EBOLOWA 30

 

30

    

     It was a new feeling for Candace too.  She looked in the mirror for any external sign but all she could see was a deathly pallor.  She pinched some colour into her cheeks and decided that her new lipstick would look too garish.  The large cognac Harry had sent up with room service hadn’t calmed her racing heart and she was still trembling.  She felt drained and elated all at once, a weird high.  She’d nearly drowned and although she knew it was hippie mumbo jumbo, she just couldn’t shake the feeling that Annie had been watching over her. 

     No matter how down-to-earth she was supposed to be, a medic, child of the Enlightenment for God’s sake, it felt as if Annie was nudging her from the grave, first with the card, then Nkumbé’s picture, and now with what happened at the beach with Harry.  She looked closer into her eyes and a thrill ran through her: she’d been totally drained, exhausted in mind and body, and yet there’d been a moment when they’d been about to kiss.  Trouble was she couldn’t remember who’d pulled back.  

     She shivered and headed down to the bar.  Harry was in the banquette at the end.  His hair was brushed and he looked smart in a freshly pressed blue shirt.  Her mood dipped: it didn’t suit him. 

     “I ordered us some breakfast,” he said, half getting up.  “OJ, scrambled eggs, croissants and coffee - - all right?”

     “I’m not sure I’m up to it.”

     “It’ll do you good.”

     “I’m supposed to be the medic.”

     “Sure but you had a bad shock.”

     “The cognac helped, thanks.”

     “I needed one myself.”
     “You earned it.”  She looked him in the eye, wanting him to soften.  “I meant what I said out there you know.”

     “I shouldn’t have let you go on your own.”

     “I left you no choice.  I needed to be on my own to connect - - ” She shook her head: she couldn’t explain it and retreated to the banal.  “I know this isn’t how you normally run your cases - - ”

     “I don’t normally get to play in the big league.”  He slipped a flimsy discoloured cutting across the table.  “Take a look at this.”

     It felt ominous.  The way he said it made her heart pound and her hand tremble. She skimmed the first lines: an obituary in French for Nikos Petridis, a Greek medic born and bred in Alexandria, Egypt, and trained in Athens before collaborating with the Nazis.  She glanced up, “where d’you get this?”

     “I found it in the car when we were at the beach. It must’ve fallen out of Castile’s cuttings.”

     She nodded and went back to it.  “Dr Petridis eluded justice after the War and escaped to Douala (as he liked to say) with nothing more than the shirt on his back.  However, (as he also liked to say), such inauspicious beginnings did not hold him back and within a few years he had become Senior Pathologist in the Douala Gendarme with responsibility for a number of very controversial cases, including Ruben Nyobé, Elizabeth Palmer, and Annie Fayol.”

     “Oh my God.”  She put her head in her hands and closed her eyes.  “Controversial, in other words political.”

     “Exactly.  Nyobé was leader of the UPC - - ”

     “I remember.  And it’s implying there was a cover-up.”

     She pushed her plate away.  That Ice Maiden - - she drummed the table with her knuckles and the cups rattled, no wonder - - she pushed her chair back and got up, the room spinning round.

     “Hold it.”  Harry’s voice was fuzzy, his hand gripping her arm.  She wobbled and he put an arm round her waist.  “Let’s get you in the open air.”

     Reception and the staff were a blur and then she was standing on the front steps gasping for air.  Deep breathing.  “God - - sorry - - ”

     “No problem.”

     She was leaning on him.  “Jesus Harry - - ”

     “I know,” a murmur close to her ear. 

     “That bitch.”  She jerked upright, her fists clenched tight.  “She just bare faced Dad - - ” The words wouldn’t come and she cursed.  “She’s been covering up for years.”

     He squeezed her arm, “it’s what they do.”

     “No,” she wrenched herself free, “that’s not good enough.”

     “I know it’s not.”  He breathed out, more snort than sigh.  “We can get them, Candace, but not here.  It’s not safe.”

