Rift (10 page)

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Just feeling weird. Didn’t sleep last night . . . ’

‘Maybe it’s heatstroke, too. Here, drink. Like Tomis said, you have to drink. Lots.’ She pushed his water bottle at him. ‘Come on, Joe! You should sleep, too. There’s nothing else happening while the inspector talks to everyone.’

Obediently, he drank. Then he said, grimacing at the
ridiculousness of it, ‘Dreams – you know, nightmare things . . . ’ He laughed, self-conscious, and she saw, as clear as anything, that he was afraid.

‘If you like,’ she offered, ‘I’ll hang about for a bit . . . I’m not doing anything. I’ll just sit outside . . . you know, and you can sleep – I’ll wake you up if anything happens.’

He didn’t answer. Just looked at her for a minute, and then lay down, and appeared to Ella to be instantly asleep.

She didn’t move straightaway. She stood looking at him. He was sprawled on the camp-bed, just as he’d let himself fall back. Every few minutes his face flickered and he turned his head in agitation. She had the impulse to soothe him, as she’d wanted to in the hospital, that first night. But that seemed a lifetime away, and she hadn’t even known him then.

This, suddenly, was different. She knew him now. All the feelings she’d had – the shared fear, the desolation, the lost look that came over his face – washed over her. She wanted to put her arms round him. She wanted his arms round her. It was a feeling she’d never had before, and for a moment it obscured everything else in her mind.

Then she was stricken by how long she’d stood there: he’d wake, read her face, be embarrassed by what it said, want her to go away.

She ducked out of the tent, into blinding sunlight.

There was a crackle, which she recognised as the static of a radio, and she looked towards the police vehicles. One of the constables was leaning in and lifting a handset, speaking into it, his voice carrying, but the language meaningless to her.

The constable put the handset down, and leaned in the shade of the great squat baobab. Beyond him, the makeshift encampment sheltering the local helpers was just visible among the acacia trees. A single figure moved across the front. Otherwise it was still. Was it because people had moved to help search on the north side of the ridge, or were they dispersing, going home, giving up?

The thought iced the sweat on her back, and a wash of sour fear churned her stomach. She turned back and looked into the tent. Joe had rolled on to his side, facing away towards the canvas wall. He was lying still and seemed calmer.

She busied herself, repositioning pegs and guy ropes to make the flap of the tent into an awning against the relentless force of the sun. And then she sat cross-legged in the patch of shade, to wait.

She felt Sean before she saw him. Not quite a shadow, not quite a sound, not quite a movement. He was motionless, at the
corner of the tent. Clearly he had not expected to see her there. But surprise was swiftly stripped from his face as she looked up. He smiled. A broad smile that Ella would have found quite friendly, had she not already experienced Joe’s reaction to him at breakfast, or the ambush by his two friends.

He crouched down very close to her, putting his hand on her shoulder, companionably.

‘Ella, right?’ he said. ‘Charly’s sister, yeah? Friend of Joe’s?’

It was not a pleasant feeling, his height. Even squatting, he loomed over her, and she had a sudden very clear knowledge that he enjoyed this. He was so close she could feel the heat of his skin. He was sweating, and there was a faintly perfumed, faintly oiled smell on his arms.

Why was he here, in Joe’s tent when everyone was called to the inspector’s meeting?

She jumped to her feet, deliberately dislodging Sean’s hand. ‘Joe’s sleeping!’

‘Yeah? Tired, is he? With all the stuff he’s trying to remember? Do your head in, that would, not remembering. What’s he said?’

As he spoke he moved, blocking her route to Joe, one hand resting on the ridge pole of the tent, the other hooked in his waistband. He bent his knees suddenly, making a show of
crouching to look directly into her face, raising an eyebrow.

She stared past him to avoid his gaze. With a lurch, she saw he was not alone. Two boys: his friends. Keeping watch. She threw caution to the winds and went for counter-attack, glaring at him. ‘What’re you doing here?’

His smile didn’t alter. His hand though, moved from his waistband back to her shoulder, the grip harder, fingers heavy. He said, ‘Well, could ask you the same, couldn’t I? What’re you doing? Poor Joe’s armed guard?’

She flushed. ‘Inspector Murothi’s talking to everyone in the camp –’

‘He’s not talking to me, is he?’

