Justin ponders this but evidently sees no reason not to reply. "Her brother Kioko. He slept beside her on the floor when he wasn't keeping the flies off her. And Ghita Pearson would make a point of sitting with her when she called on Tessa."
"Anyone else?"
"A white male doctor, I believe. I can't be sure."
"That he was white?"
"That he was a doctor. A white man in a white coat. And a stethoscope."
"Alone?"
The reserve again, falling like a shadow across his voice. "He was accompanied by a group of students. Or so I took them to be. They were young. They wore white coats."
With three golden bees embroidered on the pocket of each coat, he might have added, but his resolve held him back.
"Why do you say students? Did Tessa say they were students?"
"No."
"Did Arnold?"
"Arnold made no judgment about them in my hearing. It is pure presumption on my part. They were young."
"How about their leader? Their doctor, if that's what he was. Did Arnold say anything about him?"
"Not to me. If he had concerns, he addressed them to the man himself — the man with the stethoscope."
"In your presence?"
"But not in my hearing." Or almost not.
Rob like Lesley is craning forward to catch his every word. "Describe."
Justin is already doing so. For a brief truce he has joined their team. But the reserve has not left his voice. Caution and circumspection are written round his tired eyes. "Arnold took the man to one side. By the arm. The man with the stethoscope. They spoke to each other as doctors do. In low voices, apart."
"In English?"
"I believe so. When Arnold speaks French or kiSwahili he acquires a different body language." And when he speaks English he is inclined to raise his pitch a little, he might have added.
"Describe him — the bloke with the stethoscope," Rob commands.
"He was burly. A big man. Plump. Unkempt. I have a memory of suede shoes. I remember thinking it peculiar that a medical doctor should wear suede shoes, I am not sure why. But the memory of the shoes endures. His coat was grimy from nothing very particular. Suede shoes, a grimy coat, a red face. A showman of some kind. If it had not been for his white coat, an impresario." And three golden bees, tarnished but distinct, embroidered on his pocket, just like the nurse in the poster at the airport, he was thinking. "He seemed ashamed," he added, taking himself by surprise.
"What of?"
"Of his own presence there. Of what he was doing."
"Why do you say that?"
"He wouldn't look at Tessa. At either of us. He'd look anywhere else. Just not at us."
"Color of hair?"
"Fair. Fair to ginger. There was drink in his face. The reddish hair set it off. Do you know of him? Tessa was most curious about him."
"Beard? Mustache?"
"Clean-shaven. No. He was not. He had a day's stubble at least. It had a golden color to it. She asked him his name repeatedly. He declined to give it."
Rob comes crashing in again. "What kind of conversation did it look like?" he insists. "Was it an argument? Was it friendly? Were they inviting each other to lunch? What was going on?"
The caution back. I heard nothing. I only saw. "Arnold appeared to be protesting — reproaching. The doctor was denying. I had the impression — " he pauses, giving himself time to choose his words. Trust nobody, Tessa had said. Nobody but Ghita and Arnold. Promise me. I promise. "My impression was, this was not the first time a disagreement had taken place between them. What I was witnessing was part of a continuing argument. So I thought afterward, at least. That I had witnessed a resumption of hostilities between adversaries."
"You've thought about it a lot, then."
"Yes. Yes, I have," Justin agrees dubiously. "My other impression was that English was not the doctor's first language."
"But you didn't discuss any of this with Arnold and Tessa?"
"When the man had gone, Arnold returned to Tessa's bedside, took her pulse and spoke in her ear."
"Which again you didn't hear?"
"No and I was not intended to." Too thin, he thinks. Try harder. "It was a part I had become familiar with," he explains, avoiding their gaze. "To remain outside their circle."
"What medication was Wanza on?" Lesley asks.
"I've no idea."
He had every idea. Poison. He had fetched Tessa from the hospital and was standing two steps below her on the staircase to their bedroom, holding her night bag in one hand and the bag of Garth's first clothes and bedclothes and nappies in the other, but he was watching her like a wrestler because, being Tessa, she had to manage on her own. As soon as she started to crumple he let go the bags and caught her before her knees gave way, and he felt the awful lightness of her, and the shaking and despair as she broke into her lament, not about dead Garth, but about dead Wanza. They killed her! she blurted, straight into his face because he was holding her so close. Those bastards killed Wanza, Justin! They killed her with their poison. Who did, darling? he asked, smoothing her sweated hair away from her cheeks and forehead. Who killed her? Tell me. With his arm across her emaciated back he manhandled her gently up the stairs. What bastards, darling? Tell me who the bastards are. Those bastards in ThreeBees. Those phony bloody doctors. The ones that wouldn't look at us! What sort of doctors are we talking about? — lifting her up and laying her on the bed, not giving her the slightest second chance to fall. Do they have names, the doctors? Tell me.
From deep in his inner world, he hears Lesley asking him the same question in reverse. "Does the name Lorbeer mean anything to you, Justin?"
If in doubt, lie, he has sworn to himself. If in hell, lie. If I trust nobody — not even myself — if I am to be loyal only to the dead, lie.
"I fear not," he replies.
"Not overheard anywhere — on the phone? Bits of chitchat between Arnold and Tessa? Lorbeer, German, Dutch — Swiss perhaps?"
"Lorbeer is not a name to me in any context."
"Kovacs — Hungarian woman? Dark hair, said to be a beauty?"
"Does she have a first name?" He means no again, but this time it's the truth.
"Nobody does," Lesley replies in a kind of desperation. "Emrich. Also a woman. But blonde. No?" She tosses her pencil onto the table in defeat. "So Wanza dies," she says. "Official. Killed by a man who wouldn't look at you. And today, six months later, you still don't know what of. She just died."
"It was never revealed to me. If Tessa or Arnold knew the cause of her death, I did not."
Rob and Lesley flop in their chairs like two athletes who have agreed to take time out. Leaning back, stretching his arms wide, Rob gives a stage sigh while Lesley stays leaning forward, cupping her chin in her hand, an expression of melancholy on her wise face.
"And you haven't made this up, then?" she asks Justin through her knuckles. "This whole pitch about the dying woman Wanza, her baby, the so-called doctor who was ashamed, the so-called students in white coats? It's not a tissue of lies from end to end, for example?"
"What a perfectly ridiculous suggestion! Why on earth should I waste your time inventing such a story?"
"The Uhuru Hospital's got no record of Wanza," Rob explains, equally despondent, from his half-recumbent position. "Tessa existed, so did your poor Garth. Wanza didn't. She was never there, she was never admitted, she was never treated by a doctor, pseudo or otherwise, no one observed her, no one prescribed for her. Her baby was never born, she never died, her body was never lost because it never existed. Our Les here had a go at speaking to a few of the nurses but they don't know nuffink, do they, Les?"
"Somebody had a quiet word with them before I did," Lesley explains.
* * *
Hearing a man's voice behind him, Justin swung round. But it was only the flight steward inquiring after his bodily comforts. Did Mr. Brown require a spot of help with the controls on his seat at all? Thank you, Mr. Brown preferred to remain upright. Or his video machine? Thank you, no, I have no need of it. Then would he like to have the blind across his window drawn at all? No, thank you — emphatically — Justin preferred his window open to the cosmos. Then what about a nice warm blanket for Mr. Brown? Out of incurable politeness, Justin accepted a blanket and returned his gaze to the black window in time to see Gloria barging into the dining room without knocking, carrying a tray of paste sandwiches. Setting it on the table, she sneaks a look at whatever Lesley has written in her notebook: fruitlessly, as it happens, for Lesley has deftly turned to a fresh page.