The Clouds Beneath the Sun (41 page)

“Those dunes aren’t very big. Maybe they didn’t exist in the nineteenth century.”

“You have an answer for everything, Jack.”

Christopher had left the table then, and stalked back to his tent.

Jack had gone and sat by the fire and, after a few minutes of desultory conversation, everyone else dispersed, embarrassed by the brothers’ behavior. Some went to their tents, Natalie to join Jack, just sitting, letting the shadows from the fire play over his face.

What was Jack thinking? she asked herself. Was Christopher smarting from his pilot error in front of her and Jonas?

Suddenly a figure slumped into the chair across the fire from hers.

Eleanor.

Jack looked up at his mother and smiled.

“You must be exhausted,” said Natalie. She looked at her watch. “It’s gone ten.”

“Those last thirty miles
are
bumpy,” Eleanor said. “We saw a lot of zebra and rhino and had to wait for them to move on. But I’ll live.”

She looked up as Naiva brought her a coffee and a small plate with a sandwich on it.

She sat, leaning into the fire, drinking her coffee and biting into the sandwich.

Jack hunched forward. “You heard about the Kalashnikov?”

Eleanor nodded. “Nasty. Highly illegal, of course. They won’t have a permit, but then they make a point of not recognizing Western—white—law. I’ll tell the local rangers but I doubt they’ll move in for just one gun. If they get more, however …” She shook her head.

“Did you get done what you needed to get done?” Jack kicked the fire.

Without speaking, still eating, Eleanor nodded. When she had finished swallowing, she said, “More than that. I saw Max. He had news from New York.” She bit into her sandwich again, chewed again, swallowed again.

The others waited.

Eleanor looked from Natalie to Jack and back to Natalie. “It would appear that Mr. Richard Sutton Senior is, as they say in America, a real piece of work.”

More biting, chewing, and swallowing. Eleanor was very hungry.

“So far as I can make out, he or his company have been the subject of more than one investigation by the New York Police Department, but they have never been able to get enough evidence to make the charges stick.”

“Those charges being—?”

Eleanor was again nodding and chewing at the same time. “Tenants, tenants in apartment blocks, are quite protected under American law. A landlord can’t just evict them, if he wants to upgrade a building, say, and sell it on. Sutton’s employer, however, the man who actually owns the real estate company, has a reputation for bringing pressure to bear on tenants—beatings, excrement through the letter box, their cars vandalized, that sort of thing. Of course, the tenants who receive this treatment are much too frightened to tell the police. They move on, which is what Sutton’s employer wants. And Sutton himself is the one who handles all the court cases and applications.”

She finished her sandwich. “But that’s not all, or the worst of it. Apparently at one point—this was a couple of years back—he was involved in a bidding war over a piece of land being sold for redevelopment. There were just two people competing for the land, Sutton’s employer and someone else. During the course of the bidding, the other man’s daughter was kidnapped—she was seven. Naturally, this other man, Sutton’s employer’s rival, lost interest in the bidding and dropped out while he searched for his daughter. The girl was returned, safe and sound, and no money changed hands. But, of course, that’s what makes it so suspicious. The handover of the money is always the most dangerous point for a kidnapper. In this case, the girl was just left outside a church. The only beneficiary of the whole business was the company Sutton is the corporate lawyer for, but again nothing could be proved.”

“The girl wasn’t harmed, you say?”

“Well, she wasn’t harmed physically. I can’t say what psychological damage she suffered and Max, or Max’s contact, didn’t know either.”

“That’s not what I meant,” replied Jack. “Do we think Sutton, or Sutton’s contacts, are capable of violence, real violence?”

Eleanor finished her coffee. “Beatings, intimidation, kidnap … if it’s true, it’s bad enough. And think: those actions were to secure buildings, they were done for money, for financial gain. In this case, in Natalie’s case, it’s Sutton’s own son, his
only
son, who is the center of the whole weather pattern. How much more determined will that make Sutton now, how much more ready to commit violence?”

She nursed her empty cup with one hand, warmed the other over the fire. “It was a long drive back from Nairobi and, yes, wearing. The roads are hard. But it gave me a chance to think, and I’ve come to a decision, two decisions actually.”

Her son looked at her.

