A Guide to the Beasts of East Africa Read online

  ‘And the reward,’ said Mr Gopez. ‘What about the reward?’

  ‘You’re right, A.B.,’ said Mr Patel. ‘We did talk about offering a reward. What do you say, Malik?’

  Mr Malik cleared his throat.

  ‘Benjamin, will you please allow me, on behalf of my fellow members, to express our thanks in more tangible form? Is there anything – anything at all – that you would like as a token of my – our – appreciation?’

  Benjamin thought.

  ‘I would very much like an umbrella, Mr Malik. I have an umbrella, but it is a very small umbrella.’

  ‘A new umbrella you shall have, Benjamin – a large one. But is there anything else you want, perhaps something that you have always wanted?’

  It so happened that there was another thing Benjamin wanted. Something he had wanted ever since he had first seen one in the schoolmaster’s house outside the village where he grew up. Benjamin loved words – not only the words of his native language, but the Swahili and English words that he learned at school. How wonderful that every object, every thought and feeling, could be described in these magical sounds. How doubly wonderful that each of them could be transformed into squiggles on paper, which could then be read out and turned back into sounds. He remembered the first time the schoolmaster had shown the class a dictionary. To think that every word in the language was in just that one book. That was what he would like, he told Mr Malik, his very own dictionary. So out of the club they went and into Mr Malik’s old green Mercedes.

  Amin and Sons General Emporium was sure to have just the thing.

  Finding a place to park your car in a big city is always a problem. In Nairobi the problem is compounded by the fact that when you have found your parking space you have only to leave your vehicle out of sight for a moment to find that mysterious things will happen. First its wheels disappear. Give it a few more seconds and the rubber mounting around its rear window will part, as if cut through with a sharp blade, and the glass will be gone. Another minute and the entire portable contents of the car will vanish. Just a few more minutes and doors, seats, interior fittings, muffler – even the complete engine – just won’t be there any more. The solution to this problem is to employ the services of one of the young men to whom has been passed down the dark knowledge of how to protect motor vehicles against these disappearances. Fortunately for motorists, representatives of this brotherhood are to be found on every Nairobi street, only too willing to offer their services for what is, all things considered, a most reasonable fee.

  Mr Malik parked right outside the shop and, after negotiating the provision of vehicle security, the two friends entered. Mr Malik introduced Benjamin to Godfrey Amin himself.

  ‘And what did the young gentleman have in mind? A concise dictionary – or a pocket version, perhaps? It all depends on how and where you intend to use it, you see.’

  He took them up to the second floor and showed them a shelf containing several of the volumes he had just described. Lying on its side on the bottom shelf, and still wrapped in plastic, Benjamin spotted a large blue box.

  ‘Is that a dictionary?’

  ‘Ah, the Compact Oxford. A lovely volume – well, two volumes actually. What with computers and the internet and everything, though, I’m afraid there’s not much call for a book like this these days.’

  As his assistant lifted the box on to the table and began unwrapping it Godfrey Amin explained that the two-volume set contained all the information in the twelve-volume Complete Oxford (‘And, I think, the five later supplements – though I’m not sure about that’), but that it had simply been printed in smaller type on finer paper.

  ‘And as you can see,’ he said, sliding open a little cardboard drawer at the top of the box, ‘it comes with its own magnifying glass.’

  Mr Malik took one look at the expression on Benjamin’s face.

  ‘Thank you, Godfrey, we’ll take it. And an umbrella, if you please. Your very largest.’

  With the purchases locked in the boot, the guardians of the car paid and thanked and Benjamin strapped in the passenger seat, they headed for home. At the intersection of Kenyatta Avenue and Uhuru Highway the traffic was, as usual, locked almost solid and several policemen were, as usual, attempting to unlock it. While he waited, Mr Malik found his mind turning once more to the case of Lord Erroll.

