‘Nyami!’
Nyami momentarily snapped out of his paralysis.
‘Close the door, please,’ Jouma told him.
Nyami moved to the door, but his gaze never wavered from Kili’s body.
‘Thank you,’ Jouma said, attempting to remain as businesslike as possible, even though he was shaking. ‘Now remember, Nyami, we are here on official police business. And, even though this is now a crime scene, we must not forget the reason for being here. I want you to check the desk drawers while I examine the filing cabinet.’
‘We should go,’ Nyami said.
‘We are going nowhere, Sergeant.’
‘But we need to tell someone about—’
‘Tell who? The police? We are the police, Nyami! Now pull yourself together and do your job!’
Trying hard to keep his own wavering composure, Jouma went to the filing cabinet and pulled open every drawer. The cabinet
was empty, and the skewed hanging files suggested it had been emptied in a hurry.
‘There is nothing in the desk drawers,’ Nyami reported.
‘Keep looking.’
‘What am I supposed to be looking for?’
‘Anything.’
Anything that might prove that Michael Kili had ordered his assassination yesterday. Anything that might explain why Kili was now slumped on the floor with half of his head blown off.
Jouma thought about the attaché case that Omu was carrying as he left the Baobab Club, and cursed. While he had been taking Polaroids of dirty old men, fifty yards away Michael Kili’s Mombasa empire was in the process of being overthrown in a bloody coup. The evidence had been removed right from under his very nose! A sudden wave of impotent fury rose up inside him and he smashed his fist hard against the metal sides of the filing cabinet.
‘Looking for something, Inspector?’ a voice said from the doorway. ‘As you can see, Mr Kili is indisposed. Perhaps I can help?’
Jacob Omu’s demeanour was that of a polite librarian offering assistance in finding a book. He stood with his hands behind his back, resting lightly against the jamb.
‘What is the meaning of this, Mr Omu?’ Jouma demanded.
Omu seemed amused - and who could blame him, Jouma thought. To the man in the white cotton khanzu, he must have cut a pathetic figure standing there beside the emptied drawers of the filing cabinet, amid all the blood.
‘The meaning?’ Omu was saying. ‘Of death, Inspector? Now that is a very esoteric question, even for an educated man such as yourself.’
Jouma gestured at Kili’s body, although he could not bring himself to look at the corpse. ‘Are you responsible for this?’
‘Me? No.’
‘Then who?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Then I am placing you under arrest, Mr Omu.’
Omu casually pushed his spectacles along the bridge of his nose. ‘With what am I charged?’
‘Where do I begin?’ Jouma said. ‘Drug dealing, extortion, prostitution, smuggling, murder . . .’
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