The Constant Gardener

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Out of the finely steered gossip of Whitehall and Westminster; out of parroted television sound bites and misleading images; out of the otiose minds of journalists whose duty to inquire extended no further than the nearest deadline and the nearest free lunch, a chapter of events was added to the sum of minor human history.

The formal elevation en poste — contrary to established practice — of Mr. Alexander Woodrow to the estate of British High Commissioner, Nairobi, sent ripples of quiet satisfaction through white Nairobi, and was welcomed by the indigenous African press. "A Quiet Force for Understanding" ran the sub-headline on page three of the Nairobi Standard, and Gloria was "a breath of fresh air who would blow away the last cobwebs of British colonialism."

Of Porter Coleridge's abrupt disappearance into the catacombs of official Whitehall, little was said but much implied. Woodrow's predecessor had been "out of touch with modern Kenya." He had "antagonized hardworking ministers with his sermons on corruption." There was even a suggestion, cleverly not enlarged upon, that he might have fallen foul of the vice he so condemned.

Rumors that Coleridge had been "hauled before a Whitehall disciplinary committee" and invited to explain "certain embarrassing matters that had arisen during his stewardship" were dismissed as idle speculation but not denied by the High Commission spokesman who had initiated them. "Porter was a fine scholar and a man of the highest principle. It would be unjust to deny his many virtues," Mildren informed reliable journalists in an off-the-record obituary, and they duly read between the lines.

"FO Africa Tsar Sir Bernard Pellegrin," an uninterested public learned, had "sought early retirement in order to take up a senior managerial post with the multinational pharmaceutical giant Karel Vita Hudson of Basel, Vancouver, Seattle and now of London" where, thanks to Pellegrin's "fabled skills at networking," he would be at his most effective. A farewell banquet in the Pellegrins' honor was attended by a glittering assembly of Africa's High Commissioners to the Court of St. James and their wives. A witty speech by the South African delegate observed that Sir Bernard and his Lady might not have won Wimbledon, but they had surely won the hearts of many Africans.

A spectacular rise from the ashes by "that latter-day Houdini of the City" Sir Kenneth Curtiss was welcomed by friend and foe alike. Only a minority of Cassandras insisted that Kenny's rise was purely optical and the breakup of House of ThreeBees nothing less than an act of daylight sandbagging. These carping voices did not impede the great populist's elevation to the House of Lords where he insisted upon the title of Lord Curtiss of Nairobi and Spennymoor, the latter being his humble place of birth. Even his many critics in Fleet Street had to concede, if wryly, that ermine became the old devil.

The Evening Standard's "Londoner's Diary" made amusing weather of the long-awaited retirement of that incorruptible old crime stopper Superintendent Frank Gridley of Scotland Yard, "known affectionately to the London underworld as Old Gridiron." In reality, retirement was the last thing that lay in store for him. One of Britain's leading security companies was poised to snap him up just as soon as he had taken his wife on a long-promised holiday on the island of Majorca.

The departure of Rob and Lesley from the police service received by contrast no publicity at all, though insiders noted that one of Gridley's last acts before leaving the Yard had been to press for the removal of what he termed "a new breed of unscrupulous careerists" who were giving the force a bad name.

Ghita Pearson, another would-be careerist, was not successful in her application for acceptance as an established British foreign servant. Although her examination results were good to excellent, confidential reports from the Nairobi High Commission gave cause for concern. Ruling that she was "too easily swayed by her personal feelings," Personnel Department advised her to wait a couple of years and reapply. Her mixed race, it was emphasized, was not a factor.

No question mark at all, however, hung over the unhappy passing of Justin Quayle. Deranged by despair and grief, he had taken his own life at the very spot where his wife Tessa had been murdered only weeks before. His swift loss of mental balance had been an open secret among those entrusted with his welfare. His employers in London had gone to every length short of locking him up in an effort to save him from himself. The news that his trusted friend Arnold Bluhm was also his wife's murderer had dealt the final blow. Traces of systematic beating around his abdomen and lower body told their own sad story to the tightly knit group of insiders who were privy to the secret: in the days leading up to his death, Quayle had resorted to self-flagellation. How he had come by the fatal weapon — an assassin's short-barreled.38 pistol in excellent condition with five soft-nosed bullets remaining in the chamber — was a mystery unlikely to be resolved. A rich and desperate man bent upon his own destruction is sure to find a way. His final resting place in Langata cemetery, the press noted with approval, had reunited him with his wife and child.

