Dave had some explaining to do in Nairobi, although there was nothing he could explain. His interviews with the officials came back and back to the disappearance of Kamau, which was the least explicable event of the inexplicable night, and the thing without which none of the rest would have happened. At last the officials accepted that Dave was as puzzled and upset as they could be. If it had been proved, or even suspected, that he had been negligent in protecting his clients, or had killed the elephant unnecessarily, he would have lost his hunting licence and his livelihood and perhaps his entry-permit. It could not be proved and finally it was not suspected either.
He visited the widows of Tobias and Alfred. He hid from Alfred’s widow that he had tried to escape on his own in a Land-Rover. He visited Solomon in hospital and brought his children to see him. He interviewed other drivers and trackers and started to build up, with enormous lists, the equipment which had to be replaced. He was very busy and he saw nothing of Jenny. He told himself this was a good thing but he knew he lied.
For the others it was an uncomfortable period, because they were waiting until they could once again trail their coats in front of an efficient organisation which was bent on killing them.
‘We could book another hunter,’ said Colly. ‘There’s always a few cancellations. Someone’s going to be free. This hanging around is demoralising after we did it all winter.’
‘No,’ said Jenny.
‘No,’ said Sandro. ‘This is a bad knock for Dave. He has lost everything and all his business for this season. It is our doing, yes? Our responsibility. We must start him up again.’
‘And also,’ said Jenny, ‘show everybody we still trust him.’
‘Giusto. Most extremely important.’
‘Okay, I get it, and I guess I agree, only I want something to occupy my pin-brain.’
‘Mine is much occupied but soon we will go away.’
Sandro was sure it was meaningless, but he was occupied with certain quiet inquiries.
He found out everything there was to know about Kamau and it was nothing. There was nothing in his background to say that it was impossible he had been bought or converted by Wing, and nothing to say that it was remotely probable. There was nothing to say that it was remotely probable that he had run away from the camp before the elephant came, and nothing to say it was impossible.
Sandro also found out what foreigners and senior Africans were in the Northern District on the night of the stampede. There were the priests and missionaries. The managers of game lodges. A veterinary officer and a pest-control officer. Three American hunting safaris with English hunters. A party of ornithologists and one of game-fishermen at Ferguson’s Gulf, three tour parties at the Samburu lodge and one at Marsabit. A game warden. An Oxfam group. Police-officers and some soldiers.
Sandro worked down the list in a little back office in a ministry in Nairobi. Any of these people, European and American and educated African, could have been Wing’s representative or Wing himself. All of them were far from the trampled camp on the night the camp was trampled.
‘Ornithologists,’ said Jenny later.
‘Yes, carina, of course. They were half-way up Lake Rudolph, on the west side. One hundred and forty miles from our camp as the bee flies.’
‘Crow, could you mean?’
‘Not even any crow could cross that country in between, which is the hottest place in the world. The only thing that is alive in that country is the volcanoes.’
‘Even so, chum,’ said Colly, ‘like you said, and I thought it was a pretty neat epigram, Wing has a long feather. Check out those ornithologists.’
It was easy to do this, since they were distinguished people. A well-known bird writer, a retired general, a woman professor from Canada, and the head of SIPHEN in East Africa.
‘What’s SIPHEN?’ asked Jenny. ‘Same like Sodastream? Do-it-yourself tonic-water?’
‘La Société Internationale pour la Préservation de I’Héritage de la Nature.’
‘Oh yes. Your auntie’s gang. Fatty, we must be getting warm.’
‘As warm as Teleki’s Volcano where the crows and the bees do not fly. No, cara. We are not warm at all. The gentleman of SIPHEN is Mister Timothy Hikohoki, a rich Japanese Christian, working very hard, for no money, with all the governments of East Africa.’
‘You know a lot about him.’
‘Just so much. He was at Ferguson’s Gulf with the English general and the others.’
‘Oh. Then there’s no need to talk to him.’
‘There is no need, but he is a colleague of Zia Ortensia so I will talk to him.’
Mr Timothy Hikohoki lived in a small neat house outside Nairobi but he was not at home. He had an office in a bank building but he was not there either. He was in Kilifi, at his villa by the sea. His Indian secretary said she hoped he was resting but she thought it most doubtful.
‘He will poke about and fuss. He will think they are catching too many fish and cutting down trees. He will rush up to the Tana River and weep when they cut down the trees.’
The secretary was a beautiful girl. Her little fingers flew like moths over the keys of her typewriter. She had tiny bones under a café-au-lait skin and her body was supple in her sari. She would have found it easy to persuade the immigration officials that she should have a residential permit and a work-permit. Sandro left the office with reluctance. He told the others they were going to Kilifi.
They hired a car and drove down through Tsavo to Mombasa, and up the coast to Kilifi and the house Sandro had borrowed. The house was on the sea and near the Kilifi Creek. It was near the seaside house of Mr Hikohoki.
Sandro called. He found a small, dapper Japanese in Bermuda shorts writing, with sad eyes, a report on the threatened wildlife of the Tana.
They exchanged courtesies. Sandro was given tea.