     “Maybe not - - ” She found a cigarette and with trembling hands lit it.  She wasn’t sure if it was fury or delayed reaction, the bitch O’Connell or fear. “I can’t go yet.”

     “Think about it,” he said, “it’s the only plausible explanation.  They killed Castile and Jules Robert before they could talk, and the way Castile had been tortured must’ve been to hurt him or because he had something they wanted.”

     “But Messmer - -” It was insane.  “You’ve only got Bamenda’s word for it, a guy inside - - ”

     “I’ve got this as well,” he said and passed her a small sheet of notepaper.  “I think they were blackmailing him.” 

     “Oh shoot - - ” She didn’t want to leave yet.  No way.  She took the letter.  There were only two lines, typed and in French with no address.

     “Dear Victor,” it said, “it’s an interesting proposition but I can’t deal with it at the moment.  I’ll send the Monkey instead.  Yours, G.”

     She read it again, careful to catch the tone and nodded.  Harry was right - - it was almost corny, clichéd. 

     “Who the hell is G - - and the Monkey?”

     “An intermediary.”  He shrugged.  “Somebody Messmer trusts.  Ten to one the Monkey was driving the Hertz car.”

     She wrapped her arms around herself and hunched her shoulders and frowned.  It made sense, Messmer wouldn’t be any different - - backed into a corner, people with power were always the same, brutal and unforgiving.  She turned her look onto Harry.  She wanted to know why it wouldn’t be safe to stay on, at least until she’d found Nkumbé.

     “Is there anyone else left?” she asked.

     “I don’t know, but that last line in the obituary about Petridis the lifelong non-believer returning to the Orthodox Church to make his peace with a death bed confession - - it’s more or less saying outright that he came clean about his career as police pathologist under Messmer.  It looks as if Castile and Robert knew about it and they’re dead, so it makes you wonder if anyone else heard it.”

     “Oh Jeez, yeah, like Robert’s nurse.  What’s she called, Fizz?”

     “Fitz - - ”

     “She’s got her sights set on you by the way - -“

     “She’s just a kid.”

     “Some kid!” Candace rolled her eyes. “You should see her.”

     “I never set eyes on her.”

     She stood back and looked him over and laughed.  “You’ll get your chance Mr Kaplan, never fear.  She can be your responsibility, and Miss Fleming mine.  Let’s go.”

     “It’s not ten yet.”

     “I don’t care if I’m early,” she said, hooking her bag onto her shoulder, “I’ve been waiting for over eighteen years already.”

      

 

 

*  *   *   *   *

 

 

 

American Presbyterian Mission, Douala

    

     Harry glanced at her as they pulled up in the Mission compound.  She was still pale but holding up.  She’d taken a beating at the beach and now she had the extra load of knowing for sure that Annie had been murdered.  As soon as they got inside he could tell that they’d been waiting.  An event like this came round once in a blue moon.

     “Dr Fayol - - welcome.”  A tall thin white woman with steel-rimmed eyeglasses and a coil of grey hair stepped forward with an outstretched hand.  “I’m Alison Fleming, the Mission archivist.  I’m sorry your visit is laden with such sadness.”

     Candace shook hands.  “This is Mr Kaplan,” she said, half turning.  “You may have seen him in the papers.”

     “Please come through to my office,” Miss Fleming said with a quick bird-like nod in his direction, “it’s more suitable.”

     The office was small and boxed in with books and files as high as the ceiling.  Facing into the room was a wooden table with a chair and a small set of steps leaning against the open window.  The archivist indicated the single chair in front of them.

     “Please, Dr Fayol,” she said, “Take a seat.  Mr Kaplan, excuse me - - “ She steered past him and took a folding chair from the corner.  “We were only expecting one of you.“

     “Thank you.”

     The old missionary sat down and put a hand on her chest as if to calm a beating heart. 

     “The Good Lord moves in mysterious ways,” she said and tapped a box file in front of her.  “I’ve been praying for guidance for months but for the first time in my life He’s left me on my own.  Are you familiar with the Bible story of Jacob and the fleece?”

     Candace glanced at him and shook her head.