The permanent government of England, on which her transient politicians spin and posture like so many table dancers, had once more done its duty: except, that is, in one small but irritating respect. Justin, it seemed, had spent the last weeks of his life composing a "black dossier" purporting to prove that Tessa and Bluhm had been murdered for knowing too much about the evil dealings of one of the world's most prestigious pharmaceutical companies, which so far had contrived to remain anonymous. Some upstart solicitor of Italian origin — a relation of the dead woman to boot — had come forward and, making free use of his late clients' money, retained the services of a professional troublemaker who hid behind the mask of public relations agent. The same hapless solicitor had allied himself with a firm of supercharged City lawyers famous for their pugnacity. The house of Oakey, Oakey and Farmeloe representing the unnamed company, challenged the use of clients' funds for this purpose, but without success. They had to content themselves with serving writs on any newspaper that dared take up the story.

Yet some did, and the rumors persisted. Scotland Yard, called in to examine the material, publicly declared it "baseless and a bit sad" and declined to forward it to the Crown Prosecution Service. But the lawyers for the dead couple, far from throwing in the sponge, resorted to Parliament. A Scottish MP, also a lawyer, was suborned, and tabled an innocuous parliamentary question of the Foreign Secretary concerning the health of the African continent at large. The Foreign Secretary batted it away with his customary grace, only to find himself grappling with a supplementary that went for the jugular.

Q: Has the Foreign Secretary knowledge of any written representations made to his department during the last twelve months by the late, tragically murdered Mrs. Tessa Quayle?

A: I require notice of that question.

Q: Is that a "no" I'm hearing?

A: I have no knowledge of such representations made during her lifetime.

Q: Then she wrote to you posthumously, perhaps? (laughter.)

In the written and verbal exchanges that followed, the Foreign Secretary first denied all knowledge of the documents, then protested that in view of pending legal actions they were sub judice. After "further extensive and costly research" he finally admitted to having "discovered" the documents, only to conclude that they had received all the attention they merited, then or now, "having regard for the disturbed mental condition of the writer." Imprudently, he added that the documents were classified.

Q: Does the Foreign Office regularly classify writings of people of disturbed mental condition? (laughter.)

A: In cases where such writings could cause embarrassment to innocent third parties, yes.

Q: Or to the Foreign Office, perhaps?

A: I am thinking of the needless pain that could be inflicted on the deceased's close relatives.

Q: Then be at peace. Mrs. Quayle had no close relatives.

A: These are not however the only interests I am obliged to consider.

Q: Thank you. I think I have heard the answer I was waiting for.

Next day a formal request for the release of the Quayle papers was presented to the Foreign Office and backed by an application to the High Court. Simultaneously, and surely not by coincidence, a parallel initiative was mounted in Brussels by lawyers for friends and family of the late Dr. Arnold Bluhm. During the preliminary hearing, a racially varied crowd of mischief makers dressed in symbolic white coats paraded for television cameras outside the Brussels Palace of Justice and brandished placards bearing the slogan 'Nous Accusons'. The nuisance was quickly dealt with. A string of cross-petitions by the Belgian lawyers ensured that the case would run for years. However, it was now common knowledge that the company in question was none other than Karel Vita Hudson.

* * *

"Up there, that's the Lokomormyang range," Captain McKenzie informs Justin over the intercom. "Gold and oil. Kenya and Sudan been fighting about it for well on a hundred years. Old maps give it to the Sudan, new ones give it to Kenya. I reckon somebody slipped the cartographer a backhander."

Captain McKenzie is one of those tactful men who knows exactly when to be irrelevant. His chosen plane this time is a Beech Baron with twin engines. Justin sits beside him in the copilot's seat, listening without hearing, now to Captain McKenzie, now to the banter of other pilots in the vicinity: "How are we today, Mac? Are we above the cloud level or below?" — "Where the hell are you, man?" — "A mile to your right and a thousand feet below you. What's happened to your eyesight?" They are flying over flat brown slabs of rock, darkening into blue. The clouds are thick above them. Vivid red patches appear where the sun breaks through to strike the rock. The foothills ahead of them are tousled and untidy. A road appears like a vein among the muscles of the rock.

"Cape Town to Cairo," McKenzie says laconically. "Don't try it."

"I won't," Justin promises dutifully.