  When the police (and every investigator since) had investigated the murder, they had naturally assumed that it had been somehow linked to all those other clues – the position of the car, the tyre tracks, the broken armstraps. If Mr Malik’s theory was correct, they had turned out to be not really linked at all. Could the disappearance of the lion and the disappearance of the certificate also be separate events – their only connection being the approximate time at which they happened? And the more he thought about it, the clearer it became. By the time the police had sorted out the snarl and he was heading north up Uhuru Highway, he knew how the lion came to be in the darkroom and why. By the time he reached the Westlands turn-off, he was sure he knew what had happened to the certificate. And, of course, the Asadi Club would be safe – just as he had promised his father. But there was only one person who could save it.

  Had you been standing on the corner of Mama Ngina Street and Taifa Road at two o’clock that Friday afternoon, you might have noticed two figures emerge from the law chambers opposite. One is a tall man in dark suit and dastar to match. He puts a small envelope in his pocket before shaking the hand of a shorter, fatter man, hailing a taxi and climbing inside. The other man crosses the road in the direction of an old green Mercedes. After handing some money to the young person who has been protecting his car from unforeseen eventualities he sets off for the Aga Khan Hospital, where he will spend the rest of the day and much of the evening sitting beside the patients in the large ward at the back of the hospital, talking or not talking. Perhaps on the way home he will be thinking that the cell in which he will soon be incarcerated cannot be much worse than that room.

  The tall man asks his taxi driver to take him straight to the Ministry for the Interior. They turn out of Taifa Road into Freedom Street. He takes the envelope from his pocket and reads the single sheet of paper it contains. As they pass Amin and Sons, he taps the taxi driver on the shoulder.

  ‘Stop here a moment, would you?’ says Tiger Singh. ‘There’s something I need.’

  As he leaves the store, carrying a very small parcel, he recognizes Mr Malik’s daughter’s friend Sunita also coming out.

  ‘Hello, Mr Singh,’ she says, smiling. She is looking very pretty. She looks down at the larger parcel in her own hands. ‘A new sari,’ she tells him, ‘for the wedding. Amin’s is still the best place for that something special.’

  The Tiger smiles.

  ‘You know?’ he says. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

  35

  The crocodile does not heed the rain, nor the dying butterfly

  In his bed that night at Number 12 Garden Lane, Mr Malik tossed and Mr Malik turned. He had stayed late at the hospital, then gone straight home and straight to bed. But while his body felt exhausted, his mind refused to let go of the day. When at last sleep came it was filled with dreams of lions – not stuffed and smiling lions, but living, snarling lions with long sharp teeth and claws to match.

  He awoke late but unrefreshed, donned dressing gown and slippers and headed for the kitchen to prepare his morning cup of Nescafé. Petula, it seemed, had already left the house. There was no sign of Benjamin either, though he noticed that the night’s leaves had already been swept into neat piles on the lawn ready for the afternoon bonfire. The phone rang. It was Tiger Singh – yes, everything had gone according to plan. The certificate of registration had been returned, the Asadi Club was saved. How long now, wondered Mr Malik as he put down the phone, before they came for him? Though tired, he felt perfectly calm. It had all been quite straightforward. He had known what he must do and he’d done it.

  From the croton tree at the bottom of t
he garden a hadada called out its three-note cry. A troop of speckled mousebirds were chasing each other in and out of the bougainvillea. Mr Malik shuffled over to the hall table and picked up his binoculars from beside the bowl of fading roses. With his Bausch & Lomb 7 x 50 binoculars in one hand and a cup of Nescafé in the other, he sat down in his favourite chair on the veranda. A small dusky-pink bird flew into the climbing fig nearer the house, trailing a long piece of grass in its beak. So the red-billed firefinches were nesting again. High overhead two black kites – which are not really black but brown – made lazy circles on four broad wings.

  He heard a knock at the door. So soon?

  ‘Malik,’ he heard a voice shout. ‘Malik old chap, open up.’

  Strange – that sounded like the Tiger. Of course, the Tiger would want to be present when they came. Always best to have a lawyer on hand. Good old Tiger. He went to the front door and opened it.

  Tiger Singh rushed in.

  ‘Come on, Malik, we haven’t got much time. Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Malik, ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘Well, you don’t look ready. You can’t go like that, you know. Aren’t you going to put on a suit and tie?’

