The Clouds Beneath the Sun (54 page)

She had another headache this morning, though it had only started after she and Max had fought their way through the crowds outside the courthouse. What an ordeal that had been, people shouting, throwing tomatoes. She had, she thought, caught sight of the ebony walking cane carried by the man who had nearly assaulted her when she had gone walking late at night near the hotel, the evening after her first dinner with Jack.

Her hands were tingling but not badly. The most worrying thing was her skin, which had not regained its old tone since the tick typhus. No one else knew as much as she did about her symptoms, because only she saw herself naked and in full daylight.

Jack saw her naked but not in full daylight.

She thought of the night before and blushed inwardly. What they had done with each other’s naked bodies … what he had done to her with his hands, his lips, his tongue. In the hotel they had been able to make more noise than in the camp, in the tent. How erotic noise was, how liberating. How could she think about sex at a time like this? She knew by now that she could think about sex under almost any circumstances.

Maxwell Sandys rose. “For the record, Dr. Nelson, could you please state your full name and age.”

She did so.

He then carefully took her through her story. As he had said, he asked his questions in such a way that she recounted what she had seen several times, on each occasion using different wording.

As Sandys put the questions, Natalie’s eyes roamed the courtroom. It was the cleanest, coolest, most freshly painted room she had been in since she arrived in Kenya, save for the Rhodes Hotel. She had been in one or two courtrooms in Britain, once when she had acted as a character witness for an employee of her college who had been caught shoplifting, and once as a witness to a car accident. This courtroom had exactly the same feel as its British counterparts, the atmosphere being one of quiet but cold efficiency.

She understood that, and she approved the idea that justice should be efficient. But cold? It crossed her mind then, as it had crossed her mind before, that barristers and judges, all the people who frequented the courts every day, found that the cold routine helped them in their work, but that it made them insensitive to the needs of other people who, whether as a witness, a victim, a culprit, or a relative, used the courts much less often and for whom the outcome was much more important.

While she replied to Sandys’s questions, Judge Tudor made copious notes and asked one question of his own. “What lighting is there in the camp?”

He had a small voice to match his small stature.

Natalie had replied that there were usually a lot of hurricane lamps, two to a tent, five or six in the refectory tent, plus the light from the campfire, but that at the time she had seen Ndekei the only light was moonlight, starlight, and the embers of the fire. The judge nodded and resumed his note taking, yawning as his pen scratched across the page.

Natalie’s evidence took about an hour. Then Maxwell Sandys sat down and Hilary Hall stood up.

“Dr. Nelson, I have a few questions, so would you like a glass of water before proceeding?”

“Yes please.”

Water was brought. It was a small relief to drink water that didn’t smell of purification pills.

Then, “How far is it, would you say, how far is it from where you were sitting that night to where the man you say was Mutevu Ndekei was crossing the camp?”

Hall was no less English than the judge, no less British than the courtroom itself, come to that. His voice was very mellifluous. He was tall and stringy and had a long neck. She noticed that he wore an expensive watch. His pockmarked skin was slightly incongruous. She remembered thinking that the first time she had met him, for the deposition.

“I can’t be certain exactly. Perhaps a hundred yards.”

“Would it surprise you to be told that it is exactly one hundred and forty yards?”

“I’m not very good at distances. If the distance has been measured, I accept it. And it was dark.”

“Yes, it was, wasn’t it?” He paused. “We’ll come back to that.”

He brought out a large white piece of card. “I have here a map of the camp, I mean the way the tents are laid out. Would you look at it, please, and tell me if you agree it is an accurate map.”

The card was handed to her.

Natalie inspected it and said, “I can’t be sure the proportions are right but, yes, the overall shape is correct.”

Hall addressed the usher. “Please show the map to his honor and then to Sir Maxwell.”

They all waited while these maneuvers were completed.

Natalie used the time to look to where her father was sitting. He seemed comfortable enough and, now and then, he bent his head in a huddle with Eleanor and Christopher.

