Love and Death Among the Cheetahs by Rhys Bowen

Author:Rhys Bowen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

AUGUST 12

ON THE ROAD IN THE WANJOHI VALLEY

I feel awful. I didn’t like Lord Cheriton, but nobody should die like this, eaten as if he was a joint of meat.

“We must go back to Idina’s,” Darcy said. “She’s closer than Diddy, and she has a telephone. She can call the police and get Freddie before he sets off on his safari.”

“She won’t be awake. None of them will,” I said.

“Too bad. We’ll have to wake her.” He went back to Bwana’s motorcar and turned off the engine. “No point in leaving that running,” he said. “And I don’t want to waste time trying to move it.”

I suddenly realized I was going to be sick. The alcohol from the night before had made me feel queasy since I woke up, but the sight of that body was a final straw. I rushed into the grass beside the road and emptied my stomach. Darcy came up to me and put a comforting hand on my back. “It’s only natural,” he said. “It was a pretty gruesome sight, wasn’t it?”

“It was horrible,” I said, reaching for a handkerchief to wipe my mouth. “That poor man. I didn’t like him but I wouldn’t have wished this on my worst enemy. What an awful way to die.”

Darcy stood staring back toward the place where Bwana lay. “It doesn’t make sense to me. He had been in this country for years. I would have said he knew it better than anyone else. So why would he have let himself be caught unawares by a big cat—if that’s what it was.”

“What else would have eaten part of his body?”

“Hyenas. They are the scavengers, aren’t they? If they’d smelled him lying there dead they would have had a good feast.”

“Don’t.” I shivered. “We should get help as soon as possible so that those revolting vultures don’t eat the rest of him.”

Darcy held up a hand to show he’d just had an idea, then pointed toward our own car. “There is the rug in our motorcar. At least we can cover him so that the vultures don’t destroy the evidence for when the police get here.”

“Good idea. We can weigh the edges down with stones to stop them from pulling it off in a hurry.” I started picking up rocks from the roadbed. In truth I was glad to have something to keep me busy so that I didn’t have to think too much. Darcy retrieved our rug and we made our way back to the body, Darcy holding the thorny branches aside for me. The vultures were even more reluctant to leave it this time. The way they stood and looked at us in that sinister hunched-over manner of theirs made them seem like the epitome of evil. Darcy had to shoo them away by waving the rug at them. Even so they retreated only a few feet away and stood there, patiently waiting for us to leave again. He stood looking down at Bwana’s remains, frowning. “What is he doing over here?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

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