     “Oh well, it’s just a question of faith, but you haven’t come all this way for a divinity class.  I gather you’re trying to trace one of our students from Ebolowa.”

     “Yes,” Candace said, “a good friend of my sister’s.”

     Miss Fleming took a thick ledger off the shelf.  “She was here in ’56 if I remember right.”

     “Did you know her?” Candace asked leaning forwards. 

     “I met her once.  A chance encounter in Ebolowa, just to shake hands.”  She opened the ledger. “What was his name?”

     “Didier Nkumbé,” Candace said passing her the studio portrait.    

     Miss Fleming flinched.  She straightened her spectacles in a move born of habit and wrapped her hands together in a white-knuckle grip.

     “Dear God,” she muttered, “I wasn’t ready for this.”

     “What?”

     “Didier was never a friend of your sister’s - - ”

     “But they climbed Mount Cameroon together.”

     “They couldn’t have done. He died the year before she got here.”

     “How?” he asked.

     “He hanged himself.  He’d been charged with the rape and murder of a young colleague of mine called Beth Palmer - - “

     “Elizabeth Palmer?”

     She nodded.  “We called her Beth. Everybody did. It was the most difficult test of my life and at the time the circumstances seemed cut and dried.  Didier was a bit of a tearaway and his sister - - ”

     “Esther?”  Candace had taken a battered bible out and flipped open the cover.  “Annie had her bible.”

     Miss Fleming sighed, “I should’ve known better.”

     “About what?” he asked.

     “About the world, Mr Kaplan, about the earthly powers that drive us - - ”

     “You mean sex?”

     “Lust for body and position.”  Her voice was so husky she was barely audible.  “I’m sorry, but this is the cause of great anguish for me.  Esther persuaded me to include Didier on an outing Beth had organized for her Bible reading group.  He was mixing with the wrong crowd and she thought he’d benefit from it.” 

     She hung her head before looking up.  “But it just gave him the wrong idea about Beth and the night she was killed he’d been bragging about what they’d got up to on the mountain.  The case against him was very convincing: he had no alibi for the time of the assault and he had scratches on his neck and face and Beth had black skin under her fingernails.  Three days later he took his own life, but Esther always protested his innocence and now I wonder if she may have been right.”

     “Why did you change your mind?” he asked.

     “Bizarrely, something that came to light a couple of years ago in the US.”  She took a sheaf of press cuttings out of the file.  “You’ll probably remember it.  The so-called French Connection case, when a shipment of heroin was found in an imported VW camper.  The owner, a man called Delouette, turned out to be an agent in the French Secret Service and under oath in the dock he spilled the beans.”

     “I remember,” said Candace, “It was all over the news. They tried to extradite a couple of big wheels from France.” 

     “That’s right, but I didn’t pay much attention until a friend told me Delouette had worked in Cameroon for an organization I knew well, the BDPA, Bureau for the Development of Agricultural Production.”  She took an old black and white photograph out of the box.  “They helped us on this project in Ebolowa.  A cocoa cooperative.”

     Harry took the photo from her: a very handsome white man was shaking hands with a large African in full traditional robes next to a freshly planted shrub and a spade stuck in the ground.  A crowd of gleeful children were gathered round with a few men in suits, a couple of beaming black women in long skirts and turbans, and a pretty young white woman with a blonde ponytail.  She was wearing an open-neck blouse and a denim skirt that barely reached her knee.  Her poise was somehow coquettish.

     “BDPA was named in the trial as a cover for the French secret service.  All their people were agents, including this man here, Guy Martin.”

     She pointed at the handsome white man.

     “Gee - - “ Candace murmured and nudged him under the table.  He nodded and nudged her back.

     “You sure?” he asked. 

     “Absolutely.  They closed the organization down and called everyone back to Paris.  There’s no doubt that he was, as they say in the press, working under cover.”

     “What d’you think he was he doing under cover?”

     The old missionary shrugged.  “I haven’t wanted to think, but it’s made me wonder who really killed Beth.”

     “You think he did?” asked Candace.