“Max also happened to let slip that the British government is flying out a cohort of British journalists, for a background trip on Kenya ahead of the independence conference in London in February. They’re coming during a quiet time for news, between Christmas and the New Year. That seems too good an opportunity to pass up.” She paused. “We can’t dissuade Natalie from giving evidence, Jack—that would put her safety at risk. I see that now. Your solution, your idea, is the only road open. Let’s call a press conference. But here in Kenya, in Nairobi.”

Natalie’s heart lifted.

Jack, obviously pleased that his mother had come round to his view, nodded and sat back. “You said two decisions.”

It was Eleanor’s turn to nod. “Yes, I’ve added in a little thought of my own.” She stood up. “When we announce our discoveries, we shall say we think we have found an early form of mankind, a new species which not only stood upright but built man’s first structure. And we shall name him
Homo kiharensis
, we shall name him after the gorge. Let’s see the Maasai—Marongo and his elders—deal with
that
!”

•   •   •

Eleanor sat bolt upright in the refectory tent and tapped the table with her pen. “Let’s make a start, shall we?”

She looked around her. “Now that the decision has been taken to hold a press conference—and I can’t pretend that I’m any happier about it than some of you are—we need to make sure that we conduct ourselves as efficiently and effectively as possible. I have given some thought to logistics and how we might divide up the responsibilities between us.”

She had a sheet of paper in front of her and consulted it now.

“I will myself handle the invitations. I don’t think I’m being immodest if I say that my name, the Deacon name, is best known in relation to ancient man in Kenya, so we must use that. I can liaise with the High Commission in Nairobi, find out which newspapers are coming, add in some East African papers, the wire services, like Reuters, and some American papers that have correspondents here or elsewhere in East Africa, and I can also find out when the British delegation has its freest day.”

She looked up. “Christopher, I’d like you to find a place where we can hold the conference. Not a hotel, of course, all the main ones are whites only. I suppose a lecture room in a college somewhere would be a suitable alternative. And I’d like you to be in charge of the exhibits themselves—the jaw, the teeth, the skull, and the vertebrae. Good boxes, polished wood, colored cotton wool or satin, something that shows them off clearly and makes them seem special. Yes?”

Christopher nodded.

“You will do the pictures as well, of course, Christopher—very important. The knee joint, the jaw and teeth, the boulders. These must be as clear as possible—if we are successful they will be used in newspapers right across the world, so I want lots and lots of copies. Okay?”

Christopher nodded and smiled.

“And I want a few slides. That means we can darken the room where the conference is held, to make more of a dramatic impact. Can you do that?”

“Yes, of course. No problem at all.”

“But that’s not enough!”

All eyes turned to Jack.

“I’m sorry, Mother, but this is journalism, not paleontology. We need general shots of the gorge, of the places where these objects were found—and above all of the people who found them …
us …
Daniel here, Natalie, you, the rest of the team.”

“Surely they will have their own—”

“You know I’m right. Not every paper will send a photographer on a background trip. If we want the coverage we do want, now that we have decided we need it, we must make it as easy for them as we can.”

Eleanor looked at him for what seemed an age. Then, “Very well. See to it, Christopher, please.”

Christopher made some notes on an old piece of paper he had in his pocket.

“Jack, I’d like you—with Natalie, Jonas, and Arnold—to draft the actual document, the press release itself. Obviously, I want to see it, and finalize it, but I’d like you four to do the preparatory work. We’ll keep Kees in reserve, in case something goes wrong.

“We’ll decide which of the team, which of us, actually faces the press nearer the time, we don’t need to take a decision on that right now.”

She looked around the table. “Any questions?”

No one spoke.

“Good. It’s now the eighth of December. The Christmas break isn’t far away, when many of the ancillary staff have a week off anyway, people like Aldwai, and the other guards, so the timing is fortunate. I’ll let you have a date for the conference as soon as it is settled, but I think we want the press release and the photographs ready by—what?—let’s say, December 28. I’ll make sure the conference isn’t before the thirtieth. Is everyone clear on that?”

No one said anything, but they all nodded.

Eleanor scraped back her chair and stood up. The meeting was over.

