Coincidence: A Novel by J. W. Ironmonger

Author:J. W. Ironmonger [Ironmonger, J. W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Romance, Suspense, Psychological
ISBN: 9780062309891
Google: hZt_AQAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0062309897
Barnesnoble: 0062309897
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-02-18T05:00:00+00:00

And so, back to Langadi for the scene that Azalea was spared. We need not dwell too long on it. It was, after all, an episode, like the slaughter of Lester and Monique Folley and their son Lester Folley III, that does not call for embellishment. This was 21 June 1992, ten years to the day since Marion Yves was abducted from a fairground in Devon. And what transpired at the mission was indeed the violent shooting of Rebecca Folley, the second of three mothers that Azalea would learn to love. But in one important respect it was not quite the slaughter that Azalea had always imagined.

When the trucks left the compound taking with them Rebecca’s only daughter and five of the orphans she loved, Rebecca’s world fell apart. The lioness in a snare, say the people of West Nile, will devour her own leg to reach her cubs. The pandemonium that had greeted Azalea and Anyeko as they were tossed into the LRA truck was, for the most part, caused by Rebecca. As the truck carrying Azalea and the VSOs and the orphans bounced out of the mission, Rebecca broke free from two of the young soldiers who were restraining her and she ran after the truck with her arms waving. We will never know what she hoped to achieve by this. Probably she knew that the gesture would be futile and dangerous. But what is a lioness in a snare to do?

The boy who shot her was no older than August or Tebere. He wore a bandana on his head, like a South American freedom fighter, and a faded T-shirt with Dennis the Menace and Gnasher on the front, with red and black stripes like Dennis might wear. On his feet he wore sandals cut from an old car tyre. He was a thin boy with a lopsided face and one eye that looked the wrong way. We will never know his name or his story. Somehow, somewhere he had found himself enslaved to the cruel despotism of a mad preacher who swore to protect the Ten Commandments, and who did this – who still does this today – by abducting, mutilating and raping young children. Had he, the lopsided boy, like so many children, been kidnapped from his village by raiding militiamen? Had he been snatched from the fields, perhaps, or dragged out of a school? Or had he, like many abandoned children in Uganda and Sudan and Congo, simply drifted towards the LRA camps looking for food? We will never know. This was not a killing that would unravel in front of a jury. No laboratory would examine the bullets. No doctor would dictate a report. Only one journalist would ever come this far, and, crucially, he would get the story wrong.

When Rebecca ran out after the truck, the lopsided boy simply squeezed the trigger on his gun. He looked as much in shock as Rebecca when the shot sounded. Perhaps it was simply a nervous

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