  So they were going to court, eh? – some sort of mock trial before they locked him up and threw away the key. Well, so be it. Never let it be said that a Malik was seen to cower before a bully. You can break many a Malik bone, you may even break his heart – you will never break his spirit.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Tiger Singh as Mr Malik emerged from his bedroom dressed in best blazer and club tie. In one hand he was clutching a small overnight bag with a few things he’d thrown in – toothbrush, pyjamas, razor (did they allow razors?).

  Tiger Singh looked at the bag.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll need that, old chap, but never mind. Oh, and as I expect you’ve noticed, Petula and Benjamin have already gone.’

  ‘Gone?’ Mr Malik’s heart sank into his socks. ‘Gone where?’

  ‘To the club, of course.’

  ‘The club?’

  Tiger Singh gave him a puzzled look.

  ‘To the club, for the celebration. Come on, we’ll be late.’

  ‘Celebration? Oh, of course, the certificate. Well done, Tiger. I knew you could do it. But the minister –’

  ‘My dear Malik, don’t worry about the minister. Just hop in the car – I’ll explain it all on the way.’

  And so it was that on the drive from Garden Lane to the Asadi Club, Mr Malik learned how Tiger Singh had indeed been to see the minister the previous afternoon and had indeed persuaded him to exchange the registration certificate of the Asadi Club for the one thing he wanted more than the land it stood on. That was to know the identity of the man who had so regularly raised his blood pressure and robbed him of his sleep – the real name and identity of Dadukwa.

  ‘They’ll be coming for me then?’

  Tiger Singh pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to his passenger. Mr Malik recognized it as the one he had given his friend the afternoon before, the one containing the single sheet of paper with his name on it.

  ‘It’s been opened.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Tiger. ‘I thought I’d better have a look – lawyer’s privilege, you know.’

  ‘But he read it – the minister, I mean?’

  ‘No. No need.’

  ‘So you didn’t give him the letter, you just told him it was me?’

  ‘Well, not exactly.’

  ‘But you just said you went and saw him yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Oh yes – I went, all right. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been in the office of the Minister for the Interior, have you? Quite grand. There’s even a lion-skin rug on the floor, stuffed head and everything. Elsa’s mother, apparently – or so Harry Khan told me. Said the minister was rather fond of it.’

  ‘But you said you were going to give him the letter. We agreed.’

  ‘I know that, Malik my dear chap, but before I could hand it over I happened to put my hand in its mouth.’

  ‘In its mouth?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, the lion – in its mouth. I was just admiring it when I thought I noticed something there. A little wire or something. The minister said he couldn’t see it himself, but when I reached in what do you think I pulled out? A miniature transmitting device. The minister was most surprised. He’d never seen one, but I recognized it immediately – they sell them in Amin’s, you know. I happen to know these things don’t have a very big range, so we went into his secretary’s office – he’d just been called out on urgent business, something to do with shopping malls, I believe – and what do you think I discovered in one of the drawers? The receiver – tiny little thing. This secretary chap, Jonah Litumana, had obviously been bugging the minister – and his predecessor, no doubt, and who knows who else – all the time. Explains everything, wouldn’t you say?’

  Mr Malik stared at Tiger Singh with open mouth.

  ‘You can imagine how grateful he was,’ continued the Tiger, ‘the Honourable Brian Kukuya, I mean. Handed the certificate over without another word. He even accepted my offer of a lift to the Sandringham Club, and who should we meet at the nineteenth hole but Judge Kafari. So – everything sorted out. On Monday morning I’ve arranged to see the judge in chambers, just to dot the legal i’s and cross the administrative t’s, so to speak.’

  Mr Malik’s mouth remained open but no words came out.

  ‘Just one more thing. The minister assured me that that secretary of his would be … er … castigated, I think he said – and I said we’d be quite happy to leave it at that.’

  Even when Tiger Singh suddenly swore and swerved round a cyclist on a blind corner, Mr Malik said not a word.