McKenzie banks the plane and descends, following its path. The road becomes a valley road, weaving along a ridge of snaking hills.

"Road to the right there, that's the road Arnold and Tessa took, Loki to Lodwar. Great if you don't mind bandits."

Coming awake, Justin peers deeply into the pale mist ahead of him, and sees Arnold and Tessa in their jeep with dust on their faces and the box of disks bobbing between them on the bench seat. A river has joined the Cairo road. It is called the Tagua, McKenzie says, and its source is high up in the Tagua mountains. The Taguas are eleven thousand feet high. Justin politely acknowledges this information. The sun goes in, the hills turns blue-black, menacing and separate, Tessa and Arnold vanish. The landscape is again godless, not a man or beast in any direction.

"Sudanese tribesmen come down from the Mogila range," McKenzie says. "In their jungle they wear nothing. Coming south they get all shy, wear these little bits of cloth. And boy, can they run!"

Justin gives a polite smile as brown treeless mountains rise crooked and half buried from the khaki earth. Behind them he makes out the blue haze of a lake.

"Is that Turkana?"

"Don't swim in it. Not unless you're very fast. Freshwater. Great amethysts. Friendly crocodiles."

Flocks of goat and sheep appear below them, then a village and a compound.

"Turkana tribesmen," McKenzie says. "Big shoot-out last year over livestock thefts. Best to steer clear of 'em."

"I shall," Justin promises.

McKenzie looks squarely at him, a prolonged, interrogative stare. "Not the only people to steer clear of, they tell me."

"No, indeed," Justin agrees.

"Couple of hours, we could be in Nairobi."

Justin shakes his head.

"Want me to stretch a point and take you over the border to Kampala? We've got fuel."

"You're very kind."

The road reappears, sandy and deserted. The plane reacts violently, nosing left and right like a plunging horse, as if nature is telling it to go back.

"Worst winds for miles around," McKenzie says. "Region's famous for 'em."

The town of Lodwar lies below them, set small among cone-shaped black hills, none more than a couple of hundred feet high. It looks neat and purposeful, with tin roofs, a tarmac airstrip and a school.

"No industry," McKenzie says. "Great market for cows, donkeys and camels if you're interested in buying."

"I'm not," says Justin with a smile.

"One hospital, one school, lot of army. Lodwar's the security center for the whole area. Soldiers spend most of their time in the Apoi hills, chasing bandits to no effect. Bandits from Sudan, bandits from Uganda, bandits from Somalia. A real nice catchment area for bandits. Cattle thieving is the local sport," McKenzie recites, back in his role of tour guide. "The Mandango steal cattle, dance for two weeks till another tribe steals them back."

"How far from Lodwar to the lake?" asks Justin.

"Give or take, fifty kilometers. Go to Kalokol. There's a fishing lodge there. Ask for a boatman called Mickie. His boy's Abraham. Abraham's all right as long as he's with Mickie, poison on his own."

"Thanks."

Conversation ends. McKenzie overflies the airstrip, waving his wingtips to signal his intent to land. He climbs again and returns. Suddenly they are on the ground. There is nothing more to say except, once more, thanks.

"If you need me, find someone who can call me on the radio," McKenzie says as they stand sweltering on the airstrip. "If I can't help you, there's a guy called Martin, runs the Nairobi School of Flying. Flying for thirty years. Trained in Perth and Oxford. Mention my name."

Thanks, says Justin again and, in his anxiety to be courteous, writes it down.

"Want to borrow my flight bag?" McKenzie asks, making a gesture with the black briefcase in his right hand. "Long-barreled target pistol, if you're interested. Gives you a chance at forty yards."

"Oh, I'd be no good at ten," Justin exclaims, with the kind of self-effacing laugh that dates from his days before Tessa.

"And this is Justice," McKenzie says, introducing a grizzled philosopher in a tattered T-shirt and green sandals who has appeared from nowhere. "Justice is your driver. Justin, meet Justice. Justice, meet Justin. Justice has a gentleman called Ezra who will be riding point with him. Anything more I can do for you?"

Justin draws a thick envelope from the pocket of his bush jacket. "I'd like you please to post this for me when you're next in Nairobi. Just the ordinary mail will do fine. She's not a girlfriend. She's my lawyer's aunt."

"Tonight soon enough?"

"Tonight would be splendid."

"Take care then," says McKenzie, slipping the envelope into his flight bag.

