Chapter 20

Stafford was about to reply when 'he was interrupted by a waiter who handed him a note. 'From the gentleman at the corner table, sir.'

Stafford saw a man looking towards him. The man nodded curtly and then addressed himself to his plate. Stafford opened the folded paper and read, 'I would appreciate a moment of your time when you finish dinner.' There was an indecipherable scribble of a signature below.

He looked across the room again and nodded, then passed the note to Hardin. 'Do you know him?'

Hardin paused in the middle of ordering from the menu. 'A stranger to me.' He finished ordering, then said, 'Mike Pasternak phoned half an hour ago. He'd like to meet you. Is four o'clock tomorrow okay?'

'I should think so.'

'He'll meet you here by the swimming pool. Maybe he'll be able to tell you who Chip really is.'

'Perhaps.' Stafford was lost in thought trying to fit together a jigsaw, taking a piece at a time and seeing if it made up a pattern. It was true he had nothing against Dirk beyond an instinctive dislike of the man but suppose… Suppose that Dirk's meeting with Gunnarsson at the Embassy had not been by chance, that they already knew each other. Gunnarsson had been established as a crook so what did that make Dirk? And then there was Brice at Ol Njorowa who had unaccountably lost tens of millions of pounds. If Dirk talked to Brice and found that Stafford had been at Ol Njorowa and Keekorok then he would undoubtedly smell a rat.

Stafford shook his head irritably. All this was moonshine -sheer supposition. He said, 'What else did Dirk do today?'

'He went out to Ol Njorowa, stayed for lunch, then came back to Nairobi where he went to the police and then on to the American Embassy.'

'Where he met Gunnarsson. Did he see anyone at the Embassy?'

'No,' said Hardin. 'He went with Gunnarsson to the Thorn Tree.'

'Could have been pre-arranged,' said Curtis.

'You're a man of few words, Sergeant,' said Stafford, 'but they make sense.'

'But why meet at the Embassy?' persisted Hardin. 'They're both staying at the New Stanley – why not there?'

'I don't know,' said Stafford, tired of beating his brains out. He finished his coffee and nodded towards the corner table. 'I'd better see what that chap wants.'

He walked across the dining room and the man looked up as he approached. 'Abercrombie-Smith,' he said. 'You're Stafford.'

He was a small compact man in his early fifties with a tanned square face and a neatly trimmed moustache. There was a faint and indefinable military air about him which could have been because of the erect way he held himself. He slid a business card from under his napkin and gave it to Stafford. His full name was Anthony Abercrombie-Smith and his card stated that he was from the British High Commission, Bruce House, Standard Street, Nairobi. It did not state what he did there.

'I've been wanting to meet you," he said. 'We've been expecting you at the office.'

Stafford said, 'It never occurred to me.'

'Humph! All the same you should have come. Never mind; we'll make it the occasion for a lunch. There's no point in having the formality of an office meeting. What about tomorrow?'

Stafford inclined his head. 'That -will be all right.'

'Good. We'll lunch at the Muthaiga Club. I'll pick you up here at midday.' He turned back to his plate and Stafford assumed that the audience was over so he left.

Stafford was ready when Abercrombie-Smith arrived on the dot of midday to pick him up. Hardin and Curtis had taken a Nissan and gone off to the Nairobi Game Park situated so conveniently nearby.

Abercrombie-Smith drove north through a part of Nairobi Stafford had not seen and made bland conversation about the sights to be seen, the Indian temples and the thriving open markets. Presently they came to a suburb which was redolent of wealth. The houses were large – what little could be seen of them because they were set back far from the road and discreetly screened by hedges and trees. Stafford noted that many had guards on the gates which interested him professionally.

'This is Muthaiga,' said Abercrombie-Smith. 'A rather select part of Nairobi. Most of the foreign embassies are here. My master, the High Commissioner, has his home quite close.' They turned a corner, then off the road through a gateway. A Kenyan at the gate gave a semi-salute. 'And this is the Muthaiga Club.'

Inside, the rooms were cool and airy. The walls were decked with animal trophies; kongoni, gazelle, impala, leopard. They went into the lounge and sat in comfortable club chairs. 'And now, dear boy,' said Abercrombie-Smith, 'what will it be?'

Stafford asked for a gin and tonic so he ordered two. 'This is one of the oldest clubs in Kenya,' he said. 'And one of the most exclusive.' He looked at the two Sikhs across the room who were engrossed in a discussion over papers spread on a table. 'Although not as exclusive as it once was,' he observed. 'In my day one never discussed business in one's club.'

Stafford let it ride, content to let Abercrombie-Smith make the running. His small talk was more serious than most. He expatiated on the political situation in Britain, ditto in America, the dangers inherent in the Russian interference in Afghanistan and Poland, and so forth. But it was still small talk. Stafford let him run on, putting in the occasional comment so that the conversation would not run down, and waited for him to come to the nub. In the meantime he assessed the Muthaiga Club.

It was obviously a relic of colonial days; the chosen, self-designed watering hole of the higher civil servants and the wealthier and more influential merchants – all white, of course, in those days. It was probably in here that the real decisions were made, and not in the Legislative Council or the Law Courts. The coming of Uhuru must have been painful for the membership who had to adapt to a determinedly multiracial society. Stafford wondered who had been the brave non-white to have first applied for membership.

They finished their drinks and Abercrombie-Smith proposed a move. 'I suggest we go into the dining room,' he said. He still had not come to any point that was worth making. Stafford nodded, stood up with him, and followed into the dining room which was half full of a mixed crowd of whites, blacks and Asians.

They consulted the menu together and Stafford chose melon to start with. 'I recommend the tilapia,' said Abercrombie-Smith. 'It's a flavoursome freshwater fish from the lakes. And the curry here is exceptional.' Stafford nodded so he ordered curry for both of them, then said to the waiter, 'A bottle of hock with the fish and lager with the curry.' The waiter went away. Abercrombie-Smith leaned across the table. 'One cannot really drink wine with curry, can one? Besides, nothing goes better with curry than cold lager.'

Stafford agreed politely. Who was he to disagree with his host?

Over the melon they discussed cricket and the current Test Match; over the fish, current affairs in East Africa.

Stafford thought Abercrombie-Smith was coming in a circumlocutory manner to some possible point at issue. But he was right; the tilapia was delicious.

As the curry dishes were placed on the table he said, 'Help yourself, dear boy. You know we really expected you to come to us after that unfortunate incident in the Masai Mara.' He cocked an eyebrow at Stafford expectantly.

Stafford said, 'I don't know why. I had no complaints to make.' He spooned rice on to his plate.

'But, still; a kidnapping!'

Stafford passed him the rice dish. 'I wasn't kidnapped,' hi said briefly. The curry had a rich, spicy aroma.

'Um,' said Abercrombie-Smith. 'Just so. All the same we thought you might. Would you like to tell me what happened down there?'