‘Well, you’re supposed –’

‘I’m not
supposed
to do anything.’

‘Sean!’ One of the boys beckoned urgently.

Sean ignored him. He kept his eyes on Ella. ‘Tell your mate Joe here, with the empty brain that doesn’t
remember
anything, he should –’

‘I’m not telling Joe anything,’ she said stoutly. ‘He’s recovering. And Inspector Murothi’s looking after him.
All the time.
’

‘Not
all
the time, eh? Sometimes it’s his brave little helper.’

She threw off his hand, took a step back, and dodged
sideways so that she blocked the entrance to the inner tent.

He laughed, considered her for a moment, stepped closer, calling over his shoulder, ‘Hey, Denny, got that knife?’

‘Course not! I’m not stupid. There’s police all over!’

‘Fetch it.’

‘Look, I’m off, there’s Tomis.
Sean!
‘ Rapidly the other two were walking away, already out of sight as Tomis appeared and Sean ambled away, deliberately slowly, in full view of the ranger.

Tomis tossed his head in their direction. He raised his hand to Ella, called loudly, ‘I am the herdsman rounding up stray goats! Is all well with you?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A few goats went that way.’

He chuckled, acknowledging her joke. ‘I see one. Two others also?’

She nodded. He set off after them, giving her the thumbs up.

Ella stayed where she was. How could she have let Sean’s pathetic effort at a threat frighten her? How could he do anything, anyway, with the inspector, and the sergeant, and Tomis and Samuel here?

It wasn’t what he did, or said – not even the talk of a knife, you couldn’t take that seriously! But she saw what he believed,
his vision of himself: outside it all, beyond reach. He didn’t
care.

She was on edge, reluctant to sit down, alert for his return.

Silence descended on the camp. Only the lethargic drone of insects, the breath-sucking heat buzzing on the plain. She caught a twitch of movement and turned her head. A gecko, like a white lizard-ghost pinned in alarm against the canvas . . .
geckos and frogs and lizards camouflaged so completely you almost never spot them
, Charly had mentioned. And she’d written about the archaeology and Burukanda, everything Joe had been telling them . . .

Ella pulled Charly’s emails from her pocket, and sat down again.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Sent: Saturday, 18 February, 2006, 17:37

Subject: More notes from Chomlaya

Now I’VE got the bug! Actually, Elly, I’m not joking. I got a real prickle up my spine when I was handed a skull and I stood looking down at it, into that bony, hollow face, and thought, ‘you might be my ancestor from 4 million years back’. It started me sort of understanding the mood I feel in Chomlaya. There’s something so ageless and forever about it. You can imagine people like the skull
person, as if their spirits, over millions and millions of years, are all still in the air. Weird, wild nonsense, eh?

Got to keep to facts, Charly – like a good journalist.

Well, thought you’d find this pretty interesting (there’s a girl here who reminds me a bit of you, Elly, and she’s fascinated!). So, the facts (courtesy of what I’ve learned from my Burukanda friends, Véronique and Otaka – you’ll meet them when you come, I’m determined):

1) What they do know: human evolution started with an ape, taking millions of years, some apes evolving that were less ape-like and more human-like, and some standing up on their hind legs (all these – humans and uprightwalking near-humans, are called hominids, by the way). Could be an extinct ancestor of ours, or a relative that developed on a separate branch, or a true human, becoming a modern human (the only hominid living on Earth now). All humans are hominids. Not all hominids are humans.

From the fossils, they know the first hominids were still small-brained and ape-like, and they evolved in Africa somewhere between 7 and 8 million years ago – we last shared a common ancestor with the chimpanzee round about
then. By about 2 million years ago, there’s a species we can actually recognise as human with a bigger brain.

2) But here’s what they don’t know: what exactly happened between those dates: 7 and 2 million years ago? Haven’t found enough fossils to tell how each type developed, how many hominid species lived and died, and WHICH OF THEM evolved a much larger brain. That’s what everyone at Burukanda’s doing – filling in a bit of the missing shape of the human family tree. What hominid species lived? How? HOW did WE (WHY did WE, of all other animals on earth) evolve from ONE of those strands to develop language, artistic imagination, technological innovation?