"Indeed I will," says Justin, and this time manages not to tell McKenzie he's been very kind.

* * *

The lake was white and gray and silver and the overhead sun made black and white stripes of Mickie's fishing boat, black in the shadow of the canopy, white and pitiless where the sun shone freely on the woodwork, white on the skin of the freshwater that popped and bubbled with the rising fish, white on the misted gray mountains that arched their backs under the sun's heat, white where it struck the black faces of old Mickie and his young companion the poisonous Abraham — a sneering, secretly angry child; McKenzie was quite right — who for some unfathomable reason spoke German and not English, so that the conversation, what there was of it, was three-cornered: German to Abraham, English to old Mickie and their own version of kiSwahili when they spoke between themselves. White also whenever Justin looked at Tessa, which was often, perched tomboy-style on the ship's prow where she was determined to sit despite the crocodiles, with one hand for the boat the way her father had taught her and Arnold never far away in case she slipped. On the boat's radio an English-language cookery program was extolling the virtues of sun-dried tomatoes.

At first it had been difficult for Justin to explain his destination in any language. They might never have heard of Allia Bay. Allia Bay didn't interest them in the least. Old Mickie wanted to take him due southeast to Wolfgang's Oasis where he belonged, and the poisonous Abraham had hotly seconded the motion: the Oasis was where Wazungu stayed, it was the first hotel in the region, famous for its film stars and rock stars and millionaires, the Oasis without a doubt was where Justin was heading, whether he knew it or not. It was only when Justin drew a small photograph of Tessa from his wallet — a passport photograph, nothing that had been defiled by the newspapers — that the purpose of his mission became clear to them, and they became quiet and uneasy. So Justin wished to visit the place where Noah and the Mzungu woman were murdered? Abraham demanded.

Yes, please.

Was Justin then aware that many police and journalists had visited this place, that everything that could be found there had been found, also that Lodwar police and the Nairobi flying squad had separately and together decreed the place to be a forbidden area to tourists, sightseers, trophy-hunters and anybody else who had no business there? Abraham persisted.

Justin was not, but his intention remained the same, and he was prepared to pay generously to see it fulfilled.

Or that the place was well known to be haunted, and had been even before Noah and the Mzungu were murdered? — but with much less conviction, now that the financial side was settled.

Justin vowed he had no fear of ghosts.

At first in deference to the gloomy nature of their errand, the old man and his helper had adopted a melancholy pose, and it took all Tessa's determined good spirits to bounce them out of it. But as usual, with the help of a string of witty comments from the prow, she succeeded. The presence of other fishing boats farther up the sky was also a help. She called out to them — what have you caught? — and they called back to her — this many red fish, this many blue, this many rainbow. And so infectious was her enthusiasm that Justin soon persuaded Mickie and Abraham to put a line out themselves, which also had the effect of diverting their curiosity into more productive paths.

"You are all right, sir?" Mickie asked him, from quite close, peering like an old doctor into his eyes.

"I'm fine. Fine. Just fine."

"I think you have a fever, sir. Why don't you relax under the canopy and let me bring you some cold drink."

"Fine. We both will."

"Thank you, sir. I have to attend to the boat."

Justin sits under the canopy, using the ice from his glass to cool his neck and forehead while he rides with the motion of the boat. It is an odd company they have brought with them, he has to admit, but then Tessa is absolutely wanton when it comes to extending invitations, and really one just has to bite one's lip and double the number one first thought of. Good to see Porter here, and you too, Veronica, and your baby Rosie always a pleasure, no — no objections there. And Tessa always seems to get that bit more out of Rosie than anybody else can. But Bernard and Celly Pellegrin a total mistake, darling, and how absolutely typical of Bernard to include three rackets, not just one, in his beastly tennis kit. As for the Woodrows-honestly, it's time you overcame your laudable but misplaced conviction that even the most unpromising among us have hearts of gold, and you're the one to prove it to them. And for God's sake stop peeking at me as if you're about to make love to me at any moment. Sandy's going half crazy from looking down your shirtfront as it is.

"What is it?" Justin asked sharply.

At first he thought it was Mustafa. Gradually he realized that Mickie had taken a fistful of his shirt above his right shoulder blade and was shaking it to wake him.

"We've arrived, sir, on the eastern shore. We are close to the place where the tragedy happened."

"How far?"

"To walk, ten minutes, sir. We will accompany you."