As everyone dispersed, Jack took Natalie’s arm and led her across to Arnold and Jonas. “Look,” he whispered, “Natalie and I are ahead of the curve here. We anticipated this and have been working on a press release. It’s too hot now but let’s gather at my tent before dinner tonight and we can start going through the drafts we have prepared. What do you say?”

“What time?” said Jonas.

“Six, six-thirty; that will give us an hour and a bit before dinner.”

Arnold grinned. “I’ll bring the sherry.”

8
LOST

“K
ees, what on earth are you doing?” Natalie stood over the Dutchman, near the wall of the gorge. It was another baking day.

Kees was kneeling before two piles of stones. He wiped his brow with his sleeve. “So far I’ve been looking at the shape of the hand axes we find here, trying to fit them into some sort of sequence. The ones in this pile on the right,” he said, gesturing, “are from below the two million years ago level. The others, on the left, are from above that level. See, they are—on the whole—smaller, with sharper edges, and narrower points. It looks as though we have a change in technology, associated with your wind shelter, if that is what it is, and with the skeletal remains we have found.” He looked up. “Something else for the press conference, maybe.”

Natalie examined the piles of stones. She could see that what Kees said was right. “But this is wonderful. I can see the change clearly. Have you told Eleanor?”

“I’ve hinted at it, yes.”

“You must tell her immediately. If you are right, it’s major news. Why haven’t you brought these stones back to camp?”

He sat back on his haunches and wiped his face with the towel he kept in the back pocket of his pants.

“Because I wanted to be certain about my second idea.”

Natalie crouched down alongside him. “Go on. I’m all ears.”

He pointed to the stones. “Look at the hand axes. Whether they are the earlier, bigger, blunter shapes or the later, narrower, more pointed ones, they are greeny-gray in color and very hard. Geologically speaking they are chert.” He waved his arm in a horizontal sweep. “Look at the gorge. Here it’s relatively soft, reddish rock, quartzite, with iron oxide in it. So where did ancient man find the stone for his tools?”

Kees replaced his towel in his back pocket.
“Homo kiharensis
, as we are calling him, obviously found out, by trial and error, that chert is harder than quartzite, but where did he find chert in the first place?” He coughed. “What I’m saying is that somewhere near here—I assume it’s near here—will be a mine, man’s first mine, a place where he dug for chert, dislodged lozenges of hard stone to make chert hand axes. It may be an old streambed.” He looked up and smiled. “That’s my next project, to look for the mine. That should get me my Ph.D.”

“Brilliant, Kees,” breathed Natalie. “But how do you start looking?”

“As I say, chert is harder than sandstone. It produces smoother terrain, covered by fewer trees, more likely just savannah grass, or is washed out by streams when they break cover. I’ll get all these axes back to camp today and start looking for the mine tomorrow.”

“Let me help you now.”

“Great, thank you. Just make sure to keep the piles separate. I’ve painted a little number on each one, in white paint. And I have a map here in my pocket, recording where each one was found.”

“Sounds like another Ph.D. to me.” Natalie smiled at Kees as she picked up some of the stones and started the trudge back to the Land Rover.

How good it was to be back in the gorge, what she thought of as her natural habitat now, despite all its attendant discomforts—the heat, the airlessness, the smells. Today’s variety was baboon dung again—she was becoming a connoisseur.

She reached the Land Rover, with Kees not far behind.

They put one set of axes on one towel, the others on a second, of a different color, so there could be no mix-up. Then they went back for the rest.

Aldwai, leaning on his gun, watched all this from a distance.

“How far away might this mine be?” Natalie asked Kees as they retraced their steps.

“How long is a piece of string?” He smiled. “All we know so far is that early man acquired obsidian from as much as one hundred and fifty kilometers away. I don’t expect the mine in this area to be anywhere near as far away as that. Obsidian is light and the objects it makes, as you have seen, are small and for ceremonial use. Chert is much heavier, and those early hand axes, as you can see, are quite big, for everyday use. I don’t think early man would have ventured more than—what?—five to fifteen kilometers away, though you never know. Anyway, tomorrow I start looking. If I find something, it will be an extra announcement at the press conference.”

They reached the remains of the axes they had left behind, and both stooped to collect what was left.