  ‘Did you see that? Shouldn’t be allowed on the roads. Anyway, as far as your part in the thing goes, Malik old chap – and, of course, none of this would have happened without you – I wonder if you’d mind keeping it under the old turban. Not the Kima Killer business, of course – damned fine work – but the certificate. Might be best. And perhaps you could mention it to that Dadukwa chap too, if you see him.’

  At last Mr Malik found himself able to speak.

  ‘But …’

  ‘Of course – the Evening News, I’m glad you reminded me. Yes, before I agreed to anything I raised that subject, and I’m delighted to say that the minister seemed to think that in view of recent developments, as it were, he wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Evening News certificate were to turn up too. What a piece of luck, eh?’

  ‘So …’

  ‘Mm, I know what you’re going to say. I’ve been wondering about that too. I know you told me yesterday that it must have been those painting contractors who stole the certificate in the first place – the ones who came to the club to give the quote just as you were leaving for the safari – and presumably the same fellows who swiped the one at the Evening News. But I still can’t see why they would have wanted to hide the lion. Had any more thoughts?’

  At which point Mr Malik found that though he could speak, on reflection it might be better if he didn’t. Lions in darkrooms, petroleum-jelly sandwiches, pythons in pyjamas – perhaps some truths were better left in the past. In the present, it truly seemed that everything was all right.

  36

  Happiness is a butterfly

  He was surprised to see so many cars at the club. The car park was chocker, and dozens more cars were lined up all down the street. Some of them were even decorated with ribbons, which Mr Malik thought was a nice touch – though perhaps overdoing it a bit. Tiger Singh seemed confident that they would find somewhere to park nearer the clubhouse, and sure enough they were in luck – there was a space right outside the front door. Mr Malik was also surprised to see Benjamin coming down the steps to open the car door for him, until he remembered that the Tiger had said he’d gone on ahead. The Tiger hadn’t told him that Benjamin would be wearing a collar and tie, though. Mr Malik had never seen
Benjamin in a collar and tie.

  ‘Benjamin, how lovely to see you. This celebration is as much for you as for anyone, you know. If you hadn’t tracked down that lion, I’m sure none of the rest of this would have happened.’

  ‘Come, Mr Malik, come inside. Miss Petula, she is waiting.’

  And there, just inside the door beside the Kima Killer – back in its rightful place and also decked with ribbons – stood his daughter. She was wearing a crimson sari with gold threads and seemed to have done something to her hair. But more surprises. Standing on one side of her was Sunita, dressed in a sari almost as magnificent as Petula’s. On her other side was Angus Mbikwa, and standing beside him his mother Rose. Rose was wearing a hat. Mr Malik hardly had time to register all this before an enormous cheer went up from the crowd behind them.

  The Tiger appeared at his side.

  ‘Three cheers for Malik,’ he boomed, ‘elucidator of crimes and conundrums.’

  ‘Three cheers for Malik,’ echoed Mr Patel, ‘king of the club safari.’

  ‘Three cheers for Malik,’ repeated Mr A. B. Gopez, ‘saviour of the Asadi Club.’

  At the first cheer, chandeliers shook on the ceilings; at the second, bottles rattled in the bar; at the third cheer, two cues in the billiard room and a six-foot spider rest clattered from the rack on to the floor. Never in the 107 years of the club was heard such vociferous jubilation.

  Rose Mbikwa stepped forward.

  ‘Dear Mr Malik, may I too salute you? You are a truly remarkable man.’ With a fond look, she turned towards her son. ‘And now, I believe Angus has something to say.’

  ‘Mr Malik, my mother has told me something of your talents and achievements. I can only echo her statement – you are a man among men. And – if I may say so – your daughter Petula Malik is a woman among women.’ He exchanged a glance with Petula. ‘This is indeed a most happy day – not only for the Asadi Club and all its members, but for Kenya. It is a day of triumph and a day of hope. Above all, it is a day of happiness.’ Again he looked towards Petula. ‘And on this special day I have a request. May I have the great honour of asking you for your daughter’s hand in marriage?’