"That's not necessary."

"It is most necessary, sir."

"Was fehlt dir?" Abraham asked, over Mickie's shoulder.

"Nichts. Nothing. I'm fine. You've both been very kind."

"Drink some more water, sir," Mickie said, holding a fresh glass to him.

They make quite a column, clambering over the slabs of lava rock here at the cradle of civilization, Justin has to admit. "Never realized there were so many civilized chaps around," he tells Tessa, doing his English bloody fool act, and Tessa laughs for him, that silent laugh she does when she smiles delightedly and shakes and generally does all the right things but no sound issues. Gloria leads the way, well, she would. With that royal British stride of hers and those elbows she can outmarch the lot of us. Pellegrin bitching, which is also normal. His wife Celly saying she can't take the heat, what's new? Rosie Coleridge on her dad's back, having a good sing in Tessa's honor — how on earth did we all fit into the boat?

Mickie had stopped, one hand held lightly on Justin's arm. Abraham was standing close behind him.

"This is the place where your wife passed away, sir," said Mickie softly.

But he need not have bothered because Justin knew exactly — even if he didn't know how Mickie had deduced that he was Tessa's husband, but perhaps Justin had informed him of this fact in his sleep. He had seen the place in photographs, in the gloom of the lower ground and in his dreams. Here ran what looked like a dried riverbed. Over there stood the sad little heap of stones erected by Ghita and her friends. Around it — but spreading in all directions, alas — lay the junk that was these days inseparable from any well-publicized event: discarded film cassettes and boxes, cigarette packets, plastic bottles and paper plates. Higher up — maybe thirty or so yards up the white rock slope — ran the dust road where the long-wheelbase safari truck had pulled alongside Tessa's jeep and shot its wheel off, sending the jeep careering down this same slope with Tessa's murderers in hot pursuit with their pangas and guns and whatever else they were carrying. And over there — Mickie was silently pointing them out with his gnarled old finger — were the blue smears of the Oasis four-track's paintwork left on the rock face as it slid into the gully. And the rock face, unlike the black volcanic rock surrounding it, was white as a gravestone. And perhaps the brown stains on it were indeed blood, as Mickie was suggesting. But when Justin examined them, he concluded they might as well be lichen. Otherwise he observed little of interest to the observant gardener, beyond yellow spear grass and a row of doum palms that as usual looked as though they had been planted by the municipality. A few euphorbia shrubs — well, naturally-making themselves a precarious living among chunks of black basalt. And a spectral white commiphora tree — when were they ever in leaf? — its spindly branches stretched to either side of it like the wings of a moth. He selected a basalt boulder and sat on it. He felt light-headed, but lucid. Mickie handed him a water bottle and Justin took a pull from it, screwed the top back on and set it at his feet.

"I'd like to be alone for a little while, Mickie," he said. "Why don't you and Abraham go and catch a fish and I'll call to you from the shore when I'm done?"

"We would prefer to wait for you with the boat, sir."

"Why not fish?"

"We would prefer to remain here with you. You have a fever."

"It's going now. Just a couple of hours." He looked at his watch. It was four in the afternoon. "When's dusk?"

"At seven o'clock, sir."

"Fine. Well, you can have me at dusk. If I need anything I'll call." And more firmly, "I want to be alone, Mickie. That's what I came here for."

"Yes sir."

He didn't hear them leave. For a while he heard no sounds at all, except for the odd popping of the lake, and the putter of an occasional fishing boat. He heard a jackal howl, and a lot of backchat from a family of vultures that had commandeered a doum palm down on the lakeside. And he heard Tessa telling him that if she had it all to do again, this was still where she would want to do her dying, in Africa, on her way to heading off a great injustice. He drank some water, stood up, stretched and wandered over to the paint marks because that was where he knew for a surety that he was close to her. It didn't take much working out. If he put his hands on the marks he was about eighteen inches from her, if you discounted the width of the car door. Or maybe twice that much if you imagined Arnold in between. He even managed to have a bit of a laugh with her because he'd always had the devil's own job persuading her to wear her seat belt. On potholed African roads, she had argued, with her usual stubbornness, you were better off hanging loose: at least you could weave and dodge around inside the car instead of being plonked like a sack of potatoes into every bloody crater. And from the paint marks he made his way to the bottom of the gully and, hands in pockets, stood beside the dried-up riverbed, staring back at the spot where the jeep had come to rest and imagining poor Arnold being hauled senseless from it, to be taken to his place of prolonged and terrible execution.