‘Of course I know your aunt the Marchesa. A very remarkable old lady. Her health must be fantastic, the way she gets around.’
‘She is very strong, I think.’
‘In mind and spirit as well as body.’
‘Certainly in all three.’
‘I heard about that terrible affair – near Baragoi, I think?’
‘You heard about it quickly.’
‘The Game Department are kind enough to keep me informed. They are my friends. Conservationists every one. I was sorry that two elephant were killed in an area where they are decreasing.’
‘We were sorry that three men were killed.’
‘Three?’
‘So I think.’
‘Of course that is also regrettable. They were Africans, only employees, not killers like—’
‘Like me?’
‘I’m sorry if I seem offensive, Count. You know my views, and I can’t pretend to approve of your ideas of sport.’
Sandro reiterated the argument, which he believed, about sportsmen being, almost always, conservationists. He mentioned salmon and red deer and woodcock. The little Japanese’s face was wooden.
Mr Hikohoki said: ‘It is in the heart. If you killed animals purely to cull, to reduce the overcrowding of a species and its pressure on available food, to extract diseased beasts from a herd, always with regret and a sense of necessity, then I could believe that your position was honest. But you hunt with glee and with . . . gusto. If you like, in your own language, you hunt con gusto. With relish. I’m sorry to talk like this to a relative of my valued confrère the Marchesa—’
‘I accept the sincerity of your position, Mr Hikohoki. I regret that you cannot accept the honesty of mine.’
‘I regret it also, but I am no good at polite lies.’
Oddly enough their relationship was quite cordial. When Sandro left they agreed to meet again and talk further, though perhaps on other topics.
It seemed, however, that Mr Hikohoki, like Zia Ortensia, had no other topics. To Colly, by the pool of the Mnarani Club, he spoke of the governments of Uganda and Tanzania and of the efforts of SIPHEN to have more animals placed on the protected list. To Sandro, in the little smelly snake-house by the ferry, he said that snakes and scorpions were part of the scheme of nature, its balance, its magnificent God-given imperfection, and that venomous predators merited conservation as much as gazelles and songbirds. To Jenny, in his neat dry garden at the edge of sisal-fields, he said that he was committed, and SIPHEN was committed, to an official approach by way of governments, to strict legality, to arousing the public conscience by way of advertising, and to a watch-dog role which SIPHEN shared with all the other wildlife organisations.
‘Many but not too many. Rich but not rich enough.’
‘You must sometimes yearn for a bit of direct action,’ said Jenny.
‘Like what, Lady Jennifer?’
‘I don’t know. Bash the people who cut down the trees and shoot things they shouldn’t and overfish and destroy the seal-colonies . . .’
‘Bash? Yes—but no. A small part of me yearns to bash. Of course I am sometimes angry and heartsick to the point of any violence . . . but not really. I am on the Council of SIPHEN and our objectives and methods are quite clear. If I disagreed with them, if I seriously decided on a different policy, then I must leave, you see.’
‘Like Black Power.’
‘That is exactly right. Malcolm X had no patience any more with Dr Martin Luther King and the Churches and the N.A.A.C.P. He was honest enough to start in a new direction. I think he was wrong and bitter and violent, but I am yellow instead of black so I’m careful about judging.’
‘Have you had Malcolm X’s? Violent breakaways?’
‘Oh yes. Young men. Some women. I understood. I deplore but I understand. Even Hannibal de Vain understands. You remember some activists stove in a fishing-boat which belonged to seal-hunters. Illegal, like angry students, but in a better cause. We would be, you understand, SIPHEN would be approaching a Ministry of Fisheries at an official level, and putting big advertisements in the newspapers – and these young men thought this was all too little, and too slow, and too weak. So they used axes and crowbars and went to prison for six weeks.’
‘Those boys had been your members?’
‘Yes yes, that is the point. Some resigned, in a very public and angry way. Some not, and we had to expel them. We repaid their subscriptions. I was sorry, but it was necessary. We could not lend our name to illegal acts of violence.’
‘These people,’ said Jenny slowly, ‘would be in possession of all the facts.’
‘All our bulletins, our published warnings and figures, yes indeed.’
‘And some might have access to confidential stuff? I mean if they went to Geneva and poked about in the files while they were still members?’
‘Yes, that is possible. There was a man who . . .’
‘Go on.’
‘You will respect my confidence of course, Lady Jennifer. There was a man who was a senior officer of SIPHEN. He worked closely with Hannibal de Vain. With me also, and others. He was supervising the compilation of dossiers which . . .’
“Which . . ?’
‘Oh my goodness, they could be dynamite in the wrong hands. Dossiers on governments, ministries in governments, individual officials whom we regarded as particular threats. Cynical or greedy politicians. And private persons. There is a whaling-skipper, I am ashamed to say a Japanese . . . there was.’
‘What happened to him?’
“He was drowned. There was an explosion at sea. I don’t believe in an Old Testament type of vengeful God, but it was difficult, reading that man’s dossier, not to feel a sense of retribution. There are people in Denmark, Madagascar, Canada, America, Britain yes, Italy. Indonesia and New Guinea. Fur-hunters. Bird-trappers. Plumage-dealers. You see.’
