Windfall

'Thank you. Tell him I'll be along in a few minutes.' Stafford took his toilet kit and went into the bathroom. When he came out he looked at the picture on the wall which appeared conventional enough. It was a reproduction of a painting of an elephant by David Shepherd, typical of those to be found in the curio shops in Nairobi. He examined it more closely paying attention, not to the picture itself, but to the frame which was of unpainted white wood and which seemed unusually thick. Near the bottom of the frame he found a small knot hole and he smiled.

From his jacket pocket he took a pen torch and examined the hole more carefully. By angling the light and moving it rhythmically he caught a repeated metallic wink from the bottom of the hole – the diaphragm of a miniature button microphone. As he put away the torch he felt relieved. If he had not found a bug he would have been worried because so far all his suspicions about Hendriks and Brice had been built on a tenuous chain of suppositions. But this was the clincher; no-innocent organization would bug its own rooms.

Hidden in the thickness of the picture frame would be a small transmitter and the batteries to power it, and probably somewhere in Ol Njorowa would be a receiver coupled to a sound-actuated tape recorder. It would be simple to put the bug out of order by the simple expedient of inserting a needle into the hole and ruining the microphone but that would not do because it would be a dead giveaway. Better to leave it alone and say nothing of consequence in the room or, indeed, anywhere in Ol Njorowa.

Before leaving the room he took a small pair of field glasses from his suitcase and went to the window. In the distance he could see a section of the chain-link fence which indicated the perimeter of the college. He swept it, the glasses to his eyes, and estimated it to be ten feet high. At the top were three strands of barbed wire. Somewhere on the other side Curtis was making an examination of the fence from the outside, and his briefing had been to make a complete reconnaissance of the perimeter. Stafford put the field glasses away and walked to the staff room with a light heart.

In Brice's office Dirk Hendriks put down the telephone. He had found it difficult to contact Mandeville in London; the lawyer had been engaged in court and Hendriks had requested a return call with some urgency. Now he had just finished talking to Mandeville and the news he got had knocked the wind out of him.

Brice said, 'What's the matter? What did Mandeville say?'

'The New York agency was Gunnarsson Associates,' said Dirk hollowly.

'What?' Brice sat open-mouthed. 'You mean the man you talked with in Nairobi was the man who found Henry Hendrix in the States?'

'It would seem so.' Hendriks stood up. 'There can't be many Gunnarssons around and the Gunnarsson in Nairobi is an American.'

'And he was in the tour group with your cousin. They were travelling together, obviously. Now, why should a private detective still stick around after he's delivered the goods? And to the extent of coming to Kenya at that. And why should Henry Hendrix let him?'

'Perhaps he thought he needed a bodyguard after inheriting all that money.'

'Unlikely.' Brice drummed his finger on the desk.

'Oh, I don't know,' Hendriks objected. 'He'd been shot in Los Angeles and there was the business of the car in Cornwall. He might have become suspicious.'

'I suppose so,' Brice said tiredly. 'Another suggestion is that Gunnarsson and Stafford are tied together.' He thought for a moment. 'Whichever way it is Gunnarsson needs watching. We must find out who he sees, and particularly if he gets in touch with Stafford.'

'Do I go back to Nairobi?' asked Dirk.

'No, you stay here and keep an eye on Stafford. I'll send Patterson.' Brice stood up. 'I'll go to the radar office and send him now. You say Gunnarsson is staying at the New Stanley?'

Dirk nodded. Brice was almost out of the room when Dirk said suddenly, 'Wait a minute. I've just remembered something." Brice turned back and raised an eyebrow, and Dirk said, 'When I was talking to Gunnarsson in the Thorn Tree I had the odd impression I'd seen him before but I couldn't place him. I can now.'

'Where?'

'Remember when I came to Kenya for the first time with Henry and Farrar? We stayed at the Lake Naivasha Hotel. You joined us there and we had dinner together.'

'Well?'

'Gunnarsson was dining at a corner table alone.'

Chapter 23

Dirk Hendriks walked into the staff room and found Stafford in conversation with Alan Hunt who was saying, 'I'm going up tomorrow anyway. Jim Odhiambo wants some photographs of his experimental plots. The balloon is useful for that kind of thing.'

Stafford beckoned to Dirk and said, 'Alan, I don't think you've met Dirk Hendriks, the grandson of the benefactor of the Ol Njorowa Foundation. Alan Hunt.'

The two men shook hands and Hunt said, 'Your grandfather's largesse has come just at the right time for me. I want a fraction of that seven million quid for a gas chromatograph.'

Dirk laughed. 'I wouldn't know what that is.'

'Seven million!' said Stafford in simulated surprise. It's more than that, surely.'

'Per annum," said Dirk easily. 'That's Charles Brice's estimate of the annual return when the capital is invested. I think he's too optimistic. It's before tax, of course, but he's having talks with the government with a view to getting it tax free. The Foundation is a non-profit organization, after all.'

All very specious. 'I must have misunderstood Brice,' Stafford said.

Hunt whistled. 'I certainly misunderstood him, and so did the pressmen. How much did your grandfather leave us?'

'At the time of his death it would have been about thirty-four million, but probate and proving the will has taken some time during which the original sum has been earning more cash. Say about thirty-seven million.'

Hunt gave a sharp crack of laughter. 'Now I know I'll get my gas chromatograph. Let's drink to it.'

He ordered a round of drinks and then Stafford said curiously, 'You said you are taking photographs for Dr Odhiambo. I don't see the point. I mean he can see the crops on the ground, can't he?'

'Ah,' said Hunt. 'But this is quicker. We use infra-red film to shoot his experimental plots. Plants that are ailing or sick show up very well on infra-red if you know what to look for. It saves Jim many a weary mile of walking.'

'The wonders of science,' said Hendriks.

'They use the same system in satellites,' said Hunt. 'But they can cover greater areas than I can.'

Stafford sampled his beer. 'Talking about satellites, who owns the satellite your animal movement people use? They couldn't have put it up themselves.'

Hunt laughed. 'Not likely. It's an American job. The migration study boys asked to put their scientific package into it. It's not very big and it takes very little power so the Yanks didn't mind. But the satellite does a lot more than monitor the movement of wildebeest.' He pointed to the ceiling. 'It sits up there, 22,000 miles high, and watches the clouds over most of Africa and the Indian Ocean; a long term study of the monsoons.'

'A geostationary orbit,' said Stafford.

'That's right. It's on the Equator. Here we're about one degree south. It's fairly steady, too; there's a bit of liberation but not enough to worry about.'

'You've lost me,' said Hendriks. 'I understand about one word in three.' He shook his head and said wryly, 'My grandfather wanted me to work here part of the year but I don't see what I can do. I haven't had the right training. I was in liberal arts at university.'

'No doubt Brice will have you working with him on the administrative side,' observed Hunt, and drank some beer.

No doubt he would, thought Stafford, and said aloud, 'Which university, Dirk?'

'Potch. That's Potchefstroom in the Transvaal.'

Stafford filed that information away in his mind; it would be a useful benchmark if Hendriks had to be investigated in depth at a later date.