Death in Kenya by M. M. Kaye

Author:M. M. Kaye
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250089250
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

11

Breakfast was barely over on the following morning when young Mr Hennessy and his police askaris descended upon Flamingo.

Em interviewed them briefly on the verandah and dismissed them to the kitchen quarters and the labour lines in charge of Eden, there to pursue their enquiries into the disappearance of Kamau and a pair of scarlet dungarees.

An hour later Gilly had appeared with a batch of files, and she retired with him into the office, having refused her niece’s offer of assistance.

Victoria, left to her own devices, fetched a hat and went out to explore the garden, and she had been following a narrow path that wound through bushes of bougainvillaea, plumbago and orange trumpet flower when she came suddenly upon a stranger. A middle-aged woman in a green cotton dress who wore a battered wide-brimmed double terai hat jammed down over a riot of grey curls, and who appeared to have lost something, for she was bending down and peering anxiously about her.

‘Can I help?’ enquired Victoria.

The woman jumped violently, and said in a breathless voice: ‘Oh dear, how you startled me! I believe there’s a puff adder in there. They are such dangerous creatures. You must be Victoria. I used to know your parents – oh, years ago. You wouldn’t remember me. I’m Mabel Brandon. Our place, Brandonmead, is just over there——’ She gestured vaguely to the west with one hand and began to move on down the path, still talking, so that Victoria had perforce to follow her:

‘We have a sort of mutual right-of-way between Flamingo and our land,’ said Mrs Brandon. ‘It saves us going miles by road. There’s a track that runs right round this side of the lake across at least a dozen estates. I believe it used to be a game track once. There was any amount of big game in the valley when we first came here. Rhino and lion and buffalo, and even elephant. But of course they’re gone now. Just as well really. It would have made farming impossible. Of course lions still come over sometimes from the Masai territory, though they get killed off very quickly. I believe one was seen at Crater Lake only last year. We must take you there. Em said something about a picnic. But she will have cancelled that of course.’

Mrs Brandon had quickened her steps as she talked and now she was walking quite briskly. Almost as though she did not want Victoria to linger among the bushes and was hurrying her away from them, talking trivialities to distract her attention from the fact.

The path took a sharp downward curve and came out upon a long belt of open ground, where a narrow trolley line ran parallel with the shamba and carried the heavy piles of maize and vegetables and bananas up to the higher ground where the Flamingo lorries were loaded. Mrs Brandon paused irresolutely and murmured something about running up to see Gilly.

‘He won’t be there,’ volunteered Victoria. ‘He’s up at the house with Aunt Em.

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