Intriguing, eh? I might volunteer for a month or three of hard work on the dig some time, find out what it’s like. Fancy coming with me, Elly, one summer? Let’s do it! As I said, there are a few students here who’re equally fascinated by it – though they have to contend with Our Leader who thinks fossils are unhygienic so she dumped them in the lavatory trench! The dreaded lady hasn’t invaded my space yet, but I wouldn’t put it past her. Beginning to wonder if I need to watch what I write and where I leave my notes!

Got to finish, Elly! Vehicle’s about to head
off for Ulima, and I want them to send this for me, soonest. Next instalment in a few days.

xxxxxxCxxxxxx

Ella halted. Trying not to rush it, she went back a few sentences.
Beginning to wonder if I need to watch what I write and where I leave my notes!

Charly’s notes! Where are they? She’d have pages and pages of notes! The inspector never said anything about notes!

What’s happened to Charly’s
notebook
?

Heart hammering, Ella leapt up, rushed into the tent, and woke Joe.

Murothi surveyed the students across the canteen tent. They sat on tables and benches or squatted on the grass between. At his arrival, a wary silence spread from group to group.

They measure me
, he thought.
I am an unpredictable animal. They watch to see which way I will jump.
And something more – the air was polluted with undercurrents – he smelled it as surely as a poisonous stench.

Sergeant Kaonga was breathing heavily, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, mopping beads of sweat from his face. ‘Tomis is hunting the boy Sean and his friends. They believe they do not need to attend your meeting. And Likon is doing a lion’s work, facing Miss Strutton.’

Murothi took the list of names from him: fifteen boys, fifteen girls. The sergeant had ticked the ones who were already here – twenty-two in all – and crossed the five missing ones: Sean, Janice, Candy, Carl, Denny. Three were unmarked: Joe, Anna and Matt.

He allowed his eyes to drift casually over the heads of the students; a muted buzz of conversation had resumed. He
remarked, ‘Sergeant Kaonga, I have some new thoughts. I will tell you about them afterwards. I would like to know what you think.’

‘And I have spoken to the climbers,’ the other man reported. ‘Where they are now, the radio communication is very bad across the rock. They are near where Joe was discovered. Nothing more has been seen, I am very sorry to say – Hoi!’ he broke off, glancing past Murothi. ‘They are here.’

It was Tomis, and beside him, with an air of offhand boredom, Sean. The four others trailed behind, all talking loudly. As if the world must be interested in what they say, thought Murothi. He resisted the temptation to scrutinise them obviously. But an unexpected certainty settled in his mind. Somewhere in this conundrum of disappearances these five played a part.

They pushed through the throng, to the table furthest from the policemen. Murothi detected the reluctant ceding of space to them, some people even giving up their places completely and moving away. Clearly Sean and his friends were not to be refused. Even as Murothi mused on this, Sean caught his eye. The boy’s gaze was purposeful; he did not shift his eyes on.

The effort at a challenge smacked of the games played by some grown men Murothi knew who liked to think they were
all-powerful. Something deep in him tightened, became a little angry. Why is no adult stopping this? It is not difficult to see these undercurrents – the child, Ella, has seen them already!

Murothi raised a hand of acknowledgment to Tomis, and stood up. An instantaneous, keyed-up silence greeted him.

‘Well, you will know,’ he began, ‘that there is very, very great urgency to find your friends. By the time the sun sets tonight, it will be nearly five days since they vanished –’

Unexpectedly this produced a muted shuffling, like a preparation for something, and he paused, surprised. But almost at once the unrest subsided, and all eyes fixed on him again. Even Sean’s.

‘The search has been extensive: even now the helicopters are ranging over a wide area and ground searches are being made on and round the rocks. Climbers are on the north face of Chomlaya, where Joe was found two days ago. Unfortunately, as you know, Joe cannot remember how he got there.’

There were sudden loud voices behind the policemen, among them, Miss Strutton’s. Several students stood up, craning their necks to look.

‘Concentrate!’ Murothi’s raised voice snapped their attention back. ‘I know you have already been interviewed. But I have asked you here again, because you may have knowledge
that you do not
know
you have. The smallest thing! Think! Even guess! What could these people be going to do when they left this camp?’