As they did so, Natalie said softly, “You remember you said to me, that time we were discussing obsidian mirrors, when you first told me you were homosexual, that Richard Sutton was also that way inclined.”

Kees nodded, but immediately looked around, to double-check no one else was within earshot.

“Do you still stand by that?”

“Yes, I think so. Why do you ask?”

She picked up a number of stones. “Well, you couldn’t have known this but, once, before Richard died, I went into the storeroom, to return Ndekei’s Wellington boot—which had got lost and I had found—and Richard was there and he and Ndekei were standing very close. Richard
said
he had indigestion and was there for some bicarbonate of soda, but… well, I wonder if he was, really …” She tailed off.

Kees whistled. “What are you saying? That you think Richard and Ndekei …? Is that why you asked if married men could also be homosexual?”

She nodded.

“But that means … if you are right, the real reason Ndekei acted as he did was not … was not what he told the police.”

She nodded again. “Maybe the two reasons coincided. But you see why your hunch about Richard is so important. It’s important to me, because if Ndekei killed Richard for—oh, let’s say for something having to do with sexual jealousy—then that changes the whole picture, and it means the Maasai threat to destroy the gorge is founded, at least partly, on a lie.”

Kees nodded. “I can see that, yes. But I can’t give you a firmer answer, Natalie. I did notice that Richard looked at me in a way that… that I am familiar with. If he had looked at me in that way in Amsterdam, I would have had no hesitation in approaching him. But in Amsterdam rejection, if it happens, is fairly anonymous. Not here, which is why we never … why nothing ever happened. I can’t be much more help, I’m afraid.” He tailed off.

She nodded. “I did wonder, at one point, whether to talk to Maxwell Sandys when he came in from Nairobi the other day, to test how what you know changes things—”

“You didn’t say anything did you? You
promised
!”

“No I didn’t! Don’t worry, Kees. I didn’t. But … but I do think … things will only change, Kees, if you
make
them change, stand up for yourselves, get organized politically—”

Kees was shaking his head and biting his lip. “I can’t think politically, not for now.” He hesitated. “I remember that last time we spoke I told you I was in a minority, like you. Well, my minority just got smaller, by one.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember I told you about Hendrik, the man I share a house with in Amsterdam?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“And you may remember I told you he is a wine merchant. I had a letter from him in the last batch of post. He’s been to California, to buy some wine from their phylloxera-resistant vines, because the European vines have this disease and it’s affecting wine production, and therefore prices.” He paused, his features clouding. “While there … while there he met someone else.” Kees breathed in, and swallowed hard. “He means a lot to me, but his letter said he has met someone else and that he is emigrating to America, to San Francisco, with this other … person. That it is all over between, us. So now I feel …” He caught his breath and resumed picking up the hand axes.

Natalie didn’t know how to respond. She had no experience with this kind of situation.

“I don’t know what to say, Kees,” she whispered, as they both headed back to the Land Rover.

She was about to say that she, too, had recently split up with someone when she realized she hadn’t thought about Dominic for days. She said nothing.

•   •   •

“Ah, here’s Naiva.” Eleanor reached out and gripped the other woman’s arm. “Before we start dinner, can you tell us, Jack, are you going to do this Christmas what you did last time—for the children of the staff, I mean?”

Jack, swallowing some water, nodded his head. “Circuits and bumps, you mean? Yes, I don’t see why not? They seemed to enjoy it, all those who weren’t scared stiff of flying.”

“What’s all this?” said Arnold.

“It’s Jack’s idea … a collective Christmas gift, to all the children of the ancillary staff.” Eleanor held out her glass, so Jack could fill it with water. “If they want to, and if their parents give them permission, he takes them for a ride in his plane—not long, they fly over their own villages so they can see them from the air, they look at some animals from the air, and he lands and takes off again immediately, so they have some impression of speed. One or two of the very young ones were scared of the noise and the idea of leaving the ground, but most of them loved it.”

She turned back to Naiva. “There you are, my dear, you can tell everyone that Mr. Jack will fly anyone who wants to go—let’s say on the afternoon of the day before Christmas Eve, December 23. Is that okay, Jack?”

Jack nodded.

Naiva beamed.

“Now you can serve dinner,” said Eleanor, sitting back.

She waited for a moment, as Naiva moved around the table.