‘And your chap? The man who assembled all this?’
‘He worked at it very hard for many months. He used in a way spies. I think it was all quite legal. It was sickening reading, you know. It made you choke with anger. It was enough to send you mad, and maybe that’s what it did. Maybe it sent him mad. He left us, making wild statements that we were old women playing at protecting nature.’
‘When he left he took some sort of list?’
‘When he left he took photostats of the entire file.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He is here.’
‘Here in Kenya?’
‘Here in Kilifi.’
‘Here in Kilifi,’ said Jenny, ‘and he’s just got back from somewhere.’
Sandro’s eyes were bright. ‘Go on, carina.’
‘He left SIPHEN. Recently, I think. Hikohoki thinks he’s been adding names to his memory-book. Which he could do because nobody knew who he was.’
‘There’s a lot of things he might have been doing,’ said Colly. ‘Fixing up some kind of network. Slicing guys’ heads off in the woods in Italy.’
‘Who is he and where?’ Sandro asked.
‘Hikohoki wouldn’t tell me.’
‘The inscrutable East,’ said Colly. ‘I never liked it.’
‘He said he’d already been slanderous.’
‘It can’t be difficult to find out.’
‘Hikohoki says impossible. He lay doggo in Geneva. A man in a feathery mask. He never left the office. Nobody saw him except the sort of top inner circle. His name was never announced or anything. Or if it was it was a different one. What he was doing was secret, you see.’
‘But,’ said Colly, ‘hey, for God’s sake, where’s the problem? We can find out who around here has been spending time in Switzerland.’
‘How? Nobody stamps passports, not in the countries where you don’t need a visa. Anyway we can’t go peering at every single passport.’
‘But everybody else must have been someplace else. Here, or in London, or any place they can prove they were at. What we want is a guy who can’t account for a slice of his life.’
‘But he will be able to, darling. Only he’ll fib.’
‘Okay, let him fib. We can check up.’
‘On the alibi over the last two years of every European in or near Kilifi?’
‘Who says European?’ said Sandro. ‘Maybe American, African, Indian, Arab, Chinese, anything.’
‘He’s just come to Kilifi,’ said Colly. ‘Or just come back.’
‘So have one hundred people,’ said Sandro. ‘The Club is full of English and Swiss and Americans who have just come. Very many local people have left their farms and come, for the fishing. Which begins now, yes? People come and go all the time. They go to Mombasa and Malindi and Nairobi, and maybe they go up into the Northern District in a little aeroplane.’
‘He’s just come,’ said Jenny. ‘Why has he?’
‘Maybe he lives here,’ said Sandro. ‘Maybe he stays with friends here. Maybe it is coincidence that he is here. Or maybe he followed us.’
‘To kill us?’
‘I think.’
‘Not us, chum,’ said Colly. ‘You.’
‘No, Count,’ said Mr Hikohoki. ‘Even if I believed that those elephant were deliberately stampeded and it was an attempt on your life, I would not believe that my one-time colleague was responsible. And if I did believe that I would say leave Kenya and go home and stop shooting at things and work for SIPHEN as you were asked to by the Baron de Vain. You have no cause to be frightened but if you are frightened go away.’
‘Mr Hikohoki, I shall not whistle and shout for the police. I shall not have your friend arrested. No doubt in any case he has a perfect alibi. We shall respect your confidence. But I must know who this man is.’
‘No. Listen. The man did for us what he did precisely because he was unknown. To anyone except a very few of us. That is how he got his facts. He was trusted by the people who gave him the facts because they did not know why he wanted them. We undertook solemnly to protect his anonymity. It was a condition he made, and a wise one. The undertaking holds even though he has left us. Even though he disagreed with us and criticised us publicly. You would doubtless as you say respect my confidence, but you will not have a chance to because I shall respect his.’
‘But—’
‘Surely you understand that I have no choice? I cannot break my word because of the—frankly incredible story of a stranger.’
‘Think of the safety of Lady Jennifer.’
‘All right, let us contemplate it. To me it seems inviolate. You are talking fantastic nonsense. What could happen to that child in this peaceful place, which is full of people and full of her friends?’
‘And one enemy.’
‘You are raving. Truly you are crazy. Now you must excuse me. As you see I am very busy. If you’re really concerned for the girl’s safety, take her away. Eh? And then see a doctor.’
My friends the elephant killed the not-quite-innocent and missed the guilty. The blood of two is on your head. The list of your murdered victims is too long and it grows and it shouts. If you leave we follow. If you hide we search. At last the killer will be killed and the world will be kinder from your death.
ALA.
‘He’s getting oratorical,’ said Jenny. ‘I call that a very fancy style.’
The letter, typed on plain paper, had been pushed under the door of the house during the night.
‘”We,”’ said Colly. ‘Is that royal or editorial, or does it mean a bunch of goddam Wings? What will you do, Sandro? Stay here and get rubbed or go some place else and get rubbed?’