In the early hours of the next morning, when the sunrise was tinting the sky and the oppressive heat had already begun to strangle the day, Cooper stood with Maddie and Rosedale by the burnt-out house in the heart of the Kinshasa’s rambling slums. Nearby a man cycled past, towing a rusty trailer of water bottles. Power lines sagged overhead, their connections overloaded and jerry-rigged.
‘So what do you think it was all about?’ asked Maddie.
Cooper shrugged, feeling sluggish. He was tired, and could do with anything that had a bit of caffeine in it right now. But for once, his sleepless night and irritable fatigue hadn’t been due to the lack of pills. He had plenty of those. Xanax and OxyContin were like old friends. And neither was his lethargy due to his dreams nor the thoughts which ran uncontrollably in his head. Though on reflection those things might’ve been preferable to what did keep him wide awake, and leave him to stare mindlessly at a line of bugs marching decisively along the chipped walls.
Rosedale patted Cooper on his back, slightly too hard for his liking. ‘You look tired, Thomas, didn’t you sleep well? Me and Maddison here slept like the dead.’
‘Well maybe I look tired because I am tired, Rosedale. Not to put too fine a point on it, the combination of the noise of the traffic and your snoring, which can only be described as… thunderous, really isn’t conducive to a good night’s rest. And what is it with you and the in and out breath snore? Jeez. You need to go and check that out, Rosedale. How the hell did you sleep through it, Maddie?’
Maddie smiled sympathetically. And Cooper appreciated that.
‘You know me, Tom, I can sleep through anything. Besides, Rosedale has nothing on my daddy. You must remember how crazy his snoring was.’
‘All I know is I’d happily pay a thousand bucks for my own room.’
Rosedale laughed. ‘If that’s the case, Thomas, we need to find Emmanuel and the plane as soon as possible, so we can get you back to Colorado for your beauty sleep.’
Maddie said, ‘Then I guess we need to find out if this is, well was, Emmanuel’s house and if the attack is in anyway related to him. Easiest way to do that is to go and speak to the couple from yesterday. Hopefully they’ll talk to us.’
‘I’m going to take a look around the back.’
Cooper watched Rosedale wander off towards the side of the house along the red clay sidewalks, leaving just him and Maddie. A frown cut deep into her forehead. ‘What about the guy who warned us off? Any thoughts?’
Kicking through the wreckage with his boot, Cooper threw her an answer, not really wanting to get into a conversation. Sometimes women and him just didn’t mix. Especially when he was tired. Especially when he knew he was probably going to be a jackass.
‘Perhaps it was nothing. Maybe just a dispute with neighbors.’
‘Don’t give me that.’
‘Different places, different rules.’
‘Right there.’
Quickly Cooper looked around. ‘What?’
She shook her head. Hands placed on her hips. And Cooper instinctively knew she was pissed.
‘No, I mean right there, what you just said about there being different rules. Like it sums it all up. But you couldn’t be more wrong. This may be a different place, Tom, but Jesus, that doesn’t mean it’s the norm here to go around burning down houses. Frankly, I find it offensive that you think it is. This place is unique. There’s been a lot of darkness here. This country has been damaged by its history but there’s also a lot of beauty in it.’
Cooper sighed. ‘Look, I’m sorry if it comes across that way, Maddie, of course I didn’t mean that…’
Crouching down, Maddie got distracted from what Cooper was saying. His reply to her like a distant hum.
By the path she noticed some charcoal perfectly piled, built up like a pyramid with a circle of large black glossy berries around it. She picked one up and rolled it between her fingers and encouraged the scent to develop. She inhaled a sweet, almost vanilla fragrance. She stared. Her heart racing and beating and pounding, her head began to spin and she was only slightly aware of Cooper kneeling down next to her to pick up one of the berries and drop it into his small evidence collecting bag, something he often did.
Rosedale sauntered back. ‘I’m surprised you’re not wearing blue gloves and a white suit. Ain’t you gonna tape off the area? He thinks he’s in CSI, don’t you Thomas? Anything he sees, he puts in that damn bag of his. I’d say there were kleptomaniac qualities about him… Miss Maddison, are you okay…? Maddison?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t look it… What are you thinking?’
With a slight hesitation and a deep breath she said, ‘Okay, I may be way off here but this berry comes from the Macrocarpa tree. It’s found mainly in the east of the country, up towards Kivu where a lot of my family came from. The berry is used to treat a lot of things like tuberculosis, tooth problems, abdominal pain and…’
Maddie paused.
‘Go on,’ said Cooper.
‘No, it’s nothing.’
‘Maddie?’
‘I said it’s nothing.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘For God’s sake, Tom, there’s nothing wrong. So stop, okay.’
Cooper tilted his head. ‘I know there’s something wrong.’
‘Enough already.’
‘Then say what you were going to say.’
‘Fine, if it’ll shut you up… The berries are also sometimes used in rituals and ceremonies. Just part of everyday life, and it certainly isn’t a bad thing… well, not usually. These ceremonies are often held for the most routine stuff. Like if you wanted your kid to get good grades at school, or want a family member to do well, you might ask someone to take a service for you, whether it be just a spiritual one, kind of like a normal prayer service, or perhaps it might be an exchange.’
‘Exchange?’ asked Rosedale.
Feeling uncomfortable and knowing it showed, Maddie said, ‘It’s an exchange because by giving the spirits or ancestors something, you’ll get something back too. So you kill your chicken and Tommy gets good grades.’
‘And if he doesn’t?’
‘Then that’s to do with the spirits too. All causation is spiritual, which means…’
Rosedale interrupted. ‘Means no-one’s ever to blame, sugar pie. So if after the exchange, Tommy’s grades are still low, then it’s not down to him or the exchange going wrong, it’s about another spirit, a stronger spirit influencing it.’
Maddie nodded. Said nothing. Felt something she didn’t want to.
Contemplating what Maddie had said. Spirits. Exchanges. Cooper lit up his first cigarette of the day. He looked at Rosedale. Although he hadn’t travelled extensively through Africa, the man had spent a lot of his clandestine career immersed in other cultures and accepted the world was made up by differences. Stifling a yawn, Cooper asked, ‘So how do the berries come into this?’
Putting her head down and not holding Cooper’s gaze, Maddie quietly said, ‘It’s not just the berries, it’s the charcoal as well… listen, I’m not the best person to speak to about this. Why don’t we go back to the hotel and Skype my daddy, if we can get through? He’ll be able to tell you better than I can.’
Rosedale said, ‘Skype Marvin? That sounds great.’
And with a very tight smile, Cooper nodded, ‘Yeah great. Real great.’