Her gaze fell on Richard Sutton Senior. Earlier, outside the courtroom, he had made a point of approaching her.

“So,” he said. “You kept your promise. I’m grateful.”

Natalie nodded. “There’s nothing for you to be grateful for. I promised myself that I would give evidence, not you. It’s the way I was brought up, the way I am made. There was never any need for your bullying or your famous friends in the construction business. There was never any need to have me followed. I shall give evidence today and I hope never to see you again.”

Russell had been listening to this exchange. He moved forward, towards Natalie, but she had walked on, down the corridor, turning her back on him.

Her exchange with Christopher the evening before had upset her. Not so much because she had had to … to face him with some harsh realities but rather because only then had she realized what jealousy had done to Christopher. She wasn’t an especially jealous person herself, though she had known jealousy only too well when she had been with Dominic. But to be jealous of your brother, as Christopher was of Jack, and to have to live with it, over many years, to have your parents reinforce their preferences every so often, must have been a living hell, an ordeal she had never known. Even if your parents favored your siblings unconsciously … well, wasn’t that worse? Unconscious behavior was in many ways more honest than conscious behavior. Christopher must have suffered in silence for years.

Sandys and the judge had finished looking at Hilary Hall’s chart.

Hall stood up and addressed Natalie again. “Would you agree that the camp was—is—shaped, broadly, like a large T, in which the refectory area occupies the top left-hand branch of the T, your tent is at the foot of the central branch, and Richard Sutton’s tent was halfway along the top right-hand branch?”

“Yes, broadly speaking that’s correct.”

“And the acacia fence hugs the right-hand side of the whole camp?”

“Yes.”

“Meaning that, from your tent, you could not see Richard Sutton’s tent directly.”

“No, I couldn’t. That’s correct.”

These questions were straightforward. She answered in full voice and with confidence.

Hilary Hall had put the chart to one side and reassembled his papers in front of him. He put on his spectacles, read the paper before him, took off his spectacles, and looked up at Natalie.

“And when you saw the man who you say was Mutevu Ndekei that night, he was walking from the refectory area to the top right arm of the T?”

“Correct.”

“How many tents are there on the right arm of the T?”

“Four, I think.”

“There are five, I have had them counted.” Hall paused. “Who were the other tents occupied by?”

“I think … Jack Deacon, who wasn’t there, Arnold Pryce, and Kees van Schelde. One was a guest tent, empty that night.”

Hall nodded. He paused. “Five tents, four occupied … How do you know, then, that the figure you say was Ndekei was headed for Richard Sutton’s tent?”

“I didn’t, not at first. We inferred it later, in view of what happened.”

Another pause. “You inferred it later. I see.” He laid down some papers, picked them up again. “It was dark that night, you say, there were no hurricane lamps alight, the figure you saw was one hundred and forty yards away. At that distance, in that light—or, rather, darkness—could you see Mutevu Ndekei’s features clearly?”

“There wasn’t much light, no. The stars were bright, and the campfire was still alight, just. So I couldn’t see Mutevu’s features at all. I knew it was him because of his build, what he was wearing, and how he moved.”

“She likes black flesh, that one,” someone shouted from the public gallery. “Sexy lady!”

Tudor reached for his gavel and banged it. “Usher!” he growled. “Did you see who made that remark? Who was it?”

The usher in the public gallery was pushing past some people and grabbed a young man, forcing him to stand up.

“This is the man, Your Honor,” he said.

“Eject him,” growled Tudor. “And make sure he doesn’t come back for the duration of the trial.”

He motioned Hilary Hall to sit down.

Tudor put down his pen, and the gavel, and rubbed his hand over his chin. He lifted his head up. “You people in the public gallery. This is your last warning. If there are any more interruptions, the individual making the interruption will be charged with contempt of court—an offense which carries a prison sentence, I may say—and the gallery will be cleared and closed for the entire trial.” He paused but held his gaze on the gallery. “Do you understand? I am not bluffing! Now,” he breathed, “all of you:
be quiet!”

He nodded to Hall and Hall stood up.