The blank stares were like a wall.

‘Or perhaps you know who they were going to see?’

The silence altered: shock.

‘You mean someone maybe
took
them?’ This from near the front, close to Murothi. Everyone else looked towards the speaker, and then back at Murothi.

‘I do not mean anything,’ he said. The evident surprise told him the students had not imagined this. ‘At this point we do not know anything, except where they have
not
been found. We do not even know
when
they left the camp – by choice or in any other way. Do
any
of you have an answer to this?’

Across the group there was a ruffle of shaking heads, but still no words, and Murothi suppressed a sigh. Were English children always this reluctant to speak?

If you are on the road to nowhere, Murothi, find another road.

All eyes continued to watch him intently.

‘Who are friends to the missing students? Close friends?’

There was a tightening of the atmosphere. Why should such an obvious question provoke unease?

Two hands went up: he recognised the girls who had
spoken to Joe at breakfast: Janey and Tamara. Then another hand, and then several more. Five altogether, and then, just as he finished taking this in, a sixth.

‘Now we are getting somewhere,’ Murothi said briskly. ‘Thank you. Sergeant Kaonga and I would like to talk to you afterwards. Now, I am told these missing ones were often in trouble.’

‘Yeah, and they’ve run off, haven’t they?’ A single voice, loud, from the direction of Sean, but Murothi did not think it was his.

Fiercely, Janey countered, ‘They just got blamed for stuff that wasn’t them.’

Suddenly there was a low murmur, seeming to ripple out in concentric rings around Sean’s group. A few people glanced over their shoulders.

‘It’s true,’ asserted Janey defiantly, ‘
isn’t it, Tamara
?’

‘Too right,’ yelled someone else, Tamara’s emphatic nod matched unexpectedly by an explosion of several voices . . .

‘ –
someone hung this disgusting thing, dead, so the hyenas came
–’

‘ –
leopard, not just hyenas
–’

‘ –
Miss said it was Matt
–’

‘ –
they got pulled off going to Lengoi
–’

There was an intake of breath, fanned by a drift of whispering and something that Murothi could not quite pin down, like a shifting of rows within the haphazard scattering of students. Sean and his friends, initially in a solid knot of people, were a little more visible: Sean looking around with studied indifference, Candy and Janice head to head, talking, Denny and Carl bending forward, speaking to the people in front.

‘They whisper in people’s ears; they try to rule, Sir,’ commented Sergeant Kaonga quietly.

‘I see it.’ Again Murothi addressed the students. ‘Explain. What was hung? Where? When? Quickly, now.’

‘In the night. Before we went to Lengoi.’ The answer came from Tamara.

‘Little antelope thing – a dik dik,’ volunteered a boy sitting beside her. He was one who had identified himself as a friend. ‘Stuck up in this tree behind Matt and Joe’s tent. Samuel and Tomis took it out into the bush so the vultures would eat it. They said in the camp it would bring animals in, and that’s dangerous. They were angry!’

‘Angry with . . . ?’

The boy shrugged. ‘Whoever did it.’

‘And who was that?’

Another blanketing stillness.

Finally, ‘Dunno.’ From somewhere to the boy’s left came a scornful snort. He continued doggedly, ‘Miss Strutton said it was them – Matt and Joe and Anna – to make the animals get close to their tent so Matt could hear the sounds for his music.’

‘Ah! And you know it was not them?’

Energetic nods from several quarters.

‘And there were other times like this?’

No answer.

‘Pay very close attention to me,’ vigorously Murothi threw his voice across the gathering, ‘These missing people may
die
because we do not get information
in time to locate them.
Every minute, every hour counts. This is no time for secrets or games.’

Promisingly, a girl who had not claimed to be a friend, volunteered, ‘They started going off all the time with Silowa, so we don’t know . . . ’

‘They did not go on the expeditions with you?’

‘At first, yeah, but after that fight . . . ’ The girl flushed suddenly, looked across at Candy, and stopped.

‘Fight?’ Murothi prompted.

‘I wasn’t there,’ she said hastily, ‘just heard. It was on the Land Cruiser – when they went to Kasinga. Ask Joe.’

‘Does anyone else know about this?’

