William Boyd - A Good Man in Africa

‘Just a sec,’ Morgan interrupted, before Fanshawe could be led off to bed. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t quite got the full picture yet. Innocence is dead, sure, but I don’t see where I fit in.’

‘Sorry,’ Fanshawe brushed his forehead absentmindedly with his palm. ‘Sorry I didn’t explain, it’s all been a bit of a shock. Innocence’s over at the servants’ quarters. She was struck by lightning during the storm, died instantly I believe. I called the police — a constable’s just arrived — but apparently there’s some ghastly mystical, what do they call it? juju problem. Magical hocus pocus, you know, couldn’t work out what they were talking about. Thought you were the man for that.’ He paused. ‘Can’t tell you anything else, I’m afraid. You’ll have to see if you can make any more sense of it. See if you can get the whole thing sorted out tonight.’ The Fanshawes moved to the foot of the stairs. ‘I think,’ said Fanshawe wearily, ‘it’s something to do with disposing of the body, I don’t know. Anyway Morgan, do your best, see you in the morning.’

Morgan said goodnight and the Fanshawes went off to their beds. He was about to make for the drinks, feeling sorely in need of one, when Priscilla returned with a cup of coffee for him. He took it from her, their fingertips touching briefly. He wondered what she was wearing under her robe. To his surprise she prodded Morgan’s stomach with a forefinger. ‘Yes, I thought so,’ she said. ‘Three sugars, no wonder. Must be like drinking syrup.’ She didn’t seem too worried about Innocence’s death, Morgan thought, in fact she was being very familiar. Was it a good sign?

‘By the way,’ Priscilla said. ‘Did you find that poet chap?’

‘Poet?’ Morgan’s mind went blank. Then he remembered his excuse from earlier in the evening. ‘Oh, that poet.’

‘Are there some more around?’

‘No, oh no. And…ah we never found the other one.’ He thought suddenly that he should be taking advantage of their being alone together. ‘Listen, Priscilla, can I…?’

‘Never mind,’ she interrupted brightly. ‘I’m sure he’ll turn up.’

‘What? Oh yes…but I…’ It was too late, she was already at the stairs.

‘Probably won’t see you in the morning,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it too awful about Innocence? ‘Night.’

She was gone, a flash of brown legs. This family, Morgan thought grimly, are not treating me right; they’re taking me too much for granted. First I’m Father Christmas, now I’m a bloody undertaker. He poured a slug of brandy into his coffee, stirred it up and drank it down. Right, he said to himself, let’s see what all the fuss is about.

♦

The Commission’s servants’ quarters consisted of two low mud-brick blocks facing each other across a well-trodden patch of laterite, down the middle of which ran a concrete sanitary lane. At one end of the square was a stand pipe and wash-place, a large concrete basin beneath a corrugated-iron roof supported by thick wooden poles. A large cotton tree stood by the wash-place. Around the two dwelling-units were many small lean-tos, traders’ stalls and shelters made from sticks, packing cases and palm fronds. Between the main road and the block furthest away from the Commission a sizeable dump had grown up over the years, on which sat two wheelless car chassis and which provided the main source of nourishment for the various goats, dogs and chickens that roamed about it unhindered.

As Morgan approached the quarters he became aware of the sounds of muted commotion. He could hear the babble of excited voices and a soft chanting wail of lamenting women. He began to feel a little nervous, considering for the first time what exactly he was going to meet. He was about to come up against death, after all, something he hadn’t done before. The death of Innocence. The improbable symbolic por-tentousness of this did not bring a smile to his lips. He walked round the comer of the nearest block and dimly made out a crowd of approximately thirty people gathered around the far end of the laterite compound near the base of the cotton tree. He walked across the compound carefully stepping over the sanitary ditch. He felt a slight twinge of alarm. He noticed some mothers with younger children sitting around lanterns on the small verandahs that ran the length of the blocks. As he approached the large group by the tree a figure detached itself from it and came towards him. It was, he soon saw, the policeman, dressed in immaculately starched khaki uniform of shirt, shorts and knee socks. In the starlight Morgan could see his black boots gleaming. He carried a torch and there was a long truncheon slung at his belt.

‘Evening, constable,’ Morgan said, all calm authority. ‘I’m Mr Leafy from the Commission. What exactly’s going on?’

‘Ah. The woman is dead, sah. Lightning done kill her one time.’ He turned and shone his torch. The crowd was not clustered around the body as Morgan had thought but was standing in appalled silence a safe ten yards away. The torch beam flicked across the black mass of Innocence’s body and there were appreciative gasps from the onlookers. Innocence had been struck down in the gap between the end of one of the blocks and the rough concrete base of the wash-place.

Morgan swallowed. ‘I suppose we’d better have a closer look.’ He didn’t know why he supposed this, but it was all he could think of doing. ‘May I?’ He took the constable’s torch and advanced towards the body. There was a collective intake of breath and much shifting about from the crowd as he did so. Morgan realized, with some alarm, as he approached that this — Innocence — was the first dead person he had ever encountered and he wasn’t quite sure what precisely he was expecting to see or how he would react.

Before he could get close enough however, someone ran out of the crowd and tugged at his sleeve. It was Isaac, Morgan saw on turning round, one of the Commission’s doormen and general factotum. He was a solemn-looking man with a Hitlerian toothbrush moustache.

‘Mr Leafy sah,’ he said. ‘I go beg you, sah. Don’t totch her. Make you nevah totch her, sah.’ His voice was serious.

Morgan looked at him in surprise. ‘Don’t worry Isaac,’ he said. ‘I’ve no intention of touching her.’

‘Be careful, sah, I beg you.’ Isaac’s eyes were wide with warning. ‘Dis he be Shango killing. Nevah totch the body.’

‘Sorry?’ Morgan said, keeping his torch beam well away from the inert dark lump that was Innocence’s body. ‘A Shango killing? Who the hell is Shango?’

Isaac pointed skywards. Morgan looked up at the stars. ‘Shango is God,’ Isaac said piously. ‘Shango is God for lightning.’ He illustrated this with a jagged sweep of his arm. ‘Shango done kill this woman. You cannot totch her. No person can totch her.’

Oh my sweet bloody Christ, Morgan thought sourly to himself, no wonder that sly bastard Fanshawe backed out of this one. Sweet effingjesus. ‘OK, Isaac,’ he said resignedly. ‘I won’t touch, but I have to look.’ He walked up to Innocence’s body and squatted on his haunches about three feet away. Clenching his jaw muscles he brought the torch beam up to play on Innocence’s face. He remembered her well, a fat jolly woman who was always in attendance at the Fanshawes’ functions. Now she lay dead on her side, the top half of her body twisted round so that her face blankly contemplated the sky whence the fatal lightning shaft had come. Not far from her body lay a galvanized steel bucket and scattered wrung bundles of washed clothes. Morgan imagined what must have happened. Washing some clothes when the storm broke, throw them into the bucket, prop bucket on head or shoulder and waddle-dash across the short distance from the wash-place to the shelter of the verandah. But she’d never made it. Morgan found himself wondering if lightning made a whooshing noise, if there was a crack, smoke…