Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

Natalie nodded. “I remember.”

Sandys leaned forward. “The bloody boot will just be presented as evidence. We don’t have a witness to say when and where it was found, because none of the locals who did find it will come to court. They are Maasai, so we never expected they would testify. For that reason, we don’t know whether the judge will allow this as evidence, or whether Hilary Hall will object, since we can’t prove when and where it was found. But we shall argue that it doesn’t really matter where it was found, the crucial point being that it is Ndekei’s boot and the blood is the same type as Richard’s.” He took a breath. “But I’ve decided not to introduce the watch. That’s a problem, too. No Maasai will come forward to give evidence and although Eleanor could say who gave it to her, she can’t say what she was told about it, why the Maasai had it in the first place, because that would be hearsay.”

Sandys leaned forward. “That will all take up the first afternoon and maybe some of the second morning. Then we come to you. I shall lead you through your story, slowly, deliberately, allowing you to say exactly what you saw that night. I shall ask my questions in such a way that you will say what you saw several times over, so it is rubbed in. Then, when I have finished, Hilary Hall will cross-examine you. You have some idea of the line he will follow from your earlier encounter.

“He will probably begin in a friendly manner but at some point turn aggressive, trying to sow doubts in your mind, and therefore in the mind of the judge, as to what, exactly, you saw that night. He will ask how good is your eyesight and, I am afraid, whether you had been drinking, whether you were having an affair with Russell North—and/or Richard Sutton—and if either of them was with you when you saw Ndekei. All you have to do, my dear, is tell the truth, as simply as possible, and try not to get angry or riled by his questions. Remember, Hilary will be putting on an act. He will not really be angry with you, he doesn’t really think you had an affair with Russell North, and of course he knows you weren’t drunk. But it’s his job to go through these hoops. He’s just as convinced that Ndekei is guilty as we are. But that’s the way the law works. If you get riled at any point, just tell yourself Hilary is acting, playing a game.”

He cleaned one of his nails with the paper knife.

“And that’s our case. After we have finished, Hilary will probably argue that we have no case, that all our evidence is circumstantial, Tudor will dismiss it, and then the fun will start, when Ndekei is called and starts to run his defense, that he was acting according to Maasai custom. How much rope Tudor gives him is anyone’s guess but I would expect very little indeed, so that either way the trial should be over by the afternoon of the second day, or the morning of the third.” He smiled at Natalie. “It might make sense for you to leave Nairobi before the end of the trial. There’s no need to expose yourself to any more unpleasantness than is absolutely necessary. And I suggest that, if you can bear it, you remain in your hotel room all day tomorrow, day one of the proceedings. Or just come down for meals. I think a low profile is called for—yes?”

Natalie nodded. Her hands were tingling again. The tick typhus just wouldn’t go away.

A thought struck her. Had Jonas got the diagnosis right? Or was she more ill than she knew, more ill than Jonas knew? She felt a flush to her face. That was a fresh worry. While she was here in Nairobi, waiting to give evidence, perhaps she should see a specialist in internal medicine. Jonas was from London, after all, and not an expert in tropical diseases. But who could she turn to? Maybe Jack could help.

“I have one extra piece of information,” she said.

“Oh, yes?” replied Sandys. “What is it?”

She told him what Kees had said about Richard Sutton being homosexual and explained about the episode in the storeroom.

He listened intently.

“So you think Ndekei had a reason other than tribal custom to kill Richard?” Sandys had scribbled a few notes.

“I don’t know. Maybe they had an argument, maybe sexual jealousy was involved. I’m guessing.”

“Hmm,” said Sandys. “Interesting but I don’t see how we can substantiate any of it.”

“We could cross-examine him on it,” said Natalie.

“Yes, but think how that would raise the political temperature. Homosexuality is even more unpopular among blacks than it is among whites. And it would be a slur on Richard Sutton which he couldn’t defend himself against.”

He put down his pen and shook his head. “I agree that your new information may throw a very different light on the proceedings, and it certainly vitiates the defense’s likely argument that you yourself were having an affair with Richard Sutton. But I don’t see how we can introduce it. This man, Kees van Schelde, is dead and without testimony directly from him, it’s all too nebulous.” He shook his head a second time. “I’m sorry but we simply can’t go down that route. Does that upset you?”

Natalie bit her lip. “I’ve been in two minds over this whole thing since Kees first revealed to me that he thought Richard was homosexual. I was going to tell you a couple of weeks ago, when you might have had time to look into it, but I fell ill.”

“I don’t think that would have made any difference,” said Sandys. “This Kees man was dead by then, Richard Sutton is dead, Ndekei is the defendant—where would our evidence have come from?” He shook his head. “It was always a nonstarter, I am afraid. I’m sorry.”

Natalie shrugged. “What was also at the back of my mind, if you said that, was a deal. I realize that all I’ve told you is innuendo—of course I know that. But there may be some truth to it and, if there is, Ndekei may think we know more than we do. I therefore wondered that if the defense intend to allege that I was having an affair with Richard or Russell, then you could ask them not to go that way and, in return, we wouldn’t ask about Richard and Ndekei.”

A wry smile unveiled itself across Sandys’s features. “I admire your cunning, Dr. Nelson, and if you ever get bored in the gorge, you will make an excellent lawyer, thinking like that. But I’m afraid the defense is allowed to fling mud, but not the prosecution. Hilary Hall simply wouldn’t do a deal of that kind.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, it was a valiant attempt but we can’t do as you suggest, as you hope. I don’t see that we can use this information in any way at all, I’m sorry.”

He closed the file that was in front of him and stood up. “Having bravely come in the front way,” he murmured, “I think we’ll spirit you out the back.”

Natalie sipped her whiskey and looked at her watch. Seven thirty-eight. Maxwell Sandys had said he might be late, but how late was he going to be? She knew it was silly but she was uncomfortable, waiting in a bar, alone, even a bar in a hotel where she had her own room. People might get the wrong idea.

Not that the bar was very full at this early hour, but even so.

She was wearing her frock, the only one she had brought with her to Africa, and her wedge heels, her life-saving wedge heels that had enabled her to run away from those men outside the bar, when she had visited Nairobi earlier, with Jack. She and Jack were meeting up later, after his mysterious family meeting, and she was looking forward to their lovemaking in a proper hotel bedroom, where the beds were big and spongy and the walls were solid and soundproof.

She blushed inwardly as she thought this. Jack might say, as he often did say, that children mattered to him, but sex mattered to her—oh, how it had come to matter. She had never thought … she had never thought she would become so … so, demanding , that was the word. But she couldn’t help it.