‘Yes, but the African?’
‘He survived. Didn’t he? Obviously. With the help of the Libyans. And George.’
‘What?’
‘Oh yes. The African was no fool. And he wasn’t illiterate. He’d lived on the plains, been at a missionary school. Anyway, a year later, just after Willy had found the “Thomas” skeleton, that four million-year-old wonder man, the African turned up in Nairobi among thousands of other refugees from Uganda. Of course he thought he had us where he wanted. And he was right. He wanted justice, compensation, all that. And he wanted the child back, too. You see, that was exactly it: Clare had been a vital emblem for that tribe. A Rain Queen. As a child, as someone who’d miraculously survived in the deserts on the other side of the mountain, she was a symbol of generation for them, a guarantee of the land’s continued fertility. It all made perfect sense. And you can see why — since of course as soon as we’d taken Clare away the rains had failed out there everywhere.’
Annabelle looked at me wide-eyed, as if I’d denied something obvious, though I’d said nothing. ‘It stands to reason, doesn’t it?’ she said, almost shouting. ‘Their reason. The African knew Idi Amin wouldn’t last. So he wanted the girl back. And he wanted the legal and financial compensation he knew he’d get, too, if the whole thing came to light. He wanted to set his tribe up again. He saw a future for the old way of life in Africa — their ways, not ours. And of course he thought Willy was particularly vulnerable just at that point.’
‘To blackmail?’
‘If you could call it that. Everyone was wild about the “Thomas” skeleton just then. Willy and George were top dogs in the bone business. They’d beaten all the field. Fame at last. There was a lot at stake. Because if the world heard how they’d shot up and burnt this tribe in the hills, it would have been the end for both of them, Rain Queen or no.’
‘But where was Clare?’
‘Laura had taken charge of her right from the start, and held on. You see, after the massacre in the hills it would have been too risky making any professional capital out of the girl. So we all kept quiet about Clare. But the Kindersleys had a big bungalow outside Nairobi. Servants, a big enclosed garden. It was ideal for Clare. They had several nannies, African women, though Laura looked after her mostly. She brought her up. She and Willy had never had any children … that was one reason.’
‘Yes, but what did she tell her friends out there? Her parents in Lisbon?’
‘Oh, that was easy enough. She told everyone that she’d legally adopted the child, in Kenya. That Clare was an orphan, a retarded child, the only daughter of a white couple, missionaries, killed up-country in Uganda by Amin’s rogue army. And at the time, since those people were killing white and black out there quite at random, it was a perfectly possible tale. Anyway, everyone believed her. And everything that had happened up in those mountains — well, all that had blown over, we thought. Until the African turned up.’
‘Willy paid him off?’
‘No. Just the opposite. Willy said he’d deny it all, everything that had happened, the shooting, the burning. He told us no one would believe the African anyway, in the present circumstances in Uganda. He said everyone would believe his version if the business ever came to light: that the tribe had been set upon by Idi Amin’s men. Soon after that we all came back to England.’
‘But even that wasn’t the end, was it?’
‘No. But you’ve been involved in most of the end, haven’t you?’
‘But how did the African get here, to your house?’
‘He caught up with us again. A few months ago, just after you’d left your cottage.’
‘I can see that. But how? And what the hell was George doing sheltering him? Why didn’t he tell the police?’
‘Yes. Well, George had a reputation now you see, as well.’
‘Yes, and I had a wife.’ I was furious.
‘I told George that … he’d probably killed Laura. But George said there was absolutely no proof. He came here several months ago. The Libyans helped him, that’s how. He’d told some of the newspaper people in Nairobi — that’s where the press rumours of what happened first started. They didn’t believe him, just as Willy thought. But the Libyans there did, or pretended to. He met them in the refugee camp. They were pro-Amin, of course, Moslems, revolutionaries trying to stir up trouble in Kenya by supporting these refugees. And what this African had to tell them was ideaclass="underline" evidence that Amin hadn’t been behaving badly to the other Ugandan tribes, that it was white people who’d shot this tribe up. And, more than that, it had been the famous Willy Kindersley and George Benson who’d done the damage. If they could prove that they’d have some real publicity for Amin’s cause. So they brought the African to Libya first, then over here. They had to find the child, to have real proof of the whole thing — that was the point. It took them a long time to trace what had happened to Clare, where you were living in England. And when they found out, the African went off on his own after you. That’s my opinion. It was more personal revenge for him now. All right, he must have killed Laura. But he lost you and Clare. And that’s when he turned up here, looking for help. He wanted somewhere to live in this area. But above all he thought George might come to know where you two were hiding, that he could get to you both that way. And he was able to blackmail George then — about the shooting in the mountains. You see, when the British press got onto the whole thing a month ago — when they found out you’d worked for British Intelligence, when Willy’s East African business blew up all over again, the African thought people here would probably believe his story now. And they would have done, I think. So George agreed to put him up.
‘While he looked for us?’ I said, my anger rising bitterly again.
‘I told George that. But he said if half the police in the country couldn’t find you, the African wouldn’t be able to.’
‘So he was just going to let him live here indefinitely?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t know. George thought he could work the thing out … given time.’
‘He thought the police would get me for killing Laura. That’s what he thought. And that Clare would be locked up safely in an institution then or sent back to Lisbon. He thought he would get out of it all that way, didn’t he?’
‘Probably. But the African doesn’t know where you are now, does he?’
‘No. But he’s been close enough — a few weeks ago.’
‘He has a car. There’s been another man with him helping him. A Libyan, I think, from London.’
‘I don’t have to worry about him. But if the African is on the move again I think I know where he’s gone: back to where we are.’
And I was on my feet then, moving off, thinking of Alice and Clare alone in Beechwood Manor. ‘I’d better hurry,’ I said. ‘It’s not the end yet.’