Then, as a methodical man, he returned to the boulder he had chosen as his sitting place when he first came here, and sat down on it again, and devoted himself to the study of a small blue flower not unlike the phlox that he had planted in the front garden of their house in Nairobi. But the problem was, he was not absolutely sure the flower belonged to the place where he was seeing it, or whether in his mind he had transplanted it from Nairobi or, come to think of it, from the meadows surrounding his hotel in the Engadine. Also his interest in flora generally was at a low ebb. He no longer wished to cultivate the image of a sweet chap passionately interested in nothing except phlox, asters, freesias and gardenias. And he was still reflecting on this transition in his nature when he heard the sound of an engine from the direction of the shore, first the little explosion of it as it sprang to life, then its steady chugging as it faded into the distance. Mickie's decided to have a go after all, he thought; for your true fisherman, rising fish at dusk are an irresistible temptation. And after that, he remembered his attempts to persuade Tessa to go fishing with him, which invariably ended with no fish but a lot of undisciplined lovemaking, which was perhaps why he was so keen on persuading her. And he was still humorously contemplating the logistics of making love in the bottom of a small boat when he had a different idea about Mickie's fishing expedition, namely that it wasn't happening.

Mickie didn't mess about, change his mind, give in to whims.

That wasn't Mickie at all.

The thing about Mickie that you knew the moment you set eyes on him, and Tessa had said the same, was that this fellow was your born family retainer, which was why, to be honest, it was easy to confuse him with Mustafa.

So Mickie hadn't gone fishing.

But he'd gone. Whether he'd taken the poisonous Abraham with him was a moot point. But Mickie had gone, and the boat had gone. Back across the lake — that boat's engine had faded and faded.

So why had he gone? Who had told him to go? Paid him to go? Ordered him to go? Threatened him if he didn't go? What message had Mickie received, over his boat's radio, or man to man from another boat or somebody on the shore, that had persuaded him, against all the natural lines of his good face, to walk out on a job when he hadn't been paid for it? Or had Markus Lorbeer the compulsive Judas taken out some more insurance with his friends in the industry? He was still mulling over this possibility when he heard another engine, this time from the direction of the road. The dusk was falling quickly by now, and the light already fickle, so he might have expected a passing car at this hour to put on its sidelights at the very least, but this one — car or whatever — hadn't done so, which was a puzzle to him.

One thought he had — probably because the car was moving at a snail's pace — was that it was Ham, driving at his habitual five miles an hour below the speed limit, come to announce that Justin's letters to the ferocious aunt in Milan had been safely received, and that Tessa's great injustice would shortly be righted on the lines of her oft-stated conviction that the system must be forced to mend its own ways from within. Then he thought: It's not a car at all, I've got it wrong. It's a small plane. Then the sound stopped altogether, which almost succeeded in convincing him it had been an illusion in the first place — that he was hearing Tessa's jeep, for instance, and any second it was going to pull up just above him on the road there and she was going to hop out wearing both Mephisto boots, and come skipping down the slope to congratulate him on taking over where she'd left off. But it wasn't Tessa's jeep, it didn't belong to anyone he knew. What he was looking at was the elusive shape of a long-wheelbase jeep or four-track — no, safari truck — either dark blue or dark green, in the fast-vanishing light it was hard to tell, and it had stopped in exactly the spot where he had just been watching Tessa. And although he had been expecting something of the kind ever since he had returned to Nairobi — even in a remote way wishing for it, and had therefore regarded Donohue's warning to him as superfluous — he greeted the sight with an extraordinary sense of exultation, not to say completion. He had met her betrayers, of course — Pellegrin, Woodrow, Lorbeer. He had rewritten her scandalously discarded memorandum for her — if in a piecemeal form, but that couldn't be avoided. And now, it seemed, he was about to share with her the last of all her secrets.

A second truck had pulled up behind the first. He heard light footsteps and made out the fast-moving shapes of fit men in bulky clothes crouching at the run. He heard a man or woman whistle and an answering whistle from behind him. He imagined, and perhaps it was true, that he caught a whiff of Sportsman cigarette smoke. The darkness grew suddenly deeper as lights came on around him and the brightest of them picked him out, and held him in its beam.

He heard a sound of feet sliding down white rock.