“Where’s Kees?” Eleanor said. “He wasn’t here at lunch. He must be back by now.”

“I’ll go look for him,” said Jack, getting to his feet.

Naiva placed a large bowl of pasta, smothered in a tomato sauce, in the middle of the table, from where they could help themselves.

She was just bringing a jug with more sauce when Jack arrived back, running. “There’s no sign of him. His bed is all smooth, his tent flaps were tied, everything inside is neat and tidy.”

“He’s never gone off before,” said Eleanor. “I don’t like this. What can he be doing?”

Natalie put down her water glass and relayed the substance of her conversation with Kees a few days before, about looking for a chert mine.

“Oh
dear,”
breathed Eleanor and looked from Jack to Christopher to Daniel. “If he got too much sun, became sick, delirious, he might have lost his bearings, stumbled across all manner of predators.” She got to her feet. “We must go and look for him. Jack, you take one Land Rover and head south, Daniel you take another and drive east, I’ll drive the third and go north. If he’d gone west he’d have been back in the camp. Arnold, you come with me, Natalie go with Jack, Christopher with Daniel. Jonas, you stay here in case your medical skills are required. If anyone finds him, we’ll radio in and you can drive the other Land Rover to wherever he is.” She turned to Naiva. “Sorry, my dear, keep some food warm if you can. I don’t know how long we shall be.”

She led the way to the Land Rovers.

“Don’t forget the game lights,” shouted Jack to no one in particular.

He took the second Land Rover and made sure a game light was in the back. He drove down into the gorge and up the other side, turned right, along the northern edge, driving as fast as he dared. After about twenty minutes he turned right again and sank down back into the gorge and up the other side, on the southern bank.

“Kees said that chert is a hard rock and that it probably supported only grassy vegetation rather than lush trees, but is sometimes found in riverbeds.”

“So we keep to the open spaces rather than the thickets and forests, that’s worth knowing. And we look out for dried riverbeds.” Jack pointed to a socket near the transmission. “If you plug the game light in there, you can use it to shine to the left and right of the vehicle. It’s far more flexible than the headlights.”

Natalie did what he said.

The game light, she found, was not only more flexible than the headlights, but far more powerful.

“Keep an eye out for animals,” said Jack. “You’ll notice their eyes first—their eyes reflect the light, like cats’ eyes on a road. If Kees has been attacked by a predator, then those eyes may be the first sign we have that we’ve found him, or his remains.”

“Bit ghoulish, aren’t you?”

“It’s nighttime in the bush, Natalie. You know full well that most of the animals we see during daytime are resting in the heat, and they come alive at night. Kees is in even more danger in the dark than he was during the day. During the day, his chief enemy was the sun. If he was searching less-covered areas, less covered with trees, I mean, he was at risk of sunstroke. If that’s what happened, I don’t think he will survive the night. I’m sorry, but that’s the reality.”

They drove on in silence, Natalie playing the game light in all directions. They saw impala, a lynx, countless baboons, wildebeest, foxes. At one point they saw four lionesses and Jack brought the Land Rover to a halt. “I’m going to approach them slowly. Wind up your window. Look for blood, signs of human remains.”

Natalie looked at him. “You really think—?”

“Yes, it’s possible. Of course, it’s possible. That’s why we are out here, now, looking for him.”

But they could see no signs of blood near the lions, nor any other suspicious remains, and they pressed on.

At midnight they heard Eleanor’s voice over the walkie-talkie.

“Anyone seen any predators?”

“No,” said Daniel’s voice.

“Lion,” said Jack. “Four lionesses, by Kilkoris Stones, but no blood, nothing.”

“I’m with some elephants now,” said Eleanor. “Near Sekenani, but they’re not moving.” She was silent for a moment. “Let’s give it another hour.”

When Eleanor came back on the walkie-talkie after another hour, however, there was no better news. “We need a change of plan. Daniel, you have the best eyes, so you and Christopher can continue looking. Jack, assuming Daniel doesn’t find him during the hours of darkness, you need to take off at dawn, so you and Natalie should get some sleep. I’ll turn in too, so I can raise the alarm at dawn and get some of our neighbors to lend us the use of their planes. We must pull out all the stops at dawn. Is everyone clear?”