‘ –
something about seats and that. About Silowa
–’

‘ –
called him names
–’

‘ –
stupid stuff. Anna went crazy
–’

Murothi spoke carefully, recalling those sentences in Tomis’s interview:
Charly said there was something nasty happening . . . she said it was shaming.

‘So, it was stupid, but it upset Anna?’

‘Well,
some people
tried to stop Silowa going. Miss Strutton started it. Because she went and pulled down Matt’s tent and that, didn’t she, when . . . ’ the girl looked round her for support, and Murothi understood he was very close to something.

The girl did not go on.

‘I am confused,’ said Murothi. ‘Dead animals in trees. Fights. Is this Anna’s way, to fight?’

‘No! Never!’

‘So, things are said,’ he spoke slowly. ‘Are things also
done
?’

You could have heard the scuttle of a spider.

‘Truly, silence is speech, Sir,’ murmured Sergeant Kaonga. ‘And what of this teacher’s strange pulling down of tents?’ Pursued by Likon and both constables, Miss Strutton was heading angrily towards them.

‘ . . .
utterly unacceptable, I’ll have you know! I will not allow it!
‘

‘Sergeant,’ Murothi said urgently, ‘do whatever you can to
get her away. She is just a bully, and she cannot bully us.’

Sean, however, rose, stretched, elbowed his way through the students, began to saunter towards her.

‘Sean,’ Murothi kept his voice quiet, ‘I believe that is your name – return to your seat. My discussion with all of you is not over.’

‘Yeah, but –’

‘Return, or I will conclude that you are obstructing my investigation and I will wonder why.’

A look of sudden, sullen fury flooded the boy’s face. Simultaneously, Miss Strutton’s voice, till now continuing in argument with both the sergeant and the constables, shut off. She could be seen marching away.

A flutter of something – nerves, thought Murothi, surprise that she is defeated – passed through the students. Sean hesitated. Then he pushed back to his seat.

He has the intelligence to see which way the wind blows, Murothi thought. It is no more than that.

‘You
are
going to find them, Sir? I mean, in the end you are going to find them, right?’ Tamara said.

The young faces surrounding her were now unmistakably scared.

‘We do not know how Joe reached the other side of
Chomlaya. But he was there, and this gives great hope that the others may be there, too, or near it. This is why I ask you to tell us anything, anything at all that may help to direct the helicopters and climbers. Now, two final things. You write accounts of your days here – personal accounts. I wish to look at them.’

‘Miss Strutton’s got them. She’s looking at them for the competition.’

‘Aha – this competition again. It occupies a very great deal of your time here, I see! Well, thank you. You may all go. Except those close friends we will speak to, and,’ he paused, deliberately, ‘Sean.’

The general hubbub could not obscure the alert coursing through the ranks, particularly the ranks of Sean’s four friends.

Sean strolled forward.

Murothi had called the boy on impulse, and was not immediately clear what he should do.

He asked, ‘Before the disappearances, when did you last see Joe?’

‘Dunno. Didn’t notice.’

‘Matt? Anna?’

‘Same.’

‘At supper on the evening before they disappeared?’

‘Don’t remember.’

‘What did you do that evening. After the meal?’

A whisper of a pause. ‘Played cards. Hung about.’

‘Hung about? What does this mean?’

‘Didn’t do much.’

‘And where did you do this hanging about?’

‘Here. Like everyone. In the canteen.’

‘Till what time?’

‘Usual time.’

‘Be precise.’

‘Nine.’

‘And then?

‘We go to our tents. Rules. The big lamps go off.’

Murothi contemplated him. The boy contemplated him back, a direct, unblinking stare.

Very unafraid, thought Murothi. Very
annoyed.

‘You may go,’ he said suddenly. A flush came to Sean’s face; he did not at once comply. Then he pushed unnecessarily between Janey and Tamara and several others waiting for Murothi. Equally deliberately, they did their best not to notice.

Murothi checked the notes of the conversation he’d just had with Tamara, Janey, Zak, Antony, Gideon, Henry.

Confirmed – the missing ones were at supper. They sat apart. Afterwards they didn’t stay with everyone else round the fire. Silowa was not there. Not one single person saw any of them at breakfast.

These missing ones are bullied, he thought. By students and by a teacher. This trouble is inside, not outside the camp.