He gathered his gown around him.

“Dr. Nelson, we were talking about the lack of light in the camp …”

Natalie nodded.

“We’ll come to Mutevu’s clothes and movement in a moment, but let me go back over what you just said. You said you couldn’t see Mutevu’s features
at all
—is that so?”

“Yes.”

“So, you did not identify Mutevu from what you knew of his eyes, his nose, the shape of his mouth?”

“No, I—” Natalie was beginning to sweat. Above her, two large, carved wooden fans turned noiselessly.

“If you couldn’t identify his features, how did you know it was Ndekei?”

“As I told you—”

“From his clothes and his movement, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“So again, you
inferred
it was Mutevu?”

“Yes, but—”

“Let’s examine his clothes and his movement. First his clothes—what was it about them that made you think it was him?”

“His white T-shirt. Mutevu’s a big man, a strapping man, with a fine physique.” She paused, half expecting another interruption from the public gallery, but this time no one said anything. She went on, “Mutevu always wore a white T-shirt, tight over his chest. That’s what he had on that night.”

Hall was nodding but his features were quizzical. He frowned. “But you have already told us that you couldn’t make out his features. Strictly speaking, therefore, all you can say is that you saw
a figure
wearing a white T-shirt.”

“Yes, but one stretched tight over his chest.”

“And his movement? What was special about that?”

“He was shuffling. Mutevu has—or had—these Wellington boots that he was very proud of, but they were slightly too big for him and he shuffled in them. The figure I saw that night was shuffling just like Mutevu.”

“But, again, you
inferred
it was Mutevu, from the way he moved, because he shuffled. It was an
inference.”

“If you insist, yes.”

Hall put down his papers, put away his spectacles, took out some others, picked up his papers.

Pure theater.

Natalie knew that. She remembered what Sandys had said, that Hall thought Ndekei was guilty, like Sandys himself did.

“Is it not true, Dr. Nelson, is it not true that Ndekei’s Wellingtons went missing some time before?”

She stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“Let me refresh your memory. Did you not yourself
find
one of Ndekei’s Wellingtons after it had gone missing?”

“Yes, but only one went missing—it was stolen by monkeys and I found it outside the camp a day or two later.”

“Quite so. Thank you.”

“I don’t see what—”

“Thank you, Dr. Nelson. Let’s leave it there, please! For now.”

Natalie took a deep breath, and said nothing.

Hall paused, tapping his lips with his folded spectacles. He opened a notebook, found a particular page, read a few lines, closed the book, and looked up again.

Natalie was getting used to his technique now.

“Did you see this figure, this shuffling figure in a white T-shirt, carrying a weapon?”

“No.”

“This figure wasn’t carrying a machete, the machete that killed Professor Sutton?”

“I didn’t see one, no.”

“And when you observed this set of events, did you raise the alarm?”

“No, I—I went to bed.”

“You went to bed?”

“Yes.”

“It never occurred to you that you had just seen someone on his way to commit a crime?”

“No, I thought he was maybe visiting a woman. The very last tent in that part of the camp is a guest tent and, as I said, it was empty that night. It might have been being used for a … well, for a meeting, a rendezvous, an affair.”

“I see.” Hall nodded. Another rigmarole with his spectacles. This time he polished them with his gown. He adjusted his wig, took out his handkerchief, and wiped his lips. He put away the handkerchief.

“And how about you, Dr. Nelson, were you having an affair in the camp, with Dr. Russell North maybe?”

“No, no I wasn’t.” She was sweating slightly again. Her father was in court. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? Is it?”

There was a commotion in the public gallery, but the voices were muted.

Tudor raised his gavel but the noises subsided before he could bring it down.

Hall lowered his voice, so that his tone was almost confiding. “Is it not true that you used to sit with Dr. North, late at night, drinking whiskey, smoking cigarettes, and talking?”

“Yes.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Our work in the gorge mainly, the excavations, what they meant.”

“Professional talk, mainly, but not only. Did you never talk about personal matters?”